On The Road With Al and Ivy: Blog

"Then, here in Argos, we’d have often met in love and gladness, two as friends and guests, with nothing that could ever part our paths till, wrapped in blackest clouds, we met our death. A god must have been envious of that, for he has destined him—a fate not known by any other—never to come home.” - Homer (The Odyssey Of Homer, Allen Mandelbaum 1990 translation)  No one, be it remembered, seeks the desert for a pleasure-ground. Life and business traverse it by paths along which the bones of things dead are strewn as so many blazons. - LewWallace (Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ) One of the concepts that's made it into the Pop Psychology/Philosophy canon is that life is about the journey, and not the destination, and like most truths, it's true if it is, and isn't if it isn't. In the Middle Ages the Christians in the lower economic classes were taught to endure the present or at least enjoy the little things in life for the greater reward of Heaven after death. That...

"So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality —" - Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) The caged bird dreams of clouds.  - Japanese Proverb To believe in one’s dreams is to spend all of one’s life asleep.  - Chinese Proverb I began work on the final draft of the book last week. I had planned to do maybe three or four more revision passes, but realized over the past few weeks that it was ready to be finished. There were several issues with the earlier versions, the most serious was figuring out what the basic "story" was. The original structure was chronological, and that was the best way to get it all down. What made the revision passes difficult was that it wasn't how I wanted to tell the story, but was stuck in a linear structure. The original conception, which dated back to the 80s, as relate...

Johnson at last, of his own accord, allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pocket of the Man Mountain, particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his God; as he consulted it upon all occasions. - James Boswell (Boswell's Life Of Johnson) One of my favorite movies is "Jeramiah Johnson," a film that starred Robert Redford, about a civil war vet who became a famous mountain man. The film has many of the elements that Americans love; the wily old sage and a varied cast of oddball characters whose paths cross throughout the film. Those meetings at various times in Jeremiah's new life become a barometer of his progress as a mountain man. It also illustrates a concept that many Americans love, particularly in the Internet age; the notion that one can become a master with a few choice secrets from an expert that opens the door to mastery. Americans love "experts," who are as exalted as ...

"After you have stepped the mast and spread your white sail, you can sit: the breath of Bórëas will guide your ship. But when you’ve crossed the Ocean, you will see the shore and forests of Perséphonë—the towering poplars and the willow trees whose fruits fall prematurely. Beach your ship on that flat shore which lies on the abyss of Ocean. Make your way on foot to Hades." - Homer (The Odyssey - Alan Mandelbaum translation) I once read that James Joyce decided to write a book about what went through a man's mind over a 24 hour period, and then spent the next few years writing it all down. If dictation software had existed back then, maybe it'd have been a faster process, but probably not. The reason is that Joyce spent those years writing a book, that happened to depict a day's worth of thoughts, but somewhere along the way, it became a "work," and not simple transcription. One of the most famous attempts to capture a stream of consciou...