"Spring is sprung, the grass is riz... I wonder where the birdies iz?"

    - anonymous

According to that esteemed Missourian, Thomas Stearns Eliot, April is the cruelest month. I believe him.

I decided to take the long way to and from the Library today, given I've been cooped up in the house for the last three days, trying to meet a writing deadline. And yes, there are projects in my queue other than meeting the daily dosage for this blog. The sun was sort of shining, and while it's not warm enough for short sleeves yet, at least I didn't have to wear a winter coat to bear the walk from the house to the car in the driveway. I piled all my overdue books into my trust black bag, donned a jacket, and off I went, hoping I'd get a glimpse of the neighborhood rousing itself from the winter doldrums, readying for flowers and the smell of fresh-mown grass.

Boy, was I ever in the wrong place mentally. Simply stated, the town's a mess.

Left-over sand from the snow trucks lined the gutters and driveways, making the streets unsafe for skaters, bicyclists, and motorcycles (not that there were any of these around, but if they'd been out, it would have been skinned knees and elbows for the lot of them).

The grass hasn't really begun growing yet, so the lawns all look sickly and jaundiced, with bare, sunken patches of dirt and leaves dotting the landscape. Not a flower to be seen anywhere, even though we got crocuses and jonquills this week. It all looked nasty, old, and grubby.

The roads are also chock full of ruts, frost heaves, and pot holes. So much so, that motorists weave in and out of traffic lines like drunken sailors on shore leave, trying to evade the deeper holes, causing consternation among the many nannies and au pairs out parading their employers' little darlings along the sidewalks in strollers. I'm sure it's hard for them to tell at a glance whether the two-ton SUV aimed at the pram will actually swerve back toward the street before it reaches them. My nerves were shot by the time I reached the Library, and I wasn't even walking.

The place was jam-packed with men, women, and teenagers all seeking something -- escape from terminal boredom? Information? Truth? I couldn't tell, because nobody was talking as they scanned the volumes, peering anxiously around to see if they'd lost the chance to borrow something entertaining, or interesting. I dallied a bit, not too keen on getting back out into the traffic right away.

Standing in line at the check-out desk, I overheard a little boy who had obviously been unimpressed with his outing to the Library ask his mother, "Can we get out of this place?" His mother asked if he'd like to wait for her outside the front door. He answered, "I'm not going out there anymore -- this whole town is yucky, Mommy! Can we move?"

She still hadn't answered his question by the time I left. But he was definitely on to something, and he was absolutely right, too. This whole town is yucky.

Excuse me. I think I need to call my mother.

R.B.

"If I didn't have writing, I'd be running down the street hurling grenades in people's faces."

   -Paul Fussell

I don't feel particularly entertaining or witty at this moment, so what I want to write about is how writers who sit and wait for divine inspiration often end up not writing anything at all, while at the far other end of the spectrum are those who madly dash off words as quickly as they think them up, regardless of a musely sanctioning. These latter are a curious bunch, cutting a wide swath with their pens, ravaging the literary landscape with debris. These are the people who believe it is somebody else's job to clean it up, make it readable, make it saleable.

The rest of us have to pick gingerly through this junk as we seek out readers, agents, editors, and publishers for our own work. I do feel sorry for the agents and editors who are sitting buried under the fat piles of badly conceived, poorly executed prose and poetry.

Don't get me wrong -- the sparkle and dazzle of an inspirational flash is something perfectly wonderful. However, those who have the habit of referring to themselves as "idea" people rather than "detail" people might be better advised to find other lines of work. Writers who don't finish what they start, don't polish what they finish, aren't actually writers. The divide between the poet and the poetaster is deep and wide, and there is a good reason why more than 90% of the writers who submit stories receive regular rejection. Real writers know that once the inspirational flash finishes, the work actually begins.

I know a woman who considers herself a fine poet. She feels she's in constant communion with her personal, private muse. She never goes anywhere without a pen and pad for jotting down her ideas and inspirations. The little note pads are filled with images, shards of her creative consciousness, which she later breaks apart into lines she labels "poetry," even though there is no reflection or reworking brought to bear against the raw words and phrases. She never really finishes anything she writes, nor does she ever submit her work anywhere, and as a result is unpublished, except for classroom chapbooks.

This same woman has often told me she expects her work will be "discovered" after her death, and she fully believes she'll be the "Grandma Moses" of poetry one day. She feels that all she needs is some person to "organize" her poetry, making it palatable to the public taste. Maybe so, but I don't want to bet my bottom dollar on it.

I think Fortune does favor those writers who are willing to do the work, pay the dues, and through dint of mindful effort, make the world sit up and take notice of them.

Excuse me. I hear my Muse calling. I'm sure the charges are collect.

R.B.

