Goines On: Smudging the ink

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Goines rarely read the printed The New Yorker magazine, and even more rarely on the same day as the date on its cover. But today was different, and in the “Cartoon Takeover” issue he recognized himself in John Updike’s personal history, “Lost Art: What the author wanted to do before he decided to become a writer,” reprinted from December 15, 1997:

All Over the Place: New Year resolutions

These are your New Year resolutions, seriously

By Michael H. Brownstein





Open the window – smell the sweet sweat of sunshine.
Step to the curb – the trees flower within glitters of light.
Take a walk – everywhere the busy dance of squirrel and
Rabbit, vole and robin, ground hog and garden snake.
Do you not see the deer with its doe? The raccoon with its kits?

The Loneliest Liberal: Old years end, new years begin

By James Knudsen

It is that time of year. It is the holiday season, the end of another year, the beginning of a new one. All around us, we see signs of time’s passage. Christmas Day, 2019, I am passing by a field, scanning it for signs of wildlife. Perhaps a squirrel is scurrying about. Is there a hawk watching from a phone pole? For most of this planet’s creatures, Christmas Day is just another day. But for those raised among the traditions of Christmas, it is a day filled with memories. If Christmas is not your tradition, winter has similarly important occasions to celebrate and reflect on. Twenty-eight days from now, The Year of the Rat begins. Humans, unlike the finned, feathered, and furred creatures we share this planet with, know that time is, depending on your perspective, passing, elapsing, creeping, or hurtling along.

Goines On: Self-talking

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Goines had recently recommended night-time affirmations, or auto-suggestions, to his friend Lane, who was plagued almost every morning by a morass of dark and troubling thoughts. Such auto-suggestions (or self-commands) had helped Goines avoid that same sort of morass, time and time again, for years, whenever Goines felt the need. And it helped Goines think of solutions to problems as well. The “trick” was simply to convince himself (his subconscious, although he wasn’t exactly sure what that was) that it would do whatever might be necessary to wake him up in a good, or “positive” frame of mind, or to come up with an idea.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [29]

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Chapter 29. War

1898. The Spanish-American War. Col. Theodore Roosevelt recruits volunteers and forms the Cowboy Cavalry, later to be known as the Rough Riders.

Jesús Jaudon heard that volunteers were needed to fight a war and a training base was opening in San Antonio. He had been trying to decide what he should do. He consulted Rafael about joining, but got little help, mainly because he could tell Rafael didn’t want him to go.

A little painting for Christmas

Painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett

[Editor’s Note: Originally appeared on December 28, 2016, along with three other little paintings for Christmas. All four can be seen here.]

Here is the third of four little paintings Shirley created as gifts for Christmas 2016.

A Quiet Saturday Night (Part 3 of a short story)

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

After returning home from shopping, unpacking, and having a late dinner, she put their son to bed while her husband tended to their cats. Then he sat at the dining table for his evening shot of whiskey.
    She came out of their son’s room and sat across from him.
    “Scotch?” she asked. “You know I hate the way that makes you smell.”
    “Yes, I do. That’s why I’m having a shot of mezcal instead. Sombra. It’s the best.”
    “So, after what happened tonight, you actually think I might let you close enough to me that I could smell what you are drinking?”
    “I always have high hopes.”

Goines On: Library due notice

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The local library’s due notice was addressed to Goines as “Dr. Goines,” at sight of which he grinned, pleased that he seemed to be highly regarded locally, at least in book circles. “Please note,” the notice said, “the due date on the following items…Machines like me: and people like you / Ian McEwan.”

All Over the Place: For Hanukkah and for Christmas

By Michael H. Brownstein

Because years later, we celebrate the Festival of Lights

Do you see the lights in the distance?
The fog erased outline of our treasure?
We are not comfortable with what you did to the Name.

Late afternoon, a spit of sun, sand,
A triumph after the last bloodletting.
Where do we need to go from here?

