Wed 21 Nov 2018

Yourself

Posted by PJ under process, quote of the day, teachers, writers, writing
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Random quote of the day:

“You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.”

—Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) on writing, New York Times, May 21, 1986

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

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Tue 20 Nov 2018

Ephemera

Posted by PJ under ephemera, quote of the day, the past
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Random quote of the day:

“The past is best left to itself. I find that when it touches the present, it vanishes like a forgotten dream.”

—The Countess de Longvic, in Tahir Shah’s The Caliph’s House

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

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Mon 19 Nov 2018

Time

Posted by PJ under quote of the day, reason, right and wrong, time
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Random quote of the day:

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”

—Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

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Sun 18 Nov 2018

My hometown

Posted by PJ under venice
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Here’s a fascinating short documentary on my hometown, Venice, California. I grew up in the Oakwood section, the slum, before it became gentrified and precious. It was a great multicultural way to grow up and I’m immensely grateful for it. I miss it.

If you watch it, the tracking shot from A Touch of Evil was filmed about two blocks north of where my roommates and I lived in the 80s. And there’s a still shot of a ghetto child crouching near some railroad tracks in the Oakwood. I grew up about 3 blocks north of there.

I never felt “danger” until I left there.

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Fri 16 Nov 2018

Age

Posted by PJ under aging, art, quote of the day, youth
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Random quote of the day:

“Youth has no age.”

—Pablo Picasso, Pablo Picasso: What He Said by Narim Bender

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

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Thu 15 Nov 2018

Doubts

Posted by PJ under doubt, faith, quote of the day
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Random quote of the day:

“If you don’t have doubts, you’re kidding yourself, or asleep. Doubts are ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”

—Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

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Wed 14 Nov 2018

Style

Posted by PJ under quote of the day, style, voice, writing
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Random quote of the day:

“Style results more from what a person is than from what he knows.”

—E. B. White, The Paris Review, Issue 48, Fall 1969

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

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Tue 13 Nov 2018

Hell

Posted by PJ under hell, quote of the day, the self
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Random quote of the day:

“Each of us bears his own Hell.”

—Virgil, Aeneid, Book VI, Line 743

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

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Sun 11 Nov 2018

Armistice

Posted by PJ under birthdays, poetry, remembrance, war
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Some of ya’ll have seen these before, but today is the day for it.

 

Pixilated

Round and round like a crystal spinning,
my father’s stories stirred
the magic behind my eyes.
Pixilated—fairy-led—that’s what I was,
entranced by his wit,
a slave to my ears, learning
the proper way to tell a proper story.

Dad told many stories.
Some of them were even true.

At seventeen, he lied about his age,
enlisted in the Army to fight the Kaiser:
World War I, the Big Show, the adventure,
to show the Evil Hun
Yankee what-for over there.

“Saw action at Saint Mihel
and at the Ardogne Forest.”

That’s the only story I have
of the charnel house he fought through—
from his discharge papers of 1919,
fresh from the convalescent hospital,
recovering from the poison gas he’d tasted.

If I can hardly comprehend
that flesh of my flesh lived through
that ancient, distant conflict,
looking at me, I imagine,
he couldn’t quite fathom himself
that more than forty years on from that time,
he’d been given new life.

Dad told many stories.
Some of them were even true.

But he never spoke of that horror,
and when I queried of glorious battles,
as children like so much to do,
loquacious Dad broke into silence.
Shifting his eyes to the floor,
he’d mutter, “Enough, now.
You don’t want to hear about that.”

He’d turn the stories neatly
to French m’amselles, especially one
whose father had a cafe in Paris;
to the time he was a cook
on a fishing boat out of Juneau
and the walls of water inside a gale
nearly sent them to the bottom;
or to the lightning strike which took out the boy
sitting next to him on a fence watching baseball . . .

Years after he died I learned the truth
of 1918, that horrible year of mud and carnage
I’ll never truly understand,
though I’ve heard other men’s stories
of sacrificed youth at a bloody altar,
seen grainy black and white photos and films,
peering anxiously at each young Yank,
hoping to see, hoping not to see
the child who would become my father.

Round and round swirled liquid in amber,
the whisky spinning in my father’s bottle,
hot on his lips, straight, no glass, burning
through to that space of not remembering.
Pixilated—demon-led—that’s what he was,
wandering a dark and lonely forest, mute,
trapped by his Celtic blood and all the blood
he’d seen, slave to memories which had no story.

PJ Thompson

 

And happy birthday, Auntie Maxine.

Maxine

Spring went screaming through the hills—
orange yellow green white purple—
dying to be noticed, all along the road
as we drove away from your sickbed.

“Life gives us clichés,” I said.
But the harsh comfort of spring remained.

The dark sky broke apart, the sun
muscled through, burning on the hills,
forcing on us the heartbreak of blue sky.

I want to believe you are in that sky.
I do believe you are in that sky,
or laughing in the hills you loved,
bare toes trailing clouds of wildflowers.

PJ Thompson

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Fri 9 Nov 2018

Booth to booth

Posted by PJ under heroes, quote of the day
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Random quote of the day:

“The trouble with super heroes is what to do between phone booths.”

—Ken Kesey, quoted by Wavy Gravy, The Telegraph, 6 November 2001

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

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