Book Review: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles

Posted on August 27, 2011 by John Walters

During the summer I often like to tackle really big books, often history books.  This summer I took on a book that has already received a lot of acclaim:  it has won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Award.  These massive historical biographies are valuable not only for the insight they give into the lives of the famous people being highlighted, but also into the era and milieu in which they lived.  So it is with this
book.

I can’t say that it reads like a novel, for a novel would not go into such detail about peripheral people, geography, economic and political history, and so on.  But for a
work of nonfiction that goes into great detail on its subject it is very readable and fast-paced.  Part of the reason is the fact that the subject is so fascinating, and part the author’s
skill in storytelling.

Vanderbilt truly did live an amazing, epic life.  He started out in steamships making runs from Staten Island to New York, then expanded his operations to include all of New
England.  Later, at the time of the California gold rush, he pioneered a steamship route from New York to Nicaragua, across Nicaragua, and then from there to San Francisco.  For a time he went into trans-Atlantic steamers as well.  And finally, he gave up the steamship business to concentrate on what was then state-of-the-art transportation:  the growing network of railroads.  On the way, he became one of the richest men in America and, in comparable values of the dollar then and now, one of the richest men ever in the United States.

He was a brash, bold, foul-mouthed, uneducated man, quick to seize opportunities or to punish enemies who got in his way.  The book chronicles the lives of many of the
important East Coast businessmen of the era, as well as Vanderbilt’s relationships with his personal family, which were often stormy.  As I read about his personal and professional
life I found myself double-minded in my reaction.  On the one hand, it is easy to see that in
many ways he was a reprehensible character:  selfish, self-serving, neglectful of others, domineering, vengeful, ready to forsake anything to pursue the gleam of wealth; on the other hand he was one-of-a-kind:  intelligent, complex, resourceful, and I found myself cheering him on in his battles with his many enemies and rivals.  It is a complement
to the skill of the writer, because no life is simple, and it is far easier to break everything down into black and white than to illuminate all the shades of gray as well.

Apart from the story of the man himself, the economics of the era and the growth of modern economic theory, the shift in the politics of government before, during, and after the Civil War, and how various modes of transport assumed such historical importance, what I found particularly interesting was the insight the book provided in the growth of New York from a small dirty village in the late 1700s to the great center of the United States economy that it became.  Last summer I visited New York and spent a few days wandering the streets of Manhattan and taking it all in, and it is truly intimidating and awe-inspiring.  Perhaps someone who has lived there or visited it frequently might be more jaded and see things differently, but for me New York was fascinating and I enjoyed reading how it got the way it is.  That’s the fun of a gigantic, well-researched, well-written history book like this one:  it can be enjoyed on many levels, and offers insight far beyond that of its primary subject.

So yes, I would recommend this book.  I realize that many people are intimidated by big books like this one, but there is no reason to be.  I have found when preparing to tackle a book of this length that it pays to not even worry about it.  Just start on page one and read a few pages, then a few more and a few more and so on.  Soon, if the book is worthwhile, you will find yourself well into it and hooked.  After that there is no problem continuing.  Personally I hate to put a book down once I have begun it; I do so only on very rare occasions.  So I am very careful about what I read.  I research ahead, read favorites lists, read reviews, read articles, read awards lists, so that when I finally buy or borrow a book and sit down to begin I know exactly what I am getting into.  That’s why I have begun writing reviews, so I can tip off other readers as to what might or might not be worthwhile in the world of books.  Of course, in the end a lot of it boils down to individual taste, but this particular book is tried and proven by many, and I add my voice to theirs.  It’s a good book.

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Beach Bars and Pornographic Music

Posted on August 20, 2011 by John Walters

Summer time here in Greece is beach time.  During the hottest, most popular weeks in July and August the cities half-empty and everyone heads for the coast.

My wife and youngest son and I go on the weekends, since she works and doesn’t have an official summer holiday.  We usually drive about an hour to an hour and a half to a quiet uncrowded stretch of beach where there’s plenty of soft sand and the water is slightly cool and crystal clear, and we spend several hours there on Saturdays and Sundays swimming and sunbathing.

One hot day after our swim we decided to have a coffee with some of her colleagues at a popular beach bar, though we usually avoid such places because of the noise and the crowds.  The parking area was packed, a vast dusty wasteland of gleaming metal
baking in the heat.  After we found a spot the attendant urged us to move a bit to create more space; people were still arriving.

