Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/youreyouyou.mp3 or read on…

I’m not exactly a member of the Usage and Grammar Police Squad, but I seem unable to suppress my background in writing and editing for very long.

We proofreaders seem to be born with an affliction: we just can’t help noticing improperly queued series of letters and punctuation marks, and incorrect pronunciation.

Those of us who have good manners manage to keep our mouths shut, even when folks say things like, “Do you have a copy of that ANN RAND book?” It’s AYN (pronounced like NINE) RAND. But who really cares? She’s too dead to mind much.

This affliction does save me time. When an email headline is YOUR INVITED, I don’t have to waste energy opening it. It’s already clear that an unprofessional or uneducated person wrote the message. If it said YOU’RE INVITED, I might read a few lines more.

Another email spasms its way into the inbox, SPECIAL OFFER ON SEARS ROOFS. Does this mean I’ll have to climb to the Sears roof to find an offer? Does it mean Sears is selling off its roofs? (I knew they were having financial problems, but being roofless would make things worse for them, don’t you think?) Does it mean they are selling roofs for houses and if so, how do I get one into my trunk?

When an interviewee on the radio says, “I’ve been abroad,” I can’t see the spelling and spacing, so I am left to determine whether this guy is trans-gendered (“I’ve been a broad.) and how this fits into the conversation. When another story reports on people who are sending their children abroad, I have to actually use my brain (Why would they send their children a broad? Do they actually need one? And why such a disrespectful term?).

I own a book called TOADVINE IN IT’S HEYDAY, which means no proofreader ever came near the book.

As Alex MacLeod once said, “Copy editors don’t object to being called anal retentive, 

they just debate whether the term should be hyphenated.”

Aren’t you glad I don’t say everything I think

(c) 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/mostimportantday.mp3 or read on…

9/11/2001 and 9/11/2011 may be dates that frame

this entire generation’s view of itself.

 It is to be expected.

 Each generation frames itself with joys and tragedies.

 Take tragedies:

I was born 9/6/41, just three months before Pearl Harbor. In my generation, everybody knew what “Pearl Harbor” meant. It was shorthand for, the U.S. was surprisingly attacked by a foreign enemy without direct provocation, and many, many people died in the process. Just say “Pearl Harbor” to my generation and they’ll know you mean the beginning day of World War II, during which millions upon millions of people’s lives were yanked from them.

In the next generation, just mention 11-22-63 and everybody whose lives were affected will know what your shorthand means. Our great hope of a president, John F. Kennedy, had his life yanked from him, and many, many people still mourn his death and the loss of his idealism…and in turn the resultant loss of their own idealism.

Jump forward to 9/11/2001 and all you have to say to this generation is “9/ll” and you’ll receive a grimace, a turned-away glance, a momentary darkness of expression, and a feeling of helplessness not unlike the helplessness other generations feel, thinking about their own unexplained tragedies, both present and past.

Take joys:

I said above that each generation bookends itself with landmark tragedies and joys. Where’s the joy, where are the joys?

Well, we have to pick the joys that outbalance the tragedies, focus on them for all we’re worth, and try to convince the next generation that things might be better, if only…

If only.

WWII’s joys came when the war was clearly ended and the soldiers brought home.

JFK’s joys came when new leaders and a new kind of music rose to re-paint the world with fresh hope.

9/11’s generation must find its own joys to offset the horrors.

Here’s one joy, my gift to you:

Today, 9/13, is the day you take hold of life and decide to live it out in service to love and loved ones, making sure you include most everybody worth loving in your definition of “loved ones.”

Tomorrow, 9/14, is the day after, the second day you decide to rail against evil and live your life as if you matter—for indeed you do.

 Thursday, 9/15/11, is the next day that matters. And so on.

Keep looking for the joys, don’t allow tragedy to quench your thirst for harmony and compassion, and don’t let one day pass without repeating this mantra.

It’s all up to you now

(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/seventyTwain.mp3 or read on…

MARK TWAIN AND I TURN SEVENTY

Seventy was creeping up on me, these last few days. But I don’t have to worry about that anymore, because today, Seventy is here. Now I can return to my regular life as if nothing happened.

My comfort level with this one and only seventh-decade event was restored when my copy of Mark Twain’s Autobiography fell open to a page I had never read before. There, before my wizened eyes, was the transcript of a speech Twain made on the occasion of his seventieth birthday!

