If dead is non existence

If dead is non existence, then we were dead twice: once before conception; once after we die. 

Enjoy this short time; it's fun, even the bad times are fun.

I'm either profound or silly.

I like the sound of my own sillybles.

Politics begins in the body, its rights,
deity given, supernatural, or natural, according to your personal beliefs.

The result the same, there are rights each individual possesses. No one or aggregate  may rescind these rights.

No woman can, even a majority of women, can righteously deny these rights to the individual woman.
 

That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.

Good politics may call this statement of Hillel its ancestor.

I prefer silly.

(I am not a feminist, but have this lingo logic. Man is in the word woman, woman is not in man. Seems logical to use woman for human kind. That’s political too, but not feminist. I use actor for women and men in that profession.)

Rhyme reasons

Rhyme, patterns of sound correspondences, with which you compose poems much the same way music composers craft songs.

True rhyme, good wood could.

consonance, good god giddy,
wed bid sad, witty letters bait.

assonance,  late shade bakes, vocal loads boat.

Alliteration, “The Force that through the green fuse drives the flower,”
Summer sunset inside.

Write five hundred lines quickly, without the application of too much conscious thought, in which you mix the above types of rhyme.

Rhyme is only on accented syllables, but don't worry too much about this now. Soon.

Then do the same tomorrow.

The next day.

Do this for two weeks.

Do not try to make sense, just make sound paragraphs.

Some music please

Forget what you were taught about poem making in grade school, middle school, high school, undergrad, and grad school, unless you had a teacher who actually knew that it is a craft.

What you will read here is not original, not my ideas, they are the practice of previous masters and practitioners of the craft. Two sources in particular I will rob from and I recommend that you acquire copies of each.

Historical Manual of English Prosody
George Saintsbury

The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Third edition, University Press of New England, 2000. Lewis Turco

Saintsbury is the Samuelson, the Darwin, the Einstein of prosody. His work is descriptive not prescriptive; he documents the practice of poem makers through the centuries. It is not necessary for poets to read, but it can’t hurt. It is necessary for scholars, prosodists, and those in the craft who teach to read it. The Book of Forms is the best handbook for a poet. Most of the others are filled with misinformation.

The context here is always the Anglo American tradition unless I specify a different tradition.

You have heard teachers say poetry and prose. They put a genre with a mode because of their profound ignorance.

There are two modes in which you can write, prose and verse. Prose is unmetered and verse is metered. If you want to offer spurious arguments with this I suggest that you don’t read this blog. If you want to learn something about your craft continue.

The genres are novel, play, essay, and poem. Poem is different in that music is the important focus not the tell a good story of novel, dramatize a good story as in play, or explaining or describing as in essay. Although a poem may do some or all of these, its focus is playing music.

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dirge a hate supreme (a jazz method of composition)

 dûrj     ə    hāt   sŏŏ   prēm


  ûr    jĭz    ĭk  skrēt   hāt
 lā     tĭst  sûrj   sēd
 wûrld  pēs   pə     rād
 pûrj   pē    pəlz   hā   tĭd

 nā    chər   nûr   chər  frēd
 nûr   chər   nā    chər  frēd
 sā     pē     ənt  krē   chərz  mûr  dər

 wē     gûr   jĭ     tāt
spēl    rē    gûr    jĭ    tāt
 rā    shəl  spēch  slûrz
 hāt    fəl   bĭ     lēf   wûrdz

skûrj   pēs

 sā     pē     ənt  krē   chərz   mûr  dər
 sā     pē     ənt  krē   chərz   mûr  dər
 nā    chər   nûr   chər  frēd

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Val Avery

I saw Val Avery during the fifties and sixties on the television shows my family watched. Then later I saw him in movies, some good, some great, and some movies not so good, but he always gave a notable performance. He appeared on The Mod Squad, Naked City, Peter Gunn, The Circle Theater, the venerable Hallmark Hall of Fame, Have Gun Will Travel, Tales of Wells Fargo, and Gunsmoke. I saw more productions with him in them than any of the stars during my youth, and that was my introduction to him one afternoon in the Head. He was neighborhood, a guy, friendly, and humane - funny too.

He was among my favorite notables from the first and second cohorts of the Head.

Even after the Lion's Head died for the last time, I saw Val occasionally through the years.

I still see him on television. If there was a search function on cable to search by actor, there would every day probably be a series or movie with Val Avery. I will miss him, and not miss him unless cable dies.

He is my favorite character actor.

He is my favorite actor.

He was a nice, friendly man who could play a thug. His humanity was gangster. Yep.

What do we do?

What do we do with the people who use their wealth, power, and their desire for more wealth to thwart our efforts to solve the climate change problem?

What do we do when the world's populations are suffering and dying?

Do we confiscate their wealth to give aid to the millions, maybe billions, that suffer the consequences of greedy power monger's human action.?

Or do we take something of greater value?

Humane Society's IHOP campaign

IHOP, the International House of Pancakes, in Huntsville, Alabama is my favorite eating place. I meet friends there. One friend and I usually eat there together once a month. The waiters are friendly and competent; the manager always ready to right any mistake in a friendly, homespun manner. I have a habit of eating one item, the same item each time. I order the spinach omelet; of course, you get pancakes. Their coffee is okay. This is a good evaluation from someone who grinds his own beans and makes coffee in a French Press at home. I drink my coffee black no sweetener.

Now I have the knowledge from many sources, including Bill Maher who I respect, that IHOP gets its eggs from a source that crowds the hens into tiny filthy space shared with other hens. That the conditions are dirty and cramped is asserted by the Humane Society. They back their assertions with facts.

I have a personal relationship with an Ihop here in Huntsville, Alabama; they are friendly an respectful to me and my friends.
I called the IHOP customer line -
866-444-5144 -
this morning to state my concerns and hope that they would switch to eggs from cage free hens. The woman who answered, though not belligerent, was adversarial. She stated that experts disagreed on how livestock was to be treated. She had not had her coffee this morn.

I am upset mainly for the inconvenience. I have to find another coffee shop to eat out in.

Visit the Humane Society's computers for more information.

Understand, it is not only the humane treatment of the egg laying hens; dirty conditions introduce the possibility of disease. I want to eat in a place where the sources of livestock are clean and humane. I don't want to worry about possible poisoning.

Call them and protest if you agree.
 

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