Listen to Jim:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/homealonewithquickunwholesome.mp3

or read on…

Home alone with quick unwholesome but eminently satisfying snacks

I am a lucky, well-fed man, living with the best cook in Southside Birmingham.

When we’re home together of an evening, Liz prepares special meals much the way a jazz musician does  variations on a well-known ballad. They are always good and unique.

Liz prepares the food, then makes up the recipe. Like a Zen master.

On the other hand, when I am alone at home of an evening, I do my own jazz preparations for dinner.

Liz being away at a meeting, I’m faced with the instantly solvable challenge of finding something to eat. My approach to the prospect of dining alone is to grab food items at random, in the order I see them.

For instance:

Pop open a jar of pimiento-stuffed olives, try to hook them with a fork one or two at a time, and munch while I search for—what—a chunk of hard cheddar cheese, which I nibble along with the olives. When young, I would mimic my father, who liked nothing more than to open a can of sardines and reflectively chew them one at a time upon saltines. Note: I haven’t had sardines in years, so I’ll have to get some next time grocery-shopping occurs.

Another instant snack consists of greasy crunchy largest-size rippled potato chips, sinfully salty and topped with chunky salsa. As a kid, nothing could beat a peanut butter (crunchy) and mayonnaise and lettuce sandwich on light bread—never toasted—with crusts intact. A quick fix for any occasion. I should try that again some future night.

On an infrequent solo evening, just the thing would be a grilled cheese sandwich—whole wheat bread fried in butter with melted cheese atop and steamed tomato slices, dripping and hot enough to scorch the tongue. Haven’t done that in a long time. Maybe I should make a snack-bucket list.

One night, a can of cheap chili con carne mixed with crushed tomatoes, juice and all. Lots of ground pepper and sea salt added, and something crunchy to nibble on simultaneously, like Ritz Crackers. Note to myself: I can do that again one night when Liz isn’t around to watch.

OK, I could go on, but I think it should stop about here—right after I eat sliced cucumbers, skin and all…or one whole cucumber, peeled, which takes on the characteristics of a melon, which I guess it is, isn’t it? In the same category, at times just grabbing a large raw carrot and noisily eating it while dipping it into soft cream cheese or freshly made pimiento cheese is the perfect meal. Message to Jim: eat a balanced meal on all evenings that Liz is at home…and thank the unknown gods that she’s home most of the time.

For dessert, don’t forget dark chocolate-covered cashews. If you’re already full, save this for next time. Or save a handful for Liz, who deserves them after all these decades of imagining what I must eat when she’s not around.

All of these snack fantasies will evaporate from memory next time Liz makes meat loaf for dinner. Life will be complete for at least that evening.

Liz’s meat loaf, after all, is the Nectar of the Goddess

© Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/howthemenschstolepeaceandquiet.mp3  

or read on…

HOW THE MENSCH STOLE PEACE AND QUIET

My friend the mensch walks calmly to the nearby diner for his lunch break, newspaper under his arm, deep breaths beginning to relax him after a morning of doing business at a rapid pace.

The sounds of street and pedestrians and traffic and aircraft and construction workers swirl about him as he strolls. He is ready for twenty minutes of quiet dining and reading. As he munches his meal and scans the paper for news, he becomes conscious of something that has become a habit: He skips past stories of pandering politicians and dueling world leaders, averts his eyes when photographs of war crimes in progress appear, folds out of sight tales of corruption, rumors of pestilence, predictions of graft and injustices.

He is aware that nowadays he probes the news for evidence of hope. He tends to read articles about the wonder of spaceflight and the intrigues of new archaeological finds and the curious behavior of beetles and ants. And he searches for things that make him chuckle, pieces about ridiculous uses of language, wisecracks that crop up to lighten the load of gloomy news, features on the beauty of art and music, stories about insignificant people who do significant things, tales of other mensches who just live their lives without seeking credit or fame or attention or reward.

He finds that these little stories do still exist, but he has to look for them much as a detective searches for important clues.

