Correspondence: Tricker tweeter

Edited by Moristotle

A significant number of your staff seem to fear the possibility that Trumpet Mouth might be elected [“Do you have a fear for the future? What is it?”]. I really don’t think that’s a realistic fear, given the stark choice between a competent, accomplished, dedicated, tested public servant and the egomaniacal disaster that is Donald Trump, of whom a prominent New Yorker last week said he knows a con when he sees one.

Fiction: Boystown: The Return (a novel)

Chapter 4. Pepe Espada

By edRogers

[Chapter 3 of Ed Rogers’s new novel appeared here on May 30. It is available in its entirety as a Kindle book.]

SURVEY: Tell us how you read & comment on Moristotle & Co.

To help us improve

By Moristotle

As a follow-up to yesterday’s announcement and our invitation for readers to join our community, we have designed a survey to collect reader feedback on your practice of reading & commenting on Moristotle & Co.

We are bringing back named recurring columns

Starting in August

By Moristotle

[Note: I’ve decided to refer to myself as “Moristotle.” That is, after all, who I am.]

We have decided to return to naming recurring columns in the sidebar^*. The reason is simple: a number of members of the staff confessed that they needed recurring columns to motivate them to write more things for the blog. And they cited a need for encouragement from me (some called it nagging) to get with it and submit something!

El Camino de Santiago, Part VI

Santiago on the horizon

By Valeria Idakieva

[Part V, “Mountain relief from the sweltering plain,” was published on July 12.]

A beautiful morning in the mountains invited me to savor the picturesque route.

Fear for family and motherhood

My greatest fear for the future

By Christa Dean

Just when, exactly, do you become a mother? Is it the moment you get that first positive pregnancy test? The moment of conception? When you hear the little one’s heartbeat or when you hold him or her in your arms for the first time?

Do you have a fear for the future? What is it?

Sharing our fears with others

Edited by Morris Dean

We recently asked the members of the staff of Moristotle & Co. whether they had a fear for the future, and, if so, what was it? Today we are sharing the responses we received.
    But we are also asking readers the same questions. And we hope that you will take the time to tell us. We wonder, for example, to what extent your fears are like ours. Please let us know.

Fear in time

Be here now

By Bob Boldt

Thinking about fear brings a whole series of ideas and impressions to mind. I invite you to follow me through the following disjointed ramblings. Because many critics have abused my writings, I do have a great fear that you may get lost or mistake my meaning.

The Loneliest Liberal: Primates in a panic

Scenes actual or created

By James Knudsen

For anyone who is interested, I still have two kittens available for adoption. They’re up to date on their shots, recently “altered,” playful, affectionate, and best of all, free. Cats have always been in the background of my life. As a child, my bedroom (and box-spring mattress) served as the nursery to a litter of four kittens. As an adult, cats with names like Jimmy, Mo, Gypsy, and Prince have been in my home or the homes of significant others.

Animals, funsters, and a certain impaler

From recent correspondence

Edited by Morris Dean

Wonderful nature pictures on rivermenrodandgunclub.com! But lots of them so only watch when you have lots of time.

Sad but uplifted

Richard Francis Burton,
by Rischgitz, 1864

Not that Richard Burton

By Morris Dean & Bob Boldt

Yesterday’s “Sad like Jesus” revealed some of the consolations offered me following the short-lived publication, on July 3, of “Misunderstood, disrespected, resented: A meditation on Jesus: Glad, mad, and sad.”
    Another interchange provided much-needed comic relief:

Sad like Jesus

Christ as the Man of Sorrows
by Luis de Morales

A meditation

By Morris Dean

Last month some “communication problems” (let’s call them) put me in touch with a feeling of over fifty years ago, when I identified with Jesus as the “man of sorrows.” An image also returned to me, or at least I assumed it was the private picture of Jesus I had in my head then.

Welcome Valeria Idakieva to the staff

By Morris Dean

With pleasure, we announce that Valeria Idakieva, the author of a series of articles about her trek across northern Spain along the El Camino de Santiago, has accepted our invitation to join our staff as a columnist. We have added an entry for her in the sidebar. Welcome, Valeria!

The RNC kicks off, and more

From recent correspondence

Edited by Morris Dean

Voters are about to be given the deciding say on the question whether Donald Trump’s ways make him a winner. Ironically, it is possible that a majority of voters will have been persuaded to say “yes” by the fact that Trump is not in prison for any of his many frauds, and he has, after all, apparently won the Republican Party’s nomination.

Frank O’Hara - The Last PI

Now available in paperback

By Morris Dean

D. Michael Pain’s novel, Frank O’Hara - The Last PI, has just been published in paperback and is available from Amazon. It is based imaginatively on Mike’s own professional experiences as a private investigator.

Chapter 13 of The Unmaking of the President (a novel)

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Farm

By W.M. Dean

[The novel is set in the 1970s of Watergate. Links to earlier chapters are provided at the bottom.]

El Camino de Santiago, Part V

Mountain relief from the sweltering plain

By Valeria Idakieva

[Part IV, “The Meseta,” was published on April 12.]

Early in the morning after the day dedicated to sightseeing in the glorious city of Leon, I said goodbye and buen camino to Bill, who had been walking with me for a few days and decided to walk a bit more slowly and then travel to Portugal where he was going to join a group from the USA.

Reminiscences of Canada’s National Parks in the Rockies

Achingly beautiful

By William Silveira

On June 1, my wife Marylin and I departed from Fresno for Toronto, Ontario to begin a 14-day “Canadian Train Odyssey.” I had been going to post a running account along the way from hotel computers, but when we arrived at Jasper, in the Canadian Rockies, I got locked out of my e-mail and left a crucial piece of paper by the hotel computer in my exasperation. So all I have now are these reminiscences.

Collection (a poem)

By Eric Meub
 







 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
e.e. cummings would have understood
Melissa’s rubber stamps as but a game
To fix one’s typographic neighborhood.

Bread & chocolate

From recent correspondence

Edited by Morris Dean

Today is World Chocolate Day. This Cadbury’s ad has been on TV a lot here. Nice music!

Another outing Down Under

I

Lunch at the fishing harbor

By Vic Midyett

Yesterday Shirley and I drove to an area of Fremantle that several years ago had some good restaurants. It’s where the Canning River and the Swan River meet. Sadly, high rise apartments and cycle tracks [bicycle lanes] had been built there, now eliminating what used to be good eating and good views.

Bye, bye, Boris & others

From recent correspondence

Edited by Morris Dean

Funny article on Boris Johnson as Blackadder’s dashing Lord Flashheart. Lots of good links that explain the social interactions of the British conservative grandees. It reads like the introduction to an Ian McEwan novel that, like Amsterdam or Saturday, makes fun of the English upper class. “Bye bye, Boris, the man who wouldn’t clear up his own mess” [Marina Hyde, Guardian, June 30] Excerpt: