The Planet of Souls

    My favorite singer Sting sings songs from his album "The Soul Cages". He sings about the "Island of Souls". About people, us, earthlings, humans. Men, women, a few kids, perhaps a few cats, dogs, and turtles.

    Nah. About just us humans as primates. We are human, even though many animals and some plants exhibit intelligent behavior and instincts, reasoning or crazy acts.

    We are between the best and the worst. We are found in the middle.

    Us souls in the middle. We do things routinely, but some things we do randomly. 

    Many of us mow lawns. In the United States the lawns that we mow, or cut with tractors and all those machines that chop down and hew the grass. The grasses of the United States, that most of us see everywhere, adds up to the size of Iowa. We collectively mow the territory of Iowa, some of us weekly. I try to push it to 9, 10, 11 days. No one pays me do provide this service. I only did the backyard, which has some steep slopage.

    I used some old sneakers, which maybe I bought in California, if so, over two decades ago. I had used those sneakers here in Virginia, and I liked them. But the souls of the sneakers were loose and coming off, and sure enough as I mowed as the sun was setting and it got darker on this hot, 90 degree day of mid-October. Post southern hurricane Isaias.

    Cuece and cose are different verbs in Spanish, despite what my co-worker said that the campesinos mispeak, los "no educativos". Maybe she did not say it that way, but she was saying that the uneducated rubes in El Salvador get it wrong.

    Con lo mismo que se cuece. Las habanas, etcetera.

    The souls of my shoes, the souls inhabiting the planet. We all intermix and mow the grass, sometimes falling off and being left by the wayside.

    But we find ourselves, and we collect our souls, and we maybe tape them up, and perhaps we will use them for another day.

    Another mow. Another lawn cut. Other grasses sheaved or torn, cut and collected.

    Iowa, Iowa, Iowa.

    Calling all Iowans. Like Sam, with whom I worked a few months this year.

    Calling all souls. On the feet, the ones that we wear that support us. The souls of the dead, or the unborn, or the ones that we all posssess here and throughout the universe.

    Soul music, soul food; it's not all just a black thing, Black thing.

    Our souls all come together and we mow, cut, collect, sweat, breathe, observing the light fade out.

    Fade out. Like some of the souls of today, slide into the netherworlds of the past.

    And off our world, away from the planet. Perhaps the molecules of the dead are planted under grasses in cementeries, or the ashes of the cremated, and they convert into dirt and other things... Compounds or elements of helium, hydrogen, carbon and all those miniscule particles.

    But, the soul remains. The sould cages. The sould rages. Our souls: we prevail.

    Like Israel. Like God. Like goodness. Like all the similes of all existence.

    Prose and poetry, you have it all here and there.

    Poetry elides into prose.

    Words and sounds and thoughts and ideas.

    Ideals and precepts, marching onward forever.

    You, me, and God makes three.

    But there are more, however. However, there is more than just us, but.

    You know. You cut the grass with me, and saw the sneakers fall apart.

    My souls fell to the wayside; they were collected, gathered, recovered, restored.

    From sea to shining sea.

    Like my daughter's future celebrations.

Started the Day with Negative Thoughts... It's Okay

    I woke up wondering, and things got weirder for me. It set me off thinking about some negative stuff.

    Things got better throughout the day. I was able to work, do some good things, to include good interactions with other people, including my wife.

    I came home and I took a relatively deep nap. By my son. That was good.

    We mowed the lawn. She front, me back.

    We talked, we hugged, or kissed a little.

    Things were better and okay for me.

    Perhaps I am fragile by day, but things have to be talked down to me.

    And all other things. Art at the store, conversations, game of fishy at work, perfumes, cologne...

    It was not a bad Wednesday.

    We will go again tomorrow.

    We pray.

    

Boycotting the NHL, Hating Killers and those that Support Them

    I decided back in the 1980s as a teenager that I could not like or watch hockey that much. I realized I loved some sports so much that I could not afford to like this sport too much.

    I have watched it, here and there. I enjoyed the Washington Capitals back in 2018, or whenever they won the Cup. I have enjoyed some Olympic hockey play. And some World Cup play a few times.

    Right now? Nah. Last year I watched, or observed from afar, sort of, when Alex Ovechkin surpassed the Great One Gretsky as all time leading goal scorer. I thought that was cool.

    But now Alex supports his dictator president Vladimir Putin.

    A killer. A baby killer. A country invader and a terrible despot.

    Sorry, Alex. Not a fan, nor can I stomach your league.

    Some day you may see how wrong you are.

    Good riddance, NHL.

Ditka. Rest in Peace. Shouting Out

    He was a great Tight End before my time. He changed how the position was used. He caught passes and rushed after receptions. Then he coached: Da. Bears.

    The 1985 team was one of the best of all time. Walter Payton. Willie Gault. Jim McMahon. The Fridge, Perry. Mike Singletary. Defensive dominance.

    He tried with the Saints. Almost got the best of it there, not quite.

    May his legacy be prosperous and happy.

    Thanks for being that guy. Wish my teams could could have had you more.

Ach, Nein! Edward de Vere or Christopher Marlowe? The Truth is Out There

    So, I have filled my sup with the words of Rodney Bolt. He put something queer in his afterward, alluding to obliquely or ambiguously to what I suspected: his footnotes were all bogus? False?

    I am still not sure. His writing is incredibly --what-- sturgid? Stultifying, as a college instructor told me about my writing once?

    I read a book, then also watched two documentaries about Edward de Vere.

    Perhaps the son of the glover William Shak-spear was never the Bard, just an associate.

    Oy ve.

    Bolt makes arguments, but I am not sure if all his sourcing was true.

    To thine own self be true.

    Hamlet. -- Marlowe. de Vere. Shakespeare.

    

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. We Americans have all types of czars, but no real Caesars. Correct, U.S. Constitution.

    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. Sao similares. O seja, sao similareis.

    

 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 knowldge. 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. I erred with him, saying republic instead of federation. He thought less of me. I should have dressed better, for one. Less sports t-shirts. Impressions mean stuff to people. But then again, he was a blow hard.

    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. Stool pigeons of an ideology or a nationalist cause, or sheer Adam Smith capitalism.

    We are caught up in pedantry, accoring to some.

    Are we? 

    Am I? Am I a pedant. I am pedantic? Sometimes, yes, I admit it.

    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.