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Mr. Merrick and His Uncle.

July 1, 2015 by Exangel

by David D. Horowitz.

I often have been told: “People don’t remember particulars they learned at school, but rather they can learn how to think.” Well, I remember some particulars, too. I recall University of Washington Professor William Dunlop telling us students in his English 274, “Introduction to Verse Writing,” about the importance of imagery and distinctive diction. To wit, he grinned when relating how one of his students described his first orgasm: My spine sneezed. And Dunlop related how another student described a domestic morning scene: The squirrel on our lawn looked like a little gray coffeepot. Such vivid descriptions endured as models I could emulate.

I also remember epiphanies when reading particular literary works. For example, when as a college sophomore I first studied Shakespeare’s Hamlet, I was stunned when Hamlet comes upon Claudius praying and thus refrains from attack. Yes, how easy it is to stereotype enemies, when all of us are complex. Yes, I could exercise greater caution in my judgments.

And I remember Roger Merrick, my Health teacher at Seattle’s Lincoln High School in winter 1972, asserting that he always resolves outstanding conflicts with other family members before going to sleep. One night, he reminisced, he’d had a nasty spat with a beloved uncle. Roger in bed that night felt guilty about what he’d said and determined to apologize the next morning. Well, his uncle died in his sleep that night. Mr. Merrick admitted he was haunted since then by his not having apologized before going to bed.

I recall Mr. Merrick’s anecdote with particular poignancy because for almost a decade several times weekly I’ve visited my mother at her apartment in an assisted living home. My mother suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, and hearing loss, and I’m her primary caretaker. She’ll often confide to me she thinks the staff there steals her bobby pins, gum exerciser, or glasses (which she misplaced and I find). Or she’ll rail there’s a plot to kill her because she’s an atheist. Or she’ll complain the residents offer little stimulating conversation, and only I provide that. Indeed, she might call three times at midnight to complain about her situation, and I might have had a difficult work day and can only help so much. On occasion, in frustration I have yelled and insisted I be left alone. A few times I’ve barked this might be the last time I help her.

But I remember Mr. Merrick and his uncle. Death of a loved one is haunting enough; I don’t need the ghost of guilt hovering over my midnights, as well. So I strain and struggle and calm myself. I make sure a conversation with or visit to my mother ends politely. I might visit one day, and she might not be alive when I arrive. This awareness deepens patience. Indeed, thinking macrocosmically, when I die I will want to leave the planet on good terms with “God” or the natural order or whatever you want to call that collection of forces beyond human control. If my memory lives on, let it be as a good son—and as an inspiration for some beginning poetry student observing a squirrel that looks like a little gray coffeepot.

 

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Summer 2015: This May Be The Last Time.

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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