You Can't Always Know Who the Good Guys Are

After a tour of duty in Afghanistan, former rock star wannabe Vin Sarno returns to his Savannah homestead to figure out where he wants to spend the next chapter of his life. Shortly after returning home he decides to kill time by helping with his father’s “Ghost Tour” business. Doing midnight walking tours through Old Savannah brings back memories of Kabul, including a bad experience with some real spooks he encountered during a short prison stint in that shattered land.

You Can't Always Know Who the Good Guys Are is journalist Gerald Flanagan’s first novel and once it gets going it’s a riveting nail-biter. The pace at first feels like the angst of an existential stain squeezed from an over-sized abscess. But once Flanagan paints the setting, the story is a runaway train and though you’ve been down this track before the only thing you know for sure is that your hero will never be the same.

In the midst of everything is an unrequited love with ambiguous possibilities. Aliyah is the daughter of a Taliban chieftain who finds it impossible to believe Sarno can bring her the deliverance she so longs for from this insane life she’s endured. There are few places on earth where it is more difficult to be a woman.

Flanagan, who served as an embedded journalist in the Iraq war also lived in Karachi, Pakistan and Kabul where he reported on the hunt for Osama bin Laden for two British magazines and the Washington Post. With ease he paints the scenery which serves as backdrop for the story.

The Savannah portions of the book have just enough levity to release some of the tension readers will experience. The graveyard and ghost stories that have become entertainments today contain kernels of horror that find echoes amongst the Taliban. The manner in which the author takes the impossible and convinces readers that it is probable is quite astonishing.

Perhaps at the root of the story is Sarno's pain at knowing that his future with Aliyah can never work out, and that the entire mission of his life has been an epic struggle in futility. Nevertheless he knows no other path.

What I like most about the book is when Flanagan causes the story to intersect with real events, including when Pat Tillman was killed by "friendly fire" and the first attempt on Osama bin Laden near the caves below the Khyber Pass. The net result is to create the impression that this fictional adventure/drama may actually be a true account of events that journalists are restricted from writing about.

Ultimately, if you can't find the book at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble, the reason might be that this review is itself a fictional review of a fictional book. If you like fiction, especially the kind where you have trouble discerning the line between real and improbable, you may enjoy my own books of short stories, especially Unremembered Histories and Newmanesque.

This review was originally published in January 2012

Unless otherwise noted, all paintings and illustrative material at this site has been created by Ennyman.

Short Takes: Two Quick Book Reviews

Teddy Roosevelt, 1903

It's simultaneously quarantine season and Spring here in the autumn of my life. As my thoughts turn once more to getting rid of things, and spring cleaning, I was out in my garage sorting through my books there in order to fill another box for Goodwill. (If you or someone you know in the Twin Ports area sells books on Amazon.com, contact me.)

My parents always had shopping bags of paperbacks that they used to exchange with Grandma, continuously rotating their "reading for entertainment" collection. Grandma was also a collector of hardbacks. She belonged to the Book of the Month Club and other such things. She had more books than anyone I knew, and by my early teens I saw them as a personal library to dip into. Looking back on my life I'm almost astonished at how many books I've read that later became Hollywood films. It started with some of my grandmother's books like Fantastic Voyage (1966) and Planet of the Apes (1968) and Andromeda Strain (1971).

All this to say, I like books. Here are a couple I found in my garage this weekend, only because my office bookshelf is overstuffed. These were not placed in the discard box, but brought back into the house to re-visit.

Literary Brooklyn by Evan Hughes

This book was gifted to me by someone from Brooklyn who bought a couple of my paintings and is involved with the Indie Film movement. The subtitle reads, The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life. It opens with a map of Brooklyn showing the various addresses of various major authors who held a residence there. One gets the impression that this book emerged from a walking tour of Brooklyn authors' homes.

One advantage of living in Europe, and to a lesser degree the East Coast, is the amount of history associated with various places. Places have power, and the homes famous people have occupied work like a touchstone of sorts, giving us a connection to these historical figures of the past. (This is why music tourism in recent years has grown in power. Bob Dylan's houses draw fans almost daily to Duluth and Hibbing, though for a season I doubt we'll have many visitors at this moment in time.)

In Brooklyn you can find eight places associated with Walt Whitman, five of Henry Miller's residences, the various homes of Thomas Wolfe, Arthur Miller, William Styron, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer and John Dos Passos, among others.

It's no surprise so many writers took residence in Brooklyn, due to its proximity to the publishing industry. Literary Brooklyn is actually a method of organizing a catch all collection of literary biographies. People visiting Brooklyn who want to see the places Walk Whitman lived might be interested in knowing more about his personal life. The same goes for the other men and women whose writings proved so influential.

I jumped to the middle of the book when I first received it, because I was unaware that Thomas Wolfe lived in Brooklyn. Then again, that's a story for another day.

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard

The subtitle of this book is intriguing: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. I'd read a couple Teddy Roosevelt biographies, but remembered nothing from this interlude in his life. When I first thought of his dark journey, I seem to recall that around age 22 his heart was broken and he went out to Montana or somewhere West and spent two years as a cowboy on the range, mingling with common people and learning what the world outside elite Eastern Society Life was about. (Turns out, his wife died two days after giving birth to a girl.) It was a time of healing and re-visioning that produced the leader-adventurer he later became with the Rough Riders and his presidential Bully Pulpit.

What do president's do after they've stepped down from ruling the world (even if only in their minds)? After you've experienced your dream job, it has to be a challenge finding meaning again. I frequently cite Buzz Aldrin here, who achieved his dream of walking on the moon and then had to deal with "now what?"

Teddy Roosevelt did not step down. He was defeated and had to come to grips with this. He chose a new "Big Challenge" and it was daunting. He would explore an unexplored tributary of the Amazon River where none had dared go before. In addition to piranha, natives with poison darts, whitewater rapids that destroyed their canoes, near starvation and loss of life, Roosevelt himself was on the brink of suicide. "What in the world was I thinking?" crossed his mind more than one.  It's an adventure story of rare proportions with intrigue, murder and needless deaths, alongside a najor figure dealing with his private demons.

* * * *
When I read books like these, and so many other exceptionally good biographies, I am impressed at the amount of work that has gone into them in terms of research. These are not books you just slap together. Someone had to pay the bills that enabled these writers to spend years assembling the raw materials that became these stories. Kudos to Hughes and Millard for having had the opportunity to pursue your passion in these projects.

