“And however you want people to treat you, treat them the same way. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even criminals love those who love them! If you [in fact] treat well only those who treat you well, what credit is that to you? Even criminals do the same. And if you lend only to those from whom you hope to get the loan back, what kind of credit [is] that to you? Even criminals lend to other criminals, meaning to get back an equal amount. No, love your enemies and be helpful and lend without the hope of getting anything back. Then your payment will be generous, and you'll be sons of the highest one, because he's gracious to the ungrateful and to those full of mischief.”

— Jesus, The Gospel According to Loukas 6:31-35, Sarah Ruden translation

Perhaps I should write something about politics because today is election hangover day, but if there was not an election I would still be sitting down to write this update, so write it I will. I am a few days late because our family has been dealing with some health issues that required most of my time and energy. They are mostly resolved, and we are on our way to a sort of normalcy, but there is still a constant stress. The election has not helped. My wife and I voted early, and looked up the results this morning. Bah humbug. It is an evil to me that politics can goad the most lovely, generous, and kind people into such hateful speech and action. It is all the more evil to me when I read the words of Jesus, and see Christians worrying themselves and everyone around them to death. Those words “love thine enemy” have never been easy to follow, but they are the only words which I believe worth sharing about this mess. Don't forget that Jesus told this to Jews oppressed by a Roman regime that could crush and steal everything they owned with impunity. It would have been much more shocking to hear for them, which does not mean our troubles are not troubles. What it means is that the words of Jesus are no less relevant today than they were yesterday. So “love thine enemy,” and “take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Writing

It is a terrible thing to fall out of love with your art. Not that I don't love books, I always will, but I am so uninspired by what I try to write that I end up distracting myself with guitar pedals and other garbage. Lord help me repent! If I only wrote when I was inspired then I would hardly write at all. I did write a bit this month, but I hit a pretty big block and I've hardly had the energy to try and break through it. Once again, the election really doesn't help, especially when you have limited free time. Writing, especially writing fantasy, feels very dinky and unimportant next to the loudspeaker-voice coming through everyone's phones and mouths except yours. I plan on going back to commiserate with Virginia's Diary. She never fails to inspire me. And continuing on my re-read of LOTR. How did writing feel to Tolkien while he was in the trenches of the Great War? And my re-re-read of Don Quixote, to remind me that “Peace, calm, delightful meadows, serene skies, murmuring brooks, and a tranquil spirit — they turn even the most sterile Muses fertile, filling the world with wonderful, delightful offspring.” (Don Quixote Prologue, Paragraph 1).

Audiobook

I managed to finish re-recording Part II of the audiobook. Now all I have to do is edit them all and turn them into videos and schedule them.... Ugh. Audio is so much work, but if I can get it done and put it into the grand Colosseum of YouTube in the right way, then maybe I can get a little compensation. It would be nice to not work for free all the time.

Music

Well, even though I have been using it as somewhat of a distraction, I have been playing guitar every day. I think I am improving marginally, but I haven't really produced anything. I want to record demos of all my Lit Songs, which really shouldn't be taking as long as it is. But here we are. I feel I am coming down from the life-and-money-wasting pursuit known as “tone-chasing.” And I think what I realized, and should have known a long time ago, is that guitar tone does not come from any piece of gear. The gear amplifies it and can be a useful tool, but tone really does come from the fingers, and the ears. I have been enjoying Jeff Beck this month, not least because his playing, especially on the album “Emotion and Commotion” is so calming and lovely, but also because his approach is really inspiring. He mostly played a Strat into a Marshall with hardly any effects, maybe some subtle delay and reverb if the room was too small, and yet his playing is so dynamic and beautiful, with such great “tone.” He was also known to grab a guitar off the wall of a music store if he was traveling and show up at whatever gig he was doing and not really sweat it, and when you hear him play, whatever he's playing through, you know it is him — because tone is in the ears, and the fingers. Jeff Beck could walk up to any decent amp with any decent guitar, twiddle with the knobs and set the gain and EQ where he wanted it, and sound like himself because he had great technique AND a great ear. In fact I think his ear is probably one of the most precise of any player ever, which is why he is Jeff Beck... But the point is that as long as your guitar doesn't have any major issues, and your amp makes halfway nice sounds, you don't really need anything else to play live. I do think that “tonechasing” comes more into play in the studio, where everything is controlled and the environment is very different than playing live. In a live situation most guitarists just want to be heard and not mess up rather than create a sonic masterpiece. All this to say, I've been very silly, and I am going to try and discipline myself to try and focus more on playing than my pedal board.

I shall add what I have been listening to here because it has been a lot of Jeff Beck. Some favorite tracks include “Scared for the Children” (the live version at the Hollywood Bowl), “Lilac Wine” and “I Put a Spell On You” off of Emotion and Commotion, “Going Down” off of Jeff Beck Group, as well as his playing on Clapton's “Moon River.” I'm sure there is lots more, and I've got a lot more listening to do, but if you only listen to one I'd say listen to Scared for the Children. The lyrics made me cry, as well as his homage to Jimi's Little Wing in the solo.

