Spock's reminiscences

Spock's reminiscences

fiction
edward w pritchard

Me and Gemini orbits corrupting
no more intersections, no more gravitational pull
drifting apart in the vastness of space
Gemini a cold dwarf star
me a lifeless planet
vast universe,
timeless
entropy

begin with the end in mind

Jesus raises the dead-reposted

fiction
edward w pritchard

Who is the 'I" in the story?

start

Jesus always insists that I accompany him and assist when he raises the dead. That's more than OK with the other followers because it's an ordeal when someone who has been dead for a while is brought back to life. Only Jesus can manipulate death and it's trying and disconcerting  to be around the recently brought back to life and it takes it's toll on all those present at the time.

All the disciples and followers of Jesus want to be present when Jesus restores a blind persons sight or cures someone of leprosy. It's theatrical with outpourings of praise and gratitude and large crowds quickly gather as word spreads of miraculous healing. Hero's we are as followers of Jesus then.

When a child is raised from the dead it's solemn and the gratitude of the families is subdued by the presence of death. Even after death leaves a small room an overpowering melancholy surrounds the gathered. The first look that is exchanged between the recently revived child and Jesus is haunting. It follows me in my dreams for months when I have been at Jesus' side as he brings a dead child back to life. Not the parent's immense gratitude can make me forget the scrutinization when a child looks at Jesus after first being raised from the dead.

Why none of the other disciples or followers will assist Jesus when he raises a person from the dead is because of the reaction of an old adult who has been brought back to life miraculously by Jesus of Nazareth. A husband or loving friend has begged Jesus to bring someone back to life. Their faith and hope in Jesus' ability to manipulate death is enormous and Jesus sometimes succumbs and performs a miracle. Jesus out of experience insists that no one else be present in the tomb when the miracle occurs. Except me. I am always present with Jesus when death is defied.

The miracle has occurred successfully and the dead have been brought back to life. This time it's an old woman whose husband couldn't go on without her. She was dead three hours according to the best Doctors here. Now she's alive.

It's so mournful the sound she makes as she sobs. I am holding her. There is something beyond sorrow in her quiet wailing. Jesus understands. He knows what she has seen and experienced and Jesus always collapses for a few moments when death has been beguiled.

I leave the tomb and go to find the husband. The husband rushes hopefully in anticipation. The crowd takes notice. Everyone wants to see what miracle Jesus has done today.

After the miracle of raising the dead Jesus prays and prays in solitude. I approach Jesus then but do not confront him preferring to meet him later at a more appropriate time and place.

a stock tip but it's not for the faint of heart

a stock tip but it's not for the faint of heart

fiction
edward w pritchard

An inhalable diabetes device so some people don't have to use a needle daily to stay alive.

Author once when working as a substitute school teacher watched a high school student give herself a shot during the school day. It was one of those things one doesn't forget.

MannKind Corp. [ symbol MNKD]  now has an inhalable diabetes device and was up twenty per cent yesterday on a potential short squeeze. Still it's not a stock for the faint of Heart. Too much debt, actually a Mountain of debt and not much luck marketing the lead diabetes device to date.

A potential double in a few weeks. Long term?  Maybe bankruptcy or more dilution and a reverse split.

MNKD as a speculation; don't bet the Rent Money. Check it out with your financial adviser.

every day the same

every day the same

fiction
edward w pritchard


A bushman walking about the plains of Central Africa everyday the same.

Find water, build fire, kill and eat a few morsels, and surround oneself with thorns and thickets to keep away predators at night. Successful adaptation every day the same for four hundred thousand or more years.

" feeling tomorrow like I feel today"
"I'll pack my grip and make my get away" [1]

Successful adaptation for four hundred thousand or more years. Move about the territory everyday the same.

[1] W.C. Handy St Louis Blues

Muddy on slide, a change in the weather again

Muddy on slide, a change in the weather again

fiction
edward w pritchard


The Weather will never be this way again.

A change in the Weather mind recreates time that died.

In a dark place chanted I "blow wind blow" [1]  rocking left to right seven hundred eleven times.

Visit me forgotten apparition of Dreams.

The Weather changed and thou be gone.

[1] Muddy Waters "blow wind blow"

blue skies and the stock market outlook

blue skies and the stock market outlook

fiction
edward w pritchard


There has been a bit of forced selling in the stock market lately. But today things look a lot better; look for the market to charge sharply upward again.

Let's listen today to how blue skies will return again, the market will resume it's upward spiral and business will be always good in America. Turn on the financial news channel and listen to the bulls sing "blues skies smiling at me"  again.

