Write a Dear John letter in 1916 and see what happens.

It’s pitched as a horror movie. It isn’t. So watch it with all your might.

Death has big hands.

The hands of the past can seem like ghosts. Ask me about it sometime.

Spiral fracture. Hang on for more info.

Yeah. The lowdown.

We went to the doctor again Friday. He turned her loose. She wasn’t supposed to be as healed as she was. But she, uh, was.

She said she would be. But now she’s mad at me. I chafed at her becoming too fond of video games during her confinement. She compared it to my addiction to posting.

Deerhound Diary and InstaPunk are all the same to her. Just me, playing a game, sparking and dancing.

Hell. Maybe she’s right. Probably was. I used to be addicted to the Evander Holyfield boxing game. I tried to explain that it got old. After 80-some championships and consequent declines. She told me no one could get addicted to that unless they were a fool. Right, I guess.

But she’s healthy again. Thank God.

I see the future.

I don’t do trances. Can’t cure your bunions or Atlantean fantasies. I do long nights of sleeping, not sleeping, sleeping, etc. Every night. All night long. I spend days exploring the universe between the chimes of my wife’s snooze alarm. Sometimes in heaven, sometimes in hell. But usually in an odd neither, which might be our future.

This is time spent in a realm between waking and sleeping. Of course I’m a prophet. Always have been. But you don’t want to see what I see now in that place where I spend so much of my other-conscious time.

I’m not crazy. I’m not a doomsday prepper. I’m more like a Christian stoic. It’s NOT going to be okay. It’s just going to be. We’ll survive it or we won’t. Pretty simple.

The Nicene Creed

I BELIEVE in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible:

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God; Begotten, not made; Being of one substance with the Father; By whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man: And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried: And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures: And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father: And he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, The Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the Prophets: And I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church: I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins: And I look for the Resurrection of the dead: And the Life of the world to come. Amen.

What I see. Anger, ruin, pain, loss, and regress. Which is not all a bad thing. Unless you’ve never learned to read, live, or love. Then it’s just running away down countless corridors, hoping nobody sees.

She was buried today. Age 98. Catholic ceremony, viewing, mass, and interment. Followed by a Jersey diner dinner in a private room. And now they’re drinking. Who knows when my Irish wife will get home?

Some lessons. You can’t go to a funeral if all you have is a light gray suit you can’t fit into anymore. So I didn’t. You probably shouldn’t go to funerals of people you met only half a dozen times or so, even if you liked each other more than anyone else ever did. (This would be an arbitrary RFL rule…) If you live long enough, make all the arrangements ahead of time. Aunt Ruth did. And everyone’s enjoying the day because she did.

Did I mention that I liked her? I did. When you get to be 98 there are people who hold grudges. But I thought she was terrific. Like a large block of driftwood. Weathered, immovable, no, immanent. They placed her in a chair at parties, and she squinted at all the guests, appraising, evaluating, seeing. All I ever did was be polite. She sparkled just a little when I visited. I offered her hors d’oeuvres and she politely declined.

That’s it. I liked her. She liked me. Maybe I should have attended her funeral. But I don’t like funerals. Never did.

There are rumors, unconfirmed, that not everybody liked her. That she could be difficult, rigid, impossible. None of my business. I remember the twinkle in her eye. How I will think of her:

You got it. The Miss Marple of the suburban family set.

Rest in peace, old gal.

I mean how totally cool and glacial is this trend?!

News for Brizoni, if he’s still out there…

Thanks to a couple of surveys, it’s being put about in certain circles that atheists [have] higher IQs than believers. That may or may not be the case, but one problem with this argument is that, if you accept “average group differences in IQ”, you get into all sorts of sinister debates which ‘bien pensant’ atheist Lefties might find less to their liking.

So let’s not go down that unhappy road. Let’s dispense with the crude metric of IQ and look at the actual lives led by atheists, and believers, and see how they measure up. In other words: let’s see who is living more intelligently.
And guess what: it’s the believers. A vast body of research, amassed over recent decades, shows that religious belief is physically and psychologically beneficial – to a remarkable degree.

In 2004, scholars at UCLA revealed that college students involved in religious activities are likely to have better mental health. In 2006, population researchers at the University of Texas discovered that the more often you go to church, the longer you live. In the same year researchers at Duke University in America discovered that religious people have stronger immune systems than the irreligious. They also established that churchgoers have lower blood pressure.

Well, you know, it goes on like this for paragraph after paragraph. Sorry, B. if you ever want to come back to the community of people who talk sensibly without forcing their religious (un)beliefs down the throat of their goddam neighbor, come here. Honestly. I miss you.

Being brave and smart when you’re terrified? The real definition of a hero.

Have you heard about Antoinette Tuff? She talked the would-be Georgia school shooter back from the cliff. And she’s a bookkeeper, for God’s sake. What did she do? She…

mustered up the courage to talk Hill into surrendering — a one-on-one negotiation captured on the [911] tape.

