082910

I am a writer (poetry, novels, plays, etc.) and a Professional Perfumer certified by the Natural Perfumers Guild (which entails a pretty in-depth application). I have the most experience with poetry and plays; I have 10 perfumes for sale (and they're quite good). These in addition to 1000 other things I'm interested in. I try not to think about the MS, even though it affects, negatively, every single aspect of my life. I'm dizzy, can't walk (half block max), can't sleep, have terrible tremors, can't cook, etc.

--Adam on Facebook

*Taiwan*

Once I went on a trip around Taiwan with a couple of white people. They were my friends; this is back in an age where I actually had friends (it's so hard for me to get around, I barely leave the apartment anymore, like, never). These two were college students who majored in Chinese; to this day, it confuses me that I was able to learn Chinese as fast as I did. It was a combination of natural language facility and being intimate with a Chinese/Japanese woman. Those first few weeks I was with Ms Liang, we did a lot of talking by making signs and drawing pictures. That affair ended fairly dismally.

We headed to Taijung, no particular plans. We wanted good food, and to visit a hot springs, of which there were many on the island. In Taijung we ended up lost. There was, however, a hot springs not too far away. We went to the hot springs. It was isolated, up on a hill, with a few restaurants nearby. We were alone, not a person for miles. We stayed one night, then we were planning on a trip across the island, over the mountains and into Hualien, where I had yet to be. I would soon discover Hualien as a welcoming, traditional yet modern, complex place which I would call home for some time.

To get to Hualien, we had to hitch a ride. Being nice, I agreed to let one of my friends ask for a ride. Now, it's unfortunate but true that the following confusion ensued: the way you ask to hitch a ride is to ask, "Ma fan ni, wo shiang yao da-ge bian che." Now, as with all Chinese, you have to be extremely careful how you use the tones. My friend went and flagged down a car; a few moments later, the target car screeched away. When I asked my friend to tell me what had happened, turns out he basically said I want to take a shit! "Da bian" is to take a shit; "da-ge bian che" means to hitch a ride, of course _depending on the tones you use_.

Hard to be mad at the guy; he didn't know any better. Turns out, he never listened when his teacher explained the tones to him. He simply didn't believe that the tones make the difference between your being understood or not. I explained what had happened; he was nothing but apologetic. Next time, I was the one to flag a car. Turns out, it was a big truck which gave us a lift, with us hunkered down in the empty bed of the very large truck. I'm not sure if we planned on going to Hualien, but that's where we ended up. It was a sleepy town, on the open Pacific. Once we got back to Taipei, and I had a permanent falling out with my girlfriend, I had Hualien on my mind. I ended up moving there for more than a year.

*OPP*

By James Dickey

The Sheep Child

Farm boys wild to couple

With anything with soft-wooded trees

With mounds of earth mounds

Of pinestraw will keep themselves off

Animals by legends of their own:

In the hay-tunnel dark

And dung of barns, they will

Say I have heard tell

That in a museum in Atlanta

Way back in a corner somewhere

There's this thing that's only half

Sheep like a woolly baby

Pickled in alcohol because

Those things can't live his eyes

Are open but you can't stand to look.

But this is now almost all

Gone. The boys have taken

Their own true wives in the city,

The sheep are safe in the west hill

Pasture but we who were born there

Still are not sure. Are we,

Because we remember, remembered

In the terrible dust of museums?

Merely with his eyes, the sheep-child may

Be saying saying

I am here, in my father's house.

I who am half of your world, came deeply

To my mother in the long grass

Of the west pasture, where she stood like moonlight

Listening for foxes. It was something like love

From another world that seized her

From behind, and she gave, not lifting her head

Out of dew, without ever looking, her best

Self to that great need. Turned loose, she dipped her face

Farther into the chill of the earth, and in a sound

Of sobbing of something stumbling

Away, began, as she must do,

To carry me. I woke, dying.

In the summer sun of the hillside, with my eyes

Far more than human, I saw for a blazing moment

The great grassy world from both sides,

Man and beast in the round of their need,

And the hill wind Stirred in my wool,

My hoof and my hand clasped each other,

I ate my one meal

Of milk, and died

Staring. From the dark grass I came straight

To my father's house, whose dust

Whirls up in the halls for no reason

When no one comes piling deep in a hellish mild corner,

And through my immortal waters,

I meet the sun's grains eye

To eye, and they fail at my closet of glass.

Dead, I am most surely living

In the minds of farm boys: I am he who drives

Them like wolves from the hound bitch and calf

And from the chaste ewe in the wind.

They go into woods into bean fields they go

Deep into their known right hands. Dreaming of me,

They groan they wait they suffer

Themselves, they marry, they raise their kind.

*Quotations*

I think it's very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the last century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country. Socialism basically said, hey, let's have a kinder, gentler society. Let's share things. Let's have an economic system that produces things not because they're profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism.

--Howard Zinn

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

--Churchill

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.

--Karl Marx

The people can have anything they want; the only problem is they do not want anything.

--Eugene Debs

I believe if you get the landscape right, the characters will step out of it, and they'll be in the right place. The story will come from the landscape.

--Annie Proulx

You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.

--Robert Merton Solow

My heart, sit only with those who know and understand you.

--Rumi

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find resources of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

--Rachel Carson

If myth is translated into literal fact, then myth is a lie. But if you read it as a reflection of the world inside you, then it's true.

--Joseph Campbell

It is not true that disorder is required in order to describe disorder; it is not true that chaos on the written page is the best symbol of the extreme chaos to which we are fated: I hold this to be a characteristic error of our insecure century.

--Primo Levi

Peace love and ATOM jazz

082210

The relations can't possibly understand. I gave up trying about 10 years ago. Sure, you can tell them about your many various ailments, but they won't really get it. For everyone, MS is a mystery. It's unlike cancer, or diabetes, or meningitis. There's nothing you can say that will help folks understand. It's not pain; it's a whole lot more complicated than that. Dizziness, vertigo, coordination trouble, trouble walking, tremors, etc. That's about as specific as you can get. Your life was sent into a mixed-up world some time ago. I don't personally know anything that comes close to MS. You watch your body disintegrate, steadily, unable to do a thing about it.

--Adam on Facebook

*Taiwan*

I must impress upon you the overbearing nature of a city like Taipei. Motorcycles and mopeds rule the streets. When pulling up to a red light, all the motorcycles pull around the cars, like bees on a frenzy. Of course, once you pull out, the cars take over. It's a crazy scene on the street, with motorcycles and mopeds going _both ways_ on sidewalks. You'd think the frenetic nature of the roads would have folks being careful--but they have a very Buddhist attitude about accidents: you just go headlong into it; if the gods meant you to get in an accident, you will, no question. This is not to mention the gangs, who pretty much rule the streets.

Once, I saw a huge mafia man get pissed at a club-goer. He was so large, no policeman would mess with him. Mafia man got so mad at this fellow, he beat him to death with a stool! Everyone was quiet just after the beating; no one wanted to be on the receiving of that man's ire. I think some helpers dragged the fellow into the back, where he was picked up by two officers. Another time, in Hualien, I heard some shouting on the corner; when I went to the window, I saw a lone man in the middle of the intersection, clearly dead. They ruled with an iron fist. I was always told if you didn't mess with them, they'd leave you alone.

This is not to mention the ex and reformed gangsters you're likely to meet, out and about. It might be the guy you have dinner with at the local eatery, a fellow you happen to meet on the street, or the man you run into on a visit to the nearby betel-nut stand. It could be any and all of these folks. Your neighbor, the monk at your nearby monastery (monasteries look very different in a large city than on the countryside), the teacher you find to be very worldly. Gangsters, especially the reformed ones, can wear any number of faces. They might have disappeared from Taipei only to reemerge in Hualien some day, under an assumed name.

*OPP*

By Richard Hugo

Graves at Elkhorn

for Joe Ward

'Eighty-nine was bad. At least a hundred

children died, the ones with money planted

in this far spot from the town. The corn

etched in these stones was popular that year.

'Our dearest one is gone.' The poorer ones

used wood for markers. Their names

got weaker every winter. Now gray wood

offers a blank sacrifice to rot.

The yard and nearly every grave are fenced.

Something in this space must be defined--

where the lot you paid too much for ends

or where the body must not slide beyond.

The yard should have a limit like the town.

The last one buried here: 1938. The next

to last: 1911 from a long disease.

The fence around the yard is barbed, maintained

by men, around the graves, torn down

by pines. Some have pines for stones.

The yard is this far from town because

when children die the mother should repeat

some form of labor, and a casual glance

would tell you there could be no silver here.

