RIP J.D. Salinger

It is truly a sad day. J.D. Salinger, one of my favorite authors has died. The man wrote amazing books and short stories (do I even need to mention the titles?) and influenced countless people in the field of writing. To this day I still call people that I find fake phonies like Holden did. I hope that Salinger has found peace in his final resting place and that he is no longer at odds with the world. I hope that Holden is catching him now in Heaven….

Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five Letter

Check out the letter below. This is a letter that Kurt Vonnegut wrote while a POW in Dresden’s Slaughterhouse Five. Ultimately the events in Dresden lead to the novel, Slaughterhouse Five that brought international acclaim to the author. The letter is something that Vonnegut wanted to send to his family to ally any fears they had about his safety as a POW.

page two…

page three…

As you can see he had a lot to write about in that novel and he had the gift of the written word from such an early age. It is why he remains one of the greatest American authors for all of time.

Haiti Poetry

In honor of the small island nation that is suffering right now because of the recent earthquake. We must help them because there is so much beauty in every society like the poetry below. We cannot lose that, not for one minute. Please do what you can to help the Haitian people.

who writes this stuff T-Shirt

In case anyone is looking, I finally found the t-shirt from Funny People that Jason Swartzman was wearing. I am not really sure the meaning of the shirt but I like how it is a statement without a question mark even though it is a question. It’s a great pun because those that understand language would really want to know who wrote it so they scold them for improper English.

WHO WRITES THIS STUFF Shirt by niffx
design your own tshirt on zazzle.com

Arms by Susan Parr

I saw this poem on poems.com and I thought it was so good that I needed to post and share with my readers. Here is the beautiful little poem from Susan Parr for all.

Arms make good hammers.
Doorboards know them:
nut-lustered, unabundant triangles
that crack in an inch,
that rattle the dangling brass
and loosen broad doors.

Arms are a heart’s clock
(not pocket watches, knocking—
more a tock attack, or lack in tick).
Danced to a twelve-step,
arms drop to armlets—
fingers—they love to mingle
in the secondary minuets.

Arms make good legs.
Less to lug and lagging less—
in tag, such an army honorific
terrifically adapts. Plus a player
gets another lap, with hairy handles
(not to mention, complicated jumping jacks).

Nursery Rhymes

Remember the magic of nursery rhymes? The stories were so simple yet magical that you couldn’t help wrap yourself in their beauty. Here’s a nusery rhyme to remind you of what I am talking about.

Invisible Man, enthralling

I just started reading Ralph Ellison’s Opus, Invisible Man and I have to say that I am thoroughly entranced by this novel. The prose style the stories are just amazing and I can’t wait to read more each day. It is of course about the dark racism that still plagues this country today and sadly still relevant to what we do around the country. But I will say that reading it makes you appreciate a good novel and what great writing can be, even if the topic is sadly too true.

Pioneers! O Pioneers! by Walt Whitman

I heard this poem in a Levi’s commercial and I have to say I love this poem so much and I am ashamed that I heard it from a commercial but it is still worth sharing. Here is a fabulous poem for you to read.

Pioneers! O Pioneers!
by Walt Whitman

COME my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the
seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines
within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high
plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental
blood intervein’d,
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the
Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
(bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d
mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly
fill’d,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d.
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions
pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lo, the darting bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait
behind,
We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your
work,)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding
on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call-hark! how loud and clear I hear it
wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!-swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I Grok Therefore I am Shirt

I just finished reading Stranger in a Strange Land and really enjoyed it. It was a great science fiction novel that really spoke to the demystification of religion and the ideas behind it. The whole concept of grokking to understand your existence is what is amazing to me. Once someone has completely understood who he/she is then that person is free to understand that he/she is God, that we all are God. It is a great concept and a great novel to help understand that concept. Here’s a t-shirt that helps celebrate that fact.

I Grok Therefore I Am shirt by niffx
Many more t-shirts online at zazzle.com

A Free Atlantic Monthly?

I really love reading magazines like Tin Roof, Atlantic Monthly, and of course the New Yorker but I just wish they didn’t cost so much. I mean it’s not that they are expensive it’s just that I don’t have the time to read them for a subscription to make sense for me. Maybe they need to be sold in new stands or something like that? I just want more access to good writing without having to work so damn hard at it. I think if more Americans had this access we might have a more knowlegable society. Of course you stil have to get the horse to drink from the water once you’ve lead the horse there…