The first thing that hits you upon entering the bar area is the overwhelming noise.  They had huge speakers set up blasting out ear-shattering music, whatever hits were currently
being played on pop music stations.  The next thing you notice is the crowd:  umbrellas
and lounge chairs and small round white plastic tables interspersed among a vast sea of flesh.  The patrons were mostly young people.  There were a few kids, and a smattering of old or middle-aged folks, like my wife’s co-workers.  People everywhere sat about sipping the expensive drinks and – this was the strangest thing – many of them didn’t seem to be happy at all.  One would have thought they had gone there to have fun, and ostensibly that was the motivation, but they had also gone there to display themselves as wares for the
taking to the right individual.  Some were joyous, of course, drinking and laughing and enjoying the sun and sea, but these were people who already had partners or good friends and who were not looking for pickups.  Those who had come with the hope of finding something more than they had come with, someone special perhaps, were tense and expectant, casting glances here and there, unable to cut loose and have fun because they hoped for that which they didn’t have – and there were a lot of such people.

The beach itself was beautiful:  soft sand and clean warm water; but covered over as it was by this raucous mass of humanity it lost much of its appeal too.  There was a certain sadness in contemplating what it must have been like before this chaos descended upon it.

Be that as it may, we had a good time chatting and swimming, though under other circumstances we would never have chosen to spend our time at the beach in such a place.

That night, though, I couldn’t sleep.  One of the giant speakers had been very close to the place my wife’s colleagues had set up, and the music had profoundly upset my equilibrium.  I like music, but I have my preferences, as I’m sure you do, and I can’t stand it too loud.  But something else bothered me about this music – something that at first I couldn’t put my finger on.  Not all of it, but some of the most popular songs that I had heard over and over not only there at the beach bar but other places over the radio.  Then it hit me:  these songs were pornography.  They spoke of admiring bodies and then
wanting to have sex, of arousing a woman so she gets wet, of getting excited by the whips and chains of sadomasochism.  I’m no prude; there’s plenty of mention of sex in my memoirs and stories.  But these songs completely divorced the sex act from emotion and spirit, and that isn’t natural.  Most of us enjoy sex, even long for it if we don’t get enough of it; but sex isn’t merely a physical act but a form of communication, spirit to spirit.  That’s
why porn films are ultimately unsatisfactory:  they reduce the act to its basest elements, gutting it of motivation and emotion, as if the only point of it all were to “get off”.  These songs are the same.  They leave a sour taste in the psyche, an emptiness, and a twisting feeling that something is wrong – the kind of feeling you get when you know that someone is lying to you but you can’t prove it.

It made me recall the music of bygone years, the music I grew up with.  Yeah, okay, you can call me an old fart if you want, but the fact is that there was real heart to a lot of that music.  Not all of it to be sure: some of it glorified drugs and the sex act back then too.  But many songs spoke of things that mattered:  real love, the need for social change, and so on.  I don’t hear any popular songs these days that even try to say something significant.  Have musicians dumbed down emotionally to the point that they are unable to uplift or enlighten but merely appeal to the basest instincts?

Hey, don’t get me wrong.  I like sex too, as almost all of us do – but not as a purely mechanical act completely devoid of that spirit which illuminates us and makes us shine forth as unique individuals.  These songs take away that wonderful uniqueness and render us as base flesh; they imply that if our flesh is not attractive (and most, at least at first glance, is not) then we are not worthy.  But we are all worthy of respect and of love, both those who are pleasing to the eye and those who are not.  Would that there were some songs that gave us that message.

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Basketball as a Metaphysical Experience

Posted on August 11, 2011 by John Walters

In the past I have dreamed about playing basketball.  Sometimes it is in a challenging situation, pitted against others; sometimes I am alone and am only practicing.  But
usually it boils down to one shot, and that shot is not an easy shot; perhaps it is from a long distance, perhaps it involves intricate moves to accomplish – but whatever is involved in that particular situation, invariably I make the shot, I wake up, I remember that I have been playing the game and…  Well, I have to admit that I am not always able to equate what happens in dreams with what happens in real life.

I don’t remember when I first started playing basketball, but I remember playing it for hour upon hour in the alley behind our house when I was a teen in high school.  We had a
basket rigged up on the side of our garage there in the alley, and the odd thing was that the alley was not level but slanted, so that on one side the basket seemed much higher to shoot at than on the other side.  It didn’t matter though.  It was easy to take such a peculiarity as a matter of course.  Because I did not play basketball out there in the alley to prepare to help a team win.  No.  I played for myself.  I played because so many other things in my life were not complete or did not make sense.  I played because I could go out there, outside the house, outside, as it were, the usual order of things, and better myself in some way.  I could work on my balance, my strength, my coordination.  I could allow that which was unacceptable in my life to slough away, to forsake it in a sense, at least for a time, to put it aside for something that was more important.  And as I concentrated on what I was doing, as I focused my attention on perfecting the art of basketball, at another level my mind could wander, but it would not wander to the mundane but to the sublime.  It would go where it was not able to go in everyday life; it would think thoughts it would not normally
think; it would soar to places that would not normally be able to be reached.