*Quotations*

Why did I write any of my books, after all? For the sake of the pleasure, for the sake of the difficulty. I have no social purpose, no moral message; I've no general ideas to exploit, I just like composing riddles with elegant solutions.

--Vladimir Nabakov

Everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink--for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.

--Honoré de Balzac, on why coffee was excellent for his writing

I have liked remembering almost as much as I have liked living.

--William Maxwell

I fought against the bottle, but I had to do it drunk.

--Leonard Cohen

I come from a kind of old-fashioned Midwest, and I live in a technocorporate, positronic, cool, late-late-late Eastern world. The two worlds hardly ever talk to each other, but they're completely, constantly talking to one another inside me.

--Jonathan Franzen

If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.

--Thomas Jefferson

Astonishment is the root of philosophy.

--Paul Tillich

Critics, the more kindly ones, have called my work 'witty,' a dangerous label to wear, since to many it suggests 'trivial' and 'superficially felt.' I would wish to be seriously funny, and cannot understand the supposed difference between certain poems called light verse and others ranked as poetry.

--XJ Kennedy

I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.

--Charlie Chaplin

A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.

--Oscar Wilde

Peace love and ATOM jazz

081510

I've spent the past week, solid, in a hospital. Nurses were nice, which is saying a lot compared to my last experience as an in-patient. Soon into it, I had a large catheter stuck into my jugular vein, with stitches. No going anywhere. I was there for the long haul. My MS doc hoodwinked me, saying just go onto the emergency room. He didn't say it was going to take a week! Couple of days I could understand; not a week. Other than not being able to get around (no more than half a block), speech impairment, hand tremors, etc., there's really nothing to write home about. I had the Tysabri flushed from my system; not that it was building up in my body, just that it was starting to have unknown consequences. The speech is better. Onto better things. I really don't know what exactly. As long as it's not Rebif, I don't care. I'll find out the deal on Monday.

*Writing*

Two weeks ago, I mentioned writing plays. I have a good deal of experience writing plays; one of them has been produced, one I had a group of actors read (full cast), one I had another group read (different group), one we (Erin Leary and I)

attempted to have produced, to no avail (it was in Bellingham, and we were stuck in Portland), etc. As I said, the one thing I look forward to is cast parties, more than having books published. If I could look forward to cast parties, as a playwright, life would be extremely good. It will take me a while to get to that point, but for me, it's plays or nothing. This feeling is totally to do with with having seen, from a young age, Broadway plays; the buzz of a new play gets me going every time. It will be a long haul, but if there's anything that excites me, it's the idea of going to a new play as the playwright. It may take the rest of my life, but if there's anything that I can dream of, it's going to be opening night.

*Japan*

I've talked of the lascivious nature of my comrades in Taiwan. I met a German guy in Tokyo who was close to that obsession. He was nuts to find someone to go meet women with. The one time we went out, we went to Karaoke. That's a very Japanese tradition. Not sure where it comes from, but it's a very Japanese thing to do. (They say it started in the '60s with Sing Along with Mitch, hosted by Mitch Miller. It's even more common in China and Japan than it is here.) In any case, in Japan, it boils down to making a fool of yourself in front of friends. Humbling is what it is; no hiding from anyone.

In Japan, one rents a room just for friends. You retire to that spot and sing away. You can order drinks, food, cigarettes, etc. The Karaoke spots in Tokyo are extensive, with full buildings just for Karaoke. This is very unlike China, where it's about making a fool of yourself in front of _everyone_. In truth, I think the Karaoke tradition is much more common in Japan than anywhere else. If you're lucky, the Karaoke place is in a spot with lots of shopping, so that you can go off and shop when you're through. A solid cultural tradition is this.

*Adam's-Index*

Ways being in a hospital is similar to jail: no bars, but the effect is the same (I say from first-hand experience)

Differences from being in jail: every little noise you make is under the microscope of nurses and doctors

Similarities: sitting in one spot for days on end

Differences: everyone in a hospital wants you to feel better

Similarities: staring at the same walls can drive you crazy

Differences: health is the point of hospitals

Similarities: suffering, one way or another, is the end result of extended stays

Differences: in hospitals, it doesn't matter how ridiculous it is; if it's not under the purview of hospitals, it doesn't matter how ludicrous it is, it's not allowed. I take 4AP, which helps me walk; without it, I can't walk to save my life. Because 4AP is not common, interestingly it's not allowed. If you told a nurse about it, she wouldn't believe you.

Similarities: all you can do is watch TV (or read)

Differences: you really have to want to better yourself, and that's a lot harder in a hospital

*Quotations*

Man, if you have to ask what it is, you'll never know.

--Louis Armstrong

[I've long held that jazz is American music; whether you play rock, blues, jazz, etc., it always boils down to how well you can make jazz.]

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

--Henri Matisse

[Trenchant critique from Matisse. Rhythm married to meaning I would say.]

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.

--Duke Ellington

[And I've always been that kind of man.]

To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

--Nina Simone

[The _word_ from the high priestess. It's black classical music for sure.]

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.

--BB King

[My feelings exactly.]

Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

--Percy Bysshe Shelley

[I've long heard tell of this "legislation" aspect to being a poet, but I have yet to see any of it. Perhaps if my poetry were more mainstream....]

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

--JFK

[It seems very obvious....]

Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid.

--Tao Te Ching

[One of those great wisdoms.]

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.

--Malcolm S Forbes

[Difficult to get yourself thinking this way.]

Do not look where you fell but where you slipped.

--African proverb

[There's nothing quite like a proverb to make you stop and double check yourself.]

Peace love and ATOM jazz

080110

I have a confession to make: the past few years, I've been trying to get myself writing novels. The truth is I have no use for novels (except as written by others). What I want, more than anything else, is to go to opening-nights of plays I've written. The cast parties have my name on them.

_____

Adamgottschalk.net

*Lord's-Jester*

The site is at Lord's Jester.

I'm planning to send into the Natural Perfumers Guild maybe five more perfumes: Phoebe eau de parfum, Daphne eau de toilette, Chronos eau de cologne, Dionysus eau de toilette, and a solid version of Selene (the one I passed Level One of Mandy Aftel's course with). Phoebe is my osmanthus perfume, Daphne is my tonka-bean brew, Chronos is my immortelle cologne, Dionysus is what I made for the Mystery of Musk, and the solid version of Selene smells just like the liquid one (and that's quite a feat; the liquid version has 16 notes, the solid 18).

Solid perfumes entail the use of an entirely different extracts; I've found CO2 extracts work quite nicely. I have a few more recipes to turn into the Natural Perfumers Guild. One is my ode to rose, one is my mushroom exercise, one is a cognac-vetiver-sandalwood affair, etc. There is no end to the combinations I want to try, and permutations of those combinations, and permutations of those. It's an endless endeavor, this familiarizing oneself with the way natural ingredients combine. I'm looking forward to it.

*MS*

A periodic posting of my current symptoms:

1. Can't walk further than about half a block, and even that's with difficulty.

2. Can't sleep. If it weren't for the Remeron, I'd never get to sleep.

3. Can't do anything with my right hand--and I'm right-handed. Can't write by hand (a problem in places like doctors' offices), can't type (one handed, with my left hand, is only okay), can't do bills at all, etc.

4. Can't make perfume--and this, in addition to the bills above, is just about the only reason I have an assistant. I get groceries delivered, so that's not a problem (lord knows I could never go shopping). In truth, my assistants are about the only people I see. Stuck at home, unable to go very far.

5. Still riddled with anxiety, a form of depression.

ETC.

*Hong-Kong*

One of the other people I got into big trouble with was a fellow named Andy Wyng (I'm friends with him on Facebook...we're talking 20-25 years later). Andy is a decent dude, and I'd like to say I corrupted him. Course I wouldn't be caught dead without some hash or otherwise. I was in Hong Kong and I'd be damned if I was going to leave any stone unturned. It shocks me to think of what I would do now, stuck without a wheelchair. So it was: I did it while I still could.

We went to Indian a lot. Andy had a lot of English friends. Part of what I did was getting to know them. There was a Scottish fellow who was the first guy I met who had a gig playing at a restaurant. He was _the worst_ person to have a gig like that; he didn't know any songs! He was just going along, hoping the owner didn't catch wind of his inability to play. Unfortunately for him, it didn't take long for him to be found out.

Andy and I barely escaped police in Chung King Mansion. We were in our little guest house, which was targeted by police. All we knew was the cops were there, and so we went into Andy's room to hide my hash. As far as I can recall, they found nothing on me. I remember it clearly: I stuck the bag into my shirt pocket, having experienced cops in America who failed at that. We were off scott free. It was a heavy experience though; what if we'd ended up in Hong-Kong prison?