Related Links
A Walt Whitman Birthday Party
Who Was Theodore Roosevelt?

One Minute Book Reviews

Yesterday the notion entered my mind to write a series of one minute book reviews. I arbitrarily selected a set of books off my shelves and will now write for one minute about each. If I enjoy this exercise I may write one minute reviews of top news stories or artists, or U.S. cities.

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul
Tragic look at Africa's heartland, complex issues in an emerging Third World. Moving story and sad. Naipaul was criticized for his bleak portrayal regarding Africa's prospects as presented in this book.

The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
A book filled with great insights and many quotable quotes. An ordinary longshoreman (if I recall correctly) and a wise man of his times, 1950's. I've quoted Hoffer many times over the years.

A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene
A world-famous architect is weary of the spotlight and hides himself in a remote corner of Africa's outback where he lives in a hut at a leper colony run by priests and nuns. Great story that explores the meaning of life.

Abel Sanchez and Other Stories by Miguel de Unamuno
These short stories moved me when I first read this book in my thirties. I forget the titles of the stories but remember the one about the priest and another about a writer who writes crazier and crazier things.

The Plague by Albert Camus
This was a required reading in our college Existential Philosophy class. The Plague creates a "situation" with no exit to which various characters respond.

The Sybil by Par Lagerkvist
Lagerkvist won the Nobel Prize for Literature. This book is both disturbing and illuminating about God and humanity and the depths of sorrow.

Martin Eden by Jack London
Recommended reading for all who wish to be writers. Tells the story of a poor man who wants to "make it" as a writer and what it takes to achieve his dreams. And the consequences of this success.

The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy
Novella length Tolstoy story that shows the big consequences of "little decisions." Fast read, profound insights about life.

Demian by Herman Hesse
First Hesse book I read in college. Hit me powerfully, the story of a youth in a school away from home for the first time. He meets an exceptional person and... wrestles with life issues.

Isabelle by Andre Gide
This book is what the belles letres really means... beautiful writing. Unfolds like a Conan Doyle mystery, but is wholly other. Terrific book.

That's it. Today's recommended reading list from Ennyman.

Thoreau’s Journal

“A perfectly healthy sentence is extremely rare.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

I don't mind repeating the statement, "If a man is worth knowing at all he is worth knowing well." And one of the best ways to know people well is through their letters (Van Gogh) and journals, especially when they have been dead for some time. In fact, journals are possibly the most intimate way to know a person, because when you meet "in person" you seldom get to the deep things in one encounter. If at a party, art opening, a lecture or passing on the street you only exchange niceties, and perhaps encounter the spirit of the person. Even then it is the spirit of the person for only that moment in time.

A journal gives you years of intimate insights as you follow the flow of a person's thoughts as it weaves its way around circumstances, experiences, the most nebulous and the most mundane fragments of a life.

It's been my pleasure to read a number of writers' journals over the years. Thomas Mann and Andre Gide were both Nobel prize winning authors and one can glean much, much, much from a writer's journals and notebooks. If you're serious about a writing career I would recommend Gide's especially. All four volumes.

I myself have endless journal entries with which I stained dozens of notebooks over a period of thirty years. Unlike Gide, or Mann, or in this case Thoreau, the "good stuff" would probably amount to a very thin book in contrast with the volume recently edited and assembled by by Damion Searls. And Searls' version of Thoreau's Journal, while a hefty volume itself, is but one tenth of the original 7,000 pages of material.

To a journal writer like myself, this is quite an output, considering that his journal work lasted only 24 years. Then again, he didn't punch a time clock from eight to five like most of us.

Thoreau's life and world were not like ours. There was no Internet. And though the industrial age was flexing its muscles he stepped back from there, retreating to space where he could become acquainted with, even intimate with the natural world. But he was not a monastic. At Emerson's house in 1857 he met John Brown, who led the raid on Harper's Ferry, one of the powder keg events preceding the Civil War. This fateful meeting caused Thoreau to take up the abolitionist banner. And though Walden is his most well-known book, his book on civil disobedience and the obligation to follow one's conscience was probably his most influential.

As nearly all journal writers do from time to time, Thoreau made entries on the process of journal writing. “We should not endeavor coolly to analyze our thoughts, but, keeping the pen even and parallel with the current, make an accurate transcript of them. Impulse is, after all, the best linguist, and for his logic, if not conformable to Aristotle, it cannot fail to be most convincing.”

I've often considered journal writing a place to hone the skill of capturing nebulous and ethereal ideas and transforming them into concrete words. Or like a man with a butterfly net whose specialty is ultimately pinning these beautiful "finds" in boxes so others can appreciate them.

This excerpt from an Amazon.com reviewer of the book explains how this particular volume was assembled. "The primary objective was to have it read as a representative version of the full journal rather than as a collection of excerpts. The editor therefore tried to balance material among the seasons and months, including keeping one of each month relatively unabridged. Another goal was to make it readable, so there is very little in the way of notes. Entries were chosen by personal preference, not historical importance. As you read, the date appears on the left page and Thoreau's age on the right so you always know where you are both in time and in his life."

Here are some of the headings for various entries:
Composition
The Loss of a Tooth
Rivers
The Dream Valley
Drifting
Aeschylus

His fragment on poetry includes this beautiful thought. “No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself.”

Here's another excerpt, which I recently shared on my Facebook page. “Men see God in the ripple but not in the miles of still water. Of all the two-thousand miles that the St. Lawrence flows – pilgrims go only to Niagara.”

What's impressive, and surprising even, is how good the writing is. Like other writers, he used his journal to polish his craft. He appreciated the value of a good sentence, and the two million words he penned were selected, chosen, not simply thrown down to fill space in a notebook.

You can read what others have to say about this book at Amazon.com or go for the overview of his life at Wikipedia. Either way you'll be rewarded. Or you can download it to your Kindle or Nook and take it with you on your next trip.

As you embrace the day, take time to stop and smell the roses.

You Can’t Always Know Who the Good Guys Are

After a tour of duty in Afghanistan, former rock star wannabe Vin Sarno returns to his Savannah homestead to figure out where he wants to spend the next chapter of his life. Shortly after returning home he decides to kill time by helping with his father’s “Ghost Tour” business. Doing midnight walking tours through Old Savannah brings back memories of Kabul, including a bad experience with some real spooks he encountered during a short prison stint in that shattered land.