Kismet! I shouted to no-one in particular.

Here are a few things Twain and I have to say about turning seventy:

Twain: I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else.

Reed: Here I am; I don’t know how I got here and I don’t know where I’m going, so I don’t have much advice that anybody would be apt to take seriously.

Twain: I will now teach, offering my way of life to whomsoever desires to commit suicide by the scheme which has enabled me to beat the doctor and the hangman for seventy years.

Reed: My hunch is, you would do well to ignore any free advice I have to offer. However, if you wish to remit an honorarium for my services, I will go on and on.

Twain: I have made it a rule to go to bed when there wasn’t anybody left to sit up with; and I have made it a rule to get up when I had to.

Reed: I go to bed when I run out of things to laugh about, and I get up when I’m bored with hiding under the covers.

Twain: In the matter of diet…I have been persistently strict in sticking to the things which didn’t agree with me until one or the other of us got the best of it.

Reed: I respect the basic food groups, which consist of popcorn, marshmallows, bacon, olives and Ruffles.

Twain: I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.

Reed: I smoked my last cigarette, pipe, cigar, in 1969. I don’t miss one moment of my smoking life. I have no idea how I was able to give it up, so I have no advice for you.

Twain: As for drinking, I have no rule about that. When the others drink I like to help; otherwise, I remain dry.

Reed: I drank my final alcohol in 1985. It no longer interested me and seemed rather a silly habit. I have many other habits that I won’t talk about right now.

Twain: I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any.

Reed: Exercise is excruciatingly boring and show-offy. If they would call it something else, it might be fun.

And so on. By now, you’ve no doubt learned that it’s best to ignore as useless any advice received from Mark Twain and Jim Reed.

So, I have managed to impart some wisdom to you despite my reluctance to do so. Go build your own parachute. Mine’s getting a hole-ier-than-thou attitude. Full of holes and sudden surprises

© 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/happyBirthdaytoMe.mp3 or read on…

So, as of this coming Tuesday, I’ll have celebrated scores and scores of birthdays in my lifetime. My evergreen memories grow fresher, and my sense of humor strengthens. What can you do but laugh?

Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories is my sanctuary, a place I can place on display and sell all things wonderful and precious. This is a foster home for memories, and I can’t wait till you drop by.

I found this small memory tucked away, and I’d like to share it with you and my brother, Ronny. He and I were kid pals and everything we did is worthy of remembrance:

TUSCALOOSA DREAMS

Long ago and far away, the Tiny Town of T lay peaceful beneath starry night skies and pale-glaring day skies. Under T Town lay red clay soil that sludged dark when heavy rains came and swirled dusty during long dry stretches of languid time.

Sometimes the red dust red clay soil was overlain  with curvaceous green kudzu and Johnson grass and golden toned long-stemmed grass. Sometimes the soil hid itself under gentle crisp snow and listless dew and manicured lawn seed. At other times the soil brazenly showed itself and didn’t care what you thought about it.

In that tiny T Town in Alabama came small boys in 1941 and 1944, two young and fidgeting fledglings who were known as brothers of summer, barefoot band-aided guests of the next best adventure.

Those brothers of summer did those things that bonded boys do under bleached sun skies and over red-ant mounds. They played and imagined and guessed at what nature was all about, they prayed sweaty-palmed prayers by rote, hoping to make their dreams come true by sheer willpower and through the fierce force of squinting and straining and crossed-finger hoping and ritualizing.

Some dreams came true, but only in their thoughts, other dreams failed as dreams but succeeded as grownup party-spoiling reality, and sometimes the bonded brothers did not know the difference between harsh dreams and sweet reality.

They only knew that if they squinted and wished hard enough, things would be ok and all right and super Kosher, though they had no idea what Kosher really meant, except that it possibly had to do with all-rightness.

Those boys did not soon die, since they had many more decades to live and dream, to live and forget their dreams, to live even long enough to once more recall those dreams, to retrieve those dreams and make them part of their nowadays reality.

Now the T Town boys of dreams can comfortably walk arm in arm shoulder to shoulder elbow to elbow through the remaining years of their lives, enjoying their dreamlike realities, fessing up to their reality-laced dreams, and not giving one whit anymore whether where they are at any particular moment is dream or reality

…

Guess the right thing to do on Tuesday is call my brothers and sisters and wish them Happy Birthday to Me, just for old time’s sake.