Andy and I went to Japan a couple of times. The first time it was for some smuggling. No one had given us heads-up and we went through customs together; we didn't stop to think that would appear foolish to customs agents. We were told they wanted to look in our bags, and we were under specific instructions to bond anything they wanted to look at (bonding is a thing at international airports that allows you to enter the country without having your bags checked).

The second time we went, we came prepared. I didn't yet know what I would do. Good thing too: Jerry, my Australian friend, made sure that I knew, playing and singing as well as I did, I'd be a fool not to make music on the street. A call to Andy was all it took: I'd have a guitar delivered to me. What a blessing! We didn't share with others our take; needless to say, others would have been shamed by our income. "You play on the street like beggars! How can you earn so much?" Play we did; whether or not anyone knew how much we made was up to us.

*Quotations*

I think it's very true when you're a writer, you sometimes you have to spend time poking at part of yourself that normal, sane people leave alone.

--Vikram Chandra

In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities.

--Janos Arnay

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

--WB Yeats

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

--GB Shaw

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.

--John Ashbery

When I write, I try to tell a good (and accurate) story, both for its own sake and as a means of drawing out the underlying meaning, the themes that explain to us how we became what we now are.

--TJ Stiles

I have dreamed in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.

--Emily Brontë

Teach us to give and not to count the cost.

--Saint Ignatius of Loyola

I'd sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.

--Charlie Chaplin

The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.

--Francis Bacon Sr

*Music*

August Rocks 2010

1. Before I Knew, Basia Bulat

2. Closer, Corrine Bailey Rae

3. Babyfather, Sade

4. Times Come Again, The J Band

5. Mailman, Peter Mulvey

6. Hey Hey Hey (My Little Beauties), Hawksley Workman

7. True Believer, Matthew Barber

8. Cole Durhew, Jeffrey Foucault

9. Beg Steal or Borrow, Ray LaMontagne

10. walk on the Wild Side (Velvet Underground), Tok Tok Tok

11. Windshield, Peter Mulvey

12. Philadelphia Lawyer, Jeffrey Foucault

13. I'd Do It All Again, Corrine Bailey Rae

14. Soldier of Love, Sade

15. Insanity or Death, Matthew Barber

16. Rattling Locks, Josh Ritter

17. You and the Candles, Hawksley Workman

18. Some People, Peter Mulvey

19. Winterwonderland, Tok Tok Tok

Peace love and ATOM jazz

072510

The MS totally destroyed my marriage. It started out one way, and by the end she was totally fed up. I can't take too much blame though; she didn't know total disability was around the corner. That's the way it goes when you've got tremendous MS. I still miss her (it's been seven years) but things work out the way they should. No contact with me since she left. That was on the west coast, long ago and far away.

--Adam on Facebook

_____

I don't think anyone realizes how desperate I am: I can't go anywhere without my wheelchair--do you know how hard it is to get women to pay attention to you when you're in a wheelchair? No, I'm fucked. Can't do any bills, can't see straight, can't walk, etc. The only people I ever get to see are my assistants. I am totally screwed.

*Hong-Kong*

Once, when I was in Hong Kong for my visa trip, I met a couple of Americans, one a b-boy and the other a woman of Japanese descent. I made their acquaintance slowly. I think on my first visit, they were checking to see whether or not I had some kind of staying power; on my next visit I found them to be quite hospitable. See, we were all basically white, and so we had to make use of the trails which had been blazed before us. In some cases, that means accepting what had come before; in other areas, one was free to make it up as one went along.

One area the three of us got into was late-night music clubs. B-boy you see (cannot for the life of me remember his name) was a graffiti artist; that's how he met his woman, in those circles. Needless to say, the lot of them have a much dirtier, nastier reputation; as far as I can tell, the vast majority of graffiti come from wealthy backgrounds. B-boy made like he was from Southie, a tough suburb of Boston; I'm sure he was indeed from a suburb of Boston, just not that particular one.

Among other things, he taught me to dance. Very much on a hip-hop sort of a tip; we did some nasty dancing too! He taught me one move I remember clearly: when standing square, pull your back leg up to meet the front one; then spin in place to face the other way. Got a lot of mileage out of that spin move. We got up to no good; I'm sure I was flirting with his Asian woman. On a few trips to Hong Kong (we were in the lowly Kowloon), he hooked us up with some mad digs.

One time, in Kowloon, he was walking along in front of our guesthouse; as there is a bunch of Indian clothes stores in the neighborhood, B-boy was accosted by a salesman, probably wanting to sell him a suit of some kind. There he walked, and he felt a light tap on the shoulder. He swung around and clocked whoever it was that was tapping. He made like he was mortified, but the Indians had an unspoken rule: to engage in a sale, one must never touch the mark. I think B-boy was pretending to be broken up.

*Top-Five*

5. The garbage here is out of control--somehow it all gets cleaned up. This is, of course, the original garbage landscape.

4. Museums and galleries are just waiting.

3. Broadway shows

2. The best music in the world

1. The streets

*Perfume*

From the Mystery and Lure of Perfume by CJS Thompson (1927):

"It is a well-known fact that the sense of smell varies considerably in individuals and is much more acute in some than in others. This depends on the sensitiveness of the olfactory nerves, the human organ of smell, which are situated at the upper part of the nasal cavities. They were first recognized by Theophilus Protospameaus, a Greek monk in the eighth century. The organ is essentially formed by the filaments of the olfactory nerves, which are distributed in minute arrangement in a limited portion of the mucous membrane of the nose.

"The sense of smell is therefore derived exclusively through those parts of the nasal cavities in which these nerves are distributed. If the nasal cavities be filled with rose-water, no smell is perceived. It is a curious fact that some persons whose sense of smell is quite normal cannot distinguish certain odors. When a perfume is placed under the nose, there is no sensation of smell so long as the breath is held, or breathing is carried on through the mouth.

"It is common knowledge that there is an intimate relation between the senses of smell and of taste and the same substance which excites the sensation of smell in the olfactory nerves may cause peculiar sensation through the nerves of taste, and may produce an irritating effect on the nerves of touch, but the sensation of odor is yet separate from them.

"Man uses the sense of smell in combination with taste much more during mastication and deglutition than during the act of putting food into his mouth, the chief importance of smell in association with taste being to perceive the quality of foods, to influence their selection, and to excite appetite. Although the susceptibility of man to odors is more extended, he is inferior to animals of both classes in the sense of smell. The distance at which a dog can track his master is extraordinary."

*Quotations*

The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.

--Wendell Berry

Needless to say, one more time, deconstruction, if there is such a thing, takes place as the experience of the impossible.

--Jacques Derrida

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

--Benjamin Disraeli

Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace, and wit, reminders of order, calm, and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still, and absorbed.

--Germaine Greer

Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn't take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness.

--Elizabeth Gilbert

I don't think you ever stop giving. I really don't. I think it's an on-going process. And it's not just about being able to write a check. It's being able to touch somebody's life.

--Oprah Winfrey

The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. Freedom and slavery are mental states.

--Gandhi

I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

--Einstein

Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish play.

--Friedrich Schiller

Maybe I am slightly inhuman. All I ever wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.

--Edward Hopper

Peace love and ATOM jazz

071810

I have always sensed that I am somehow different. Then about 30, the diagnosis came, and I was like, "Well, that makes sense." It explained a lot of what I'd been through. Ten years later, I still feel that this is what life intended for me. It's hard, but sometimes I can't picture any other way to live. It's secondary progressive in me, so the past ten years have been hell, with me just getting worse from the get-go. I can't write by hand, can't type (left handed works), I can't walk further than about half a block, speech is very difficult, I'm dizzy, etc etc.

--Adam on Facebook

*Engineering*

Having studied engineering in college, I can tell you one important way to generate electricity: install natural-gas collectors on dairy farms. Natural gas is actually 60% methane; all it takes to render it useful is to clean it up. Many villages generate electricity straight from the piles of dung. But the real aspect is _most of the world_ uses natural-gas collectors. We've got this huge source of energy just waiting to be tapped. I know from experience in college that most Americans are hard-pressed to think about generating electricity from a pile of crap. But this is _the only way out of this mess_. We've got untold amounts of electricity to generate, but most Americans couldn't imagine generating power from piles of waste. We've got to get over this hang-up. The hang-up is just that: it's a hang-up, and we've got to move past it.

*Japan*

I learned about bossa-nova in Tokyo. I was staying at this other guest house, different from the one I'd stayed at from the start. This was a huge Japanese-style abode, with tatami mats, sliding wooden doors on the outside, the whole deal. The group of guests was similar but different. As many nationalities were represented as the other, and there was a similar laid-back atmosphere. What the other one lacked in the way of ambiance was more than made up for in the sense of place, of space, of carving your own name out in the Japanese landscape.

