I’m still mining Sundays from 10 years ago. I thought you might be interested to know that the big Web-page makeover that I’ve talked about recently (and have talked about off and on in the past) might really happen this time. If it doesn’t, I just wasted money on a retainer I paid to some fine young people who’re going to help me put it all together technically. Of course, I learned I’m still going to have to provide the content. Sheesh! It isn’t scheduled to roll out until spring, possibly even late spring, and I have no idea what it will look like, because I’ve yet to come up with a concept and the artwork to support it—that “content” bugaboo I mentioned. However, I will keep you posted as events warrant.
Literary Achievement
By Jimmy Johnson
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442 responses to “Literary Achievement”
Mark, total agreement on climate and no argument who is responsible.
Gary, you have just persuaded another woman! That is more impressive than Clint Eastwood and that made a definite impression on me. Became an instant fan of spaghetti westerns, saw them all repeatedly and bought all the records.
Going back to hear some more. I already liked ukes but never saw anything like this? And in tuxes?
Love, Jackie
Clint Eastwood and I have one thing in common, we both like the same watering hole in Vail.
And is that the only thing, Sand?
Gary, I am still laughing and I may hurt myself doing so. “Pinball Wizard” by the Who as a sea shanty? Too funny. “Orange Blossom Special” unstoppable to watch and best version.
Going back to watch some more. Thank you, laughter is healing unless you hurt yourself.
Love, Jackie
I also believe that climate change is a real danger to us and to the planet. I’ve always read a lot about science. Funny, the thought just came to me that at the age Jackie was reading Faulkner, I was reading about astronomy and geology. I read a lot of other stuff too! Fiction, some childrens’ books, poetry, comic books. The solar system and the rocks and minerals, I really liked, though … and here in NH there was no impetus to read Faulkner, you can imagine!
Ahhh, William Faulkner. Add Shelby Foote and Walker Percy for a rich Mississippi steeped threesome.
Charlotte in NH, sounds much like my early reading list, with science fiction and fantasy thrown in. I read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit somewhere between 3rd and 6th grades, along with anything else that looked interesting and that the library would let me check out. I was hunting fossils in our driveway before 3rd grade. We had a drive covered with broken rock, most of which was sedimentary and had great fossils of various sea life. Invertebrate stuff. And while working as a security guard at a coal strip mine, I found great fossils of plants in the discarded rock. Even had some where the plant had turned to coal inside the rock, leaving a sort of positive cast of the plant of coal.
And yes, climate change is a danger when we don’t prepare for the changes. But I don’t think we are causing the changes. I recall the popular science magazines of the late ’60’s predicting a coming freeze. Then it changed to global warming, then climate change, then I said to myself, these people don’t really know what’s going to happen.
Jackie, here’s a good reason to go to Nashville this August: http://www.charliedaniels.com/posts/01-30-15/volunteer-jam-reborn
Symply Fargone, if your back lets you, you ought to see this one. I’ve seen Charlie live a couple of times, and it was a blast.
Once I sat at the bar watching Truman Capote eat dinner while his little feet swung off the bar stool, shorter than mine even. In his little toggled child’s coat, right next to him and Mike would not let me tell him how much I had loved his writing because I would be invading his celebrity.I felt so sorry for him, so alone eating dinner because he wasn’t wearing a coat and tie and could not get into the Louis XIV dining room, despite celebrity. Of course, we got a primo table, leaving him alone.
Sorry, but I would have told Walker Percy, William Faulkner and Shelby Foote how I felt about them. And somehow I feel they would have talked to me. And we’d have had things to say.
Love, Jackie
Since we are still on topic of literary achievement, do others find it interesting this group is full of readers? I don’t.
In don’t know, Jackie. The royal families of Europe seem about as inbred as the “Kallilak” family I learned about in Sociology 101, and the royals seem to have done fairly well, other than for World War I and all those other half-witted European wars, of course.
To be on the safe side, however, we won’t have any kids. 🙂
We have at least one of their albums and my wife plays it constantly. I love the Theme from Shaft. And they are pretty good on their instruments too.
Lots of readers here? You think?
I’m currently reading “The Rough Riders”, written in 1899 by someone with some knowledge of the topic…Theodore Roosevelt.