Reading

I started The Two Towers, resuming my re-read of the Lord of the Rings. It really is lovely. I think the problem with adaptions like Rings of Power, which try to generate new material in the LOTR universe, is that fantasy like Tolkien's, which has the naive quality of fairy tale and myth, is very hard to execute well unless you have a very rigorous imagination and put in a lot of work. It takes so much work to have characters say things like “good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house,” and not have the reader rolling their eyes. This is why so much of the dialogue in Rings of Power was painful to me, because they tried to come up with something new and force it over us with stunning effects and good acting. And as much as I respect the passion and skill of the actors, there is just nothing that can match the lifetime of imagining that Tolkien did in order to write the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.

My wife and I have also been reading Grimm's Fairy Tales to our four year old each night (in between Magic Tree House books from the library) and we've stumbled upon some real shockers. They are not so scary as they are just a wild ride, and usually quite a bit of fun. Recent favorites include The Golden Bird, The Father's Legacies, and The Fisherman and His Wife. I happily recommend reading them because they are pretty short and fun. Certainly beats reading an article about the election...

And now I think I am finding a little love for reading back. I have struggled, towards the end of this month, with reading. Many times I have turned to a video game (mostly Read Dead Redemption 2) instead of a book, and I am wondering why that is. I think it is because the screen wows the senses more, and casts the illusion of having greater depth and beauty, because it is so loud and because it is so shiny. The book just sits there. It is as if a stranger comes to me and shows me an ocean whose end I cannot see and whose surface is swirled with complex waves and whirlpools, and then shows me a still and humble lake, then asks: “Which one of these holds more fish?” Just looking from the shore, I say “the ocean,” but when I go to fish in it I discover that it is only three feet deep no matter where I go, and that it holds only minnows and tiny perch that are too easy to catch. But when I go to the lake I discover that it is bottomless, that there are large and myriad species of fish that reward the challenge of catching them with exciting flavor, and deeper still there are unfathomable monsters and mysteries. The book is the deep lake, and the screen is the shallow ocean. One parches me with salt and easy scraps while the other rewards my efforts with fresh water and a full belly and more besides.

#update #election?

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Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

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Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee at the links below. I believe I shall delete Twitter (X) soon, so please sign up via email at the link above or follow me on Mastodon if you'd like a ping when I write. Thank you!

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When I do count the clock that tells the time
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard;
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
 And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defense
 Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

— Shakespeare's Sonnet 12

Fall comes and reminds us that we all must face decay, and that there is beauty in it. Since decay in the circle of life means renewal. And yet, in spite of Nature's constant reminders we continue, seemingly, to dally with the easy pleasures of notifications and new pieces of plastic, glass, and metal delivered weekly to our porches. What would archaeologists think of all these rectangular mirrors we gaze at constantly? Does it matter?

Well, as a writer, fall is a great season for melancholy inspiration and ruminations on the meaning or unmeaning of life. September bewildered me, since it was back to school month, and I didn't transition to old-new habits and duties as well as I would have hoped. I felt constantly tired, and I still am as I write this. Here is to letting those bad habits die and rot, so I can grow new ones. I offer my cider mug to you as a virtual toast.

Writing

I kept in contact with the story, but I think I've been using my world-building deficiencies as an excuse not to push through to the end. Steinbeck said a writer should just push through, and I think he is right, I can always change it later. And while there are times where world-building really is necessary, for me it has always been secondary to my story, and I think I have done enough for now. So here's to pushing through.

Music

I sang in front of a lot of people for the first time in a while. And while it was an incredibly small step, it was a step, and even though I've done it before with arguably more pressure, I was still very nervous. It is amazing how good I am at overthinking, and how much my pride makes a big deal out of my performances. Anyway, I really do need to work on the album. I want to get all the Lit Song demos recorded/re-recorded. And hopefully jam with some friends too.

Reading

I finished Devils by Dostoevsky and man, I knew the ending was coming, but it still murdered me. He is probably the boldest writer I have ever read, nothing like us modern cowards. His characters are so grotesque and his plots are so non-existent, but one doesn't question the design quality of the whirlpool as it sucks one in. This is a book that could change your life if you let it, just ask Camus.

Oh yes, I also finished Middlemarch earlier in the month and I wasn't happy with the ending, but I was fine with that. So real were Eliot's characters that I wasn't really mad at George Eliot, I was just mad at Dorothea the same way I would be mad at a friend or family member for marrying someone I don't like. It is the sort of thing that happens all the time, but we are too polite so we don't say anything about it and just think: “They deserve better.” But it is a fact of life, and if anything, Middlemarch made me more thankful for my wife. In spite of the fact that in our modern society we have more freedom to choose our spouse, there is no changing that people change over the years, and sometimes they don't change; we just get to know them better until we can see everything the world doesn't. And Good God how I lucked out.

Listening

Saw a 21 Pilots concert. They are really the only band that puts on a show that I think is worth the admission price and the cost. I don't think there have been music shows with as much depth and concept and storytelling and production since The Wall. I am not really a concert goer, though, so there's probably some other bands I haven't heard of. But it was well worth it and very special. I do not think there is another artist who can give the mic to the crowd for the 40 second rap breaks and have the entire stadium rap every single word on the beat. Just magic and once in a lifetime to be in a stadium full of people who have been living in these words and these songs for years. East is up, friends.

#update

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Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

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Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

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