Mother’s Day whizzed past on Sunday.
Sunday is gone, but Mother’s Day is still here.
I often think of my mom, even though she died in 1997.
In my Red Clay Diary, I archive memories of her.
Click below, then close your eyes for three minutes and meet my beautiful mom.
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/audio/track21.asx
Thanks for listening
© 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed
Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/howisthatrealitythingworking.mp3
or read on…
“Doctor says to the patient, ‘You’re going to live to be eighty.’ Patient says, ‘I am eighty.’ Doctor says, ‘What did I tell you.?’” –Henny Youngman
Henny knew as well as you and I know, that reality—real reality—can be jolting. That’s why he kept on telling jokes and whistling past the graveyard.
That’s why we spend so much time distracting ourselves—facing stark reality 24/7 will wear you down and out.
One way we writers distract ourselves is by…writing. Yep, as long as my fingers are dancing the light fantastic on the keyboard, I am distracted and happy. Based on this slender metaphor, might that mean that prolific writers and other busy artists are among the least happy folks on the planet? To keep their mood elevated they stay busy, reporting about the real world and their imagined worlds.
A few prolific writers come to mind—there are many more: H.G. Wells, whose creative output was more than that of Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare combined; E. Phillips Oppenheim, who wrote, at last count, 188 novels; Marilyn Ross (a pseudonym), who penned more than 400 books; Ned Buntline, who wrote about that many; Ray Bradbury, who wrote more than 700 stories; Isaac Asimov—didn’t he surpass the 500 mark? And so on. You can google these folks and correct me at will. I just recall these figures from pre-google days.
How do we deflect reality?
I can only speak with authenticity about myself—after all, this message is all about me, isn’t it?
Here’s a random note I found in one of my diaries:
It’s all about me. But, then, me is you—and you and you and you. I can’t know what’s in your heart but, as I wish to touch your heart, I try to show what’s in my heart, assuming that once in a while your heart will feel something familiar, something empathic, and we can nod familiarly at each other, knowing that we both at times feel and share the same thing.
Imagination and distraction are necessary now and then, to fend off the harshness of living.
While everyone else is dancing fast to avoid the snarkies, we lone Creators get to remain calm. It’s so easy to be alone in a crowd. Nobody notices. The Invisible Artist can get away with things! Things like loving people without having to engage with them too much, things like taking improper ideas and making them into works of art—wouldn’t Stephen King be in prison if he had acted out his stories in real life? Wouldn’t Salvador Dali have been institutionalized if he had gone around melting down clocks?
Oh, well, just a coupla thoughts to share before I head back to my Den of Creativity, where I can write anything I dang well please and not even share it if I don’t dang well please
© 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed
Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/bestbookrevieweverr.mp3
or read on…
The best way to review a book is to really, really look at a book…really, really experience the book. Want to know one way this can be done? Read on. Think this is something not worth knowing? Oh, go ahead and read on anyhow—you might surprise yourself, and me.
Let’s pick a book at random. Hmm, here’s a copy of ROBINSON CRUSOE by Daniel Defoe. This particular title falls into that rare category of BOOKS THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN OUT OF PRINT, in this case for centuries. Something to think about: If a book has lasted this long and people are still attracted to it, there must be something about it worth experiencing. The test of time guarantees you will probably learn something delightful or frightening that you don’t already know.
Pick up the book. Well, it’s not as heavy as it appears. It’s a 1930′s reprint printed on pulpy, light paper. Sniff the paper. It kind of smells like a fragrant but intriguing old memory.
Look at the paper. Even though it’s aged, it’s only faintly tinted. The pages are still crisp and intact and ready to be read. Check the hardback cover. Nice. It looks practically new, which means someone has taken good care of it. The print size is large and easy to follow.
Look at the publishing information. For one thing, we learn that the actual title of the book is THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. If you do a little research you learn that this novel is based on an actual incident—there was a man marooned for years on a desert island who lived to tell about it!
Look: the book is illustrated by Frances Brundage, a very popular artist of the day who knew how to make you wish to turn the page and read further. And the publisher is Saalfield of Akron, Ohio, creator of many books for families and young people. CRUSOE, though action-packed, bloody and exciting, was always considered to be a tale for young people, as was HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain. It is fashionable to keep these titles in the youth section of bookshops, even though the themes are very adult.
