Malcolm R. Campbell's Blog, page 53

Mother’s Day Within the Sacred Circle of Life

MOTHERS CONNECT US ALL TO THE SACREDSon of Osceola

“The Native American way of life understands the whole world as sacred. Family, tiyospaye, is sacred, the earth is sacred, and all of life has meaning in the interconnected, cangleska wakan, the sacred hoop.

“In this circle of unity, women are revered as beautiful and powerful because they are the givers of sacred life. They are grounded in Mother Earth and connected to Father Sky, bringing children into the world through the power of their life-giving love.

“Like Mother Earth, who provides everything we need to live and to thrive, the woman is able to give everything a human child needs. She nourishes, she loves, and she protects.

“Without women, there is no hope, no future, no carrying on of tradition and culture. This is why Native American cultures have always honored and respected women, elevating them to positions of reverence and honor in the tribe. Mothers and grandmothers raise the children, teaching them how to live life honorably, with respect for elders and for tradition.” – Native Hope

Our patriarchy doesn’t see the world this way, much less those we claim to honor on Mother’s Day. Since we don’t see the world this way, our world within our thoughts and the world of Mother Earth have become upside down and hurting. Some day, perhaps, Mother’s Day will be more meaningful than “give the little woman a box of chocolates and a nap.”

—Malcolm

Getting kicked into next week

Bullies often say I’m going to kick your ass into next week. Before confronting the bully further, I’d want to know if it’s just my ass or if the rest of me follows my ass into the future. Sometimes weather reporters say the wind is strong enough to blow you into next week. As with the bullies, the primary consideration is will I arrive alive.

And then, does one kicked or blown or thrown or otherwise forced into next week remain a week ahead of the rest of the world forever? Or can they crawl back one way or another to “normal time”?

Assuming that one arrives alive and can get back in sync with the world, being kicked into next week has a lot of benefits. The main thing is knowing stuff in advance. Another thing is profits from changes in the stock market etc. which can be taken advantage of.

It does without saying that if you’re kicked into next week, your life may be: (a) spared something bad that was going to happen to you this week, (b) that you’ll know about something bad scheduled for next week, and can now avoid it.

The next time a bully threatens to kick you into next week, don’t dismiss the opportunity out of hand. Your life and/or your wallet might depend on going with the flow of the moment.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the satirical novel “Special Investigative Reporter.”

Review: ‘Whereabouts’ by Jhumpa Lahiri

If you sharpen a knife for too long, you ultimately have nothing left. This novel treads closely to that eventuality. Lahiri has removed everything readers look for in a work of fiction, presenting us with a plotless, episodic story told in short chapters out of which most of the unnamed, middle-aged female protagonist’s soul has been honed away.

Nonetheless, each rather mundane moment, hanging as it does between engagement and lack of engagement with the world packs a punch that can be likened, perhaps, to a velvet hammer or the piercing shiv that remains of the original knife. The overall effect is reminiscent of a child standing that the ocean’s edge, eager to plunge into and experience the water and yet content to stand in the littoral zone between land and sea–or, in the character’s case–between stubborn loneliness and interaction with others.

Her father is dead and her relationship with her mother is strained. Yet she meets others, casual friends and/or acquaintances on the street, even lovers sometimes, without undue suffering. In fact, she tentatively seeks others out but stands back from total or long-term commitment.

There is hope here even though everything human seems transitory, like leaves that will soon be blown away by the wind. And yet, she waits and ages.

Four of Five Stars

–Malcolm

do you remember where you were on that sad day in 1959?

We tend to remember where we were when we heard the bad news:

Pearl HarborKennedy Assassination9/11 Attacks

I wasn’t born yet when Pearl Harbor was attacked, but I definitely know where I was when I first heard about the other two. We seem to be built that way, considering where we were as almost important to us as the bad news.

So yes, I know where I was in 1959 when the breaking network news carried the story of two Native Americans from opposing tribes who drowned when they jumped into a raging river to be together because their love was as big as the sky. I was with my high school band marching in the Washington, D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival parade.

“The Big Bopper” (Jiles Perry Richardson) wrote the song, but he decided it didn’t fit his rockabilly style, so he gave it to Johnny Preston who recorded it after “the music died” in a February 3, 1959 plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa cornfield at 1:00 a.m. CST that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Richardson. The news was seemingly ubiquitous, though I don’t know where I was when I heard first this tragic story. How some people ended up on the plane and others didn’t was, many thought, a twisted example of fate.

