I was a mess. I could smile, say hello, pretend to be okay. I wasn’t okay. I was being squeezed by a depression so ferocious that I seriously began to consider ending my life. However… I had a problem. Every time I tried to compose a suicide note I ran into a wall when I asked myself: What if my suicide note sucks?
This is a daunting challenge for a writer. First I have to ask the question: why the note? Why are suicide notes such an institution? They seem de rigeur in the traditions of suicide. Gotta have a note. You can’t leave people wondering what happened to you. This colossal egotism is rampant: we all think we’re so important. The truth is that hardly anyone cares what happens to you. I suppose the note is for loved ones; but often enough in the case of suicide, there ARE no loved ones. Or there are loved ones who didn’t behave in the desired way.
We get attached to our lives. They’re like the suits in which we live and sometimes they get threadbare. Still, they’re OUR lives. It’s no easy thing to toss aside an entire life, the whole story of how you got to this point. A note is the least one can do to summarize the effort of living for X number of years. Of surviving. It takes toughness to survive. Clearly I wasn’t tough enough to make the grade. So, it’s goodbye to friends and relatives. Such as they are.
The effort of being conscious can be arduous. The problem is that Consciousness is hard to escape. The suicide is taking an awful chance. What if things don’t end with the bang of a gun or the sting of a razor? There might be something else in the market/bazaar of consciousness waiting on the other side of that decision. Wouldn’t that be ironic?
I spend many hours each day in a state of oblivion called sleep. Isn’t death much like sleep? Isn’t it just….oblivion? I have a hard time believing in oblivion as a paradigm. It is clearly not one of the dominant features of the universe. And, if it IS: who knows or cares? That was a sly joke. I hope someone gets it. Consciousness, on the other hand, is bound to pop up again. I will experience “I-ness” or “selfness” or some form of individual awareness. I might be reborn as a sea slug. Who knows what sea slugs think and feel? It would be boorish to dismiss them as unthinking automata. Life isn’t really like that. Consciousness is all over the place. This is why I refrained from killing myself. I’m pretty sure I’ll pop up somewhere else.
The note satisfied an urge to continue being myself in spite of the intention to stop being myself. I was so depressed that I thought I couldn’t endure it. Deep down, I didn’t believe I was capable of going through with suicide. I have too much ingrained optimism. I’ve always felt that problems might have solutions, if I just wait long enough.
Every time I began to write a note in my head I would say to myself, “You’re writing a suicide note in your head. Stop it!” I would stop. The urge would arise again during the day, and again, I would tell myself to stop. I had a problem, i.e. every suicide note that I authored was utterly terrible as literature. My notes were awful! They were filled with self pity, which I have never found to be attractive. Instead of murdering myself I decided to try an anti-depressant, Lexapro. Within a week my depression had lifted. It was amazing! The horrors simply vanished. Quickly.
I’m glad I didn’t commit suicide. Life has greatly improved. I dabble with the idea of stopping the Lexapro. But…. I don’t think so. I don’t EVER want to be visited by such black depression. I’m not naïve. These thoughts and feelings are still inside me, somewhere. There is TRUTH in depression. Living is complex and the world we are given is often intolerable. It’s possible that when I hide from things, they wind up at the top of my emotional in-basket. Do I need to test the limits of my courage? I’m not brave. I shrink from the worst case. I will let these sleeping dogs stay asleep.
In spite of my Inner Wuss I have survived and even come to thrive, lo, these many years. I’m just beginning to have fun. It’s about time. If my depression is like a hibernating bear I will squirt it with some drugs to keep it asleep.
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Arthur’s books include The Road Has Eyes, The Gods of the Gift, and Confessions of an Honest Man. His lifetime collection of poetry and photography, Feral Tenderness, is soon to be released by WordCrafter Press
Want to be sure not to miss any of Art’s “Mind Fields” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you find it interesting or just entertaining, please share.
2020 has been an difficult year for all of us as Covid 19 turned lives upside-down. Here at Writing to be Read and WordCrafter, we saw some great accomplishments, in spite of the fact that my genre theme schedule fell apart half-way through the year on the blog and content was a little more sporadic. I had to figure out how to adjust to my own “new normal”, which life changes brought my way, but they also led me to remember who I am. Now, I’ve analyzed and regrouped, and I’m ready to head into the new year with new ideas and projects.
WordCrafter’s 2020 Virtual Writing Conference
One of the biggest things for WordCrafter was the 2020 Stay in Place Virtual Writing Conference back in April. We ended up with twenty-two distinguished authors, offering live stream and video lectures, and interactive workshops and discussion panels, with free content for the Facebook event and a Zoom platform for the interactive stuff. We had a good turn-out with only a few glitches, and we’re preparing to do it again in 2021.
WordCrafter Press releases in 2020:
Ask the Authors
In April, the Ask the Authorswriting anthology was released after two years of compilation. This book is an ultimate writer’s reference with tips and advice from twenty-two authors, and it started right here, from a 2018 blog series of the same name. In November, the print edition of this book, (and all WordCrafter Press books), became available, as well.
Two of my own books were also released. Last Call and Other Short Fiction is a collection of my short stories, and my paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, is now available in print on Amazon, but the digital edition can be purchased through other retailers. In the coming year, I will have a story in the Where Spirits Linger anthology, and I’m working on a new book, The Outlaw and the Rockstar which I hope will be ready to release before the end of 2021.
Raise the Tide
WordCrafter Press‘ first stand alone author’s book was released in December, Raise the Tide, a devotional book by James Richards. We also look forward in anticipation to adding the January release of a massive poetry collection by Arthur Rosch, Feral Tenderness, to this list.
Feral Tenderness
Writing to be Read 2020:
We had some great guests on Writing to be Read. On “Chatting with the Pros”, my author guests featured Diana Raab, Amy Cecil, Cherokee Parks, L. Deni Colter, and Kevin J. Anderson. I’m hoping to transform this blog series into a podcast, which can be accessed through the blog, in the coming year, and I hope you all will join me there. Other authors interviewed in 2020 included Mark & Kym Todd, Jade C. Jamison, and Alan Dean Foster. The most viewed interview was with erotic romance author Nicky F. Grant. Interviews fell by the wayside along with the genre themes, but I’m planning to bring back author interviews for 2021, and I’m working on a new blog segment, “The Authors’ Covid Coffee Clache”, which will address issues of the pandemic specific to authors.
I was also honored to be a judge for the Writers of America’s Spur Awards and I reviewed my top six picks, and the winner of the western romance category, The Yeggman’s Apprentice, by C.K. Crigger. These were the best of the best, and I was honored to be given the opportunity to read and review them.