Oddly, in the underbelly of the guest house, I met a few like-minded souls. I think in those back rooms we were doing heroin. That's a vague memory. Through some cassette exchanges (this was back before the advent of CDs) I ended up with one tape in particular that I listened to so much I plumb wore it out. I memorized every lick, vocal bit, and solo on the tape. It was a no-brainer when years later, in the middle of an intense jazz-listening decade or so, I came across a CD in a used-CD shop.

On that disc, I recognized a few titles; this was Jazz Samba Encore. I went to give the CD a listen and sure enough this was the same recording I'd heard in Tokyo. How worldly is that: learning about a latin-American art through jazz veins in a guesthouse in Tokyo. I've kept this a secret, except for writing about it in this newsletter. It's always struck me as trenchant, that I should learn about the far-flung corners of the world in the single city of Tokyo. We live in doubly concentrated times.

*Quotations*

The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.

--Wole Soyinka

Plenty sits still; hunger is a wanderer.

--Zulu proverb

Hungry bellies have no ears.

--Polish proverb

Hunger is the best sauce.

--Danish proverb

Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. And sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled.

--Dean Koontz

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

--Gandhi

In the end, we will remember ot the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.

--MLK Jr

The future is always beginning now.

--Mark Strand

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.

--Lincoln

I like men who have a future and women who have a past.

--Oscar Wilde

*Music*

1. Who Says, John Mayer

2. Closer (live), Corrine Bailey Rae

3. Saving Grace, Everlast

4. Some Surprise, Paul Noonan & Lisa Hannigan

5. (I Keep on) Rising Up, Mike Doughty

6. Letter from a Flying Machine, Peter Mulvey

7. Thirty One Today, Aimee Mann

8. All That Time You Missed, Erin McKeown

9. The Devil Raises His Own, Freedy Johnston

10. From the Morning, Nick Drake

11. Fugitive (live), David Gray

12. ...Plus the Many Inevitable Fragments, Peter Mulvey

13. Pleasure on Credit, Mike Doughty

14. Unplayed Piano, Damien Rice & Lisa Hannigan

15. Borrowing Time, Aimee Mann

16. New Heights, A Fine Frenzy

17. Crossroads (Johnson), John Mayer

18. Central Station, Freedy Johnston

19. Vlad the Astrophysicist, Peter Mulvey

20. Three is a Magic Number (Dorough), Mike Doughty

21. I Don't Know (live), Lisa Hannigan

_____

Rain on the City, Freedy Johnston. This is fine music from Mr Johnston. There are moments when it feels Johnston is finally sinking into the music he was meant to make. From soaring vocals, to strings, to his basic attitude, the man always hits the mark. Highly recommended.

Peace love and ATOM jazz

071110

"It's not like you're dying," said my ex-wife to me. I can't tell you how everyday I wonder why I just keep pushing on. Pretty soon, I won't even be able to feed myself!

--Adam on Facebook

*OPP*

If You Forget Me

by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

*Quotations*

If we don’t teach our children peace, someone else will teach them violence.

--Colman McCarthy

The life that awaits you is not that of the happy couples you see strolling along before you in Westerland, no lighthearted chatter arm in arm, but a monastic life at the side of a man who is peevish, miserable, silent, discontented, and sickly.

--Franz Kafka

I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil.

--Walt Whitman

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace. This allows us to discover that, "There is no way to happiness--happiness is the way."

--Thich Nhat Hanh

To laugh often, to win the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of fake friends, to appreicate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch. To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

--Emerson

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

--Eleanor Roosevelt

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness.

--Gandhi

There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternally new now that builds and creates itself out of the Best as the past withdraws.

--Goethe

Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.

--Einstein

The life and love we create is the life and love we live.

--Leo Buscaglia

*Poem*

The Storm

The biggest storm in 40 years hit Hualien

and the two-story apartment I had just

rented near the river was drowned

in water so deep it reached well above

the second floor. I'd just moved in

and every last one of my possessions

on earth was lying on the first floor. I

waited as long as I could. When the river

got close to the back door, huge roaches

started invading; I tried madly to

stop them with a hammer before realizing

it was pointless and that I needed to head

for higher ground to save my life. Being

that there were only a handful of white

people in town at that time, during

the storm, I fled to my friend Andrew's,

dodging tree branches and falling

telephone poles on my small motor bike.

The day after the storm was a hot day.

A couple from New Zealand, Carole

and Peter (she was born in Holland

actually) had also come to flee the storm.

All of us tinkered around the house all

day, sweating and waiting for news

about the town being cleaned up and

back to normal. So hot and humid

we could hardly breathe. A tank top

and shorts felt like a three-piece suit.

Carole's husband left the house for a

while, to get some groceries. I checked

on the river at some point, and my

apartment house still drowning in it.

I remember nothing very remarkable

about that day. I do remember

Carole telling me that she'd married

when she was 18 and had never

been with a man other than Peter.

"That's very sweet," I'd said, biting

my tongue about my pity. But,

the following day, when I returned to

find my life of papers and photos and

cassettes and clothes had become so

much trash in a matter of minutes, I

got a phone call. Andrew was

calling to warn me frantically that

I needed to leave town as quickly

as I could. "What are you talking

about?" I demanded. "Well, it's

about, ah...you and Carole."

"Me and Carole? What about me

and Carole?" "She told her husband

about you two." "What two? What

the hell did she say?" "She said you two,

you know, had a thing. And Peter is

so pissed he said if he sees you he'll

shoot you." "We had a what? I have

never even so much as glanced

sideways at that woman." "She seems

to think you all had a few moments

yesterday while Peter was away." I

thought for a moment. "Oh my God."

"Oh my God what?" "I was so hot

I took off my shirt and I was walking

around in my boxers." "So?" "So

she said something, you know,

kind of off color for a married woman

to say. I didn't think anything of it;

I didn't even quite hear what she said."

"She said, 'If you don't put your clothes

back on my husband is going to know

about us.'" "About us? What the fuck?

And how would you know what she

said?" "She told her husband that she

said you should put your clothes on."

"And because I didn't, that means I

was coming on to the woman? Peter

didn't even bat an eye when he got

home." "He didn't care until Carole

talked to him later. Said you were

coming on to her and she didn't mind."

"And now Peter wants to shoot me?"

"You know as well as I do how crazy

some of those Kiwis are. If I were you,

I'd catch the next train out." "Well,

we'll just see about fucking that. But

thanks for the heads up." "He knows

where you live. I wouldn't stay."

I hung up the phone and looked

around me, at my muddy clothes, my

ancient journals stuck together with

brackish water, my pile of photos which

had become a pile of glue. I realized

that if the cosmos were ever trying to give

me a sign, this must be it. Even if

Peter doesn't shoot me, I'm leaving,

I thought. I carefully picked through

what little I could salvage from my

sodden, soaking life. Still wearing the same

t-shirt and shorts as three days before,

no sign of a shave in sight, no particular

long-term destination in mind, I hurried

to the train station and managed just barely

to catch the 6:00 train headed for Taipei.

I watched the coastline roll by, as we

scurried along the tracks, so dangerously

close to the Pacific it was like the engineers

wanted to tempt fate. I wondered what would

happen if we fell in, just as I had wondered

dozens of times before on this same trip.

Decades later, I still wonder what

will happen when I finally let myself

fall in, re-appear suddenly in the middle

of my own life, like The Man Who Fell

to Earth. What will happen if I wake up

one day and find I've fallen in love with

everything? I'm pretty sure I already have,

actually. I mean, everything makes me

cry, everything makes me want to be

a better person, everything makes me

want to lay down and fuck off all day

instead and anyway, everything makes

me want to wait out the storm just

to see if I'm still standing. Isn't that love?

Peace love and ATOM jazz

070410

Work can only be universal if it is rooted in a part of its creator which is most privately and particularly himself.

--Tyrone Guthrie

*New-York*

In case I haven't mentioned of late, it's totally stellar living in New York. Knowing at any given moment the best of the best is outside my door is sublime. We're talking about the best from every walk of life:

Politics and the UN

Broadway and off-Broadway

Best museums on the globe, the Met, MoMa, Whitney, etc.

Must-see music from every genre

David Letterman

Best cuisine in the entire world

In addition to pizza, falafel, shawarma, etc.

Opera and the Philharmonic

Clubs

Spoken word

etc.

All this and much more is just waiting for me to enjoy.