Of course, I was not always alone.  Sometimes my brothers were there, and sometimes neighbor kids.  When my brothers were around I’d play them games of one-on-one or free throw shoots or twenty-one, and I’d always win because I was the oldest and I practiced more than they did.  There were two kids up the alley who had a basket on their garage too; sometimes for variety I’d go and play there.  One boy, Ric, was my age and the other, Vic, was slightly older.  We’d play two-on-one, Ric and I against Vic, and Ric and I would always win because we had the advantage of being able to pass off; Vic couldn’t stand
to lose and he’d try like a son-of-a-bitch to catch up, but he could seldom come close.  Their family was considered a little odd because their dad was a sailor and built boats and walked with a funny limp; in addition, they were the only ones in the neighborhood without a TV set.  But basketball was a common denominator that could break through all that.  Anyone could play basketball, even eccentrics, especially eccentrics, I might say, as long as they weren’t too proud to lose.  And if they did not want to play, they could stand around and watch.  I am reminded, in particular, of the kid from the end of the block,
Daniel I think his name was, who occasionally strolled by and stopped to talk but never participated.  He was slim, soft-spoken, polite, and struck me at the time as fairly level-headed.  He was also slightly younger than me, but it didn’t matter anymore, as at the time I was past teen-hood; I’d moved out of the house on my own and back in several times; I made my own decisions and expected others to do the same.  This fellow, Daniel, who I’d only known in the past as a classmate of one of my younger brothers, would stop and chat and then stroll on, like a ripple in a lake due to a falling leaf or a fish jumping, and the surface would calm again and it was as if it had never happened.  But later I found out that he, while still a young man, in his parents’ house at the end of the alley, put a gun to his head and blew his brains out – and I never had a clue why, certainly not from his polite, soft-spoken, sincere conversations.  Perhaps he never consciously considered it before he did it; perhaps what was bugging him was churning around on the inside yet never coming to the surface even in his own mind.  I do not speak facetiously or flippantly when I say that perhaps he should not have just passed by as an observer; perhaps he should have joined in and become an active participant; perhaps he should have grabbed the ball, focused his attention, taken aim, and let fly, not just once but over and over, until everything else sloughed away, including the cares and burdens that he carried in the deep recesses of his subconscious where they were rotting away and turning cancerous.

I would go out alone anytime, in any weather.  It was almost always drizzling or outright
raining in Seattle, so one could not be too bothered by it or one would never do anything.  In sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers I would grab the ball, get out there, and start shooting.  When the weather was extremely cold I’d have to move fast to warm up, because a coat impeded movement, so I never wore a coat when I played basketball.  Even when the street was slick with ice I’d shiver and shoot, shiver and shoot, until my blood started pumping faster and I’d loosen up and wouldn’t notice the cold anymore.  The slanting of the alley was useful in the rain because puddles wouldn’t collect on the ground, but still
I’d become spattered with muddy water; when the ground was only slightly damp a
dirty residue would cling to the ball and get on my hands so that they’d turn almost black.  These slight inconveniences were small prices to pay.

Once I tried joining the high school team.  I figured that had to be the ultimate goal of it all:  to wear a real basketball uniform and appear in official games.  But I couldn’t unwind.  I didn’t have the loose confidence I felt when I played alone.  It was like selling my soul, like turning traitor.  I ended up as a benchwarmer, showing up for the practices yet never appearing in the games.  Finally, though, during one of the final games of the season our team was so far ahead they decided to let the substitutes in.  I got in the clear and began dribbling down the court, chased by an opposing player.  It was an easy lay-up, but I missed so badly that though the other player had never touched me the referee called a foul.  My first free throw didn’t even come close to the hoop; it fell far short.  The second
bounced around and around and finally went in:  that was the one point I ever made in an organized game, and that cured me forever of wanting to participate in organized sports.  Playing alone was a grand, glorious, liberating experience; playing on a team for the glory of God-knows-what was a degrading, humiliating experience – and I think it is so not only for me but for all, even for the ones who attain to stardom.  What do they really accomplish when they win a game?  What do they do it for? Fame?  Money?  These things are so shallow when compared with the profundity of playing for its own sake, every shot
a life-changing experience; I might even say an artistic experience in the true sense of the word.  Such an experience can keep you sane in an insane world.