WordCrafter Book Blog Tours
Also, in 2021 Writing to be Read will be a host for the WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, so we’ll be keeping you up to date on several new releases as they come out. Robbie Cheadle will bring us a new blog series on nursery rhymes and fairytales, “Dark Origins”, and I plan to bring in a new series, “Writer at Work”, which will talk about different issues that writers face. Subscribe to this blog with one of the buttons in the upper right-hand corner to be sure not to miss this great new content or the tried and true content of continuing series on Writing to be Read in the coming year.
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Trevor Joyce made sure that the two hundred foot extension cord was securely fastened too the outlet in his garage. Carefully he measured out the length to the swimming pool. He walked with the plastic reel, paying out the line, around his Ferrari, past his Bentley, and when he came to the last of his car collection, the Silver Ghost Rolls Royce, he kicked the cord firmly under its rear tire so that it wedged there. Backing up the driveway, he tugged at the line, ensuring that it was firmly seated under the tire and would not come loose.
The driveway angled steeply upward under a line of cypress trees. From the top, Trevor could see the ocean and a big chunk of Malibu Canyon with its winding roads and private gated houses. He stopped and scratched at one of the tattoos on his right arm: it was the band tattoo, the famous one-eyed cat that rock fans instantly associate with the heavy metal group, Fish Store.
For eighteen years, Trevor had been the lead guitarist with Fish Store. As of last week, some snaggly little kid named Keewee Bonior was the lead guitarist with Fish Store. One by one, the old members were being squeezed out. Trevor had seen it coming; first it was the keyboard player, Pierce Holling. Okay, Pierce had lost three fingers in a car crash. But that was just a bullshit pretext for booting him out of the band. Pierce didn’t need ten fingers to play rock and roll. It was really the paunch and the wrinkles, that’s what it was all about. He just wasn’t fucking cute anymore.
The extension cord reached all the way to the hedge at the far end of the pool. Plenty of length for Trevor’s purposes. He wound it in long loops between his thumb and his elbow and returned to the garage, laying the cord carefully on the trunk of the Rolls Royce.
He went upstairs and got his favorite guitar and his little amplifier, the Boogie, the one he used for rehearsals, “the little screamer”, as he called it. The guitar was the pearl-inlaid Flying Vee, once owned by the late guitar legend Claxton Wanko. It had played many immortal rock hits in Claxton’s band. It had played “Eat My Heart Out”, “Work Me To The Bone”, it had played “Tough Love Tonight” and “Willng Pussy”. Trevor had bought it at auction for six thousand dollars in nineteen eighty five.
He gave it a little wipe with a polishing chamois, flipped it around on its strap button, inspected it from the top tuning peg to the green serial number etched into its bifurcated body. He hefted the guitar in one hand, the amp in the other, and returned to the garage. Trevor placed the guitar and amp carefully on the work bench that ran the length of the left hand side of the cavernous chamber. He returned to the interior of the house, walked up the soft purple carpet, past the billiard room and the theatre room to the master bedroom.
He went into Lynda’s bathroom; Lynda had been gone for weeks. She wasn’t coming back. There was nothing to indicate her eight years of residence in the house, but a hairbrush with a few wisps of blonde hair, a chunk of glycerine soap and a bottle of Jack Daniels, half empty. Trevor took a swig from the bottle, wiped his lips, then looked at his reflection in the mirror.
“The fuck,” he said, mumbling to himself. He splayed his fingers and ran them through his long, lanky, thinning black hair. “Kick me out of my own band ‘cause I’m going bald. I’m not going bald.” He could not, of course, see the round circle of flesh at the very top of his head, like a monk’s tonsure, from which his flowing locks seemed to emerge as if they were rivers running off some invisible glacial lake.
He took another swig from the bottle of whiskey and went across the bedroom to his own bathroom on the other side. He opened the medicine cabinet and took out a little sealed glass bottle shaped like a bell. Morphine Sulfate, Two Hundred Milligrams.
“That should do it,” he said, tapping the bottle with his fingernail. From one of the drawers he withdrew a rubber tourniquet and a twenty two gauge insulin syringe. He took these items back into the garage, and set them carefully next to his guitar and amp. He then got the end of the extension cord from atop the trunk of the Rolls and unwound enough of it to reach the work bench.
From the far corner of the double-doored garage, he pulled a blue plastic tarpaulin off his gleaming Harley Custom. The motorcycle stood there like a science fiction insect about to ingest some screaming prey. Its headlight was like the eye of a cyclops. Purple swirling paint swept in flames down to the One Eyed Cat logo painted on each side of the silver gas tank.
Trevor pushed it off its stand and wheeled it around his cars to the tool bench. There, he put it back on its stand and straddled its bulk. He reached for a roll of duct tape and pried a few inches from the fat cylinder and hung the sticky part from the bar of the motorcycle. Then he placed the amplifier in his lap, settling it as comfortably as possible, dividing its weight between the bike’s saddle and his thighs. Methodically, he began taping the amplifier to his chest. Holding it with his left arm, he wound the tape around the amp, then switched off to his right hand and continued winding around his back, over and over again, until he had the electronic device reasonably secured to his torso.
He picked up the guitar and used a patch cord to connect it to the amp. Cumbersome, he decided, but certainly do-able. He put on his shades. He tied a bandana around his head. He was already dressed in leather pants and a sleeveless leather vest that showed all his obscene tattoos.
He plugged the amp’s power cord into the long extension cord. He turned on the amp. The light glowed green. Clumsily, he strummed a C Chord. Thwong! It echoed hugely in the garage.
“Yeahhh,” Trevor drawled. “Ready ready ready.”
He kicked the motorcyle into life. Its engine roared and he throttled it so the noise of the bike and the noise of the amp blended into a single savagely gleeful thunder.
Then he took the vial of morphine and filled the syringe with its contents. He had forgotten to tie off with the rubber tourniquet, so he used the guitar’s patch cord to raise one of his few remaining useful veins. He had collapsed the big one inside his elbow and the big one that ran down the side of his arm, and most of the medium sized veins, lower down near his wrist. But there was still the inch-long minor vein about two inches down from his elbow; he had been getting hits there for the last couple weeks, he knew he could hit it, even with all this stuff strapped around him. It took a few jabs, a few misses, but finally he found the blood and mainlined that huge hit of pharmaceutical dope right into his bloodstream. It took only a few seconds to feel its soft blanket spreading from his innards to the periphery of the nerve endings at his fingertips.