Happy Birthday

To all good people
born on December 21

By Moristotle

Because today is the birthday of my son, Contributing Editor Geoffrey Dean, I would like to dedicate today’s publication of poet Bob Boldt’s “Caruso in Honduras” to him and to all other good people born on this date, in whatever year.
    Honored individuals (and everyone else, good or bad): don’t deprive yourselves of the joy of reading Bob’s poem and watching and, especially, of listening to his video performance and the video performances of Luciano Pavarotti & Lucio Dalla and Andrea Giuffredi.

Boldt Words & Images: Caruso in Honduras

By Bob Boldt














A couple stands by the wind-blown bus sign.
His chin, still fuzzy, merely a boy,
an unstrung guitar string hanging there.
With three strings he begins his song.

Boldt Words & Images: Gate of Ivory Gate of Horn (a poem revised)

(“Glad I was Chicago born”)

By Bob Boldt

[Editor’s Note: Earlier version appeared on November 16.]

For Deborah, whom I knew long before we met. A famous Yogi (I think it was Yogi Berra) once said, “Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.” What started out as a love poem to the past turned into a love poem to my ex-wife...To be read over music background:

It’s 1954. Dearborn and State. Gate of Horn Saturday night.

My best friend, Tom Clemens to my right, and to the left of me,
standing at the bar, Roger McGuinn¹.
I have no idea who he is, just another pair of ears listening:
                        “That old Bilbao moon,
                        I won’t forget it soon.
                        Just like a big balloon.”²

Goines On: Geometry lesson

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A more intellectual subject that morning of the buzzing topics made relatively little sound in Goines’ mind. Maybe it just resonated the buzz of the other topics. This one was how to configure a geometrical model to represent an individual consciousness or world view relative to other people’s consciousnesses.
    A circle would represent an individual world, its center point standing for that individual’s consciousness, or perspective. Most circles did not touch, because any given person of the billions on the planet knew only a few other people. Some circles only grazed one another, representing people who may only have seen each other in a parking lot or checkout lane and paid each other no more mind.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [28]

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Chapter 28. Rodrigo Family

Things were going well for Ricardo. He had hired the company that J.W. Hankins used to drill his three dry wells and hid the entire thing through a fake corporation in New Hampshire. His three wells in Corsicana were top producers. His import/export business was doing better than he had ever hoped, as were his other investments. After the snowstorm of ’85, he foreclosed on two well sites whose owners couldn’t make their payments, and he now had five wells pumping oil. Claude had picked up four more wells and was now pumping seven.

Mary’s Voice: Posthumously Speaking 17

Detail

Back in the country

By Mary Alice Condley (1925-2007)

[Editor’s Note: I am grateful for the second time in a row to Mary’s & my niece Dawn Stella Story Burke, daughter of our sister Flo Elowee, for sharing two more paintings by Mary that Dawn acquired after Flo went into a nursing home. These show Mary again in her beloved countryside.]

A Quiet Saturday Night (Part 2 of a short story)

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

And so they went from the Builders Depot parking lot to wander Lots of Stuff. And she looked at aisles of curtains, and rugs, and her son looked at toy cars, and finally chose four he deemed worthy of some of his birthday money. And then her son and husband went to the back of the store, to look for a solar-powered light with a stout steel stake that she had seen in an ad. She went the opposite way, for toiletry organizers and a new rug for the bathroom.

Goines On: Getting to agreeing to disagree

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Goines’ relative who slipped an evangelical pamphlet in with his Christmas card refused at first to discuss politics with Goines. Curbe (his name was pronounced the same as Kirby) insisted at first that they would just have to “agree to disagree.” But Goines nevertheless managed to engage Curbe in more than a dozen email exchanges in which they told each other their primary political principles. Perhaps surprisingly – and reassuringly, for the sake of family relations – they seemed to pretty much agree on the ones they actually discussed:

All Over the Place: Fire in the study

By Michael H. Brownstein

The ending is not always simple:
one day you wake to sunlight,
the next day you go berserk.
Please, do be a stranger.

