I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


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Sunday, February 19, 2023

Every decision to read something

 

from this week in February 2008  (I was 63)

 

Every decision to read something

is a decision not to read something else

It is what makes books a wonder

or such a waste of time

what makes short stories or essays

economical investments

and some poems polished stones

 

Some readers are sprinters

words and phrases no more than cinders underfoot

ideas finish tapes to be broken through

records smashed into generalization

They think the author’s nuance

is their own deduction

Elementary my dear Watson a veritable primer

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