How's business in America these days? Who cares! Hop on the social network and chat. No one under 30 wants get married, buy a starter Home or buy a new car, they are all networking on the internet.

Is it 1929 all over again? Not likely. Let's see what the greatest stock market investor of all time has to say on the subject.

See below- what I wrote before on Jessie Livermore- the greatest stock market investor of all Time-

ADBRIGHT

MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 2010

famous investors who died broke-part 3

famous investors who died broke-part 3

fiction
edward w pritchard

Jessie Livermore, the boy genius stock investor's suicide note, written in 1940 read in part:

" Things have been bad with me. I am tired of fighting. Can’t carry on any longer. This is the only way out.

Jessie Livermore - Dead at 63, broke he thought, although the one time farm boy who ran away at 15 to escape the poverty and drudgery of farm life, had 100 million dollars in 1929 and successfully called the October crash.

Livermore worked hard as a fifteen year old run away and taught himself stock speculation and was known as the boy plunger. Several times he made and lost a fortune, divorced his first wife, maybe in part because she wouldn't pawn the jewels he had bought her to stake him after a run of bad luck. He made and lost several fortunes in his 63 years, being worth close to one half billion dollars[ current dollars] in 1929 he filed bankruptcy in 1934. Other than the bankruptcy, Livermore was perhaps, the most successful speculator of all times. Dead at age 63, although he thought he was broke, at least by his standards, he left an estate of five million, money that he had set up earlier in untouchable trusts. However the mansions around the world, limousines and yachts were long gone.

dealing with losses in stocks and bonds

dealing with losses in stocks and bonds

fiction
edward w pritchard


When dealing with debilitating losses in stocks and bonds orient yourself to reality.

The sun will rise tomorrow; stamp your foot against the ground and feel the solid weight of the here and now.

Do not forget who you are and for God sakes do not forget this is now.

Pay your insurances, send in the Mortgage payment, this isn't the end. Regroup. Get a new plan.

View this as a preview of later. Later when you can't remember where you parked the car. Later when the insurance adjuster leaves you on hold for so long you forget who you are. And later when your husband has become an old Man suddenly and your daughter keeps telling you what to do and where to go. Everyone wants to know if you remember today's date and what year it is. Do not forget this is now.

Check your name in your wallet. Try to remember- Why aren't you allowed to have any Money anymore?

Zen and space travel

Zen and space travel

fiction
edward w pritchard

For life one trillion creatures gasped for air
for life to exist on Earth ten trillion souls starved for sustenance
merciful God,
why didn't you teach me this before?

don't clutch her too tight she will scatter

don't clutch her too tight she will scatter

fiction
edward w pritchard

don't clutch her too tight she will scatter
like the faded baseball cards
stuck underneath your sock drawer
heroes of seasons past

David Stockman right for now

David Stockman right for now

fiction
edward w pritchard


No one can really predict the future. It's a humbling experience eventually to try to predict the future. So much better to see realistically how things are now and then in the future adjust behavior to what actions really calls for.

We are in one of those stormy stock market periods where the seers of the future back fit their previous writings to sound the alarm.

Things are not as good or bad as it seems. In the stock market everyone hates volatile down markets and smiles and sings when volatility drives the market higher and prosperity blankets the land.

Here's what I wrote about David Stockman- seer of the future

David Stockman and John the Baptist

fiction
edward w pritchard

a polemic, with no attempt to write a balanced article by this author

start;

Listen, who knows the time of Day?

David Stockman is confused, he has misjudged some of the pertinent facts, but he knows that something earth shaking will effect America. David Stockman the former Reagan administration Budget director expects apocalypse for the American economy. David Stockman has a messianic burning desire to tell everyone what is coming to America's way of life but he doesn't exactly know the details of what he feels will happen very soon.

David Stockman wrote two books. The first book " The triumph of politics,.. etc" was an indictment of the Reagan Administration's economic policies. About that time in the 1980's Stockman said of his tenure as Budget director, " none of us really understand what is going on with all these numbers. " Stockman was referring to trickle down and/or supply side economics initiated in the Reagan administration which began the exponential growth in the budget deficit caused by decreased taxes [ lower tax rates according to supply side theory, and/or trickle down economics will increase productive investment by the wealthy and magically increase taxes,{ sic sometimes}] and increased government spending [ which will trickle down and help the poor].

A career in business on Wall Street after leaving politics followed for Stockman. Jumping into the belly of the economic beast in America Stockman worked at Solomon Brothers [naturally] and at his own hedge fund in Greenwich Conn [where else]. His record was checkered as an investment guru. Like most theorist big picture economic geniuses " free markets" gave him no quarter. In 2007 the Securities and Exchange commission alleged fraud against Stockman and firm for perpetrating fraud against stockholders of a Detroit based auto parts supplier that went bankrupt, but in 2010 the US attorney decided not to pursue prosecution further because a settlement was planned by the parties involved.