Later, much later, during my literary wanderings, during the time of my life on the road, I took a temporary job in a firefighting camp on the Northern California coast.  I was
surrounded by redwood trees as well as redneck people.  The rest of the crew was ex-military men, martial arts experts, gang members, and so on.  They were certainly not the type of people to take kindly to a pacifistic poet.  So to put on a show of bravado I started lifting weights; in addition, as I would everywhere I went, when I had free time I’d go out and shoot baskets.  The weightlifting gave me extra strength, and the amount of time on my hands gave me a lot of practice.  A few of the guys caught a glimpse of me popping them in regularly from thirty or forty feet out, and after that nobody would play basketball with me anymore.  They figured they didn’t have much chance of winning, so they didn’t want to risk their macho standing in the camp community.  That was fine by me.  It made them keep their distance and overlook some of my obvious defects for which they would otherwise have harassed me. And once again, basketball was one of the things that stabilized me in a difficult situation.  I could get out there and concentrate on what I was doing and forget about the people I was surrounded by, my frustration with my writing, and my incessant agonizing loneliness.  That was the worst thing:  the loneliness.  There at that camp in the middle of nowhere I think I called every girl whose number I had, even ones in France and Belgium and other faraway places, looking for some connection, some offer to come in off the road and stay awhile.  That offer never came and I left the camp as alone as I’d come, but at least when I played basketball I could forget it all; I could concentrate on the ball and the hoop and my balance and form and aim, and I could think otherworldly thoughts, harmonized thoughts, thoughts that came together in order and symmetry.

Recently I was reminded of all this when I went across the street to shoot a few baskets with one of my young sons.  He spotted his older brother nearby and ran off to him, and for a while I was left alone on the court with the basketball.  It was a warm evening, but there was a slight breeze.  The sun was about to set and the sky was deep blue above and flaming red to the west.  I began to shoot one shot after another, concentrating on what I was doing, consciously considering my balance, position, angle, flick of wrist, strength of jump, and so on.  Sometimes I missed and sometimes I didn’t, but that wasn’t very important.  As I kept it up, though, more and more started going in; the whole process became more automatic.  My mind began to drift, and I began to recall those times in the alley, at the firefighting camp, and in many other places when basketball would be a way to ditch whatever was bugging me and grab a few moments of eternity.

I don’t have the strength I used to have, and I never will again.  Sometimes I feel the years
weighing me down, leaving me exhausted, disillusioned, depressed.  Sometimes I’m so busy and so laden down with responsibility that I wouldn’t be able to grab a basketball and shoot a few hoops even if I wanted to.  But those glimpses I have had of something that is anything but petty, anything but mundane, anything but mediocre have made me a better man than I was before.  And if any of you readers are skeptical, if any of you think that it is ludicrous to ascribe such greatness to a simple act of tossing a ball through a metal hoop, I suggest that you give it a try.  But alone, remember, all alone.  And not just for a few minutes but over and over and over again.

On the other hand, let’s face it:  I’m not naïve enough to think that basketball is the way to salvation. For you it might be something different.  Eternity is a big place; it can be gotten at from many angles.  And there is the point as well that when I’d put down the ball and leave the court, all that I’d temporarily forgotten or forsaken was waiting for me again.  But a part of that experience remained, and will always remain.

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Endings

Posted on August 6, 2011 by John Walters

First the disclaimer:  this is not an essay on writing, though I may use various aspects of writing as an example.  If you want to write, write.  Go ahead, just get started.  Do it any way you want and write about anything you want.  Write fiction or nonfiction, science fiction or mystery, history or memoir.  It’s all up to you.  Words are your tools and they can be fashioned as you will.

The idea did come about as I was struggling with a piece of writing, a short story to be precise.  I decided, in one of my fits of arbitrary goal-setting, that in four weeks I
would write four stories.  Okay, as far as it goes, but I should know myself by this time and within such defined parameters is not how my mind usually works well.  I’m not saying that goal-setting is not a good thing, at least in theory.  The problem is, it can be constricting.  A story, or any piece of writing, is like a living thing, at least to a writer.  Have you ever tried to scream at a child to get it to mature faster?  Doesn’t work, does it?

The first story went okay.  I managed to get an idea, flesh it out, and see it through to
completion.  After that I set it aside.  I always do.  I like to wait a while and check out my work after I’ve had a chance to cool down and I can see it objectively.  That way I can catch obvious mistakes and inconsistencies more easily.  But this week’s story, the second one, started out with a bang, got about two thousand words in, and bogged down.  I got all
frustrated, with the deadline and all, and the realization that I had other writing work to do as well.  So I made a monumental decision:  to set it aside unfinished.  I’ve done it before, and usually when I come back to these unfinished stories after a few weeks or months or years they almost write themselves and become better than I could have
imagined at the time I composed the beginning.

Now you’re probably saying, wait a minute!  You said this essay wasn’t about writing and
you’ve done nothing but talk about writing until now.  True.  But what I really want to talk about is the inevitable disappointment of the quick fix.

Worthwhile things take time to accomplish.