The mensch knows that he cannot survive without all the noise of the ether to which society has become accustomed—dissonant music, snarky tweets, foxy TV exaggerations, over-the-top violent films and shows, gossipy factless interchanges within earshot.

He knows that this is his world and welcome to it.

But he is beginning to rebel in small ways that others do not notice. He carries earplugs in case he wants to drown out the loud unreconstructed disco beat at the diner. He is learning to disregard much of the hopelessly neurotic interchanges about him. He is turning off the car radio more and more as meaningless or repetitive messages are aimed at him. He no longer rushes to answer phone calls he can’t identify. When he does answer, he hangs up quickly should a brief silence occur before a salesvoice proceeds or when a pre-recorded announcement commences.

The mensch is also beginning to examine his own personal habits. He doesn’t always turn on the computer or television or cellphone when he arrives home after work. He is aware that the screens of these electronic objects are themselves a kind of hypnotic programming under the spell of which he has fallen.

So, thinking on these things, he completes his meal, places his paper under his arm, walks back to work, finishes the workday and heads for home.

Tonight will be different, he decides.

He walks into the house, finds a blank DVD disc, pops it into the player and sits watching the static play of meaningless electrons. He tosses the phone. Later, he plays a blank CD and blissfully listens to the quiet. Tomorrow he will lose the unopened morning newspaper. When he goes to lunch, he will carry a blank legal pad and write himself stories while munching.

Whatever he writes will make him far happier than anything else he does that day

© Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim here:

pokingaboutinsomeoldguysemporium.mp3

or read on…

POKING ABOUT IN SOME OLD GUY’S EMPORIUM

An unfamiliar customer is poking about the bookstore, sniffing at books, handling old magazines, picking up and putting down objects from the past, seemingly puzzled.

Eventually, this customer says, “Now what is it that you do with all these things?” A pause. “Do people buy these?”

All I can do is follow the immutable rule every decent bookseller should follow—I keep a straight face, suppress my incredulity, smile big and explain, “Yes, people travel from great distances to purchase these wonderful artifacts.”

“What do they do with these things? They’re old,” the customer wonders, imparting his muted disdain, his wonder at how people could be so stupid as to wander outside the Cone of Wal-Mart shopping experience.

This is my chance to proselytize, which I do at every opportunity. But I hesitate expending the energy. This person seems to have made up his mind that I’m just a crazy old storekeeper surrounded by useless crap that nobody wants, probably living off retirement or family. Maybe I’ll save the sermon for the next customer who, as it turns out, is just the right person to guide through the joys of collecting and selling collectibles.

So, I just minimize my response, make a light remark, and suggest that, once finished here, he might enjoy going next door, to Sojourns, to shop among new and exotic items. This is what he eventually does. My goal is achieved—he leaves puzzled but happy, since I have not treated him with the same disdain he aimed at me. We’re both happy for the experience, and we’ll never see each other again. Meanwhile, Melissa at Sojourns might make a sale, thus she will be happy, too.

Win-win.

Why do I deal with such a variety of visitors in such a pleasant way? Well, partly because I am a writer, a writer who sees each person as a source of ideas, inspirations, ponderings.

If I were to write my mantra about this, here’s what I might compose:

Each person I encounter each person who comes across my field of vision each person who enters my store or talks to me across the counter or serves me or waits on me or ignores me or bypasses me or dismisses me or smiles at me, each person who seems interested in me for a matter of seconds, in me and my existence…each person is bringing an unconscious gift to me…and if I ignore the gift, if I don’t pause (if just in my mind) later and open the gift, I’m abandoning a fascinating Christmas tree with lots and lots of beautifully wrapped packages scattered about.

Why would I not want to open each one carefully, preserving the wrapping paper, cherishing what is inside, shelving for eventual poetic examination?

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Y’all come by and poke around a bit

© Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim:

ROMANCING THE BOOK 

or read on…

ROMANCING THE BOOK

This book resting easily in my hand is a singular object of desire. It desires me, I desire it.

Rocking the book to feel its heft is a special pleasure.