(c) 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed http://www.jimreedbooks.com

Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/howtoreviewyourworld.mp3

or read on…

HOW TO RE-VIEW YOUR WORLD

Sometimes, stopping to smell the roses can be thorny. But sometimes, it’s a good way to re-start, re-boot, refresh the day.

You might even consider getting up close and allowing the roses to enjoy you.

Consider these notions about gaining control of your world on your own terms:

Turn down the sound on the radio and watch it closely for  

30 minutes.

Adjust the television image and watch a color film in   

black and white.

Turn the sound down and just watch television.

Then, keeping the sound off, read the closed captions.

At the movie theatre, use a hand mirror to view the audience behind you, ignoring the film entirely.

Pop a blank CD into a player and listen to the quiet for 70 minutes.

Carry snapshots of your parents and grandparents and brag about them every chance you get.

Have someone read you a bedtime story.

See what happens when you go a full day without television, ipad, texting, facebooking, tweeting, emailing, phonetalking, gameplaying…see what it’s like to avoid setting an alarm or looking at a clock or using a timer or switching on the car radio.

Try watching a turned-off TV screen by candlelight for 20 minutes.

Read only the last line of each newspaper article today.

Read a short story backwards, from end to beginning.

With eyes closed, clutch a very old book to your chest for an hour and imagine what is happening inside that volume.

Turn the world upside-down for a day and tell me what that was like

© Jim Reed 2011 A.D.

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/rainydaysandsundaysnevergetmedown.mp3

or read on…

RAINY DAYS AND SUNDAYS NEVER GET ME DOWN

The cartoon strip character Ziggy once said something like, “When you’re down and out, lift up your head and shout, ‘It’s going to be another lousy rotten rainy day!’”

I get this cry of despair from people a lot, especially on rainy days. Don’t know why, since I have memories of many wonderful rainy days.

I’m a kid playing in the back yard with brother Ronny, when we see rain coming in. This could be an adventure! We decide to crawl under a big wooden table that has Mother’s plants and doodads on it, and pretend that it’s a shelter in the wilderness during a typhoon (we don’t know what a typhoon is, but it sounds dangerous). Sure enough, we ride out the storm, huddled against the imagined snakes and grizzlies lurking just a pebble’s throw away. The flash flood misses us, the wet grass captivates our sense of smell, the surrounding mud is great fun to stick our toes in. The nearby rusty oil drum awaits our next escapade and becomes a time machine to lurk inside.

Rainy days like this remain safely in memory dear, to issue forth at just the right time in order to conquer just the wrong mood.

Rainy days mean the making of gentle love, the launching of handmade sailboats, the re-booting of dusty landscapes, the abolition of dew, the cleansing of an attitude, the conquest of thirst, the revitalization of thirsty critters.

Rainy days remind me that, should I weather the outdoors sufficiently, I will know when safe haven arrives. There’s no guessing about the moment when the rain stops, there’s no guessing that that overhang at the shop signals the end of wetness, there’s nothing preventing me from running out into the drizzle, nothing stopping me from running for shelter. Rain lets me know my boundaries, lets me know that no amount of whining is worth missing the rain and the Sun.

I’m happy to see Sunny, happy to see Rain.

Besides, what would it be like to have no weather at all?

Kind of like hearing the sound of one hand clapping

© 2011 A.D. Jim Reed http://www.jimreedbooks.com

Everybody has a list of favorite things in life.

Here’s my list of books and stories. What’s your list?

THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS AND STORIES OF MY LIFE

Note: These are stories well worth the reading, well worth the writing style.

Some are disturbing. Some are inspirational.

Some are quite worthless save for their lingering images.

All are compelling in one way or another.

Most are difficult to forget, even if you try.

