My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Bradbury Speaks by Ray Bradbury.

“Because.” Which is the best reason for writers to go a-journeying. p. 120

My Soundtrack: Not A Job by Elbow on WOXY.

I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. Your review is before me.
Soon it will be behind me. Max Reger.

It is not my voice I want to hear
on memory’s fading page, on imagination’s disk.
It is my father’s in the background
prompting me, doing his best
to stay off the record, his hushed
instructions vanishing in static.

From Off the Record by Ronald Wallace.

“Order! Order!” shouted Seen Nowood, clubbing the start of the Neanderthals Opposed To Fire Society’s umpteenth meeting. “Hey, Dik! Sit down, we’re burning daylight here. There. That’s better. OK, we’ve got to do something about this fire thing. Look at us. We’re all a bunch of gray beards. There’s not a hunter here under the age of 25!

“If we don’t find some new hunters to train soon, who’s going to bring us haunches of urik when we retire?

Clubs and stick butts thumped the dirt floor of the cave in approval.

“These new kids think that using fire is better than the old ways,” said Cunning Shoots.

“Get out of here Shoots. You know this is a men-only club!” said Nowood, pointing to the cave entrance with his Stick Of Authority. “By the Great Snake, first it’s this fire thing and then the women want in too.”

More thumps and cries of approval answered Nowood’s pronouncement.

“This is serious, Nowood,” said Dug Cliffseeker. “We have standards to uphold here. If we let just anyone out there hunt, how are we going to support our women?”

Dik Faker stood up, “You’re right Cliffseeker. Look at this whole cooking thing. If meat were meant to be cooked then the Great Snake would zap it with his mighty lightning bolts. No. Meat is meant to be eaten the way the Great Snake gives it to us. Just-killed warm with all the blood and fat still in it. I tried one of those fire-burnt haunches last week and it was all dry and tasted like black rock.

“That’s true Faker,” replied Cliffseeker. “There’s no life left in meat that’s been fire-burnt.”

“And then there’s the night hunting,” added Nowood. “Waving those torch things around shoots your night vision all to hell.”

“Did somebody call my name?” asked Cunning Shoots, sticking her head around the corner of the cave entrance.

“No, Shoots. I told you to get out of here,” said Nowood. “Go clean the lice out of your man’s beard or something.”

“So what are we going to do?” asked Faker.

“We’re the pros here,” said Cliffseeker. “I say we put it to a vote.”

“I second that,” said Faker.

“OK. Sounds good to me. All those who think real hunters don’t use fire say Ugh!”

“UGH!”

“All those opposed?”

“ugh.”

“Somebody kick Gomess in the butt.”

“Clearly hunting with fire is a bad thing. We’ve got more than 500 votes that agree and just Gomess’ pitiful little vote in opposition. And be careful Gomess. Keep this up and we’ll toss you out with Shoots.

“The voice of the professionals (cough) have clearly (cough) spoken! Now (cough, cough) how (cough, cough) do (cough, cough, cough) we… What’s (cough) goin’ on out there?”

“It’s the (cough) meat burners (cough) Nowood. They’ve built (cough) fires all around the outside of the cave!

“No one panic. There’s a (cough) room back here. (cough, cough) Everybody (cough, cough) deeper into the cave. We’ll be safe (cough, cough, cough, cough) there!”

My Soundtrack: Three Days by Jane’s Addiction on WOXY.

By Bill Watterson.

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Bradbury Speaks by Ray Bradbury.

…[I]t was not a single machine that faced Kasparov but the intellectual guts of three dozen men who peed their brightness into the nerve endings of the Dumb Player. The computer only looks like a machine. It is the neuron endings, gastric juices, lifeblood, sweat and ganglion fire that hide within, masking its stuff with wires, fused by ten thousand instant welds.