*Lord's-Jester*

A woman who's enjoyed my stuff in the past recently got a bottle of my perfume Selene. First of all she said that watching the evolution of Anthea was amazing for her to witness; secondly, she added that Selene would be giving Anthea a run for her money. I think these two are my strongest perfumes. It makes me very happy to know that there are people actually wearing my perfume. People love wearing my perfume, from Portland to Phoenix to Tampa, to Europe and Australia, and soon to Japan. I know that it's my particular style that gets people going.

One blogger, from Grain de Musc, wrote me about Dionysus; she was not able to get a handle on what's in there. I responded that it must be the ambergris or Africa stone--and to that she responded in the affirmative. Here's what she wrote on her blog:

"I can barely type these words. My 2-year-old spayed Siamese girl Jicky is weaving figure-eight circuits around my keyboard, trying to catch, lick and devour my left wrist. I’ve sprayed it with Adam Gottschalk’s Dionysus for Lord’s Jester, his submission for the Mystery of Musk operation, a celebration of the Natural Perfumers Guild’s fourth anniversary. Jicky is now twisting on her back, mewing and purring like a truck. I first noticed the effect when I caught her mauling the blotter on which I’d sprayed Dionysus--have you ever tried evaluating a fragrance soaked in cat spit?"

Lisa A said:

"Dionysus opens with a strong spicy wine note (allspice or clove? cognac?) that starts to dissipate almost as fast as it appeared, leaving behind an earthy, wet, smoky (hay?), musky, animalic (hyraceum?) aroma. The initial spiciness was an olfactory jolt but Dionysus moves seamlessly into a smooth, sexy, sweaty, animalic extension of my own body scent. The hyraceum (?) jumps out and dips back into hiding again and again. There is nothing timid about this perfume. It is fleshy & raw and develops into something sweet & balsamic (peru balsam?), yet still very primal. There's something floral but I can't pinpoint what it is. Dionysus gave me at least 2.5 hrs of its time and the spiciness lasted the duration, albeit on a softer scale. This perfume is pure heat.

One word: sex."

*China*

Once, when I was traveling in mainland China, I kind of messed up: knowing what I knew about foreigners staying in hostels/hotels, I ended up staying at an underground sort of a guesthouse; it wasn't fancy, but had just the right equipment for travelers, hot water, noodle stands out front, etc. No, the owner came to me after I'd checked in, foreigners were not allowed to stay there. He was sincerely apologetic--he wanted my money terribly badly! It was not meant to be. The guest-house owner offered to pay me back; I chose not to do that--the amount he'd charged me only amounted to a few cents!

When I left, he was extremely apologetic, especially knowing the monstrosity where I was about to show my face. He saw me off, which didn't amount to much, being that my assigned hotel was only a hop-skip-and-a-jump from my erstwhile place of habitation. Hotel manager was pleased I didn't take his money, beaming as he was from ear to ear. I don't think he had any idea what I was in for: this new hotel was the worst of the worst, totally mainstream, single-family dwellings, classic dry-wall style. Yuck!

This place, however, was accustomed to foreigners, and had the right answer when I asked how much it was going to cost me (about three to four times as much as the first place I'd tried). Totally bunk. At least a half hour's walk to any noodle stands; I guess they assumed foreigners (being rich) would hire a cab. I made one attempt to get myself out of there, but it was no use: I'd be leaving again in the morning, and there just wasn't any time to be spending at least an hour getting to dinner. I went to sleep early that night.

*Quotations*

Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.

--Eugene Ionesco

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.

--W H Auden

We find the pure, simple, childlike people of paradise. But we ourselves are different; we are alien here and without any rights of citizenship; we lost our paradise long ago, and the new one that we wish to build is not to be found along the equator and on the warm seas of the East. It lies within us and in our own northern future.

--Herman Hesse

I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger than reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.

--Anais Nin

Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.

--Christopher Reeve

To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.

--Czeslaw Milosz

Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep

the clubs and the fresh air.

--Jack Benny

Work can only be universal if it is rooted in a part of its creator which is most privately and particularly himself.

--Tyrone Guthrie

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history, for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

--Aristotle

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

*Music*

Run Wolves Run, Sean Hayes. This is a very lo-fi affair. While it retains some of the rootsy stuff Hayes is known for, I think this might be his best record yet. While Lunar Lust, Alabama Chicken, Big Black Hole and the Little Baby Star and Flowering Spade might contain his formative work, rockers like When We Fall In, Powerful Stuff, and Gunnin from this album go down in the history books.

Letters from a Flying Machine, Peter Mulvey. First of all, let me say that Mulvey performs four letter-poems as a part of this recording; letter-poems are just about my absolute favorite forms of poetry, so he's got a big fan here. These are letters he wrote to various family members, all younger than he; that's where we get "letters from a flying machine." In addition, here are presented in-the-pocket renditions of a number of originals, including Some People, Dynamite Bill, and Mailman. A really nice journey from Mulvey.

Peace love and ATOM jazz

062710

The disease of modern character is specialization.

--Wendell Berry

*Hair*

My brother and I went to see Hair on Broadway. Wow! What a show. I have never actually seen a Broadway show of it; the closest I got was a production at my college. Having been raised on the music from Hair, to me it was like a soundtrack to my life. I've sung the songs so many times they're like old hat. There was a couple of things that changed for this production: Claude plays a guy from Queens who's fixated on England, and Claude does go to an induction center, and so he is in fact the one who dies. The show is that much more powerful because of it.

It was all there, a fellow discussing the very racy Sodomy, a woman discussing the state of the air, the group singing about 256 Viet Cong captured, etc.

"I'm a colored spade,

a nigger, a black nigger.

A jungle bunny, jigaboo, coon,

pickaninny, mau mau.

Uncle Tom, Aunt Jemima,

Little Black Sambo,

cotton pickin', swamp guinea,

Junk man, shoeshine boy.

Elevator operator, table cleaner at Horn & Hardart,

slave, voodoo zombie,

Ubangi lipped, flat nose,

tap dancin', resident of Harlem.

And president of

The United States of Love.

President of

The United States of Love."

"Ain't got no home. (So)

Ain't got no shoes. (Poor)

Ain't got no money. (Honey)

Ain't got no class. (Common)

Ain't got no scarf. (Hot)

Ain't got no gloves. (Cold)

Ain't got no bed. (Beat)

Ain't got no pot. (Busted)

Ain't got no faith. (Catholic)"

"I got crazy ways, daughter,

I got million-dollar charm, cousin,

I got headaches and toothaches

and bad times too like you.

I got my hair.

I got my head.

I got my brains.

I got my ears.

I got my eyes.

I got my nose.

I got my mouth.

I got my teeth.

I got my tongue.

I got my chin.

I got my neck.

I got my tits.

I got my heart.

I got my soul.

I got my back.

I got my ass.

I got my arms.

I got my hands.

I got my fingers.

Got my legs,

I got my feet,

I got my toes,

I got my liver,

Got my blood,

I got my guts (I got my guts),

I got my muscles (muscles),

I got life (life),

Life (life),

Life (life),

LIFE!"

"She asks me why

I'm just a hairy guy.

I'm hairy noon and night,

hair that's a fright.

I'm hairy high and low,

don't ask me why.

(Don't know.)

It's not for lack of bread

like the Grateful Dead, darling.

Gimme head with hair,

long beautiful hair,

shining, gleaming,

streaming, flaxen, waxen.

Give me down to there hair,

shoulder length or longer.

Here baby, there mama,

Everywhere, daddy daddy,

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair,

flow it, show it,

long as God can grow it, my hair."

"Ripped open by metal explosion.

Caught in barbed wire,

fireball, bullet shock.

Bayonet electricity,

shrapnel, throbbing meat,

electronic data processing,

black uniforms, bare feet, carbines.

Mail-order rifles shoot the muscles.

256 Viet Cong captured. 256 Viet Cong captured."

*Quotations*

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

--Blaise Pascal

We grew a hundred years older in a single hour.

--Anna Akhmatova

Nothing is permanent in this wicked world. Not even our troubles.

--Charles Chaplin

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

--Lillian Hellman

In everything one thing is impossible: rationality.

--Nietzsche

The meaning of a myth resounds in its evoked associations, and if the scholar is to become aware of these, he must allow their counterparts to arise within himself from those regions of his nature he still shares with early man.

--Joseph Campbell

We are now confident that electric and magnetic phenomena are attributable to the ether, and we are perhaps justified in saying that the effects of static electricity are effects of ether in motion.

--Nikola Tesla

The trick is to enjoy life. Don't wish away your days, waiting for better ones ahead. The grand and the simple. They are equally wonderful.

--Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I think one of my early motivations for writing was that other people's versions of experience didn't gel with my own. It was a gesture toward sanity to try to get the world right for myself. I've since learned that if you get it right for yourself, it often has resonance for others.

--Stephen Dunn

The best newspapermen I know are those most thrilled by the daily pump of city room excitements; they long fondly for a 'good murder'; they pray that assassinations, wars, catastrophes, break on their editions.

--Pete Hamill

Peace love and ATOM jazz

062010

Do you know what it's like not to be able to walk anywhere? To have to get out a wheelchair if I want to go? I have secondary progressive MS, so mostly I feel my ability escaping from me daily. I am tired, I'm sick of having to accommodate the MS on a daily basis, I'm plastered. Life is tough when you feel your days escaping every minute you're alive. I hope I have someone to love. That's the only thing I care about.

--Facebook status update

*Poem*

Thorn in the Side

What happened to you?

Last I remember

we met for drinks and

I had not a clue

that you thought ill

of me. What happened

between that night,

when you were very

welcome to email

correspondence with

me, and today when I

email you and you act

as if I have no right

to reach out to you,

as if my overture were

completely unwelcome,

as if you would rather

not that I even exist?

Maybe you fell prey

to that former friend

Kate and began believing

her lies, maybe it's

just you never thought

of me as disabled and

the idea was too much

to bear, or maybe it's

what I've always thought:

you are godless

in the worst of ways,

and I was just one more

thorn in your side.

*China*

I met a woman once on an overnight train, and I can't remember her name. We hit it off; I woke up and there she was. She invited me back to her gift shop; we were in Changsha. The fact that this woman even owned a gift shop was remarkable. She was in her young 20s. After I'd seen her gift shop, and met her brother, also in his late teens/early 20s, we decided to go to a nearby guest house, where I found suitable accommodations. The parents of the two of them were nowhere to be found; I found they strongly disliked speaking of their parents. When I say this lady and I hit it off, I mean to say we spent every minute that I was in Changsha together. It was just romantic enough for me to enjoy.

I kissed her one night; that's what I remember. I kissed her and she was taken by surprise. I didn't mean anything by it; I was just doing what came naturally to me. When I went to leave in the next few days, I found my lady friend was extremely antagonistic to my continuing on my journey. "Did you mean it when you kissed me?" she asked. That was a thorny question. Did I mean it? To be sure, in the moment that I kissed her, I felt what I was doing was right. Did I mean I wanted to stay there with her? In my traveling mode, I couldn't imagine staying in one place more than a few days.

I've often thought of this lady over the past couple of decades. She meant for me to remember her. She sent me one letter with photos and a note. The note was unfortunately dense, and I couldn't see my way to translating it. The photos I still have, though. They make up for me the world as I knew it once, well-traveled and fancy free; one wrong choice I made, among many wrong choices, was to marry the woman I did. Where would I be now if I'd chosen to hang around the mainland? I can only hope my life would have turned out better; I am far too lonely for this to be the cosmos' plan for me.

*Quotations*

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

--Kahlil Gibran

The major contribution of Protestant thought to the knowledge of mankind is its massive proof that God is a bore.

--Henry Louis Mencken

Christianity has a built-in defense system: anything that questions a belief, no matter how logical the argument is, is the work of Satan by the very fact that it makes you question a belief. It's a very interesting defense mechanism and the only way to get by it--and believe me, I was raised Southern Baptist--is to take massive amounts of mushrooms, sit in a field, and just go, "Show me."

--Bill Hicks

Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, "Just watch!"

--Bill Bradley

Most people think life sucks, and then you die. Not me. I beg to differ. I think life sucks, then you get cancer, then your dog dies, your wife leaves you, the cancer goes into remission, you get a new dog, you get remarried, you owe ten million dollars in medical bills but you work hard for thirty-five years and you pay it back and then--one day--you have a massive stroke, your whole right side is paralyzed, you have to limp along the streets and speak out of the left side of your mouth and drool but you go into rehabilitation and regain the power to walk and the power to talk and then--one day--you step off a curb at sixty-seventh Street, and BANG, you get hit by a city bus and then you die. Maybe.

--Dennis Leary

It could be that our faithlessness is a cowering cowardice born of our very smallness, a massive failure of imagination.

--Annie Dillard

Oppression involves a failure of the imagination: the failure to imagine the full humanity of other human beings.

--Margaret Atwood

Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams--daydreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing--are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to invent, and therefore to foster, civilization.

--L Frank Baum

To see the world in a grain of sand and Heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.

--William Blake

I imagine therefore I belong and am free.

--Lawrence Durrel

*Music*

#%%&*! Smilers, Aimee Mann. This is exactly the record Aimee-Mann fans would love. It's got all the hallmarks which make Ms Mann's music comforting and in the groove. The instrumentation is rich, though I would say not any more rich than her old music. The writing is strong, as in the opener: "You've got a lot of money but you can't afford the freeway." This music is exactly what one would expect from Mann, and it remains to be seen: does it have the lasting power of her older work, such as Bachelor No. 2? The signs are good in the affirmative.

So Runs the World Away, Josh Ritter. This latest work from Ritter is especially unpredictable. While it sticks to its folk/country roots ("Folk Bloodbath" features stories and characters from folk/country's long history), this record nevertheless finds itself all over the map. It contains some material which will take me some time to absorb, but I'll be smiling the whole time.

Peace love and ATOM jazz

061310

Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

--Andre Maurois

*Jobim*

Waters of March

by Antonio Jobim

A stick, a stone,

It's the end of the road,

It's the rest of a stump,

It's a little alone.

It's a sliver of glass,

It is life, it's the sun,

It is night, it is death,

It's a trap, it's a gun.

The oak when it blooms,

A fox in the brush,

A knot in the wood,

The song of a thrush.

The wood of the wind,

A cliff, a fall,

A scratch, a lump,

It is nothing at all.

It's the wind blowing free,

It's the end of the slope,

It's a beam, it's a void,

It's a hunch, it's a hope.

And the river bank talks

of the waters of March,

It's the end of the strain,

The joy in your heart.

The foot, the ground,

The flesh and the bone,

The beat of the road,

A slingshot's stone.

A fish, a flash,

A silvery glow,

A fight, a bet,

The range of a bow.

The bed of the well,

The end of the line,

The dismay in the face,

It's a loss, it's a find.

A spear, a spike,

A point, a nail,

A drip, a drop,

The end of the tale.

A truckload of bricks

in the soft morning light,

The shot of a gun

in the dead of the night.

A mile, a must,

A thrust, a bump,

It's a girl, it's a rhyme,

It's a cold, it's the mumps.

The plan of the house,

The body in bed,

And the car that got stuck,

It's the mud, it's the mud.

Afloat, adrift,

A flight, a wing,

A hawk, a quail,

The promise of spring.

And the riverbank talks

of the waters of March,

It's the promise of life

It's the joy in your heart.

A stick, a stone,

It's the end of the road

It's the rest of a stump,

It's a little alone.

A snake, a stick,

It is John, it is Joe,

It's a thorn in your hand

and a cut in your toe.

A point, a grain,

A bee, a bite,

A blink, a buzzard,

A sudden stroke of night.

A pin, a needle,

A sting, a pain,

A snail, a riddle,

A wasp, a stain.

A pass in the mountains,

A horse and a mule,

In the distance the shelves

rode three shadows of blue.

And the riverbank talks

of the waters of March,

It's the promise of life

in your heart, in your heart.

A stick, a stone,

The end of the road,

The rest of a stump,

A lonesome road.

A sliver of glass,

A life, the sun,

A knife, a death,

The end of the run.

And the riverbank talks

of the waters of March,

It's the end of all strain,

It's the joy in your heart.

*Music*

Mr Jurek sure has a way of extolling Joe Henry. By Thom Jurek:

"Blood from Stars is the album Joe Henry's been getting at since Scar. He's worked with jazz musicians often, but he's never made a record that employs the form so prominently. His band includes Marc Ribot, Patrick Warren, Jay Bellerose, David Pilch, and now his son Levon on saxophones and clarinet, as well as vibist Keefus Ciancia. Engineer Ryan Freeland is as important as the players: he managed to give this record its strange yet welcoming sound. It begins with the short "Prelude," played by Jason Moran. It introduces all the characters here, with a note or two here, a chord flourish there. Some are immediately identifiable; others you've never met before and perhaps hope never to. Henry's love of traditional jazz has blossomed--the album sprawls over history, genre, and song forms, but there is no consciously retro aspect in its presentation and it is not a jazz album. Many of these songs are based on the blues (and even folk-blues); some are standards-style pop; some walk out the jazz of New Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas City from the early 20th century; some even rock--a little. Many are dressed in horn arrangements and offbeat sounds that seem to enter in from the rafters. They drift in and out and are allowed to play a part in the songs. Who cannot relate to the swinging blues (à la "St. James Infirmary") led by piano, upright bass, acoustic guitar, and a minimal trap kit? The music seems to come from antiquity in "The Man I Keep Hid," but Henry's voice is right firmly in the historical present: his protagonist voices his desires and how they are thwarted--usually by himself--as horns, organs, piano, and rhythm section swell and offer the chaos just under the surface of the singer's voice.