*

*

Andersen, Hans Christian. THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL

Benet, Stephen Vincent. THE REVOLT OF THE MACHINES (a.k.a. Nightmare No. 3)

Bixby, Jerome. IT’S A GOOD LIFE

Bradbury, Ray. DANDELION WINE, THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, ZEN AND THE ART OF  WRITING, THE SMILE, TO THE CHICAGO ABYSS, THE TOYNBEE CONVECTOR, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

Caldwell, Erskine. GOD’S LITTLE ACRE

Carlin, George. BRAINDROPPINGS, NAPALM AND SILLY PUTTY

Carroll, Lewis. ALICE IN WONDERLAND and THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Chabon, Michael. WEREWOLVES IN THEIR YOUTH

Cleaver, Eldridge. SOUL ON ICE

Cozzens, James Gould. CASTAWAY

Davies, Valentine. MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET

Defoe, Daniel. ROBINSON CRUSOE

Dickens, Charles. A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Einstein, Albert. RELATIVITY FOR THE LAYMAN

Elliott, Bob and Ray Goulding. FROM APPROXIMATELY COAST TO COAST

Farmer, Philip Jose. THE LOVERS

Faulkner, William. INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Frankl, Viktor.  MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING

Goldman, William. THE PRINCESS BRIDE

Gray, William. FUN WITH DICK AND JANE

Hemingway, Ernest. THE GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA

Henry, O. THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

Hunter, Evan. BLACKBOARD JUNGLE

Huxley, Aldous. BRAVE NEW WORLD

Jackson, Shirley. THE LOTTERY

Jones, Guy and Constance. PEABODY’S MERMAID

Kazantzakis, Nikos. THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST

Kelly, Walt. POGO

Kerouac, Jack. BIG SUR, ON THE ROAD

Khayyam, Omar. THE RUBAIYAT

Kiersey. PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME

Latham, Irene. LEAVING GEE’S BEND

Lee, Harper. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

MacDonald, John D. THE GIRL THE GOLD WATCH AND EVERYTHING

Matheson, Richard. I AM LEGEND, BID TIME RETURN, THE SHRINKING MAN

May, Robert L. RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER

Menninger, Karl. THE HUMAN MIND

Merritt, A. THE MOON POOL

Miller, Walter. A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ

Moore, Clement C. THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Nabokov, Vladimir. LOLITA

Orwell, George. 1984

Parker, Dorothy. COLLECTED POEMS

Raines, Howell. MY SOUL IS RESTED

Reage, Pauline. THE STORY OF O

Reed, Jim. DAD’S TWEED COAT, CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A DAY, YOUR PEOPLE MY PEOPLE, HOW TO BECOME YOUR OWN BOOK, WHAT I SAID

Rilke, Rainer Maria. COLLECTED WORKS

Robinson, Frank. THE POWER

Sagan, Carl. THE COSMIC CONNECTION

Shaefer, Jack. SHANE

Schulz, Charles M. “I NEVER PROMISED YOU AN APPLE ORCHARD” (THE

COLLECTED WRITINGS OF SNOOPY)

Schweitzer, Albert. OUT OF MY LIFE AND THOUGHT

Serling, Rod. WALKING DISTANCE

Sheehy, Gail. PASSAGES

Shulman, Max. BAREFOOT BOY WITH CHEEK

Silverstein, Shel. WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, FALLING UP, RUNNY BABBIT

Smith, H. Allen. HOW TO WRITE WITHOUT KNOWING NOTHING

Smith, Thorne. THE NIGHT LIFE OF THE GODS

Spillane, Mickey. I, THE JURY

Steinbeck, John. TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY

Stevenson, Bryan. JUST MERCY

Stoker, Bram. DRACULA

Tazewell, Charles. THE LITTLEST ANGEL

Teasdale, Sara. COLLECTED POEMS

Terkel, Studs. WORKING

Thomas, Dylan. A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES, UNDER MILKWOOD

Thurber, James and E.B. White. IS SEX NECESSARY?

Thurber, James. THE THIRTEEN CLOCKS

Tolkien, J.R.R. THE HOBBIT

Voltaire. CANDIDE

Vonnegut, Kurt. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, HARRISON BERGERON

Watterson, Bill. CALVIN AND HOBBES

Wells, H.G. THE HISTORY OF MISTER POLLY, THE TIME MACHINE, THE

                    WAR OF THE WORLDS, THE DOOR IN THE WALL

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler. POETRY

Williams, Tennessee. BABY DOLL

Wilson, Edward O. CONSILIENCE

Wylie, Phillip. FINLEY WREN, GLADIATOR

The lessons I learned from some of these books and stories never quite go away.