I have never wondered at such. Visiting Apple Computer or any other electronic-gizmo works, when the tour guides said, “Isn”t that wonderful?” I cried, “No!” Shocked they asked me what I meant. I mean, said I, “it is not wonderful. You are wonderful. You dreamed it. You blueprinted it. You built it. You infused it with process, with dream, with electronic imagination. It does not know it exists. You exist. You are the god I worship. A computer cannot best Kasparov. A legion of flesh-and-blood brains hid in a computer might. All hail Kasparov! All hail Apple battalions.” p. 111-2

My Soundtrack: Mount Wroclai (Idle Days) by Beirut on WOXY.

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Bradbury Speaks by Ray Bradbury.

Those who do not live in the future will be trapped and die in the past. p. 107

My Soundtrack: Truck Driving Man by Mojave 3 on WOXY.

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

From The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Buter Yeats, born 13 June, 1865.

[Update — 1514, 14 June — I’m really honored now to know that among the company I’ll be keeping tomorrow evening will be Sherry Chandler.]

Good ol’ 666 the rabbit here may be my lucky charm. This Thursday, 15 June, from 7-8 p.m., Have Coffee Will Write will be part of Open Source’s Blogsday 2006 program. I got an email today from Henry Shepherd at Open Source asking permission to use one of my posts from Tuesday, 6 June. I, of course, told him yes.

HCWW will get another 15-seconds of fame on 30 radio stations with listenerships in the millions from California to Vermont including: KQED, San Francisco; WNYC, New York; KRVM, Eugene, Oregon; WHRV, Northfolk, Virginia; WVPS, Burlington, Vermont; KCPW, Salt Lake City; and KUOW, Seattle.

Henry wrote:

Based loosely on Bloomsday, which celebrates “Ulysses” as an evocation of the whole world in a single day (in Joyce’s case, June 16, 1904), the idea is create a mosaic portrait of our country out of excerpts from blog posts written on the same day. (In our case this past Tuesday, June 6th.)

After assembling this year’s excerpts we bring in two accomplished and agile actors to read them. I’m writing now because your post Your “Six…. Six…. Six….” post caught our eye and we’re interested in using it on the show, which will air live on Thursday night from 7-8pm EST. As you might imagine, we’ve found a few devil-themed posts, and yours really adds a measure of humor to the mix.

Sadly, WCPN doesn’t carry Open Source, but I’ll be drinking Champagne and listening via the Internet Stream from WGBH on Thursday.

My Soundtrack: Birthday by The Sugarcubes on WOXY.

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Bradbury Speaks by Ray Bradbury.

I had long since discovered that I must jump off cliffs with a great substantial dream and build my wings on the way down. Passion, not intellect, won the day. Producers and their half-blind director friends believed that by being what they thought was intellectual, they could sum sums and equate equations. I knew they were hammering up Tin Woodsmen, that sing as they might, would always lack hearts. p. 84

My Soundtrack: Life Begins At The Hop by XTC on WOXY.

Scott Bakalar has vowed to live on donuts and coffee until Sherrod Brown or Craig Foltin agrees to a Meet The Bloggers interview. Scott had tried to play nice, offering to wear appropriate pro- Brown or Folitn t-shirts in summer parades, but there were no takers. Now the gloves are off. This could rapidly become a feminist issue.

Does anyone want to contemplate what Michele is going through, living with man supercharged by double-glazed donuts and gallons of coffee?

This could get ugly.

But it’s got a soundtrack.

My Soundtrack: Reunion by Stars on WOXY.

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Bradbury Speaks by Ray Bradbury.

When I lectured to a group of special-effects people a few years ago, I witnessed two hours of their technical expertise before going on to speak. I then said to them, “I love firework as much as anyone else in the World. My idea of something great is being in Paris on Bastille night, July 14, each year, by the Eiffel Tower and seeing the explosions of brilliant color and celestial constellations put up by the fireworks people.

The problem is, when the wind blows, the fire is swept away, the color is gone from the clouds, the sky is empty. What you people have done and are doing is fireworks, which I love, but there is no content, there is nothing there when the wind blows. To use another metaphor: You cook up a brilliant Chinese dinner, and an hour later we”re hungry again.” p. 48

My Soundtrack: Knockout by Palomar on WOXY.

