About six stories from “Working Through the Holocaust” have been cyberspaced and two of them have been accepted for publication. Always exciting, is it not? to have stories published by online magazines, in this instance, before publication as a collection — I am much pleased. I still need to be testified, recognized, attested to — that kid can write. Oh, how I love that little boy within. Both accepted stories are my foray into the bizarre but apparently they do work. When my unconscious breaks through and grabs my hands and directs them to compose I know I am writing very good stuff. And when my unconscious speaks, writing simply flows; channeling, I suppose. As I work through the approximately twenty-four stories and poems I continually find errors which I filter out until I once more go through the whole lot again. Alas, the stories, et al are frozen now and it would take a hammer and chisel for me to rewrite them. That is not good, for it is structural arthritis, but a part of me wearies of it all. And I am an ornery cuss, wanting things my way and since I will self-publish all this it is mine to mess with. I have long since removed myself from the fray, the commercial slaughterhouse. I work real hard on not partaking of the nonsense, of this polluted world. I will soon enough be gone and as avidly remembered as a French peasant from 1389. Not so much as a monsieur before my name.
FLASH: A few minutes ago I came across a comment on a writer’s site by the poet and writer of all things diverse, Richard Kostelanetz. Apparently he was cleaning out his garage and came across a booklet of poems and sayings written by teenagers that I edited and produced as the head of an alternative school in the mid 70s. I sent him a copy because I felt, I imagine, as a poet he would be receptive. Wondering at the mention of my name after I had commented on something, he wrote if I had forwarded that small mag to him. He said that it was “very special.” He remembered, how thoughtful. We’ve both aged after 33 years but what a curious yet wonderful sentiment in all that. At that time he was an accomplished writer and I was a struggling pipsqueak; over the years I was quite taken by how much he created and produced, quite fecund as an artist.
All these years have passed by, years in which I struggled to learn my craft auto-didadactedly; painful years. And what I have learned, that heel end of a good Jewish rye with the union label on its butt, is really not much. Awareness is like a fine watch’s oil; it’s there but unseen, makes the timepiece run, that’s all. So now I write to stave off dementia, to solely please my sense of what it is or is not important to say, first, to myself and then to the reader. I surely believe that all I really need is about 10-15 people who have read my efforts and who appreciate them to make me relatively content. (And where are you?) I am so lucky to have worked on myself many decades ago so that I would not spend my writing “career” sucking up. This kind of narcissism, this variant of grandiosity is to my liking. Writing is not the most important thing in my life, for it is essentially my philosophical dialoguing with my inner self in an ongoing journey into some kind of self-awareness, some kind of authenticity. It is my I AMness, to be existential about it.
Essentially, as I reflect, my life has been the gradual and often very slow and inarticulate emergence of a self. I was behiind the tortoise in that race. I am still in recovery from having lived these years and the insights allowed me and the remorse and regrets I feel, especially about a deceased daughter, a personal sciatica that I will never recover from; however, I am deconditioned enough, having worked on that for decades, through therapy, reading ( Krishnamurti), awakening and writing to myself by myself and for myself to have attained a measure of sanity, if that is the word. And, although I like the company of good people for good conversation, enjoy laughter and making others laugh, I am still leery of my fellow man, quite the destructive beast. I have no expectations of others for they cannot ever meet them. What solace I arrive at is in my writing, for it is here that I console myself, express myself, see the world only through my eyes free of mercantile interests. To wit, Sarah Palin represents the very best of America — seriously! Ain’t that the truth. Betcha!
By the time I croak and return to carbon and other detritus, perhaps I’ll have 3 to 4 books on the shelf. Perhaps my children will read them or keep them or pay no mind to them, for I will have been remaindered like most books in a local library. It is all for nought; that is its destiny; what is not for nought is the elan vital that brings literature about. I ask my children not to come to the grave but to carry me in memory and what I have or have not achieved, first, as a father, secondly, as a writer. The rest is bullshit.
