From Daily Routines:

When I am working on a book or story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and you know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

“I have forced myself to begin writing when I’ve been utterly exhausted, when I’ve felt my soul as thin as a playing card… and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.” Joyce Carol Oates. p. 206

From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block and the Creative Brain by Alice W. Flaherty.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your evening blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

In 1909:

The average life expectancy was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in 1908 was 22 cents per hour.

The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births took place at home.

Ninety percent of all doctors had no college education. Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and the government as “substandard.”

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza, 2. Tuberculosis, 3. Diarrhea, 4. Heart disease and 5. Stroke.

The American flag had 45 stars.

The population of Las Vegas , Nevada, was only 30.

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn’t been invented yet.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Two out of every 10 adults couldn’t read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the entire USA.

What a difference 100 years can make.

From Daily Routines:

I wish I had a routine for writing. I get up in the morning and I go out to my studio and I write. And then I tear it up! That’s the routine, really. Then, occasionally, something sticks. And then I follow that. The only image I can think of is a man walking around with an iron rod in his hand during a lightning storm.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

To the extent that self expression does broadcast and reinforce a person’s character, it clarifies a link between art, eccentricity and mental illness. This is most obvious in people whom society no longer keeps in line: the eccentricity of the very rich, or of castaways. p. 205

From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block and the Creative Brain by Alice W. Flaherty.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your evening blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

A man decided to march in the holy crusades. Concluding that his wife should wear a chastity belt while he is gone, he locks up her nether regions and gives the key to his best friend. He tells him, “If I do not return within four years, unlock my wife and set her free to live a normal life.”

So, the husband leaves on horseback and about a half hour later, he sees a cloud of dust behind him. He waits for it to come closer and sees his best friend. “What’s wrong?’ ” he asks.

“You gave me the wrong key!”

Alfred Stieglitz and the Art of Camera Work

Join us on to hear noted local photographer Herb Ascherman Jr., discuss the legendary photography of Alfred Stieglitz, focusing on his years as the publisher of Camera Work. This quarterly journal featured examples of leading innovators of photography and helped to establish photography as a fine art.

Mr. Ascherman who has published three books of portraiture, written dozens of articles and essays for national media, and been seen on television and heard on National Public Radio has a 2000+ volume library of photography books which serve as a resource and inspiration for his literary and photographic endeavors.

In conjunction with Mr. Ascherman’s lecture, during the month of July, the Special Collections Department will be displaying winning photographs from the 2009 Ohio Cemetery Alliance Photograph Contest for which Mr. Ascherman served as judge. The display will include winning photographs that includes pictures of people, monuments, and landscapes from cemeteries all over Cuyahoga County as well as Johnson’s Island, Cincinnati, Marietta, and many others.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 12:00 noon
Cleveland Public Library, Main Library Building
Special Collections, 3rd floor
325 Superior Avenue, Cleveland OH
216.623.2818 for more information

From Daily Routines:

Erdös first did mathematics at the age of three, but for the last twenty-five years of his life, since the death of his mother, he put in nineteen-hour days, keeping himself fortified with 10 to 20 milligrams of Benzedrine or Ritalin, strong espresso, and caffeine tablets. “A mathematician,” Erdos was fond of saying, “is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.”

Found in my electronic chapbook.

If language and writing grow out of a biological system for attempting to fill needs, then the notion of self-expression, so often invoked vaguely to explain the artistic urge, can be better understood. Self-expression is not simply a broadcasting of personal characteristics or tastes. It is generally, if subliminally, much more goal directed than that. Educators often justify art courses and creative writing courses on the grounds that self-expression can teach students about themselves. That may be true to some extent, but many creative writers have been quite capable of powerfully emotive writing while lacking insight into the internal conflicts that drive their suffering. While they may not gain insight, they still gain a sense of relief – and a sympathetic audience. p. 205

From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block and the Creative Brain by Alice W. Flaherty.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your evening blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

A man goes to see the Rabbi. “Rabbi, something terrible is happening and I have to talk to you about it.”

The Rabbi asked, “What’s wrong?”

The man replied, “My wife is poisoning me.”

The Rabbi, very surprised by this, asks, “How can that be?”

The man then pleads, “I’m telling you, I’m certain she’s poisoning me. What should I do?”

The Rabbi then offers, “Tell you what. Let me talk to her. I’ll see what I can find out and I’ll let you know. A week later the Rabbi calls the man and says. “I spoke to your wife, spoke to her on the phone for three hours. You want my advice?”

The man said yes, and the Rabbi replied, “Take the poison.”

From Daily Routines:

His mode of living consisted of daily visits to the British Museum reading-room, where he normally remained from nine in the morning until it closed at seven; this was followed by long hours of work at night, accompanied by ceaseless smoking, which from a luxury had become an indispensable anodyne; this affected his health permanently and he became liable to frequent attacks of a disease of the liver sometimes accompanied by boils and an inflammation of the eyes, which interfered with his work, exhausted and irritated him, and interrupted his never certain means of livelihood. “I am plagued like Job, though not so God-fearing,” he wrote in 1858.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

I no longer know whether it is my children that I long for, or my sorrow. I have an irrational belief, left over from my sensible past, that if I tell enough people about this knot that is always pulled tight, someone somewhere will be able to loosen it. But my new self needs it always to be pulled tight. I don’t write to forget what happened; I write to remember. There are worse things in life than painful desire; one them is to have no desire. p. 205

From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block and the Creative Brain by Alice W. Flaherty.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your evening blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Smith climbs to the top of Mt. Sinai to get close enough to talk to God. Looking up, he asks the Lord, ” God, what does a million years mean to you?”

The Lord replies, “A minute.”

Smith asks, “And what does a million dollars mean to you?”

The Lord replies, “A penny.”

Smith asks, “Can I have a penny?”

The Lord replies, “In a minute.”

From Daily Routines:

When the Styrons settled in their Connecticut farmhouse and began a family, his life became the ideal of any aspiring writer: productive yet relaxed, sociable yet protected. On the door frame outside his workroom, he tacked a piece of cardboard with a quotation from Flaubert written on it: ”Be regular and orderly in your life, like a good bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

Found in my electronic chapbook.

A pen can be a scalpel too. p. 205

From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block and the Creative Brain by Alice W. Flaherty.