Cormac McCarthy's Horseshit

(Or, an Open "What The Hell?" to One of My Literary Heroes)

I’m a big Cormac McCarthy fan. He is my favorite writer. Living, dead, unborn – My favorite. I’ll go to the mat, or the concrete, in defense of his craft at the drop of a hat and I really enjoy talking about his writing in general. I’m a fan. So, it was with some surprise that I walked away from his latest interview, with the Wall Street Journal, disappointed and pissed off.
I learned a long time ago that artists whose work you like are not necessarily people to get to know. Sometimes there is something lacking. Not always, but often the real person simply fails to live up to their creations. On one hand, I could take or leave being disappointed with McCarthy as it’s his work I truly value and not his person or opinions. On the other, I can’t quite let slide something he said in the otherwise excellent interview.

Making Our Own Justice (A Riff on "Virtual CrowdSurfing")

The other day Steve Bodio commented on one of my entries, and noted that “...in a just world you'd be paid for this.”
I agreed, even though it wasn't my best writing (the re-write the computer ate was much better), but was dismissive too. I said, and it's true, that I'm just happy to put something into the world that will either resonate with another human being, or elucidate, inform or excite.
I come from what I've begun to describe as a lonely culture – It's sparsely populated, but it is a culture in whole - I'm proud of it and think we're all very interesting. I'm always glad to strike a chord with others who identify. And I'm thrilled if something from my culture sparks or rekindles something in someone else. That's deeply satisfying for me. At the end of the day, I write to fulfill and satisfy myself, and I'd lie if I said I didn't draw part of my satisfaction from being read. The creation is fundamental, and it drives on regardless, but it's satisfying to have a cry in the darkness answered. As a reader I've always felt I was participating in the writers finished art, rather than just receiving it – As a writer, I seek to participate with my readers not simply produce product.
But in a just world, if the participation is good, if the work is good, I should get paid shouldn't I? Of course I should. In a just world.
I'm not sure I believe the world is just. I believe the world is neutral though, and that it is up to us to make our own... whatever, really. Including justice. I believe this is true, on many fronts. As artists, we have to make a lot of things for ourselves, so what's stopping us from making our own justice? Okay, maybe not make entirely, but enable.
We can't necessarily force people to pay for our art - If we limit its availability only to those who pay we may be limiting ourselves right out of existence – But we can enable our audience, our fans and collectors, to pay us if they want to, can't we?

There are already writers with “Donate” or “Support” buttons on their blogs. They produce a lot of content, or a body of work, that is easily accessible and typically for free. No demand is placed on the audience to pay for it, but they are enabled to do so if they think its worth it.
We're also seeing novels, chapbooks and other publications, as well as music in a variety of forms, offered using a “Pay what you feel it is worth” model.
I'm finding this idea more and more attractive – Because I'd like to do this for a living, or at least part of my living. Or at least for beer money. To be able to devote more of the time and energy to writing and the rest of my art, that I end up spending on wage earning (or trying to at least).

So what's it worth to you?
Nothing? Cool. Keep reading. I'm slowly stealing your soul and corrupting your heart the more of my ideas you entertain, so it's all good. Seriously, it is all good.
You'll buy my book once I have one? Bring it around for coffee, I'll sign it.
Not a lot, but sometimes you'd pay for reading me? Awesome, thanks.
You want to be my sugar mama, support me financially and * ahem * otherwise, all for keeping up my writing? Please email at least three clear photos that aren't extreme close ups, and show you clearly in good lighting from different angles, and a list of references.
I'm being flippant here, but that is (minus the creepy uberfan sugar mama AKA Kathy Bates in Misery psycho-fan) the gist of the enabling I'm talking about.

This isn't something I'm going to implement now. Most of you don't know me, and I'm not producing content at a rate that is really befitting suggesting recompense for it. For me, now is not the time to roll this out – Just the time to start thinking about it. Mapping out how I'd like to try putting it to work.
As a writer, it's pretty easy to map.
As a blacksmith, and artist metalsmith? Not so much.
Tangible, physical, art is hard to transition into the virtual realm – Those physical materials cannot be emailed. How can I, how can my fellows, as a materials artist work with what Amanda Palmer dubs “Virtual Crowdsurfing”? That's trickier. I have several ideas, some of which I'm going to keep to myself for awhile. But, among those ideas is one of knowledge and experience sharing.
There are a lot of people who are not, and don't want to be, artists who remain intensely interested in the processes of art. There are those who want to learn about an art other than their own. Still others want to learn how to do a type of art. As artists, we can be educators about our art. Coming from the blacksmithing world, most blacksmiths are also teachers or at least have taught occasionally. I think, as with other forms of art, we aren't limited strictly to that art, in what we can teach. You can teach a great deal with art.
Couldn't a metal artist (or a wood worker, fabric artist, glass worker, etc. etc.) put out “process content”, demonstrations, tutorials, videos of the art being made (which opens up possibilities of cross-media video art), in a public fashion, and stick a donations button on their website/blog? You could take it out of the virtual world as well: A free public demo with a tip-jar set out. If I show up at an event, and forge an iron hat, won't there be someone to drop money in it? I'd like to think so.
I think this cross over into the really-real world is extremely necessary for building a fan base, and one that is rich with the actual human touch. Musicians have this made, because live shows are damn near guaranteed – They will happen, they have to. Writers can do readings, or perform poetry. Other artists have to innovate in how they reach their audience, if they want to try out the “virtual crowdsurfing” thing. Without the fan base, the people to catch you when you dive off, you'll get nowhere. (Yeah, I'm riffing on AFP here. She's right on, see my last entry and go check out her blog.)

This is an area, a realm of possibility, that I am truly excited about and actively exploring. Woe unto my other projects, I've found something else time consuming.