“Don’t feel bad, baby,” she can be heard telling the young man. “My husband just left me after 33 years. … I’ve got a son that’s multiple disabled.”

Later, she can be heard reassuring him that “it’s all going to be well.”

After about 20 minutes, she won him over.

Tuff: “OK, he said that they can come in now. He needs to go to the hospital.”

Operator: “OK, and he doesn’t have any weapons on him or anything like that?”

[DeKalb County police Det. Ray Davis says the Georgia elementary school shooting suspect had “500 rounds of ammo with him.”]

Tuff: “He’s laying on the floor. He’s got everything out of his pockets. There isn’t anything. The only thing he has is his belt. Everything is out of his pockets. Everything is sitting here on the counter, so all we need to do is they can just come in, and I’ll buzz them in.”

Only after the ordeal was over did Tuff reveal just how scared she’d been the whole time:

“I’m going to tell you something baby — I’ve never been so scared in all the days in my life,” she told the unidentified operator. Then, she started crying and exclaimed, “Oh, Jesus! Oh, God!”

Full story here.

Amazing courage and inspired personal judgment. (Contrast with previous post…) “Tuff” as she unquestionably is, I’d like to put a comforting arm around her. She saved those children. People ask what Jesus would do. She did it.

Bravo.

Or should I say dolt?

Here’s the headline from Breitbart:

DANA PERINO CALLS ‘THE BUTLER’ SCREENWRITER ‘AMAZING’

And here’s the story. Lowlights:

Perino made her remarks on Tuesday’s episode of Fox News’ The Five in a discussion about comments Daniels, who directed the film, made in which he said he believed America was more racist with President Barack Obama as president.

The Butler has been blistered for its inaccuracies, including the film’s false portrayal of the Reagans, as esteemed Reagan biographer Craig Shirley noted…

Perhaps not surprisingly, Strong also wrote the screenplay Game Change, which was riddled with lies and inaccuracies about Sarah Palin…

I’m leaning toward dolt. She continually apologizes for Jay Carney and the Obama White House’s blatant political spin. My take? She has no political convictions at all. She’s just a succubus to power, loving the inside the beltway life. In addition to no real convictions, she has no real judgment and no real morals, just demure habits that parade as all of the above.

Ick.

In his usual way, Lake sought to raise the dead with a reference to the “hidden treasure” called The Glossary.

It may be hidden, but it’s not lost. It’s here.

And its antecedent is here. (Just think what he could have done with hyperlinks… {me, bowing low})

Apologies to my wife. She wanted today to be about poetry, not polemics.

But poetry is a young man’s game. Polemics is the discipline men are coerced into by the passages of life. Ask Dante. Ask Ambrose Bierce. Or, if he’s not available, ask me.

Didn’t know about this till my wife told me. She suggested I post one of mine.

Not because I think it’s great but because she asked, I’m posting this triviality from 2005, when my TBB character Harry turned 60. As it happens, I turned 60 this year. I posted it at The Boomer Bible website (boomerbible.com), which lives still in the Wayback Machine. When you’re 60, practically everything you know lives in the Wayback Machine. This one’s maybe not as good as Psong 59, but the symbolism is so much more, well, symbolic.

Herewith, Psong 60 from the Psongs of Harry:

I could give up sleeping,
2 But for the alarm of morning,
3 Which wants to surprise us awake,
4 With a brand new ancient lesson.
5 Every morning is everywhere,
6 The center of being undraped and unafraid,
7 On display for its satellites.
8 When I was in Rio, I flung open the broad smiling horizon built upon my balcony,
9 And I squinted the darkness away.
10 Today I roll out under the roof of morning,
11 Trusting a sun I can’t see,
12 Imagining the boastful light above the trusses and timbers and shingles of our conceits,
13 But I do not dare to look at the blush of retreating night,
14 That pink behind we all must show,
15 In impotent flight.
16 Darkness always loses courage in the end,
17 And dawn wins every day.
18 So must I,
19 But more slowly now than then,
20 When I was young.

Will this do, my dear?

Alive or so..

My wife is unable to come up with a good reason why you’d like to see an accurate movie about what really happened in Melbourne in 1999. But she did watch it all the way through.

You should see the movie without reading anything about the facts. Forget facts. Good performances by Sam Neill, Guy Pierce and various Sheilas (it is set Australia after all). Amazingly, the biggest parts of life and death both in the plot are female. Can you believe that?

No wonder Sam Neill spends most of his time on camera shaking his head. Unless men are really so much in charge down under that shaking your head is an indicator of the next sex act. Sorry, Sam. If you’re not married, enjoy yourself. If you are, consider the continent of Australia the equivalent of the dumbest few square miles in America — Las Vegas, where everything awful happens and nobody ever mentions it.