Oh, and this particular edition of CRUSOE has a beautifully color-illustrated dust jacket, depicting Robinson in hand-made garb trudging along, musket at the ready, full-bearded and shaded by a handmade umbrella—long before sunscreen was invented. The jacket also advertises other books that CRUSOE lovers might enjoy, such as BLACK BEAUTY, TREASURE ISLAND, PINOCCHIO, MOBY-DICK, ROBIN HOOD, KING ARTHUR…all still in print after generations.
Now, any good book detective will still examine this volume for other clues to its past—this being more exciting than treasure-hunting or metal detecting. If you examine old books carefully, you may come up with such things as love letters, pressed flowers, mustard stains, tobacco odor, old folding money, bills of laden, scribbled secret notes, beautiful bookmarks, matchbook covers, lapel pins, ticket stubs, etc., etc. It’s worth the search!
What about the genealogy of the book? Look for names written inside, dates jotted down, critical observations in the margins. This is like getting two books for the price of one!
Feel the texture of the pages as you turn them? This tactile act will become a part of your memory of the book. Not to mention your surroundings while reading. Look around and spot your favorite blankie, your cat, the stool you rest your feet on, that great painting you love so much, the dingy lampshade you keep meaning to replace…all this will stay with you, embedded in your sweet remembrance of great books past.
This concludes my book review, with one additional observation—take my word for it, ROBINSON CRUSOE is one heck of a good read and, unlike other reviewers, I will not spoil if for you by revealing anything else. You can grumble if you don’t like it, or you can re-read it on the assumption that you didn’t quite get it the first time. There’s something there to enjoy. Like treasure-hunting, you just have to keep digging and never, never give up
© 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed
Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/seriousclownsrailrideoff.mp3
or read on…
Once a year, the Serious Clowns converge upon Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories. This has been going on for decades. Sometimes I’m prepared, sometimes it slips my mind, this convergence of Serious Clowns.
The front door of the shop will chime and in straggles a sad-looking, faintly tattered young man, forlornly casting his gaze about the place as if searching for something specific.
I greet him and ask what I can help him find.
“Circus things?” he timidly answers and asks at the same time.
“Sure,” I say, relieved that I now know who he is. I lead him to a small bookcase wherein awaits circus programs, circus posters, circus books, circus circulars…all things circus that accumulate in this one place. He happily focuses on the trove and I leave him to his bliss.
He’s another clown from the travelling Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, an annual visitor to town whose off-duty hours as a performer are filled with gentle obsessions, quiet probes for more circus paraphernalia to take with him on the circus train—his home for much of the year. Later in the day, other clowns in various states of sadness and seriousness and tatteredness amble into the shop, some remembering from years past where I keep the goodies, others, new at the trade, needing to ask. After the first one, I’m ready to help them. They are so easy to spot.
I enjoy these clowns. They remind me of my childhood generation’s zeal for all things circus, our certain knowledge that running away to join the circus would be the noblest and scariest thing we could possibly do. Because of the scary part, we never did it…but the dream never dies.
Scattered conversations with these clowns and the buddies they sometimes bring with them—animal trainers and acrobats and musicians—allow me to learn about the actual life of modern circus employees. Gone are the days of sawdust and canvas tents and disheveled elephants…but still present is the tramp-like life of living in a tiny train compartment, never settling down, missing out on life-long relationships, depending upon fellow travelers for friendship and support.
These clowns are sturdy survivors estranged from their roots, and I find them to be bright, sensitive and extremely serious about their comedic lives. They collect books on famous comedians, ephemera about carnivals and circuses…and they know their profession’s history very well.
Their visits remind me of one constant factor in my lifelong love of the past: everybody has a story, everybody has many stories, and those everybodies who get really lucky find a way to tell their stories in non-threatening ways. As any performer knows, it’s easier to tell stories to strangers than to family, friends and neighbors. And there are no repercussions when the audience goes home, or when you the performer ride away on the rails to another town.
Like the Lone Ranger, you can come to town, do your duty, make someone happier for a moment, then quickly leave before being punished for your good deeds. And, like the Lone Ranger, you can glance over at your companions and say, “Our job is done here!” And off you go in a cloud of dust, or rather a mist of diesel fuel and scattering gravel
(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed
Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/coneofreticencemeets.mp3
or read on…
This afternoon, temporarily forced outside my zone of comfort (my Cone of Reticence), I spent two hours absorbing the creative poetry and energy of a roomful of high school students.