So much time has passed, that more people probably know where they were the first time they heard Don McLean’s 1971 song “American Pie” which coined the phrase “when the music died.” The song, at 8 and 1/2 minutes in length, was about the longest one any of us remembered hearing on the radio. I was in a hospital bed in Illinois with mono when the song came out and, frankly, thought I was hallucinating.

As for “Running Bear,” I doubt many people remember his love for Little White Dove these days. The odd thing for me is that I remember the song from the beginning rather than after it appeared in the 1994 Steve Martin movie “A Simple Twist of Fate,” though, that title seems to sum up everything else here.

—Malcolm

Those green books are poisonous

Libraries and rare book collections often carry volumes that feature poisons on their pages, from famous murder mysteries to seminal works on toxicology and forensics. The poisons described in these books are merely words on a page, but some books scattered throughout the world are literally poisonous.

These toxic books, produced in the 19th century, are bound in vivid cloth colored with a notorious pigment known as emerald green that’s laced with arsenic. Many of them are going unnoticed on shelves and in collections. So Melissa Tedone, the lab head for library materials conservation at the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library in Delaware, has launched an effort dubbed the Poison Book Project to locate and catalogue these noxious volumes.

Source: These green books are poisonous—and one may be on a shelf near you

As it turns out, old libraries with old emerald green aren’t the safest of places. What’s worse, I suppose, is learning that this pigment was also used in wallpaper, clothing, and paint of the walls.

The Victorian Era was living, figuratively speaking, in an early version of one of my favorite dark movies, “Arsenic and Old Lace.”

–Malcolm

 

Sunday pastiche

We’re having pork barbecue tonight made in the crockpot. What surprises me is the fact that the recipes came in a booklet supplied by Rival when we bought our first crockpot years ago. They took some care putting the recipe book together. That surprised us! Naturally, when we make this barbecue for somebody else, we don’t tell them we got the recipe from a crockpot company handout.I found the autobiography by Dita Kraus, A Delayed Life to be a nice supplement to the novel version of her story in The Librarian of Auschwitz. She led a very interesting life, though I think this book probably works better for those who’ve read The Librarian of Auschwitz. Interestingly enough, she says very little about the books in her account of concentration camp life.I need a drink. I bought a copy of L. T. Ryan’s Noble Beginnings to pad out my last Amazon order to get free shipping. And I’m exhausted because there’s more action per square inch than most books I’ve read lately. If this kind of stuff happens in the real CIA, our country’s in a lot of trouble. I posted a link to this New York Post article on Facebook to see if FB would raise a stink about it or ban me. Nothing happened. Hmm. Might be a trick. It was my inspiration for my recent satirical Star Chamber Bureau post. I was shocked because this kind of bureau is the last thing I would expect from a liberal administration. I feel happy when I’m writing. But sometimes I finish a chapter and think “Yikes, what’s supposed to happen now?” Well, it’s always like that, but sometimes I’m sort of, er, stuck. Good news. I’m finally unstuck and moving ahead at flank speed.  Makes my day. If you’re a writer, you’ve been there.What doesn’t make my day is the hourly influx of articles (many on Yahoo “news”) about the Kardashians. I don’t think I really know who they are or why they’re anybody. For weeks, I thought they were part of that gang of bad guys from Star Trek’s Alpha Quadrant, the Cardassians. As you can see from this photograph, it’s really hard to tell them apart. I guess some people are famous for being famous while others are more or less fictional.

—Malcolm

‘The Things We Write’ is now available in a paperback edition

You should assume I’m biased when I say this is a beautiful book. What an honor to be part of it. Now it’s out in paperback, supplementing the PDF and e-book editions.

From the Publisher

Seven Thomas-Jacob Publishing, LLC authors bring you 15 of their short stories, excerpts, and poems. Sometimes offbeat, always captivating, the selections include historical fiction, magical realism, crime, psychological suspense, literary fiction, coming of age, and poetry for both children and adults. The works are grouped by author name, not genre, ensuring a surprise each time you turn the page.

Poet Scott Zeidel contributed the cover art. You can also see his artwork on the cover of his collection of poems, Welcome, and in his wife Smoky Zeidel’s book Who’s Munching on my Milkweed.

