Occasional Comment

I remember the music of the late sixties. It stirs memories of my teenage years. I haven’t listened to most of those songs much for years. Now it seems that everywhere I turn they are being played. Perhaps it is an attempt to cash in on those of the Baby Boomer generation(s) that are getting on toward retirement age.

Music has a powerful ability to recall events that you have associated with it even decades after the fact. One example is the SiriusXM Beatles channel that premiered recently. I’ve always loved the Beatles but I didn’t realize how many memories listening to that music would stir up.

I remember Nehru jackets that were made popular by the Beatles. I had one that I wore with a black turtle neck and a silver medallion. The black turtle neck was my shirt of choice. It was largely due to Illya Kuryakin on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. He often wore black turtle necks when engaged in covert operations.

I remember the Sears Stella acoustic guitar that I learned to play guitar on. It was a terrible guitar. The strings sat so high off of the neck at the fifth fret that learning Barre chords was an heroic task. I soon had a better guitar. It was a classical guitar with nylon strings. That wasn’t exactly the guitar that I wanted. I wanted an electric guitar but my father had been told that a classical was better for a guitar student. To his credit, he later capitulated and bought me an electric guitar.

I remember the first time our band met for rehearsal. It was just me and my Stella and my friend Kenneth with his upright piano. Kenneth’s uncle owned a music store and about the third time we practiced she had bought him a Wurlitzer organ. The first song we learned was Eleanor Rigby. Soon after that we started writing our own songs as well as learning other popular songs of the time.

Kenneth was the youngest. His three sisters were all much older than he was. His parents were older than mine and had very different ideas about his upbringing than mine. He had taken off hitch hiking for an entire summer when he was fifteen. I was fourteen that summer and was envious of his adventures but also scared of striking out on my own like that.

We enlisted a first rate drummer and a bass player that also played French horn. I had a trombone that I was attempting to learn and I also played violin. Kenneth played clarinet. We only played the band instruments when we were recording.

Kenneth’s father had a stereo reel to reel tape recorder that had the circuitry for doing primitive multi-track recording. It was called sound on sound and allowed you to record one track while listening to the playback of the other channel. It also had a feature that allowed you to mix both channels down to one track so that you could record more than just two channels.

I wish I had a copy of some of the tapes that we made. They were made before cassette recorders became common so there was no medium that I would have been able to play it on at the time so I never got a copy.

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Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.

It is indisputably true that what we, as a civilization, know is a small fraction of all that there is to be known. It does not follow that all mysteries that imply knowledge beyond what we now understand are of necessity evidence that they are of extraterrestrial origin. Such an assertion underestimates the potential of our ancestors to discover such extraordinary knowledge and then later forgot it when that civilization eventually declines.

The other thing that is hard to believe is the assertion that any non-human race that is interacting with our ancestors would of necessity come from space. It seems just as possible that they would come from another dimension, or a parallel universe, or even from a different time. The Ancient Alien Theorists conflate evidence that something inexplicable has happened with evidence for their particular theory of what happened.

I find these theories at least entertaining and at best plausible. Even if some of them do turn out to be true, it doesn’t follow that they all will. Their logic is so flawed that it hurts their case more than it helps it.

I think many people enjoy watching the shows because the stories they present are truly mysterious. On occasion it has been suggested that we play a drinking game where the trigger phrase is “Ancient Alien Theorists say yes”.

Is there any other reason to watch these shows other than entertainment or because you have a cult like belief in the theories that they put forward? I think so. These mysteries deserve to be contemplated. If we apply the crowd sourcing principle maybe other explanations for them may be discovered.

Another potentially valuable exercise is to teach critical thinking. If you can catch the logical flaws in their arguments you will be better equipped to catch them in other situations.

I would love for these fantastic assertions to be true but if I believe in anything it is that the universe is a rational place in which we can use our brains and our senses to conduct experiments and learn how it works. I do believe that there are phenomena that are so sensitive to the environment in which they occur that they are difficult, if not impossible, to repeat. These, while resisting attempts to experimentally validate our understanding of their operation, will still yield to rational reasoning about them.

It is also true that all science is initially pseudo-science. The authorities of the scientific establishment have the most to lose when someone comes along with a theory that refutes their pet theories. It is embarrassing to have spent your career teaching one thing as fact only to discover that your explanation was flawed.

