Unbalanced

There it is. A painting of Isaac Newton. He looks like he could have been a member of Kiss. He would have been chased out of the Bible Belt in the sixties, right?

According to Mr. Newton, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

What this has to do with figs, I have no idea.

But I find that this truth is remarkably untrue when it comes to emotional energy and the realities of everyday life. In particular, it doesn't apply to the arts. Using religious ideas to express it, it seems to me that Karma is not only not true, it is practically a joke. No offense intended to those who embrace the idea, but almost every aspect of life among humans demonstrates that there is no balance to the force. Everything is about as out of balance as you can get, and there aren't enough Darth Vaders in the universe to bring it into balance, no matter what anyone thinks about it.

And then there's God. The real One. Who doesn't seem all that interested in our sense of what is balanced and what isn't. He's got his own scale and we aren't allowed to touch it. So sad, too bad. But, the truth is, we'd only mess it up anyway because we simply don't know the true value of things.

Anyway.

How have you been?

I've been enveloped in the process of change. I'm changing in subtle but distinct ways, and it's making me a little nervous because I'm not really sure where it's all headed. I wonder if I'm going to end up being someone I don't care too much for, or will I be someone I could hope to be? I'm starting to feel the inevitable pull of "aging." And I'm not really what you could call old yet. Or at least I hope you don't.

Thing is, you'd think that if you put in a lot of effort, you could count on the results to some degree.  You'd think you'd end up with some control over what comes next. But, alas, that's just not the way it goes. At least not always. Then again, who knows?

Certainly not me.

And by the way...

I've been writing a lot of new songs after quite a long dry spell.

Why?

I have no idea.

I like it but it can be a bit unnerving how things come and go. And they do. Come and go, that is.

Turns out that some beasts require a lot of fodder to produce a few little morsels of meaningful something or other. And feeding those beasts can get very tiring.

If you don't believe me, just ask all of those artists with unfinished works.


Peace to you.




© LW Publishing 2014

Call Me Cheap

 Here’s what I think I think:

I have discovered that the best way to get “into” a prolific author is AFTER that author has already been established and gotten a good number of books published. If you can manage to get “into” them a decade after they hit the scene, then you’re really going to be able to have an inexpensive, enjoyable, relaxed time reading their books. If you read them a decade later and they stink, then they were probably stinky to begin with. You just aren’t all caught up in the hype. Which is a good thing in my book.

Example:

Last fall I started reading the John Grisham books. In case you live under a rock and don’t know, John Grisham is a best selling writer of “legal thrillers” who almost single handedly turned the genre into a huge industry. His first big book was his second book, “The Firm,” which they made a movie out of. In fact, they made movies out of most of the books he wrote over the first ten years of output. The movies were pretty much in the category of “just okay” because they could communicate the plot lines and story ideas of Grisham (which is not his greatest strength), but they can not communicate the flair, simplicity, smoothness and readability of his writing (which are his real strengths). Movie makers have the same problem with writers like Ray Bradbury and Stephen King. John Grisham could write about pretty much anything, I think, and make it readable. In fact, I wish he’d try some other things more often. I’d love to see him team up with a horror writer and see what happens. Or just write a novel about monsters and see what happens. But that’s just me.

The point here, though, is that I didn’t start reading his books until this past fall. I started with his first (and one of his best) books, called “A Time To Kill.” This book was published in 1989, 24 years before I started reading Grisham’s books. I finally just decided to see what all the hub bub was about.

I didn’t give thought to this at first, but I really liked the book and have been progressively reading through his canon, like you would do with any author you really like. But, because I’m behind the times, I have been getting these books very cheap, on discount racks, at the library, or loaned to me by people who’ve had them sitting on the shelves for years, collecting dust since they read them years ago. As a result of this, when his new book came out last fall, called “Sycamore Row,” which happens to be a sequel to the first novel, “A Time To Kill,” I was not at all tempted to jump into the “gotta have it now” fray. I’m still way back at “The Broker” (2005). I’ve got plenty of time to kill (ha ha) before I get to the new one. And I’m happy to work my way to it, watching the price drop and drop as time goes by. Why? Because I am not a rich man and I think it is stupid of me to get something NOW for reasons that don’t make any sense.

I have stopped buying books when they first come out. That, I have determined, is for rich people.

So, you do what you want. I won’t interfere. I won’t judge you. But I’m going to go ahead and let those other people out there, hustling through the hurley burley, worry about reading the latest and greatest book by their author of choice. Let them pay top dollar to read it the day it comes out. There are plenty of those people and their obsessive nature will always provide retailers with big income and all the rest in our gotta have it now world. And when those readers finally give decide to clean house and donate that book to a book sale, where it will probably sell for a quarter, I’ll be there to pick up the pieces.

And I’ll enjoy it just as much.

Maybe more.



Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2014