UNMENTIONABLE

Published May 1, 2024 by Nan Mykel

HAVE YOU WONDERED ABOUT THE BOOK MARKET RECENTLY?

I’m not privy to the entire story, only my part. There must be several different things going on. I can talk about what I know. Bookstores are happy to publish news stories on self-published books because it’s good for their business; because the local library refuses to add them to their collecttion.

I can empathize with the flood of local authors’ donations (much of it admitted crap) and their (our) expectations for sharing with the public via our local library. When I donated my book Fallout, A Survivor talks to Incest Offenders to a library staff member she said thank you and I discovered it went directly into our Saturday Library Sale. Thinking that I had not made myself clear, I submitted another copy for the library stacks to another library staff member. I never checked into it further, believing it had been made available in the stacks.

Later I discovered that Picking Fleas, Writers Grooming Writers, a 299-page book by the library’s writing group in 2002 and whose proceeds went to Friends of the Library itself, was not available in the stacks. When I asked, first it was that books without flat bindings carrying title and author info could not easily be displayed. Over the years (since at least 20 years ago), self-published books are assumed to be inferior.

I think I understand the problem. Local “authors” of self-published books include some doozies that would diminish respect for the library’s holdings. So a broad spectrum of the public might be alienated, while a much smaller untamed slice of self-published authors might be gratified. Drawing up guidelines for what’s acceptable would be setting such a big fracas in the face of the world’s other causes so as not to be worth it.

So why did I happen to blab about it here? Because I’m a stickler for hidden truth, I guess.

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After decades of efforts to change a provision of state law shielding people who rape their spouses from prosecution, the Ohio Senate has voted unanimously to remove that loophole. Sen. Stephanie Kunze (R-Hilliard) said the gap in the law has suggested that either spousal rape isn’t taken as seriously as other sexual violence or that it doesn’t ever happen. “This is especially concerning, as a spouse should be the most trusted person in a marriage,” Kunze said on the Senate floor. “And it is even more egregious to think that in our state in 2024, it is lawful to to rape your spouse.” The only “no” vote was from Rep. Bill Dean (R-Xenia). https://www.statenews.org/people/karen-kasler.

According to Google, Dean is married.

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UNITED METHODIST CHURCH REVERSES BAN ON GAY CLERGY

In a meeting on Wednesday, church leaders also voted to allow L.G.B.T.Q. weddings. __n.y.times

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Quote for the Day:

As Robert Morgenthau, a former Manhattan district attorney, liked to say, “You cannot prosecute crime in the streets

without prosecuting crime in the suites.”

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REFLECTIONS

Inside, nestled into a corner of the brain, lies a chapel tucked away just in case we need it. Tear ducts have been installed for weeping. We have fingers for painting and sometimes pointing. When ecstasy or glee overtakes us, we are provided outlets for dancing or singing. On those long dark days of need, there is our inner chapel, the God gene. “You wish!”

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SERENDIPITY AND SYNCHRONICITY

Since I was alerted to something by Word Press (Maybe my pages were all going Private), I read through to see what we would be missing, and was reminded of my first recorded:

My daughter Lili was curious about the IChing so I threw one for her. Of all the possibilities of syllable pairing, it came up with LiLi, so I threw one again and it, too, came up with LiLi….

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NO TEST FAILS

Published April 5, 2024 by Nan Mykel

NO TEST FAILS

Students may, and theories, but
tests are hardy souls and tell
it like it is.

We have failed this test of tests,
that’s all. It’ll be back to
ground zero but minus us;

Someone or something else may
pick up the ball and run with it.
No…drop that metaphor now!

Sometime, somewhere, let there be
no such thing as power, greed
and competition. Maybe

get it right next time, although
if time doesn’t exist, when
and how? Not our ball of wax

to shape. We’re out of here soon.
It’s okay. The traits dealt failed
to mix, that’s all. We just flunked.

Glad to be taking A.I. with us.

Nan 4/4/24

I DUNNO….

Published August 13, 2022 by Nan Mykel

When things and the state of the United States get too tense during blog writing, different folks let off steam in…well, different ways, whether it be by having snarks, remembering and sharing soothing old songs (Filosofa’s Word) or Dr. Rex’s Wordless Wednesday and Friday Fun Facts (It Is What It Is). And someone has Caturdays. Me, I’m not into fun too much. I prefer acting out, being weird.