“This is it,” he thought. “The perfect rock and roll suicide!”
He gunned the motorcyle. He turned the amplifier all the way up and thwanged a huge chord. He was going to accelerate into the swimming pool, electrocute, overdose and drown himself all at the same time. Someone would find his corpse in the next couple weeks, sitting there at the bottom of the pool on his Harley, with his Claxton Wanko guitar strapped around his shoulder, his Boogie Amp short-circuited, his blood full of dope.
“Yeehaaaa!” he yelled, strumming the guitar. He managed to roll the bike out of the garage, extension cord trailing behind him. He went to the very bottom of the sloped driveway, just inside the swinging metal gate, gunned the engine, twanged the guitar, turned the motorcyle around and roared up the drive towards the swimming pool.
He strummed as he ascended. B flat Chord, A flat Chord, F Chord, the famous intro to Fish Store’s biggest hit, “Slam Me, Ma’am”. He fought to keep his balance. He got to ten miles an hour, fifteen, twenty. He got to the very top of the drive and the extension chord snagged on a bit of outthrust pavement and whipped loose. The sound of the guitar suddenly died. The lip of the drive acted as a ramp and Trevor flew over the pool like a stunt rider, landed in the hedge, passed through it, tore through his downhill neighbor’s fence and wound up on Malibu Drive, stoned out of his mind, but not dead, carrying his guitar and his amplifier on his Custom Harley.
“Aw fuck,” he said aloud, as he swerved across the dividing line on the serpentine road.
A Mountain Springs water truck honked at him and managed not to squash him.
Unable to control the motorcycle any longer, he gunned the throttle, closed his eyes and simply let fate carry him. He hit a curb, went over some rocks, crashed through rhododenron bushes, flew into the air and finally landed with a gigantic splash in someone else’s swimming pool.
He was still alive. Hands came to the bottom of the pool, pulled at the amp, pulled at his armpits, hauled him from the pool. A dozen teenagers avidly surrounded his stunned form.
“That was fuckin’ great, dude!” One of the youngsters said. “Awesome! Did my mom set this up? Fucking great…..hey. Aren’t you Trevor Joyce? Aren’t you, like, Fish Store, dude?”
The kid did a naïve imitation of Trevor’s duck-walking stage style, mocking the chords to “Slam Me, Ma’am”, playing air guitar with his tongue hanging out.
Trevor handed the Claxton guitar to one of his young admirers. He took the bandana from his head and wrung it out.
Not today, he thought. Not today. I’ve still got fans.
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Arthur’s books include The Road Has Eyes, The Gods of the Gift, and Confessions of an Honest Man. His lifetime collection of poetry and photography, Feral Tenderness, is soon to be released by WordCrafter Press.
Want to be sure not to miss any of Art’s “Mind Fields” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you find it interesting or just entertaining, please share.
Discernment is the ability to obtain sharp perceptions or to judge well. That’s from Webster’s dictionary. I bring it to your attention because if this nation is suffering from a widespread psychological disorder it is this: a lack of discernment. It is the inability to judge well from the information that’s available. There are millions of casualties to this disease which is more sinister than Covid 19. It is something that has no name. I call it The Plebny or Recalcitrant Flux. Any force, power or person who spreads this disease is committing crimes against our planet. In this turbulent time we NEED discernment to pick our way through the fields of ignorance and bad information.
Listen to me: bad information. There’s no such thing as bad information. I refer to distorted content, warped propaganda, mendacity in the service of ego and power. We’re afflicted by people in power who lie automatically, without internal scanning or external censorship. Damage is being done! Without discernment we are easily manipulated, like cattle being led by nose rings.
Further, these people without discernment are unaware of their lack. It is impossible to engage in dialogue with people who can’t perceive with precision and conscience. I am willing to consider other points of view. I’m not stuck. It takes a little effort to discern things. It takes honesty, most of all.
With whom are we honest? We must be honest with ourselves most of all because human beings have a tendency towards various mental impediments to honesty. These obstacles have names, like Denial, Shame, Depression, Grandiosity, Narcissism, Sociopathy, Psychopathy, Crushed Affect, Sleepwalkers Syndrome, Intentional Psychomyopathy and Heartbane.
There are so many wacked out people in the world that the earth is saturated with their craziness. It is possible to ask, “What behavior is not crazy and how can I do it?” If you conjure an answer to that question, which is a deeply personal one, you’ve found the first gate to discernment.
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Arthur’s books include The Road Has Eyes, The Gods of the Gift, and Confessions of an Honest Man. His lifetime collection of poetry and photography, Feral Tenderness, is soon to be released by WordCrafter Press.
Want to be sure not to miss any of Art’s “Mind Fields” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you find it interesting or just entertaining, please share.
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Want to be sure not to miss any of Art’s “Mind Fields” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you find it interesting or just entertaining, please share.
“Enter Password”. Okay. I type in that which I remember as my password.
“Password Incorrect”. That’s what it says. Small wonder. I may have used a hundred different passwords this week, just to log into Google. I had a computer wipeout, a big one, and now my browsers have forgotten my cookies: they’ve forgotten my cakes, my donuts, and my fritters. I have to re-up the whole password thing.
“FORGOTTEN PASSWORD?” Click here. OK.…it says it will send a link to my email account.
R..uh R..oh. I need a password to get into my email account. I can’t recover my password until I recover the password to my email account. Is that a Catch-22? Yep, A classic!
I try guessing some of my go-to passwords, things that contained my year of birth. Sometimes I base a password on the Hebrew year. What year is this for Jews? It’s the twenty second of the month of Iyar, in the year 5780.
Yep. I think my password is Jew!5780. I’m a Jew. This is private humor, not chauvinism. Click. Wait a moment. Then: “Password Incorrect”. Passwords used to be simpler. That was before paranoia became normalnoia online.
Without the right password, I can’t do shit. I can’t even get into my email to collect my reset password. I’m screwed. The logical conclusion is that I need to invest in some password management software.
I buy Password Manager.
Enter Password, it says. I know, I’m supposed to invent one. My “master password” it’s called. When I click “enter Master Password” I am asked to fill out three pages of “Profile Information”. Remember when Profile was a bad word? Now you’ve got to have a profile.
I have a lot of folders on my outboard USB drives labeled “Bathwater”. I can’t name password list files as “Password List Files”. I call them “Bathwater1” or “Samurai9” “Let me see what I’ve got here. I’ve learned the hard way to date my entries into this file. I began this file eleven years ago and it’s gotten grotesque. Shit. Two hundred pages of passwords.
