Robert R. Mitchell's Blog, page 9

Kerouac's "Terry, the Mexican girl"

Thanks to Nancy Bevilaqua for the heads up and to Charles for finding and sharing:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

RIP Bea Kozera

Free eBook promo finished: thank you for participating!

Thanks to everyone who downloaded their free copy of Only Shot At A Good Tombstone!! Much appreciated. If you end up enjoying it, please take a couple moments to rate it on Goodreads and/or Amazon and leave a brief comment. It's unreal how important this is to the future success of this story. Thanks again for downloading the book and stay tuned for our next promo!

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Only Shot At A Good Tombstone

"..fascinating and haunting..."

Free eBook version Wednesday the 21st through Friday the 23rd

Recommended for readers 18 and above

Available on Amazon.com:

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UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Only-Shot-Goo...

For more reviews and information about the book:
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Tell your friends and family: free eBook tomorrow!

Only Shot At A Good Tombstone

"..fascinating and haunting..."

Free eBook version Wednesday the 21st through Friday the 23rd

Recommended for readers 18 and above

Available on Amazon.com:

US: http://www.amazon.com/Only-Shot-Good-...

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Only-Shot-Goo...

For more reviews and information about the book:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...

www.t0mbst0ne.com

Free T0mbst0ne Wednesday - Friday!!

This Wednesday, August 21st through Friday, August 23rd, the eBook format of Only Shot At A Good Tombstone is FREE via Amazon.com:

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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Only-Shot-Goo...

Download to most any digital device!!

This Wednesday through Friday is your opportunity to give Only Shot At A Good Tombstone a shot for FREE!

For more information on the book see Amazon (above), Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...) or the website: www.t0mbst0ne.com.

Review of Elaine Pagels' The Origin of Satan

The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics by Elaine Pagels

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In her Introduction, Elaine Pagels reminds us that she is a historian. This isn’t surprising since her expertise is the period in which Christianity was born and there are few topics more likely to elicit an emotional reaction among some readers than Christianity and the other two members of the Abrahamic “Big Three”: Islam and Judaism.

As a historian, of course, Pagels’ job is to immerse herself in the time period, gathering and analyzing as many pieces of evidence as humanly possible. Many of us who were raised in a conservative Protestant tradition rarely read contemporary sources, focusing instead exclusively on the canon. By focusing only on what was deemed “God’s Word,” however, we missed out on a world abuzz with treatises, letters gospels, debates and conversations about existence, Jesus and God. Pagels takes us to the homes of these writers, whether it’s an urban abode in downtown Jerusalem or a desert cave. All these people were thinking and debating and talking and if we claim to care about the story of Jesus it seems imperative that we should know what the world was like before, during and after his life.

So why spend so much time on Jesus in a review of Pagels’ book on the origin of Satan? The birth of Christianity and the birth of the traditional Western view of Satan were entirely intertwined. Drawing on her expertise in the original languages of Scripture, Pagels demonstrates that the word “Satan” originally denoted a functionary of God’s retinue, one dedicated to obstructing human behavior when directed by God. For example, in the biblical story of Balaam and the Ass, it is “a satan” who prevents him from disobeying God. As the story progresses, Balaam’s donkey begins to talk and Balaam is able to see the angelic being, the “satan,” standing before him, barring the way to rebellion.

It was not until the 1st century that “Satan” became the entity we all think of when we hear the name. The story of the angels’ rebellion is a recent one and one that has been applied retroactively to previous scripture. Who tempted Eve in the Garden? According to Genesis, it wasn’t Satan, it was the serpent. “Same thing” you say? Not until much later in history. (I’ll be reading Pagels’ Adam, Eve and the Serpent next.)

