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Joseph E Bird

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Why this hillbilly wears shoes.

I’ve got a few ideas I want to tell you about, but there’s something distracting me right now and I need to get it off my chest. (That’s a weird expression. Remind to look that up.) You may not be able to relate to this, but I live in West Virginia, and most of us don’t wear shoes, what with us being hillbillies and everything. But my office has a dress code. We’re required to wear shoes, except on casual Fridays when pert near anything goes. I just threw in that “pert near” as typical hillbilly lingo to add some local flavor to my story. Most of us don’t really talk like that.

I’ve had my shoes on all day. And my knee’s been hurting from running too much. Either that or just one of them getting old things, so I didn’t run today. So I really have had my shoes on from about 7:12 this morning until now, which, according to the clock Steve Jobs gave me, is 8:13. I’ve been home since about 5:24. I stayed a little late because after everyone left the office, I wanted to try out my new guitar amp. There was a guy who used to work for us, but he got tired of having to wear shoes all the time, so he got himself a job in Florida where all he has to wear are flip-flops, or as we used to say back in the olden hillbilly days, thongs.

Rob – that’s the name of the guy who went to Florida to wear thongs – I mean flip-flops (don’t want to plant any untoward images in your mind) – was a guitar player, too, and he had an electric guitar in the office that he’d play around with on his lunch hour. When he left, I told him he had to leave his guitar. Since I was his boss, he had no choice. So he left me the guitar and a pick. But no amplifier. I went up the street the other day to the Fret N Fiddle. That’s what we call music stores here in hillbilly West Virginia. I asked for the smallest amplifier they had. The young feller (more hillbilly lingo) showed me one for $40. Said it ran on batteries. Well, that wouldn’t work, so he showed me another one for $100. I’m way too cheap to spend that kind of money. Then I saw a little amp on the way out that had vacuum tubes. I should have known better. $500. I blame that on the millennials. Even in West Virginia, we have millennial hipsters.

I ended up getting an amp from an online store for $25. I know what you’re thinking. It couldn’t possibly be any good. But I forgot to get a chord. So today I went back up to Fret N Fiddle. They’re closed on Thursdays. Just some random day to be closed, I reckon (lingo). Up the road I went to Gorby’s Music. I had time since I wasn’t running because of the aforementioned sore knee. Gorby’s has been around forever. I got my high school trumpet there, I think. Or maybe it was Herbert’s Music.

I asked the guy at the counter, who looked like a Gorby, if he ever got any Harold Hayslett cellos in the store. Harold Hayslett is also a hillbilly from nearby (actually, he’s the furthest thing from a hillbilly, but I have a theme going here, so we ask that you bear with us) who makes world class cellos and violins out of gopher wood. Just kidding about the gopher wood. The rest is true. I know this because my sister has a cello that he made when he was starting out. The Gorby fellow says he hasn’t seen one in a while and tells me old Harold is still up on the hill. I told him I thought he died. There was a piece on the radio the other day about Hayslett and I thought they said he died but I was wrong. He’s 99 years old and still going strong. It was John Lambros who died. Lambros was another prominent figure from my sister’s cello days in the area and I guess I got them mixed up. Lambros was 98. There might be a connection between music and living a long life.

So I said my goodbye to Mr. Gorby and went back to the office (still wearing my shoes). My lunch hour was over but I plugged in the guitar to make sure my $25 amp worked. It did. At one point in the afternoon I was tempted to take off my shoes and stick my feet under my desk, but at the time, it just seemed like too much trouble. At 5:02, most everyone had left the office so I plugged in the guitar again. At 5:13, someone hollered from the other side of the building to see if I was still there. In West Virginia, we holler, even when we have telephones. I hollered back and said I was, then he left. I had the whole place to myself, so I cranked it up. Then pushed the little button on the amp that made the distortion sound. All of sudden I sounded like a rock star. It was so cool that I kept playing for another fifteen minutes. Then I went home.

I kept my shoes on even then, because once, a few years ago, I took my shoes off at home and was going around in my socks (it must have been winter). And believe it or not, I stubbed my toe on my shoe. One of those freakishly bad stubs. On my shoe. Ironic, yes? Kind of like throwing your back out when you pick up a pillow, which I’ve done. I thought I broke my toe. The big toe, of course. Ever since then, I always wear some kind of shoe until I go to bed.

