Italians, Paintings, and Art: Are They and We Manic? Hopelessly Romantic, or Driven, Possessed

    The peninsula and boot of Italia, Italy, inherited the vestiges of Rome. The once and forever empire. The one that the Hapsburgs tried to recreate, or later on der Fuhrer of Germany, or perhaps Vladimir Putin of today? An American, to try the same, in the line of Washington and Lincoln? Never! Balderdash.

    The Italians grew from the ashes and grape vineyards of the Romans, but they fancied fancies much too much. Paintings, sculptures, all kids of aesthetic qualities that possessed the eyes and the minds of those that fancied them.

    Confused? Sure, we could use more words. Figure them out. Fie upon them! Hamlet quoth.

    Italians valued art. Visual, emotional, spirtitual, all of it.

    Places like Mantua, I come to find out. Places in Italy, even more than Venice, Venezia, that inspired and informed the real Bard.

    My smarty pants professor from England at UCLA liked Italy, maybe above all places. Like Shakespeare, or perhaps more realistically Christopher Marlowe, the real Bard, according to Rodney Bolt in 2004. Italy, Italy, Italy. Was it the source? Is it still?

    The Italians. Later to be crime bosses in Siciliy or New York, or maybe New Jersey and Florida.

    They loved and valued art, perhaps more than most.

    The Spaniards came these ways, maybe the painters of Iberia, eventually modern men like Pablo Picasso. Today Spain has many film artists.

    Now my sister has a dog named Pablo. In Paris. Not the one you were thinking of.

    Different lights, different city.

    So, yes, the Italians brought more to light, to the fore.

    Viva italia.

    Forza italia.

    Long live all the manias.

    Let them not kill us, or drive us as mad as Hamlet. Manias and manic persons. Even dogs and rabblerousers

    Or the couple that lost their young son Hamnet. Likely related stories and romantic, albeit tragic, losses. Popularized in a 2020 book (the year of our recent plague, or pandemic), now made into an award-winning film.

    May we live forever and achieve the hightest artistic values. Love, as preached from the pulpit yesterday by the oldest man in the ward.

    Church.

    Some are pro, some are anti. Can we be at all neutral? Chaotic, likely.

    Inside jokes in a dialogue from some co-workers. One of Greek (mostly) origin. It has become of my intra-dialogue, whether he knows it, admits it, or not. People affect us. So do countries, languages, art.

    Yes. Si. I do not know a ton of fluent Italian, but I have learned a few songs.

    E similar.

    

 Pedantry

    What does that word mean? Define it. I read some books and magazines as a child growing into adulthood. I also would refer to and imbibe of encyclopedia articles and some essays, through academic pursuits and my own means. Sometimes church activity would bring more literature and knoweldge. Shows, films, all kinds of gobbledygook and at times rot would besot my brain.

    I could not remember it all, but there were clear vestiges of the remains of the words, the phrases, the storylines, the meanings. The plots and the plans. Stories, adventures, deeper significances.

    What did math teach me? To think? Great. Thanks for all the logic and the quantifying. Let's take that further, braniacs. Not me. I need to get lost in the word sauce. The salsas of other minds.

    Words and stories beguile us. They have beguiled me. Always. Never stopping, oft times erring.

    Like to my bore of a professor, a man named Bell, at UCLA. Auspicious university, where I found some of my way.

    All these years later, the battles rage on. Or the battle rages on. 

    And what is pedantry. What is it? My mind hearkens back to little Mulchen, in the very off radar southern Chile.  1990. A man called my missionary companion and I "pedantes". Which my trainer took affront to, but was this visitor to our fair town right?

    Some would agree with him, that unknown accuser, possibly or probably a communist, or at least a socialist. Even a close one to me that pinged me by telephone this very minute.

    We are pedantic Christian or Latter-Day Saint or Mormon missionaries.

    We are caught up in pedantry, accoring to some.

    Are we? 

    Am I?

    What is pedantry?

        I am well into my sixth decade. Is the math right? My birth month, closer to the higher ages of seniorhood. 

    What words have we learned? What phrases have we eexperiences and earned?