Jackie, some very cool satellite photos: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/11383688/Digital-Globe-Artist-uses-Google-Earth-to-photograph-our-stunning-planet-in-pics.html
And here’s an interesting article I just read (and the cartoon attached to it asks an important question about longterm forecasts which those in NYC should consider) :
http://jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby020215.php3
Jeff Jacoby discusses the meaningfulness (that’s a word?) of a global average temperature. As he says, “Temperatures on the earth are in constant flux. They change with latitude, with time of day, with season, with weather; they vary from ocean depths to atmospheric heights, from the equator to the poles. Even assuming that the necessary raw data could be properly gathered, mathematicians must choose among multiple averaging techniques, which can yield flatly contradictory results.”
I am reading “Without A Paddle” by an acquaintance/friend named Warren Richie. It is the story of his completing a 1200 mile race around Florida called the Ultimate Florida Challenge when his marriage suddenly ends in divorce. Warren writes for newspapers when he is not discovering what life is about. He also did a remarkable hour and a half film called “The Challenge” about Watertribe and why sane men would do something like this. And a few remarkable women.
http://www.warrenrichey.com I am also reading “Jagular: Adventures in a $300 Boat” by Tom Pamperin
Tom writes for Wooden Boat magazine among others, Small Craft Advisor and is my very good friend whom I cheer every step. Both men seemed appropriate at this time in my life. I am surrounded by over 500 books, mostly about the sea but also great generals, leaders and a few Travis McGee’s and similar frivolous writers.
Jagular seems to have vanished into the chaos of my office, not surprisingly, knowing Tom, whose motto in life is you do not have to be prepared so long as you are willing to accept the consequences. He was a Coastie rescue swimmer.
Love, Jackie
How beautiful the earth is! Loved the Google Earth. Wish I hadn’t read the comments from the idiots below.
You know, this is without a doubt the most inspirational and educational group I have ever been a part of and I love everyone’s contributions.
Ghost, I was fixed a long time ago just like a pet should be!
Love, Jackie
*Blush*
Here’s an excellent article on the abuse of our common language by my favorite columnist in the South:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/greenberg020215.php3
Can’t believe that one! Found “Jagular” in my front bedroom on THAT desk. I “discovered” Tom just about the time he had decided to give up writing and keep teaching middle schoolers. It was a story about his cat who did not want to become a ship’s cat on a $300 sailboat with an attitude. It was so funny, so I wrote him asking why he had not continued to post essays/adventures to his blog? And I just kept bugging him so that when he resumed writing I just kept bugging him some more and some more. So, he has his first book out, writes for two prestigious magazines and I am as proud as if I were his mom. Who I do NOT know but Tom assures me is nothing like me. The book is funny, even if you don’t like boats particularly, it features a crew of mutinous raspberry Newtons and a boat that is a smart…. and insolent craft.
And all the adventures really happened because I have known the author through all of them.
And Ghost, I can’t believe I made you blush! Someone else did that this week in person.
Giving up and going to bed with a book I hope.
Love, Jackie
I wonder if it is still permissible to have a discriminating palate.
Actually, I seem to have been born without either a blushing gland or an embarrassment gene.
No! No! Not that you cannot, but that you beat me to this by posting it first!
I read the entire article thinking about that and waiting to post it and you got here first!
That was really, really good and thank you Trucker. I can see I should either apologize to Arkansas or subscribe to Jewish World Review.
I have had a discriminating palate my entire life and am unapologetic.
Love, Jackie
If you snooze, you lose, babe. 🙂
Ha! Roosevelt mentions as an outstanding soldier one of the few in his regiment from Lousiana, a “John McIlhenny”, who of course was John Avery McIlhenny, son of Edmund McIlhenny. He took over the McIlhenny Company at Avery Island upon his father’s death in 1890, and ran it until 1898 when he resigned to join the Rough Riders.
sand, when you were doctoring C-rats with Tabasco Sauce, I’ll bet you didn’t know it might not have existed if not for a fellow mudfoot.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/41/Jamcilhenny2.jpg
Lost mom one year ago today. Doesn’t seem possible.
I know the feeling, Lady Mindy.