Ok. I’ve been writing this little story now for 26 minutes. It’s 8:41. My socks are all bunched up in the toes of my shoes and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t wait for that moment, maybe an hour from now, when I get to set my toes free and they can breathe again and escape their leathery prison. I might write a poem about it. No, I won’t.

I sat down here to make some New Year resolutions and I couldn’t get my mind off my uncomfortable feet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.

You didn’t remind me to look up “get it off my chest.”

8:58.

Good night.

5

whisper hello (a love song)

a glance of the eye, the innocent look
the curl of your lips, was all that it took
we talked without words, there was so much to say
my world went to sleep, when you went away

the hollow of lonely
it shakes me with fear
i whisper hello
but nobody’s here

the care in your heart, always ready to share
you left me so humbled, my sins so aware
to witness your goodness, i now realize
it’s what i should live for, to be good in your eyes

i long for your warmth
and to kiss your sweet tears
i whisper hello
but nobody’s here

the devil he tempts, the weak ones to test
he knows how to charm, my lust is impressed
my life is now stained, there’s nothing to do
but beg your forgiveness, your judgment is true

to touch your soft skin
and hold you so dear
i whisper hello
but nobody’s here

the sound of your voice, echoes soft in my mind
i wish i could see you, for all others i’m blind
our love was so fleeting, and me, i’m to blame
i dream of the light, and live with my shame

please laugh for me honey
and bring joy to my ear
i whisper hello
but nobody’s here

copyright 2016, joseph e bird

author’s note: this is not autobiographical and i’m not depressed or missing anyone. i’ve been listening to a lot of “love gone wrong” songs lately and this is my contribution to the genre.

11

How to win a Pulitzer.

I recently came across a short piece written by Joe Bunting that I found on Jane Friedman’s website, 8 Techniques to Win You a Pulitzer. I won’t go into the details (click the link for the explanation) but here they are:

1. Write long sentences.
2. Write short sentences.
3. Be lyrical.
4. Make an allusion to the Bible, or Moby Dick, or Milton.
5. Use an eponym to name your characters.
6. Be specific.
7. Write a story within a story (or a story within a story within a story).
8. Have a wide scope.

As I’m making my way through Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, I see the first technique over and over. In this example, The Swede, the book’s tortured soul, is wrestling with what he should have done, didn’t do, did do, might have done – the kind of endless hand-wringing that we all know too well. He just does it one long sentence.

“But instead he had driven directly home from the office and, because he could never calculate a decision free of its emotional impact on those who claimed his love; because seeing them suffer was his greatest hardship; because ignoring their importuning and defying expectations, even when they would not argue reasonably or to the point, seemed to him an illegitimate use of his superior strength; because he could not disillusion anyone about the kind of selfless son, husband, and father he was; because he had come so highly recommended to everyone, he sat across from Dawn at the kitchen table, watching her deliver a long, sob-wracked, half demented speech, a plea to tell nothing to the FBI.”

That’s one long sentence, complete with semicolons and everything. Technique No. 2 should be easier to master.

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Writer’s Log – 11/27/16

In novel writing, much importance is placed upon the first sentence, the need to capture the imagination of the reader – love at first sight, if you will. Certainly there are many terrific opening lines for great books. (Do you own Google search, just for kicks.) Is this one of them?

“The Swede.”

It’s the opening of American Pastoral, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Philip Roth.

Ok, let’s not be so literal so as to limit the “opening line” to simply the first sentence. Let’s say we’re evaluating the opening in general. Roth follows the not-so-descriptive introduction of one of his pivotal characters with this:

“During the war years, when I was still a grade school boy, this was a magical name in our Newark neighborhood, even to adults just a generation removed from the city’s old Prince Street ghetto and not yet so flawlessly Americanized as to be bowled over by the prowess of a high school athlete.”

Are you hooked yet?  No?  Me neither.

And yet I kept reading. Page after page after page about the old neighborhood and its people. Not much action. Some conversations in a class reunion about days gone by.  in medias res?  No, not really. It’s all backstory. It’s what writing coaches would call exposition, and they greatly advise against it.

Take another look at that second sentence. It’s really long. The coach would advise to break it up, to get that comprehension level down a couple of notches. Roth also uses big words that most readers would have to look up. Again, not something they say you should do. It takes the reader out of the story.

