Death?

D E A T H ' S     L A S T     B R E A T H

In the end each is alone.

Another one? Another lachrymose article? When is he going to pullout of it? It really is getting repetitive. It moves from death to dying, to the end of life with nothing in-between. I'll bet that ...

Okay. Okay, I'm sorry. I admit it again, I have been writing downer article after downer article. But don't worry, I'll pullout of it, someday …

The end is a funny thought. What does "The End" mean? Are there different types of ends? Can there be a new beginning after… All right. All right. That's it! I'm going to pullout of it now! I'm done (for a while anyways) contemplating things such as "To be or not to be, that is the question…"

Speaking of that famous line written by Shakespeare, did you know that William R. Bent, Jr., a Yale Professor, once used a computer to show that a trillion imaginary monkeys, all typing rapidly, would take more than a trillion times the age of the Universe to come up with that line from hamlet,

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

It seems to be that Mr. Bent might have put the computer to better use, even if it was to play video games… But then as Mack McGinnis hit the nail on the monkey’s head when he said,

"Progress isn't always for the best. Smoke signals never got an Indian out of bed at 3 a.m. to answer a wrong number."

Speaking of computers, we all think of storing bits of information when we think of computers. But then brain isn't too bad at computer-like tasks. Human memory is roughly estimated to be capable of retaining 100 billion bits of information, which means that a typical adult brain holds 500 times the information in a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

That's some computer! It would seem that we don't need computers if we just used the natural tools we have. But we do need science and progress because like Bill Vaugham said,

 "Thanks to science you can fly almost anywhere in half the time it will take for you to wait for your luggage after you get there."

How about contributions from people like Californian William McLellen who built the world's smallest motor? It weighs one half-millionth of a pound and is smaller than the head of a pin, measuring a sixty-fourth of an inch on all sides. It has 13 parts and generates one-millionth of a horsepower. It can be seen in operation only through a microscope. It was built using a toothpick, a microscope, and a watchmaker’s lathe.

What can this motor be used for? What would one-millionth of a horsepower drive? It could probably move a nose hair. It could probably drive a turntable made for fleas. It could possibly pass undetected through an airport metal detector, that way, in case the plane has engine failure in mid-flight you could replace it with Mr. McLellan's motor.

The only drawback to this wondrous device is that it probably takes 500 volts to power it. What type of power cord would it have? How many quarts of oil would it need? Would it take only lightweight oil?

What is the source of the most power available to man in the known Universe? It is static electricity from rubbing your shoe across a rug and touching someone's neck. A close second is a transistor battery when touched to the tip of your tongue. How about the jolt of a first kiss? All these rate high above a wall socket for delivered volts. Did you ever go swimming? Hopefully, not during an electrical storm. Nor near an electric eel, as they can deliver a shock with more than four times the voltage of a wall socket. That's a hot fish!

Did you know that the temperature at the center of the earth is nearly as hot as the sun (5,000 - 6,000 degrees Celsius)? Sunshine bears down upon the daylight side of the earth with a pressure of two pounds for every square mile, but the earth only receives 1/2 of one-billionth of the run's radiant energy. In a few days that's the heat and light equivalent to burning all the oil, coal, and wood on the planet. But we can get much hotter than then sun and the center of the earth. A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than the surface of the sun. If we could only use the power around us in nature there would never be an energy shortage, for the energy equivalent of just one ounce of anything is enough to keep a 100-watt light bulb burning for almost one million years.

I think I'm personally going through an energy shortage. It's a real possibility that I'm getting senile. Symptoms of aging can appear early. By the time we're twenty we may already display an age related drop in intellectual ability. The brain of an eight-month-old human fetus is actually estimated to have two to three times more nerve cells than an adult brain does. Just before birth, there is a massive death of unnecessary brain cells, a process that continues through early childhood and then levels off. So no wonder I've been complaining of headaches the last few years.

I take 200 vitamin pills a day, and people wonder why I look so unhealthy. But after my stomach is filled with these vitamins there is no more room for food. So unwillingly I am on a diet of 50 calories a day.

Truth is the bitterest of pills to swallow, and now that I have rambled on, from one subject to another I have lost all the readers before the finish once again.