Poetry & Portraits: Rival

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Rival
By Eric Meub

Why must my solitude expire so soon?
Right through the velvet sleeve of afternoon,
Through flourishes of leaves, the tires arrive
To sweep across the asphalt of the drive

Goines On: The magic “ha! ha! ha!”

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While Goines craned his neck back to squeeze artificial tears into his eyes, he became aware that, with each breath, he was emitting a barely audible “ah” sound. The repetition of “ahs” put him in mind of Philip Glass’s glorious music in the final act of Akhnaten, which he and Mrs. Goines had gotten to listen to on the car radio four days earlier, as they drove home from another foray of theater-broadcast opera in Chapel Hill. Saturday’s opera hadn’t been live, but a recording of the Met’s premier live broadcast from 2006, of Julie Taymor’s abridgment of Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [27]

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Chapter 27. Oil Wells

By 1895, Claude’s office was running like a fine clock. For his Finance Administrator, he had hired Gerald Whitney from a firm in Chicago. Warren Townson was his Office Manager, and Jeffrey Wright had sold his real estate business and gone to work for Claude as Project Manager.
    Cornell Stevens, his gofor, went back and forth between Houston and Corsicana. At first a few places tried to turn Cornell away because of the color of his skin, but Claude had a way of making it clear that Cornell would be welcomed or there would be payback.

Mary’s Voice: Posthumously Speaking 16

Detail

Still life

By Mary Alice Condley (1925-2007)

[Editor’s Note: I am grateful to Mary’s niece Dawn Stella Story Burke, only daughter of our sister Flo Elowee, for sharing these four still-life paintings by Mary, which Dawn inherited from Flo when her frailty required that she be moved to a nursing home. (Flo’s husband, William Don Story, had died the year before. I remember him well; he taught me as a young teenager how to drive, shave, & tie a double Windsor knot.) These still lifes are so peaceful and eternal, I feel that Mary must have been especially at home with the close-at-hand.]

A Quiet Saturday Night (Part 1 of a short story)

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

“There’s just nothing good about 36-degree rain.” That was what the man thought, as they left Builders Depot with their two gallons of paint and trudged through the dark parking lot toward their car. “Enjoying your birthday?” he asked, glancing at his wife with what he meant as a smile but realized too late was likely a smirk.

Goines On: Empathy or hope?

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As Goines pushed the shopping cart toward his car, a woman perhaps in her 20-somethings crossed his path, on her way to Walmart’s entrance. His surge of compassion for the woman was immediate and involuntary, but somehow different from previous such experiences. Goines wondered what was “extra” about this one. The woman was not strikingly different from hundreds of other strangers. Instantly the idea emerged that his sympathy for the woman might not derive solely from his empathy for her, but also derive from his empathy with her circle of acquaintances, as though he loved her through her husband’s eyes, her mother’s, her family’s.

All Over the Place: A time of endearment

By Michael H. Brownstein



1
A blanch of stain, November,
leaf wrinkles to old skin,
wind trails into smoke,
everywhere a crust of sand.

Mary’s Voice: Posthumously Speaking 15

Detail of lighthouse painting

From field to shore

By Mary Alice Condley (1925-2007)

[Editor’s Note: I am grateful to Mary’s & my nephew Bruce Story, eldest offspring of our sister Flo Elowee, for sharing these three paintings by Mary. Her love of simple, traditional things sings sweetly through them.]

Goines On: Taking on characters

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Goines imagined that his friend Zen, who was working on a sort of experimentally complex novel, thought that his editor was crazy. How could the guy think, Goines imagined Zen thinking, that Zen wanted his story to be difficult for his reader to follow? Couldn’t he see that Zen just didn’t know how to say clearly what he was trying to convey? Zen didn’t think it, but Goines did, that the editor had actually realized this, too, finally, but without sensing that Zen himself had already begun to articulate it. Shit, thought Zen, thought Goines, where does the fucking artificer of this narrative get off thinking he can say what I’m thinking, or what my editor is thinking, or when we think it, who first and who second, who before whom? I can read Wayne Booth, too, he knows. Goines felt perhaps overly pleased with himself to have thought all of this.