Update:
Some models/ideas of “virtual crowd surfing” as a writer that I think support my own:

Nathan Tyree is hard at work on a novel project titled “Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski Fistfight in Hell”, and has auctioned a fairly prominent role as a character in his novel via eBay. The move, apparently, has generated him some measure of buzz in addition to the immediate monetary advantage. Also apparently a burned thumb. http://waitsandbukowski.wordpress.com/

Jeremy C. Shipp is selling subscriptions to his short story writing as Bizarro Bytes, http://jeremycshipp.com/bizarrobytes.htm.
He offers multiple levels of subscription, for those wanting to offer further support, and has some interesting incentives for those who do.

Stephen Elliot, for his memoir The Adderall Diaries, used advance copies originally destined for media outlets to create a “lending library” for fans, http://therumpus.net/2009/09/about-that-lending-library-notes-on-book-publishing-in-a-socially-networked-world/
The only requirement was that the copy had to be forwarded to the next person on the list once read. His thoughts on the idea are pretty interesting. The idea has a lot of merit. Just another example of working the crowd in new and innovative ways. He's also supporting the book with a tour and getting out there, another essential element.

Regarding Short Fiction

Not much substance, of my own, here but two things I'd like to note:

Back in April, the NY Times ran a piece from A.O. Scott on the value of short fiction in American letters. The things he has to say sync nicely with my ideas in the previous post about the direction in fiction: Brevity's Pull: In Praise of the American Short Story
The quote:

"The new, post-print literary media are certainly amenable to brevity. The blog post and the tweet may be ephemeral rather than lapidary, but the culture in which they thrive is fed by a craving for more narrative and a demand for pith. And just as the iPod has killed the album, so the Kindle might, in time, spur a revival of the short story. If you can buy a single song for a dollar, why wouldn’t you spend that much on a handy, compact package of character, incident and linguistic invention? Why wouldn’t you collect dozens, or hundreds, into a personal anthology, a playlist of humor, pathos, mystery and surprise?

The death of the novel is yesterday’s news. The death of print may be tomorrow’s headline. But the great American short story is still being written, and awaits its readers."

I still say the novels will come. They may be different, but we'll get to them - We need the long immersion in characters, place and narrative ecstasy that novels provide.

Secondly: Nanoism, which I linked previously, is running a contest for fiction that will fit into a Tweet, 140 characters. They're looking for five piece serials, which will form a more complete work. You can learn more here: http://nanoism.net/meta/december-serial-contest/
A very interesting idea, and proof that even the shortest form can go the distance. I intend to submit, but either way look forward to seeing the end result. The work they have up already as stand-alone stories is all quite impressive.

What's Happened to Fiction?

I grew up among books and writers. The word, and the next one and all the pages full have been elements of my life as long as I can remember. I don't want to say I took this for granted, but I have. In doing so, it seems that I missed something. Or a few somethings. Among them, the following:

• Men don't read good fiction.
• Novels are dead.

These assertions aren't mine, they're things I've come across recently in different places recently.

The first is an issue raised by BULL: Mens Fiction, via Fictionaut. Men buy around 30% of the fiction sold, primarily thrillers and crime fiction. Which leaves literary fiction to the women. I hadn't given this any thought prior to hearing about it, but find it very disquieting.
I don't really mean to say that there is no “good” fiction in the thriller and crime fiction fields. I read a lot of drek, almost anything not religious or romantic, and actually enjoy plenty of that type of fiction. However, on those shelves remain the Dan Brown's and David Morrel's and countless other fairly bad writers. Writers who use one crutch and cliché after another, and who will never be a Steven King, much less a Maclean or a Hemingway.
If men aren't reading good fiction, then it stands to reason that men's fiction isn't getting published. We end up with a chicken, or egg, sort of question. Is it not being published because it won't be read, or is it not being read because it's not being published?
My view of writing and authors is very male centric. I like plenty of female writers, and their work, but the influences on my enjoyment of writing, and being a writer, are primarily male. My father who taught me about poetry. My fifth grade teacher who showed me that poetry was written by real people having real experiences, not recounting mad charges and death in far off lands. Writers I met as a kid, like Steve Bodio, and Joel Bernstein. Writers whose work motivated, changed, or challenged me in my audacious youth when I read far outside my age group, McCarthy, Dostoevsky, Hemingway, and even the baser Heinlein. And whose work does that today, Palahniuk, Frederick Busch, and the above as well. Writers whose work and experiences resonate with my own life, McMurtry in particular at this point. All these influences are masculine. It's something of a shocking wake-up to see that masculinity in good fiction may have suffered a downturn.
It raises a lot of questions. Primarily about the nature of male reading. Why do men read, or perhaps better, why don't men read anything worth a damn? In wondering at the why of this, I have to ask myself why I read. Am I a reader because I write? I've always thought I was a writer because I read, but maybe that's not correct. My own perspective is suspect here, as I'm not just part of the audience.
Part of it is entertainment. I read to be entertained, like I imagine most people do. Some will argue that reading for entertainment alone precludes reading for intellectual stimulation, but I disagree. I am entertained by mental calisthenics and deep thoughts and discoveries and seek it out in music, movies, television and writing of all types. I'm also pretty confident that I'm not unique in this, even among men. Women are not the only people on the planet who want to think deep thoughts and engage in mental stretching. On the opposite side of the coin, I also read as a form of mental escapism – I want to be involved in something very not my immediate life, and let my mind relax. This is where, for me, reading “garbage” comes in. But one type of writing is not exclusive to the other – I do both, and again am pretty sure I'm not alone in at least the right motivations and interests
So, why do men still primarily read non-challenging, unintellectual, formulaic and cliched garbage? The place I feel left to turn to in answer, is society at large. Somewhere the American culture has told men that its not okay to be literary. It's knitting and tatting, not logging and grilling, and just not something that men do. But why?
It's a damn shame. It convicts me even more of the importance of masculine voices in writing. I'd realized it was a needed element when I first found BULL, before I ever planned to submit anything even. There exists western, eastern, southern, GBLT, and woman's writing and writers, but who identifies as a “male writer” or a writer of “mens fiction”? No one who's selling, apparently. And even the distinctly masculine voices in contemporary literature are being co-opted by feminine movements. The Road by Cormac McCarthy, one of the most distinctly masculine novels I think I've read, was brought to the attention of America at large by being placed on Oprah's book list.
There's nothing wrong with women, southerners or GBLT folks, but there is something goddamned wrong with this.