I’m not saying that everything has to take a lot of time or it’s no good.  That’s not true, of
course.  Good things can be done quickly.  If I remember it correctly, Harlan Ellison wrote his famous story, “Repent Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman” in a day.  Cordwainer Smith wrote the classic, “The Game of Rat and Dragon” in a day.

There I go, giving writing examples again, and science fiction to boot.  What to do?

On the other hand, for example, Harlan Ellison, at the 1973 Clarion West writing workshop, read us the beginning of his award-winning story “Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans”, and it was over a year later before it was completed and published.

Good things take time.

So I leave my story incomplete, without trepidation or despair, the weekend having arrived and with no more time to do anything about it, and I will get back to it later.  In the meantime my subconscious will have been working on it, and I will have lived more life and be better prepared to continue it.

Sometimes you have to do that with your kids.  Maybe they need to live more life, to mature more, before they can realize your, or their, expectations.  Sometimes you have to do that with relationships of friends or lovers:  if you try to fix it too abruptly or too roughly, you might kill it instead.  The best is often to relax, back off, let it be, and it will work itself out.  Not always, but sometimes.

Sometimes you have to power your way through something, sometimes not.  One aspect of wisdom is knowing the difference.

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Love Children: A Novel by John Walters – Now Available!

Posted on July 31, 2011 by John Walters

My first novel, “Love Children”, is now available in various electronic formats on Amazon and Smashwords.

The Amazon link is here:  http://www.amazon.com/Love-Children-A-Novel-ebook/dp/B005DPMF5U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312132795&sr=1-1

The Smashwords link is here:  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/75295

The print edition will be available later this year.  I decided to go ahead and have it published electronically because most of my sales are electronic anyway.  In addition, the book was completely formatted and ready and the only thing missing was the cover, which will still take some time to complete.  I decided to make it available with a temporary cover, but when the final cover is ready, if you have already bought the book, let me know and I’ll send you a copy of the final cover.  In the meantime, it’s a great story for mature readers, full of empathy, expanded awareness, telepathy, sex, LSD, hippies, aliens both benevolent and malevolent, and a psychic battle to save the world.

 

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I Don’t Care

Posted on July 22, 2011 by John Walters

A lot of things happen in life.  Many good things, yes, but also nasty things, discouraging things.  Recently, and by this I mean in the last three months or so, things have been going awry for me personally; I have been stymied, frustrated, knocked for a loop.  Looking at the situation from the outside one might ask why.  Nothing special set it off, but rather a series of events and mental processes like dominoes, one affecting another until the whole setup began tumbling down.  It affected my work, my family, my own peace of mind.  But what to do about it?

The first thing to understand when you experience discouragement or despair is that you can’t just think yourself out of it.  Nor can you distract yourself out of it through drugs, or drink, or entertainment.  It’s right there when you sober up, or step out of the movie theater, or come home from the party.  It must be dealt with, somehow, but not by conventional means.  Somehow that little voice inside that tells you to give in to all the negative must be silenced.  I don’t know how it is with you, but with me that negative voice often comes in the guise of fantasy scenarios.  What if this happens?  What if that happens?  What if it doesn’t work out?  What if you fail?  What if nobody you counted on comes through in your time of need?  I have a vivid imagination – after all, I write science fiction stories – and these fantasies can get quite elaborate on occasion.  And if you explore in detail all the things that can possibly go wrong in your life, it can really get you down.  And if some of those things are in fact actually going wrong, that’s even worse.  It’s like quicksand:  the more you struggle the faster you go under.

Even during my recent trip to the States, which was supposed to be relaxing and therapeutic, I wrestled with this problem.  I had good days and bad days.  Mostly I had good days because I was visiting my sons, my brothers and sisters, my father, and we indulged in plenty of special activities, sightseeing, and so on.  But when I got back here to Greece it was all waiting for me.  As I said, distraction can only do so much, and cannot solve the core problem or problems.  I pluralize it because most of us have a lot of problems and not just one which if solved would render life paradisiacal.

But life is good, or at least it can be, no matter what the circumstances.  And I have a lot of good things going on in my life.  I have a great wife and five sons.  I have a day-job I’m good at, successful at, praised for.  I have my writing, which affords me great satisfaction and a bit of income, and which is growing as a presence both on the Web and in print.  I have good books to read.  And it’s summer in Greece, and several times a week we go to the beach and swim in the warm, clear, clean Mediterranean waters.

So why the discontent?  It should not be so.

What brought on the collapse of my mental and spiritual strength?  I’m not sure.  It may have been overwork.  By the end of the school year I was carrying a terrific load, and every spare moment I had I was marking compositions.  Maybe I just burned out.  My defenses were down and those negative thoughts overwhelmed me.  For weeks and months I reeled and staggered and tried to fight back, but made little headway.