Copyright © 2019 by Moristotle

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [26]

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Chapter 26. The Oil Game

Claude took a suite at the Royal Houston Hotel on the main street of town. He had a bedroom and a sitting room, and a private bath with a large tub and running water. He had a desk moved in and one of the new fancy telephones for his desk. There was yet to be any long-distance calling, but most businesses in downtown Houston were now hooked into the switchboard exchange. His first call was to Ricardo. “This is Claude. Did you get the men out doing their jobs?”
    All lines in town were party lines, so the business conversations had to be somewhat in code. “I contacted them and they are on the job. Where are you?”

Goines On: Trumpeteristics

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The moral insult that is Donald Trump couldn’t fail to cut Goines’ mind like a buzz saw. How could one credibly explain the rise of such a man to become President of the United States? When this question arose anew recently, Goines thought he might have a new twist on an idea of more than a year ago, when he had realized that traces of each one of Trump’s numerous character flaws could be found in most people, even a few of them in Goines himself.

All Over the Place: Three haikus, of fog, flood, & dust

By Michael H. Brownstein

fog...
snowbound piers
a mirage of ghosts

sudden flood
light
leaps into sky

volcanic dust...
the river
skin disease and warts

Copyright © 2019 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively.

Goines On: Up and down with Akhnaten

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Goines wasn’t an opera buff, but he much enjoyed the live HD broadcast of a NY Metropolitan Opera performance for which he and Mrs. Goines had driven to a Chapel Hill movie theater over the weekend. The Met had performed Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, its musical score so “different,” even professional opera reviewers might feel challenged to rise to the occasion. So, what could Goines possibly say? What would he even title a review?

Thanksgiving Special

How our Thanksgiving goose got cooked

By Pam Palmer

[Editor’s Note: Originally published on July 20, 2013 as a Third Saturday Fiction. Sharing this wonderful story by Pam Palmer at Thanksgiving has become a tradition of Moristotle & Co., and we are grateful to Susan C. Price, in her execution of Ms. Palmer’s estate, for conveying the story to us, and for her wry stories about her friend.]

“We should have roast goose for Thanksgiving,” Martin said.
    It was 1976, and David, my husband, and I had just bought a house across the street from our long-time friends, Martin and Joan. Two weeks after we moved into the house, David left for a six-month stint on a research ship in the Antarctic. It would be my first Thanksgiving in my first house and I felt overwhelmed. Of course, I could go to my in-laws’ house but it was a long drive from Long Beach to Mission Viejo by myself. My parents were going to the desert so having dinner with them was not possible.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [25]

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Chapter 25. The Ranch

Claude made it home in about the time it would have taken riding a horse. And driving the automobile was hard work and quickly became tiresome on the long trip from Houston. He planned to go back to Houston the next day, but it would be by train.
    He parked in front of the house and everybody came running out to see the new automobile. James said, “I hope you didn’t trade my horse for that damn contraption.”

Second novel in edRogers’ BODY COUNT series now available

By Moristotle

BODY COUNT: Roatán was published this weekend on Amazon. The story begins with Blake Harris’ team on their way to the paradise Island of Roatán, Honduras, for a well-earned vacation after their successes recounted in BODY COUNT: Killers, the first novel in the series. The island may provide a backdrop of mountain jungles and the clear, warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, but, as with most paradises, Roatán also has a snake, and Blake sees the pattern of a serial killer. The vacation turns into much more than hanging around the pool and diving on the reefs.