I have backup drives. I have USB devices containing mountains of data: tens of thousands of pictures, files of my writing work going back twenty years. I thought that getting a terabyte USB drive would give me space for a long time. Hah! How naïve! I’m looking right now at three USB drives containing ten terabytes of space. Yeah, available storage space, filling up fast.
If you’ve ever had a massive computer wipeout, I hope you’ve got a backup. The struggle you’re about to endure will drive you nuts! It is almost better not to have a backup. Almost.
My computer wouldn’t boot unless I did nutty things. Go into BIOS, re-arrange boot drives, that kind of stuff. This is a sure indication that my computer is a mess. The C: drive needs to be restored.
The backup software I use is called Acronis True Image. But today Acronis doesn’t see my backups. It isn’t True and it has no Image. I have other backups. I take no chances Maybe Windows can see the Windows Image Backup (that is, the WIB) that I made a few months ago. Oh, look! Windows sees it, there it is. The backup to the backup, thank god.
I’m a compulsive ‘backer-upper’. I back up everything to USB drives, discs, the Clouds, I back it up! In theory, I should be able to do a System Restore or recovery without much effort. I suspect that our entire universe is a backup!
I have six Acronis backups spread all across my drives. I found the most recent backup, clicked “Yes” on Acronis and then waited an hour and a half. I left my office for a while. When I returned I saw this message, which I now paraphrase: “Acronis worked its ass off to restore your backup but it couldn’t find ‘such and such’ a file and is unable to complete the restoration.”
It took me six hours of trial and error to reach this point. I wanted Acronis to work; mostly because it cost me seventy dollars when I bought it in 2011. Do I have an assumption? To whit: Windows products aren’t as good as outsourced software. The Windows defraggers, searchers, keepers, sleepers and beepers aren’t as good as software that costs a hundred bucks. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe Windows can get the job done. My “WIB” was waving at me. “Press OK and I’ll do it, FREE!” Windows 10 is waving at me and I’m too much of a snob to let it do its Thing.
I went to sleep without a functioning computer. I am seriously co-dependent with this machine. My sleep was interrupted by binges on chocolate bars. These candies shoved themselves into my mouth. They muted my frustration. In the morning I’ll punish their wrappers.
Here it is: another morning. I’m going to try my WIB, my Windows Image Backup. I think the folders are stored on USB drives “N”, “F” and “K”. I’m going into my files to do a search. “WIB BACKUP”. I enter the terms. Hoping, hoping. Not expecting anything. I’ve had so much failure this week that I’ve become apathetic. Jaded. But…..
Omigod. The search program sees my wib. My WIB! All right. Let’s see if this will do the job that Acronis failed to do. Let’s see.
“Do you want Windows Backup to restore your files?”
Hell yes! I’m desperate. I click “Restore Files” and watch as the dialogue window indicates that some mysterious work is being done. My WIB has been seen and has been pressed into service.
Fifteen minutes later: “Oh my fucking god!” It’s done. My computer has been restored with the humble Windows Image Back The Fuck Up from Windows Ten 64 bit Home Pro Edition and I am so thrilled and surprised. Why should I be surprised? It was that assumption, to whit: Windows software is no good. It’s got to be some hundred dollar hookah from which I puff.
Not so. Not so. Windows Ten took good care of me. If there’s a Windows Eleven or a Windows Twelve, I’ll be there, first in line to buy the damned software.
There’s no escape.
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Want to be sure not to miss any of Art’s “Mind Fields” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you find it interesting or just entertaining, please share.
When Breaking Bad appeared on television it became a peak moment in the history of the medium.
The world may be fucked up but television has never been better. If you use your remote with discernment, you will find incredible things to watch through your three hundred channel cable box. In its seventy year reign over the American psyche, there has never been more or better television. Nor has the human race been closer to mass tragedy. The importance of television expands as we get quarantined in our homes. TV’s always been important. Now it’s running a close second to Survival itself. I’m not sure we wouldn’t go insane as we wait for the stay-at-home orders to lift. We need TV. Desperately.
The Arts often flourish in times of decadence and turmoil. When a civilization becomes ill, a host of artists arise to attempt its healing. When Breaking Bad ascended to the pinnacle of great art, it created a new space for the production of yet more great TV.
I refer to the spin-off of Breaking Bad, the superb series, Better Call Saul.
We first met Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad. He turned up as the criminal defense attorney for Walter White and his confederates. His character was somewhat clownish. I made the unconscious surmise that series creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould did not take Saul Goodman seriously.
I was wrong. When Breaking Badwas seen and done I grieved because there was nothing as great to continue watching. Then Better Call Saul appeared and once again I was taken into the wry, dark, ironic world of Gilligan and Gould.
Better Call Saul has just completed its fifth season and may be ramping up for the sixth. Saul Goodman is the sly pseudonym taken by attorney Jimmy McGill. “It’s all good, man.” Jimmy himself explains the pun of his name. He’s a bit of a wild man, an outsider in his profession. Some would call him a shyster or ambulance chaser. He gives himself to the lost souls of the streets. He represents clients who are too dirty to be touched by more principled attorneys. For “principled” read snobbish. Saul doesn’t mind getting grubby.
The story arc of Better Call Saul is one that exposes the inner workings of two distinct worlds. One is the world of the drug cartel. The other is the world of middle class America. It is Saul Goodman who provides the bridge between these two worlds. In Breaking Bad it was Walter White who played the fulcrum character who bridged those worlds. Walter was a high school chemistry teacher who, when diagnosed with terminal cancer, turned to the manufacture of methamphetamine to provide for his family when he’s gone.
Saul is pressured into representing a Cartel lieutenant, a terrifying character named Lalo Salamanca. It is the Salamanca Cartel that is at war with other cartels for control of the drug trade in the Southwest. The series takes place in Albuquerque and the scenery is full of vast desert tracts. Out there, in the desert, dead bodies routinely disappear.
Albuquerque is a pleasant city, but its location makes it a prime route for drugs smuggled through Mexico. It’s home to the drug barons who maintain operations on both sides of the border. Jimmy McGill, aka Saul Goodman, is drawn inexorably into the cartel’s workings. In the first few seasons the conflict centers around Jimmy’s relationship with his brother, Charles “Chuck” McGill. Chuck is a famous and powerful corporate lawyer who is afflicted with a bizarre form of OCD. He’s allergic to electricity.
