rumbleHUM

a tall spire long, solid stone, jutting into the sky   between two clouds that form a pair of fleshy lips   at the spire’s base, words etched in black stone memorializing the sacrifice of sea men                   I walk                 among the stone walls                 some have reliefs,                 images of battle,                 soldiers                 carrying weapons   benches to sit on, to lay on, plain and simple, marble, I think, line the paths      ...

There is something to be said for subtlety, the quiet, the unassuming.  Too much of our world around us is loud, garishly bright.  It is no wonder that children these days are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder when there is so much drawing their attention to so many different spots at one time.  A great example of this is in video games.  Growing up, I enjoyed two dimensional games which featured monkeys, plumbers, and barrel jumping or alien ships falling through a cascading sea of stars as your ship blasted them from the sky, or some permutation of such theme.  The action was limited and focused.  Video games these days are anything but focused with all kinds of things flying at you from every direction.  The games are in three dimensions with scenes cluttered with as many items the programmer can get into the scene in order to make the game as realistic as possible.  I admit that I own my own video game system but cannot play for long...

Yesterday, I was in mass, trying to concentrate on the homily of the deacon, but finding myself distracted by my anticipation of breakfast, an oatmeal and coffee from Starbucks, a Sunday ritual Valerie and I have.  What made this weekend more special was that I had purchased enough breakfasts through my Starbucks card to get a free food or drink so that my bill at Starbucks which normally runs $10.00 plus gets reduce to $7.00 plus.  I don’t know why the use of a earned reward excited me so much, the idea of getting something free, the value of which was minimal at best.  However, it got me to thinking about the idea of rewards through purchasing. It takes twelve purchases which manifest themselves as stars in my virtual cup on my phone to earn one free food or drink.  And I began to wondering in the silent morning hours of a holy Sunday morning, whether or not a purchase in which I redeemed a reward of a free food or drink also counted for the next award of a free f...

As I sit here before a blank screen, my mind is blank. Nothing, nothing comes to mind to write about. … I worry sometimes about these periods of inactivity, when I take a vacation from creation, delve into other things, perhaps reading a novel (which perhaps as productive), reading comics (perhaps not as productive), or simply whittling away the few hours of the day watching television or surfing the internet (least productive and bordering on plan wasteful).  There is a common belief among exercise experts who say that it is not wise to exercise every day, that to exercise every day is to put your body through much strain, that the body needs to rest for a day, “to catch a breath” to borrow a phrase.  There is also those who regularly, like clockwork, adhere to their morning exercise rituals.  I recently read of a man (on the internet no less) that ran every day of his life for over forty years, through sickness and bad weather.  There are others out there like...

I. in the darkness enshrouding me like a blanket … the light of the television set flickers… flickers … on the edge of consciousness… … The cat calls out A gutteral meow… as I use the ideas for stories to slip … back into unconsciousness … I try to remind myself I have to work tomorrow…   II. crawl over a pile of clothes enter the shower the shower door won’t close the water seems weak   I dress purple shirt purple tie I think not a bow tie this morning what might this say about me will anyone notice   a bowl of oatmeal blackberries added oh, the order for the difficult judge     III. a drive past school zones and trucks and cars   the cars crawl over each other the lanes are ruts We are stuck and frustration is allowed to catch up with me   I appear at the juvenile court but there are no hearings as I was told the day before   I could stay and exchange pleasantries w...

It isn’t like you go searching for the messages, or even that your brain is wired to recognize the messages, at least on a conscious level. Most people don’t. They get wrapped in the mundane aspects of whatever they’re doing to see behind it, to find the true meaning in what they are doing, the objects that they are touching, the words that re being spoken. There is a language, all its own, spoken in a meta-world, where in objects converse with one another, where a pipe isn’t just a pipe. I discovered this mystery world of messages playing a card game with couple of friends of mine. I say card game, and I suppose in your head you see a deck of cards, 52 of them, with diamonds, clubs, spades, and hearts, white, colored either black or red. Or perhaps an image on them, maybe nude women, if you’re naughty, or a number of Sadam Hussein’s military leaders if you’re sadistic and radically pro-American and a gun nut. Or perhaps there are images of Sadam Hussein’s top brass naked if you are ...