The teller of stories has everywhere and always found eager listeners. Whether his tale is the mere report of a recent happening, a legend of long ago, or an elaborately contrived fiction, men and women have hung upon his words and satisfied their yearnings for information or amusement, for incitement to heroic deeds, for religious edification, or for release from the overpowering monotony of their lives. In villages of central Africa, in outrigger boats on the Pacific, in the Australian bush, and within the shadow of Hawaiian volcanoes, tales of the present and of the mysterious past, of animals and gods and heroes, and of men and women like themselves, hold listeners in their spell or enrich the conversation of daily life. So it is also in Eskimo igloos under the light of seal-oil lamps, in the tropical jungles of Brazil, and by the totem poles of the British Columbian coast. In Japan too, and China and India, the priest and the scholar, the peasant and the artisan all join in their love of a good story and their honor for the man who tells it well.
— Stith Thompson, “The Folktale”

I’m outta here early tomorrow morning for a week in New York to take in some cold weather and address some very exciting business. I don’t plan on going out of my way to keep this site updated during that time, although I may drop in to blog a traveling chronicle or seven if inspiration calls.

Dogs are walked and fed, bag’s packed, and it’s time to start getting acclimated to the time change. In an effort to get sleepy earlier than usual, I figure to finish the rest of these beers and sink into the couch to take in Babel, which is up for Best Picture this Sunday at the Oscars. I’ve seen The Departed, which I’m thinking will probably clean up. (It just occurred to me that the last time I was in NYC was during the Oscars in 2004. Lord of the Rings took everything.)

So for all practical purposes, I’m calling it a month already. The shortest month of the year just got shorter. Stay well, and see you in March.

Source: Rob Gonsalves

Last night began as a disappointment. I had planned to join my mom to her local library a couple hours out of town to attend a lecture by legendary author Ray Bradbury, who was scheduled to show up and share his thoughts on writing. He’s now 86 and in a wheelchair.

Best known for his novels like “Fahrenheit 451” and “The Dark Carnival”, Bradbury was also a colleague of Rod Serling. Bradbury wrote the story “I Sing the Body Electric!”, as well as the adapted Twilight Zone teleplay. The episode aired in 1962.

I couldn’t wait to meet this guy. A bona fide Twilight Zone writer. The idea of meeting somebody who worked with Rod Serling was not unlike the idea of meeting Moses. I own a hardcover book of the original Twilight Zone stories, which includes the unadapted versions of classics from the power-trio Serling, Charles Beaumont, and Richard Matheson. Among the collection is Bradbury’s “I Sing the Body Electric!” which I’d intended for him to sign.

So I pile the dogs in the truck and jump on the freeway at about 4pm. All of a sudden the rain starts pouring down, and everything starts feeling really sketchy. Cars backed up, people going too slow, windshield wipers not working fast enough … and it’s not even rush hour yet. I flip on the traffic news and hear reports of no less than a dozen pile-ups in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas. Not good.

I pull off the freeway and give up. The idea of being stuck in a jam for hours with the dogs in the back of the rig just sound like something to avoid.

Anyhow, my mom called me from the event and told me to relax, and know that even Bradbury himself was stuck in traffic. It was also a turn-away crowd with a line of over 300, so there’d be a good chance I wouldn’t get that autograph anyway. Much less a conversation.

I hear the lecture went well. Bradbury hadn’t eaten, and the library assistants did their best to make him comfortable as he spoke. They set him up with a bottle of red wine, and he went on to discuss his love for life and writing. Check out the full story here.

“If you’re not doing what you love, you’re not doing the right thing.”
— Ray Bradbury

I sing the body electric
I celebrate the me yet to come
I toast to my own reunion
When I become one with the sun

And I’ll look back on Venus
I’ll look back on Mars
And I’ll burn with the fire of ten million stars

I sing the body electric
I glory in the glow of rebirth
Creating my own tomorrow
When I shall embody the earth

And I’ll serenade Venus
I’ll serenade Mars
And I’ll burn with the fire of ten million stars

“To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.”
— Milton Glaser

Right hand on ride, left hand on snare, right foot on kick, left foot on hat:

Source: Thomas Lang

Can’t figure out where to have lunch today? Enter your zip code and let this cool interface make the decision for you. Created by Jim Bumgardner.

The Rescued Sailor
by Jace Daniel (b. 1969)

Mornings are the worst. As the bare foot makes first contact with the
Cold, hard floor,
Furnace hours extinguished,
Nerves uncomfortably sober,
The short journey to the sock drawer a mine field of pain. So It goes with the Mind. Heart. Soul.
The first stinging moment of consciousness. Torture.
Eyes shut, yet seeing,
His Reality escaped from the night before. Reminding. It’s gone. Dead.
Did he kill It?
Did It kill him?
No difference. Like a death with no funeral,
Yet completely unlike.
For a wake is collective,
A loss shared. Not so in this darkness.
With It being too personal,
Too unique,
Too his.

The Hearts in his corner, bless Them,
Through no fault of Their own,
Cannot know what can’t be known.
Outside looking in.

As a shipwrecked sailor builds new Life on a desert isle,
And, through Fate,
Finds native Love,
Spends an eternity with It.

Timeless, yet inevitably finite,
Ending in loss.
A burial.
A wake for One.

Shortly thereafter,
Fate’s angels land. Unknowing.
Now rescued, he’s back to Life,
Yet forever isolated in Its wreckage.

He then opens his eyes
To face the Day that’s his
For the taking.

First twelve, then thirteen. What’s going on here?