Goines On: Found haiku

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Goines walked home from the gym along the road that led to the Japanese candy manufacturing plant. He guessed that destination explained one item of litter among the many that disrespected the roadsides, its identity a gift for verse:

    crumpled box along the road
    proclaims its contents
    “Hi-Chew”

Copyright © 2019 by Moristotle

All Over the Place: May your days fill themselves with wonder

By Michael H. Brownstein











May your crosswalk always say brilliant at the light
May the wind at your back always be full of warmth,
May you always find a ripe apple on a tree by your home
And thick groves of dandelion greens along your bushes,
May you always find a beauty in love, a fullness of joy,
A grand bouquet of gratitude and balloons of happiness,
May you always walk with your eye on the possibility
And your thoughts on creativity and everything good,

The Loneliest Liberal: The only thing trickling down is billionaire tears

By James Knudsen

What I know about economics would probably fit in a thimble, with room to spare. Still, it doesn’t take a genius to figure some things out. What follows are some of those things.

Goines On: Mind abuzz

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Goines’ mind was buzzing with topics beckoning him to explore. The tumult struck a chord almost sexual in its pleasure, so alive, so invigorating, so thrusting with energy. He began to take notes, so as to know where to start when he had quiet to explore the topics singly.
    The loudest buzz seemed to resound around the question how women are treated. Mrs. Goines had quoted a review of a book about the first women admitted to Yale College as undergraduates (in 1969). One professor wrote at the top of a female student’s paper, “Not bad for a woman.” Goines found this appalling and felt a deep need to explore the issue, maybe to atone.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [24]

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Chapter 24. Ricardo

The door closed behind Claude, and Ricardo drank the last of the cognac in his glass. He smiled and walked to the bar to refill his glass. Claude’s cognac had been gone a long time back. This was from Ricardo’s private shipment. He had gone into business with an importer of fine wines and liquors, which at the time seemed foolish even to himself. However, he had underestimated the wealthy people of Houston. They had a hunger for the finer things in life. Nothing said, Look at me, see how rich I am, better than a fine French wine or champagne.
    Ricardo had been expecting Claude. He knew J.F. couldn’t overlook a lawsuit, and it had gotten the reaction he wanted. But he had to admit, the twenty-five percent interest in the drilling company had come as a surprise. Neither J.F. nor Claude understood banking or how money was moved around, because if they did the last thing they would have done was put a man they had just tried to fuck over in charge of their finances.

Goines On: “Oh God!”

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For almost a week after Goines’ reflections on Maslow’s plateaus and peaks, he felt as though he needed to, or should, abstain from climbing peaks. He wasn’t sure why he felt that way, but he supposed he would come to understand it at some point. In any case, a few days later, he felt released from the injunction and decided to test the feeling by sneaking a piece of chocolate before the evening hour during which he and Mrs. Goines routinely had a couple of rectangles from a giant bar of Hershey’s milk chocolate. He was relieved to discover that he seemed to be up again to scaling the peak that chocolate had come to represent for him.

All Over the Place: My International Teacher of the Year

By Michael H. Brownstein









For Frank Christenson, deceased 2019

He was the blinding light that never blinded,
the rough edge of emerald within a river polished aquamarine.
How do you teach students from a place you have never been?
Study the methods of Frank, the dynamics in his voice,
his dramatic gestures, his power to engage.
He had a way with the bricks of learning;
he was the clay that created confident, proactive learners.

Can an inner-city classroom perform King Lear from memory, sets and all?

He took his students to that height and then further.
Chekhov, Beckett, Molière, Hansberry.
His drama club was the drama club of his students,
middle schoolers, actors and directors, writers and producers.