Stockman's latest book is "The Great Deformation; the Corruption of Capitalism in America". The book is a timely and important book but has many errors in it. Promoting the book, Stockman has written in the New York Times and toured America lecturing and has been accused by most of ranting and being perpetually cranky. The message is that we have been fiscally irresponsible, deficits will swamp America soon and America is now morally, fiscally and ethically bankrupt.

John the Baptist the biblical profit preached that the Messiah would come soon to Judge the Romans and the corrupt Jewish administration strangling the Jewish people. John was beheaded by King Herod.

David Stockman was a congressman from Michigan in the 1970's and once studied divinity at Harvard in Graduate school.

John the Baptist baptized sinners with water and told them they could be forgiven of their sins by one who would Baptize in blood.

David Stockman knows not what or who is coming forth to Judge fiscally irresponsible morally bankrupt America. David Stockman studied divinity at Harvard.

Listen, who knows the time of Day?

David Stockman is confused, he has mis-judged some of the pertinent facts, but he knows that something earth shaking will effect America. David Stockman the former Reagan administration Budget director expects apocalypse for the American economy. David Stockman has a messianic burning desire to tell everyone what is coming to America's way of life but he doesn't exactly know the details of what he feels will happen very soon.

Listen, Who knows the time of day?

after the bombardment the paradigm shift

after the bombardment the paradigm shift

fiction
edward w pritchard


Everybody knows intuitively that they would be trembling afraid after a face to face confrontation with a lion or two.

It is impossible to tell who could be sane and functioning after a cannon ball bombardment. Quaking in a foxhole alone many new emotions and thoughts emerge. Sometimes a bombardment lasts for a few hours, sometimes days or months. Usually there is a lull in the action occasionally.

After the final bombardment there is a paradigm shift as it sinks in one will survive the extended catastrophe.

Who do we pray to after the echo of the final shells have disappeared?

birth, conception and death parts one, two and three

VARIETY OF SUBJECTS.

ADBRIGHT

birth conception and death, parts one, two and three

fiction

edward w pritchard

There are different colors of the kaleidoscope for birth, conception and death unrelated to human motives or understanding. As black is the color of death, blues and exploding violets are the color of birth as the baby escapes it's confines. Conception is a swirled color wheel of potentialities. Red is the path from one state to the other ending in Death. 

FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 2011

birth part 1 and two

Birth part 1 and 2

fiction
edward w pritchard


out on the ledge part 1

birth

Kery a woke to find him find himself in a constant cold drizzle climbing down a sloping tin roof trying to get to the north edge of the roof which was the lowest so he might drop off and get back on solid ground. There were ribs sticking up in the roof about four inches high that held the roof together and they were very sharp. To move down toward the drop off point Kery had to settle himself down slowly, while fighting gravity, which wanted to crash him forcibly to the ground below which would kill him because of the fall. All the time he lowered himself, lying face down on his stomach, stretched to his full height, moving slowly forward a cold rain froze to the metal roof and made his hands not function properly. He needed his hands because he had to hold them just so so or he would slice his fingers on the razor sharp ribs holding the roof together on the old house. Kery's arms ached from the exertion of holding himself steady and the muscles of his stomach and sides quivered from the exertion.

Looking down into the house below he could see the people in the room below had had a baby girl. The girl was the center of attention and was in a small baby crib and several people crowded around. The realization came to Keri that he might be looking into his great grand mother's house and the baby was his grandmother. The great grandmother had died when Keri was four, he had been taken to see her once at an old nursing home when she was 98. The grand mother, who might be the baby girl, had died when Keri was twelve and he had known her only as an old woman. The great grandmother was dark haired and beaming. The baby was a beautiful baby.

It was windy up on the roof and Kerry had to stay low to be able to see because of the icy rain driven by a light persistent wind. His lower back began to spasm from the strain of steadying himself as using his hands he descended along the sharp ribs toward the drop off point at the edge of the roof. He was very fatigued. Once or twice the realization flashed to him that if he let go he would still end up on the ground.

