michael

VOTE and Beer

I have one thing to insist on today: VOTE!

I have. We received the ballots in yesterday’s mail. Filled them out, sealed up the envelopes, dropped them off this morning. We have been waiting for … months? to vote. And now we have. Remember: VOTE!

Oregon votes by mail with lots of ballot drop off locations. It is the local library for us. I guess that for many of you this is not the case. If you are asked, lobby for a system for your state. It is a fantastic way to go about it.

So much for my soapboxing today.

This book, NOIR, is the longest book I have read since I had a stroke. It takes me longer than it used to to read a book. I am plowing through it. Slowly. I did note a bit of irritation with it. Digressions! Long ambling tales!! Unnecessary characters! Wait! Hold on Michael! What is your rush? What do you need the end of the story to come so quickly? This is not a bit of non-fiction that gives several bits of stories to set a stage because you won’t get the point of the story without the examples.
(I am looking at the writer for a news outlet.)
Yes, the book is a fiction to be enjoyed. That is the point of it, isn’t it? If not what is the point. of it?

There is a beer waiting. Well, OK, two beers. Perhaps three of them. The Southwest Gentlemans Association meets on the third Thursday of the month. Not that we have for quite a while. We are doing it tonight  … tonight (wait, is that right? spelling wise?) I went out and bought some beer for tonight. I have known these guys since 1995 or 1996 or some tire back then. It was part of the Oregon Brew Crew. Since then OBC has changed and so have we. So we meet on our own. We are all certified judges and had some great palettes and it seems they have them still. I have fallen away from those refined taste buds. I have also lost 70+ pounds since then. I gave up the constant tasting to keep my palette trained. I am happier with less weight. There is plenty of beer to enjoy. And other things to enjoy also.

— MichaelRpdx :: osm5

Herb Caen Loyal Royal

The “Loyal Royal”, do you know the series of typewriters? They belonged to Herb Caen. He was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. I first encountered him when I went to the San Francisco Art Institute in 1980. Like many, I read his column, even if it was the only thing I read in the newspaper. In a book I am reading I wondered about Herb Caen. Was he really being read in 1947? Oh yes! He had started his column in 1938 and kept it up until he died. Six days a week 1000 words to a column. He was only not writing for four years during the war. Consider that … 1000 words a day … every day … for over 60 years. If you are in San Francisco you can go by the Chronicle’s office and see one on display … maybe more than one. He coined the term beatnik and popularized hippie and … so many bits about San Francisco. Including … ellipses. Look him up on Wikipedia to get a bit of flavor and see one of the Loyal Royals they have on display.

1000 words a day! A day! Six days a week! For 60 years! What a record he holds. I am considering it. So many words, to capture the minds of people. I have not even drunk coffee that consistently for my life. Thinking on what I have done … I have eaten and slept that consistently. I cannot think of anything else I have done so consistently.

You?

It seems my Royal does a double space every once in a while. I will forgive it.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

3:00am Digressions

What is it about 3:00am? I wake up then. Not all the time. Enough to not like it. I have read that if you have trouble Sleeping, Get Up. I have taken to that. Today I am adding “no computer, no phone” rule to it, the getting up thing. When I get up I can write or read. My wife says it is OK to type. I do not want to disturb her. She can get back to sleep and I do not want to wake her. Maybe I can get back to sleep. Maybe not.

Today I followed through on the write and read plan and went back to sleep. I wrote “Morning Pages” and it went well. Two pages in 21 minutes. I tend to take 10 – 12 ménutes to write a page. After that, I enjoyed a novel. More on it later, after I finish it.

Side note: (much better now) In these One Typed Pages run 250 to 440 words. When I was a beer journalist I would write 1000 – 1200 words per column. It seems that I need to work on my stamina. A novel? Short story? That is a whole bunch more words. Another side note: when I was in radio a 30-second spot, advertisement, was around 100 words give or take a few. That kinda spoiled me for long wordy explanations. Say it quickly get what you can in your 30 seconds. It in very languorous to take the words, to take the explanation, to take the reflection, to say what you have to say. Yeah, I am trying for that. In these few hundred words. My side notes are getting to be longer than what I started with. Let me see what I say side note, digression, on next.

Ballots are … wait, sorry, I am not going into that topic.

I think, wait back up here. After my stroke I had problems reading. I could not read a book. Two items, 1) I could not concentrate on a book while reading it, 2) I could not physically read a page. The second one was helped with therapy. The concentration was helped by summarizing each chapter. Perhaps I can reverse that bit, write an idea. Expand it. Expand it again.