The teenagers had much to be passionate about—they each wrote and performed a three-minute poem inspired by Birmingham’s violent and bitter civil rights struggles of 1963 A.D., just half a century ago. They weren’t there when the conflicts occurred, but their empathy for the citizens who endured that era was immense. Loud and boisterous exclamations laced with whispers and sobs framed the afternoon, and nobody—nobody—left unmoved.
Their teachers can hardly be praised or compensated enough for the effort that continues to pour into these special classrooms, obviously classrooms where students are free to safely express themselves on the most disturbing of subjects.
I felt honored to be there, and I hope the librarians and teachers and family and friends who spent the afternoon with me felt this specific honor, too.
There are sanctuaries such as this everywhere in our land…sanctuaries where freedom of expression can thrive uncriticized, away from the prying eyes of those who are disturbed when emotional and unorderly feelings are verbalized. Small groups of people who literally believe in freedom and are unthreatened by its expression are our true heroes.
As Johann Lavater said, “Each particle of matter is an immensity; each leaf a world; each insect an inexplicable compendium.”
We are all immensities.
So be it. When the world twirls about another and another time, a hundred more poets will be born, another myriad will be forgotten. At least those of us who are aware that we are alive will be humbled, thus wizened, by the thought that there’s always another poet on the way to replace the one who is exiting. We just have to embrace and enjoy the poetic presence in our lives, in order to diffuse the furies and nurture the kindly meek
(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed
Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/hughughughughug.mp3
or read on…
Ok, ok, I’ll do it again!
People have heard I once did a treatise on hugging, and they’ve asked me to send it to them. To save time and pain, and because I keep forgetting, here it is again:
I am a hugger.
Not a mugger, not a lugger, not a slugger…but a hugger.
I generally keep my emotional and/or physical distance from strangers, but when I really like somebody, and when it is safe to do so, I tend to greet them with a hug—or at least a handshake.
Over the decades, I’ve evolved. One of the few advantages of aging is that I now see patterns in things, cause-and-effect phenomena in things…so that my behavior has subtly shifted.
A few things I’ve learned about hugging:
1. Some people respond readily to a quick hug and seem flushed with pleasure at this nice surprise.
2. Some people respond but quickly back away, as if they don’t know what to do after a hug.
3. Some people stiffen and don’t respond to the hug. These are folks I won’t hug again, unless they initiate it.
4. Some people back away and will do anything to avoid a hug in the first place.
5. Some people hug a little too long and make me want to back away.
6. Some people, at first reluctant at each hug, now approach me as if they will actually miss the hug if I don’t provide it.
7. Some guys are huggable, but others try to avoid it because, well, they don’t think it’s guyish. These are often older or elderly guys, whose generation doesn’t cater to this kind of behavior.
8. Some people exude a kind of sensuousness when I hug them, so I tend not to try to hug them again, lest something happens. This used to occur a lot more when I was young…with sometimes pleasant results. No more—I’ve been happily monogamous for many decades.
Even after studying hugging for sixty years, I still don’t know why most huggers pat each other on the back. Maybe it’s a kind of sign language that says, “Just hugging! Nothing more is meant!”
Anyhow, there’s lots of horror and sorrow and grief in the world that’s beyond my control. Maybe hugging is something I can do that reminds me that people can be pleasant to one another, even when they can’t think of anything comforting to say aloud
(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed
Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/secretsofthegarfieldunderpants.mp3
or read on…
No-one knows what goes on behind closed doors. Or closed minds.
Despite the fact that my—and your—profusely exposed inner and outer Activities of Daily Living are splattered all over the Internet by way of
texting
blogging
blasting
emailing
video-ing
snoopsurveillance
dronecamera-ing
TheTube
radio
streaming
hidden mics
loose lips
snarky gossip
…despite having my heretofore secret life spread-eagled to the ethos for anybody—or nobody—to examine, there are still many cloisterd corners of Me that are mine and mine alone—and you can’t access them without my permission.
You can’t hack most of my private being. Just try and see what doesn’t happen.
Take Garfield underpants, for example.
Many moons and suns ago, my family birthday-gifted me with a pair of Garfield underpants, decorated with hearts and Garfields. Not President Garfield, just Garfield the cartoon cat.
Life changed for me that day.
From then on, at least one day a week, I donned my Garfield underpants, put on the rest of my clothes, and set forth into the workday playday world to conquer or be conquered by circumstance or collusion, by accident or by conspiracy.
On my Garfield days, each time a crisis arose, I could handle it without losing it. If the chaos or confusion around me became extreme, I just looked inward, remembered the fact that out of sight of the wolves and bullies, my Garfield underwear could still make me smile.