It is also true that new discoveries often come from investigators that have no reputation to lose by challenging the accepted cannon of scientific “fact”. But even so, their new theories must stand up to duplication and further investigation by others. Until your theory has survived peer review, it will remain the subject of ridicule.

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Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.

Cory had a bad experience being caught out in a thunderstorm when he was younger. He was chased out into the storm by a maniac. He had been scared to death of him, more scared than he was of thunderstorms and that was saying a lot.

When the back door opened he had run like the wind. He hadn’t gotten more than a couple of yards before he was drenched. It was a cold rain. Not a summer shower but a violent fall downpour. He ran until he was certain that the monster hadn’t followed him.

When he was sure he was safe, he started looking for some kind of shelter from the storm. The only thing he could see was a clump of bushes. He crawled into the middle and sat shivering as lightening struck and thunder roared. He closed his eyes but that didn’t help.

He wished his brother was with him. His brother was braver than he was. He took care of him and comforted him when he was scared. He would know what to do. But the mad man had chased him away weeks before. Cory was afraid he’d never see his brother again. He hunkered down and made himself as small as he could. Maybe then the lightening wouldn’t get him.

He didn’t remember going to sleep. But he must have been asleep because there was his brother right beside him. Somehow he knew it wasn’t real but he wanted it to be real so badly. The rain had stopped but he was still wet and cold.

Something prompted him to open his eyes. It was still dark outside but the lightening seemed to have quit. His bush he was sitting under was dripping on him and every now and then a gust of wind shook another torrent of drips on his head.

He sat there miserable. The house was warm and dry but the monster was in the house. He would have to make the best of his situation here. In the morning the sun would come out and dry up the rain. Then he would investigate cautiously and see if his nemesis had left.

He drowsed off again and when he woke he heard the morning birds singing to coax the sun into coming up. He had dried out somewhat. He heard the roar of a car starting. He crawled out from under the bush in time to see the monster drive off in his car.

He took the opportunity to investigate the house. He scratched at the back door. Erin, his mistress came to the door and let him in. She reached down and scratched his head between his ears.

“Where were you all night?” She asked. “I was worried about you.” How could he tell her that the monster had chased him into the storm. He understood her words but he couldn’t make the sounds that she did.

“Meow!” He complained vigorously. But as she scratched his neck under his collar he couldn’t help but purr.

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Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.

So, I’ve been given two conflicting pieces of advice when it comes to writing. One says I should know how a story is going to end before I start to write it. The other says that I should examine a topic from every perspective I can think of and come to a conclusion as a result of that exploration.

Of course the first is advice for writing a story and the second for writing an essay. Most of my blog posts are essays. When I venture into the realm of fiction in this blog it is often in the guise of character sketches or micro fiction. Both of these genres are more forgiving to the writer that ignores the advice to know the ending before you start.

But having given it some thought, maybe the advice isn’t as contradictory as I first thought. If you don’t have a question you are trying to answer, you will never come to the end of an essay. On the other hand, if you are rigidly inflexible about how a story is going to unfold and where it is going to end up you may dismiss the better ending that occurs to you as you write.

It is clear that a writer needs boundaries in order to give structure to their writing. The types of boundaries and how many there are will vary from writer to writer and project to project. But they are necessary for any piece to have cohesion and movement toward the finish.

Along the way, there should be some kind of tension, either conflict or contradictory points of view that are explored and eventually resolved. There should be a sense of flow. Each idea is examined, compared to other ideas, and a place for it is found, either in the discard heap or in a niche where it relates to the other ideas that you decide to keep.

Ideas evolve by being challenged and examined in many different contexts and compared with many competing ideas. Thus what seems obviously true today may seem utter nonsense in light of new developments in the future. But that is exactly why it is good to write essays, and fiction for that matter.

Fiction gives us a context within which we allow ourselves to ask what if outside the boundaries of supposedly known facts. It has often lead authors to postulate new theories that were later embraced by the more conservative scientific community as new evidence was discovered which cast doubt on earlier assertions of fact.

A scientist must have an open mind. It seems there are a number of scientists who reject new ideas simply because it threatens their authority. They have asserted things as facts that if found to be false would embarrass them and call into question their abilities.

