life not segmented
months, years, dawns, noons, evenings, night
rather moods, traumas

Life is not segmented artificially by what we call days,

months,

years,

dawns,

noons,

evenings,

night;

rather, life is segmented by our moods,

impressions,

traumas,

odd transferences of power from inanimate objects—

the aesthetic principle—

dreams,

linked by time spans of loves

and hates

and indifference,

unexpected changes in the prism of our understanding,

areas of passion or lust that disappear in a moment,

lapsing into a kind of sloth,

dread

and slowness …

From Sundog: a novel : the story of an American foreman, Robert Corvus Strang, as told to Jim Harrison by Jim Harrison (Washington Square Press: New York, 1989).

1,000s of titles on my devices and nothing is catching my interest.

Can’t get into any of the novels I had such high hopes for when I got them with the idea that I could lose myself for a day or two.

So I end up back in Jim Harrison’s Sundog which again I realize is needlessly profane, off color and inappropriate in so many ways and yet with such a powerful use of language that I come back to again and again.

This passage I found particularly appropriate for the day when we review the the top 25 of everything because of it being the end of the year.

Hard to think that the passage of time, the revolutions of the earth and the orbit of the planets are artificial segments used to divide up life but I find that I cannot argue with the thought that life is not segmented artificially by what we call days, months, years, dawns, noons, evenings, night; rather, life is segmented by our moods, impressions, traumas, odd transferences of power from inanimate objects—the aesthetic principle—dreams, linked by time spans of loves and hates and indifference, unexpected changes in the prism of our understanding, areas of passion or lust that disappear in a moment, lapsing into a kind of sloth, dread and slowness….

sleepless reduces past
awesome, distorted essence
of all we have met

Adapted from the passage:

It was a night I would remember poignantly but not wish to repeat. Insomnia opens the door to previously untraced memories, makes a mockery of the good sense that possesses us at high noon, and any effort we make to channel our thoughts twists the energy, rebukes us with half-finished faces, sexless bodies; we learn again that our minds are full of snares, knots, goblins, the backward march of the dead, the bridges that end halfway and still hang in the air, those who failed to love us, those who irreparably harmed us, intentionally or not, even those we hurt badly and live on incapsulated in our regret. The past thrives on a sleepless night, reduces it to the awesome, distorted essence of all we have met.

From Sundog: a novel : the story of an American foreman, Robert Corvus Strang, as told to Jim Harrison by Jim Harrison (Washington Square Press Collection: New Yor, 1989).

It had to happen didn’t it?

I am now of the age when too much can impact my sleep, but on the other hand, when hasn’t too much impacted my sleep.

I mean how many plates of turkey, pieces of pie, chunks of chocolate, handfuls of cookies covered in icing and gallons of drink can one person imbibe and not pay for it later?

It was little surprise that laying down my brain and my stomach where both operating at 1000mph.

A Christmas carol earwig was stuck in my mind and maybe Dicken’s Christmas Carol was on my mind as well as it started.

The previously untraced memories, makes a mockery of the good sense that possesses us at high noon.

Any effort we make to channel our thoughts twists the energy, rebukes us with half-finished faces, sexless bodies.

We learn again that our minds are full of snares, knots, goblins.

The backward march of the dead, the bridges that end halfway and still hang in the air, those who failed to love us, those who irreparably harmed us, intentionally or not, even those we hurt badly and live on incapsulated in our regret.

The past thrives on a sleepless night, reduces it to the awesome, distorted essence of all we have met.

It was a night I would remember poignantly but not wish to repeat.

God bless us, everyone.

For more Thurber … Click here …

was without Christmas
spirit – the world that used to
nurse us keeps shouting

I was without Christmas spirit
so I made three cow dogs,
Lola and Blacky and Pinto,
cheeseburgers with ground chuck
and French St. André cheese
so that we’d all feel better.
I delivered them to Hard Luck Ranch
and said, “Chew each bite 32 times.”
They ignored me and gobbled.
The world that used to nurse us
now keeps shouting inane instructions.
That’s why I ran to the woods.

Xmas Cheeseburgers by Jim Harrison in Songs of Unreason as published in the Complete Poems of Jim Harrison (Copper Canyon Press: Port Townsend, WA 2021).

The world that used to nurse us
now keeps shouting inane instructions.
That’s why I ran to the woods.

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

“Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.

“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?”

The bell struck twelve.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Chapman and Hall: London, 1843).