The second among literary issues I missed is the supposed death of the novel. I read this on Tom Russell's blog, and actually called bullshit in the comments. I don't think the novel is dead. I'm seriously out of touch with current novels though, particularly anything highbrow. The most recent literature I've read has been The Road and a Palahniuk or two. I've been rather caught up in the literary past. But, I see a lot of novels that look good being published, and quite a few that I hear are good to read too. I can't really swallow the idea of the novel being dead.
However, the thought nags. Maybe it actually is. If I, as a reader, have been visiting the literary past of ghosts like Maclean, Cheever, Hemingway, and grand old men like McCarthy, for my diet of novels then what does that say about the current state of the things? Without a doubt, 80% of my literary fiction diet comes from short fiction journals, both online and in print. Perhaps a result of this, most of my writing is not on my novel, but on flash, short fiction and poetry. And I don't seem to be alone. I see a lot of good, fundamentally good, fiction being written in the form of flash and short stories. I am even seeing powerfully good poetry out there. It's accessible, it's at the tip of the finger, at the end of the hand placed on the mouse or touchpad.
I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with the shape and form of popular internet media and communications. The majority of America is online, and our creative engagement with words and communication in this medium is short. Blog posts are short. Facebook status updates are short. Tweets are short.
Twitter is the perfect example. One hundred and forty characters, to communicate effectively. And, really, we've gotten good at it. It's become entertaining, effective and, finally, important. Friends bitch and share and plan inside the limits of a Tweet. Businesses advertise, share updates and network. Revolutions, or the attempts there-of, are documented - The best information coming from Iran in recent troubles has been in one hundred and forty character bursts. That is what finally convinced me that Twitter had some actual value. And now, there are literary efforts, such as Nanoism, focused on extremely short fiction that will fit into a Tweet.
The modern face of textual communication is short. Why should anyone be surprised that written art would follow that? Even some of the more successful novels and memoirs of recent years have begun as blogs.
So, maybe I am wrong and the novel is dead. Or I'm half wrong, and the novel is elderly and graying. If that's the case though, it's not because culture is dead. It's not because we've lost something. Exactly the opposite in fact. We've found a way to retain our literary culture, our artistic use of language, in the modern era. There's been no death – Merely a refinement. If anything, it forces writers to be better.
Narrative Magazine recently had a small contest asking for people to contribute six word stories, in the tradition of the supposed original flash fiction piece by Hemingway. Hemingway's six word story, the product of a ten dollar bar bet, was the essence of succinct and powerful fiction: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.”
If the internet influenced literary culture is cultivating a standard of writers who can do as much with as little as Hemingway, then we'll be just fine. The novels will happen, and when they do, they'll be magnificent.

Now, if we can just make it okay for men to read them. Maybe the internet will help that as well. If the publishers, and their often female staff focusing on the female 70% of the market, aren't delivering then the internet will.
Let's not lament what's happened to fiction, its still here – Rather lets ask “What's Happening to Fiction”, and what can we as readers and writers contribute.

Market Forces

Imagine a world where corporate interests outstrip government. Where executives are celebrities. Where the division between the poor and the rich, the haves and have-nots, is enforced by law, and walls, and an economic standard soaked in blood. A world where executives compete with one another - for promotions, to win contracts, to settle disputes - via murderous road rage in specially designed and armored "battle-wagons". This is the world of Richard K. Morgan's "Market Forces", a character driven science fiction thriller set in the near, and all too believable, future of late 2040's London.
Market Forces protagonist (hero would be the wrong word) Chris Faulkner is an up and coming executive, or "driver" as he is one of the select few who can both afford to drive and are among the ranks of road-rage competing corporate agents. Faulkner, at the book's opening, has just been drafted into the ranks of Shorn Associates, Conflict Investment division. Riding on his work at a previous firm's Emerging Markets division, and the highly controversial yet celebrated kill on the road that won him that position, Faulkner meets immediate challenge. His coworkers and the partners at Shorn are far more bloodthirsty than Faulkner believes necessary, demanding that every roadway dual end in a positive kill. Faulkner is able to deliver extreme violence, as in his celebrated kill in which he ran over his competitor five times, but comes to Shorn with a preference for less bloodthirsty business approaches. This puts him at odds with other Shorn executives; Rivalries which only become worse when he proves successful in the division.
Conflict Investment is no nice thing – It is investment in, and guidance of, small wars for maximum profit. Shorn Associates is as bloodthirsty and greedy here as anywhere, and it pays. Conflict Investment is a money-maker, and success in the field means great gains, recognition and advancement for Faulkner. Being less bloodthirsty still does not give Faulkner clean hands, and as the pressure mounts, he becomes more and more blood-soaked. And he likes it – Every victory, every risk won out, is validation for the way he does business, and the ideals he brings to the game.
At the same time, it is his idealism that runs him aground. Faulkner is no mindless greed driven power player. He's come from the very bottom to get to where he is, and has built the beginnings of a good life. His wife, Carla, is a loving and kind force in his life, always encouraging the best of him. She holds him to be the better man, and not succumb to the sheer greed and immorality of his work.
As Faulkner rises to the top in the most cut-throat area of a cut-throat world, his professional drive and personal conscience conflict more and more. As he struggles with these disparate halves of himself and his life he is forced (or forces himself) into a decision between two paths, one of harmony in his family, and one of unbridled success.