In the end each one of us is alone.

'nother one,

èim  Uhr

P.S. Progress is relative. When a person becomes a millionaire he moves from his modern downtown apartment with all the latest contraptions to a nice older home in the country for a bit of the simple living, and calls it progress. Progress is what brought television to even the lowest income families. Research has shown that watching T.V. causes rats to become listless and apathetic. Thus they are less prone to biting the children.

Sometimes it just feels like death...

Have you ever had a near death experience?

Let me know.

A Day in The Life

A DAY I N THE L I F E

I am listening to the radio, trying to write. I remember how unsuccessful that has been for me in the past, so I turn it off…

God, the silence is killing me…

I lean back on my chair, carefully so as to prevent the tablet from falling off my knee. The distant sound of a barking dog and the infrequent passing of cars, echoes in my head. I can hear an indistinct ringing. Not sure if it's church bells or in my head, I block the sound out. The dog continues to bark…

The smell of oil penetrates my nostrils from the oil heater at my feet. Thank god it also penetrates my bones and gives me momentary warmth and protection from the cold.

If there is such great warmth in Hell, then is heaven frigid?

There are two table lamps in the room I occupy, for in this room no overhead light exists. I write in shadows, as the light from these lamps barely succeed in chasing away the darkness.

I like the light…

I thought I could hear the wind rustling through the rafters, but it's just another passing car. I wonder what it would be like to be in that car. Though I cannot see the street below me, I wish I was a passenger in that car I hear moving by, living in his or her world – a world that I will never know or have a chance to understand.

Would that dog please shut-up!

I look at the typewriter on my desk in front of me, smiling at its presence. I think of all the work involved in first writing everything in longhand, half printing and half writing, only to later two finger type it all over on a fresh piece of paper. What a waste! I don't mind the time involved, I just hate to see another fresh, clean piece of paper dirtied… What a waste. Maybe I should start using my computer. But the dust has settled nicely on it and I hate to disturb it.

The blackness that engulfs my soul comes out by way of words and spreads out to cover and taint a nice white piece of paper in the form of black. From white to a slowly growing blackness filling the page. Words defecating on the pristine white of the page, changing it forever

Maybe I should change my font color to red, or something more happy…

It's a shame that there aren't more outlets in this room so I could plug in all my lamps. It's a shame there aren't more outlets in my life so I could put to use a head-full of ideas. I can barely afford to allow two of the plugs for lamps, I need my typewriter and radio, for I am running out of sockets. My radio is off and I'm not using the typewriter, but to exchange plugs on a temporary basis, just for another couple of lights, would only be extra work.

I get tired even thinking about it.

I am glad that dog has stopped barking.

The heat from the burner feels good on my body, just as the light feels good to my eyes. I gaze upon the masses of books about, most of which are scattered allover the floor. The biggest and heaviest of the hardbacks are presently being used to straighten out a crinkled poster in the middle of the floor. I think it's a picture of mass nudes on a beach, but I'm not sure, seeing as it has been a long time since I had last seen it. It takes a long time to straighten out wrinkles in a poster unless you could bend them in the opposite direction for a period of time. But I am in no hurry and I don't mind things a bit wrinkled, a little bent out of shape.

I wonder if there is snow outside. These past days have been so cold. Running the heater continuously is a temptation, but then I would need a steady flow of oil…

Then there is the matter of the smell…

Even after getting up to look out the window, I still cannot tell if there is snow. Even the small amount of light the two lamps shed make the windows look like mirrors, so the wall behind me is all I see when I look out. I notice that the dog has not barked for quite some time as I listen to another car whizzing past. I imagine the zagged tire marks he leaves in the imaginary snow. I'm sure the snow covers those tracks before he can see them in his rear-view mirror. No one will ever know he has been down this street.

