5.1.2025 – changes in our lives

changes in our lives
accidents, happenstances
the slightest pushes

It was the first truly important night of my life.

Despite my aching bones and blistered feet I sensed a possibility of strength, of a mission that drew solace and the chance of success or victory from the fire, from the dog, from my fellow human Fred, the night, the bright moon and stars, even the owl we were hearing intermittently.

This sounds vaguely absurd now but then so many changes in the direction of our lives come as a result of accidents, happenstances, the slightest pushes in any direction, and on the more negative side the girl you met at a gathering you didn’t want to attend who infected your life to the extent that the scar tissue will follow you into old age.

but then so many changes in the direction of our lives come as a result of accidents, happenstances, the slightest pushes in any direction

From True North by Jim Harrison ( Grove/Atlantic, New York, 2004)

So many changes in the direction of our lives come as a result of accidents, happenstances, the slightest pushes in any direction.

Then toss in the forward march of time.

Like the tide that twice a day comes in and sweeps the beach clean and leaves a clean slate wide open for accidents, happenstances or the slightest pushes in any direction.

All blank and wide open for changes that will infect your life to the extent that the scar tissue will follow you into old age.

Maybe this is where Jesus was going when mounted up on that hill side and sermonized saying, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Trouble enough for each day that will infect your life to the extent that the scar tissue will follow you into old age.

4.30.2025 – parents had hard time

parents had hard time
convincing me he was no
kin whatsoever

I can remember that on the shelves at home there were these books by Thomas Wolfe.

Look Homeward Angel and Of Time and the River. Of Time and the River had just come out when I was aware of his name.

My parents had a hard time convincing me that he was no kin whatsoever.

My attitude was, Well, what’s he doing on the shelf then?

But as soon as I was old enough I became a tremendous fan of Thomas Wolfe and remain so to this day.

I ignore his fluctuations on the literary stock market.

From Tom Wolfe, The Art of Fiction No. 123 as Interviewed by George Plimpton, The Paris Review, Issue 118, Spring 1991.

Myself, I long confused Thomas Wolfe and Tom Wolfe.

I always thought is was the guy who wrote The Right Stuff who said you can’t go home again.

And I am not sure when it was that I got straightened out.

Even when I started working in a bookstore I wasn’t completely sure until I shelved The Right Stuff in New Releases and Look Homeward Angel in classics.

Then I got Thomas Wolfe mixed up with Thomas Mann and I seem to be forever paying for not taking a 100 best books class in college.

I always enjoyed Tom Wolfe’s writing.

I was always a bit amazed listening to his interviews and wondering how he survived long enough to write.

4.29.2025 – I believe all the

I believe all the
church teaches – makes a poor fit
for either party

Adapted from the paragraph:

Devout Catholics have historically been difficult to place in the American political binary. They were often anti-abortion but in favor of immigration and a social safety net. “I believe all the church teaches,” Leah Libresco Sargeant, the author of two books on her Catholic faith, told me. “I try to live up to it. And obviously that makes me a poor fit for either political party.”

In the article, ‘Maga Catholics’ are gaining ground in the US. Now their sight is set on the Vatican by J Oliver Conroy in the Guardian on April 29, 2025.

There was a time when the same could have been said about Evangelical Christians in America.

You know what word stands out for me in that passage?

It’s that word there, obviously.

Like … DUH.

Like … OF COURSE.

I am reminded of the old question …

Are you a Christian by conviction … or by convenience?

As Garrison Keillor once wrote, or as close as I can remember, “They didn’t learn anything new to the day they died. The next day, though, they learned an awful lot.”

4.28.2025 – far ends of the lake

far ends of the lake
where no one lives or visits
no roads to get there

Storm clouds over Broad Creek from the Robert Smalls Bridge in Beaufort County, SC

I just heard a loon-call on a TV ad
and my body gave itself
a quite voluntary shudder,
as in the night in East Africa
I heard the immense barking cough
of a lion, so foreign and indifferent.

But the lion drifts away
and the loon stays close,
calling, as she did in my childhood,
in the cold rain a song
that tells the world of men
to keep its distance.

It isn’t the signal of another life
or the reminder of anything
except her call: still,
at this quiet point past midnight
the rain is the same rain
that fell so long ago, and the loon
says I’m seven years old again.

At the far ends of the lake
where no one lives or visits —
there are no roads to get there;
you take the watercourse way,
the quiet drip and drizzle
of oars, slight squeak of oarlock,
the bare feet can feel the cold water
move beneath the old wood boat.

At one end the lordly great blue herons
nest at the top of the white pine;
at the other end the loons,
just after daylight in cream-colored mist,
drifting with wails that begin as querulous,
rising then into the spheres in volume,
with lost or doomed angels imprisoned
within their breasts.

THE IDEA OF BALANCE IS TO BE FOUND IN HERONS AND LOONS, by JAMES HARRISON

4.27.2025 – doesn’t matter that’s

doesn’t matter that’s
lying – people want the lie …
that’s the crucial point

In the article, How did Hitler’s film-maker hide her complicity from the world? by Eliza Apperly about a new documentary delves into controversial German film-maker Leni Riefenstahl’s private archive to uncover a director who spent a lifetime covering up her central role in the Nazi propaganda machine. Ms. Apperly closes her article with this paragraph.

Ultimately, however, Riefenstahl impresses most in attesting to the seductiveness of evasion. Veiel hopes that the film will above all foster a deeper understanding of “the structure and necessity of legends” and the breeding ground of untruths. Even when the gaps and inconsistencies in her storytelling seem flagrant, she still finds her advocates and supporters. “It doesn’t matter that she is obviously lying,” Veiel says. “People want the lie. That’s the crucial point.”

Read that last line again out loud.

“It doesn’t matter that she is obviously lying,” Veiel says. “People want the lie. That’s the crucial point.”

Not sure what to say about Ms. Riefenstahl as my jury has always been out on her anyway (I am reminded of the story of told when Fran Lebowitz one time was invited to a very small, intimate dinner party for Leni Riefenstahl and she replied, “Are you out of your mind?”, but for a comment for today.

For an answer to the question, How does HE get away with it?

It doesn’t matter that he is obviously lying.

People want the lie.

That’s the crucial point.