On The Road With Al and Ivy: Blog

- Al HANDA deltasnake@yahoo.com And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their homeless selves. - Herman Melville (Moby Dick) SOME THOUGHTS ON VAN LIFE AND NOMAD LIFE VIDEOS: One of the topics on Tik Tok and other social media is "Van Life" and other nomad-type trips, and the contents range from helpful tips and observations to complete disconnects from reality that could only happen if the person was well financed or on a lark to become a social influencer. Many of these brief glimpses are about that kind of life when everything is going right or the kinds of obstacles that come up really are more like vacation hassles (that can seem more serious to a homeless person whose short on cash). I won't do a formal essay; I'll just riff ...

“The good old days were the days, seemingly, when the critics had their way and ran things with a high hand; they made or unmade books and authors. They killed Chatterton, just as, some years later, they hastened the death of Keats. For a time they were all-powerful. It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that these professional tyrants began to lose their grip, and when Byron took up the lance against them their doom was practically sealed.” - Eugene Field (Love Affairs Of A Bibliomaniac, 1896 - Chapter XIV) EUGENE FIELD’S THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF A BIBLIOMANIAC, CHURCH’S ILLIAD, DISNEYLAND AND OTHER THOUGHTS: One of my earliest childhood memories is of two visits to Disneyland. The first time we arrived early and waited in the parking lot. From the outside, it looked a lot like another amusement park that I spent a lot of time at, the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.  Once we entered, it was noticeably different. The model for the Boardwalk was Coney Island, but here the intent was ...