Mary’s Voice: Posthumously Speaking 20

Detail from “Autumn Hues”

Autumn Hues

By Mary Alice Condley
(1925-2007)

Editor’s Note: Today we present the first of the two of Mary Alice’s still lifes that were recently brought out of storage by her niece Dawn Stella Burke.
    But first a few words about Mary’s approach to painting, or her technique. My wife remembered Mary’s telling her that she always painted by copying other paintings – or pictures of other paintings, usually in books she owned or borrowed. That is, Mary did not paint from direct observation of the things represented. Mary’s daughter, Karen Abbey, whom I asked about Mary’s barn painting that we presented on January 23, told me:

From “The Scratching Post”: Sexual musings, Part 3

By Ken Marks

[Opening from the original on The Scratching Post, January 24, 2023, published here by permission of the author.]

In Part 2, I showed how skepticism and a commitment to reason undermined ancient authority and drove centuries of positive change. Notably, this upheaval included the recognition of women’s rights in all industrialized societies. It also included a recognition of the injustices done to people whose race, ethnicity, or sexual habits differed from the tribe they lived among. Of all these mistreated groups, women have fared best. Not only are they unquestioned members of the prevailing tribe, they are desired members as well. People who differ racially or ethnically are accepted into the prevailing tribe only after generations of assimilation. Their struggle for social justice has generally been upward but with painful reversals. People who are seen as sexually perverted have fared worst. A large number of the prevailing tribe see them as a threat. Many believe they prey on children and turn them into social deviants. Many judge them as unfit to be a parent, teacher, social worker, policeman, doctor, politician, or anyone obligated to model normative behavior.¹
    In the 1920s, while American women were celebrating their newly won right to vote, American gays were regularly harassed by the law. In New York state, for example, the legislature criminalized any behavior that looked like sexual solicitation between men. They called it “degenerate disorderly conduct,” or simply, “degeneracy.” The courts might impose a fine or 30 days in jail, but this was trivial compared to the possible loss of a job, a career, or a family’s love.
    In 1927, the New York state legislature struck again, prohibiting theater performances with queer characters, and in the 1930s, Hollywood studios agreed to a censorship code that forbade lesbian or gay characters, or even the “inference of sexual perversion.” In 1933, New York’s State Liquor Authority prohibited bars from employing gay people or even serving gay groups. During the Second World War, the federal government banned homosexuals from serving in the military, and after the war, it widened the ban to civilian federal agencies….
[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2023 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

All Over the Place: How Some of the Time the Money Is Easy (flash fiction)

By Michael H. Brownstein

When I moved into Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhood, I was not scared. A few miles from work, I walked every day. 2 AM, a knock on my window. Now I’m scared. Should I? Of course. I open the shade.
    “Last stop,” a shadow says. “Told you a white man lives here. Pay up.”
    Found him the next evening on a nearby stoop.
    “How much you make?” I asked.
    “Fifty-five bills. Why?”
    “Starting tonight make me the first stop on the tour. I’ll come out and greet your tourists. Just want ten bucks for my time.”
    The deal was done.

Copyright © 2023 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.

Acting Citizen: Boots off the Ground

By James Knudsen

I don’t post to Facebook frequently. On January 11 this year I posted the following brief message:

So 40 years ago today I stepped off a bus, stood on some yellow footprints, and got a free haircut.

Penny for Her Thoughts: New Millionaires Need Not Apply

By Penelope Griffiths

Anyone who has ever looked at much social media will have seen posts and videos from unknown people demonstrating something or other or showing you a new method to cook or clean or fix or whatever. You get my drift.

Fiction: Brunch(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

While speaking of splurging and the topic of champagne, Paula opined that brunch was the most exquisite form of splurge.
    Billy could not yet concur. “So many conflicting feelings about brunch!”
    Paula answered, “Not one single thing is ever simple with you,” shaking her head.

Hobnobbing with the Philosophers: WHOE

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Maik Strosahl




I belong to a group that shares photos and commentary about Abandoned Trains. I have used inspiration from here before as recently as my Broad Street Diamond post from back on November 2.
    A couple weeks back, Jason Whipp shared some photos of cabooses abandoned on a spur of the Walking Horse & Eastern line. I loved the name of the railroad and had to explore.

