On The Road With Al and Ivy: Blog

"For those who pass their lives afloat on boats, or face old age leading horses tight by the bridle, their journeying is life, their journeying is home." - Matsuo Basho (The Narrow Road To The Deep North, 1702) It was a dark day when Yahweh (now known as God), passed judgement on and sentenced the three culprits in the apple munching incident at the Tree Of Knowledge (Now known as The Internet), located in Mesopotamian Edin, located in what is now Iraq (now known as The Garden Of Eden). The serpent (now known as Satan) got off the easiest; he was condemned to stay slithering about for eternity, which didn't cramp his style, as snake legs had been ditched during the process of evolution. Adam was condemned to work the soil for his food, and could no longer just pluck it off trees in Paradise (know known as Man Caves). Menkind later fobbed off most of the food preparation tasks on women to ease the pain of the "thorns and thistles" (Genesis 3:18). Which is why wo...

"...I rode away, thinking, I confess, not so much of the kind mother left alone, and of the home behind me, as of to-morrow, and all the wonders it would bring." - William Makepeace Thackeray ("Barry Lyndon," 1844) "Coming of age" rites for young men and women have pretty much remained the same throughout history; men endure epic tests of strength and will, while women are trained in the sacred roles of motherhood, parenting and how avoid getting a case of the ass from dealing with men. Some cynics have suggested that a woman's parenting training applies to both men and children, while others indignantly insist that following a man's orders requires no special skill. While accurate attribution for such insights isn't possible due to the degraded condition of the ancient source material concerning motherhood discovered in the Chicago 5th Street Salvation Army Store book section in 1989, the debate appears to be divided along male and female lin...

"In this land of boundless expanses and unnerving strangeness, this land with which none of their memories were linked, the bunker was a semblance of home." “Seems long to you, does it,” Steiner said tightly. He shook his head slowly. “It was yesterday, I tell you. Yesterday and today and tomorrow and always.” - Willi Heinrich (Cross Of Iron 1955 - translated by Richard and Clara Winston for 1956 English edition) "But there is no honor in this war, memories will be ugly, even if we win, and if we die, we die without God." - From 1957 movie, "The Enemy Below" Director Samuel Peckinpah's work was often pigeonholed into a violent, macho loser niche by critics in the 70s, and any philosophical underpinnings misunderstood or treated as thematic flaws. His visual art was judged by superficial elements like his trademark slow motion deaths (a technique now in common use in films).  Those mainstream opinions, thanks to the Internet, have multiplied by a factor...

"Here we were heading for unknown southern lands and barely three miles out of hometown, poor homely old hometown of childhood, a strange feverish exotic bug rose from secret corruptions and sent fear in our hearts." - Jack Kerouac (On The Road - The Original Scroll) In the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the delicate face where thoughtful care already mingled with the winning grace and loveliness of youth, the too bright eye, the spiritual head, the lips that pressed each other with such high resolve and courage of the heart, the slight figure firm in its bearing and yet so very weak, told their silent tale; but told it only to the wind that rustled by, which, taking up its burden, carried, perhaps to some mother's pillow, faint dreams of childhood fading in its bloom, and resting in the sleep that knows no waking. - Charles Dickens (The Old Curiosity Shop) One of the things that young children like to do is form clubs or groupings that can blur the l...