You Can't Always Know Who the Good Guys Are is journalist Gerald Flanagan’s first novel and once it gets going it’s a riveting nail-biter. The pace at first feels like the angst of an existential stain squeezed from an over-sized abscess. But once Flanagan paints the setting, the story is a runaway train and though you’ve been down this track before the only thing you know for sure is that your hero will never be the same.

In the midst of everything is an unrequited love with ambiguous possibilities. Aliyah is the daughter of a Taliban chieftain who finds it impossible to believe Sarno can bring her the deliverance she so longs for from this insane life she’s endured. There are few places on earth where it is more difficult to be a woman.

Flanagan, who served as an embedded journalist in the Iraq war also lived in Karachi, Pakistan and Kabul where he reported on the hunt for Osama bin Laden for two British magazines and the Washington Post. With ease he paints the scenery which serves as backdrop for the story.

The Savannah portions of the book have just enough levity to release some of the tension readers will experience. The graveyard and ghost stories that have become entertainments today contain kernels of horror that find echoes amongst the Taliban. The manner in which the author takes the impossible and convinces readers that it is probable is quite astonishing.

Perhaps at the root of the story is Sarno's pain at knowing that his future with Aliyah can never work out, and that the entire mission of his life has been an epic struggle in futility. Nevertheless he knows no other path.

What I like most about the book is when Flanagan causes the story to intersect with real events, including when Pat Tillman was killed by "friendly fire" and the first attempt on Osama bin Laden near the caves below the Khyber Pass. The net result is to create the impression that this fictional adventure/drama may actually be a true account of events that journalists are restricted from writing about.

Ultimately, if you can't find the book at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble, the reason might be that this review is itself a fictional review of a fictional book. If you like fiction, especially the kind where you have trouble discerning the line between real and improbable, you may enjoy my own books of short stories, especially Unremembered Histories and Newmanesque.

In the meantime, have a great weekend. There is always more to look forward to. And tonight, if you're in Duluth looking for something to do, visit Beaners Central to hear singer/songwriter Caitlin Robertson perform at Seven. Heartwarming music, and good java for a cold January night.

Unless otherwise noted, all paintings and illustrative material at this site has been created by Ennyman.

11/22/63, The Rest of the Story

No, I'm really not going to spoil the ending of Stephen King's latest bestseller, 11/22/63. But I will complete some thoughts about the book that didn't make it into Monday's review.

First, thought... If you dislike the word "obdurate" then do not read this book. Being a one thousand page book, you will have read this word between fifty and two hundred times by the time it's over. (Can someone get me a count on this?) Your brain will be bruised if you try to resist it. This word is out to get you.

As you already know, the novel is about a teacher and writer who goes back in time to change the past. But, as Stephen King reminds us over and over, "The past is obdurate and protects itself against change." In other words, King has personified "the past" so that it actually feels like it has a mind, volition and power to interfere with you if you mess with it. If you accept the premise of a character who goes back in time, you will have to give King credit for making the obdurate past one of the characters in his story.

Preventing the JFK assassination is our hero's quest. Jake Epping, who assumes the identity of George Amberson of 1958, actually has a two-step mission. Before interfering with Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination (his second objective), he must determine whether Oswald acted alone, or was actually indeed "the patsy" in a bigger plot.

We all know that King made his name by creating frightening nightmare tales and scenarios. Therefore, it would be out of character for King to make a straight story about a guy who tries to stop Lee Harvey Oswald. By necessity a King story almost requires a sinister element like the living past who is determined to thwart the hero's objectives.

JFK plays a relatively minor role in 11/22/63. That is, Kennedy's actions which get covered in the news serve as mile markers along the way toward his date with destiny. Instead, Lee Harvey Oswald's life and times are fleshed out to a degree that most people have forgotten. That he was a former marine, that he defected to the Soviet Union for a couple years, that he was initially arrested for shooting a police officer, J.D. Tippet, about 40 minutes after JFK was shot, that he had a stormy relationship with his wife Marina who was fluent in Russian, that he spent time in New Orleans handing out "Fair Play for Cuba" leaflets during the months preceding the assassination... these details and much more are fleshed out as Jake/George eavesdrops on his target's life.

Most of us forget, too, that Oswald was investigated for making an attempt earlier that year on General Edwin Walker's life with the same rifle he used to shoot the president. General Walker was a segregationist, anti-communist and right-wing extremist member of the John Birch Society. (Remember them?) Before the Kennedy assassination the Dallas police didn't have any suspects in the attempt on Walker's life. King brings all these characters back into focus to help recreate the past which is not only obdurate but often obliterating, that is, leaving many of its details obscured with fog.

There is a technique that writers use to help strengthen the bond between readers and characters. That technique is pain. That is, when a character, especially your hero, goes through pain the reader develops an increased empathy. Assuming we care at all about the characters, we cringe and we want to comfort them when they get hurt. So it is that King uses this tool to keep us in the game later in the book, for both Jake/George and his heart throb Sadie experience suffering in this story. (We writers can be so mean!) And though the suffering may just be a natural outcome of the characters' choices earlier in time, we readers know it is the inhuman past trying again to thwart our heroes from accomplishing their aims.

Whereas this book deals with a significant moment in history, I'm not sure it can be called an "important book" with regard to the event it revolves around. It's fiction, it's fun and it's written "for profit." Nevertheless, for those who care, King has set the stage for those who desire to see a more vivid re-creation of the times we or our parents once lived in. It's more than suitable as an informative form of escapist entertainment.

Right up to the end you'll be guessing what happens next. That's just how it is...

Photo captions: Images from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1963. Bottom right, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. Click images to enlarge.

A Review of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs

"You must understand that ordinary efforts do not count; only superefforts count." ~Gurdjieff

His name was Steve Jobs. Just when you thought you knew everything important that there was to know about the passionate founder of Apple, you discover through this incredible biography how little you really knew.

Everyone knows about the garage startup, about Woz, about his tantrums and the challenge of working for him, and maybe even where the Apple name came from. And most of us who were there watching the 1984 Super Bowl remember "the commercial" for MacIntosh, as legendary as John Elway's "the drive" for sports fans.