Market Forces channels American Psycho with a Road Warrior ethic and a Dogs of War sensibility. The world created by Richard Morgan for his corporate samurai is one of merciless competition, bloody corporate affairs, unabashed profiteering, riding on a current of warfare and class oppression. In short, Morgan writes a world that, while exaggerated, doesn't seem too impossible or even too far off. In examining this potential future what the reader must ask themselves is if that is a good thing, and what role they want to play. These are the questions that are at the heart of the novel, driving its biting political dialog and fast paced action alike. The choices faced by Faulkner and those surrounding him are more than political, or monetary: Their very lives are at stake on the physical, moral and even human scale.
Market Forces is not an uplifting read. Faulkner is a great anti-hero, and is surrounded by similarly flawed individuals and their mistakes. Very few of these characters are merely two-dimensional, as Morgan is unafraid to delve into the vulgar depths of personality. These are very human people, and will force the reader into uncomfortable territory. At times it is like being in the room while your friend and his wife have a screaming argument. All you can do is watch as people you want to care about debase themselves and one another, screaming themselves into the deafening silence of mutually assured destruction.
Yet while not an uplifting read, it is a fundamentally good read. Morgan's characters resonate with that level of richness throughout, flowing effortlessly with the tautly woven story. Market Force is a book that draws you in, each page pulling you deeper into the quagmire of morality, violence and lust that consumes its characters. It will leave you breathless, and with the sensation that you may be accomplice to something awful, yet wanting more. A unique and masterful work of speculative fiction, Market Forces is a must read.

"Its The Tribes, Stupid"

For the readers out there with an interest in history, particularly military, if you've never read Steven Pressfield, you're missing out. I haven't read enough (apparently) of his work, but highly value his two novels I have read, Gates of Fire and The Legend of Bagger Vance (Not a golfer, at all, and I still appreciate this one greatly. A tactical-firearms instructor I much admire recommends it highly for similar reasons. I'd quote him but I cannot source it at present. I'm sure he recommends Gates highly as well, I've just never heard him do so, but he was a Marine, and it is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps reading list, so...).
Tonight, via Goodreads I discovered that Pressfield has a blog, "Its the Tribes, Stupid", focusing on conflict in Afghanistan both classically and currently.
It is excellent reading.
I've yet to watch the videos, as I am on abominable backwoods dial-up and couldn't hope of loading one to watch before tomorrow (sunrise = new day, not midnight, in my little world). I expect they are excellent though, and will watch them next time I am in town stealing wifi at the coffee shop. But the reading is great.
It is late, I am tired, and have been out of coffee for two days, and I'm still reading. This is a good thing. For only having been at it roughly a month, Pressfield has brought some great things to the table. I'm looking forward very much to seeing where he goes.

Something I Will Teach my Children

When I was about 12, my father set forth a household edict. Every night, we would gather in the kitchen, and by the flickering light of a kerosene lamp (for this was before we had commercial power way out here), he would read aloud. The book we begin with was Farnhams Freehold, by Robert Heinlein. A modest story, about a man and his family, locked in their bomb shelter and thrown into an unknown world by the startling power of nuclear war.
I don't think we ever got to another book after we finished Farnham's Freehold. Things changed, attitudes changed. Within a year we had commercial power, and the bright, harsh, light of electric lamps lacks a certain something. It encourages families to gather, independent of one another across couches and recliners, around the television.
But, my father started something - By the time I was 15, I had read almost everything Heinlein wrote. I have, since then, re-read about all of it at least once. Heinlein is one of my favorite authors, and two of his books in particular have had a great influence on me, my desires, drives and attitudes. Those two would be Tunnel in the Sky, and Glory Road. Both are deserving of their own entries, and I'll get to that eventually.
There is another Heinlein work which means a great deal to me, an essay taken from a speech given to a graduating class at the U.S. Naval Academy, titled The Pragmatics of Patriotism.
It is a bit dated, and some of the specific hopes and fears alike are far from occurring today, but the overall idea is, as it has forever been, sound. It is something everyone should read.
The essay was published in a collection of Heinlein's non-fiction work, titled Expanded Universe, and was for a long time unavailable online. I sat down and transcribed it once, so I could share it with a select few people, but my digital copy has since been lost. Earlier tonight I was curious to see if I could possibly find it online, and viola, I see it is indeed now widely available.
I post it, so that those unaware of it can read it - As it is something everyone should read.

The Pragmatics of Patriotism, by Robert Anson Heinlein

"I said that 'Patriotism' is a way of saying 'Women and children first.' And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did.

In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight through it.

One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her. But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck.

Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free... and the train hit them. The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed - and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself. The husband's behavior was heroic... but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.

THIS is how a man dies. This is how a MAN . . . lives"

A Fragment

This is part of a... manifesto? Extended thesis statement? A something I haven't quite figured out what is yet. I wrote this in a burst, and its been sitting there ever since, more than a year now. It is the inspiration for an attempted novel, still in the early stages, but beyond that it is a nothing. Yet.


We are middle children of the west – Not members of the new west fraternity, and not the new immigrant whose bottom-up cultural revolution is more and more successful every day. Our parents worked hard jobs, to give us good lives, working other hard jobs – And the industry disappeared. Cattle, logging, you name it. Skills valuable in todays west do not use strong backs, or toughened hands, they use cunning and false mirth, to plan and plot and sell. And what is being sold is our birthright. It is being sold to others who have not felt the back breaking strain that has been put into the west by the original generations, but who want to buy a piece of a mythology. A mythology created by observers, branded to sell the very acts, and places they were observing, to people even further removed. And in their eyes, it cost the people already there nothing, they can benefit from the increased economic flow, the trickle down. The developers and land-sellers, these priests of an insincere telephone-game mythology, they see themselves as putting in the money, writing the sales pitches, doing the work to sell the west. And they fail to see that what they are selling is the... I don't know if there is a word for it, a single word that encompasses land rich for farming, growing grasses good for cattle, that has been worked and built upon and channeled by hard working believers, disciples of an earned life. Land imbued with all that is, not just their dreams, but the blood of their failures, spirit of their successes, and ideals of existence. What word is there for that? Land does not cover it. Culture does not cover it.