The Universe Is a Friendly Place

The “logo” for my
public speaking enterprise

A handout poem

By Moristotle

About 30 years ago, I got it into my head that I wanted to be, and could be, a public speaker. I joined Chapel Hill’s Toastmasters Club and participated in speech contests, a number of which I won. My wife and I drove to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, during the OJ Simpson trial (1995) so I could participate in the regional finals (I did not win this one).

Mary’s Voice: Posthumously Speaking 19

Detail from “The Barn”

The Barn

By Mary Alice Condley
(1925-2007)

Editor’s Note: I am grateful to my niece Dawn Stella Burke for bringing out of storage three recently discovered, previously unspoken paintings of my sister (Dawn’s aunt) Mary Alice Condley, of whom Dawn says, “She did so many wonderful paintings and other creative things, she was a great cook, and a lovely person.”
    We will share with you soon the two other paintings that Dawn Stella brought out of storage – still lifes of flowers.

“The Barn,” 16" x 20" (1986? – see numerals below signature)

Copyright © 2023 by Moristotle

All Over the Place: Ray Visits His Library (flash fiction)

By Michael H. Brownstein

I took Ray to his library on a bright and breezy day. He looked this way and that way, alert to the moment. He stopped a lot to sniff, as if he had to smell the roses. We walked over a mile. It took almost forty minutes.
    “How was the library?” my wife asked on our return.
    “Good,” I answered.
    “Yeah,” she replied. “He needed to get out and smell the roses.”
    Ray wagged his huge tail, shook his huge head, and barked with happiness.

Copyright © 2023 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.

Tempera (a sonnet)

By Eric Meub

We’re at the moment when the charming flirt

Becomes a god: one fingertip cavorts

With buttons at the bottom of my shirt,

The other with the zipper on your shorts.

But love’s too Botticellian for this.

Let’s pause our Primavera now, before

The dance-encircling Graces of our bliss

End up disheveled on the forest floor.

Announcing My Latest Romance Novel

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

Sometimes a character I’m writing about refuses to leave. In my previous romance novel, The Tangled Web of Love, Priscilla didn’t have a boyfriend. In the sequel, Love Finds a Way, she finds Randall.

    After I narrated their first meeting (see the excerpt below), I found I liked Randall and wanted to continue to write about him: he is illegitimate and poor and can’t pursue Priscilla. Love Finds a Way goes on to discover the two characters’ journey, which becomes the book’s major love story, with many disappointments and a final, romantic ending. Love finds a way.

Excerpt from
Love Finds a Way

Fiction: Billy Lets Go (a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

“No, love. I’m done praising the virtues of our freckled leguminous friends. Allow me just to add that adding a spoonful of vinegar to each bowl right before you serve the beans serves miraculously to solve the flatulence problem.”
    Paula knows this. “You’ve told me this same thing every time I ask you why you put vinegar in.”

Poetic Diversity

By Ken Marks


Last Sunday night I wrote my first poem in years. Its inspiration was an email from an old friend who said he couldn’t recall a single limerick that wasn’t risqué and asked whether I could. I didn’t want to leave him hungering for a limerick that wasn’t sexually suggestive, so I wrote one:

Quilting: One of My Passionate Hobbies

By Theresa E. Dow Saffold

When I decided to take up the art of quilting, my mind turned toward decorating my quilts with landscapes. After a bit of exploratory research, I realized it was going to be trial and error.

I’ll Let You Know (song lyrics)

By Roger Owens

The following lyrics should be read or spoken like a slow blues song, with pauses after each line.

I’ll get ’round to it
When I get time

But I never let nobody make up my mind.

But I will,
Yes I will,
Leave myself a reminder. Uh huh.
Until then...
I’ll let you know when.

All Over the Place: Going for Three out of Three (flash fiction)

By Michael H. Brownstein

Another heat stroke cataract construction day. We worked the skin burning field. Drank a lot of water. Sweated too much. When the clouds covered the sun, I was gladdened. The temperature dropped, a slight breeze erupted, and thick sheets of lightning stuttered across the sky.
    “Storm coming,” I said.
    “Nope, just heat lightning.”
    I didn’t believe them. When they told me about the pickle tree, the laugh was on them. The leaves did taste like pickles. And I did catch the skype—whatever the hell it is—but, yes, something did jump into my sack. I let it go, but I had it—probably.
    A storm was coming. I was hopeful.