    Am I pedantic. Is it all wrong and ill-founded.

    Perhaps not.

    Perhaps we need and are more befit of more pedantry.

    Learn what the words mean.

    And not trivialize them.

Another Hopeful Season of Indiana Basketball; We Await in the Throes of Fickle Wizardry

    Yet again I am exposed to the hopes, travails, and in many cases wasted time hacks of watching and rooting for the boys of candy-striped pants and ever-optimistic hardwood Hoosiers. Most of the players have come from other states and countries, outside of the Indiana heartland. Sisley and Burton are the only natives of the beloved homeland, our fair state. The former from Santa Claus (yes, verily), and the latter from Mishawaka. Some of the best names of the south and north.

    Burton may be the answer as the man who moves the ball, and even shoots after deft passing options. Sisley? Showed some promise last year, but not enough. Not like the Hoosier Mullins of UConn.

    

    ASIDE:

    

    UConn. Connecticut Huskies. They are current giants. They win rings, moving beyond the 1980s peak of my Indiana guys. Alas. Bob Knight brought us glory, which has been mostly a fire sale of a backwash since. Practically 40 years of futility. Moses and his wife, and some million other Israelites understand our woes and crushed dreams. Four decades of not entering the Promised Land. We peered into back in the spring of 2002. Mike Davis seemed to be the one to truly inherit the mantle of master chess piece manipulator. But no. Recruiting went sideways and upside down. Sampson cheated, the fool. Not all his fault with new technologies later forgiven. Crean recruited a few good ones, and gave us some aspiring motives, but no, no, no... Miller next? Woodson, Hoosier legend but not a championship winner? Enter DeVries. Rhymes with please. PLEASE. Let us win.

    To be an Indiana basketball fan. Men's basketball. The women garnered our attention and entertainment for a few seasons. Theirs is not the real passion, the real verves, the real or true and false fanatacism.

    Knight only enhanced it, after the 1940s and 1950s brought the university and state greatness and aplomb.

    We look back to the halcyon days of yore. Where have they gone. I am like Hamlet, seeing the ghost of my murdered father (the General, aforementioned Knight, aptly named), and the wanton mother, be it Duke or Florida or the Hoosier-sucking Carolina Tar Heels. That dastardly Uncle, Kentucky, who killed Knight some years, or the next door Louisville Cardinals. They steal your home state bird, and your rings that were yours for plucking. Like the Virginia Cavaliers, Wahoos as it were, you exploited your own Mister Basketball! 

    There is not an end to the suffering. Ophelia righly drowns herself in that beautiful Danish stream. Might have well as been the Wabash, and its banks, far away. Thank you, Hoagy Carmichael. We are delusional in our leather hoop ord stardust memories and reveries.

    But I wax besides myself.

    Who else can bring IU the fame and glory, the buckets and rebounds? Harris, from Duke. He played at Saint Paul the Sixth, of northern Virginia. Many Hoosiers are from the DMV, we shall see. Harris, a guard from Herndon, Fairfax County. We have others from Baltimore and District Heights, closer to Andrews Air Force Base. Clearly a capitol city area of our great nation.

    We have a big Turk, named Samet. A long German, with a Russian name. A seven footer transferring from Alabama, who is of Detroit origins.

    Who knows? Indiana in championship years had players from neighboring states, namely Illinois and Ohio. What of 1940 and 1953? It had to be Indiana itself then. Times change.

    Knight tried a seven foot center in 1984, when we upset Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins. We had some hopes until the taller, better, more skilled Ralph Sampson. Virginia.

    Which reminds me Purdue, and Edey, and the other number one seed historically upset in the first round of the dance. We also had New Castle's Steve Alford.

    Have I listed them all? There is one called Moody. And perhaps Alexis will be the key to grit, hustle, and winning acclaim. Perhaps?

    Go Hoosiers. Butler hung tough, but we must go harder, faster, first.

    Florida, Duke, UConn, Purdue, and perhaps Illonois or Michigan await.

    Michigan. Three rings won since Indiana's Alford? Maybe only two. Either way, much more than the real purveyors of college basketball.

    Indiana needs, wants, craves more.

    You can sense that.

    Blog on.

 The Curious Case of a Dozen or More Running Backs - Modern Day Warriors, Bruisers

    Most countries do not have them, because most countries of 2026 do not have American football. They wear helmets, and sport large pads for the shoulder and body parts. Having worn these protective gears briefly in my life, I know that I was surprised how much of the body was not covered very well.

    Football delivers bruises, welts, contusions, scrapes, scratches, tears, concussions, and worse. Broken bones, messed up spines, torn muscles and tendons. It is a sport of blood, a sport for non-wimps.

    Perhaps the running back must be the toughest. He, of all the chess pieces of the grid iron, must bear the brunt of pounding and hounding. Run, catch, or block, the tailback or halfback or fullback must withstand adverse force and punishment.

    Some become famous, others made themselves infamous. I can name a few. You will know a few, while others barely ever were known more than fifty miles from my house.

    Let us see:

    1. Start with OJ? No, he deserves less acclaim. I will start with men, or young men, of more honour.

    Bobby Howard. He was tough, he was strong, he was Black. He was a workhouse of the Indiana Hoosiers. They as a team were not good, not competitive enough to go to bowls in the early 1980s, but Bobby was a fighter. I liked him. Perhaps I saw him in person or on TV as a young middle schooler, when my dreams of playing the sport myself were still extant? I cannot remember. I do rememember listening to his calls of runs and catches on the radio. In my room, maybe from a car or my dad's van radio. The ubiquitous IU radio man calling the plays...*

    I loved that guy. Those long suffering Hoosiers. Bobby went on the pros, did not do much there at the higher level. But he was an early hero running back of mine.

    2. Lynn Churchill. More on him later. Purple Panther.

    3. Randy Perine. Also a Panther.

    3. Whats-his-name. Deems. Charles? I will get to it, in my year books.

    4. Anthony Thompson. Wow. Amazing runner. Bruiser. My guy.

    5. Emmitt Smith.

    6. Barry Sanders.

    7. Ernest Lukes. A high school guy.

    8. Vai Sikahema.

    9. Lakei Heimuli.

    10. Jamal Willis.

    11. Luke Staley.

    12. Who to stop with? The killer? The brazen murderer? Yes, none other than Orenthal James, the Juice and airport luggage hurdler: Simpson. RIP his two unfortunate victims.

    Most running backs in the NFL, and college, and high school, do not wind up felons.

    Some do.

    More later.

    Blog it.

    

If God Exists, Does He Want All His Children to Be Holy and His Servants

    In short, yes.

    God does exist. I cannot absolutely prove it. Love and memory exist. Safet to say those are provable.

    He wants us to care about each other, take care of each other.

    He wants us to be priests and priestesses. All of us are holy.

    We are His, He wants us to be like Him.

    There is the Christian thing. Jesus came and left His impact.

    Son of God the Almighty to us Christians. Jesus is Him in the Flesh.

    A bit more to take in.

    Then, there are the prophets. Many prophets of old.

    Any current ones?

    Some of us think so.

    God speaks to us through current oracles, if you will.

    The Jewish have their own different beliefs and worship practices. They preceded Christianity.

    Later came Islam, from the verses of Mohammad.

    Siddhartha Gautama, and the Indian gurus and maharashtras and holy folks and scriptures of that subcontinent filled the holy thoughts of billions over time.

    There are others. Local shamans from the Maidu of Northern California to the Mapuche of Southern Chile, to the beliefs and traditions and practices of the Inuit lining the entire Arctic.

    So many. The Shinto of Japan, or the Confucious and Daoist of China.

    There on the non- Thereveda and Mahayana of Mongolia and Tibet. The friend of my daughter explained how they act or believe differently.

    Nietsche said "God is dead", as reiterated by that same daughter, the oldest of mine, but I replied to her that his quote is misattributed or misinterpreted. 

    Yes, I could break it down. I think.

    For those of us God believers.

    He does want us to be holy.

    And serve Him. And care for all.

    Yes, on these precepts we can agree.

    God or not.

My Week of Football. My Lifetime of Observations and Fantasies.