But how little most of us really knew, till Walter Isaacson assembled his story and shared it with the world in a New York Times bestseller this fall, shortly after Mr. Jobs' passing from cancer.

I myself have been a Mac guy since 1987, when I bought my first, a 512Ke. E meant enhanced. When John Sculley was brought in from Pepsi to be head of Apple in the 1980s, I thought it was a good thing, because I read Odyssey, Sculley's book in which he tells he came in as a white knight and saved the company from certain doom.

When you read Isaacson's book you hear the other side of the story. It's possible Steve Jobs had to be pushed aside for a season, but had the genius of Jobs not been re-inserted many years later, the languishing Apple would almost certainly not have become what it is today.

There were many surprises in the book. Steve Jobs had been born to a family in Wisconsin who put him up for adoption. He was raised by a California couple named Jobs. His birth mother was 23 and when he turned 23 he fathered an out-of-wedlock child whom he himself did not raise, an ironic echo of his own life experience of abandonment. Her name was Lisa, which later became an acronym for one of his products preceding the Mac.

Jobs' drug use is detailed and his religious quest, which included going to India for seven months to study at the feet of a guru, becoming a Buddhist vegan who even when an exec at his fledgling company preferred to go barefoot than wear shoes. Anecdotally, Isaacson notes that Jobs smelled because he did not believe in deodorant or the other American amenities of hygiene. His method of de-stressing at work would be to sometimes stick his feet in the toilet. His employees found this a bit icky.

Steve Jobs was a huge Dylan fan and Beatles fan. In fact, he was so much of a Dylan fan he pursued and maintained a two year romantic relationship with Joan Baez who had herself been romantically entwined with Bob. Jobs gave it up when he came to realize he didn't really love her but loved the idea of being involved with his idol's woman.

When the iPod came out, a brilliant Steve Jobs concept that revolutionized music, Jobs was asked the question that Apple's TV commercials were asking: "What's on your iPod." the interviews then said, if you had to choose between the Beatles and the Stones, who would you keep? Jobs replied that that was easy, The Beatles. "But if you asked me to decide between the Beatles and Bob Dylan, that would be a much harder question."

Isaacson's book is endlessly enlightening as he details Jobs' experiences in bring Pixar to the world and thereby forever changing the way animated films are produced. We see his ongoing rivalry with Bill Gates and how the Apple philosophy was 180 degrees opposite of the Microsoft way. We read of his friendship with Larry Ellison, and how the Oracle founder helped him get re-connected to his life again. We learn about Jobs' friendship with Bill Clinton and the advice that he gave President Obama. And we learn about his tears.

When Woz's father confronted young Steve about splitting the fledgling Apple 50-50 between them, he didn't defend himself. Jobs wept. In story after story we read of crying jags, even in board rooms. It's an unusual portrait of the man who was clearly visionary and profoundly influential. At least one reviewer wrote that this book is the story of a "man who put a dent in the universe."

In an interview on Amazon.com author Walter Isaacson describes Steve Jobs this way. "He was a genius at connecting art to technology, of making leaps based on intuition and imagination. He knew how to make emotional connections with those around him and with his customers." It's a good interview and well worth reading.

This eye-opening page-turner is as exciting as any novel.

Steve Jobs and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle including my first novel, The Red Scorpion.

A Midpoint Book Review: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

The premise… Maine schoolteacher Jake Epping has a chance to go back in time to track down Lee Harvey Oswald and interfere with the JFK assassination. He takes the plunge.

The first section of 11/22/63 is setup. A friend introduces Jake Epping to the wormhole in time, and explains its machinations. No matter how long you stay it is always only two minutes later when you get back to the present, and it always brings you back to 1958. Once back in the past, Epping needs and identity and assumes that of George Amberson of Wisconsin. If the reader takes the bait and accepts the premise, King has a lazy cantering style that clip clops along in a breezy, unhurried pace as he re-creates America in 1958 and following. If you’re a reader like me who wants to cut to the chase and bypass mountains of detail, you may get impatient. On the other hand you may give in and go for the ride. Remember, we’re starting in 1958 and the destination is five years down the road. As expected, King throws in more twists and turns than a sidewinder.

This book blends two themes which are endlessly fascinating for most Americans: the JFK assassination and time travel. H.G. Wells started it, Robert Zemeckis popularized it again in the 1980’s with his Back to the Future trilogy, and many other films such as Peggy Sue Got Married toy with it. What happens when we enter the past and tamper with it? It’s a variation on the butterfly effect. Choices have ramifications. Will history have alternate outcomes if we go back in time and mess with it?

(I toyed with a variation on this theme in one of my own stories, Unremembered History of the World, which you can read in my short story collection Unremembered Histories.)

Currently I am half way through the book, 500 pages to go. Throughout we get memory jogs of what life was like a half century ago, sewn seamlessly into the story. Here’s one of a thousand examples. “I never saw a single fast food franchise, unless you count Howard Johnson’s with its 28 Flavors…” How long has it been since I thought about Howard Johnson’s? And can you imagine a road trip without running into golden arches?

I like the first person approach in the story. It enables the reader to follow the narrator’s thinking as it evolves, as it wrestles with the conundrums of his experience. His quest is a noble one and you’re rooting for him as well. You learn with him as he goes along.

At this point (halfway through the book) his love relationship with Sadie has just fallen apart, a relationship that took hundreds of pages to get to. The sojourn down Lover’s Lane with Sadie helps King throw in details about attitudes towards sex during that time, as well as details about preventing pregnancy before the pill. The wedge that finally divides them is Epping/Amberson’s failure to remain completely in the 50’s, inadvertently singing Honky Tonk Woman while driving in his car with her, a realistic oops that would probably happen to any of us, singing a favorite song that had not yet been written. At this she points out another half dozen or more occurrences where he used expressions that just weren’t from that place in time, like kick out the jams, and dude.

In this sense, King has done a masterful job of being realistic even in this most unrealistic fictional premise. John Gardner once wrote, “Detail is the lifeblood of fiction,” and you can see here that King has done his homework, not only with the facts of the fifties, but the behavior of his characters.

I don’t have to know how it ends to give it a strong endorsement. It may become the longest book I’ve ever read. It’s certainly hard to put down… and is waiting for me now.