Jimmy takes care of Chuck when his allergies render him completely helpless. Jimmy wants to emulate his big brother. He’s put himself through law school and waits to pass the Bar Exam. Chuck does everything to sabotage Jimmy. From Chuck’s lofty position in the world of the courts there is no place for a clown like Jimmy McGill. Chuck’s brother is an embarrassment. Jimmy is hurt and bewildered by Chuck’s hatred and malice.
Lucky for Jimmy, he forms a relationship with attorney Kim Wexler. It’s Kim who keeps Jimmy grounded. Without her steadying influence he might spin off into some outer limits of legal brinksmanship. It is in fact Jimmy’s “edge” that attracts Kim. Behind her business suit and neatly wrapped pony tail is a wild child who savors the antidote to boredom that Jimmy provides.
Like Jimmy, the relationship itself often flirts with disaster. In spite of Jimmy’s ‘danse macabre’ the couple survives with their love intact. This love, this loyalty and unconditional regard, is the glue of the series. As long as Jimmy and Kim love each other, things will be all right.
Things will work out.
Tune in to Part Two of my review of Better Call Saul on the last Friday in May.
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Want to be sure not to miss any of “Art’s Visual Media Reviews” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you find it interesting or just entertaining, please share.
There was a time when watching television would make people feel guilty…as if they had nothing better to do. I have something better to do. I can watch better quality TV instead of the ubiquitous TV crapola. These days we have choices in TV-Land. Sometimes my wife and I watch TV all day and all night. I admit to some exaggeration here. I don’t watch TV all day; not any more. There was a time when I was pretty unmotivated and I watched TV around the clock…and I felt guilty about it. Fortunately that time is passed. I watch TV judiciously, choosing carefully what I expose myself to. There are as many TV universes as there are significant demographics. There are ravening people who feast on Jerry Springer and gentle wine-drinking people who watch PBS-only docs and dramas. I fall somewhere towards the latter. My spouse is more broadminded; she helps me expand my range of experiences. She’s addicted to The Home Shopping Network. We are both addicted to shows about animals and veterinarians.
I’m a keen observer of TV-as-cultural phenomenon. It’s the most powerful thing in the world outside of the Hydrogen Bomb. Television has dominated our experiential landscape since the early fifties and never more so than today. We have emerged into a golden age for television. There’s immense variety, convenience, amazing quality and the television sets have become so smart that they require control like a rowdy drunk at a party. It took me days to figure out how our new device functions. I still haven’t conquered the remote control. I can talk to it and it often responds. I’d be screwed if I couldn’t talk to that thing. It wouldn’t surprise me, if, some day soon, the remote responds with something like “Hey, I’m busy, asshole. Try again later.” I would expect rudeness from a television device. After all, this is the thing that brought us “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.” Sometimes I hear my wife talking in the bedroom. Is she on the phone? No. She’s talking to the remote. Begging, pleading, bargaining with the remote.
We love to binge. That sets the tone of our lives. What will we binge tonight? It’s not easy to find binge-worthy stuff. Thank god for National Geographic, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Between Mrs. Maisel, Dr.Pol and Fleabag we have a good time. Fleabag is the work of actress/director/writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge. When we saw the last episode of Fleabag I shouted “Magnificent!” I don’t always offer such spontaneous accolades. Phoebe plays the character known only as Fleabag. She’s a fairly gorgeous creature in her gawky comical way. She’s maybe too tall, her nose is a little skewed, but these aspects are essential to her character. She would be boring if she had all the beauty conventions. The stories revolve around the Search For Love. Who isn’t searching? This quest is especially powerful in the young. It surges in women who are reaching a certain age, an age when their mothers are asking “When are you going to get married?” Fleabag is precisely that age and her obsessions are pulling her puppet strings. If she weren’t wryly self-aware she’d be suicidal. She is recovering from an awful trauma. Her best friend committed suicide over a breakup. She walked out into traffic and gave up her life. This grief haunts Fleabag and steels her determination to continue living. She too has ended a long relationship. Now she’s thrust into the world of men, those strange groping creatures who don’t understand women. Sound familiar? That’s US! The thing is, Phoebe/Fleabag is funny! Her wit is corrosive yet compassionate. When the two seasons were over we were gasping for more. Alas, Phoebe is moving into new productions. Watch her!
We binged on the two seasons of “You”. It’s gripping, but it’s also repugnant. In the beginning of the series the protagonist, Joe Goldberg, seems to be a likeable fellow. He develops into a monster as the tale unfolds. I’m holding back the spoilers here. The story hangs on Joe’s transformation into something sinister. His obsession is, again, Love. Or, more specifically, Women. The show gives us Joe’s thought processes. The narration is Joe’s self-talk and he has a one track mind.
I must remind my readers that I have a “writer’s rule” that I scrupulously observe. “Is this story worth telling?” I have three criteria that stories should encompass. They should be entertaining, insightful, and, if possible, inspiring. If they can’t reach the level of inspiration they should at least not leave us depressed. We get enough of that shit all around us. After watching every episode of “You” and being entertained, I still have mixed feelings as to whether or not we should have gone through the experience. There are plenty of shows about dark characters. Darkness is important to drama. It’s like death itself. Without death there would be no passion in life. All of life’s tensions and excitement are generated by the clash between light and dark. Is this oversimplified? Perhaps. I’m left with a slightly sour feeling about “You”. If I had eaten Joe Goldberg for dinner, I would have gas and diarrhea in the morning. Watch the series, by all means. It’s very good, well acted, well written…but I’ve warned you. Take some Pepto Bismol to bed, put it on your night table.
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Want to be sure not to miss any of Art’s “Mind Fields” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you find it interesting or just entertaining, please share.
Wow! It’s hard to believe that 2020 will be celebrating 10 years of Writing to be Read!
We have a promising line-up shaping up and I think it will be an exciting year ahead. I’ll share some of that line-up with you, but first, let’s take a brief look at how Writing to be Read has gotten to where it is today in celebration of those first nine years. (For long time followers who have been with me a while, I may have said some of this before because I reflect on the evolution of my endeavors often, but bear with me because there are some really great changes coming.)
When I started Writing to be Read, back in 2010, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the blog, but I knew I wanted to write and I wanted somebody to read what I wrote. I was not yet a published author, and I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I was determined to do it. I’d written for three years as the “Southern Colorado Literature Examiner” for Examiner.com, and I knew how to get review books and find authors willing to be interviewed, so that’s what I did.
Yet, I was still kind of bungling my way through. Kind of like how Laurel and Hardy always seem to make a mess of things, but in the end they manage to set things right. Of course I learned a lot along the way, and made adjustments to my blogging strategy, striving to come up with content that would bring readers to the site, because I wanted people to read my blog. After all, isn’t that what all we authors want in the end? For our writing to be read?