This is thinking out loud. It is time to go off and think out loud with a pen or pencil and something to write on Probably a journal. That means …

Hold those thoughts, thoughts, something. I will be back.

— MichaelRpdx :: ih3k

Falling to Temptation

They sang. I listened. They beckoned. I deterred.

After months of denial, I gave in. I was lured by a Kickstarter for Dutch Ovens. It cost less than a new one less than my – oh wait, another temptation I fell to – so a typewriter and a dutch oven. Then today three (more) Fountain Pens. OK, a typewriter with the key layout I have been looking for for months. A dutch oven with a reversible set up you can use it as a pot, or turn it over and use the lid as a cooking surface and have the pot part as a lid, like an oven, for bread in my case. And then the fountain pens, costing less than either of the others, and I have the ink that is beautiful. Such beautiful ink. They do not lend themselves to scribbling like my best in the world ballpoint pen, a Jetstream, that flows over the paper while I keep it in a supply of refill barrels. They lend themselves to a considered bit of prose going forward slowly, like the considered cadence of a judge.

They sang like the Sirens and I did not have a crew to tie me to a mast of self-control. I was not an Odysseus (or Ulysses if you prefer the Latin telling) not by a wide or narrow margin. So I have a typewriter in hand, a dutch oven a few months away, and fountain pens somewhere in the care of the USPS, soon to be delivered.

That is how I fell. By paying attention to things that I was prone to listening to the call of good goods. It is not like I do not have typewriters, five functional or pens, a number of which I cannot count, and two functional fountain pens or cookware of which we have enough to feed 50 or 60 guests a variety of things. No! I have plenty of those things that I purchased after the Siren call of a typewriter with a key layout like I do not have, pens with a different feel to their writing, and a dutch oven with a lid like one not found on any we have.

Maybe I am a slut, a glutton for something slightly better than what I have currently. Maybe. Perhaps.

 * * *
PSA: it is the time of year to get a flu shot. We did today. It is painless. It should protect you.

—- MichaelRpdx :: ih3k

Stormy Weather

It was a bright and stormy day. So windy! So stormy!

We were happy to have rain again. So much rain throughout the night, through the day and night. Through the day I read Noir and watched “Typewriter Club LIVE: Fix It or Forget It?” Seems that most of the people fix it, or at least try. It was interesting in that they were joined by people in Portragul and Japan, Tokoyo. The video is quite the marathon – two and a half hours. It does make for an afternoon of stormy weather. You can curl up and watch it while looking out the window and watch the people move in. Watch them Surreptitiosly (sp)

There were things to write about. Now, what were they? I seem to have this problem a lot.

I am going to quit trying and quit boring myself and you.

-— MichaelRpdx :: ih3k
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Books

Books seem like the best pals of people who type As an Idaho teenagers they were something I loved. I would read as much as possib@e. Other people did not think so. They thought books to read were for when you had run out of things to do. Get outside to do something. Anything. I like books and rain. When it was raining they did not expect me to be outside doing something.

It rained today. And I had to take MY PRIVATE PROPERTY back to the library. So I bought a copy. I don’t like prose poetry. I don’t like long poems. Yet I love this book. Check it out of a library to see what I mean.

I check books out of the library to see if I like them. If I like them a lot I will buy a copy for myself. But then, as I do now, need to get rid of a couple of books. I have a lot. Many in boxes where they have been for two decades or more. There are plenty of books to rid of. Fortunately, there is a nice collection of free libraries. Some of them need some books. I am ready.

I see that Cat is on Instagram. It is a great place to be when you are not typing. And my gawd: What a typewriter collection she has. Even if there is not a Hermes there. 🙂 (I am MichaelRpdx there and most other places where you have to or get to choose your name.)

I’m a book slut.
I’m a book glut.
A book glutton I will get it to check it out.

You? Are you a book glutton? My newest checked out of the library is NOIR from Christopher Moore. It is heavy with, well it is filled with enough wordplay to make it weigh like a vial of mercury. The surprising tidbit about it was the date of publication – 2018. He would compete with Chander or Macdonald or Thompson. Except they wrote a long time ago and none of them would have so much allegories or synonyms or well, get a copy of it or one of his other novels to find out for yourself.

I am going to read more of his prose.

— MichaelRpdx :: ih3k

P.S. = What do you call, or refer to, a typwriter with a key layout different from the normal (OK, American English) set of keys? International Hermes 3000 seems wrong.