Possibly the dog has stopped his incessant barking because he has escaped and found his way to the street… the car… in such a hurry…

I have a globe in this room. The Earth. Smooth. Mostly blue. I look at it and wonder at all the water. So much water, and I – never to have seen an ocean. The land has freckles, spotted with names and bumps, but the water is smooth and a consistent blue, with fewer words written on it. The words and the land dirtying the perfection of the blue. It's a nice globe, except for the land and the writing…

I wish I would turn back on my radio, but I know I really don't want to. It's funny how my radio just sits there next to my filing cabinet, in which this article will also sit upon completion. God knows when that will be! I know that if I were to open that top drawer of my filing cabinet all the way it would topple over, probably on my radio, which really wouldn't matter because I bet if that cabinet fell it would crash right through the floor, taking me and everything else in the room with it. My own private sink hole. The top drawer is the heaviest, mostly filled with supplies. If only I would keep the heavier things in the bottom drawer there would not be the fear of it falling over. I wish it could be better arranged but that's the way things go. Some day I will learn. I hear floors are expensive.

The football pennants and the posters in this room give it a sort of presence. The various posters have a pretty wide range of topics and scenes. From spaceships to oceans and other worlds, from kittens to feathered friends, and robots and lasers to baseball players and fields. Life to death.

I would like to see if there is snow outside, but I dare not turn out the lights so I can see out. I notice a slight headache as I look to the time on my watch. I can almost hear it ticking, but I can't hear that dog that's always barking. Time doesn’t really tick, it ebbs.

I close my eyes, feeling a bit funny, but not abnormal.

If I felt fine – I wouldn’t pay it. If I felt more funny – I wouldn’t laugh. If I felt… If only… I… felt.

My stomach is about ready for a beer or two as it's about time for me to get ready to go out for the night.

I wonder what I'll do tonight?

                                                                                 ‘Til Later,

       èim  Uhr

                                    P.S: Maybe I'll see you tonight…

                                           Bet you won't recognize me.

Silence and I                        Should I let it show?

               Secrets

The Fair Path

The Fair Path

Have you ever been alone in a crowd before?

More precisely, I should ask, have you ever felt alone in a crowd? A buzz all around that somehow goes past or around you, never quite sinking in. Smiles, conversations, jokes, eye contact – that never reach you. You feel invisible at best – shunned at worst.

You may want to run, but there is nowhere to go.

You must move away from this uncomfortable state. There must be a change.

There are two possible roads ahead.

You feel like a boulder rolling down a hill when you come to a fork. All the difference is ahead.

One path is within. The other path is without.

One option is to move outwards. To reach out. To force the situation. To attempt to becoming a part of without the need for an invitation. To take a risk. Stepping out from oneself. To extend a hand, an opinion, a thought – with the knowledge that it may be turned away from, shunned, unwanted, rejected. To take the risk of being a fool, a busy body, obnoxious. The geek trying to break into the click. To expand the bubble around yourself to include others. To open up and be vulnerable. To risk appearing stupid or a social misfit. Trying to gain friendship at the possible consequence of garnering distain.

The reward for this path is you may become part of the buzz. One with the crowd. Known and no longer invisible.

The possible downside is that you are no longer invisible and now all your flaws and awkwardness is out in the open for all to see. Perhaps you don’t fit in and never will. Perhaps being invisible is the best you can do, the most you can hope for.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." – Abraham Lincoln.

Then there is the other path. The other direction. Instead of turning outwards in the hope of a connection, you can go inwards. Turning away from the trappings of the outside world. Moving toward self. To focus your attention to what’s inside. Your feelings and thoughts. To delve into your beliefs and emotions, to circle downwards deep into your personal cave. Trying to find you center and what makes you tick. What makes you unique. Searching for love of self and a deep inner respect. To find that place of knowing, that space of oneness. To seek the stillness, to explore through meditation.

The reward for this path, this direction, is pure radiance of being. Knowing that nothing can really hurt your pure essence. You are all. You will find that needs are merely flights of fantasy that we create out of the nothingness of fear. All is within and all is love.

The downside of this path is that sometimes when we go within we can spiral down and around until it becomes a narcissistic exercise. Self-worth somehow turns into self-importance. "We are one" becomes we are the one.

Sometimes seeing the beauty, weakness, and perfection in another is also the quickest way to seeing it within. Yes, somehow seeing the weakness in ourselves and in others becomes important. For it is only when we can see and come to terms with weakness and realize that they are just blocks, barriers to cover perfection. All weaknesses melt away in the light of true examination. Many times this is easier to see in others than in ourselves. Deep secrets become antidotes when the weight of darkness is lifted off.