Warning to non-book-lovers: your instinct is to avert your eyes, because this is just a book. The following words may induce curiosity, could make you want to touch the same book I am touching, might force you to expand your definitions of love, your ideas of history and family, your philosophies regarding the importance of living and legacy.

This book has a front cover that beckons to me. Its ancient binding struts and brags, instructs and cautions me to respect its very existence.

The leather in which this book is bound serves to protect inner pages and hold together  contents. Opening the book is a revelation. Look—there are words within. Even before the typeset words begin, there are handwritten names and inscriptions that mark the book’s one-time ownership, record the day the book was given or purchased, impart affection for both book and recipient.

The paper, oh the paper. The paper is textured and supple and serves to absorb and secure the words thereon.

The paper has its own story to tell.

Who made this paper? Whose idea was it to make it this lightly tanned shade of white? Who decided how thick it should be, how long it should last, how resistant to the elements and the owners it should be?

The book has its own fragrances. The paper has frozen the smell of pipe tobacco within, so that a century later I can still recognize its brand.

Thumbing through the book, there are hidden treasures and surprises to be found if I pay attention. There’s an old mustard stain, which tells me how one owner liked to snack and read simultaneously. Two pages are folded at the corner, which inspires me to scan the words to see what the reader found so important. A margin note shows me more about the reader than the author.

Between other pages, I find a pressed four-leaf clover, something that takes hours to locate and put away for another day to remind the owner how simple life used to be in a day and age when you could spend so much effort on one solitary pleasure.

And further on, a folded note falls out, a century-old message from somebody to somebody else—as it turns out, it’s a love note written in secret and secured for the recipient to find later, on a day like today when small joys are needed to raise the spirits.

The underlined words in the book make thoughts jump out at me, make me pay more attention to them, force me to respect the author and the previous owners.

Then, suddenly, a butterfly twirls from within the book and lands lightly on a chair. It was preserved many years ago within safe pages. It has returned to life, if only in imagination.

The book has pictures and a beautiful cover design and a Victorian bookmark and evidences of slight misfortunes—a bent spine, a page almost separating from its fellow pages as if flying to freedom, an indelible ink stain from a time when inkwells and nibs existed.

And most amazingly, this book also contains all the essences of people who once  touched it. Dust from fingers, oils from skin leave DNA set in place for future microbiologists and archaeologists to examine and test.

Knowing all this makes me vow never to throw away a book, for in so doing, I am throwing away genealogy, history, stories told…I am throwing away evidence of a culture…I am throwing away the readers themselves.

Just can’t do it. Can’t throw a book away. Ever.

That’s why I spend my days here at the Book Orphanage nurturing my adoptees and foster children, keeping them safe till someone who cares comes to give them safe haven on a lovely shelf in a loving home.

Message to non-book-lovers: It’s safe to come out now. I won’t force you to listen to my ramblings about books and readings. You can be on your way, now. And, just for being here, why not take this one volume with you for a test drive? You can always return it if it doesn’t work out

 © Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim:

 http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/ivegotabrandnewpairofrollerskates.mp3

or read on…

THE KEY is the key to successful roller skating.

This is way back when…in 1949, when I am eight years old.

Without The Key there is no way to get those skates to stay on. The only roller skates I know about are the kind you clamp right onto your shoes—or your sandals.

Even back when, it is obvious that roller skates are the poor person’s substitute for ice skates, ice skating being way more sophisticated. But I observe that only people who live in cold-winter places get to ice skate. In the movies, ice skating looks so smooth and graceful and kind of high-falutin’. Everybody from the debonair Fred Astaire to the round-faced Sonja Henie ice skates.

They make it look so easy, so possible, you know.

Never having ice skated, I am puzzled about why skaters skate backwards so much of the time. It doesn’t make a particle of sense, since I never see runners running backwards or bicyclers bicycling backwards or scooter-riders riding backwards.

Of course, the exception to this is my Uncle Adron, who can ride a bicycle backwards—a feat that is fun to watch because it is absolutely meaningless and useless. For the rest of my life, it’s the pointless capers I’ll witness that will give me the most enjoyment.