International Hermes

This is not a Hermes 3000 as I know it. Or as most of you, I believe, know it. It has no zero, 0, key. There is no one, 1, key. That is a capital o and & lower case L. Why might you ask? ¿por qué? Well, señor, or señora, because they needed to use space for the special keys that create  [the diatricials needed like ´ ^ ` and others] yes those are the special bits needed to create most of the alphabet used by European typists. Do I call it a “European 3000”? Well, in any case, I have this “new” 1969 Hermes. I am thrilled.

It also needs replacement platen knobs. have on it makes it tho wide to fit in the hard case. Which measurements show that it should fit the one from my Hermes 3000. Ah, goshums. Have I said that I am thrilled with it yet?

What do people need a § for? Heck, what is it for? I mean I understand a *. You cannot clean up your f**king language without them. 🙂

I cannot think about other things again yet.

— MichaelRpdx :: ih3k

Golden Notebook

In 1962 Doris Lessing published The Golden Notebook. In 2005 Time magazine listed the book as one of the best 100 English novels of, or rather, since 1923.

It explored mental and societal breakdowns. What fascinated me about it was its use of four journals to tell the story.

Black – of the years leading up to and through WW11;
Red – experiences as a Communist party member;
Yellow – of her painful ending of her love affair(s?) ;
Blue – a personal journal journal memories, dreams …

I was enthralled with the book when I first read it in the 1970s. A recent re-reading did not go well. I grew
sick of, it quickly.

However, the idea of keeping different journals for different parts of life stayed with me. I now have several journals. Rather than having them set apart by colors, I have them marked by gaffer tape. Gaffer tape, a far superior thing to duct tape. It comes in a wide variety of colors. I have black, yellow, and orange. I use them to mark my books in a different manner. My Morning Pages have a two inch stripe along the top of the book. My sketch journal has a vertical stripe along the left side. A book on cooking has a horizontal stripe two inches down from the top. My newest journal is Languages. I keep notes on the ones I am studying (Spanish, Latin, French, and Norwegian) with, perhaps, some bits about English.

In the dark I can identify which book I have in hand. This is handy, as I keep the current ones stacked by my chair. All of this thanks to Doris Lessing. There was a movie, with Jason Robards and Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave called Julia. Oh, wait, that was based on Pentimento. From Lillian Hellman. Ooops. Well, that was a fine movie. HooRay for One Typed Page – bringing back memories and having me look things up.

More later, wear your mask, get into the world.

— MichaelRpdx :: osm5

Despair Day

Well wow. I was woken wide awake at 2:00am with the news that Trump had tested positive for Covid-19. I could not get back to sleep after that news. Wait, why couldn’t I go back to sleep then? I do not really know. But I was up. The New York Times carried the story. One person was surprised on FaceBook After an hour or so the local paper, The Oregonian, had something. In the meantime, I kept looping news sites looking for something on it.

Why did I, do I Care?
What happened to sleep?
Where did I spend today?
Who do I really care for?
I sure as shit am not in touch with the Tao.

There is a bit of reality creeping in abouv Covid—19. I was/am living in a bit of a bubble. Wear my mask when IT am out in public. And it is all good for me. Well, except for my wife insisting, that I do not go into grocery stores, that I am too vulnerable.

A Short History

In 2017 I retired on September 15. On the 17th I fell and fractured my leg. On August 28 I went in for an aortic valve replacement. There were complications. I spent four weeks in the hospital and two more in rehab. A year later a side effect of my treatment for Hodgin’s Lymphoma, in 1976, surfaced and I had the upper left node of my lung removed. Now I am working on a full year out of the hospital.

End of the History

I do not know how Trump getting Covid-19 has triggered my fears about health. But today is the day. Fuckadoodle-doo.

I believe that people have their happiness levels set. If you are Optimistic, happy guy the circumstances don’t really affect your mood. If you worry and are prone to despair same thing. I am typically a happy guy. Optimistic.

Today is an exception. see you later, when I am back to being myself.

— MichaelRpdx :: hbb

National Coffee Day

National Coffee Day? How did I miss it? I am kinda lucky. I just happened to try a new roasting method. um, let me explain. I roast my own coffee. My wife loves it. We share some in the morning. Every day. It is usually Guatemalan though I have snuck some Java into the rotation. This, coffee roasting, has been going on since 2008, or sometime back then. I started out with very dark roasts. Then I got a bit lighter and now, well I am trying to hit “city” level of roasting. This was motivated by Tom of Sweet Maria’s talking about how they used to stop the roasting when the first crack started. And so I did. The coffee is resting now. I will have a report on it in a day or two. I might have to check with Sweet Maria’s about when they stop their roasting for a “city” level roast. Just as a sanity check. So I observed National Coffee Day with a new roasting style.

Woo Hoo!

~ MichaelRpdx :: h3k