Then, just recently, I came up with three little words that have turned the whole situation around:  “I don’t care.”

How does it work?  Well, most of those negative scenarios have to do with what might happen in the future.  Not what will happen, but what might happen.  Some are possible,
while others are far-fetched to say the least.  But dwelling on these bleak possibilities brings on a sick feeling in the pit of the stomach and an inability to enjoy life as it is now.  In addition, it does nothing to forestall or alleviate the problems.  So, when one of
these fantasies pops up its ugly head, I think to myself, “I don’t care.”  I can’t do anything about it, so why should I bother about it?  Some of the negative thoughts are like little imps, easy to dismiss with one little statement:  “I don’t care.”  Others are bigger, nastier,
more serious, like ogres or monsters, and I have to chant it:  “I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care…” and so on, as long as it takes to dispel the enemy, which is the negative thought.  I want to enjoy the time with my family, or the work, or the writing, or the reading, or the swim at the beach, and not have it spoiled by an invading army of negative possibilities.  Life is too short to dwell on what might be in the future.  Far more important is to live life now, to seize what is true and good and honest and appealing now – to make an effort to forestall or prevent future problems, yes, but not to sink helplessly in a storm of angst.

This helps not only if you are going through a personal crisis like I was, but with other situations that may arise as well.  “What if I don’t get the job?”  “I don’t care.”  “What if I don’t pass the test?”  “I don’t care.”  “What if she doesn’t want to go out with me?”  “I
don’t care.”  Now here’s the paradox:  you really do care about all these things, and you try your best to make them happen.  You fill out the application carefully, you shower and dress well for the interview; you study the subject you will be tested on; you do your best to make yourself attractive for your potential date.  But when you have done all you can
and you approach the moment, dwelling on negative scenarios will do no good
whatsoever.  It will only bring on anxiety which will hasten your downfall.
Instead, when all those negative possibilities erupt like the many-headed Hydra, cut them down with this weapon:  “I don’t care.”

Of course you really do care.  We all do, at least all of us who are sane.  I care too much sometimes, so that it comes near to breaking my heart.  Don’t stop caring for those you love, and for important work that you believe in.

But when it comes to doubt, disillusionment,discouragement, despondency, and despair:
I don’t care.

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Painsharing and Other Stories by John Walters – Now Available!

Posted on July 19, 2011 by John Walters

My second short story collection is now available in electronic editions, and will be available in print later this year.  These are science fiction stories, some previously published and some original, set on near and far future Earth and on distant planets.

Amazon’s Kindle version is here:  http://www.amazon.com/Painsharing-and-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B005C41AE4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311056050&sr=1-1

It’s also available at Smashwords in various electronic formats:  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/72687

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On Reading The Lord of the Rings for the Fourteenth Time, Part Three: The Return of the King

Posted on July 15, 2011 by John Walters

Now we come to the end of it.  There are some splendid passages in this book that never fail to bring tears to my eyes.  As Gandalf says, “Not all tears are an evil.”  One of the greatest is the ride of the Rohirrim and their attack and battle at the Pellenor Fields, the fall of King Theoden, and the defeat of the Nazgul Chieftain.  Then there is Frodo and Sam’s heroic struggle through Mordor to Mount Doom, despite hunger and thirst and devastating despair.  (By the way, one of the ridiculous aspects of the screenplay in which for some strange reason they felt necessary to deviate from the book was the sundering of the friendship of Frodo and Sam – ridiculous, I say, because their unshakeable unity and resolve is one of the core elements of the plot and the reason they succeed.)  And the story also tells of Aragorn and the Gray Company’s journey through the paths of the dead, commandeering of the enemy’s ships, and timely arrival at the siege of Minas Tirith.  In the book the dead help to clear the ships and then are released, and therefore the battle before the city is accomplished by mortals only, giving it greater verisimilitude, honor, and sense of victory.  I never was too keen on the movie’s take:  that the horde of green ghosties move in and cream the enemy.  What honor is there in that?  It’s too blatant a contrivance.

Overall, this book is shorter than the others, though the movie version is the longest of the three.  The movie uses material from the second book, “The Two Towers”, but leaves out long chapters in “The Return of the King” that would indeed have slowed down the film but are very important in the book.  One of these sub-plots is the romance of Faramir and Eowyn, which is elegantly told.  Another is the scouring of the Shire.  The hobbits get back home only to discover that Saruman has been working mischief in the Shire, and they must use what they have learned of strategy and arms to drive off the unsavory invaders.  I like this chapter because it shows that what they experienced in far-off lands strengthened them and gave them the wisdom and maturity to deal with important problems at home.