No one who's family has been in the west more than a hundred years has not had ancestors who paid into this. No one who can claim two generations history, was ever expected by their parents and grandparents, to not have access to the full scope of western opportunity, in earth and livestock and timber and hard, hard, work.

What we want to say is, “It is not yours. You cannot buy it”, and instead we pump gas, wait tables, cook meth, work the last holdouts of industries bankrupted by the dreams of new-westerners, or sell out, give in, and start hocking the corporeal elements of our past, our forefathers guarantee of blood and sweat.

Human Rights

"The results should have been predictable, since a human being has no natural rights of any nature."

Mr. Dubois had paused. Somebody took the bait. "Sir? How about 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'?"

"Ah, yes, the 'unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of "right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's 'right' is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed that great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called 'natural human fights' that have ever been invented, liberty is the least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost."

"The third 'right'?--the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives--but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it."

From Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein.
I'll post something substantial, of my own, later. I promise.

War, Cormac McCarthy and Speculative Fiction

Broke, running out of coffee and whiskey (not to mention food), and not feeling like going in to work leaves me in a random mood today. I feel rushed and pressed to do a lot of things, all on my mind at once. Yet I sit at my desk, in my broken backed chair and pursue utter randomness, looking for Black Swans.
Really, I was trying to find a Cormac McCarthy quote to use in a discussion, and it somehow led into an expanding gyre of the random. So, I'm running with it.

"It makes no difference what men think of war [...] War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner." Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian is, without a doubt, my least favorite McCarthy novel. At least of those I have read (I have yet to read The Crossing, The Sunset Limited, Outer Dark, Cities of the Plain or The Orchard Keeper). I am not turned off by the violence, or the despairing philosophies, or any of the rest that so many others find repugnant about the book. I simply think McCarthy has done better. Blood Meridian is revisionist, a nice way of saying its historical accuracy is precisely dick, and compared to McCarthy's masterpieces such as Suttree and The Road, poorly written. It lacks the subtlety in extremes of those two novels. While they deal with extreme, and violent, situations and the wreck and ruin of human lives, Suttree and The Road do so with understatement, and the literary equivalent of negative space. The unsaid. offers little subtlety in its extremes, reveling in the violence, and base vulgarities of nearly every character. I understand the idea, the portrayal of human natures desired, but I simply find Blood Meridian to be inelegant all around. Even in Child of God, which lacks some of the subtlety of later McCarthy, there was an elegance to the handling of such extremes. I am continually mystified at people who cant get over Blood Meridian - Its just not that good. And don't even get me started on people who want to think it is an accurate historical portrayal.
With all that said, however, it has some gems in a handful of lines. And bad McCarthy is still better than a lot of other writers best. The line about war, as said by the character of the Judge, is one I have always liked.

While looking for that quote, I came across another interesting perspective on McCarthy, in particular his Pulitzer winning The Road.
I am an unabashed fan of The Road, and have recommended it to most everyone I know. Some who've taken me up on it liked it, others did not as is the way with anything. I think it is one of the best works of literary fiction I've ever read, truly a master work. But beyond that, I've thought since it first came out, that it was a bold move in literary fiction, as it is essentially speculative fiction. Science fiction, speculative fiction, SciFi, Sciffy, call it what you will, is a dirty term in literary circles. Like fantasy (thud and blunder), it is an area regarded by the literati as populated by hacks, and poor use of language, and all the other cardinal sins against literature. And, to some extent, they are right - There is a lot of really terrible speculative fiction. But there is a lot of really good speculative fiction, and plenty of writers who are far more literary and skilled at their crafting of language than a lot of the icons of literature. I personally think there are more fundamentally important works of science fiction, than there are of (at least modern) literary fiction. Perhaps only made more so by the fact that, the engineers, the scientists, the builders of our world read science fiction/speculative fiction. Their bliss, their flights of fancy, and the reflections of their hopes, dreams, failures, and losses, are all in speculative fiction. These are the people who build our world. Yet to many literati, their voices and concerns are low and vulgar, they are the unwashed rabble.
And someone, at least, has the balls to point all this out: Dipping Their Toes in the Genre Pool

I need to read A Canticle of Leibowitz again. It is a fantastic book. I was thrilled last fall when I saw it was among the required reading for a popular course at New Mexico Tech. Seeing numerous students carrying it around, dog earing pages, and talking about it was fantastic.

Where does the living go?

Layover, by Charles Bukowski

Making love in the sun, in the morning sun
in a hotel room
above the alley
where poor men poke for bottles;
making love in the sun
making love by a carpet redder than our blood,
making love while the boys sell headlines
and Cadillacs,
making love by a photograph of Paris
and an open pack of Chesterfields,
making love while other men- poor folks-
work.
That moment- to this. . .
may be years in the way they measure,
but it's only one sentence back in my mind-
there are so many days
when living stops and pulls up and sits
and waits like a train on the rails.
I pass the hotel at 8
and at 5; there are cats in the alleys
and bottles and bums,
and I look up at the window and think,
I no longer know where you are,
and I walk on and wonder where
the living goes
when it stops.

Bukowski is amazing... maybe more later. I feel another poet post coming on.

Rogues and Raconteurs

"I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage."
-John Steinbeck

I've always liked Steinbeck. He was a great writer in both the sense of his ability to craft language, and his way with truth. More people should probably read him, though I wonder how many can still truly identify.