Many times it is easier to move beyond judgment toward another than it is to do the same for ourselves.

So in the end I believe it’s the contemplative blend of reflective searching within and the reaching out, and shining out of our light towards the outside world in the hopes of connection that is our most beneficial and should be our ultimate goal.

Understanding ourselves and understanding others is a chicken or egg type of scenario.

Instead of asking which came, or should come, first – perhaps the real road to enlightenment comes from the realization that one cannot survive without the other. For if all is truly one… then there is no difference.

                                                           Sincerely signing off,

 

                                                                                             ò im Uhr

P.S. Again I am always playing the middleman. Walking the fence. Looking for that middle path. I usually end up in the ditch of the embankment that separates the two paths…

Ken Wilber

                                  Spiritual Path

  

                                                                         Path of thorns

Pandora's Path

A Brown Cleveland

A    W I N D Y    L O S S

The wind? The wind. The wind! The wind… ah, the wind. I was never so conscience of the wind. It wasn't unbearably strong, or cold for that matter. I just noticed the wind especially because it was… different. That's all, just different. How, I'm not sure. Trying to describe how the wind felt that day would be like trying to explain the feeling of love. Ah, but these unexplainables were so dissimilar. Unlike love, I understood that wind. I couldn't describe it, but yes, I understood the evilness of that wind. Just as you don't have to be a philosopher to feel love. I understood that wind without ever having felt it before.

Evil.

Evil like no man ever knew. Like no man could ever know. Without blood nor flesh, soul or heart. Evil could now be conceived to its fullest extent. To feel all the destruction possible, without ears or eyes, and whisper it in the night. The wind did not and could not talk, and yet was heard. It could not see, yet always hit the weakest side of the house and blew off the leaf with the thinnest stem. Lacking flesh and mass, not a day went by that its presence wasn't felt.

To blow from seemingly no source, to move about freely with no aim but its own ...

To be the first life giving gasp of a new born: to be part of the relief and joy after finishing a race; to pillow and support huge D-C 10'S; to give each bird it's flight; to cool a hot brow on a hot summer's day; to glide a ball, through the sky, with which the children play; to play with a kite above the trees; to carry a child's escaped balloon up and off to some place unknown; but also having the power and will to destroy any town.

To some days relax and simply play dead, to roll ocean waves and watch the seagulls overhead, to fly freely, to know no bounds, to have sinned, to shake and crumble, setting whole cities to rubble, to be the wind. The wind.

Tonight the wind is evil. Tomorrow sane. To be anything. At any time. Except plain.

Yes, the wind. It was the wind on that special night that caused such calamity and pain. A stream of oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules that had such a fateful result on the actions of a few, but the lives and hearts of many. An absolute wind that brought a final climax down upon the heads of those expecting more. Without wind this day might have ended better…

This wind had directly caused the watering of many people’s eyes by irritation, in a way not so subtle that had stopped progress short of reaching the goal. These tears were not from irritation, but from sadness. Tears wasted on grass that didn't ever need watering.

The loneliest creature in the Universe feel down to his knees with head in hands before the people that had put so much trust and hope in him. They offered him no condolence as they could only think of that wind. The dreaded wind! The wind that blew in that lonely man's face and carried his tears away in the breeze.

The man was now alone. Once the center of attention, now he stood alone. He hated the wind the most. For it was the wind that had stolen the chance of heroism from his grasp. Blame it on the wind. The wind, how it blew so cold today…

It was the wind that blew his straight, seemingly good kick back and stopped it from crossing over the goal posts, dropping inches short. The kick was strong and true, but the wind prevailed in the end as the football fluttered short.

On the last play of the game the field goal that would have won it was not to be. For the wind. Without eyes, ears, mouth, or feelings, it was the wind that made the choice. The wind chose the victor on that cold day in January and sent the home team and fans away with heavy hearts.

