Monthly Archives: May 2018

THE INVETERATE VERTEBRATE AND ALL THINGS CONSIDERATE

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Listen to Jim’s 3-minute audio podcast:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/theinveteratevertebrate.mp3

or read on….

THE INVETERATE VERTEBRATE AND ALL THINGS CONSIDERATE

I’m getting to be a habit with me.

Actually, I’m beginning to realize how much habit and ritual govern most daily activities.

This is actually not such a bad thing.

For instance, habit and ritual free up the mind, help me focus on more important things, expend my time on thoughty thoughts and considerate acts of kindness.

If I had to arise each morn and re-learn how to use brush and paste, so much of the clock would be wasted. Instead of spending twenty minutes examining the toothbrushing instruction manual and trying to decipher its line drawings, I can depend on body memory.  Without even consciously trying, my teeth become cleansed and minty while my mind focuses on much more important things.

Things like the possible meanings of life, the purpose of existence, the motives of neighbors, the infractions of traffickers, the ills of the world, the wonders of fond memories. Things like that.

Of course, habit and inveterate attitudes can stifle the mind, too. Particularly if I let go and allow habit and inveterateness run the show. Particularly if I laze about and allow all original inspirations and aspirations to enter the sinkhole of speedbumpiness.

Guess the rule of thumb is, don’t allow lethargy to rule everything—being in the control seat beats being yanked about by puppet masters awaiting their chance.

Would I prefer being a nervous tic or a nervy tick? At least the tic indicates that I am sentient and aware. The tick just sucks away, bloats, then ceases to exist.

Habit and routine free me up to concentrate on projects and projections and promises of better things.

So, I’d best be about the business of concretizing the best of what good is left within me, dissolving the useless and meaningless negativities that flit about like gnats….spreading the word that each of us can Matter if we just decide to

 

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

 

 

CHANGING THINGS TO KEEP THEM FROM CHANGING

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Listen to Jim’s podcast story:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/changingthingstokeepthemfromchanging.mp3

or read on…

CHANGING THINGS TO KEEP THEM FROM CHANGING

Most mornings of my life are astoundingly similar.

Even though each day is new and filled with discovery, chocked full of wonder and challenge, grimace and grin…each day is remarkably like each previous day.

I skim my right hand down the wrought iron banister of homefront, left hand swinging bag and baggage of stuff to take to work. Upon the sidewalk or lawn or atop a bush is the morning paper, all snuggled up inside a clear sleeve, freshly pecked at by dew-dropped critters.

I pick up the package with now-freed right hand, stuff it under left arm, pull open the gate of our white picket fence. Only the gate does not want to open—I’m stating this as if the gate has free will and consciousness. Can gates decide whether to open?

On dry, rainless mornings, the gate swings free. Given an hour or two of precipitation, the wood expands just enough to make it stick. Grumbling and forcible exit follow.

Later in the day, at the shop, the tall wooden front door, itself a victim of humidity, groans and creaks quite loudly and hauntingly. This makes me grin and feel right at home. It causes customers to laugh or register alarm or give me free advice about how to fix creaking doors or preach to me about how I should get that thing fixed. Some customers even rush back to the door and force it closed in order to silence it.

I pretty much react the same each time, “You know, if that door ever stopped making that great sound, I would rig it to play a recording of the noise whenever opened. It has become part of the shop’s ambience.”

I make this statement just to test the customer’s flexibility of attitude. Usually, the effect is, the customer looks again at the creaking door, relaxes and laughs, gives up worrying about something beyond all personal control, and decides to embrace the shop and its idiosyncracies…thus returning to browsing and rumination.

The stubborn gate and protesting door serve to snap me out of my doldrums, force me to chuckle or snipe, jump-start me into the day’s activities, be they excruciatingly routine or off-balancing wondrous.

One of my favorite books is The Leopard. One of my favorite quotes from the book sticks with me and guides me to this day, making me appreciate sameness and change with equal zeal

 “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

–Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

THE ENTRANCE TO ENTRANCEMENT

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Listen to Jim’s 3-minute podcast:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/theentrancetoentrancement.mp3

or read his story below…

THE ENTRANCE TO ENTRANCEMENT

One particular customer at the old bookshop is wandering about, mouth agape, eyes wide with wonder, joy writ across her face.