After I graduated from the M.F.A. program at Western State Colorado University in 2016, things began to pick up. While I learned to write book length works at Western, it also showed me the value of community in writing, which is often a solitary endeavor. We are all embarked upon our own personal author’s journey. Our joys and sorrows may be of a nature that only another author would be able to comprehend. With the growing number of indie authors out there, is important that we support and help one another along the way. Not only was I sitting on the perfect platform to promote my own books and writing, but Writing to be Read is a tool that can be used to grow community among my fellow authors.
The first blog series I created, was “Ask the Authors”, which I ran in two rounds in 2017, with the help of several great authors, who were willing to donate their time for twelve weeks for each segment. It was a successful series in which I interviewed participating authors on many aspects of writing, with the idea that we learn from those who have gone before us. Most of those authors’ words will be appearing in a book of the same name as the series, which I had hoped to publish this year through WordCrafter Press, but has now been pushed back into the coming year. (Before the release of Ask the Authors, the content must be removed from the web, so be aware that the series content will soon be removed from the blog.)
Over the past year, Writing to be Read is approaching 10,000, and many visitors have become WtbR followers. I think there are several contributing factors that account for this, starting with the Motivational Strips Certificate of Honor, which I received in April and which is now displayed proudly in the sidebar below the WordCrafter logo, for contributions made in the global online writing communities through social media. It is still a labor of love, with the payoff coming with views and engagement, rather than monetary profit.
In 2019, I ran the monthly “Chatting with the Pros” series, featuring bestselling and award winning authors, in coincidence with monthly genre themes, which has been very popular. I had some wonderful authors, who graciously agreed to be interviewed for this series. The top two interviews, with award winning Christian fiction author Angela Hunt and with bestselling romance author Maya Rodale, brought over 100 views each, with the interview with the very prolific science fiction and fantasy author Kevin J. Anderson coming in a close third. Other great interviews that this series brought were with thriller novelist John Nichol, horror authors Paul Kane and Jeffrey J. Mariotte, women’s fiction author Barbara Chapaitis, young adult fiction author Carol Riggs, crime fiction author Jenifer Ruff, mystery author Gilly Macmillon, western author Scott Harris, and nonfiction author Mark Shaw.
Also aligned with the monthly genre themes were supporting interviews with less known, but talented authors. I am pleased to find the top viewed supporting interview to be with accomplished author and scholar Shiju Pallithazheth, who has dedicated himself to the support of achievement in quality writing and is the founder of the Motivational Strips social media group. The second and third top supporting interviews were with horror author Roberta Eaton Cheadle and with nature author Susan J. Tweit.
I also reviewed many top notch books over the year’s course. Book reviews don’t tend to bring in as many views as interviews do, but the views they do bring in add up when counted. The top review for 2019, was Simplified Writing 101, making this the top review every year since I posted it, back in 2016 with over 300 total views. That’s a lot of views for a book review.
The second most viewed book review was a review from 2018, Dan Alatorre’s Night Visions horror anthology, and the third was Jordan Elizabeth’s Cogling, from 2016. That’s the nice thing about book reviews – they’re all evergreen. The top reviews actually posted in 2019 were for God’s Body, by Jeff Bowles; Selected Stories: Science Fiction Volume 2, by Kevin J. Anderson, and Through the Nethergate, by Roberta Eaton Cheadle.
Also, the addition of team members and their blog series added variety to the blog and provided more consistent publication of content on a regular basis. Writing to be Read wouldn’t be where it is today without their content. Robin Conley is a team member who is no longer with WtbR, but her evergreen “Writing Memos” make her posts receive the most views each year because they offer good, solid writing tips on the basics of writing.
The active team member with the most views in 2019 is Robbie Cheadle with her “Growing Bookworms” blog series on children’s literature and the promotion of reading. Robbie joined us at the beginning of 2019 and she’s had over 1000 views of her posts over the course of the year. Her most popular post was “Developing imagination and creativity through reading”. (For the full 2019 active contributor line-up, see my Thanksgiving post.)
Arthur’s Visual Media Reviews
Jeff’s Movie Reviews
The Writing to be Read following has grown with each passing year, as has the daily average for views, and 2019 has been the best year yet. Now we are at a time when we must look ahead to the coming year and find ways to make WtbR even better. I’ve been working on the 2020 blog schedule and I’d like to share anticipated changes with you here.
For 2020, we are going to continue with the monthly genre themes and the “Chatting with the Pros” blog series. Obviously you can’t cover all the genres in twelve months, so next year we’ll cover some that we missed, as well as giving some we did some more in depth coverage. The tentative theme schedule includes creative nonfiction, romance, western, fantasy, comic books and superheroes, speculative fiction, science fiction, young adult fiction, mystery/suspense thriller, horror/dark fiction/paranormal, action adventure, and children’s fiction. Let me know in the comments what genres you think I am missing, or if you know of an author of one of the genres covered who would be interested in giving me an interview. Writing to be Read wants to create content that its readers want, so I want to hear from you.
There will be a few changes with the Writing to be Read team, including four great new blog series! I am sad to say that Jordan Elizabeth will no longer be with the team, and her “Writing for a Y.A. Audience” blog series will be discontinued. However, the other team members have jumped right in to fill all holes in the scheduling as we moved series around and made changes.
For 2020, Art Rosch’s “The Many Faces of Poetry” will be discontinued, but it will be replaced the last Wednesday of each month with Art’s new series, “Mind Fields”. Art is always full of surprises and the segments for this new series may be on just about any topic, but they are guaranteed to be interesting and entertaining. Art actually posted a preview segment back in November to give us a little sample, with a journey into the realms beyond death in “Hitler’s Afterlife“. You may love it or hate it, but you’re sure to get a chuckle. “Arthur’s Visual Media Reviews” will continue to be on the last Friday of each month.
Jeff Bowles will continue his “Jeff’s Movie Reviews” the third Friday of each month, but “Jeff’s Pep Talk” will not appear in 2020. Instead, Jeff will offer a new series, “Words to Live By” on the first Wednesday of every month. Jeff will also fill the series slot on the third Wednesday of each month that was left open by Jordan’s departure with a new series, “Write Me Better”, which will offer writing challenges to rewrite the classics. I’m really excited about this new series because it offers the potential for reader interaction. I can’t wait to see what each of you comes up with when stepping up to Jeff’s challenges to rewrite the classics with your own style and flair. It should be a lot of fun. I may even have to try my hand at this one.