Intercepting your affection,

     èim  Uhr

P.S. I threw a party the other day. It was an all sports party, and all had a good time. I pitched my spiel about getting rich by raising foul (fowl) to the baseball players, but they walked away as I struck out. I passed a stock tip to the football players and they rushed right out to contact their brokers. The tiddlywinks player flipped when he received my invitation and thus couldn't make it suffering from a slipped disc. The hockey players checked out and made passes to the waitress, who claimed they had no goal. Polo players rode by but only waved from their cars, claiming they were hoarse. Some bowlers rolled in telling the sad story of their days in the gutter. Basketball players dribbled wine from their glasses and food traveled from their mouths to the floor as they talked. The only really bad thing that happened to upset me was when I served my best wine to the tennis players and they found fault with it, but no love was lost. The swim team came in and got carried away doing breast strokes, which was okay by me but the husbands of some of the women didn't like it. It was a party that lasted to the wee hours of the morning, except all the gymnastic people insisted on leaving precisely at 10. Some very suspicious money was changed hands but the monopoly players claimed to know nothing of it ­– yet were seen making token gestures of peace to the chess players, who had quite a knight in my humble castle. The baseball players, and basketball players dramatically ended the party by fighting over what a foul was. Finally a hunter ended the discussion by shooting them (the bird), and all went home happy. And so I said my goodbyes to a lot of gamey people.

Hello            T.V.(I'll never watch another game)

Windy

A blast from the past...

A FRIENDLY DRIVE

I was driving down the road the other day, when I flipped out. It wasn't a new song on the radio. It was the curb that caused it. Before I knew it I was doing summersaults.

My car landed right side up and I staggered out. I, literally, spit glass out of my mouth as I gazed disbelievingly at my car. People stopped and were asking me questions, but I just alternated nodding and shaking my head without listening to them.

My car ... me?

Not a bruise. Not a cut. The glass didn't even cut the inside of my mouth. Not one thing was wrong with me… No, I wasn't wearing my seat belt.

As my brain finally started excepting messages my eyes were sending it, I noticed my windshield lying a few feet from the car, shattered, but nearly whole. My newly bought side mirrors were, naturally, broken off. There was mud allover my car as luckily I had rolled on grass instead of pavement. The passenger side of the roof was smashed in a bit, my door was bent in, and the right rear fender was smashed.

Someone said I must have been listening to the radio to hit a rock and roll.

Somehow I got the idea of trying to start my car. Since no damage was done to the hood or anything under it, I got the car started without any trouble.

I ended up driving the car home, with no windshield in below freezing temperatures. I shook all the way home, partially from the cold and partially from shock.

One the way home I thought of something that Winston Churchill once said, one of my favorite quotes—

 "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."

I made it home without getting pulled over, even though it's illegal to drive without a windshield.

I can still remember (in flashes) that sensation of turning upside down and rolling. Things flashed by so fast. I saw parts of my life in quick, unrelated glimpses. Then, in mid roll, I thought to myself, "This is a dream."

Microseconds later I realized it wasn't a dream, that my car was rolling over and I was in it, and that I would be late for work. I wondered why it rolled. Was I rolling up a hill? Through lanes of traffic? Was I dying? Had I ever lived? Was my car paid off? Did I have clean underwear?

A feeling soon to be forgot, but a time long remembered. If the feelings that one has during an uncontrollable moment in one's life could be totally recalled, I doubt if many mistakes would be repeated. But the only thing that is truly remembered are the after affects, and they never seem to be quite as bad.

Yes, how easily feelings are forgot.

Trying times can test us and show what we're made of. I'm not sure what I'm made of, but I know that I don't like tests.

It sounds unusual, but I think Cicero made a lot of sense when he said,

 "There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a past sorrow."

Maybe it's just the fact that the adversity has been survived, and it makes present adversities seem conquerable. Something Friedrich Nietzsche said helps shed light into Cicero's statement:

       "What does not destroy me makes me strong."

You are stronger from living through past sorrows. Also past troubles seen through memory's eye always are less sharp and out of focus then is the pain of present problems.

Remember the lesson of the day — Brakes, steering and even good friends can fail. To remain strong without becoming bitter is the trick. Friends don't care about your failures, and they care only to beat your successes. The best one can ask of a friend is to tell the truth when you need it, also to lie when you need it, and to listen nearly as often as they talk. Many times I find myself praying like Marshall de Villars.         — "God save me from my friends

                  I can protect myself from my enemies."