ANYHOW, back to the subject of roller skating.

Roller skates are sexless in 1949. If you have a skate key and a pair of pliers, you can adjust anybody’s skates to any foot length or shoe width.

Now and then, one of the skates will fly off a shoe and endanger other skaters and passersby. The shame of the failed designated skate-adjuster is akin to the shame a parachute-packer might feel if a ‘chute doesn’t open on cue.

Oops!

There are two kinds of skating that I know about. The most fun skating is done on the asphalt in front of our house. It is fun mainly because I can pretend to be the world’s greatest skater. There’s no-one around to testify otherwise.

The other kind of skating takes place at a skating rink, where there is lots more space…the downside being that I and my fellow amateur playmates are always outflanked by skaters who are more skilled!

But the fascinating part of this story is that some of us kids now know what it is like to walk in one-sixth Moon gravity, because that’s the way you feel after a couple of hours wearing those heavy metal skates. First, you strain to carry the unfamiliar Jovian weight and you move in slow, painful motion, as if gravity has doubled up on you. Later, you take them off and you’re suddenly raising your feet higher than normal with each step. In just a short period of time, your body deserts its normal rules of conduct and adjusts to newer laws of physics.

Moon walking and Jupiter walking and earthbound walking overlap in just one after-school afternoon, just like I read about in the astronomy chapter of my science book in class!

And talk about complicated—trying to skate holding hands with someone else takes all the skill and concentration I can muster. Forget that!

Another thing—at my age, my buttocks are—what—just about two feet off the ground, but when my rollered feet swoop out from under me, in a jiffy that hardwood floor or the rising asphalt whaps me on the rear like God’s big fly swatter.

Suddenly, the one-sixth Moon gravity transforms itself into a humongous magnet and makes me aware of the one consistent boss I will have for the rest of my life—Gravity!

So, what have I learned by skating that will carry me through to advanced age? Even at the age of eight, I know that:  1. Controlling The Key imparts a certain status; 2.  Not everybody is destined to be a skilled athlete; 3.  Science helps explain a lot of mysteries, such as how gravity works in different ways, how skates that fly up will surely drop down, how rear ends are good at breaking falls; 4.  Things that happen in movies have little relation to what happens in everyday life; 5.   You can have just as much fun imagining things as actually experiencing them—and usually more safely, too; 6.  The Past is the safest place to live; 7.  Doing things backwards or the opposite way is real entertaining on an otherwise eventless afternoon

 © Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim:

HOW TO BECOME 

or read on…

How many times have I told that same true story during my considerable lifetime? You know—the story that usually begins with, “Did I ever tell you about…?” or “Stop me if you’ve heard this…” or “That reminds me of the time I…”

How many times have I told that story?

An even more interesting question is, “Even though the story is the same, how has the telling of it evolved over the decades?”

And, to me, the most interesting question is, “How does each identical telling change each time I alter the medium in which it is told?”

Seriously.

You can find out how YOUR true story changes by switching media. For example:

Write the story using only a quill and ink on parchment paper.

Then…

Write the story using crayon on butcher paper.

Then… 

 Write using ballpoint pen on a napkin.

Then… 

Use large felt-tip marker on a legal pad.

Use an old non-electric spidery typewriter and typing paper.

Dictate the same story to a secretary or scribe.

Recite into a recording device.

Talk to a video camera.

Use an old inky fountain pen on acid-free paper.

Employ an electric typewriter.

Use a computer device.

Spray paint the story on a wall.

Carve the story into stone with a chisel.

Try to fill an exact space with the entire story (140 characters?).

Write with the other hand—see how different the story becomes.

Put the story to music and sing it entire.

Tell the story to a four-year-old, then write down how the child re-tells it.

Do a blog.

If you try these exercises, the results will be rather remarkable. You’ll begin to understand how the medium changes the message, how the settings alter its flavor.

And, most dramatically, you’ll see what a thoroughly practiced storyteller you really can be.