As she painstakingly tracks the use of the word “satan” in Scripture and contemporary sources, Pagels posits that the modern concept of Satan and the spiritual warfare inherent in the Gospels would not have developed as it did if it weren’t for Jewish internecine struggles under 1st century Roman occupation and during the war against Rome itself. Again, as a historian, Pagels looks at WHEN a Gospel was written and under what pressures and within what zeitgeist the author wrote. If you were a Jewish follower of Christ who barely survived the war against Rome and were now embroiled in struggles with the majority of Jews who did not appreciate early Christianity’s challenge of the status quo, whom would you paint to be the villains in the various “trials” of Jesus? Those motivated by none other than “Satan,” of course.




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Going, going gone!

Beyond the Will of God: A Jill Simpson Mystery by David Biddle

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Like a legendary major leaguer pointing to center field on an 0-2 count, David Biddle sets an almost unachievable goal with Beyond the Will of God: A Jill Simpson Mystery, and that’s before we even get past the title. Before you read this book, read Mr. Biddle’s “From the Author” piece on Amazon in which he talks about “allegory, myth, and symbolic storytelling.” Biddle is talking vibrations, the nature of human perception, the soul, emotion, all the big mysteries. And that’s cosmic mysteries, not the kind the hard-boiled detective or crusading cop solve. So how do you take the yin of expanding consciousness and intra-dimensional travel and cram it against the yang of a revered, insanely-popular, convention-filled genre like the classic detective mystery? After all, there are rules to be followed, right? Well just as yin and yang do not actually negate each other, so too the juxtaposition of psychedelic enlightenment and gritty, methodical police work contribute to a whole that masterfully exceeds the sum of its parts.

Our very first clue to the method behind the madness is Cecil the scientific-minded researcher exploring worlds that no self-respecting scientist would touch with a 10-foot pipette. ”OK,” the skeptical reader thinks, “maybe this IS doable. Just so long as we don’t get too complicated.” What follows, of course, is a shotgun blast of random complexity. If Biddle had a chance in hell of making this all work, it just went up in smoke. But just in case he pulls it off, let’s keep reading. And off you go: never really believing he can do it without somehow “cheating” but wholeheartedly rooting for Sergeant Simpson every step of the way. In the end of course, Biddle is true to both the yin and yang. This story is as taut, precise, believable and rewarding a cop mystery as you could hope for from any of the masters while still asking the “big questions” and offering not the answers but perhaps a new pair of glasses with which to continue the search.

To this day, there is disagreement about whether Babe Ruth really pointed to center field back in 1932. There is no disagreement, however, that he crushed the hell out of the next pitch. How does something that amazing happen? Talent and hard work. When you finish the story, continue reading through the references, resources and acknowledgements. David Biddle invested years of hard work to make this amazing story happen. So sit back, have some peanuts and a cold one and enjoy watching Biddle hit it out of the park.




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Beyond a trip....

Review to follow...

Beyond the Will of God: A Jill Simpson Mystery

KBoards Book Discovery Day!!

Check out Only Shot At A Good Tombstone on KBoards Book Discovery Day!!


http://www.kboards.blogspot.com/2013/...

Pass the fry bread, please!

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If reading Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is like running alongside a longhouse with 24 windows, getting 24 glimpses or mental snapshots of life inside, Reservation Blues is like being invited in and offered a can of Pepsi, a hot piece of fry bread and a place to crash. You are there for the awkward silences and shy smiles, the pettiness and jealousy of a small community, the loyalty and tradition, the despair and depression. In Fistfight, you’re buoyed by the narrator’s survival and the artificial decorum of a brief visit. In Reservation Blues you’re living on the reservation; tempted to turn away from particularly painful moments and compelled to stand solemnly when “characters” you’ve come to care for fall beside you. In the terminology of white American history, Reservation Blues is a Tall Tale with larger-than-life everything . If we look for a more universal term, the “magical realism” of Gabriel Garcia Marquez comes to mind and explains what Alexie probably meant when he coined the term “reservation realism.” Some folks have probably criticized Reservation Blues for being too preachy and heavy-handed but we’re talking about a couple hundred years of brutality and genocide so I think it’s fair to cut Alexie a little slack. While I was disappointed that Robert Johnson didn’t play as significant a role as I expected, the real Coyote Spring’s lyrics are fitting tributes to his legacy.



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