"Oh, well, perhaps one has to be very old before 
one learns to be amused rather than shocked."
      -Pearl S. Buck

It's still unseasonably cool in my neck of the northern woods, and I've naturally been thinking about warmer climes. Say, like southern California, where my house might one day take a slushy header down a steep embankment into the ocean, but I'll never have to wear mittens, gloves, hat, and coat to shovel myself out of it.

There's just one small catch -- I don't think I can afford it. Currently, I live in a relatively small town (population=21,000, houses=7,200) where the average house costs $370,000 (these are Taxachusetts dollars), and the average income is $100,000 (I'm sure more than one person works in almost every home). Even with these enormous numbers, people seem to have enough scratch to periodically re-paint, landscape, and re-model, so as to keep the values up and themselves happy in their middle-class enclave.

Be that as it may, I've just stumbled across a startling fact. Woodside, California, a tiny (population 5,600) town nestled in the Silicon Valley duked it out with the state over the law requiring at least sixteen "affordable housing" units. The rent charged for a one-bedroom apartment had to be $870 or less in order to be compliant with the law. The citizens of this rich community thought it over, and finally reached what they felt was an equable solution: local horse farmers are now allowed to subdivide their barns into one-bedroom apartments for the cash-strapped, low-income seekers. In this fashion, the community would be spared having to use precious town real estate to accommodate people who they clearly think of as unsavory elements.

Works for them. If not in the spirit, certainly in the letter of the law.

Like I say, I'd love to live in a warmer place, but somehow the California sunshine doesn't feel quite as hospitable as I expected it to.

Excuse me. I have to put on my hat and gloves.

R.B.

"Integrity is a matter of considering the
consequences of every action and of never
being drawn mindlessly into anything."
    - Anonymous 

Diogenes once traveled the streets of Athens in broad daylight carrying a lit lamp aloft in his hand.

While not precisely a luxury, lamp oil was expensive, and burning it while the sun shone brightly was beyond extravagance, the act of a madman. When approached by some curious folks who wanted to know the cause for his seeming insanity, Diogenes calmly replied, "I am looking for an honest man." Honest men in Athens at the time were apparently rare enough to require such extreme measures to detect them.

I think we've finally found an honest man in the executive offices of the Coca-Cola corporation, and the only illumination required was a brief press announcement.

Summersfield Johnston, Jr., aged sixty-eight, made the news a few days ago when he announced his intention to step down from the executive position he's held for slightly longer than a year. A former CEO of Coca-Cola, Johnston returned to an executive office in January 2000. Now, however, he wants out, and makes no bones about why.

Johnston was quoted as saying he's "old and tired," and that the past one has not been the most pleasant year in his life. I've been an executive myself, in an exponentially smaller company, during a time when the economy seemed on the rise. I do not consider that time as being particularly pleasant in my own life, so I can only imagine what it must be for a man in Johnston's position. After all, he is accountable to the shareholders and the Board of Directors for managing the profits and income derived from producing, marketing, distributing, and vending endless bottles, cans, and kegs of soda pop around the world. The weight of the world's thirst for Coca-Cola rests squarely on Johnston's old shoulders, and he wants out from under it.

Imagine a world where every man in a management position is as honest as Johnston, and as willing to confront his own limitations. Why, we might begin to see better training programs and succession planning at executive levels. We might find that record-keeping and corporate histories become more important, if smooth transitions are to occur when men and women decide they are too "old and tired" to continue fighting the political battles, planning the marketing campaigns, or defending the product against competitive encroachment.

We might also discover that the resulting wave of honest self-assessment is truly the pause that refreshes us.

My hat is off to Mr. Johnston.

Excuse me, I need to go quench my thirst.


R.B.

"A woman's time of opportunity is short,
and if she doesn't seize it, no one wants
to marry her, and she sits watching for omens."
   - Aristophanes

My mailbox had a surprise in it today, a business-sized window envelope addressed to me. The return address was empty, except for three US dollar signs, big, in currency green. The postmark was metered, bulk-rate pre-sort, stamped from Omaha, Nebraska. I don't know anyone in Omaha, and I've never met any Nebraskans in my life. I turned the envelope over in my hand, and saw the back was imprinted with "You're going to like this!" in the same currency green as the return address dollar signs. Intrigued, I opened the envelope, anticipating something good.

It was good, all right, but maybe not for the reasons you might think. I dug right in.

First, out came a three-page, doublesided, single spaced typewritten letter. Above my address on the first page, in a 28-point handwriting font was printed, "Trust me, R.B., if you need money ... it could pay you to read this letter!" The typewritten letter that followed was peppered with quotes from the "Contemporary English Version of the Bible," each relating directly to following some precise instructions for getting an abundance of cash into my life. The letter informed me I was soon to find myself "basking in an extended period of Prosperity and Good Fortune, starting on or around June 6, 2001." The date was underlined for emphasis.