At the end of “The Return of the King” are the appendixes.  There are genealogies, explanations of the alphabets and grammar of the major languages, timelines, and histories.  In the past, for the first dozen readings or so, I continued into the appendixes as if they were part of the primary story.  Therein is a lot which is thrilling and inspiring.
You can find out what happened to each of the fellowship, for example.  This time I am skimming over them, because I have such a backlog of other things to read.  One story I did not skip over, however, and which I commend to you, is “A Part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen” in Appendix A.  It tells of how they met but were separated when Aragorn departed for his years of laboring in the wilderness, how they became betrothed in Lorien, how they ruled as king and queen in joy for many years, and finally it tells of their parting, of the death of Aragorn, and Arwen’s subsequent lonely wandering in the fading woods of
Lothlorien until she herself dies a mortal’s death.  It is a bittersweet but lovely tale.

This book is full of ennobling virtue, if one reads it with an open heart.  It has great goodness, courage, nobility, honor.  It makes me want to choose the good and abhor and resist evil.   Every time I read it I am made better in some way.  Plus it is thrilling,
adventurous, and poignant.  What more could one ask than that?

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words.  I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible.  If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories.  Thanks!

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West to East: Jet Lag Revisited

Posted on July 10, 2011 by John Walters

Last night I slept well.  I fell asleep around 12:30 a.m. and woke up at 7:30, fell back asleep
and woke up at ten.  Some of you may not realize what an amazing phenomenon that was until I explain.

I recently returned to Greece from a three and a half week trip to the States.  Much of the time on this journey I was disoriented time-wise, but near the end I had found a sleep
pattern that suited me and yielded six or seven hours sleep a night, which is more than I usually get at home.  But when I returned to Greece crazy things started happening.  I would lie awake all night and then not be able to nap during the day.  Or I’d fall
asleep around midnight and then wake up, wide awake, about two or three in the
morning.  This has been going on for days, and it has been intensely frustrating.
At least, as a teacher, I have no work during these summer months, and I can stagger around semi-functional while I recover my temporal equilibrium.  But it is disconcerting,
befuddling, and exhausting, and there has been nothing I have been able to do about it.

Yesterday the problem was compounded by the fact that we went to the beach.  Don’t get me wrong:  the beach was wonderful.  The water was clear and clean, the sandy shore was uncrowded, and it was blissful to relax as the breeze tempered the hot air.

But we did not properly estimate the sun’s strength, mellowed as it was by the gentle wind, and we stayed out too long.  And came home with beet-red sunburn.  It was the kind that throbs as if your skin itself has become a furnace.  So I had not slept since three in the morning the night before, I had terrible sunburn, and to top it all off, probably due to my compromised immune system through all this, I began to sneeze and my nose and eyes ran.

The darkest hour is just before dawn, right?

This morning I woke up feeling great, though I still have the cold and the sunburn.  Both are more manageable than they were yesterday.  I am on the road to recovery.

The moral?  Sometimes things just seem crazy.  And they can go on seeming crazy for day after day after day, until you wonder if the craziness will ever pass.  During this time you
just have to persevere and do your best, craziness notwithstanding, until things sort themselves out and it all aligns properly again.  Patience plays a large part in it, as does
fortitude, as does just plain hanging on.  The things to avoid are the four D’s:
discouragement, despondency, doubt, and despair.  I don’t know about you but it seems that something is always going out-of-kilter in my life.  If it’s not the teaching it’s the writing; if it’s not mechanical failure of appliances or vehicles it’s finances in general; if there’s not a problem with one or more of my sons then I’m in the midst of my own emotional turmoil.

Things happen.  That’s a part of life.  When they do we need to regain our balance, restore our equilibrium.  For a time things may go well.  If they do, avoid the temptation to get
lackadaisical.  Something else will go wrong; it always does.  Life is messy and imperfect.  Instead of yielding to complacency fortify yourself to fight the next battle.  In saying this I don’t necessarily mean start doing push-ups or jumping-jacks, though sometimes this may be the best you could do.  Other times taking a holiday might be the right move.  Or watching a film.  Or visiting a friend.  Or writing a story.

But when everything seems like one insane funhouse ride, remember:  this too shall pass.

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A Movie Premier at Times Square Considered as a Greek Political Gabfest

Posted on July 3, 2011 by John Walters

It was my first trip to New York.  I had, many years before, passed through it while hitchhiking to and from the airport enroute to Europe and further destinations, but I had never gone into its heart to observe it for itself.