Boldt Words & Images: Gate of Ivory Gate of Horn (a poem)

(“Glad I was Chicago born”)

By Bob Boldt

For Deborah, whom I knew long before we met

To be read over music background:

It’s 1954. Dearborn and State. Gate of Horn Saturday night. My best friend, Tom Clemens to my right
and to the left of me, standing at the bar,
Roger McGuinn¹. I have no idea who he is, just another pair of listening ears...
“That old Bilbao moon, I won’t forget it soon...
Just like a big balloon.”²

Boldt Words & Images: Gate of Ivory Gate of Horn (a poem revised)

(“Glad I was Chicago born”)

By Bob Boldt

It’s 1954 Dearborn and State. Gate of Horn Saturday night. My best

friend Tom Clemens to my right, and to the left of me, standing at the

bar, Roger McGuinn. I have no idea who he is, just another pair of

ears listening...That old Bilbao moon, I won’t forget it soon
“That old Bilbao moon, just like a big balloon,
That old Bilbao moon would rise above the dune.

Goines On: Butterfly, fly

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The butterfly Goines had seen bedded down the previous evening on the outside of the screen of his back porch was fluttering in the same area of the screen this morning. Goines wondered why it was fluttering against the screen like that, as though it wanted in? And he realized it wasn’t trying to get in, but get out. And it hadn’t been bedded down outside last night, but had probably just given up for then trying to get out. And now it must be thirsty and hungry and near desperation.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [23]

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Chapter 23. Oilmen

Unlike Ricardo, who looked upon the oil business as a banker, Claude saw the oil business through the eyes of an engineer. Ricardo wanted to know how to make money off it and Claude wanted to know how it worked.
    The drilling of wells wasn’t something new. The difference for Claude was that before it was for water, and now it was for black gold. The need for oil had increased since the Civil War. The country was growing and needed fuel to power it into the next century, a century where the car he saw at the World Fair would be commonplace upon the landscape of America. Claude saw the boom that was coming, and it made his blood race. Within a few months, he had a complete library of books dealing with oil drilling and refining.

Goines On: Lowlands

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Goines was struck by another point psychologist Maslow made, that a person can learn to enjoy sacral experiences almost at will. Goines’ own experience seemed to confirm or validate that. A person could obviously choose to listen to “Clare de Lune” whenever he wanted to. A person capable of compassion could open the faucet of his compassion rather than keep it closed. (Goines realized he was “thinking faucets” because he put away the garden hoses that morning and turned off the water to the outside faucets in preparation for the freezing nights ahead. And, now that he thought about it, that simple, seasonal chore had had its sacral aspect. How many seasons had Planet Earth experienced in its eons of rotating and revolving about the Sun?)

All Over the Place: First love

By Michael H. Brownstein




Let me take a break from this,
close my eyes,
and wander in the dark.

I sneak into the bedroom,
kiss her once on the forehead, softly,
twice on her bare shoulder so she will know.
When I wake,
the sun has kept its promise.
This is why I love.
Always a bridge over the river.
Always an apple pink afterglow reflects on tall glass.
Always a stream of brightness greens the dark Chicago River.

Copyright © 2019 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s latest volume of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else, was published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018.

Poetry & Portraits: Halo

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Halo
By Eric Meub

They say a halo marks the missing limb.
I’ve got one round the memory of him.
Yet how is it the phantom steals the show?
I never gave that branch a chance to grow.

Goines On: Plateaus and peaks

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Goines was struck by something he had read by psychologist Abraham Maslow about “sacral” experiences. Maslow distinguished between “plateau” experiences (noetic, or intellectual, cognitive) and “peak” experiences (emotional, climactic). Climactic – Goines supposed that included sexual ecstasy. Certainly orgasms were emotional, and peak – piercing and short-lived. And they involved physical arousal and release, which seemed much more related to emotions than to cognitions.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [22]

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Chapter 22. Au revoir Paree

In the summer of 1893, Claude, Dominique, who was with child, and their daughter, Donna, who would turn three on the 10th of November, passed the Statue of Liberty as their ship came into New York Harbor.
    It had been three long years since Claude had said good-bye to the Lady in the bay. He wiped an eye as a tear slid down his cheek. He hadn’t thought his homecoming would be so emotional.