I say good. They need to be challenged. They should objectively analyze all evidence, even if it contradicts their sacred cows. There should be a class in humility required before you are awarded an advanced degree.

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Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.

A wise woman named Anne Lamott said, “Every single thing that happened to you is yours and you get to tell it.” At this point in life, I have plenty to tell. A lot of what I have to tell is about people at their most vulnerable. I have often been the quiet observer on the edge of dramatic situations. Having said that, I would expect that I would understand people better. But that is far from the case.

I grew up around actors. Stage actors are good at figuring out why people do the things they do and feel the way they feel. Film or TV actors are good at remembering their lines, keeping a neutral expression on their face, and hitting their mark. In both case they are presenting the characters as written by the playwright.

I started life in a bassinet back stage every night. My mother was the lighting operator for a summer theater production. My father was away in the Army at the time. I don’t have any conscious memories of that summer but I expect it had some effect on my early development.

When I was seven, my mother and father and I were members of the cast and crew of another semi-professional theatrical company. The production was a play called Stars in My Crown and it told the story of the taming of the Tennessee river by the TVA. It was actually much more entertaining than it sounds. There were songs and dancing and an interesting story line.

I was much too young to understand the backstage intrigue that went on nightly among the adult members of the company. Actors are often vain, emotional, and self centered. It was fairly confusing for me. But I soaked it up like a sponge.

By the time I moved into my teenage years, I had internalized all of the archetypical artistic behavior. I participated in orchestra, choir, plays, debate, and speech competitions. I knew how to act like a tortured artistic soul. So much so that I sometimes wonder if there was any relationship between the way I acted and who I really was.

After I graduated from high school I worked in the summers at a western theme park, with gunfights, saloon shows, magic shows, and Kentucky long rifle demonstrations. The cast and crew were mostly college students working there during the summer. The typical actor behavior was the norm there as well.

I was consequently at somewhat of a disadvantage when it came to knowing what normal human relationships were like. My parents were both school teachers and lead rather Bohemian lifestyles, or so I thought. It turns out they were actually fairly normal.

I haven’t associated much with theater people the last half of my life. I find that sad. I enjoyed their company. I have often thought about getting involved with local theater productions but I have the disadvantage of knowing what hard work that is and can’t bring myself to commit to that level of effort on top of a full time day job.

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Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.

I’ve always been a fan of simple text editors when it comes to writing. Word processors have too many knobs. It is too tempting to get distracted by how something looks and spend your writing time messing around with how something looks instead of doing what you set out to do, write.

But as I get better and better at maintaining my focus on writing I find that there are other tools available to writers than just traditional word processors. These tools are designed to help writers manage the mass of words that they create and easily view them in different ways.

One such tool is a program called Scrivener. It is the Cadillac of such tools in many writers’ opinions. Among its features are support for outlining, a cork board view of the elements of a piece, a version management facility, and tools to help collect references and organize them outside of the main flow of the work in progress. There are many more features, so many that learning to use them effectively is overwhelming in its own right.

I got a copy of Scrivener for Christmas last year. I’ve used it off and on since then but as with many power tools it isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I have a fast approaching deadline. I usually don’t want to spend a lot of time rediscovering how to do simple things with it. Until tonight.

Tonight I was reading my email and various articles that caught my attention in some of the newsletters to which I subscribe. One of the articles described a process for writing a novel by the seat of your pants using Scrivener.

The idea was to write lots of scenes of approximately five hundred words apiece. Each scene is stored in a scene element that has an associated synopsis card. As you collect more and more completed scenes you assemble them into a story using the cork board. When you have ideas for scenes, you create a synopsis card for it. When you sit down to write, you scan the cork board for unwritten scenes and choose one to work on next.

I can see how this would make writing something like a novel easier. Then as I thought about it some more I realized that it would be a good way to collect ideas for blog posts. It would help me tackle ideas that I wanted to spend time researching and polishing for maximum effect.

So here is the first attempt at teaching this old dog a new trick or two. I have high hopes for using it to take this blog to the next level. I may even achieve my long time goal of having several finished posts in the wings ready to publish on days when I am otherwise pressed for time.

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Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.