Saturday, June 29, 2019
Only a pawn
There was a television show on about murders connected with a chess players.
It brought back memories. In my youth, I was an avid chess player.
My father taught me how to play. At first, as would be expected, he beat me every time we played. But as the years passed, I gradually started winning some games. Then it got to the point that I won every game. My father did not like that. He started angrily knocking over pieces with every defeat, and even started upsetting the board when it became clear I was going to checkmate him in a move or two.
Suddenly he did not want to play any more.
Instead, I began playing with friends and at school. I did well, pretty consistently winning. Early in high school, there was a county-wide chess tournament. I entered, and it was the first time I played some really good players. I learned a lot from them by playing them, watching games, and talking with other players in between games. I managed ultimately to finish third in the scholastic division. I was pleased, as this gave me a realistic sense of my ability - and what I'd need to do if I was going to get better.
But I also saw some players show the same sort of anger my father displayed when he lost. I also saw in some the kind of arrogance I sensed in myself. I didn't like that.
I knew there should be more to chess - or even competing - than anger and arrogance. In the first round of the tournament, I played a girl who was clearly not in my class. I defeated her easily. But I saw her disappointment and hurt, and since there was time before the next round, I offered to play her again for fun. I kept it close, then made a "blunder" that let her win. I praised her, and said imagine if that had been the tournament game. She seemed to feel better.
That's what games should be about.
After the tournament, I continued to play at school, joining the chess club and, because I won consistently, becoming the unofficial "president." But I also realized that if I was going to become really good, I had to study, practice, devote hours every day to playing. I'd have to sacrifice a lot of things in life, and while I liked chess, I was not willing to do that.
My last "real" game came during my freshman year in college. One of my high school friends and frequent opponents had been growing increasingly frustrated during our senior year of high school because I consistently beat him. During a college school break he came back home, contacted me, and challenged me to a game.
We played. He crushed me.
He had a look on his face that made me really uncomfortable. It was not just of victory - it was gloating, vicious, almost demonic.
He then told me he had spent months studying and practicing, just so he could beat me.
Just to beat me. Not for the love of or the fun of the game. Just to beat me.
Our friendship basically died at that point. Although I played a few friendly games with other people after that game, and even play online games against a program occasionally, I never played a serious game again.
What I saw at that tournament, what I saw in my former friend, convinced me that rather being a player of the game, the game would play me if I dedicated my life to it.
I would only be a pawn.
I discovered the same thing was true of other games that I'd been good at - Scrabble, and bowling. To get better at them, I would have to make many sacrifices of time and focus and energy.
While there's nothing wrong with any of those games, they are just games. They are meant to be for fun, socializing, and developing skills. But games are only a part of life. Life involves interacting with people, enjoying nature, serving God, and so much more.
Playing games can be part of life, but should not control it. The same is true of so many other things we pursue. How many times have we heard of people who dedicated their lives to one thing - games, sports, acting, painting, writing - to the neglect of everything else, and in the end, when they could no longer do those things, found themselves lost and alone and empty? If people have skills, there's nothing wrong with developing them - I want a musician to play well, for example. But if developing that skill means becoming so focused, so obsessed, that one fails to become a healthy, well-rounded person, then such pursuits devolve into something dark and evil.
Like the look on my former friend's face.
As G. K. Chesterton once observed, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”
Life involves finding balance between work and play, and seeking that which is truly important.
Pax et bonum
Friday, June 28, 2019
Cinquains - Adelaide and Beer!
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Clerihew Book (More)
The fellow whom I hoped would be able to help me with the clerihew book says he only works with haiku books.
Drat.
I contacted another person with some publishing experience. Awaiting his response.
But I also fired off another note to the first person saying I have a collection of haiku - The Slug Chronicles - that, while not formal, true haiku might still qualify. He's a committed haiku poet, so he might find the slugs not in keeping with his respect for the form. I could understand that. But he does have a sense of humor, so maybe ...
(Later: Alas, no. He is busy, and not a fan of lighter haiku, so no luck.)
As it is, I began compiling poems for The Slug Chronicle a while back, so finishing that would not be too hard.
Hey, maybe I'll get out two books!
Pax et bonum
Booker Side-look Clerihew
Beto Debate Clerihew
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Clerihew Book - Compiling
I dug out number of my clerihews - they were scattered through various files.
I've written more than 100 - but some of them were more topical/political in natures, and some were just bad. I narrowed the last down to 75-80 worth considering for a book. More than 30 of them have been published in Gilbert! over the years. I don't think there are any more out there - but I'll keep looking.
Now I need to contact an acquaintance who has published books to see if he can give me some advice - and might even help me to publish them.
I need to think of a cover. Just text, or with some sort of art/picture?
And I need to write some sort of an introduction.
Pax et bonum
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
A Clerihew Book (revisited)?
I've written a number of clerihews. maybe it's time to put together a collection.
I've thought of doing that with my slug haiku. But the clerihews my be easier to do - and might have more appeal to readers.
I had thought of it before, but it will be one of my goals this summer. Maybe in time to give as Christmas gifts? Hmmm.
First up: Compiling the clerihews in one spot!
The first published one was in Gilbert back in 2007.
When talking with Socrates
Just give simple answers please,
Or we’ll all have to slog
Through another dialogue.
Pax et bonum
Vermin Supreme for President
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Stand Out For Life, June 2019
We prayed the Rosary and a Litany in Response to Abortion, and sang hymns.
We also heard from several speakers, including Ellen Duncan (above) and Peter Vazquez (below).