Robbie Cheadle will continue her “Growing Bookworms” series on the second Wednesday of each month and she will also offer a new poetry series on the last Saturday of each month, “Treasuring Poetry”. I was particularly pleased with the idea for this series because it offers a way to keep poetry alive on Writing to be Read. Poetry is like painting with words to create something that is beautiful for its structure and form, beyond simple meaning, and I’ve always felt it was important to have poetry included here in some way. When I first started Writing to be Read, before it was on this site, I ended each post I made with a poem. Although I have had a few poems published, my knowledge of verse is minimal. Robbie, however is quite involved in poetry communities on social media and she has the poetic know how to carry this new blog series.
As you can see, we have some really exciting new blog series for the coming year, as well as some old favorites. My guest authors and reviews are beginning to shape up, too, with some great authors and great books. I’m still searching for more though, so if you’d like to be interviewed or have a book you’d like reviewed in the coming year, please email me at kayebooth@yahoo.com. I’d love to hear from you and include you in my 2020 line-up.
On a final note, I’ve been considering switching to a paid site to eliminate some of the advertising and open up the options of what I can do with the blog. As you all know, Writing to be Read is a labor of love and the profit I get from it is in watching my following grow and engaging with my readers. So, my question to all of you now is, if I went to a paid site, would you be willing to make a donation to help cover the cost, or are you happy with the site the way it is? Please let me know what you think in the comments.
Like this post? Let me know in the comments. You can be sure not to miss any of Writing to be Read’s great content by subscribe to e-mail or following on WordPress. If you found it helpful, please share.
For the time being, the cell phone revolution is finished. In thirty days the phase-out begins. All cell phones will be handed over at specified collection points.
It has now been proved that these things cause serious brain damage. This recall is the largest disaster in the history of consumer electronics. Negotiations for refunds have been bitter, to say the least. Apple, Samsung, Motorola, etc have fielded an army of lawyers and finally hacked out the so-called “50/50 Bill”. A complex algorithm has been devised to assess the value of cell phones to arrive at a figure worth half the original value of the phone. The consumer who is returning a phone will fill out a form noting the age, condition, features, and dozens of other items of data regarding the device. It has already been demonstrated that at least fifty percent of phone owners won’t bother to get their money back. Word is out that this so-called REFUND was designed by the IRS and is just as difficult to obtain.
Media commercials for cell phones have completely ceased. The vast airwave dead time will be filled with inspirational music by Yanni and Clannad. Media conglomerates have taken a gigantic hit in advertising revenues. The world needs new products and it needs them fast. Writers, engineers and marketers are working at top speed to fill the void. The most promising ideas are coming from the automobile industry. Vietnamese conglomerate GWENJIAP is preparing a luxury sedan with a sixty two inch FlexVision LED. Features include online bill payment, 3200 channels of satellite-borne programming and an array of pay per view specials. The screen and speakers will be seamlessly integrated into the vehicle by replacing the front windshield with the television screen and using software and GPS systems to drive the cars without the input of a human being. Three’s also a twelve foot extending periscope giving the driver panoramic vision.
Some conventional window space will remain in order to prevent claustrophobia. A disconnected steering wheel is featured in order to convey that sense of control and driving pleasure. GWENJIAP’s design team has apparently pulled off a brilliant coup and has finally merged the auto and entertainment industries.
UPDATE: January 2021
The degree of emotional and somatic shock was not anticipated when consumers were separated from their cell phones. The most common symptoms are anxiety, rage and feelings of powerlessness. Therapists have mobilized their most advanced techniques but the response has been inadequate. Consumers have been going into fugue states. They look into empty space while their thumbs shake with greater and greater agitation. Measures are now being taken. Pfizer Pharmaceuticals are testing an anti-spasmodic/SSRI medication to control these symptoms. Consumers are also being provided with dummy cell phones to alleviate the effects of what is now called “Texter Reflex Muscle Memory Syndrome”, or TRIMMS
The dummy phones are programmed with several hundred generic messages, such as “See you at home,” “Tht ws wild lst nite”, “Is he/she cute?”, “Did U do it?”, “Gt any E?”, “My parents will be gone tnt”, “Did yr doc sign yr dope ticket?”, and so forth. These messages are randomly scrambled and appear on the dummy phone screens to provide the illusion that users are connected to their friends. The texting interface appears to work but of course it is not receiving or transmitting. The therapy has had mixed results, but since the killing of Yanni and the disappearance of Clannad, Pfizer has been given the green light by the FDA to widely distribute the new medication. It will be marketed under the name Gontwich CR.
The GIAP 300SLE hybrid vehicle has sold well. Unfortunately, the auto-sensors and self-guidance software have had glitches that have caused an undisclosed number of collisions. Firmware updates have eliminated 88 percent of minor collisions and 99 percent of fatal collisions. Rival designs from BMW and Mercedes are appearing on the market as of this writing. The Mercedes Double Decker Home Theater Hybrid boasts efficiency of a whopping 82 mpg and the Surround Sound 9.1 with broad band picture-in-picture-in picture has stimulated sales as fast as the vehicles are manufactured. BMW has matched this success with its clever Mirror 32ESL. The vehicles feature advanced autopilots and software. There is also a choice between full autopilot and manual driving. Many consumers enjoy the actual process of driving and guiding a vehicle. BMW has catered to this market and relegates the Big Screen TV to a cleverly designed rear compartment. There have been fewer fatal incidents among drivers of the 32ESL.
Email has not had the anticipated resurgence, but statistics indicate that consumers are reviving the archaic telephone. Therapists are working on issues that surround the stuttering epidemic. Efforts to immobilize the thumbs with modified cuffs has only intensified the issue. Parents of adolescents are still, as they say, “talking to empty space” but statistics indicate there has been an eight percent rise in direct eye contact among members of nuclear families.
Hope always burns high that there will be a return to ancient modes of person to person conversation. Cynical laughter from many millions of consumers has not deterred designers at GWENJIAP from using hi-res cameras to convert interior TV screens to real-time two way windows on their 300 SLE models. Rumors are floating about that Mercedes is bringing back a vehicle with transparent polymer windows that open and close, either at the touch of a switch or via speech recognition software. The stuttering epidemic, however, has persuaded Mercedes to give the manual switches a higher profile.
All of this turmoil may be history when Nokia introduces the Safe Mini-Phone that has been designed to operate without the use of the dangerous selenium diode and other circuits that ramped up microwave emissions to one thousand times the minimum safe level as indicated by the Consumer Safety Council. Work proceeds on the range and sensitivity of this innovative cell phone.