Photos... Top right: The target of Jake Epping/George Amberson's quest... to stop this man.
Middle: Article from Cleveland Plain Dealer, the day before it happened.
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Butterfly Effect

Butterfly Effect, A Novel by Rick Anderson Schuster
(Not to be confused with The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews)

Take A River Runs Through It, explode it into a dizzying mix of interlocking puzzle pieces indescribably reshaped into vague flashes of certain and uncertain intangibilities, and you have Rick Schuster’s covertly personal novel about coming-of-age on the Jersey shore, Butterfly Effect. Ken Rossi is a middle-aged swim instructor who once aspired to Olympic stardom but is now a high school gym teacher, ever wondering if he had what it takes but failed to apply himself.

Scouts had acknowledged his natural ability, sowing his imagination with seeds of a golden future. Had he not achieved a citation in Sport Illustrated? Now he wondered where the sidetracks began. Why had he failed to make the necessary sacrifices? When did he begin to realize the dream would never come true? When did his parents first recognize he’d been slacking? What were the emotions ripping their hearts that he never recognized?

The catalyst for Rossi’s self-reflective explorations is a fourteen-year-old Lizzie Norman who catches his eyes during a routine swim meet against Rahway. The teen swimmer has the moves and determination of a champion, the same kind of drive that once drove Rossi as a teen. What he doesn’t anticipate as their relationship unfolds is the manner in which she responds to his fatherly attentions.

It’s the little things that bind the two. Her broken family has filled the pool of her heart with saltwater tears, but his kindnesses instead of helping only serve to exacerbate her pain, becoming the very distraction he hoped she would not have to deal with.

Butterfly Effect explores a variety of sub-plots, including the roles of sports and scholastics in character formation, social posturing, the challenges of adolescence and the difficulty of identifying boundaries regarding appropriate and inappropriate behaviors in a post-modern age.

At times the narrative is a bit jumpy as the reader flashes back and forth between Rossi’s teen experiences and Lizzie Norman’s present struggles. It seems the author was striving to reinforce the parallels of their lives, from different locker room viewpoints.

SPOILER ALERT

In the end, Rossi and Norman recognize too late the trap they’ve made for themselves. Both lack the willpower and energy to be proactive in their liberation. When the scandal hits the papers, Rossi realizes that the whole of it began with a single harsh look by his father when he finished second in his first swim meet, a look that at the time he took wrong and only now begins to see in its true light.

Being from New Jersey I could relate to this story a Jersey teen on the edge of the Big Apple and the Big Pond, and the big world out there so near and yet so far away. The highest levels of competition involve pushing through pain thresholds that most of us shy away from. Butterfly Effect explores the internal pain thresholds we grapple with as well. Sometimes it’s just all too much.

If you enjoyed this fictional review of a fictional book, you might also enjoy The Breaking Point and Other Stories, available as an eBook for your Nook or Kindle.

Crazy For God, A Critical Review

“Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality. Hence the modicum of truth in the old saying that no man is a hero to his valet.” ~Walter Lippman

This past summer I wrote a blog entry about the autobiography of Mark Twain in which I praised certain features of his approach to autobiography. Chiefly, I was impressed by his sensitivity to the feelings of others around him whom he might injure through excessive candor. Because he was not interested in couching his words and suggesting things between the lines, and he really wanted just to be totally open, he chose to request that the most honest version of his life be withheld from being printed till 100 years after his death. This liberated him from any concerns about hurting people he knew because they would be "dead, and unaware, and indifferent."

How liberating! And how contrary to today’s method of tell-all journalism and tell-all autobiography in which it matters not how many people we lacerate, but only that we are authentic and earnest.

So here it is only a few months past and I’ve recently finished Frank Schaeffer’s Crazy For God, an autobiographical tale that is much more because Schaeffer is the son of world-renowned evangelical author and defender of Biblical veracity Francis Schaeffer. The Schaeffer’s L’Abri Retreat Center had a profound impact on countless lives with its intelligent approach to Biblical scholarship while remaining open to the meanings and impact of modernism. But this idyllic community was far from a Paradise in the Alps, and the younger Schaeffer dispels any myths a reader might have by giving his own inside take.

Frank Schaeffer, who grew up as Franky Schaeffer V, saw the inside story on his famous family and it was no doubt troubling, since like so many a famous family there are feet of clay. The world’s brokenness leaves no family untouched, hence the Lippman quote placed atop this blog entry.

Frank Schaeffer claims no ill will in this airing of dirty laundry which includes his mother’s ambition and control and the many difficult, noisy conflicts between his parents which even included a measure of domestic violence. But to be honest, I just don’t get it. Is this a book about his coming of age without losing his faith in spite of immersion in the insanity of Fundamentalism. Or is it an attempt to scratch the veneer off the Schaeffer reputation and distance himself from his earlier accomplishments with Franky Schaeffer V Productions which included directing How Should We Then Live? and Whatever Happened to the Human Race?

I think back on how I met his mother once. In the 1980’s when Francis Schaeffer was being treated for cancer at Rochester’s Mayo Clinic there was an ecumenical anti-abortion rally in a baseball field across from an abortion clinic in St. Paul, MN. Dr. Schaeffer was one of many in a panoply of speakers that included rabbis, Catholic, Episcopal and Protestant pastors.

For me personally, one of the most striking memories of that day was what happened in the aftermath. The following day's Pioneer Press did not even carry a story about the rally. 5,000 had gathered and not a drop of ink spilled. Yet, the front page of the paper carried an article about 8 people protesting a nuclear warhead-related technology company in Boston.

The second significant memory for me that day was my getting a chance to speak with Edith Schaeffer, Franky's mom, the husband of Francis Schaeffer. She was milling around on the sidelines while her husband was preparing to address the crowd. When I found her she seemed disarmingly warm and I was made to feel quite comfortable and unimposing. She shared with me briefly about her husband's battle with cancer and the prospects. I asked about her son because I'd read Franky's A Time For Anger and Addicted To Mediocrity. Her eyes glowed, her face beaming as she said, "We're really proud of Franky."

She was a mom. And a writer. Her book Hidden Art I also owned and read, so I liked her. I appreciated that she made me feel like I was welcome to share those minutes with her, that I was not intruding. I snapped her picture and made my way over to where her husband was preparing to address the gathered crowd.