Copyright © 2023 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.

From the Alwinac: 19th Century Cellists in the US: George Knoop (1797-1849)

[Click on image to
go directly to
the Alwinac’s home page]

[The Alwinac blog is part of the schroeder170 project, honoring the life and musical career of cellist Alwin Schroeder (1855-1928) and exploring the history of cello playing in the US.]

“If you would hear the very soul tell all its deepest, most inner feeling,
if you would listen to language as from another world and from some matured spirit in a more exalted and perfect state than here below,
go to hear Knoop.
You will feel as if he were drawing out of you your very soul.”

C. P. Cranch to Miss Julia Myers, April 11, 1842

in The Life and Letters of Christopher Pearse Cranch

Johann Georg Knoop (sometimes spelled Knop, 1797-1849) was a celebrated German cellist who spent the last decade of his life as one of the most highly regarded instrumental performers in the United States. Because his name was commonly abbreviated as G. Knoop, he is often confused with his younger brother Gustav Knoop (1805-?), also a cellist. Georg was born in Gottingen, may have studied with Romberg, and made his concert debut at the age of eight. in 1816 he succeeded Dotzauer’s teacher Johann Jakob Kriegk as first cellist in the Meiningen court orchestra. His first wife was Kriegk’s daughter Louise, and their cellist son Huldreich (1820-1898) played alongside Carl Ludwig Dotzauer in Spohr’s orchestra in Cassel. Georg and Gustav had six other siblings, including the Basel music publisher Ernest Knoop and Wilhelm Knoop, a violinist in the Meiningen orchestra. Their father Conrad Knoop was a Gottingen music dealer and teacher. (letter from Conrad Knop to Louis Spohr, March 28, 1822)
    In addition to his Meiningen duties, Georg Knoop toured as a soloist in Europe, performing to acclaim in Paris and London from 1833. He seems to have made regular appearances in England for several years, performing concertos at the Philharmonic concerts and earning the epithet “violoncellist to her Majesty.” (London Morning Post, July 14, 1835, p. 3) In the spring of 1835 Knoop was in direct competition with other leading cellists of the day, performing solos on the same concerts as A. F. Servais and Carl Schuberth. Of the Knoop/Schuberth play-off, the Morning Post wrote, “…both the violoncellists displayed great talent, particularly Mr. Knoop, in a Swiss divertimento, in which he introduced the harmonics with excellent effect.” (May 30, 1835, p. 3) Georg’s solos on another London concert were described as “both beautiful in style and extraordinary in execution.” Both Knoop and Servais were found “wanting that body of tone which no one except [London cellist Robert] Lindley has yet acquired, and which is necessary to fill a large space.” (Court Magazine and Belle Assemblee, October, 1835, p. 176) Knoop himself confided to Spohr that “My stay in London was not particularly pleasant, as the artists there placed many obstacles in my way….
_______________
Read on…on the Alwinac website itself….

Copyright © 2023 by Geoffrey Dean

Goines On: Birthday books

Click image for more vignettes

Goines was at first bewildered by the heft of The New Yale Book of Quotations that his son gave him for his 80^th birthday, along with a paperback volume of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Stephen Mitchell, who his son knew was Goines’ favorite.
    Upon extracting the Yale book from its thick fabric bag (which Goines assumed the publisher had clothed it in), Goines said he thought it must weigh two to three pounds. “Five,” said his son.

Fiction: One Lazy Day(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

One lazy night, after they’d lazed in bed all day and taken their properly cooked but previously frozen lasagna and a ring of shrimp with cocktail sauce into the den to dine while watching Happy Christmas, Paula asked whether Billy preferred traveling or staying at home. They’d already spent three years locked down at home, and this plague kept returning just when everyone began to act as if it were gone.

Hobnobbing with the Philosophers: Here Lies Officer Burnett

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Maik Strosahl

I love a good Spoon River poem. I have mentioned this type of poem before when dealing with the death of Stephen Foster (“Dear Friends and Gentle People,” November 10, 2021).
    Edgar Lee Masters created an entire history for the fictitious town of Spoon River, Illinois, with the voices rising from those resting in the cemetery. His poems expressed their regrets, humorous stories and greatest scandals.
    I have played with different variations on his themes. I find it is interesting to experiment with thoughts of what could haunt a ghost.

