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Red Willow Digital Press…And Will I Make It
About a week ago Chris O’Byrne, publisher, emailed me to say he would be “honored” to publish the manuscript he had in hand, “This Mobius Strip of Ifs,” an anthology/compilation of essays written over three decades. “Honored” stood out for me as that is not exactly publisher lingo. When I shared my surprise with him in a follow up note, he told me that my writing was “impressive.” So before any contract is signed I have been nourished as to my capacity as a writer. I had spent maybe a year going over the selection of the essays, proofing them,…
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Vintage
Jane has a mechanical mind. That’s not right. Her mind is Yankee. She can fix it. My mind says first read the manual . Jane’s mind says reach for it, it won’t bite. Jane’s mind has no fear or little of it; my mind sweats anxiety. In The Longest Day, I believe, Cornelius Ryan (I hope I have his name right) writes of the Allied infantrymen coming up against natural hedgehogs (defensive systems)in the French fields, or wildy overgrown growth made thickly of briar and bushes, impenetrable and a perfect place for the Nazis to install their machine guns and snipers. What to…
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Cotton Candy
Centuries ago I lived in Brighton Beach, then Manhattan Beach, two communities on the south shore of Brooklyn. If you took transit, a bus or the el above Brighton Beach Avenue, you would come to Coney Island, even then a soiled slut of an area. It could serve as a set for “Nightmare Alley.” Steeplechase Park was here as well as the dizzying spire of the parachute ride which still stands like a frozen, rusted Transformer. I rode that aerial ride in my teens and it was frightening; in those days you “sat” on a skimpy wooden plank with a chain across…
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Make Merry
I learned years ago from a gifted psychotherapist friend that one should make “merry.” I worked as a therapist in his counseling center in the early 90s. Occasionally I was informed that the staff would have a get together, the usually drinks, usual snacks and the usual suspects. When I asked what was the occasion, I was met with a shrug or what need is there to ask, just go with it, a remnant of the 60s. In fact, Ben did this for the entire staff for no reason other than to make merry, which I cherish till this day, a celebration…