And I think I've chanced upon the name for the bookstore/coffee & tea shop/tobacconist's I want to operate someday in the naming of this entry. Rogues & Raconteurs: Fine Books, Rich Coffee, Exotic Tea, Rare Tobacco & Other Vices

Nick Cave - A Darkness Reconsidered

Music is a huge part of my life, though not being able to play any instrument I've always relied on the work of others to bring to me the necessities of expression I find in music. As such I like a variety of artists and musical styles. I do however have a distinct preference for the uniqueness of singer/songwriter combo's across genre's - I find myself more appreciative of the singers who are songwriters and the work they have to offer. Somewhere, one of them, has captured something that at least begins to resemble my mood at the time or the one I am looking to create. Being a poet, I appreciate that the originality of the writing of many of these artists regularly surpasses that of the song-writing coming fro the record labels pop-mill writing think-tanks.
Among my favorite of these singer-songwriter-eccentrics is Nick Cave. An Aussie noted for his darkness and challenging material, Cave doesnt always rub me quite the right way - some of his stylings leave me cold at times - when he does strike a chord with me, he strikes it quite well. A large bit of his work, both with his bands the Bad Seeds and Grinderman and as a solo artist, is quite important to me. In a lot of ways for its darkness - This in an area in which I am more comfortable than many - but also because he has an ability to see both darkness and light as indivorcable parts of the same whole. That, more than many things, is important to me in art. But Cave is not all darkness and foul-mouthed, blood stained, rants at the world. he has a depth of understanding and lyrical ability beyond just darkness, or just the contrast of dark to light.
On top of this, Cave is a talented musician, a unique vocalist and a fantastic songwriter. His lyrical ability as a writer is often second to none - No one else I have heard writes song's like Nick Cave. Very few other writers of any ilk are as deep, and draw on such diverse influences as Cave. who can draw on the Bible, Milton, American folk traditions and modern crime reports all in the space of a refrain.

Hallelujah

Lyrically and musically this is one of my favorite Cave songs - It is powerfully evocative, a strong image of place is conveyed in bot the lyrics and the music, and it features some of the best Cave writing around - "My piano crouched in the corner of the room wit all its teeth bared"

500 Miles

Cave also has a small obsession/inspirational attachment to American folk and blues music and does some very nice renditions (covers is a stretch, as he tends to take the raw thing and make it his own) of these songs. Although his version of Stagger Lee leaves a lot to be desired, his 500 Miles is one of my favorite versions.

So lonesome I Could Cry

Cave has also worked with a variety of major and influential musicians, singers and writers. He appeared on Johnny Cash's American IV album, after having covered Cash's The Folk Singer previously.

Cave, for all his debauchery, violence and drunken revelry offers up some surprises from time to time as well. For example, his introduction to the British publisher Canongate's single volumn copy of the Gospel of Mark. An odd turn from the surface impression of the man via some of his lyrics, this introduction only further confirms Cave's depth of knowledge and vision behind his songwriting.
Introduction to the Gospel of Mark, by Nick Cave

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson (1867 - 1922) was an Australian poet and writer. One of the most well known writers of his day in Australia, along side his contemporary A.B. "Banjo" Patterson (who I will have to write about some day as well), Lawson has become much less read in recent years. I came across his work quite by accident.
His ideas and sentiment are, needless to say, a little different from what has risen to the top in modern Australia. Lawson was a nationalist, and advocated in his writing for a strong Australia, and armed Australian populace. Some have cried foul, calling his writing's fascist or racist - These twits fail to realize that Lawson did not come from a world of government enforced equality, half-caf soy chai latte's, and celebrated diversity, he came from a much rougher, hard-scrabble place and time. I see him far more as a grand example of settlers attitudes on national strength and defense in the colonial years of Australia.

Poems of Henry Lawson

As Far As Your Rifles Cover

Do you think, you slaves of a thousand years to poverty, wealth and pride,
You can crush the spirit that has been free in a land that's new and wide?
When you've scattered the last of the farmer bands, and the war for a while is over,
You will hold the land – ay, you'll hold the land – the land that your rifles cover.

Till your gold has levelled each mountain range where a wounded man can hide,
Till your gold has lighted the moonless night on the plains where the rebels ride;
Till the future is proved, and the past is bribed from the son of the land's dead lover –
You may hold the land – you may hold the land just as far as your rifles cover.

EveryMan Should Own A Rifle

So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb,
Seeing visions "over yonder" of the war I know must come.
In the corner - not a vision - but a sign for coming days
Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize.
And in this, the living present, let the word go through the land,
Every tradesman, clerk and peasant should have these two things at hand.

No - no ranting song is needed, and no meeting, flag or fuss -
In the future, still unheeded, shall the spirit come to us!
Without feathers, drum or riot on the day that is to be,
We shall march down, very quiet, to our stations by the sea.
While the bitter parties stifle every voice that warns of war,
Every man should own a rifle and have cartridges in store!

How the Land was Won
The future was dark and the past was dead
As they gazed on the sea once more –
But a nation was born when the immigrants said
"Good-bye!" as they stepped ashore!
In their loneliness they were parted thus
Because of the work to do,
A wild wide land to be won for us
By hearts and hands so few.

The darkest land 'neath a blue sky's dome,
And the widest waste on earth;
The strangest scenes and the least like home
In the lands of our fathers' birth;
The loneliest land in the wide world then,
And away on the furthest seas,
A land most barren of life for men –
And they won it by twos and threes!

With God, or a dog, to watch, they slept
By the camp-fires' ghastly glow,
Where the scrubs were dark as the blacks that crept
With "nulla" and spear held low;
Death was hidden amongst the trees,
And bare on the glaring sand
They fought and perished by twos and threes –
And that's how they won the land!

It was two that failed by the dry creek bed,
While one reeled on alone –
The dust of Australia's greatest dead
With the dust of the desert blown!
Gaunt cheek-bones cracking the parchment skin
That scorched in the blazing sun,
Black lips that broke in a ghastly grin –
And that's how the land was won!