""Channel" follows it, a love song about disorder that is played as anything but. Henry's character asks simple questions that offer significant difficulties in his inner world, but he embraces them: "I want my story straight/But all the others bend/From wondrous to strange/To beauty at the end...." It's a haunting melody that would be--if we had them anymore--a parlor song. Both songs reflect something lost and hidden in the wires and satellites of modern life: that individuals--no matter how lost, determined, angry, displaced, hopeful, or praying for redemption at any cost--still have human voices that speak, at least on the inside, constantly. Musical traditions bend and blend into and through one another and are painted by the sounds Freeland allowed to enter from the ghosts in the walls, the ceilings, or up from the floorboards. "Death to the Storm" reveals this better than just about any track here, a simple blues with Ribot's electric guitar weaving through Henry's lines and phrases about characters--including the protagonist, who could have come from Steinbeck, Dos Passos, or O'Connor. "Bellwether"--another early 20th century jazz-blues--is a modern tale of Sisyphus. He's climbing a hill, digging a well, changing his name, leaving his shame, etc., until the story gets better. Ultimately, Blood from Stars is the most sophisticated, redemptive, and romantic album Henry's cut; the love songs are simply raggedly breathtaking. It reflects an America that wasn't so much lost as consciously wiped away near the end of the 20th century. Its remnants still live, however, in the shadows of memory, and in the broken-hearted ghosts that continue to haunt its landscape and atmosphere, and sometimes even its people. Henry welcomes them, lending his voice to theirs in all of these songs."

*Quotations*

Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

--Andre Maurois

Until the Women's Movement, it was commonplace to be told by an editor that he'd like to publish more of my poems, but he'd already published one by a woman that month. This attitude was the rule rather than the exception, until the mid-sixties. The highest compliment was to be told, 'You write like a man.'

--Maxine Kumin

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

--George Orwell

"On with the dance; let joy be unconfined," is my motto, whether there's a dance to dance or any joy to unconfine.

--Samuel Clemens

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.

--EO Wilson

Gather your strength and listen; the whole heart of man is a single

outcry. Lean against your breast to hear it; someone is struggling

and shouting within you. If you do not hear this cry tearing at your entrails, do not set out.

--Nikos Kazantzakis

I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.

--Richard Strauss

Practice love first on animals; they are more sensitive.

--George Gurdjieff

If there is any single factor that makes for success in living, it is the ability to draw dividends from defeat.

--William Marston

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall--think of it, _always_.

--Gandhi

Peace love and ATOM jazz

060610

At some point about 10 years ago, my life became on glaring display for all to see. There is no moment I'm not conscious of the MS, I'm not aware of its terrible effects on me, that I don't feel like a very raw nerve. My life is an open book, and my doctors and specialists all know only too well about it. I cannot hide, I cannot turn my gaze, I cannot run. This is the cold, hard fact of what my life gave me.

--Facebook status update

_____

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering.

--Ben Okri

*Lord's-Jester*

One thing I'd like to mention is this: I've, as a certified Professional Perfumer, been invited to participate in The Mystery Of Musk project. I'm pretty sure no one has ideas about what other's are coming up with; we don't actually have much to go on. We've got that word "mystery" and that's about it. So I made a complete perfume, Dionysus (17 notes altogether), as I have a sense that others don't quite know what to do with my perfume--is this scent impossibly intense or is that just me? The perfume is riffs on ambergris and Africa stone in the base, along with five others--including cognac, as we're talking about the god of wine. In the heart I added jonquil as I think it has an intimate aroma. Now we get to lining up recipients of these samples and one final winner.

I want to mention that this title I've acquired, Professional Perfumer, is the furthest I can travel along natural-perfume lines. There is no title "master perfumer," and if anyone tries to tell you different, tell them they're full of crap. In the old days, people got away with calling themselves Master Perfumer, but that's just a big gray area; you can call yourselves "master" anything. My experience is that people who would call themselves "masters" have a whole lot to make up for. This is a lifelong endeavor; there is no point at which one says, "Okay, I've learned enough." No--constant innovation and forever making brand new batches of perfume. Barreling down the freeway of forever-new ideas.

As I've gotten used to my perfumes, I find layering them, or at least two different places on my body, is best. There are certain combinations I like: Demeter on the hands and Heracles on the face, Ares on the bottom and Ares/Zephyr on top, Zephyr on bottom and Selene on top, etc. I haven't yet found two compliments, though I think Demeter and Zephyr would be the ticket. Each one by itself is plenty redolent enough, but I like to add to the mystery. It goes back to my days living with a host of fragrances. It horrifies me to think back and remember those were all _synthetic_! It's been a long strange trip, all toward getting the title of Professional Perfumer. Worlds I've traveled to get where I am. I wouldn't change a speck of it.

*Taiwan*

The first person who taught me the importance of the tea ceremony was my first (and only) girlfriend. She casually took me to a place in northern Taipei; little did she know, she was busy convincing to spend a life with fine tea. Now, to be clear, there is nothing about the tea ceremony that's similar to western tea-making. This is done on a tea tray with a hole in the middle.

1. You warm the cups with hot water.

2. Then you add tea to the teapot. "Half full" is what I always heard.

3. You add a small amount of water to the tea. You then take that water and heat the pots and cups. (There is a theme of keeping the cups warm.)

4. Then you add the full amount of water. Traditionally, there is a cup just for smelling, then you dump the tea into the cup.

5. Repeat as many times as you see fit.

Good oolong (oolong is used for the above ceremony) can be steeped at least eight times before giving up the ghost. The stuff we get around here can only be steeped about two or three times. I get my tea now from Holy Mountain Trading Company. I am very pleased to have this addiction.

*Quotations*

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering.

--Ben Okri

Poetry is based in a craving to get through the curtains of things as they appear, to things as they are, and then into the larger, wilder space of things as they are becoming. This ambition involves a paradox: an instinctive belief in the senses as exquisite tools for this investigation and, at the same time, a suspicion about their crudeness.

--May Swenson

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.

--John F Kennedy

You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul's own doing.

--Marie Stopes

What was whispered to the rose to break it open last night was whispered to my heart.

--Rumi

That's the thing with magic. You've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.

--Charles de Lint

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

--Anatole France

Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.

--Christina Baldwin

Right now we're stading at a massive point of rebirth.

--Lars Ulrich

No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.

--Rachel Carson

*Music*

Liberation 06.10

1. Freeway, Aimee Mann

2. To a Hammer, Erin McKeown

3. Long Way Home/Rain on the Court, Tina Dico

4. Long Shadows, Josh Ritter

5. Gunnin', Sean Hayes

6. Corrido por Buddy, Jolie Holland

7. Light of the Morning, Band of Skulls

8. Windowsill, Arcade Fire

9. Great Beyond, Aimee Mann

10. Birds and Bees, Ben Lee

11. Cold Enough to Cross, Joe Henry

12. (Put the Fun Back in) the Funeral, Erin McKeown

13. The Curse, Josh Ritter

14. When We Fall In, Sean Hayes

15. Ballantines (with Sean Hayes), Aimee Mann

16. All I See, Tina Dico

17. Mexico City, Jolie Holland

18. Truce, Joe Henry

19. Orbital, Josh Ritter

20. Seamless, Erin McKeown

21. Powerful Stuff, Sean Hayes

22. Lullaby, Aimee Mann

Peace love and ATOM jazz

053010

The great wisdom for writers, perhaps for everybody, is to come to understand **to be at one with their own tempo.**

--Alan Hollinghurst

_____

Just in case you were wondering, _I do not_ have a girlfriend.

*Lord's-Jester*

I've been writing for Fragrantica about six months. My latest article is up:

Fragrantica

This week we made three perfumes, Dionysus, Phoebe, and Selene. With Dionysus, we made a larger batch, about a cup. That one's a mystery to me: I know how and why it works, but the details of how it works is a conundrum. It works and that's all I need to know. It's got a distinct funkiness to it, and that's just right. With Phoebe, my goal was to make one last batch before making a larger batch. I have to be sure that all aromatic amounts are copacetic before embarking on a large batch. If you have a given amount of an aromatic material called for in a formula, you will need to alter it slightly. Maybe hay is too much, jonquil is a touch too plentiful, or pink pepper is too macho.