—Malcolm

Feds Establish Star Chamber Bureau to Tell Citizens What’s True and What’s False

Washington, D.C., April 29, 2022, Star-Gazer News Service–The Imperial Federal Government has announced the creation of a new Star Chamber Bureau within the Department of Homeland Insecurity to winnow out opinions that the government does not like.

Inspired by the FISA Courts, the new bureau will monitor newspapers, bloggers, and social media for signs of any discouraging words about government policies and programs.

According to a bureau spokesperson, “dictatorships around the world have created a sense of ease and happiness via so-called bureaus of truth that determined who was lying and who wasn’t. As always, truth is the first casualty.”

Adolph Stalin, speaking under an immunity clause to keep his name out of the newspapers said that “for speech to be truly free, it must first be vetted by the government to ensure that it’s wholesome for all concerned rather than a rant by an opposing political party, PAC, news organization, or misguided Facebook commenter.”

“Today’s liberals are no longer your daddy’s liberals,” Stalin added.

Homeland Security Secretary Sam Smith said during a congressional hearing Wednesday the department is forming the disinformation bureau to protect the homeland and election security.

“We no longer have the luxury of public and private discourse based on a democratic marketplace of ideas,” said Smith. “Now we will tell you those things you must consider as the truth whether they are true or not.”

-30-

Story by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

Remembering ‘Pay Dirt!: San Francisco, The Romance of a Great City’

My late uncle Maury B. Campbell edited this lavish, spiral-bound love letter to San Francisco in 1949. As a child, I was a little scared of the old prospector on the cover but found myself drawn to the photographs inside. If you search for the book on Google, you’ll find it for sale (used) for $30 to $50.

Like Tony Bennet, I left my heart in this town and saw Pay Dirt as a book of dreams about the place where, one day, I would return. After all, the Campbell family could be found in multiple cities throughout the Bay Area where I was born.

The book comes to mind today because there was a thread about it in Facebook’s “San Francisco Remembered” group that my brother Barry and I follow. I said something like “nice to see the book edited by my uncle showing up here.” Barry did me one better, he posted the news release that came out when the book came out. That was a surprise to everyone but me (since I know Barry has scanned in copies of everything).

The book was, I believe, well received by the city’s movers and shakers and is in demand today by people who love Frisco. As for me, I went back a few times and briefly had an apartment there in the Mission District when my ship was in port in Alameda. The J Church streetcar ran past my front door (and still does). I looked at real estate values lately and see that the three-flat building where my aunt lived is now valued at over a million dollars. That’s why I never went back for good.

But, I digress; The news release begins like this:

After all these years, how nice to see people are still talking about it and looking for copies.

—Malcolm

‘I write as if to save somebody’s life. Probably my own.’

I wonder if all writers feel this way. The quote is often shown in this form, though the complete thought comes from Clarice Lispector’s novel A Breath of Life: “I write as if to save somebody’s life. Probably my own. Life is a kind of madness that death makes. Long live the dead because we live in them.” Now, if you’re a writer do you still agree, or does the second part of the quote change your mind?

Lispector was a Ukrainian-born Brazilian novelist (1920-1977) who wrote novels and short stories in an unconventional style; very interior in approach. I may be proven wrong, but I suspect most readers don’t know of her, have never heard her name, much less read her books. She’s been compared to Joyce and Woolf, an idea she discounts.

I suspect many artists and musicians live (literally and figuratively) through their work. We often hear that creative people get drunk when they’re not composing, singing, painting, or writing. I can understand this. I’m sure people in other professions might feel this way as well, that they are not truly alive whenever they’re outside their element.

In a 1977 TV interview after she released The Hour of the Star, she said, “When I don’t write, I am dead. For the moment I’m dead. I’m speaking from my tomb.” She died later that year.

Most writers, including Lispector, I would think, create various forms of life support to keep them alive when they’re not writing. One of those is thinking about the next work in the queue while doing other tasks. Another is sitting at a table with others and not really listening because one’s characters are not only more interesting but need to have their say about what will be written next.

Perhaps a quote from The Hour of the Star, a novella I like a lot, brings more perspective: “I write because I have nothing better to do in this world: I am superfluous and last in the world of men. I write because I am desperate and weary. I can no longer bear the routine of my existence and, were it not for the constant novelty of writing, I should die symbolically each day.” 

Perhaps the writer isn’t literally dead when s/he’s not writing, but residing in a drunk tank or an asylum.

So much for retirement.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of magical realism and contemporary fantasy.