In light of these moments, Frank Schaeffer's book feels like such a betrayal. His mother was still alive, in her 90's, when this book appeared in print. If she is too insensible to be hurt by it I don't know but it had to have been painful to one of his sisters. But the critics loved it. They now had their dirty linen.

De-Converting.com wrote: “A must read for the de-converting…It is brutally honest, eye-opening, at times laugh out loud funny, and heart breaking.”

And from the American Authors Association: “A story that needed to be told…A very personal and brutally honest memoir, that opens up and exposes the underbelly of the evangelistic movement…Gives the reader a rare and different look at some of various leaders of the fundamentalist moment...The book may open some eyes and minds about the dangers of politics and religion…A must read book for serious seekers looking for their own authentic path to enlightenment, or at least some inner peace.”

Frankly, is nothing sacred any more? I agree whole-heartedly with the dangers of politics and religion. I just feel uncomfortable seeing people hurt loved ones for personal gain. I mean, Frank is making money off this expose, right? Whereas there many be some important insights here, my opinion is that a lot of this book should simply have been left in the hands of his therapist.

So be it.

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

This Book Is Overdue

The title itself is superb. Right off you think, how clever. Clearly it's a book that has something to do with libraries, but also implies it's about time someone wrote a book like this.

Daffy Du's review at Amazon.com got it right: Marilyn Johnson's This Book Is Overdue "isn't going to be for everyone... but Marilyn Johnson has done a great job of putting human faces on a profession that is often either beloved or ridiculed."

The book started well. At the outset Johnson's aim seemed to be a defense of librarians in an age of budget cuts. Who needs librarians when we have Google and Wikipedia? She makes a strong case for their value and contribution to society. And in every way the early part of the book is both entertaining and important. Even though in my case she's preaching to the choir, I believe she makes a solid defense for the profession. She is convincing when she lays out the arguments as to why we need our libraries and our librarians.

Then comes the middle section. It wasn't enough for her to just comment that there are librarians doing sophisticated things in Second Life, the online fantasy realm where even Hillary's avatar did some campaigning in 2008. Johnson goes into endless detail about the librarians active there, including sexual preferences. She is especially proud of the library work librarians are doing in this shadow world. Evidently whole catalogs have been reconstructed and yes, it probably is amazing, but who cares? The Second Life stories went on and on. Oh please.

The rest of the book got tedious, but I ploughed through. This review by Cathe Olson, again at Amazon.com, captures some of my impressions at this point.

Being a library advocate/activist as well as an elementary school library media tech, I had such high hopes for this book. I didn't even wait for my public library to get it in, I ordered it so I could get it right away. Unfortunately, I have to say this book did not measure up to my expectations. I loved what it was trying to do . . . show how important and relevant librarians have been and continue to be, but I found this book kind of . . . boring. It was mostly anecdotes of the author's experiences while researching this book. While some were interesting and I did learn some interesting things about librarians, I wanted more of a point and a focus to this book . . . not just a librarian rave but more about the importance of libraries in general--with points I could use in my letter writing campaigns to politicians and school boards on why libraries need to be funded and staffed adequately. So, while I'm glad someone had the idea to create a book like this, I just wish it would have been stronger.

Right at the beginning Johnson got my attention by comparing writers to serial killers. Neither one will stop doing what their doing till somebody else stops them. I never though about my writing in that manner before, but as they say, "If the shoe fits..."

Meantime, our libraries do serve an important role in our society. I strongly believe this. So does Marilyn Johnson. And I hope you do, too.

An Object of Beauty

"Artists flooded Manhattan, then all the boroughs of New York City, and it became inexplicable why one artist would be swept up by a dealer while others of apparently equal talent would be ignored." ~Daniel Franks

The long weekend was a nice opportunity to finish a good book, and the book I'd been working on since Christmas was Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty. It was on my short list of gifts I would like from Santa, and sure enough it was there for me on Christmas day.

Steve Martin's antics as a comedian may have brought him fame, but his skills in so many other directions are undeniable from actor to musician to author. Yes, he's a very good writer and original. Ten to one at some point in a 290 page novel most writers would go lazy and resort to cliches. The only cliche in this book is something one of the characters says, which happens in life. People say things that are cliche.

Otherwise its a fresh, insider look at a whacked out art scene where valuations have lost all proportion. It's an ongoing feature of our post-modern world. A sentence that summed this up, from page 61: "and even though I was somewhat acclimated to the art world while writing my fledgling reviews for ARTnews or Artforum, I was still surprised that no belligerent letters appeared in the paper condemning huge sums spent on art that could be better spent on children's hospitals." And that pretty much sums up my own impressions when I read my ArtDaily Newsletter and see the abnormous prices these high-prices collectibles garner.

An Object of Beauty is the story of Lacey Yeager, a young, ambitious (an compellingly attractive) woman in the art scene, as told by friend and art scene journalist Daniel Franks. The whole of it is written as if documentary, remaining richly believable to the very last word. Like all good novels it has romance and suspense, and makes its points by showing things as they are, not moralizing. There's a small parade of interesting minor characters here as well. If you've ever wondered what makes all these art collectors tick, you can get a feel for it here as you get to know the players, the artists and the global nature of "the scene."

Not all of the reviewers were as captivated by Martin's novel as I was, but I have to say that there aren't many books that make me want to contact the author, ask more questions, and even bare my soul. (I have written -- and received replies from -- Garrison Keillor and Dave Barry when this same urge struck me.)

Here's a paragraph from one reviewer at Amazon.com that I liked:

In telling a tale of misplaced values and money run amok, in a world where relationships are polluted by greed and dishonesty, what comes through is Martin's essential modesty. He avoids making definitive statements. While he may wax philosophical, especially on matters of aesthetics (his own seduction by the power of great art is evident), he makes no grand pronouncements. Instead, there is simply a keen-eyed view of human failings and, sadder still, a sober acceptance of the rarity of love. Martin is a quiet moralist.

As an artist myself I especially liked the the occasional mulling over how an object of beauty to an object of value. The writing is natural, and the story worthy of having been written. But like art itself, knowing that we all have different tastes, I can't say everyone needs to read this book. If, on the other hand, you have had any proximity to the big world art scene, or ambitions in that direction, to you I most certainly commend this book.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Have a great day.