The featured speaker was Paula Belemjian, the head of The Margaret Home, a new home for women in troubled pregnancies where the women can live for up to two years as they get their lives in order, get support and education, seek jobs, and so on.
Love will indeed end abortion.
Pax et bonum
Saturday, June 22, 2019
The Music Is A Lie (rediscovered song)
While flipping the channels last night, I came across a show that was analyzing a song by the Sex Pistols.
!!!
The Pistols hit about the time I was on college radio, and as crude as they were, I found them better than a lot of the dreck that was topping the charts. (Disco, shudder.) Among the punks, I preferred the Ramones, but still, the Pistols had their own, um, "charm."
I was also playing local coffee houses/fairs/festivals/rallies around that time - folk, folk rock, some protest songs. I wrote a few songs, and a couple of them I jokingly called "folk punk."
The Pistols program reminded me of one song I wrote called "The Music Is A Lie." It was meant as a criticism of what was on the radio in those days.
This morning, while getting ready for the day, I recalled I had a folder with a lot of old song lyrics, including lyrics of a few songs I'd written. I found it, and sure enough, "The Music Is A Lie" was in there - scribbled on a sheet of paper.
Here are the lyrics.
Turn on the radio, listen to any show
There's nothin' for your soul, nothin' to make you whole.
It makes you want to dance, it puts you in a trance
Neutralize your mind, like a bottle of strong wine.
The music is a lie.
The music is a lie.
The music is a lie.
The music is a lie.
You wear your plastic hair, take soma for your cares
Tomorrow's just a day that soon will fade away.
Everything's unreal, except for what you feel.
Love is just a pain, and sex is a refrain.
The music is a lie.
The music is a lie.
The music is a lie.
The music is a lie.
( Musical bridge)
Nothing to believe, except what you perceive.
But even that is gone, just before the dawn.
The music is a lie.
The music is a lie.
The music is a lie.
The music is a lie.
Hmmm. Although it was written some 40 years ago, back when I looked like this
the sentiment seems applicable to quite a few contemporary songs. The chords are on the sheet. Maybe I'll try playing it again later. Maybe even in public.
Honest.
Pax et bonum
Friday, June 21, 2019
Morality cinquain
Thursday, June 20, 2019
"It is not peace..."
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword.
For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law; a person's enemies will be the members of his own household." - Matthew 10: 34-36
That passage has been on my mind lately.
For a while now I have been estranged from two of my daughters because of their rejection of Catholic teachings - and their view of me as a religious fanatic because I uphold those teachings.
More recently, on social media people who had been friends have been critical because of disagreements over such things at homosexual marriage, abortion, ivf, contraception, foul language, and such issues as how best to deal with immigrants in this country illegally, "pride" events, the use of hyperbolic language such as "concentration camps," and support for candidates/political leaders who espouse things in conflict with Church teachings. Some have cut me off, and, to be honest, I have reduced my interaction with some to avoid conflict.
It hurts, but I must remain true to the teachings of the Church and their application.
Pax et bonum
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Silly papal cinquain
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Dang
Christians need to stop cussing.
https://churchleaders.com/outreach-missions/outreach-missions-articles/256761-christians-need-stop-cussing.html/2?fbclid=IwAR0IVr3qKaQCzbTp4tT2LVqvi7Jbwe6XUlq1ygfTOds0dYPJHD4RudNgfoE
Pax et bonum
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Some clerihews published
For more than five years, my favorite magazine stopped publishing my clerihews, even though I submitted a number. That came after years of the magazine regularly publishing them.
The editor at the time and I had sparred a few times on social media, so I wondered if I was out of favor. When I contacted him about some I'd sent, he claimed they'd gotten lost. I resubmitted them. Still, none saw print. After a few more tries, I gave up.
The editor and the magazine eventually parted ways, and I mentioned to the new editor that I'd submitted a number of clerihews and that none had not gotten in. He asked me to resend them. I did, and suddenly, my clerihews began to get published again.
Today I got the latest issue of the magazine. There were six of my clerihews in it. They were ones I had submitted a long time ago. I checked my records. Sure enough, they were ones I'd sent in back in 2015, during the "blackout." Oddly enough, some had already been published after the blackout - so maybe the current editor found one of the e-mailed submission letters that had gotten lost, and forgot that some of them had been published?
Whatever the case, I'm glad to see them in print.
When he was young St. Polycarp
religiously practiced the harp.
When a musical career proved a non-starter
he instead became a martyr.
At Nicaea, St. Nicholas
slapped a naughty Arius.
Since then he's found a list does fine
to help keep those who stray in line.
Jackson Pollock
facing possible painter's block
discovered that what matters
to the critics were his splatters.
Titus Oates
liked wearing heavy overcoats.
When it simply got too hot
he alleged a papist plot.
When Alexander Pope
slipped on a bar of soap
the couplet he muttered was neither stoic
nor heroic.
Steven Wright
Is right:
Boycott shampoo,
demand the real poo.
religiously practiced the harp.
When a musical career proved a non-starter
he instead became a martyr.
At Nicaea, St. Nicholas
slapped a naughty Arius.
Since then he's found a list does fine
to help keep those who stray in line.
Jackson Pollock
facing possible painter's block
discovered that what matters
to the critics were his splatters.
Titus Oates
liked wearing heavy overcoats.
When it simply got too hot
he alleged a papist plot.
When Alexander Pope
slipped on a bar of soap
the couplet he muttered was neither stoic
nor heroic.
Steven Wright
Is right:
Boycott shampoo,
demand the real poo.
Pax et bonum
Thursday, June 6, 2019
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