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.