I used to read a lot of John Grisham. Lots of story and action, and Grisham will keep you turning those pages. He follows the rules, has lots of fans, and piles of money. Roth probably does too, but he’s not exactly a household name.

Yet Philip Roth is a highly respected novelist. He breaks the rules and wins a Pulitzer.  How?

On page 86, he wrote this:

“The daugher who transports him out of the longed-for American pastoral and into everything that is its antithesis and its enemy, into the fury, the violence, and the desperation of the couterpastoral – into the indigenous American berserk.”

It took Roth 85 pages to get to the reader to the point that the meat of the sentence is understood mentally and emotionally, and so on-point that its resonance is profound.

I’m starting to get it.

It’s all about what you’re trying to acccomplish. It’s all about what you want your writing to do, and not so much about how many people read it. The truth is, the odds are greatly against any of us writing a best-seller. If you’re going to put in the hours, it had better be for something worthwhile. It had better bring at least one reader some satifisfaction, that one reader being the author.

Footnote:  The number one best-selling author from 1996 to 2000 was John Grisham. Philip Roth didn’t even crack the top 15 in 1997, the year American Pastoral won the Pulitzer.

 

 

 

 

 

2

Poison Tree

Speaking of the Milk Carton Kids, I stumbled upon this little video about a little man in a little town. I can relate.  The chorus:

I’m a little man in a little town
It’s a little cold, I’m a little down
I get a little angry, a little bit each day
A little while longer, we’ll dig a little grave

2

A.S. Morgan

sid-on-porch-for-webAlbert Sidney Morgan, ca 1968.

Sid Morgan was one of the most colorful personalities in my family, and the old home place, though it has been gone for more than 40 years, is still seared in my memory. This photo, photographer unknown, captures so much.

Most of the photos of Sid and his museum are in black and white. This one was probably taken just when color photography was becoming the dominant medium and it’s easy to imagine this image in black and white. In fact, with Photoshop I could strip the color down to a grey monotone and create a more retro photo that seems to be popular these days.  But then I’d lose the red shirt and scarf, which I think brings the photo to life.

Check out all the details, starting with Sid himself. There’s almost a smile, at the very least, a glint in the eyes. Self confident, and though past his prime, still very much his own man.

The house, too, is past its prime. The paint long-since faded. Only a little red remains on the porch post. The floor boards have decayed. Dry and dusty. You can imagine standing near the edge and gently nudging the boards downward with your foot and controlling their spring back into place.

The window to the left seems so fragile, as if it could be broken by a stiff breeze. The curtains may be brand new, but the context of the picture tells you they are not.

So many rockers to choose from, perfect for a quiet Sunday afternoon, as Sid tells tales of his trips down the Mississippi, and the Hennis trucks whine down Route 35 in front of the site of the John Amos power plant.

To the right is the front door. My grandmother, Opal Clatworthy, watches from behind the screen, almost hidden. What is she thinking?

What is Sid thinking?

Where is everybody else?

This is how stories start.

 

 

4

oh, no

mountains for web

in all good stories, something goes wrong.

that’s not to say it doesn’t get fixed in the end.

but if you want to tell a good story, something has to go wrong.

so if I tell you how beautiful the morning was, and how good i felt when I left for my run at 7:45…

4

gloom be gone

Poets like to write about rain.

And gloom.

And getting old.

And loss.

But today is beautiful.

The sun is shining.

It’s too nice for poetry.

Even if all I do is sit in the shade with a cup of coffee.

3

My Conversation

Recreation.
Relaxation.
That’s all I need
for motivation.

Observation.
Contemplation.
It’s my way
of restoration.

Calculation.
Conjugation.
Created for
communication.

Perspiration.
Inspiration.
What once was play
is avocation.

Acclamation.
Adoration.
Distorts the mind
and expectation.

Preparation.
Presentation.
Hoping for
more confirmation.

Indignation.
Resignation.
Subject the dream
to termination.

Devastation.
Isolation.
Kills the soul
with suffocation.

Then.
None of it matters.

Exhumation.
Restoration.
Education.
Innovation.
Fascination.
Elevation.
Vindication.
Liberation.

Conversation.
Tribulation.
It’s just for me,
my celebration.

copyright 2016, joseph e bird

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