Raise Another Glass

Well, hell, as long as nobody else has any new music, words, or commentary, I'll mark the birth of another grand American creative spirit, whose birthday falls on this day (no, not Lars--his birthday was last week).

You weren't perfect either, JMH, or you might still be among the living. But you sure could wail the heck out of a guitar!

So, fly on, fly on, into stratocaster stratospherics.

Mailer Elegy

A moment of silence, if you please, for the passing of Norman Mailer, an author and a character that several of us here have long appreciated, a man who will be missed with a voice that could not be overlooked.

A virtual wake may be in order: wherever you may find yourselves at this time, hoist high a drink, give a grin and a wink, and remember a story or a turn of phrase or a moment of outrageous media manipulation of the sort that only Mailer could orchestrate...

Here's to you, Norman Mailer, in some literary pub of the ages in which the old souls gather for camaraderie, unto which they resort for the rubbing of elbows, the sipping of whiskey, and the reciting of well-told tales.

We're all probably out of place, somewhere.

From Anton Chekov's "An Anonymous Story":

picture from http://filmplus.org/plays/orchard.html

"I keep making plans for our life, plans and plans—and I enjoy doing it so! George, I'll begin with the question, when are you going to give up your post?"

"What for?" asked Orlov, taking his hand from his forehead.

"With your views you cannot remain in the service. You are out of place there."

"My views?" Orlov repeated. "My views? In conviction and temperament I am an ordinary official, one of Shtchedrin's heroes. You take me for something different, I venture to assure you."

"Joking again, George!"

"Not in the least. The service does not satisfy me, perhaps; but , anyway, it is better for me than anything else. I am used to it, and in it I meet men of my own sort; I am in my place there and find it tolerable."

"You hate the service and it revolts you."

"Indeed? If I resign my post, take to dreaming aloud and letting myself be carried away into another world, do you suppose that that world would be less hateful to me than the service?"

"You are ready to libel yourself in order to contradict me." Zinaida Fyodorovna was offended and got up. "I am sorry I began this talk."

"Why are you angry? I am not angry with you for not being an official. Every one lives as he likes best."

"Why, do you live as you like best? Are you free? To spend your life writing documents that are opposed to your own ideas," Zinaida Fyodorvna went on, clasping her hands in despair: "to submit to authority, congratulate your superiors at the new year, and then cards and nothing but cards: worst of all, to be working for a system which must be distasteful to you—no, George, no! You should not make such horrid jokes. It's dreadful. You are a man of ideas, and you ought to be working for your ideas and nothing else."