One of Fourteen Semolina Pilchards. — Wisteria Lemming The committee convened on the fifth at 10:30 a.m., which was a little early for alcoholic beverages. Given that the majority of the members were blackout drinkers there was a good chance there would be no recollection of when the proceedings began. On the other hand, there was a bad…

You heard it here first. — The Prediction Donald J. Trump (aka the Great Orange Ego) will not be the nominee of the GOP for POTUS on the 2024 General Election ballot. If DJT is not barred from holding office by the Fourteenth Amendment, he will be saddled with so many criminal convictions that the Republican National Committee…

Lessons from Frankenstein — C Square, a novel I wrote with Paul Barone in 2017, has won three best fiction/best book awards since December 2022. I have been reviewing the manuscript in preparation for the book to be re-issued. Paul approached me with the idea of writing a novel using the themes of Mary…

A personal inventory — Every morning, rainbow patches appear around me from the sun striking the crystals hanging in the windows. I think of a beam of energy striking me and refracting all of the characteristics that combine to make me who I am. I am reasonably certain that I do not have multiple…

One of Fourteen Semolina Pilchards — Are you out there? If I gauged my success as a writer based on the size of my audience, I would need another medication for depression and one more for anxiety to boot. Six days ago, Illumination published a short fiction piece, Farina Olivine, which is one of 14 works I call Semolina Pilchards. …

One of Fourteen Semolina Pilchards — What is a Semolina Pilchard? John Lennon became frustrated enough by efforts to interpret his lyrics that he wrote “I Am the Walrus” and introduced Semolina Pilchard climbing the Eiffel Tower to the world. The playful language, the hotchpotch of musical styles, and the samples from radio broadcasts combine to make it one of the…

My fifth poem, from 1984, revised. — Background My father’s only brother, only sibling, died on Christmas Eve 1983, 75 days after entering CCU due to a severe heart attack. Michael (my first partner) and I had tickets to fly from Baltimore to Pittsburgh on Christmas Day to visit his family in Charleroi PA. Dad asked us to…

Champion of women’s rights and abolition The Revolution of 1789 in France occurred the same year that the U.S. Constitution came into force. Most historians and political scientists group the American and French Revolutions together. After all, the aims of both included ending tyranny and forming representative democracies. Both also…

Life is always uncertain so what good are expectations? — It begins with a trip to China. I have been reminded several times recently that even the simplest expectations are worthless. I remember with pleasure when I embraced ignorance as the antidote to anticipating future events and circumstances. My second trip overseas was a ten-week summer course in Tianjin, China to study putonghua (what was previously and…