Fiction or Not I have now written 52 pages of the new book I am writing that is somewhat outside my normal comfort zone. The book is a compilation and expansion on a series of stories about the peacetime high-jinx of a group of young military officers who share a house on Virginia Beach in the early 1960’s. That 52 pages represents the first draft of the Prologue and first three chapters. I keep saying…
COVID-Free At Last Last Saturday I had my second dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine and after only about an hour’s worth of chills and slightly elevated temperature, I have been fit as a fiddle. The event of the vaccination, which I did in the idyllic burg of La Jolla was really a non-event. I parked in a nice parking structure, walked on serene pathways following big COVID Vaccination signs to a large and airy building…
Hot and Heavy Today, which is Monday, February 22nd it is supposed to hit 78 degrees here on our hilltop. I don’t know why that surprises me other than to say that I am not yet totally acclimated to living here in Southern California. I started my day by driving to the local Hidden Meadows Market and getting a breakfast burrito for myself and an Asahi bowl for Kim, so clearly some parts of my…
Suspending Disbelief In the arena of the cinema, the breadth of realizable stories put on film is vast. There are entire genres of film in the SciFi and Fantasy categories that are quite popular. It is often said that the big hurdle these sort of films must cross is the ability to get the audience to suspend disbelief. Technically, this term is used for any sort of piece of fiction for which reality is not…
A Return to the Big Screen A few days ago I found myself getting caught up with two newly released movies and how to go about seeing them. In the past year, most of us have not been to the movies outside of our living rooms. That has probably not been a big deal to some who only went to movies infrequently anyway, but to someone like me who considers going to the movies to…
Raptors I Have Known The other day, Kim and I were coming home from an afternoon errand and, after stopping to pick up the mail, we were driving through our entry pillars when Kim shouted at me to look. I was somewhat taken aback and didn’t know what she was pointing to at to my left. Then I saw it. On the left stucco pillar there was a small red-tailed hawk. It was just sitting…
The Totems of My Life I am not certain why or how it has happened, but I am surrounded by totems. They mean everything and yet they mean nothing at all. Just this week, Kim gave me a birthday/anniversary/Valentines gift she had had made for me by her favorite gift store in New York, named Domus on West 44th Street in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. In Ancient Rome, a domus was a distinguished house…
And As For The Gander Projection can be a wonderful thing. In this case I mean the kind of projection used so often by the liked of Donald Trump. If he calls someone out for lying, it is because he lies and is lying. If he calls someone out for corruption it is because he is inherently corrupt and is probably picking someone’s pocket the very minute he is making the accusation. When he calls…
Treat Em’ Mean It Keeps Em’ Keen I have a Welsh friend and while I have never been to Wales, I imagine it as a hard place where life has to be worked for one inch at a time. This friend was a rugby-playing, bar-brawling intellectual that one would think was reasonably enlightened, but no so much. Don’t get me wrong, he is a great friend of mine and we are Godfathers to one of…
War Games Soliloquy I can’t seem to help myself from getting into unintended projects. You’ve heard how this happens to me at my hilltop home, now let’s discuss my writing. I publish one story a day on this blog (occasionally supplemented with an extra and usually timely story here and there). That is about 1,300 words per day on average. People brag about Jack London writing 1,000 words a day every day. So, I think…