He was aware suddenly that gloves would help his ordeal. After that flash of insight he became aware how desperately he wanted to get to the ground safely. He tried to stop in his descent and rest and found out he could, but the pain to his muscles and hands intensified. With that realization Keri inched painfully toward the drop off point. Now he was aware that he was being resisted from moving forward. He was being pushed down strongly and held back forcibly. There was profound fear of the next outcome. Keri was driven to move. In addition to the rain and wind he began to hear sounds. Keri continued toward the drop off point.
end part 1

part 2

conception

We are a drop of water or moisture falling and falling. Going somewhere significant and important. The destination is familiar but not understandable and mundane but forgotten. We approach our destination and union occurs. Explosive activity begins immediately and all of reality is changed permanently by our existence and creation. Instantly, although we have just been created as one cell becomes two then four, we began to die, although it is not apparent.
end

our character flaws

our characters flaws
fiction
edward w pritchard


Of all my character flaws that caused me to live in isolation, failure, and loneliness the one that eventually done me in was weaken arms and a short cardio vascular system that was unable to assist me when I fell from the boat into cold Lake and was unable to make in to shore. How I fell I don't recall.

The plot of everyone's life is directed by their character flaws, character flaws having a genetic element to them. A good and stable family early on can mitigate the spin our character flaws put on our circumstances.

Our character flaws are stamped on our ass in invisible ink perhaps to assist the gods in our judgment after we are in the end fished out of the lake.

Marty Stewart, a mandolin, a long leather coat, and Uncle Tell

Marty Stewart, a Mandolin, a long leather coat, and Uncle Tell

fiction
edward w pritchard


Sometimes a little Mandolin music is craved to chase away the blues and keep the heart pumping a while longer.

Coming back from my brother's house in California at Nashville airport I recall I shared the airplane with Country artist Marty Stewart, his wife and his Manager I think; me coming back home to the Cleveland area as a sad recently divorced adult and Marty probably heading for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to preform.

While I missed the performance of Marty Stewart on Mandolin there in Cleveland I did get to see him and entourage close up for a few minutes boarding the plane. Marty had on a long leather coat, cowboy style and very cool and was carrying a coffee table book on country Legend Bill Monroe. I caught Marty's eye for a moment and gave him a rare short smile and nod from me, a tribute to his mastery on Mandolin that I heard performed once jam style by him and others on the song on you tube " what a friend we have in Jesus".

Riding back home on the plane I composed Marty Stewart one of my little stories [ below- " Grandma's pornography is Grandpa's coat"] bringing his leather coat and book about Bill Monroe, with reference to "Uncle Tell" into my story.

Well my writing and that story never caught on enough for Marty Stewart to see the story he inspired, so for posterity I am going to re-post it below. Check out Marty Stewart on you tube. He sure can play the mandolin and it just might chase away the blues for a while.

Grandma's Pornography is Grandpa's Coat

Grandma's Pornography is Grandpa's Coat
lost Love
fiction
edward w Pritchard

A dry cold wind rattled the walls of the hut and the young bride awoke with a start. Her husband had slipped out of bed over an hour ago and would be busy around the ranch to leave up and across the San Bernardino Mountains at dawn for four months of high paying work in Death Valley on a borax mining crew.

The girl washed quickly in the cold water and put a liberal dose of French perfume about her neck and slipped into the immodest red dress, cut low in the front and very tight through the hips. She usually wasn't this type but her husband would see and attract the attentions of many women in the Saturday night desert towns over the next four months and she wanted him to remember her smell and the curve of her hips on those lonely Saturday nights. For further insurance of that she had bought some very expensive British tobacco that she planned to give him just as she kissed him good-bye, so every time he smoked her tobacco, which would be only occasionally because of the expense of the British tobacco, he would think of her.

His long leather coat would be open and would surround her body as she pressed against him when she gave him the tobacco, and he would have to bend down low to kiss her and the brim of his hat would have to be tipped for their faces to touch and the kiss would be short because both knew it was imperative that he got high in the Mountains before the heat of the day began, so their last embrace would be tantalizingly short.

She would remember that moment for many many times through-out her long life because he would not return to her. There would be no word of what had happened to the fifteen man borax mining team he was a part of, they would just disappear into the dessert in Southern California in the year of 1885. The dark eyed bride would wait at the ranch at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains the rest of her long life. She would often review the departure over and over in her mind, and at other times felt it deep in her body and it wasn't until she was nearly seventy that she completely lost his smell and the feel of his hands on her hips, before he climbed into the wagon and left for four months of work as a borax miner in the early fall of 1885.

Later, when me or my twin brother Tell would ask Grandma about Grandpa or where we came from, she would tell us part of that story, but under no circumstances would she speculate to us on what had happened to the 15 man borax mining crew.

no one reads these stories; this one was inspired by a picture of Halle Berry

no one reads these stories; this one was inspired by a picture of Halle Berry

fiction
edward w pritchard

I saw a picture in a magazine of great beauty and actress Halle Berry looking a bit wistful and got to thinking " do the rich and famous feel lonely sometimes"? So I wrote her something elsewhere in this blog that no body read but me. I read it as customary once after posting and was the only reader to date.

