A Day in History

October 22 is the 295^th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.  There are 70 days remaining until the end of the year. 

I am sure that you could pick any day and it would have some significance for their culture or history.  We’re never apt to sit around waiting for a special day to deliver on our promises.  We just act.  So for instance, what would weave the 22^nd into the memory of our lives?  Well in 1962 The US and Soviets were in a face off over missiles in Cuba.

  We were as close as any would say to nuclear annihilation ever, if it had gone differently the survivors would be living in an entirely different world then the one we know now. 

Or how about that the FBI shot and killed the noted gangster Pretty Boy Floyd in 1934 that signaled the end of the great robbers of the depression area. But the real beauty, for American’s  anyway, was on this auspicious day in 1914 Congress passing the Revenue Act mandating the first tax on income  From then on, all kinds of fiscal bedevilment has been afoot.

But let’s change gears and party ~

 So all you psychophysics out there  (The scientific study of the relation between stimulus and sensation) let’s all think about celebrating  Fechner Day; for Gustave Theodor Fechner, founder of psychophysics.

Heres to S=K Log 1 aka Weber-Fechner Law.

Licorice's Relative Value

One of the greater observation for me at this juncture, is to realize how I have balanced my life between what I didn't want to do, with what I considered as necessary. Along with what I thought I would do once I ejected my fetters. 

   I often speak of the case of while growing up as a child I had fantasies of how much candy I'd buy if only I had the money. Then, one day, when I inevitably got work, then made money, I would walk into that store and scoop up bags full and just eat away in bliss.  I smile, because I remember the summer I was ten, after cutting three lawns I had accumulated nine whole bucks in my pocket.  More money than all the candy in the world I conjectured.  So I went to the local walking distance Seven-Eleven and eagerly perused the displays of chocolates. Knowing as I did, I had finally obtained the power to have it ALL! 

 As I gazed upon the assortment of candy bars, swelling packages of licorice, and phalanx’s of stacked gum. The relative value of it all descended on me like a load of bricks. Relative value is an economic term that says attractiveness is measured in terms of risk, liquidity (cash) and return of one instrument relative to another. In this case, there was nothing there I really wanted that was worth the sense of power I held with cash in my pocket.  Seems those dreams of greener pastures really do have meaning beyond teaching us to settle.  We grow, and so do our dreams. 

An-duh, its no indictment when we realize that perhaps its time to put on a different dream that fits more to who we have become than go off chasing after the past desires of happy.  

Common as Corn

I wanted to capture the process before the events of the day eclipses the freshness of it and I lose them until another galvanizing moment; like upset or sudden unexpected shift to the orderly parade of my well planned life, a broken fingernail gets total attention in the specific aftermath of its appearance.

I sent a response to an email advertisement on Write-job.com. They were seeking someone to submit several short stories (paying $40 apiece). The submission instructions were to send an email to a particular address on craigslist, then they would send back specific subject outline request.  I had noticed from past ads posted on craigslist that they were taken down fairly quickly, so was hesitant to spend too much time on an introduction message. 

  I put the usual greetings and a short bio I held in reserve for such occasions.  Usually soon after sending I would get an alert that the address was no longer active; then I’d go along with my business.  On this occasion nothing happened, so again, I also went along with my business.  Later that evening I got a response email to my submission and it said, “Hello Albert ~ before I send the outline for the sample, I want to make sure you understand that the content is for a very mature adult website.  The themes all revolve around coerced/forced sex acts.  As long as this doesn’t offend you, I will send along the outline.”

  I found it rather humorous, as well as obvious, I was fishing in the wrong pond.  I also felt a bit grateful for the time it took to orient me on what they wanted and what I may have been getting myself into.  For just a few heartbeats I thought of Anais Nin and how the only work she could get was the publishing of her risqué journals ~ called diarist back in the 1930’s.  So If I were to take the offer I’d be in the company of a fine author since I found her work vivid and riveting.  What also surfaced was something I wasn’t counting on, but now recognize had been simmering.  It was over the outright commercial nobbling, abducting, snatching, seizing or more commonly known as kidnapping, of creativity.

   As I read one advertisement to another calling for writers to write blogs, I see that the demand is about specific sports, towns, travel, and how-to’s I see the underpinning demand for writing skills is to convey a product or service.  Now that may be my own outrage and I’ll deal with that in due course.  

But it also stirred up my memory of when I was a fledgling guitar player.  I knew a few songs, perhaps a few dozen cords, and my voice was in its adolescent cracking.  But never mind that sensitivity period, what chaffed me most was when my parents would have parties at the house they would invariably ask me to come out and play my guitar for their guest.  My siblings and I were accustomed to this sort of treatment; we had ‘entertained’ strangers all of my growing up years.  Singing, dancing, doing skits, all at the bequest of my parents, (who now I realize were most likely totally drunk.)  My recall of these events from my teenage years, as vividly painful; sitting there singing my heart out to John Denver’s Country Roads only to see the guest wonder off or engage in loud conversations  drowning me out, while I tried to play.  Again, perhaps it was just my fragile ego at that moment but I still cringe today at the memory of it.

   I still discern creative writing different from that of journalistic, or literature as some might say.  I still find it difficult to get the former accepted for publishing when it’s not linked to some money generating endeavor.  It’s sad for me to witness art being corrupted for merchandising interest.  

Talent has become a raw material; or at best, a commodity that is used to turn a buck; something to be manipulated, something as common as corn. Not to long ago it was considered a divine gift.