The ideas they proffered endure. The images they evoke don’t fade

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast at www.youtube.com

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In my latest book, How to Become Your Own Book (2011, Blue Rooster Press),

I publish–for all the world to see–a list of the most important books and stories

of my life.

That’s right, there’s a list of books and stories that changed my life in some way, books that are unforgettable on some level.

Now, this list of books (I’ll publish it in next Tuesday’s blast/blog/tweet/facebook/linkedin) is not exactly what you might think an old bookie like me might reveal. It includes some titles that are not necessarily great, some that are disturbing, some that are naughty or funny or violent or off-beat. But they are all books that carry deep metaphor, deep meaning, deep ideas.

They are books not to be ignored.

So, that’s next week. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, what am I reading this week? What books hold my attention and rearrange my brain this week?

As a bookie, I dabble in several titles simultaneously, depending on where I can catch a moment.

There are the Downstairs Books-in-progress: 3 On a Toothbrush by Jack Paar, Mark Twain’s first-of-three-volumes of his century-later autobiography (this is taking me a year to absorb), and Richard Feynman’s The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.   

There are the Upstairs Bedroom/bathroom Books-in-progress: Robert Wagner’s autobiography, Robert Vaughn’s A Fortunate Life, H.G. Wells’ The Door in the Wall and Other Stories, an old Dilbert cartoon collection, and two 1935 issues of the Mexican magazine, Mujeres y Deportes.

There’s no pattern here that I can recognize. Some books are found by accident in estate boxes, some are specifically sought out, all are mind-bending in one way or another.

Each must keep my attention, or I’ll not finish—but I always do finish, out of respect for the authors, just the way I’d like the books I’ve written to be treated by gentle readers.

Tune in next week for The List. I’m looking forward to your reaction

© 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

Listen to Jim:  http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/timesofthesigns.mp3

or read on…

Much of my life has been spent reading signs and posters and labels
and postings, notes and warnings and instructions and poorly-spelled
graffiti. These signs and posters and labels and postings etc. are
like caulking or glue–they fill in the interstices and silences of my
existence, and they always entertain.

This runs in my family–genetics and upbringing will tell!

My father read aloud every highway sign on each trip, short or long.
And now my elder sister Barbara, and my younger brothers Ronny and Tim
do the same thing.

Signs have this important function in my life: they teach me grammar,
usually by poor example, and they instruct me on the correct way to
communicate in brief, without being misunderstood.

Most sign-authors don’t know the value of testing before a sign is
made. If the author knows the meaning of the sign, said author of
course believes without question that every sign-reader will find the
same meaning in the message.

Not true.

One of my earliest memories of a clear example of
sign-miscommunication: a 1950′s Gahan Wilson single-panel cartoon
depicts a man sitting immobilized in his automobile with a STOP sign
before him. He has grown a beard, and cobwebs cover his car. He’s
obeying the sign! He’s still sitting there to this day, in my signage
memory.

Another flashback: in the 1940′s and ’50′s, each public bus in
Tuscaloosa clearly displayed a metal sign that read, COLORED TO REAR,
WHITE TO FRONT. As a child, I had no idea what that meant, but I
assumed it was some instruction about how important it was to fill a
coloring book last page first, but only if you’re on a bus. White
crayons existed but were mostly useless except on dark-colored front
covers. I figured every kid knew this, so why did the bus driver
emphasize it with his sign?

Even now, I catch myself staring at an orange juice carton a little
too long because it clearly states, CONCENTRATE.

The funniest signs in childhood were those posted by Burma Shave along
the blue-road highways. There’s even a book at my shop listing all
those signs from long ago. Sad story: I once talked with a young
public relations practitioner who worked for Burma Shave. I asked
whether the company kept any of those wonderful signs on display at
their headquarters. She hadn’t the vaguest idea what I was talking
about. The signs had apparently disappeared from the collective
company memory bank. That would be the equivalent of a MoonPie factory
worker’s not knowing anything about R.C. Cola.

In England, I saw signs here and there that stated, MIND YOUR HEAD. I
assumed they had replaced the old-time motivational posters that used
to read, THINK! Wrong again. They were posted only on low-overhanging
passageways and doors to warn pedestrians to duck instead of knocking
themselves silly.

There are thousands of examples handy in my ready memory, but you can
fill in your own.

Look around you and enjoy the good Times of the Signs

(C) 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com