The letter went on to describe how the writer was struck by a vision of my astrological chart aligning itself in such a way as to guarantee me untold wealth, enough to end all my money woes forever, and then some. I was treated to a description of a magnificent old stone mansion, an excellent library filled with priceless books, a shiny black Beemer in my driveway, and a happy child on a brand-new bicycle. Why, in just a matter of weeks, I could be as happy as "Marguerite K."

Who is Marguerite K., you ask? Why she's a woman the writer predicted a "lucky period" for, after which she won $10,250. The same kind of lucky period I was about to face.

To help me jumpstart my good fortune, the writer offered to send me, free, my very own "mystical and powerful Cross of Fortune," and all I have to do is order my "Forecast for a Life of Good Fortune" for only $19.95 (plus $4.00 for shipping and handling). Said Cross of Fortune purports to be "an exact replica" of one that has made my benefactor's own good fortune possible. In fact, the writer used "astrological skills" to figure out the six numbers on a lottery, and personally won one million dollars. There is an illustration of the cross, which looks an awful lot like a lowercase letter "f," along with descriptions of the symbols inscribed upon it -- a "Seal of Bethor," a Nordic "Gilch," a Scandinavian "Feon," and all twelve symbols for the Zodiac. On the facing side of the sheet is the "Prosperity Confirmation Form for R.B." I'm supposed to fill in the form with my date of birth, my place of birth, the time of my birth, and my intentions for the money I'm going to be getting. There is even a coupon to cut at the bottom of the page, a "personal money-back guarantee of satisfaction to R.B. Bilateral," telling me if I am unhappy with my forecast, or if the weeks following June 6, 2001 don't improve my luck, all I have to do is send back the forecast, and my money will be completely refunded. The Cross of Fortune is mine to keep, no matter what. I wonder if it's real gold?

As if that wouldn't be enough to convince me of the writer's good intentions, and the veracity of her skills and talents, also enclosed is a copy of a news article titled, "Astrologer Solves Case," by "Gary DeVille," profiling the writer's involvement with the "Wickliffe, Ohio" police department in solving a particularly nasty crime. The article says that the writer studied with a "well-known English astrologer, Prof. Reynolds," while living in England thirty years ago. She's obviously been at it a while, and knows what she's doing.

The letter ended with a caution, telling me to keep this to myself, lest others become jealous of me and my good fortune, which is just around the bend. Confident of my complicity, the writer ends, "I'm so excited for you, my dear! You really deserve this."

She's right. We both do. In the meantime, I'm grateful she gave me something to write about. Maybe it's an omen.

Excuse me, but I have to go dig up my birth certificate, so I can send along the hour of my birth, and wait for the money to come rolling in.

R.B.

"Be what you would seem to be --
or, never imagine yourself to be otherwise
than what it might appear to others
that what you were or might have been
was not otherwsie than what you had been
would have appeared to them to be otherwise."
   - Lewis Carroll

For the faint of heart who can't bring themselves to slog through the subjunctives above, it's not to worry. I'm thinking about online identity today. Specifically, I'm thinking about how easy it is to assume an identity, attributes, and characteristics one might not have in the real world.

Who hasn't heard the horror stories about dirty old men hanging around children's chat rooms, hoping to make meaningful contact with pre-teens by assuming the mask of somebody known as "Jingles," or "LittleBoyBlue?" Or the middle-aged women tarting themselves up online for hot young studs, parading themselves around as nubile, pneumatic young things, just itching for...well, let's just say, they're looking for someone to scratch what itches them?

But the masquerade isn't just about sex, it seems. Entering a forum for discussing anything is "truth optional." People leave their humdrum routines and mediocre credentials at the doors, assuming plumage they've not earned the right to wear. The posturing can produce some interesting results on occasion. In a forum for aspiring writers, a flame war recently erupted when an interloper appeared. The invader took the time to check out the various offerings from the forum members, then showed up in the main forum and announced, "You are deluding yourselves. You lack talent, wit, imagination, and skill at writing. You flatter yourselves unduly, and you ought to take a look at the world of writing more closely."

The collective membership went crazy, leaping to their cyber-feet instantly, posting wild, heated invective, casting aspersions against the interloper, who, truth be told, didn't show a great deal of common sense, having ignited the flames and then remaining to be roasted by them. Person after person posted, "You don't know what you're talking about," in response to the critic. This back and forth began escalating, until finally one poster, a member who was clearly a leader in the writing forum, well respected for his opinions and his style, challenged the interloper directly.

"What gives you the right to say such things to us? Who are you, to tell us we don't write too good? If your such a grate writer," he wrote, "then surely you could do better than tell us we are no good. I have a doctoral in grammar science, and you made mistakes in speling and punctuation all over your pitiful posts. You, sir, are a fraud and a bad person, to say the things you did." He went on for several paragraphs in this gist, until he finally ran out of steam and topped. He received acclaim from the other members for having put the interloper "in his place" with the elegance of his arguments.