…You can imagine the place
as it was, and as it is.
The moment of transformation,
the presence of creation,
itself is beyond reach.

From Given Poems by Wendell Berry.

All that patriotism requires, and all that it can be,
is eagerness to maintain intact and incorrupt
the founding principles of the nation, and to preserve
undiminished the land and the people. If national conduct
forsakes these aims, it is one”s patriotic duty
to say so and to oppose. What else have we to live for?

From Given Poems by Wendell Berry.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

From Ode: Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth.

…For every year is costly,
As you know well. Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a free gift.

From Given Poems by Wendell Berry.

Holy Jesus feckin’ Christ, yes! Andrew Sullivan so beautifully packages performer Ann Coulter I want to weep. Half the time, I tend to think that a Hannity or O’Reilly or Malkin actually believes their own rhetoric. With Coulter, I don’t believe it for a second. And so her vileness cannot be taken seriously. She is worse than vile. She is just empty.

If it did not involve the death of brave American men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan this story would be simply tragic. Tales of President George Bush’s estrangement from his family have circulated for years. And now with his poll numbers of Nixonian proportions, the President’s father is rebuffed in his attempts to save the family name.

From Salon:

Former President George H.W. Bush waged a secret campaign over several months early this year to remove Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The elder Bush went so far as to recruit Rumsfeld’s potential replacement, personally asking a retired four-star general if he would accept the position, a reliable source close to the general told me. But the former president’s effort failed, apparently rebuffed by the current president.

Will the NEO/Theocons now pile on to the senior Bush and brand him a traitor and closet liberal? Will Melanie Morgan demand he be tried for treason?

But what I find really interesting is why Bush the Elder may have taken this extraordinary step.

The elder Bush’s intervention was an extraordinary attempt to rescue simultaneously his son, the family legacy and the country. The current president had previously rejected entreaties from party establishment figures to revamp his administration with new appointments. There was no one left to approach him except his father.

This effort to pluck George W. from his troubles is the latest episode in a recurrent drama — from the drunken young man challenging his father to go “mano a mano” on the front lawn of the family home in Kennebunkport, Maine, to the father pulling strings to get the son into the Texas Air National Guard and helping salvage his finances from George W.’s mismanagement of Harken Energy.

For the father, parental responsibility never ends. But for the son, rebellion continues. When journalist Bob Woodward asked George W. Bush if he had consulted his father before invading Iraq, he replied, “He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to.”

Just as here in Ohio our Govenor has managed to sully the family name of that once was gold in our state, President Bush has managed to flush a legacy built by his grandfather and father, and counted on by his elder brother, down the drain.

There are those who take great delight in the self-destruction of the Republican Party. I’m not one of them. I know too many intelligent Conservative who have solid values. But I do wonder how long this has to go on before reasonable Conservative rise up and take back their party?

My Soundtrack: Take Your Mama Out by Scissor Sisters on WOXY.

…”Let me tell you something, boy.
An intellectual whore is still a whore.”

From Given Poems by Wendell Berry.

Remember sending our troops to war with the equipment we had and not the equipment we wanted? Our troops aren’t even getting what they had. To appease those who can’t figure out whom the enemy is — the Iraqi insurgents or the Mexican workers — President George Bush is diverting $1.6 billion from our troops resupply fund.

From the United Press International:

When the Senate took $1.9 billion out of the war supplemental to fund border security last month, $1.6 billion came out of funds to replace equipment destroyed or worn out from four years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The money was diverted at the behest of the White House in a last-minute bid to address growing political unrest about illegal immigration. The Office of Management and Budget championed the change without input from the Army or the Marine Corps whose budgets were sliced, a Pentagon budget official told UPI.

Of course this could be, as The Daily Dish’s Andrew Sullivan suggests, just a case of Karl Rove working his election magic in a desperate attempt to prevent the Congress from becoming a veto-proof, impeachment-seeking body ruled by Democrates in the fall. Maybe the President knows nothing about it.

They don’t tell him much of anything these days.

My Soundtrack: Raising The Sparks by Akron/Family on WOXY.