Give it a shot

(Adapted from HOW TO BECOME YOUR OWN BOOK by Jim Reed)

 © Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Time to re-visit a time, six decades ago, when for a year I had my own bodyguard. This story is true as well as actual:

Listen to Jim:

MY BODYGUARD 

or read on...

MY BODYGUARD

Arthur Voss was my bodyguard in the eighth grade. Dot Jones was my girlfriend. Pat Flood was my best friend. How did all of this come about? Well, I’ll tell you my version of the story, since most people in the story are dead or distant or disinterested.

This is a true story. It is also actual.

First day of eighth grade on the school grounds of Tuscaloosa Junior High. It must be recess time on the first day of eighth grade. I’m wandering around the red-dirt dusty summer grounds of the school. The sun is bright and stark and unflattering to the uncontrolled acne on passing faces, a bit too revealing of the unprofessional makeup work most of the coeds have done at home before school time.

One scowling guy struts by me and catches my eye. He must think I’m glaring a challenge at him, because he comes over, still staring, and punches me on the shoulder. I continue to stare back because I’m startled, because I don’t dare turn my back on him, because I don’t know any better. He’s a rough-hewn country-looking kid who wants me to know who’s boss. His scowl deepens and he punches me again, harder. I avert my gaze, pretending to suddenly remember an important engagement. “Dear me–must run. I left my baby on the bus!” is what I want to say, but I have no way of knowing whether that would just make him madder.

“Why’d he do that?” a tow-headed, barrel-chested student asks. I am standing to the side of the playground, wondering whether I am going to be punched again.

“I dunno,” I say.

Arthur Voss is this kid’s name. He is shy, too, and seems relieved that I’m willing to talk with him. Arthur is tough and knows a little about schoolyard survival. He never picks fights. But you can tell just from the way he stands that nobody is going to pick on him. He has a clean-cut no-nonsense air.

The bell rings and Arthur doesn’t go right in. Like me, he waits for the crowd to disperse. “Stick with me. Nobody’s gonna punch you again.” Arthur says this. I make a joke out of it because that’s usually how I survive. “You mean you’re my bodyguard?” I ask. “Yeah,” is all Arthur Voss says. We go our separate ways to class.

“Hey, this is Arthur, my bodyguard,” I say to Dot Jones, a very cute and perky petite blonde I meet at recess the next day. Dot is impressed and giggles her approval. Arthur just stands nearby and looks pleasant and alert. He really is my bodyguard! He’s always close by when we’re on school grounds before, during and after class. He makes no demands. We kid around, but he’s not prone to idle conversation. He’s just there. At lunch, we sit together with Dot and my other new friend, Pat Flood. Arthur is quiet, Pat is frenetic and funny, and Dot is giggly and cute. I actually have friends in junior high! Maybe I’ll survive eighth grade.

The two-step is all I can muster. If I want to dance with Dot Jones at the Friday night junior high gymnasium dances, I’ll have to learn how to dance. Dancing is the only way I know how to justify getting my body close to Dot’s body. We hold hands during school breaks, but there’s no body contact and definitely no kissing. Not even any smooching, whatever that is. I don’t know what smooching is, but I know I’m going to like it.

What is the perfume called that Dot uses? We do the two-step. We are exclusively paired and don’t want to dance with anyone else. Will I be in love with Dot forever? Will Arthur Voss remain my bodyguard for life? Is Pat Flood going to remain my best friend? I now know the answers to these questions, but in junior high I don’t. Shall I reveal the ending or leave you guessing? I’ve always felt I don’t want to know my own fortune, but in these pages, I sometimes do know how things turn out, but the story must be told while simultaneously the characters within don’t know outcomes even when their later versions do know the answers. Time travel is always confusing like this, but time travel must be done in order to get the stories told.

