“Do Unto Others…

“Do Unto Others”

Benidictus and we dicked him back.

Child of Scorn blog hop 12-10-12

Child of Scorn blog hop 12-10-12

 

1 What is the working title of your book?

                  Child of Scorn

 

2 Where did the idea come from for the book?

                  It is loosely based on a few events and a few real people from my own life.

 

3 What genre does your book fall under?

                  It is a bildungsroman, defined in my dictionary as, “A novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character.”

 

4 Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie version?

                  For two of the main characters, I’d cast Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor from  “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?”  That’s mainly because he played a cynical college professor and she his embittered wife. As their 20-something daughter, caught in a tug-o’ war between her parents, perhaps Debra Winger from “Terms of Endearment.”

 

5 What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

                  After his suicide attempt, associate professor of medieval literature, James B. Rue Ph. D.  strives to rebuild his life. 

 

6 Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

                  Self published as an e book.

 

7 How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

                  I’ve been working at it on and off for at least five years. Over that time, I’ve made many revisions, both small and large. Both the plot and the characters have grown in complexity as the manuscript has grown in length. The cast of characters has also changed radically over those years, some falling by the wayside and others taking their places. The latest major revision was necessitated by a minor character’s insistence on hogging the show. I didn’t let him get away with it, but it was a struggle. Though Rue is taken in by much of Charlie Noble’s dissembling, the book is still the professor’s story. However, to keep the central plot on track, I had to pull rank on charming Charlie and curtail some of his shady shenanigans.

 

8 What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

                  Candide, by Voltaire; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain: The Ambassadors, by Henry James; A Portrait of The Artist As a Young Man, by James Joyce.

 

                  I now call upon some members of the Dead Poets’ Society to participate in this blog hop: John Keats, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, e. e. cummings, Girard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Hardy, and Dylan Thomas.

 

What a (Vengeful) Friend We Have in Jesus

What a friend we have in Jesus,/all our sins and griefs to bear./What a privilege to carry/everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations,/burdened with a load of care?/Jesus never takes vacations,/bathes or changes underwear.

Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?/He will put things on the square./Down to hell then he will take thee/to see them burning way down there.

Irving Berlin

Though he died in 1937, you don’t need to be old to remember Irving Berlin’s songs. He was the genius who knocked out one song per day for most of his 101 years. His catalog numbered over 1,000. Among them was “God Bless America,” “Blue Skies,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “This Is The Army, Mr. Jones,” “The Easter Parade” and “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm.”One of his many scores for movies was “White Christmas.” Bing Crosby starred in that one. If you listen to a radio station in December you’re likely to hear “the old groaner” singing it. So, here is a quiz based on the tune of “I’ve Got My Love to keep me warm” and the drought of 2012. Do you get the Joke?

The wind is blowing;
My corn ain’t growing.
Should I give it up or stay?
My subsidy check arrived today.
I’m gonna make this damn thing pay!

Do you know something that I or someone else doesn’t, or should?

For more info on global warming go to www.jackloscutoff.com

Aunt Mabel’s Socks

Aunt Mabel’s Socks

When I was a kid she gave me a pair of them for Christmas. One was too small and the other too big. I took them off.
My mom said, “Well, Jackie, what do you say to your Aunt Mabel?”
I said, “Aunt Mabel, I won’t wear these ugly, itchy red socks that are too big and too small.”
My mom slapped my face and yelled at me.
Aunt Mabel snatched her socks back. “Well,” she huffed, “I promise you, young man, you’ll never get another pair of hand-knitted Merino wool yarn from Australia socks that your Aunt Mabel slaved over for a whole year and ruined her eyesight to make just for you.”
I said, “Thank you, Aunt Mabel.”

The World is on Fire

Trembling with excitement, a character in a story by Sherwood Anderson says, “Start your pieces in the paper in that way. Just say in big letters, ‘THE WORLD IS ON FIRE.” The character, Joe Welling, explains what he means.

“Now what is decay? It’s fire. It burns up wood and other things. You never thought of that? Of course not. This sidewalk here and this feed store, the trees down the street—they’re all on fire. They’re burning up. Decay you see is always going on. It don’t stop. Water and paint can’t stop it. If a thing is iron, then what? It rusts, you see. That’s fire, too. The world is on fire.”

Had Joe been more sophisticated, he might have added that he and his listener, like all humans and all of what we call “the higher animals,” are also “on fire.” That is, our bodies and theirs are heat engines. We and they use our fuel, which we call “food,” in much the same way as a gasoline engine or a steam engine uses its fuel.

After digestion and in combination with oxygen, our fuel is delivered to every cell, organ and organ system which makes up our bodies. As with the gasoline and steam engines, the heat that’s produced is either used in some way or given off as “waste.”

The scientific term for this process is “oxidation.”

But not only is “the world,” including humans and other similar organisms “on fire,” so is the entire universe. It’s a phenomenon called “entropy.” Those who have discovered it assure us that in the unimaginably distant future everything will have “burned” and there will be no “fire.” The temperature everywhere will be at absolute zero. Visitors from another universe would see only absolute darkness. In our universe there will be no heat, no light, no energy in any form anywhere.

Is there any way you think that your world is on fire?

Mother

A poet of some notoriety, Prof. Hospadi presents

this tribute to all those ladies who have done the main work

of producing the parasites (you and me) who have

ravaged the planet Earth.

MOTHER: She Got Us in This Fix

M is for the melting of the glaciers

O is for the oil spills yet to be

T is for the temperatures a-rising

H is for more human misery

E is for the empty, aching bellies

R is for the rising of the sea

Put them all together, they spell

MOTHER, something no girl

Should ever be.

Prof. Hospadi’s Global Warming pop quiz #2

Correct answer to quiz #1 is answer #5, “all of the above. Why? Wouldn’t you assume it would be#1, “warmer winters” or #4, “hotter summers?” Since global warming is global, shouldn’t every place on the planet get warmer? It might if nothing but global temperature determined regional climates. But other factors, such as topography do also. For example the Himalayas Mountains north of India block the monsoon rains and create the deserts of central Asia. Next question: if answers #1, “warmer winters,” and #4, “hotter summers,” are wrong, why is #5, “all of the above,” correct?

Prof. Hospadi’s global warming pop quiz

Here in the Midwest, global warming will result in

1) warmer winters  2) colder winters  3) cooler summers 4)hotter summers 5) all of the above 6) none of the above

Correct answer(s) on tomorrow’s blog.