Hopefully Halle Berry who was originally from Cleveland is always happy and never lonely. She has a daughter now and a daughter is a joy to one as they get older.

Just Another Celebrity

fiction
edward w pritchard

She was a movie star, a media star, and a great beauty, but had been at it long enough to want nothing more than her privacy.

Her half-sister and her brother in law were using her condo in Florida, and she was driving from Cleveland, Ohio to the their house in Akron, ostensibly to check on the cat and the plants, but really to have a few hours to herself.

Things hadn't started well once she hit Akron, near where she had grown up, and they had gotten worse from there. She had drove past the Grade School, near her sisters house and there was one of her old boyfriends, from high school, who when she saw him helping a little girl with one of those heavy yellow raincoats, she instantly remembered her Aunt telling her several times at holiday's, playing the town crier, that her ex-boyfriend was an assistant principal at the old school. She remembered the mean things she had said to him near here, years ago, about his lack of ambition for himself, but she was unable to not watch him now, as he bent down and put his knee on the ground, to help the little girl button the coat, and she of course knew it was his best suit, and the knee of the pants would be ruined, and his wife would be unable to fix it, but the wife would only pretend to be mad, and he would apologize to her a couple of extra times, but looking at him, although he was heavier, he was still tall and awkward in a good way, but gentle too, and the gentleness was something long gone in her life and she drove off feeling sad.

Later, she had went to a local convenience store, where she was sure the Arabic owner there didn't recognize her , or care who she was, but she couldn't find anything to buy, because of a very limited inventory, and even though she was cold and hungry and wet from an all day rain, she couldn't find anything she wanted here, and eventually she bought and old fashioned chicken pot pie, but not a name brand.

Finally she parked the rental car in the drive of the old family house where they had lived as children, that her half sister took over when their Mother died, and sat in the drive a few minutes and listened to the rain, knowing if anyone saw her they would think it her sister, who looked like her, only prettier, and she thought in a private joke against the world, for she had been named one of the twenty prettiest women of all time, but she always felt her half sister to be the prettier one, as did everyone about their own sister probably. Eventually she went in the house and went through the kitchen and living room which were still neat and homey and went to the old family room in the basement.

There was an old couch from when they were kids that had never been thrown away, but should have been, and her grandmother's, who was part Cherokee, old Indian blanket, which she wrapped up in, and she mashed up and ate the pot pie, and watched the cable, wishing she had an old fashioned TV guide rather than the onscreen version. As she finished her dinner, holding the cat, she dozed off into a deep sleep for the first time in a long time.

The Day the small time Poker player fell for the shell game

The Day the small time Poker player fell for the shell game

fiction
edward w pritchard


If there was a lief motif running through my years working at night at the hotel as a night auditor it would be sophistication. Between the hotel work which paid well for a college student and the Poker winnings there was enough money in 1971 nothing else being really important. Ending the unpopular war, equality for the Black race in America, full employment for women, and each and all not hassling one and other being mere back ground noise to me at 19 years old.

The main challenge for me was dealing with the Prostitutes who interrupted my revelries after my routine bookkeeping work was competed and before I spent three or four hours untangling the connections between Spartan History in Greece and the Renaissance in central Italy. When it came to a Prostitute at 3 AM standing in front of the Hotel desk shifting from foot to foot and concocting a wily tale to mooch money from me; I never could resist a good story from a Woman.

I should have wrote the stories down, or if I can pronounce an anachronism here and send it back then I wish I could record one of the performances by those ladies in Red on a modern cell phone and post it to face book for all to view. It would produce many likes and few thumbs downs for sure and maybe I could recoup some of the dough I never received back from some of those ancient debts and loans.

First I had to be reminded about the big night I had two Saturdays ago at the Poker tables, that story had made the rounds of the Housekeeping department there at the hotel and was common knowledge.

Then of course did I realize that I looked a lot like a taller version of Omar Sharif the handsome actor? Then when my attention was captured a yarn would be weaved ending in the need for an exact figure of $42.87 no less with maybe ten dollars more in closing for flowers for the unfortunate member of the proletariat injured in the second act of the three act play just recited.

Why I did it was a character flaw, or boredom, or fiscal irresponsibility for later maybe but if only I could remember those stories I would have something to write about people wanted to read, urban legends sell well I hear, and the interest, appreciation and growth of those forgone dollars I never collected would provide a proper nest egg for me now in my lonely golden years.

Ah well, "all the moneys gone no where to go"[1] the day the small time poker player fell for the shell game.

[1] Beatles from "Abbey Road"