Limitations

Earlier this week I finished the Scott Turow novel Limitations. An author of legal thrillers, Turow probably first came onto our radar as a storyteller of significance by means of the Harrison Ford thriller, Presumed Innocent.

I wouldn't call it a great book, but the story does make an interesting read in that Turow explores some of the limitations and constraints of the law and shares why some of these things exist. Law is, after all, simply a network of limitations designed to help civilized communities in the administration of justice.

No one likes limits. That is why legislators have to spell them out because some people like to win at any cost. That is, there are police who would do anything to get a confession, so statutes are created to restrict them and protect the common person who may be getting railroaded. Hence, they are Miranda laws (a limitation) and laws regarding how long we can be held without a reason.

In the courtroom there are restrictions, too, one of them being the statute of limitations that is the centerpiece of Turow's story. George Mason is a judge on the Court of Appeals. The three-man tribunal must determine whether or not to overturn a lower court ruling involving heinous acts by four high school boys with an unconscious fifteen-year-old black girl. The issue gets complicated because one of the boys made a videotape of their actions and four years later was showing it at his frat house for entertainment. Someone turned him in, a trial ensued and the boys were given a six year sentence. They are currently free on bond while the higher court determines whether they got a fair trial since the frat house incident was more than three years after the crime, and the girl, Mindy DeBoyer, never spoke up about it at the time.

As it turns out Mason is the swing vote on the matter because one judge believes the defense has a case. Mason, a black judge who has done well for himself in life, is also aware of a dark incident from his own college days many decades ago, with unsettling parallels that make it difficult for him to be fully impartial. Finally, the screws are tightened when he starts getting warnings and even death threats via email.

The book is not so much of a thriller as much as an inside perspective on the way law works. Its novella length makes it a fast read so that it's not overly tedious. And it shows us why sometimes the bad guys go free... because lawyers and even judges have to operate within the limitations established by the law.

The Founding Fathers who wrote the Bill of Rights sought to spell out some of the limits of our government to restrict the abuse of power they experienced under the King of England. In short, limitations matter, for which reason the courts exist to interpret the meaning of the laws by which free peoples co-exist.

Food for thought. Till the morrow.

FDR Related Stuff

I read a short biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt last week by Roy Jenkins and Arthur Schlesinger. It is not a book that will appear on my recommended readings because it skimmed too superficially across the surface of his life story. Nevertheless, it was a good setup for reading the much longer, in depth analysis of FDR and the Great Depression years called The Forgotten Man, by Amity Shlaes.

In case you're wondering, FDR's relationship to Uncle Teddy was as a fifth cousin. Eleanor, Teddy's niece, was likewise FDR's fifth cousin. The Roosevelt's were deeply rooted in early America (1600's) and were in that wealthy strata which most people only dream about. FDR's strings to power are many, including being coat tail relations to John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Millard Filmore (seventh cousin once removed), Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland and William Taft. I guess you might say it's "all in the family."

I did learn some other details about FDR of which I was unaware or had forgotten. In particular, I didn't realize that he got polio as a young adult, after a swim. I guess we've grown up in a half-century of polio-free living, so we know little about this terrible disease. I always assumed, and I do not know where I got this notion from, that you caught the disease as an infant or something like that. For FDR there's no doubt it was a setback, but it's a mark of his great ambition and fortitude that he didn't cave in and call it quits at that point, or lower his aims.

It would be easy to imagine him drawing on this experience in later life, especially with unexpected setbacks like the sudden and devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, or the discovery that Hitler was working on The Bomb.

The most interesting aspect of the book was how swiftly it moved along the mile markers of his life. While reading, I thought at first that this rapid summary was all preface to the real in depth story that would follow. But once past an event, the author never looked back. About halfway through I realized that this was the style of the book, and that I was no longer reading the preface. (You know how they sometimes summarize the story as an intro and then rehash it all in greater detail afterwards.)

The book avoided anything that might offend either fan or foe of the four term president. It mentions, for example, his stacking of the Supreme Court as a fact much like the length of his hair or the state he was from.

In one section they mentioned how he placed boards in front of the presidential desk in the Oval Office to hide his leg braces, referencing his efforts to keep up appearances. This brought to mind a 1932 booklet I once read by some Harvard scholar that said that in America you can not hope to be elected unless you said you believed in God and were a Christian. In other words, ambitious politicians whose personal philosophy was Machiavellian would be required to set that on a shelf when wearing their public persona. Eventually, this awareness of the facade by the general public helped foster a general cynicism in the Boomer generation, which is even more deep-seated today.

This past summer, I discovered that as a boy FDR had been here in Superior, Wisconsin. (I live in Duluth, but work in Superior, across the bridge... the bridge to somewhere, as opposed to the sister bridge to nowhere, off to its left.) The story is embossed on a sign erected in front of the S.S. Meteor, last of the great whaleback ships that carried grain and goods to and from the Twin Ports. There were 43 of these whalebacks launched between 1888 and 1898, and young FDR came to Superior to watch one of them launched. According to the sign, "In his enthusiasm to get a good view, he was swept into the slip by waves. A member of the Superior Fire Department rescued him before he reached deep water." The six year old boy who later made history could have been history.

On my wall here is a little saying by Bruce Barton which I have quoted before, but it's appropriate enough to repeat: "Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things... I am tempted to think there are no little things."

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE

Life Is A Gift

About two weeks back I wrote a review here about Jean-Dominique Bauby's The Diving Bell & the Butterfly. Or rather, a review of the film about Jean-Dominique Bauby's story. It was the second time I had seen the film this past several months and as you can see the film made an impact on me. Sometimes art does that. Despite our differences of time and place, differing moments in history or geography and culture, a work of art or a story cuts through to one's heart. Such was this film. So much so that I had to read the book as well because occasionally, during the movie, there are excerpts from the book.

I didn't catch it the first time, didn't realize it was Bauby who was speaking, had written these things. I mean, it was clearly stated but I didn't add it up in my head. This second time, I thirsted for more of this man's prose.

It is beautiful writing, in the true belles-lettres sense of the word, and must be especially so in the original French. The chapters are short, the topics simple. The Wheelchair, Prayer, Bathtime, The Alphabet, The Empress... But each carries a far greater weight because they have been produced one letter at a time by the blinking of an eye. Not in "a blink of an eye" but rather, because every other muscle in his body is frozen except his eyelid, by blinking the left eye he communicates with. Of course this blinking form of communication is simply the final step in the inward development of each pearl, from grains of sand to invaluable jewels, all strung together in this wonderful collection of observations, memories, insights.