My experience, with the larger batches I made before, is that certain quantities of aromatics need to be curtailed or expanded depending. Generally, I've found that sweet things are fine; it's the harsher elements that tend to become too harsh. Hay or tobacco ruined the last batch of Demeter; I mean it's fine, but I notice a hair too much of something. Of course, that could also be because I switched suppliers. If you've got materials which you like, best go ahead and make the full batch; it's somewhat frightening how the odor profiles change according to different material sources. Daphne is just right (based on tonka bean); would that the larger batch (I'm going to make a large batch) turns out right.

We also made a batch of Selene solid. This is the perfume I passed Level One of Mandy Aftel's course with. For this batch, I decided to add to the aromatics; it's got 18 notes instead of 12. I fleshed out the various notes that I take to be necessary of real perfume. Six notes are in each category, base, heart, top. The result is I find very powdery; I tried to enhance the powderiness. I included orris, carnation, clary sage, and petitgrain. This makes me think of moonlight: Selene was goddess of the moon. I've already got a liquid perfume called Selene; I happen to think it's one of my best. This was an experiment to see if I could make a solid that's close.

*Movies*

I trust you've all seen by now the adverts for The Karate Kid, played this time by Jackie Chan as the teacher and Jaden Smith as the student. This is exactly what I'm talking about: a role that was played originally by a white kid, suddenly is played by a black kid. I think the roles have totally opened up, and I think it's because of one movie: Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino. In that movie, Clint plays a racist character, but one who protects the neighborhood. With the recent immigration of South-Asian folks, he finds that he's pretty much alone. Then once the shit hits the fan, Clint doesn't leave his prized possession (Gran Torino) to a white kid--he leaves it to a Vietnamese kid. I think things have opened to the point where a black kid can have a good shot at playing a role formerly reserved for a white kid. This turn of events has me incredibly pleased.

*Indonesia*

What is the largest producer of coffee in the whole world? If you're thinking Columbia, you couldn't be more wrong. It's Indonesia. Of course, they drink plenty coffee in Indonesia, but it's done "cowboy style:" grounds are put into a glass, boiling water is poured over them, and the whole thing is left to sit for a minute or two. That's the way they prepare coffee in Indonesia. And you can get it everywhere, in that vast jungle nation. I spent about a month in Sumatra, there with my brother who'd spent some time in Jakarta. There was one coffee shop in Bukittingi where we found ourselves a lot. It was not early-morning coffee drinking we were there for; it was all hours. And every cup we had was cowboy coffee. It amazes me that now I need to have multiple methods of making coffee, most importantly the Keurig coffee maker which is my lifeblood. I know now that, regardless of the method, I'd be able to get my coffee on.

*Quotations*

The great wisdom for writers, perhaps for everybody, is to come to understand to be at one with their own tempo.

--Alan Hollinghurst

I like to hear and smell the countryside, the land my characters inhabit. I don't want these characters to step off the page; I want them to step out of the landscape.

--Peter Matthiesson

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

--Jimi Hendrix

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones;

When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them.

--Theodore Roethke

Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant; there is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.

--Johann Gottfried von Herder

I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

--Dorothy Parker

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

--Dr Seuss

There are only really a few subjects in poetry: growing old, dying, intellectual or physical passion, the search for self or identity. The smaller subjects we might write about are just ways to get into those basic things.

--Linda Pastan

To know someone here or there with whom you feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts unexpressed--that can make of this earth a garden.

--Goethe

A man's library is a sort of harem.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peace love and ATOM jazz

052310

The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.

--Eric Schmidt

*Fragrantica*

It's been five or six months since I began writing for Fragrantica exclusively about natural perfume. My column appears twice monthly. It does a world of good for me to be writing about Natural Perfume. Fragrantica has 600,000 registered users--people who don't just surf there; people who have taken the time to create a profile and register their names. That's a very large audience, and they pay attention to me. People frequently admire my writing, judging from the many comments. This is just the ticket: by writing about natural perfume, I can make sure folks don't forget about the way things used to be. Remember, before Chanel No. 5 was released in 1920, every perfume in history (all perfume through the ages) was all-natural.

I'm doing my part in calling attention to that fact. If we can just get folks on naturals. Synthetic perfume contains neurotoxins, anti-freeze, and other substances which we know nothing about long-term effects. Do yourself a favor: stop using synthetic perfume. It doesn't matter whom you talk about: Serge Lutens, Joe Malone, Bond Street, it's all synthetic. The _only_ place you can find natural perfume is directly from natural perfumers. Don't be misled by perfume houses who claim their perfume is natural--now that we've got them on the run, they will say anything to obfuscate, render things unclear, and generally make a mess of the facts. Far less than 1% of the market is natural perfume. Don't forsake your principles. Here are a few:

Mandy Aftel

Anya McCoy

Emma Jane Leah

Strange Invisible

Sonoma Scent Studio

There are numerous others. Perhaps I will make it a point to include URLs in future installments.

*Lord's-Jester*

You can always view my homepage at Lord's Jester.

I expected Daphne to turn out right, and it did. It's a heavy brew, with everything from oakmoss to tonka bean, immortelle to frangipani, cypress to citrus (20 notes altogether). I think it works quite nicely; all the elements dove tail inside each other, and you have a perfume that you can't quite decipher. I will be pleased to offer this as my chypre. High-flying, loose, complex. We also made another attempt at Phoebe. I took out everything that didn't need to be there, allowing for the full magic of osmanthus to take over. I think this will be one of my best perfumes. I wrote out a recipe for Selene solid; it contains, among other things, one drop of osmanthus; I'm hoping it will add to the powderiness.

One of the other goals I've set for myself is this: to compose a fragrance that's a tribute to rose. This will be tough; I imagine I'll use a lot of things that smell rose-like, araucaria, rosewood, etc. I might make a solid perfume, as that's the ticket I used to feature jasmine (Anthea). I think Dionysus is just right; it smells funky and that's the key to that perfume. A little bit of cognac and spikenard, to add to the god of wine's inebriated state. It's another that's dense and rich; I'm hoping god of wine and merry-making will allow me to carry out what is my own impression of the perfume he would like. At the very least, I think he'll admire my going by the seat of my pants.

*Poem*

I am not

down with the anti-immigrant

legislation put into effect

in Arizona.

We are _all_

in this country descended

from immigrants.

From the slaves who

fight their way here

no matter what,

from Eastern Europeans

who somehow managed to escape

genocide and worse,

from Mexicans,

descended from La Raza,

who come here expecting

this would be the land of

opportunity.

All of them,

we are descended

from them all.

Maybe some folks

like to pretend

we're only descended from

white Europeans,

but in this mosaic where we

find ourselves,

we are all in this together.

In.

This.

Together.

*Catholic*

From the Writer's Almanac:

"It was on this day in 1891 that Pope Leo XIII issued an official Roman Catholic Church encyclical addressing 19th-century labor issues. It's called Rerum Novarum, Latin for "Of New Things," and it is considered the original foundation of Catholic social teaching.

"He said in the open letter that while the Church defends certain aspects of capitalism, including rights to private property, the free market cannot go unrestricted--that there is a moral obligation to pay laborers a fair and living wage.

"He had much more to say to employers; first, he told them "not to look upon their work people as their bondsmen." He told them it was never okay to cut workers' wages. And he told them to "be mindful of this--that to exercise pressure upon the indigent and the destitute for the sake of gain, and to gather one's profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine. To defraud any one of wages that are his due is a great crime which cries to the avenging anger of Heaven."

"With these words Leo began a new chapter in the Catholic Church, one where social justice issues became incorporated into official Church doctrine, an essential part of faith, where the Church would stake out official positions and be vocal on issues like labor, war and peace, and the duties of governments to protect human rights."

Would that this man were still around. What scathing rebukes he would have for the state of global capitalism!

*Quotations*

The house rests not on the ground but on the woman.

--Mexican proverb

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

--Marcel Proust

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

--George Orwell

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.

--Francois de La Rochefoucauld

I'm celebrated for celebrating the uncelebrated.

--Studs Terkel

To create a perfume you have to be the servant of the unconscious. Each idea evolves and transforms, but there should be a surprise with each note.

--Serge Lutens

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

--John Stuart Mill

Writers can wear anything. I could go to a black-tie dinner in New York City with blue jeans on and boots and a cowboy hat and a bow tie, and people would just say, 'Oh, he's a writer.'

--John Grisham

A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.

--PL Travers

He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.

--Oscar Wilde

Peace love and ATOM jazz