Starvation and toil on the tracks they went,
And death by the lonely way;
The childbirth under the tilt or tent,
The childbirth under the dray!
The childbirth out in the desolate hut
With a half-wild gin for nurse –
That's how the first were born to bear
The brunt of the first man's curse!

They toiled and they fought through the shame of it –
Through wilderness, flood, and drought;
They worked, in the struggles of early days,
Their sons' salvation out.
The white girl-wife in the hut alone,
The men on the boundless run,
The miseries suffered, unvoiced, unknown –
And that's how the land was won.

No armchair rest for the old folk then –
But, ruined by blight and drought,
They blazed the tracks to the camps again
In the big scrubs further out.
The worn haft, wet with a father's sweat,
Gripped hard by the eldest son,
The boy's back formed to the hump of toil –
And that's how the land was won!

And beyond Up Country, beyond Out Back,
And the rainless belt, they ride,
The currency lad and the ne'er-do-well
And the black sheep, side by side;
In wheeling horizons of endless haze
That disk through the Great North-west,
They ride for ever by twos and by threes –
And that's how they win the rest.

Service, of a Rough and Tough Society

I’ve had a volume of Robert W. Service poems, an old “Best Of” paperback, for quite some time. Used to be, I would pick it up from time to time, but would rarely read more than a few, already familiar, pieces. Then one morning, I picked it up and just started reading and came away as impressed with a body of work as I ever was with a few more well known selections. Service was a voice, not unlike Kipling, that was sophisticated enough to deal with the whole array of human affairs, in simple eloquence.

"The only society I like is that which is rough and tough - and the tougher the better. That's where you get down to bedrock and meet human people.” Robert W. Service 1874 - 1958

http://www.robertwservice.com/

The March of the Dead

The cruel war was over -- oh, the triumph was so sweet!
We watched the troops returning, through our tears;
There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street,
And you scarce could hear the music for the cheers.
And you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew between;
The bells were pealing madly to the sky;
And everyone was shouting for the Soldiers of the Queen,
And the glory of an age was passing by.
And then there came a shadow, swift and sudden, dark and drear;
The bells were silent, not an echo stirred.
The flags were drooping sullenly, the men forgot to cheer;
We waited, and we never spoke a word.
The sky grew darker, darker, till from out the gloomy rack
There came a voice that checked the heart with dread:
"Tear down, tear down your bunting now, and hang up sable black;
They are coming -- it's the Army of the Dead."
They were coming, they were coming, gaunt and ghastly, sad and slow;
They were coming, all the crimson wrecks of pride;
With faces seared, and cheeks red smeared, and haunting eyes of woe,
And clotted holes the khaki couldn't hide.
Oh, the clammy brow of anguish! the livid, foam-flecked lips!
The reeling ranks of ruin swept along!
The limb that trailed, the hand that failed, the bloody finger tips!
And oh, the dreary rhythm of their song!
"They left us on the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn't stop
On this, our England's crowning festal day;
We're the men of Magersfontein, we're the men of Spion Kop,
Colenso -- we're the men who had to pay.
We're the men who paid the blood-price. Shall the grave be all our gain?
You owe us. Long and heavy is the score.
Then cheer us for our glory now, and cheer us for our pain,
And cheer us as ye never cheered before."
The folks were white and stricken, and each tongue seemed weighted with lead;
Each heart was clutched in hollow hand of ice;
And every eye was staring at the horror of the dead,
The pity of the men who paid the price.
They were come, were come to mock us, in the first flush of our peace;
Through writhing lips their teeth were all agleam;
They were coming in their thousands -- oh, would they never cease!
I closed my eyes, and then -- it was a dream.
There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet gleaming street;
The town was mad; a man was like a boy.
A thousand flags were flaming where the sky and city meet;
A thousand bells were thundering the joy.
There was music, mirth and sunshine; but some eyes shone with regret;
And while we stun with cheers our homing braves,
O God, in Thy great mercy, let us nevermore forget
The graves they left behind, the bitter graves.

The Tramps

Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together,
And we sang the old, old Earth-song, for our youth was very sweet;
When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether,
Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet --
Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story;
When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale;
When peace unfathomed filled our hearts as, bathed in amber glory,
Along the road to Anywhere we watched the sunsets pale?
Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster;
There's hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so!
As on we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master,
And no man guessed what dreams were ours, as, swinging heel and toe,
We tramped the road to Anywhere, the magic road to Anywhere,
The tragic road to Anywhere, such dear, dim years ago.

The Men That Don’t Fit In

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.
And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.
He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

Certainty

I've been a minor fan of the author/philosopher/neuroscience PhD candidate Sam Harris for awhile now, ever since running across him in Seed magazine saying something like "The philosopher is more and more beholden to the neuroscientist". He's a very bright man, with interesting ideas, and a knack for writing them down.
An "atheist" (who doesnt like the term), he's been writing for the Washington Post's On Faith column occasionally for awhile now, which I just discovered, and in reading his archives I came across the following and quite liked it;

"September 11th, 2001, the day that nineteen pious men showed our pious nation just how beneficial religious certainty can be." Sam Harris

Food for thought.

Reading Down the Bones

I was raised "interesting". It did not seem so at the time, but what child ever really understands that their life may not be normal? It is in a nature of their very being to take whats put before them and run with it. What was put before me was a life in the outdoors, surrounded by art and books and guns, without other children, among the company of writers and cowboys, wetbacks and artists. And I thought that was how everyones life was.
In my grand old age of 22 I now wish I had paid more attention. But at the same time as I cannot fully grasp what I may have lost due to inattention, I dont think I can fully grasp how much I gained that I simply take as "the way it is", that yet few others have or could understand.