Nokia employee Jorma Kikkinen, the “whistle blower” who broke the radiation scandal is still being sought by authorities but is feared to have met with foul play.
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Like this post? Let me know in the comments. You can be sure not to miss any of Writing to be Read’s great content by subscribe to e-mail or following on WordPress.
There was a time when watching television would make people feel guilty…as if they had nothing better to do. I have something better to do. I can watch better quality TV instead of the ubiquitous TV crapola. These days we have choices in TV-Land. Sometimes my wife and I watch TV all day and all night. I admit to some exaggeration here. I don’t watch TV all day; not any more. There was a time when I was pretty unmotivated and I watched TV around the clock…and I felt guilty about it. Fortunately that time is passed. I watch TV judiciously, choosing carefully what I expose myself to. There are as many TV universes as there are significant demographics. There are ravening people who feast on Jerry Springer and gentle wine-drinking people who watch PBS-only docs and dramas. I fall somewhere towards the latter. My spouse is more broadminded; she helps me expand my range of experiences. She’s addicted to The Home Shopping Network. We are both addicted to shows about animals and veterinarians.
The first blog series I created, was “Ask the Authors”, which I ran in two rounds in 2017, with the help of several great authors, who were willing to donate their time for twelve weeks for each segment. It was a successful series in which I interviewed participating authors on many aspects of writing, with the idea that we learn from those who have gone before us. Most of those authors’ words will be appearing in a book of the same name as the series, which I had hoped to publish this year through WordCrafter Press, but has now been pushed back into the coming year. (Before the release of Ask the Authors, the content must be removed from the web, so be aware that the series content will soon be removed from the blog.)
In 2019, I ran the monthly “Chatting with the Pros” series, featuring bestselling and award winning authors, in coincidence with monthly genre themes, which has been very popular. I had some wonderful authors, who graciously agreed to be interviewed for this series. The top two interviews, with award winning Christian fiction author 
Jeff Bowles will continue his “Jeff’s Movie 
Reviews” the third Friday of each month, but “Jeff’s Pep Talk” will not appear in 2020. Instead, Jeff will offer a new series, “Words to Live By” on the first Wednesday of every month. Jeff will also fill the series slot on the third Wednesday of each month that was left open by Jordan’s departure with a new series, “Write Me Better”, which will offer writing challenges to rewrite the classics. I’m really excited about this new series because it offers the potential for reader interaction. I can’t wait to see what each of you comes up with when stepping up to Jeff’s challenges to rewrite the classics with your own style and flair. It should be a lot of fun. I may even have to try my hand at this one.
Mind Fields – My Suicide Note
Posted: January 15, 2021 | Author: artrosch | Filed under: Commentary, Mind Fields | Tags: Arthur Rosch, Depression, Life, Mind Fields, Suicide, Writing to be Read | Leave a commentDecember 15, 2020
I was a mess. I could smile, say hello, pretend to be okay. I wasn’t okay. I was being squeezed by a depression so ferocious that I seriously began to consider ending my life. However… I had a problem. Every time I tried to compose a suicide note I ran into a wall when I asked myself: What if my suicide note sucks?
This is a daunting challenge for a writer. First I have to ask the question: why the note? Why are suicide notes such an institution? They seem de rigeur in the traditions of suicide. Gotta have a note. You can’t leave people wondering what happened to you. This colossal egotism is rampant: we all think we’re so important. The truth is that hardly anyone cares what happens to you. I suppose the note is for loved ones; but often enough in the case of suicide, there ARE no loved ones. Or there are loved ones who didn’t behave in the desired way.
We get attached to our lives. They’re like the suits in which we live and sometimes they get threadbare. Still, they’re OUR lives. It’s no easy thing to toss aside an entire life, the whole story of how you got to this point. A note is the least one can do to summarize the effort of living for X number of years. Of surviving. It takes toughness to survive. Clearly I wasn’t tough enough to make the grade. So, it’s goodbye to friends and relatives. Such as they are.
The effort of being conscious can be arduous. The problem is that Consciousness is hard to escape. The suicide is taking an awful chance. What if things don’t end with the bang of a gun or the sting of a razor? There might be something else in the market/bazaar of consciousness waiting on the other side of that decision. Wouldn’t that be ironic?
I spend many hours each day in a state of oblivion called sleep. Isn’t death much like sleep? Isn’t it just….oblivion? I have a hard time believing in oblivion as a paradigm. It is clearly not one of the dominant features of the universe. And, if it IS: who knows or cares? That was a sly joke. I hope someone gets it. Consciousness, on the other hand, is bound to pop up again. I will experience “I-ness” or “selfness” or some form of individual awareness. I might be reborn as a sea slug. Who knows what sea slugs think and feel? It would be boorish to dismiss them as unthinking automata. Life isn’t really like that. Consciousness is all over the place. This is why I refrained from killing myself. I’m pretty sure I’ll pop up somewhere else.
The note satisfied an urge to continue being myself in spite of the intention to stop being myself. I was so depressed that I thought I couldn’t endure it. Deep down, I didn’t believe I was capable of going through with suicide. I have too much ingrained optimism. I’ve always felt that problems might have solutions, if I just wait long enough.
Every time I began to write a note in my head I would say to myself, “You’re writing a suicide note in your head. Stop it!” I would stop. The urge would arise again during the day, and again, I would tell myself to stop. I had a problem, i.e. every suicide note that I authored was utterly terrible as literature. My notes were awful! They were filled with self pity, which I have never found to be attractive. Instead of murdering myself I decided to try an anti-depressant, Lexapro. Within a week my depression had lifted. It was amazing! The horrors simply vanished. Quickly.
I’m glad I didn’t commit suicide. Life has greatly improved. I dabble with the idea of stopping the Lexapro. But…. I don’t think so. I don’t EVER want to be visited by such black depression. I’m not naïve. These thoughts and feelings are still inside me, somewhere. There is TRUTH in depression. Living is complex and the world we are given is often intolerable. It’s possible that when I hide from things, they wind up at the top of my emotional in-basket. Do I need to test the limits of my courage? I’m not brave. I shrink from the worst case. I will let these sleeping dogs stay asleep.
In spite of my Inner Wuss I have survived and even come to thrive, lo, these many years. I’m just beginning to have fun. It’s about time. If my depression is like a hibernating bear I will squirt it with some drugs to keep it asleep.
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A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Arthur’s books include The Road Has Eyes, The Gods of the Gift, and Confessions of an Honest Man. His lifetime collection of poetry and photography, Feral Tenderness, is soon to be released by WordCrafter Press
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