I was visiting my son, who teaches math and physics at a high school in New Jersey.  As soon as we emerged from Penn Station after the train from Trenton I felt as if we were in
another world, an almost magical, fascinating world.  New York is vast, and there are many filthy, unsavory parts, but upper Manhattan, which is the first of its many faces that
most visitors see, is dazzling, multifaceted, and enigmatic.  Huge advertising videos erupt from the sides of buildings.  Stores of famous brands with which we are all familiar from movies and TV appear on every block.  There are theaters with marquis splashed with
the names of blockbuster musicals.  There are restaurants, souvenir shops, sidewalk food stalls, and everywhere people, all kinds of people, from ultra-rich in spotless suits to homeless bums in rags, from orthodox Jews in skullcaps to rappers with their pants slung halfway down their asses, from brisk businesspeople to families of tourists with their
noses buried in guidebooks and maps.

When we reached Times Square part of it was cordoned off and surrounded by police on foot and on horse, along with police cars and ambulances.  After looking around for the
cause of the uproar we realized that they were focused on a single individual who had climbed up and was sitting atop a lamppost.  Some rescue workers rolled out and inflated a huge yellow mattress while three police on a flatbed truck tried to talk the man down.  We watched for a while, but as the situation seemed to be at a stalemate we decided to move on, after remarking on the expense and trouble the NYPD was going to for one lamppost sitter.  “I bet he’s doing it for the publicity,” I said.  “He’s probably trying to promote his book or his music.”  Later we read about it online, and it turned out that the guy, who was eventually arrested, was a rapper trying to drum up publicity for his CD.

Farther on, at the center of Times Square, we came across another cordoned area, but this for a different type of event.  On a raised stage was an arc of broken cars and a huge model of the transformer Bumblebee.  Security guards dressed in dark suits, whispering to each other on cell phones and suspiciously watching passers-by, stood behind the barriers.  It turned out that later that afternoon at that very spot was to be the ceremony for the US premier of “Transformers 3”.  My son, a great film buff, immediately determined that we had to change our plans in order not to miss the premier.

So it was that that afternoon, after having walked miles all over Upper and Lower Manhattan, we returned to the spot about forty-five minutes before the event was to take place.  Already a crowd had formed, and we were soon in the midst of a huge throng of people, tightly pressed on every side.  A tall, very wide overweight woman was
directly in front of me; my son had a slightly better view.  The sweltering heat was oppressive, and the combined body heat of all those around us increased our discomfort
exponentially.  “At least this is America, not Greece,” I told my son.  “Surely they’ll start on time.”  But it was not to be so.  The starting time came and went, and still we and the many other people waited.  And waited, and waited.

Now here comes the comparison.  At any event to which important politicians are invited in Greece, it is taken for granted that they will be late.  They are not expected to come on time; people would be shocked if they did.  We are not talking about a matter of a few minutes either.  Sometimes they are hours late, but at the least half an hour or forty-five minutes.  The more important the speaker, the later he or she is.  In the meantime everyone else, who had to come on time or they would not have obtained a seat or standing room or whatever, must sit or stand in discomfort whether it is hot or cold or overcrowded or whatever.  Eventually, a minor politician will speak – though not, of course, the person everyone came to hear.  Then another minor politician, and another.  Everyone has to get up and have their say before the big shots.  And finally, finally, after your muscles are cramped and you have to use the toilet and your kids are nagging you and you would give it all up and force your way through the crowd if you could and go home, finally, I say, the big shots will appear.

That’s what this premier at Times Square was like.  My son didn’t care.  He was elated to see and hear it all.  I cared.  I wondered who organized the thing and why it was all so
inefficient.  It must have cost a hell of a lot of money for the props and the gigantic videos on the sides of the nearby buildings and the space itself, which you can bet the city of New York didn’t donate.  All this expense, and nobody bothered to streamline the show.  It made me want to boycott the film.  They started almost an hour late, and introduced an executive producer that no one had ever heard of, which was followed by limited applause.  I’m sure that the man was very important in the making of the film, but he was not who the people had come to see.  Then fifteen or twenty minutes more passed, and then someone else was introduced, and on it went.  The stage was full of photographers, news
announcers, and pretty starlets with handsome escorts, all of them sweating copiously and visibly wilting in the heat, but nothing would speed up the glacial pace of the presentation.

In the end the big shots showed up.  We took some photos.  My son was happy.  As for me, it was an interesting experience, but I wondered what had happened to whoever was supposed to have organized the event.  Were they on vacation?  Or could this really be how it was planned, with such disdain for the comfort of the many fans who had assembled?  Nothing could have been done about the weather, or that the crowd was so tightly packed, but surely it could have started on time, and could have carried on more briskly.  We are supposed to believe that the film will hold our attention, even keep us at the edge of our seats; if the introductory festivities are any indication of what will follow it will not be so.  Where was the publicity department, with whom so much money is entrusted, in the midst of all this?

We expect politicians to be boring, but not action film premiers.  Wake up, folks.

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