I have, through no organized intention, recently returned to some of the more interesting people of my childhood via literature. Now, I claim no particularly deep knowledge, connection, or friendship, with these men - Simply that I knew them, via my father, and ignored them in the way only children can adults.
Stephen Bodio was that weird guy with the dogs and falcons that my dad used to talk country living, guns and hunting with in the post office, gas station or coffee shop for what seemed like tedious hours to a six year old. I always knew he was a writer, but never really paid much attention until recently. While searching blogger several months ago I came across his excellent blog, Stephen Bodio's Querencia, much to my surprised delight. It has been a regular read ever since. At my parents home a few weeks ago, I was raiding their bookshelves for a few different volumes - Intending to borrow 10,00 Goddamn Cattle by Katie Lee, and Horseman Pass By by McMurtry, and whatever else I could lay hands on, I saw they had somewhere acquired a second paperback copy of Bodio's autobiographical work Querencia, so I nabbed that as well. It was, as its turned out, the only member of a foot-plus tall stack which I've read since taking it. Other reviewers have already said a lot about this work, and its depth, and power, which I dont disagree with, or feel like repeating. Correct they are that Querencia is a great work, a heartfelt memoir of a person, a place, and a time. It is that, and at least for me, much more. Filled with rich details of people, falcons, guns, hunting, the country, and simple day to day life in an incredibly unique place, Querencia, is more than a simple memoir of loss. It is a fundamental account of exactly its title, a querencia.
As a writer who firmly believes, yet also struggles with the idea, that the best writing is done scared, done aching and afraid of whats on the paper but knowing it would be unhealthy to quit, I was fascinated and moved by Bodio's writing. Writing so freshly on the heels of a great loss, and detailing not the loss alone but the life before it, must have been both painful and healing, and it shows in the words, some of which simply bleed. Further, as a native resident of the small mountain community Bodio describes, more than the words of hope and sorrow bleed for me - People, places, events I knew, or have known, since childhood are described in loving detail. Seeing these individuals and things through the fresh eyes of Bodio, writing as the outsider coming in, was immensely pleasurable at the same time as it was often sad. Querencia has earned a permanent place on my bookshelf as a work of great love, and a documentation of a place and time that also exists somewhat in my own history, which is now gone.

David E. Stuart was one of my father's professors during a return stint to college, working on an archeology degree. Being homeschooled I tagged along to many of my parents classes while they were finishing up their degree's and sat in on many lectures, including from Dr. Stuart. Recently I've been reading his novel Flight of Souls, and quite enjoying it. Having spent a great deal of time in Mexico (particularly the Mexico that was), his insights into 1960's Mexico and the life available to an American ex-pat there are probably second to none. His writing is not as vivid, or stylish, as other writers tackling similar topics, but it is none the less rich, compelling and rewarding. The benefit of his anthropological and archaeological background Stuart sneaks into the fairly taught, well crafted, story of intrigue, many details on place, and culture, both of the time and of antiquity.
Several years ago I gave my dad two of Dr. Stuarts non-fiction, autobiographical, works, The Guaymas Chronicles and Zone of Tolerance, which I never read but now think I shall have to pick up.

I am glad that in my childhood I did not entirely ignore the people around me, the adults of my parents social circle, and that they encouraged me to be among them even in my youth. I cannot ever remember being told I was not welcome at a table, or leaning on a corral fence, or gathered around a fire, even when I was the only child. And from that, I am thankful that as an adult I can return, with the experience of a couple more years, to the works those individuals have offered, and get so much from them. It is such a fundamentally satisfying experience to read a good author, a voice you can identify with, particularly when it is a voice you have actually been exposed to.

Fragment

The problem was the flask fit so well in his hand, its solid metal body, the gentle rock and rythm of the liquid inside. The whiskey rinsed his mouth, setting heavy on the tongue then sliding down. He stared into darkness. The deep thrum of engines rode up through the bulkheads, a soft but powerful voice, offering an opinion no one asked for, or could stop. He took another pull of the whiskey. "I can hear you breathing", he said into the vacuum outside.
"I wanted to talk.'
'Standing there watching me drink isn't talking."
"Neither is arguing with a drunk."
"I'm a long way from drunk," he sipped at the cold steel mouth of whiskey.
'We're all a long way from anywhere," her voice was soft, and without kindness. He shrugged against it, pushing off the blanketing despair she carried, always laying it upon others shoulders. A ward against the hope she found so cold.
"Doing the best I can to change that," and she shivered at his voice, the richness and near corporeal belief filling it. The gentle wisps of whiskey on the breath behind the words rose to her, a small handle of her own despair, she breathed deeply.
"If you'd done your best..."
He finally looked at her, a sadness in his eyes that brought silence to her lips. She stood, abashed at her despair, as he spoke, "I love you, Helen". He brushed her aside and stepped into the hallway, without a look, leaving her.

Blank...

I loved you, till
in the whisper of a wind
I saw the boundaries of heaven in your face
and the voice of angels was accented and dull

Kipling, My Boy Jack

'Have you news of my boy Jack?'
Not this tide.
'When d'you think that he'll come back?'
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

'Has any one else had word of him?'
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

'Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?'
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind -
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

Kipling' (the verb) is the act of reading, orating or sharing the work of Rudyard Kipling. He isnt regarded as the greatest poet of his generation, and his stylings have largely fallen out of favor among poets and scholars of poetics, which I think is quite the shame. I am an unabashed, and rather fervent, Kipling fan.
I recently watched a British television production called "My Boy Jack", about Kipling and his son, Jack, who died in 1915 while fighting in World War I. The title of the film is taken from the above poem, which was published a few years after Jack's death. Kipling and his wife waited, without relief, for final, official, word or proof of their sons death, and the circumstances there-of. His body was only identified and returned after both of their deaths.

If I am to die as a soldier, a fighter, a man, and particularly if I am to die before my parents, I want someone to read this for me.