Goines On: His willed power

Click image for more vignettes

Goines didn’t celebrate Christmas for its religious significance. Thinking about his upbeat spirits one holiday morning, he saw that he did, though, celebrate Christmas for the people it brought to mind, from cards received, memories evoked.
    He acknowledged 2022’s particular contribution to be the spark provided him by his encounter with a certain “life coach,” whose gift of her book bore a touching inscription testifying that the encounter with him had sparked her too.

Happy 80th Birthday (a poem)

For Moristotle

Welcome to the other side of 80. 

The water is about the same,
but not as deep.

Life has been enjoyable,
and enlightening.

You know how they said
don’t burn your candle at both ends?
I think I’m on about my third candle.

Copyright © 2023 by Ed Rogers

All Over the Place: The House I Never Lived In

By Michael H. Brownstein

1.

The door in the wall led to an inner sanctum

and the path through the garden to a paved road

narrow and bent, through and over.

We took it, step by step, against ancient brownstone,

gray brick and rock, until the house
we never lived in became something distant.
We wandered away, sometimes not eating for days,
water a memory a week at a time, air the source
of everything living. Fifty years we walked:
We never made it back home.

Moristotle 80th Birthday Interview

Interviewed by Geoffrey Dean

I posed a number of probing questions to Moristotle recently. His answers give us new insights into his mind and heart, while on a lighter note, they also helped me figure out what to give him for his 80^th birthday tomorrow!

     Thanks to my sister, Jennifer, for taking the photos above.

What three (or more) words would you use to describe yourself?

Skeptical, optimistic, helpful. I’m surprised how easily those three words came, and how confident I am of them….No, those came too fast; they need qualification, elaboration.

On Franklin Hill Farm: Chicken House Blues

By Bettina Sperry

Slipping out the door, I always seem to walk more quietly when heading to the chicken house. There’s always a gathering of colorful eggs from my assortment of chickens, even here in winter. Some small, some average, and often a really large egg that sometimes contains two yolks. I relish the simple life here on my farm. It is where I gather in the quiet, escaping public chaos to appreciate days paced by Mother Nature for living slowly.

Fiction: I Have Seen the Past(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

Flick flick flick sounds.
    Frustrated, Paula screams, “I just need to light this one last ciggy. I just need it right now! “
    Here we are in the present.
    Click click click.

Hobnobbing with the Philosophers: The Old Folks Place

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Maik Strosahl

After 1915, a postcard made its way to many a mailbox in Russia. The picture was of a painting done by Isaak Brodsky titled “Fallen Leaves.”
    Isaak Brodsky was born of Jewish descent in what is now part of the Ukraine. One of his famous paintings, a portrait of Vladimir Lenin, actually bears an autograph by Lenin himself, as requested by the artist. The Russian leader is reported to have said, “I am signing to what I don’t agree with for the first time.”
    “Fallen Leaves” was painted in 1915 and came to my attention as a reproduction of one of those postcards that were mailed around the Russian landscape. It spoke of other abandoned homes I have enjoyed exploring, and I felt a story brewing inside that image, one that was asking me for words.
    Of course, I had to oblige.

For Jim Rix’s 80th Birthday (on January 15)

Jim’s Most 

Famous Column?

By Moristotle

Jim Rix’s wry, witty discourse on the Greek legend of Psyche and Eros, “Thirst Satyrday for Eros: Understanding Eros (subtitled ‘...merits ardent investigation’),” was published on Saturday, September 6, 2014. Over eight years later, on December 28, 2022, our administrative staff received a notice from Blogger unlike any other we had ever received in our almost 17 years of posting, to wit:

​Quartina in Orbital Harness (a poem)

Click image to visit the
Highland Park Poetry website

For Jennifer Dotson,
my adopted bosun

By Moristotle

When I republished the quartina “Love your enemies deciphered in quartina” on November 29, 2022, I also submitted it to poet Jennifer Dotson, the founder and program coordinator for Highland Park Poetry, up in Highland Park, Illinois, for possible publication. Jennifer promptly let me know that she would publish it.

All Over the Place: Finding an Inside/Out

By Michael H. Brownstein

Tried something different—a play on word rhythm and rhyme. Thought a bit of new and experimental would be a grand way to enter 2023.

Finding an Inside/Out

the poetics of Jung
swung
aesthetics/synthetics