Will Pat Flood be my best friend till we’re 80 and barely able to remember the stupid and silly gags we loved, the snickering fun we had? The junior high school gymnasium doesn’t smell like sweaty locker room mildew tonight while the dance is going on. The nostrils only pick up what the sweet hormonal couple wants them to pick up. The smell of Dot’s perfume. The fragrance of the flower in her hair. The smell of Wildroot Cream Oil hair tonic from my fevered scalp, the rustle of one too many petticoats, the riding up of my underwear, the squeezing-toe leather shoes, the slow dance music, the dimmed gym lights, the chaperoning teachers, the coeds all transmogrified by their acne treatment salve, their new lipstick, freshly Pepsodented teeth, lacquered nails, home-permanent natural curls, saddle oxfords and penny loafers shuffling over the polished hardwood flooring, the scuffed shoe polish, the crepe paper decor, watery Kool-Aid punch, cool kids outside catching a smoke, brittle teachers, hawklike, searching for cool kids outside catching a smoke, pre-air-conditioning gym floor humidity-laden, red dirt and weeded grass and cool fungus fragrance outside the school while we wait for her father or my father to pick us up and deliver us to our respective homes.

Dad drops Dot and me off at her house while he gives us a full three minutes alone, during which he drives to the end of the block on the pretense of U-turning the damp green Willys car, and taking his time to do it as if he couldn’t just turn around in front of her house, but that would be dropping the pretense, wouldn’t it? Dad is complicit in the romantic effort to give us lovebirds a chance to cuddle, but all I can get the courage to do is shake Dot’s hand and run to the car, never having been kissed, never having kissed. Kissing would break the spell, don’t you know? The magic spell consists of never realizing your dream, which gives the dream such power, such magnification. The intense pleasure of anticipation is all there is, the knowing that if you break the spell with a kiss or a too-too touch, you just might fall from the grace of unfulfillment. The pressure of Almost is so powerful, so fantasy-making, so just plain carnal, though I’m not yet sure what carnal is, nor can I ever be sure. The overwhelming pleasure of knowing Dot and handholding Dot and dreaming of Dot and talking too long on the phone with Dot in the hallway of my parents’ home just feet away from their bedroom door, trying not to stand over the floor furnace too long, trying not to be heard by anyone but Dot.

You see, at this point, here at this moment, I close the red clay diary and close my eyes and almost nap, then open up, get alert, and start again that which is never ended–the story of me and Dot and Arthur and Pat and who we are and who we were before now and who we were before the before time, and then who we will yet be and who we might be once we stop being we four who walk the dusty earth of 1954 Tuscaloosa Junior High.

The faux doze starts once more, and I am closing the page, topping the pen, ready for the next episode of what’s happening these many decades later, tonight, on Planet Three.

Does Arthur Voss ever have to fight anybody on my behalf? No, but nobody picks on me the rest of eighth grade, thus I am afforded the opportunity and mixed-feeling pleasure of living to enter the ninth grade

 © Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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On being cold and stranded and in love with Birmingham

Listen to Jim:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/onbeingcoldandstrandedandinlove.mp3

or read on…

Last week seems like a week ago. Wait—it actually was a week ago.

Remember how uncharacteristically cold it was in this Deep South city? How blindsided we all were when the Sunny South became a deep freeze? When short sleeves and toeless shoes suddenly seemed precisely the wrong things to wear?

Here are crumpled notes I found in my pockets, once the temperature rose into the 60′s:

The cold day surrounding us tells its own story, while we attempt to survive being within the belly of this icy beast.

Babies’ rosy cheeks become chapped.

Out-of-shape adults walk the Tim Conway walk to avoid sprains and breaks.

A woman sheds tears and wrings her hands out of fear that she won’t make it home to warmth and safety.

Helpers appear magically out of nowhere, making themselves available to those of us who feel helpless.

The snow cushions sounds and makes the world seem tranquil, amid the chaos.

Some stranded drivers decide to remain calm. Others panic. Others curse.

Others just take notes for later stories.

The Southern tradition of going barefoot suddenly seems a laughable concept.

Visiting snowbird tourists wonder at The Sunny South they are seeing.

Heroes abound: hospital and nursing home workers, firefighters, self-sacrificing motorists, teachers and school staff, good neighbors, police officers, 911 and Crisis Center operators, little kids rescuing little birds, city street workers.