Slowly, Surely, Maybe Authentically
About six stories from “Working Through the Holocaust” have been cyberspaced and two of them have been accepted for publication. Always exciting, is it not? to have stories published by online magazines, in this instance, before publication as a collection — I am much pleased. I still need to be testified, recognized, attested to — that kid can write. Oh, how I love that little boy within. Both accepted stories are my foray into the bizarre but apparently they do work. When my unconscious breaks through and grabs my hands and directs them to compose I know I am writing very good stuff. And when my unconscious speaks, writing simply flows; channeling, I suppose. As I work through the approximately twenty-four stories and poems I continually find errors which I filter out until I once more go through the whole lot again. Alas, the stories, et al are frozen now and it would take a hammer and chisel for me to rewrite them. That is not good, for it is structural arthritis, but a part of me wearies of it all. And I am an ornery cuss, wanting things my way and since I will self-publish all this it is mine to mess with. I have long since removed myself from the fray, the commercial slaughterhouse. I work real hard on not partaking of the nonsense, of this polluted world. I will soon enough be gone and as avidly remembered as a French peasant from 1389. Not so much as a monsieur before my name.
FLASH: A few minutes ago I came across a comment on a writer’s site by the poet and writer of all things diverse, Richard Kostelanetz. Apparently he was cleaning out his garage and came across a booklet of poems and sayings written by teenagers that I edited and produced as the head of an alternative school in the mid 70s. I sent him a copy because I felt, I imagine, as a poet he would be receptive. Wondering at the mention of my name after I had commented on something, he wrote if I had forwarded that small mag to him. He said that it was “very special.” He remembered, how thoughtful. We’ve both aged after 33 years but what a curious yet wonderful sentiment in all that. At that time he was an accomplished writer and I was a struggling pipsqueak; over the years I was quite taken by how much he created and produced, quite fecund as an artist.
All these years have passed by, years in which I struggled to learn my craft auto-didadactedly; painful years. And what I have learned, that heel end of a good Jewish rye with the union label on its butt, is really not much. Awareness is like a fine watch’s oil; it’s there but unseen, makes the timepiece run, that’s all. So now I write to stave off dementia, to solely please my sense of what it is or is not important to say, first, to myself and then to the reader. I surely believe that all I really need is about 10-15 people who have read my efforts and who appreciate them to make me relatively content. (And where are you?) I am so lucky to have worked on myself many decades ago so that I would not spend my writing “career” sucking up. This kind of narcissism, this variant of grandiosity is to my liking. Writing is not the most important thing in my life, for it is essentially my philosophical dialoguing with my inner self in an ongoing journey into some kind of self-awareness, some kind of authenticity. It is my I AMness, to be existential about it.
Essentially, as I reflect, my life has been the gradual and often very slow and inarticulate emergence of a self. I was behiind the tortoise in that race. I am still in recovery from having lived these years and the insights allowed me and the remorse and regrets I feel, especially about a deceased daughter, a personal sciatica that I will never recover from; however, I am deconditioned enough, having worked on that for decades, through therapy, reading ( Krishnamurti), awakening and writing to myself by myself and for myself to have attained a measure of sanity, if that is the word. And, although I like the company of good people for good conversation, enjoy laughter and making others laugh, I am still leery of my fellow man, quite the destructive beast. I have no expectations of others for they cannot ever meet them. What solace I arrive at is in my writing, for it is here that I console myself, express myself, see the world only through my eyes free of mercantile interests. To wit, Sarah Palin represents the very best of America — seriously! Ain’t that the truth. Betcha!
By the time I croak and return to carbon and other detritus, perhaps I’ll have 3 to 4 books on the shelf. Perhaps my children will read them or keep them or pay no mind to them, for I will have been remaindered like most books in a local library. It is all for nought; that is its destiny; what is not for nought is the elan vital that brings literature about. I ask my children not to come to the grave but to carry me in memory and what I have or have not achieved, first, as a father, secondly, as a writer. The rest is bullshit.