Mr. Pot, please meet my friend, Doctor Kettle. Notwithstanding I think this man meant to say "doctoral degree," the spelling and grammatical errors peppering his post belied his assertion. I wonder if there is such a thing as a doctoral degree in grammar science. Now there's a scary thought. 

The interloper gave up his battle, and went off to wage war elsewhere, presumably with men and women who were willing to consider him a fair judge of good or bad writing.

But really, who's to say whether the writing was good or bad? Out in the cyberworld, each person has the ability to invent himself (or herself) with every word, with every image.

Out in the cyberworld, all the wolves wear shearling coats.

Excuse me. I have to get "baah-ah-ah-ck" online.

R.B.

"There is no calamity greater than lavish desires.
There is no greater guilt than discontentment.
And there is no greater disaster than greed."
      - Lao Tzu

Get 'em while they're hot! Be the first on your block to own one of these! Hurry, before it's too late!
I've been online recently, having a look around a popular auction site. I confess, I don't understand the attraction of online auctions--grainy, out of focus digital images notwithstanding--and I have a hard time figuring out why anyone wants to buy other peoples' old stuff. I decided I wanted to know more about this cultural phenomenon. I selected an item to observe over the course of a week--a box of old pens, just to see what might happen. The opening bid was $5.00.

The layout of the screen and the way the "closing" items--things in the last hour of bidding--are highlighted ensures a frenzy in the final moments, regardless of the material value of the offering. Day by day, as the box of pens climbed higher on the page, nearer to the final gavel, the bidding became more vigorous and more frequent, with the dollar amounts suddenly jumping from $5.00 to $20.00, to $50.00, each minute adding an additional $20.00 or more to the bid.

When the auction ended, and the item closed, the winning buyer agreed the box of miscellaneous old, broken pens was worth $240.00. The sale was "as is," as are most of the auctioned items.

I think most of what gets sold is of questionable value. It occurs to me that people are frequenting online auctions now, instead of taking Saturday and Sunday afternoons to frequent flea markets. Erstwhile bargain hunters scour the online site for "collectibles," ranging from porcelain pigs to samurai swords, in hopes of finding a treasure among other people's trash.

Not so long ago, the online auction was newsworthy because a painting a seller found in his garage was attracting international attention from serious art collectors. Bidding slowly accelerated until there was a fast stream of bids, with the amounts measuring in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Everyone was thrilled. That is, thrilled, until the ruse was uncovered.

The seller put his painting up for auction with a purposely vague description of the item. He carefully picked his words, hoping to catch the eye of discerning buyers. He wanted the buyers to believe they were bidding on a bona fide work of modern art by a recently acclaimed artist. Interest mounted as the bidding began. The seller had help, too, in the form of a friend willing to use multiple login accounts as his "shill." For more than a week, every time somebody put in a bid, the shill logged on and outbid the legitimate buyer, until the dollar amount began to attract attention from others who were not as knowledgeable about contemporary art, but sensing something dramatic was happening, were willing to join the frenzy.

My guess is many of these people have the same mentality as the men who bankrupted themselves willingly in Holland, buying tulips at the height of the bulb frenzy several hundred years ago. Regardless, in the space of a few days, the price of the painting was up to nearly a quarter million dollars. As the auction drew toward its end, however, the auction site owners, suspicious of the activity and the unnaturally high dollar amounts, stepped in and investigated the seller and the bid activity.

The seller's little plot unraveled when the shill was uncovered. To make matters worse, the painting was identified as a crude forgery. The serious collectors were outraged. The seller and his cronies were banished forever from the site, and new policies and restrictions were immediately enacted to forestall any further fraud upon the online community.

Frankly, I was surprised by the uproar. After all, this is the Internet we're talking about. The wild and woolly Web, where it's every man for himself, and caveat emptor is the rule of the day. These people weren't being fooled by Sotheby's or Christie's, or any other reputable auction house--they were trading on a site originally designed to facilitate the buying and selling of Pez dispensers and Beanie Babies. Anyone hoping to find a cheap Serrault or Monet ought to know better than to search for one in a place full of Scooby Doo commemorative plates and Franklin Mint coin sets.

It's occurred to me that had the hucksters been a little brighter and a little less greedy than they were in laying out their con game, they might never have been caught at all. However, greed and impatience got the better of them, as it always seems to in matters of petty thievery, and the plan collapsed under the weight of the significant bidding.

Christie's and Sotheby's are safe for the time being, and the online auction rolls merrily on its way, with Capodimante figurines, boxes of broken pens, and commemorative coin sets making for a brisk, happy, and for the most part mindless, business model.

Meanwhile, we'd better hurry. Time's wasting, and things are going, going, gone!

Excuse me. I have to place my bid.

R.B.