She has never seen anything quite like this—a cathedral of fragrant  old books and artifacts going back 500 years in time and issuing forth to her present day.

Are such disparate time periods and objects meant to abut and overlap and inform one another? She asks this of herself.

The customer then elevates her arms from waist to eye level, spreads hands wide, palms facing forward. It’s as if she is gently pushing at the looking glass, preparing to enter a world unknown until this moment. How will she get back? she wonders.

She has no idea anyone is observing her, which may demonstrate that she is indeed tumbling momentarily into the pleasurable comfort of childhood recollections.

It takes her some extended period of time to adjust to the fact that in a world as entrancing as this, she may never feel fully informed, but, ironically, she at some inner level feels totally at home.

It is as if childhood remains intact, deep within her, prepared to be remembered and cherished when called upon.

As she wanders about, an actual real-life present-day boychild sprawls on the floor of the old bookshop, casting about for some beckoning book cover to energize him into upright attention-span.

It happens. The right book about another boychild and his imaginary tiger friend pops into view. He is suddenly alert and, page-turning on the green carpet, transfixed into yet another imaginary world where things make a bit more sense.

Elsewhere in the aisles, a young couple delights in browsing and snuggling, giggling and chatting about this literary thought and that literary thought. They are happy and in love with both books and each other, unable to separate the two realities.

The old bookdealer just observes and smiles and feels proud that, ages ago, he fell headlong into ownership of this emporium, an emporium where dreams and realities truly appreciate one another, truly live in harmony

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

 

WRITING ALOUD AND TALKING SILENTLY

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Listen to Jim’s audio podcast:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/writingaloudandtalkingsilently.mp3

or read his tale…

WRITING ALOUD AND TALKING SILENTLY

How do you write aloud? How do you talk silently?

I might actually have the answers to these two questions.

For instance, my early training centered around the task of writing words as if they were being spoken. For instance, the phrase “Your NPR station” looks fine—as is—on a sheet of paper or a screen. If I were copy writer, I might dash off “Your NPR station” and hand it to the cold-read radio announcer to be uttered in dulcet toned Southernese.
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Unfortunately, I have perhaps not taken time to test this phrase to see how the listener will ingest it. Thus, it comes out, “Urine Pee-er Station,” which throws a certain percentage of listeners into a state of confusion. Or produces a passel of giggles. Or fails utterly to communicate at all. One person only hears something about Urine or about a station designated for urination—wouldn’t that be a restroom? Another might stop listening to figure out why the redundancy—urine pee. Another would snort at the word Pee and ask why the vulgar usage, when urination is the correct and proper word. Even another might wonder what the meaning of the technical term “your in pr’s tays yun” might mean.
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It’s all potentially distracting, this multimeaninged string of syllables. In the old days, I would be assigned the duties of a re-write man and attempt to fix this, such as, “This broadcast comes to you from the National Public Radio Network, of which WBHM is a member.” Clumsier but clearer, since lots of folks do not know what NPR stands for or even what WBHM means.
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So, writing aloud is not as simple as it seems. I guess that is one half of my original point.
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The other question is, How do you talk silently?
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I walk into a store and see a bold sign near the front, NO EATING ON SALES FLOOR. The author obviously feels strongly about this all-CAP phrase and feels that its silent message is quite loud. And clear.

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NO EATING ON SALES FLOOR.  Well, who would do that? Eat on the floor, I mean.
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What am I to do, actually go scrounging for a plate from which to eat, assuming the floor is not clean enough to eat off of? What kind of unsanitary place is this? Can’t the floors be sanitized?
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There must be a better way to sort this out and make clear what is intended. But that would require effort.
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Damn, things always require effort, don’t they?
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Maybe I should stop obsessing over things like this and sit quietly, watching a Public Television program
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But then, you know what happens next. The announcer says the show is brought to me by Viewer Sly Cue.
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Who is this person, Viewer Sly Cue? Why is he trying to mess with my head?
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I need a nap
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