This limitation -- communication by eye -- makes telling a joke a bit tedious, yet in the writing you can still see his sense of humor. You see, too, the power of the spirit to rise up in the face of brutal circumstances. His mind is fully awake, and he locked within.

A line from Dylan's Hurricane comes to mind: "put in a prison cell, but one time could have been the champion of the world." Hurricane Carter, who was unjustly imprisoned, was able to appeal his sentence and eventually regained his freedom. For Bauby, such a hope was an impossibility. And yet, through the power of imagination and memory, he did have a certain kind of freedom. Writes Bauby:

"My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas' court.

"You can visit the woman you love, slide down beside her and stroke her still sleeping face. You can build castles in Spain, steal the Golden Fleece, discover Atlantis, realize your childhood dreams and adult ambitions."

With these words I leave this thought: Today, cherish what you have. And don't let anyone or anything ever steal your spirit. Life is a precious gift.

And for sure, this book comes highly recommended. You can find it both new and used on Amazon.com... or order it from your favorite local bookstore.

Restless Pilgrim

“I’m not a spokesman for anybody’s generation. Far from it. I want to emphatically deny being the spokesman for our generation. Fame is just having your name known by a lot of strangers. People who are kind or good are the ones who ought to be famous.” ~ Bob Dylan, 1978

The decades-spanning career of Bob Dylan intersects nearly every major movement of our times.

For a short period beginning in 1979, he recorded three albums in what some call his “Gospel period.” Slow Train Coming, the first, was superbly produced and musically a first rate album. But the message was a departure in many peoples’ minds from what they expected Dylan to be, especially after the Rolling Thunder Review Tour which rumbled across the previous period.

I was in Bible school when the album came out. My connections to Dylan’s music were woven through the braided themes of my own life. And as a harmonica player I enjoyed the sweet riffs with which he’d accented much of his music. I had more than one friend at that time refer to him as “Brother Bob” because he was now a “brother in Christ.”

His second album, Saved, left nothing to the imagination with regard to where Dylan stood on matters of faith. “I’m pressing on, to the higher calling of my Lord,” with its black gospel feel and passionate delivery, is a perfectly clear snapshot of the Dylan's born again heart.

His third album of this period began to re-capture some of the venom-tinged power of songs like "Idiot Wind" and "Positively Fourth Street" of previous times, only the target this time -- in a song like "Dead Man" – was religion. The weaker production values in this album caused critics to pan it but there were some significant messages here and some songs with great poetry.

Shot of Love was followed by his Infidels album, which moved further away from explicit declarations of a Biblical Christianity and seemed to suggest that he was now identifying with his Jewish roots.

And so, many wondered where he was at with God and faith and religion. Careful readers of his interviews could see that he never denied the Bible as truth. But questions remained. The book Restless Pilgrim (Relevant Books, 2004) by Scott Marshall strives to put it all to rest. The genius troubadour, despite his various guises, has underneath always been a seeker, and when he found the truth in Christ, according to Marshall, he never ceased to embrace the revealed mercy he found at the Cross.

At the same time, Dylan is an artist. He used all his creative powers to produce the albums of that most intensely spiritual period. But rather than repeating the same things over and over, Dylan turned his eye back to the broader culture to offer his informed analysis, interpretations, unique ways of illuminating realities. Songs like “Everything Is Broken” and “Ring Them Bells” from his acclaimed Oh Mercy album are truthful and true, powerful and honest without sounding like some of the preaching from his Saved album. "Disease of Conceit" and “What Good Am I?” from side 2 are again Dylanesque versions of Old and New Testament truths, in a modern dialect.

Marshall’s book attempts to highlight the threads from Dylan’s various songs and interviews that show his faith remained vibrant, and is inseparable from the message of his life.

Though this is not the foremost Dylan book on my shelf, it was an insightful and important addition to my collection, adding new anecdotal material and understandings which followers of the artist should appreciate.

"Gotta Serve Somebody," the song Dylan opened his 1998 Duluth performance with, has been a favorite of his as an opener these past 28 years. I think that says something right there. Here are the lyrics from another of my favorite songs on that first album Slow Train Coming…

Precious Angel

Precious angel, under the sun

How was I to know you'd be the one

To show me I was blinded, to show me I was gone,

How weak was the foundation I was standing upon.

Now there's spiritual warfare, flesh and blood breaking down,

You either got faith or you got unbelief, and there ain't no neutral ground.

The enemy is subtle, how be it we’re deceived

When the truth’s in our hearts and we still don't believe?

Shine your light, shine your light on me

Shine your light, shine your light on me

Shine your light, shine your light on me

You know I just can't make it by myself

I'm a little too blind to see.

My so called friends have fallen under a spell

They look me squarely in the eye and they say, "Well, all is well'.

Can they imagine the darkness that will fall from on high

When men will beg God to kill them and they won't be able to die?

Sister, let me tell you about a vision that I saw,

You were drawing water for your husband, you were suffering under the law

You were telling him about Buddha, you were telling him ‘bout Mohammed in one breath,

You never mentioned one time the Man who came
and died a criminal's death.

Shine your light, shine your light on me

Shine your light, shine your light on me

Shine your light, shine your light on me

You know I just can't make it by myself

I'm a little too blind to see.

Precious angel, you believe me when I say

What God has given to us no man can take away

We are covered in blood girl, you know our forefathers were slaves

Let us hope they found mercy in their bone-filled graves.

You're the queen of my flesh, girl, you're my woman, you're my delight

You're the lamp of my soul, girl, and you torch up the night

But there's violence in the eyes, girl, so let us not be enticed

On the way out of Egypt, through Ethiopia, to the judgment hall of Christ.

Shine your light, shine your light on me

Shine your light, shine your light on me

Shine your light, shine your light on me

You know I just can't make it by myself
I'm a little too blind to see.

It's the way he sings this song that moves me, and if you would like to hear it, you can take it in here. The song never fails to connect.

Photo on left taken in May 2007, image on a wall in Haight Ashbury, SF

All other images created by ed newman, unless otherwise noted.

As always, click to enlarge.