Caring instantly trumps Selfishness.

What lessons did we learn from the Great Disruption?

1. It doesn’t take much to bring out the best in some of us.

2. It’s nice to know that people can be kind when given the opportunity.

3. Strangers can became lifelong friends in just a few hours.

4. Whether we like it or not, we do depend upon each other.

There were more lessons learned. Can you add to this list?

Perhaps it would be an uplifting exercise for all of us to compile a list of lessons learned.

It could always be referred to next time we wonder what this world is coming to

 © Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/circumstantialevidenceoflifeonearth.mp3

or read on…

There are more amazements on the frozen streets of Birmingham than are dreamt of in all philosophies.

The vampire wind tries to nip a pedestrian beneath her scarf as she scurries to work. She tries valiantly to clutch the cloth to her throat. She successfully keeps the bite away, thus forcing the carnivore air to search elsewhere for her skin. She thinks: I have to face this again on the way home tonight.

Ignoring the temperature and all parental precautions, a group of seventh graders and eighth graders invades the shop, writing students from the Alabama School of Fine Arts who hope to pick up new ideas in well-thumbed pages. They warm their hands and minds with ideas burning inside each volume. They think: This is great, but what’s to eat?

I visit for an hour with students at Birmingham-Southern College, spreading the gospel of reading and writing and thinking outside the hum of the hive. They sit around the Arthurian table to see what I have to say, or to see what the teacher wants them to hear me say. Perhaps my most attentive listener is the teacher. She thinks: I wish class could be this much fun every day.

The college room walls are lined with books locked inside sturdy cabinets, longing to join their freeranging comrades but resigned to the concept of Waiting. Waiting for someone to unlock the shelves and touch them once more. They think: I have all this wisdom. Wish I could share it.

Back at the shop, an Atlanta bookdealer braves the weather to stroll and examine my paginated orphans, to see what’s in the store…to see what’s in store. He thinks: How can I make some money off all this stuff I’m purchasing?

Outside the shop, the coldness becomes mundane. We’ve all talked about it too much and want to go on to some other subject. But the vampire wind will remind us who’s really in charge, when we brave the sidewalks once more, with only large warm books hugged tight against the chest to keep the heart warm and the mind afire

 © Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim:

http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/wheresilencereigns.mp3

or read on…

“Where words fail, music speaks.”

–Hans Christian Andersen

That seems true, Hans. The opposite also seems true. What’s that about?

In other words, one might say:

Where words fail, music speaks.

Where music fails, words sing.

Where silence reigns, all is calm and bright.

The world is so full of highly pumped sound, over-the-top words, whispers corrupted into shouts, noise filling every possible solitude. So full. So loud. So chock-full.

Do you recall what non-sound sounds like?

Do you ever listen to the quiet?

Do you long for a Cone of Silence to descend over you once in a while?

Would you like to spend an hour inside a bubble of solitude?

Some will say, “Yes, bring me a reflective, soundless interval, away from everything that is being pushed at me. Make me a non-consumer for an hour. Pretend I’m not anywhere you can get at me for a while. Eventually, I may return to you refreshed and invigorated.”

Others will say, “Whattayatalkingabout? Who wants to spend one minute without music and commercials and texting and tweeting and continuous conversation and television talk and unreality shows? Who wants to be bored? Silence is disturbing!”

Still others will say, “There’s no solution. Sequential, aggressive, repetitive sound is everywhere and impossible to escape. Everybody embraces it, so it must be right.”

And those who are up to the brim will say, “There is a solution. I can take charge any time I wish. I can stop abruptly, pull the plug, remove the batteries, throw the circuit-breaker, run and hide from the wordy and the wired, close my eyes to the horrorsayers and vulgarians, resist the temptation to see and hear the Next Thing Up.”

Looks like three alternatives are presenting themselves to us.

Ready to chose? What’s behind Option Number One. Or Two. Or Three?”

And am I prepared to open the door and take the consequences?

Here I go

 © Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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