I always knew something the attackers and whiners could not know. Garfield and I could get through the day unscathed, simply because we shared a secret goofiness that repeled all attacks of logic, overriding and distraction by others.
Some people were disturbed by my slight smile that could not be wiped away. Some got more agitated the better I felt. Some took inspiration from my attitude and calmed down and began finding reasons to smile themselves.
And if anybody ever asked what my secret was, I had the option to share or the option to hold back. No pop-up or spam or privacy search could break through and try to market me into purchasing six more pairs of Garfield underpants.
If this worked, why am I revealing all this right now? I’m not telling, but here’s a hint—eventually, the Garfield underpants wore out and I had to find another secret way to fend off the hornet’s nests. Now I have a new tool for survival. And the thing that makes me smile today is the fact that I’m the only person in the universe who knows what that is.
Time for you to go out and find some Garfield underpants for yourself. Keep a slight smile on your face and it’ll drive your enemies crazy while comforting your friends
(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed
Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/strollingtheaislesofcountedsighs.mp3
or read on…
The wizened old rare-book dealer emits an un-self-couscious sigh as he walks his hoarded aisles and straightens up what avid customers have re-arranged in their quest for just the right titles to adopt. He doesn’t know his sighs have been noticed by treasure hunters two rows over. Indeed, he is not even aware that he has sighed.
One collector is on hands and knees in front of the poetry section of the store, riffling through assorted titles in search of a book that, to the dealer, is in plain view. The dealer doesn’t speak up out of respect for the customer’s self-esteem. He figures that, should this woman get frustrated enough, she’ll wind up asking for the book, which he will gently fetch from the shelf and offer to her, thus curing her sigh attack.
A man rushes into the shop, proferring a one-dollar bill and asking for parking meter change. He sighs loudly, waiting for a palmful of quarters, which the shopkeeper gladly hands him in hope that he’ll return and browse. As the street man rushes out, the dealer suppresses a sigh, knowing from three decades of experience that he’ll probably never see this man again, and that the man will never realize he’s not even said, “Thank you!”
A young woman sequesters herself in the corner by mail boxes filled with letters and diaries and postcards, reading century-old love letters written by people whose lives are long past living but whose words still ring true and honest. She sighs sweetly, wishing that she could go back in time for just a minute, simply to tell the authors that she, at least, appreciates their desires and longings and wishes both fulfilled and unfulfilled.
Later, a four-year-old tagalong customer sighs loudly as she gazes at the basket of MoonPies and DumDums, her taste buds focusing all attention on the trove. Hearing her sigh, the bookdealer gives her one of each goody, making sure she takes the time to select the exactly correct flavor of the lollipop, the exact correct favorite that she just knows is better than all the flavors of the world.
One beyond-middle-age browser hastens to the front of the store, holding aloft the grail he’s been looking for since youth, a copy of A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, “the funniest book ever written,” he exclaims, with a sigh of satisfaction.
Later in the day, when all living beings but the book dealer have departed, he listens to what should be the Quiet, but all he can hear are the sighs and whispers of thousands of bookie souls enjoying their peace, cherishing their own printed words and images, and awaiting the next flux of browsers who themselves will be unobtrusively browsed and examined by the books, the books who become observers of the 21st-century world they notice, bemused
(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed
Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/youtalkintomeyoutalkintome.mp3
or read on, dear reader…
Just who are you talking to when you talk to me? Who are you looking at?
Just wondering.
You used to think of Santa Claus when you saw me. Up till a decade ago, people would stop to say, “Anybody ever tell you you look like Santa Claus?” or “Have you ever been asked to play Santa Claus?” or (via a young child, in awe) “Are you Santa Claus?”
It used to be fun, being asked those questions. It gave me a chance to practice my wisecracks, which, funny or not, I still like to make. My answers depended upon my mood or on whatever was floating to the top in my mind at the time: “Yes, I’ve been asked to play Santa, but that would be disingenuous, since I really am Santa!” or “Yes, people ask me whether I know I look like Santa, and the fact is, I really would like to be Santa—not a fake Santa with a fake beard, but the really honest-to-goodness one and only Santa!” or “No, I’m not Santa Claus, but I know Santa…and he’s asked me to make a list and check it twice, and find out just who is naughty or nice.” (This used to impress kids and make them tiptoe around me.”)