    I tried to play on my 7th grade football team way back in 1980 something. '83? I guess it was the summer after Return of the Jedi. A generational motivator or fantasty multiplier.

    There's that. Science fiction and fantasy and spectacle taking up many of my waking, sub-conscious, and likely unconscious hours. Dwarf Pine Ewoks burning needles at Camp Maumee.

    Trying to create and expand and expand and dream.

    Write, explore, share, dream.

    You name it.

    We dreamed of being football stars, Lance Allen and I. We liked throwing and catching. Being teammates and winners. That was fourth and fifth grade. It was a kinship, and it was not entirely fair. We stayed together; he was my guy on the play ground football field. He had the cocky kind of Han Solo attitude and posture. I was a little more like Luke. Skywalker, maybe. Even though I had the brown hair and Lance was more blonde.

    We drempt of being football players. I could catch and run. He could throw and bark out winning plays and calls. I could be a back-up thrower, too. But he was the boss. I liked being the go-to guy at the end.

    6th grade came and went, and 1982 slid into 1983. In 6th grade at Binford Middle School we sat out from football. At least I did. We did not have the same recess time like at Elm Heights. Plus, they used a real football, which sent my friend Seth Berry to the hospital in an awful way. But recess right after lunch in middle school was not conducive to playing all sweaty and dirty like in elementary school. Problems with staying with the sport that year?

    1. I had nicer clothes, like Levis and Polo shirts. They wer expensive and I did not want to rip them up or soil them. Plus, the blue jeans were tighter, and it was not easy to move and run in them. Did I wear the right foot gear to play after lunch? Maybe, but my arch supports were a thing... Which came up as an issue in the hot summer of 1983. The summer after my parents had broken up, and I got lazier. Fatter, softer, weaker. My brain and my body entered the world of confusion that comes with trying to grow up and trying not to cry when we sang about eternal families at church on Sunday.

    Sounds like pathetic excuses or pity party pleas, but that is the way it was. How could I not be affected? My sisters and I dealt with it differently. It was not great or easy. I resported to my comic books, other reading, mostly science fiction, I guess staying up late in the summer and watching David Letterman. Things that would carry over. Not a ton of friendships, but some. Scouts, church. Some neighborhood buddies. But their parents were not divorcing. And I was the most religious one, but where did that leave me and my family?

    Not that great, that faith and religion, huh? Not good enough to keep your parents together, even though we proclaimed it all the time.

    Not a pity party. Reason. Logic. The absence of logic and reason.

    So there was football, but then there wasn't.

    I put on the cleats, the helmet, and the pads for week.

    But I walked away. I slinked away. It was painful.

    Lance, my Captain Solo, left first. Not all his fault. Things and people move on.

    The coaches should have kept us, but they did not know or try too much.

    The experience was not meant for us.

    More later.

    Grateful to think of it on a Friday night while some of my loved ones are at the high school game nearby.

Fighting Off the Big, Dark, Monster - Spooky Tales and Thoughts and Premonitions

    It is October, baseball is going on. The playoffs and cool nights under the klieg-type lights. My Sox are still going. They are a bridge to my childhood. Topic for another post.

    But we have some scary thoughts this month, as we can in any month. Ghouls and goblins, phantoms and ghosts. Even real life killers and thrillers.

    Here's a possible scary one: what if each of us, or at least some of us, have some mental cloud or depression or awful demon (metaphorically or symbolically) that is being kept at bay? And it is simply waiting us out?

    My mom suffered from depression some times. At times kind of severely. I have known others who have battled deep, dark, stretches of the mind and soul. Not an easy thing.

    Maybe those things are welled up inside somewhere, waiting like a monster.

    Like Moby Dick chasing down Ahab, only Ahab thinks that he is the one to get the whale.

    Who is chasing who? Or whom is being chased?

    How deep and how far in the marvelous yet terrifying depths do the monsters lurk?

    Spooky thoughts for a cool and dark October evening.

    Happy Hallow's Eve.

    All month long. Or maybe all our lives.

    Love you, mom. The guy who used you against me in an interview for the government is the bad guy, not me and you.

    We are the good ones. Above the foam and the fray.