For example, today I dawdled on Google and marveled at all the different acronyms that have been used in titling congressional bills:

Some acronyms are more popular than others. The most popular word, SAFE, is used 131 times, meaning such things as:

Screening Applied Fairly and Equitably
Secure Access to Firearms Enhancement
Screening Applied Fairly and Equitably
Security Against Foreclosures and Education
Security and Accountability For Every
Swift Approval, Full Evaluation
Security and Fairness Enhancement
Stop Abuse for Every
Safe, Accountable, Fair, and Efficient
Security and Financial Empowerment

Other popular words include CARE, FAIR, STOP, HELP, HOPE, DREAM, and PROTECT. [noahveltman.com/acronyms]

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On a lark, giving myself free reign to be (ahem) different, I remembered the flying bishop as described on pages 218-219 of Colin Wilson’s 1971 book The Occult. I was curious to see what Google had to say about the flying bishop. There was silence about Wilson’s “strange sickly boy who became known as ‘Open Mouth’ because his mouth usually hung open; one commentator remarked that ‘he was not far from what today we would call a state of feeble-mindedness’.” But maybe Google had him listed by name? Duh. Wikipedia, via Google, had him under St. Joseph of Copertino. Wikipedia’s descripion of the flying monk is more skeptical than Wilson’s. No surprise there, I guess, and Wikipedia did not even list The Occult as a resource. Wilson’s version is a happier one, and that’s what I was seeking today. So nice I get to choose.

At the age of seventeen Joseph was accepted into the Capuchin order, but was dismissed eight months later because of total inability to concentrate. Soon thereafter the Order of Conventuals accepted him as a stable boy, and at twenty-two he became a Franciscan priest. One day, in the midst of his prayers after mass, he floated off the ground and landed on the altar in a state of ecstasy. Floating in the air in a state of delight seemed to be his sole accomplishment. The flying bishop was oberved to repeatedly fly when joyous, in full sight of the congregation. Kings, dukes, Leibnitz and even the Pope witnessed him floating or flying in the air. When Joseph’s canonization was suggested after his death at the age of sixty, the Church started an investigation into his flights, and after hundreds of depositions had been taken. he was declared a saint on February 24, 1767 by Pope Clement XIII.

As I read on, the sources of information opened and I read that since flying was associated with witchcraft, he was called before the holy inquisition, but after more than one session he was found not guilty, largely because it became apparent that he did not take pleasure from his levitation, was not proud of them, and could not control them. For the rest of Joseph’s life after the trial, he was shuffled around, treated by the church as a dirty little secret and moved to out of the way locations, being occasionally called back before the authority of the Inquisition for some further questioning before being maintained innocent again. As mentioned above, four years after his death the church’s “dirty little secret” became a saint.

Now that’s out of my system, maybe I can attend to reblogging Bob Shepherd’s post tomorrow. Whew! That’s my exercise for today.

New Poem

Published June 26, 2022 by Nan Mykel

UPON REFLECTION

What color is your ball of yarn

Or have you more than one

How strong is its warp?

How warm its woof?

You may think I’m spoofing

But never so serious as when

Searching inside the heart.

MUSINGS

Published August 19, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Re-do of the Red Wheelbarrow:

The Black Chalk Board

so much

depends

upon a black

chalk board

covered with

equations

beside the gray

waste basket.

METAPHOR

I know, I know, metaphors rule

but their birth is often Caesarian.

Is your life a sandbox or a boxcar?

A crapshoot? A bird cage?

A leaf or is it a harp?

Or a stage, maybe a sand dune?

A beached sea shell or a chapel?

Ooh! A chapel! I like that one.

Count me in.

Late Night Thoughts

Published August 11, 2016 by Nan Mykel

child red hair pix It just occurred to me how vulnerable humans are–physically, but even moreso emotionally. Maybe emotionally is not the right word–I mean sensitive to slights, to being discounted (a word I learned in psychology), ignored, being made fun of, mimicked, belittled. Perhaps all these terms refer to the same thing: vulnerable to being hurt. Is anyone impervious to being emotionally hurt? Some have a stoic front, counter-aggressive, hardened defenses. The image that comes to me is of one with a shield which “slings and arrows” bounce off of. I’ll have to think some more on this. (Photo Pixabay)