The Storm is Come

She heard the footfall of war on the horizon.
The ancient call to battle long a hidden heartbeat of human
intolerance rising to crescendo now
become a discordant roar shaking the very earth that holds us.
Soon, too soon, the time was upon her
She could only hope their preparations were enough
to save them from total destruction by the Storm.
How often had humankind been sent back to the cave?
Through how many millennia had they picked themselves up and begun again.
She and her ken saw the signs but few heeded the warnings
now through the inertia that drives such events, the time was upon them
but she had no intention of going back to the cave.  This time
thanks to tireless, relentless planning, they might come out the other side
with enough left to prevent them losing themselves in a generation or two.
Only the sturdy, the able, the well-prepared would survive, and few enough of them,
It would have to be enough - it would have to be,
and we,
we the Wyse will be there.

Advice that is Very uh damn uh, good.

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to
write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just
as it should be.
- Mark Twain

Very damn good advice. I'm tempted to take that advice. It is easier when editing and redrafting to delete expletives and obscenities than it is to remove extraneous adjectives.

Sometimes, if I stop and read certain passages aloud, I can hear by the cadence of the words where the flow slows.

It's a ponderous procedure, and I think using damn and its literary ken would make my rewrites go very uh damn much easier.

It’s a dark and stormy night and I’m between the covers of a good book.

It’s a dark and stormy night, and I’ve no time to write.  I’m reading. 

It’s just a a bit of mind candy, and so perfect as the storm tries to batter its way through the plastic that covers my screened in balcony in winter. 

I’ve a glass of wine at hand and Jazmine is purring on the back hump on this cushy loveseat that makes my balcony a sort of den.

The chanteuse of the moment, Adell’s dulcet tones waft out from the living room. 

Between the covers, Lacey’s ex-lover Cole, falsely accused of murder has just tossed her over his shoulder as he escapes custody and flees Sagebursh. 

Current lover, Vic is left in the dust as she revisits feelings long buried. 

I’ve taken a minute to dash this off, because I must keep my resolution to post a blog a day come hell, highwater or indifference.  I will keep this resolution if not the one to lose 40 pounds.  I will, I will.

Do not misunderstand, Byerrum’s Crimes of Fashion mystery series is not a romance.  She’s in the same category as Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series or Laura Childs’s Scrapbooking Mysteries – their cozies. 

All books have their place and I read almost anything.  I read around – from science fiction to science fact and theory, biography, history, mystery, fantasy and horror.  I’ll post a reading list some day soon.

But for tonight it’s Death on Heels by Ellen Byerrum that has my attention.  I’ll read it in a single sitting like a sumptuous bite of good dark chocolate.  The kind that goes so well with red wine. 

So, I wish y’all as pleasant a‘dark and stormy night’ as I’m having.  Gotta run now, Lacey’s on the tracks. 

Extravagance as Virtue

Previous published in 2008.
Some are so quick to judge badly the extravagance of an event or thing. Why?  My opinion: They envy the thing, and the people who can afford it, so they assume that holier than though posture I so hate. Give it to the poor they say. Why? Why give them a fish for a day when you can teach them to fish and feed themselves. (It’s an old adage, but true.)

It happened again on CBS Sunday Morning with Tracy Smith’s condemnation of Chanel’s celebration of Purse 2.55 with a museum currently in NYC.  I like to consider the true benefit to people in all walks of life of such a grand gesture. How many people made honest wages in this ‘extravagant’ spending? Consider how many jobs were created.

• The Architects and her staff
• Providers of the raw materials for fabrication of the structure
• Engineers who designed and orchestrated the manufacture
• Machinists who designed and ran the machines
• Workers who assembled the structure
• Artists who created the artwork for display within the structure
• Suppliers of art supplies for the artists
• Truck drivers that transported the structure and art
• Cabbies transporting visitors to the exhibit
• Maids and janitors that clean the premises night after night
• The receptions, caterers, foods, farmers, servers, etc., etc., etc. and
• And on, and on…

Consider further that every person who earns, spends, so the ripples go beyond the pool of jobs directly involved in Chanel’s Museum.

If Chanel has the money to spend extravagantly, by all means, spend it and bless you for not hording it. Give people the opportunity to earn their way and most will take it quickly and gratefully rather than put their hand out for a dole.

I often think the nay-sayers who denigrate extravagance are just jealous that they have neither the means nor the inclination for such generosity. Like the redistributionist position of presidential hopeful, BHO, they want to take from the haves of the world and give it to the have-nots, as if being wealthy is a crime and poor a virtue.

I am unemployed at the moment, but I don’t now nor will I ever want a redistribution of wealth. I want the right to create my own wealth.

© Perle Champion