I expect distress from my enemies but when it comes by way of friends it is unbearable. I guess I just have to learn something that Agnes Macphail put well by saying,

“Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all life's greatest tests alone."

I guess when you have news that makes your life miserable the best thing a friend can do, from his point of view, is to exclude you from his life so you don't make him share in your misery.

"Heaven for climate, hell for company." — James M. Barrie.

Half my friends are in heaven, and the rest just have their heads in the clouds.

Dearly befriended,

èim  Uhr

P.S. It's funny the way

       one thinks of friends

                          in times of sorrow. I

                          can usually think of

                          them, but I can't talk

                          to them. 

Drive me away                                       RIP or RID(rest in drive)

                            We all crash alone

From the archives... "Article Worth Framing"

#written over 30 years ago - dredged up from the pits#

A R T I C L E    W O R T H    F R A M I N G

Typing my life away. Words appearing on paper, with nothing to say. But today is different. No, my typing has not quickened its pace, I have not taken typing lessons. Typing is just as tedious as ever. No, I have not sat down with something special to say ahead of time. This article will probably drift by word by word just like all the rest in a sea of paragraphs, being fed from a babbling stream of consciousness. Yes, this writer has his "Gone Fishing" sign up.

So what, you ask, is different about today's article? Today I face the typewriter alone. I have, for the first time, not written any of this down ahead of time in longhand. The thoughts flow directly from my head to the printed paper, with no middle pad involved. No change, no chance to update, cross out, add, or disintegrate. Leave the editing to the editor.

Darn, I'm not done yet. I don't want to let this paper sit in the typewriter too long. I don't want the editor to think the paper was yellow before I started. A true vintage work of art.

I have always believed in honesty, and anyone who says they believe differently is a liar. I have always told my readers how it is. If I'm having trouble writing a particular piece I come right out and admit it. If I doze off every now and then when writing I tell of the experiences of my dreams upon awakening. I try to get as close to my readers as possible. I have a theory that the majority of my readers are between the ages of 20 and 30, female, and beautiful. Now you can understand why I want to get as close to them as possible.

But of course this only applies to my articulate writing, when I know that the reader knows that she is reading me, and not just something about one of my characters that I made up, as in a novel. When writing a story about other people and places I really don't care how close and personal I bring my readers in to their particular lives. When I want to bring my readers close to my characters I just use a frame. By using unsung characters as a way to tell and develop a story about other characters whom the readers never come in direct contact with is my ploy to keep the readers far away from the story. After all, my characters have their own personal lives, and letting you into their minds might hurt their feelings. Me, I don't mind you coming into my mind. Don't worry-- there is plenty of room to wander about. But I think of my characters as people in their own right, and I wouldn't feel right about letting you trample around in the mind of someone else. My mind doesn't mind trampling, but I cannot speak for others. It's good to have my mind occasionally filled with something, even if it is unceremoniously trampling and generally mucking about of others, for it cuts down on the echoes and reverberations of thoughts past.

Most of the time my writing is intellectual and emotional, so it is not hurt by distance. My stories can be told just as well from the overhearing of another's conversation as from the contorted drivel from one of my main characters' brain. Creating distance in stories also can create new characters. The people you eavesdrop on become a secondary part of the story. These people must somehow be related to the story they are revealing.

Yes, creating a distance between the reader and the story can be useful in works of fiction. First of all, it doesn't embarrass the characters by letting a total stranger see something that they do not wish to show to just anyone. It resolves the writer from the sin of letting another beings brain be trampled on. It keeps with the intellectual aura of my usual writing. I don't like my stories exaggerated and overblown like the common "fish story." There is an art to creating new, unimportant characters and confusing the readers. I have often noticed that the more confused the reader is, the better he likes the story. Also the use of more characters makes the story longer just by having to take the space to explain their presence, and remember – writers get paid by the word count. So the more words I can force on to the paper … the greater the masterpiece.

He stumbled into the bar, rejected again. It was tough to be an unsold writer in New York City with revenues as well as patience dwindling. Five rejections in as many weeks! Maybe he was forcing out the novels a bit too fast…

He needed a drink…

Tom Collins. Didn't his brother used to be a wide receiver for the Browns? He dug the folded money from his wallet. The money he was counting on lasting until he started selling was running low. And not yet even one sale. He placed his head in his hands, trying to clear his head. He couldn't, wouldn't! go back home without a sale. As tears welled up in his eyes and trickled down through his fingers, his ears popped, and as they did the mull of mixed conversation dropped to a level of inaudibility and from the table behind him he could just make out what the participants of an interesting conversation were saying. He listened in a half dreaming state …

"…broke into the New York Times with a bang." a man's voice was saying. "He comes from Ohio. Already he's got a huge following, and to think that just weeks ago he was an unknown!"

I think he's gorgeous," came the lovely voice from a girl over twenty, but certainly not more than thirty.

"Certainly the new sensation. By his third article he had made the front page!"

“It's destiny."

"Truly words of wisdom. This one is something special…"

"Where has he been hiding all his life?"

"They say he's only in his teens. I think he's so gorgeous!"

"Surely words so wise could not possibly come from one so young. Where does he get his vast knowledge and experiences?"

"Truly a gift from above…"

"Yet, his words are so deep…"

"Deep, reaching the bottom of my heart... "

"…and meaningful…”

"Bringing his soul along with every word…"

"Did you read his latest masterpiece in today's paper?"

"First thing I do every morning!"

"Wouldn't miss it."

"Well, actually no. I save it for the night. When I can read him all alone in bed at night, sharing our inner feelings. Every time I read him I feel so close to him, like he's right there with me… He's so gorgeous!"

"Well, then let me tell you what he wrote today…"

"No! I told you! I save him for the night! I don't wanna hear…"

"That's not all you save for the night, Sally."

"Actually I get more of a thrill from reading the dictionary than I would if I was with you…"

"But Bob, I thought that you said that you and Sally, last weekend… "

"Shut up, Phil!"

"All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac." smiled Saul Bellow as he passed by their table on his way out, catching part of the conversation.

"He typed his article today directly from his head, he didn't write it first out in longhand like he usually does."

"I told you," Sally was growing furious, "I don't want to have my night spoiled. So shut up!"

"Hey, I wonder if the editor had to read yellow paper…?"

Ha.Ha.Ha.Ha!

"Hey, I have the article right here…"

"In your pocket?"

"Yes, I cut everyone out and carry it around with me for a week and then I have them framed. They hang nicely over the fireplace. I'm running out of room to hang them, though. I think I might have to buy a bigger house."

"Come on. Come on! Read that article out loud. I haven't memorized the third paragraph yet!"

"Ahem… Typing my life away." Bill read in his best voice, standing and waving his arms about, "Words appearing on paper, with nothing to say. But today is different… No, my typing has not quickened its pace, I have not taken typing lessons. Typing is…”

"I can not hear you! I can not hear you… I can not hear you… I can not he… " Her voice fades away as she leaves the bar.

As the dramatic reading of the article continues people gather around the table. Most of them are very good-looking girls… Those who haven't already, are busy memorizing every word coming from Bill's mouth. Soon the whole bar, as most of them already had the article submitted to memory, joined in with Bill and recited the article, and it sounded no less than a choir of angels, a symphony of words.

For one moment in one bar in New York City people forget everything and simply listened. All forgot their private worries and for one brief moment all was right with the world. Peace and harmony were plentiful and men were brothers as they finally found a commonality that could unite the world and solve all differences. One light that could shin for everyone for the common good and benefit of all mankind and lead us all to enlightenment.

The tears of sorrow turned to tears of joy on the young writer’s face, for young Isaac Asimov now knew that there was hope for him, and that soon he too, would find his place in the writing world, and maybe also write a thing or two.

                                                    Successfully Yours,

                                                           èim  Uhr

P.S. Don't feel too sorry for poor Isaac,

I feel that after his 200th book he is gaining

 some confidence and will soon grow up to be

 a better than average writer. 

old things sometimes crash

And people do too (and I thought Browns fans were  ridiculous )