A Cog in the Machine

Diary, 4/17 to 4/19/22: 800 books; censorship and isolation; depressing truth; the right targets; where is Orwell? befouled conscience and going vegan. The new fascism.

Kick Me Reader: Diary, 9/27 to 9/30/21

Cleese's autobio; The Wind; troubled dreams; Quine, the unspeakable, philosophy; Zack Snyder's Justice League; purchasing blunder; $300 for a reader.

Finished My Book: Diary, 9/20 to 9/26/21

Joy and depression; Tasty Words a hit at Hemlock Club; purple hair; no free car, sorry; Bullet Journal; a Simpsons dream; homeless family.

“Red Shoes” Diary, 9/13 to 9/19/21

Free car? Cindy Crabb, Nietzsche, and Cioran quotes; movies; Red Shoes on PBS; the missing pen mystery; final edit of my book!

Ballet and Dracula: Diary, 8/6 to 8/15/21

Blocked by Oliver; Stigmata DVD; Hemlock Club meetings; editing woes; did Ma want a girl instead of me? Reading Tod Browning's Dracula; a dozen movies dissed; book splurge.

More Movies: Diary, 8/4 to 8/5/21

Reading Sartre; editing Kick Me; Goethe quotes, one about Faust; movie reviews including Hanna, Walled In, and The Inheritance (2011).

Steppenwolf: Diary, 7/23 to 7/27/21

Hesse's Steppenwolf; "Hollywood Comedy Legends" and other movies; progress on Kick Me; reading as a writer; muddle-headed versus simple-minded distinction.

2020: The Worst Year of My Life

My worst year started with a bang, literally. I was downtown for a meeting in the morning and walking toward Dagny’s when I saw a well-built black man running along 20th Street in my direction. I paused to let him pass, but he didn’t run past—instead, he punched me in the face while speaking loudly...

New Car? Diary, 7/15 to 7/22/21

Kick Me progress; Windows woes; a car will change my life; book and movie reviews; Edward Dahlberg books; some empty days, too.

Russiagate: Diary, 7/12 to 7/14/21

Black Widow and other movies; Steppenwolf; Russiagate unimportant; Nietzsche quote; analyzing Pablo; Salomé to marry; Cornel West.

Writers and Characters: Diary, 7/7 to 7/11/21

Two ways to think about characters; Hesse's Steppenwolf; writers being silly; quotes from Graves & Hodge concluded; Dunst as Marie Antoinette; Nicolas Cage movies; Hemlock Club meeting and novel.

Movies: Diary, 6/26 to 6/30/21

Hemlock Club report, Color Out of Space, Phantasm III-V, and Finding Forrester reviews, working on Kick Me, climate catastrophe, not much else, edited to remove dross.

Phantasm: Diary, 6/23 to 6/25/21

Phantasm and other DVDs; rethinking the blog; Frazier's On the Rez and other books; getting rid of books; a meeting at Dagny's about Kick Me.

Commitment: Diary, 5/29 to 5/30/21

New commitment to writing; Walter Kaufmann; despair; disdain for E. M. Forster; Sideways, Augustine, and Scary Movie reviews; bored with Gestalt Therapy; self-mastery joke.

Ghost World: Diary, 5/15 to 5/28/21

Movie reviews; Uzzell: Narrative Technique; "Finding Oliver" and subsequent events; melatonin; Kick Me; Cheetos; and "the usual gang of idiocy."

Disgusting Old Age: Diary, 5/14/21

Ferlinghetti; It; mindfulness; Debby Ryan; testosterone, masturbation, perversion, impotence, Viagra, constipation, i.e., disgusting old age. Also, integrity. And Amazon sucks. 100 followers!

False Memories: Diary, 5/9/21

Irritated at being irritated; stimulating the memory of readers; the days of Nog; addicted to soft living; books on how to write; writing longhand & keeping going; thoughts of a new novel try; and synchronicity.

Hope vs Hate: Diary, 5/6 to 5/9/21

Old western movies; mindfulness; news hunger, terror, and hate; false memories and sense of self; horror movie remakes; Hemlock Club fizzle.

Bleak Philosophy: Diary 5/1 to 5/3/21

Meaning of life; movie reviews: Union Pacific, Romeo & Juliet; dieting & sodium; is my writing important to me? Natalie Goldberg; a reader for Kick Me; buy a car or hire a detective? Twitter blowup; Hemlock Club mtg & a philosophical point: why is truth important? Russell quote; & more

About Kick Me: Diary 4/25 to 4/30/21

War; a poem; matter as empty space; disgust again; Fritz Perls on video; Hemlock Club mtg; Tao Te Ching; Thoreau; sick for days; In America & Nói DVDs; etc.