Just a few years later, you would think of Ernest Hemingway when you spied me in the shop among all those dusty, daring books. “Anybody ever tell you you look like Ernest Hemingway?” you’d ask. I’d often reply, “Maybe Jed Clampett, but never Hemingway.” or “You mean do I look just like a geezer with a beard?” or “Who is this Ernest Hemingway of whom you speak?”
Then, during the most recent past, you think of George Carlin when I pass by. “Anybody ever tell you you look like George Carlin?” or “Did you know you look like George Carlin?” or (before Carlin died) “Are you George Carlin?” or ”Can I have your autograph?” or ”Oh, you’re just kidding—I know you are George Carlin!” Some people just make up their minds and can’t be stopped.
You talkin’ to me? You lookin’ at me?
And what will you be reminded of when you see me years from now?
Maybe “Anybody ever tell you you look like the Cryptkeeper?” or “Did you play the Cryptkeeper?” or “Didn’t I see you in that movie…oh, never mind.”
I don’t know why people think of someone else when they see me, but I’ll take it as a compliment, since I am someone, and so are you! It’s just that I’m not someone else, I’m just who I am. And so are you.
Next time you see me, ask me who I think you remind me of. Let’s get creative and make sure we stamp each other with the gentle recognition that we are…well, maybe we are everybody, and everybody is us
(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed
Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/howtorechargeabook.mp3
or read on, dear reader…
I’m beneath my mother’s old quilt, flashlight pillow-propped and back-up D-cell batteries at hand, so that I can read into the post-curfew night without interruption. The book I am absorbing is The Moon Pool by Abraham Merritt, and it has already captured me by inspiring the first full-color dreams of my subteen life, here in the ‘burbs of old Tuscaloosa in the 1950′s.
A. Merritt is good, very good, at making me suspend day-to-day logic and supplant it with the newly-formed logic of science fantasy. He’s taking me by ship to ancient South Sea islands and en route injecting those wonderful dreams into my imagination.
Part of me, obscured beneath the limp pieced fabrics, part of me knows things like this can’t really happen in the textured surfaces and cold interiors of everyday life; but another part of me, free-falling with the book’s characters into a bottomless cave pit, part of me knows that reality is just another way of living life. I know early on that I can live my life on many levels at once, and that reality is just one way of getting through the day. This is my nighttime reality—the supercharged but harmless-appearing book that I hold in my young hands.
Abraham Merritt, under his pen name, A. Merritt, beckons me to a world into which I can utterly lose myself, but, strangely and paradoxically, a world from which I can escape at will, simply by closing the book—which gives me time to catch my breath and ponder on the activities therein.
Passages like this keep me turning the pages, night after night:
The tinkling music was louder still. It pierced the ears with a shower of tiny lances; it made the heart beat jubilantly—and checked it dolorously. It closed the throat with a throb of rapture and gripped it tight with the hand of infinite sorrow!
Came to me now a murmuring cry, stilling the crystal notes. It was articulate—but as though from something utterly foreign to this world. The ear took the cry and translated it with conscious labour into the sounds of earth. And even as it compassed, the brain shrank from it irresistiblly, and simultaneously it seemed reached toward it with irresistible eagerness…
This pulp fiction tome and others of its time stretched my vocabulary, multiplied my ideas, focused my desire to tell my own tales someday. It made me aware of how harmless little marks called alphabet and numbers could act as magic wands, spewing forth images and abstractions that in no way existed if you blinked and stared at them one by one. How remarkable, that tiny black and white symbols could metamorphose into microscopic and macroscopic essences without ever leaving the pages!
Hiding under my mother’s quilt, reading the words of A. Merritt and hundreds of other writers, I educated myself—or, rather, I allowed the constant imaginings of others to educate me— about the possibilities of life and storytelling.
And I never for a second forgot that each symbol, each word, each sentence, thought, paragraph, chapter, each book, came out of practically nothing—just marks on pages.
Thinking about this through the years makes me realize even today that I make up my own existence, I interpret each symbol in my own way, I myself am in charge of whether I am happy, frightened, sad, ecstatic, critical, mad.
Reading a wonderful book was and is like splattering my face with ice water, awakening me to the plain fact at hand—the fact that, no matter how I’d like to blame the cosmos for my problems, I myself am responsible for the outcome. I can slam the book shut any moment, or I can peek at its contents a bit at a time till all is digestible and accepted.
And I can re-charge any book, re-read any book, any time I choose. All it takes is an old quilt, a flashlight, and a willingness to drop out of this reality for a brief excursion to sometime else
(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed