Coconut Writers Room

Published and unpublished writings from the Staff of WeMailCoconuts.

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THE BOOK NOOK

List of books read by WeMailCoconuts Staff recently


2025

Robert Reich once ran for Governor of Massachusetts, he came to Greenfield and talked at the High School in the lobby. I went and listened and really liked his personality, his thoughtfulness, and his perspective. A few weeks ago I found one of his books on the shelf of a friend's house and stole it to read. I'm glad I read it, I wish everyone did...even if they disagree with his position or his proposed solutions...at least we'd be talking about what's really going on.  A quiet Class War against the bottom 99%. The book is pretty dry and if I didn't have his voice narrating a lot of it in my head, I likely wouldn't have been able to finish it...despite its critical importance.

Leave it to the Russians to make a sci-fi book where humans aren't the stars of the show. The whole point of the book is that we as humans are not the end of the universe and the single most important things out there. It is a really fun story about what would happen if the earth was visited by a more advanced species, took no interest in us, left an intergalactic mess and shipped off without saying so much as hello. The book is from 1972, but I had no sense of age in it. In the final scenes, when the protagonist has the opportunity to ask for literally anything in the world, he works his way from revenge through to world peace in moments. Fun.

In 2001 there was a terrorist attack against the USA on September 11.  This book comes 15 years later and is a deep analysis of how the US Government(s) dealt with this attack, and how the threat has changed these many years later.  Roughly, the idea is that terrorists in America are almost always Americans who became radicalized after some traumatic event that acted as an opening for them. They are very often middle class, successful sons of first generation immigrants. They are most often upset by the US DRONE program, which killed many thousands of bad and neutral guys and girls and babies alike. Our govt's mostly failed us by doing a poor job of understanding who these perpetrators are and often tracked folks that should not have been considered risks.  The Tsarniev brothers story is the most compelling for me, as we were in the area while they were in the shootout in Watertown.  Good book, dated. Would read an update if one came out today, 3o years later.

I almost never buy new books, there are just so many amazing books that are free or $0.50 or $1.00, it's nigh on impossible to justify spending 15 or 30 times that for a single book. But there are times when buying the book is the important part, like if you want to support the author or book vendor. In this situation, I wanted to support the writing of more books by or about people and places I know.  Our local library has a book club and they are reading this author's newest book...I wanted to start at the beginning. Morgan Talty is a Penobscot Indian, and he writes about their island reservation, where I have been and continue to this day working with the environmental department of the tribe, so I purchased this book full freight. It was a smart investment. This is a trick of a book, as it starts with a pretty weak short story and you have yourself thinking "self, this book is going to suck"...then you read the next story and there is the same voice, but this time it has something...more. I read story by story and grew more and more inquisitive about the characters, what has, is, would happen to them. How badly would Dez fuck up, and can I see myself in that selfsame situation making the same decision? Too often I could. I don't know these people, but I know addiction and family and poverty and hate...and that is really what these stories are about, and they connect very deeply.  I think the author has room to grow, but if I could read another book where the quality progresses at that pace, I'd be floored. I'll get that next book ordered.

Glad that I read this, as it does provide another angle on an important local event, but rather disappointed. The book bounces between graphic descriptions and questioning the thoughts of the actors of the 1700's in these events, to rationalizing or justifying or just poorly contextualizing various perspectives. It does a good job of weaving a more complete picture of Deerfield across time from before the time of english settlers through the 2000's. The author doesn't mention that the town is functionally a wealthy hideout for the "old rich". I've proposed unannounced reenactments of the Deerfield Massacre in the past, and I still think it would be a wonderful idea some February night when the snow is deep to rush THE STREET with air horns and bright flashlights and remind peolple that even today there are peoples in the woods waiting for their turn.

Oh, and I found a factual error - the books says there was an article about Deerfield published in the JULY 1969 National Geographic, when if fact, it was JUNE. Fucker.

1931 adventure novel written from the perspective of a racist english douche.  The adventure parts are cool, but they are so suffused with crazy racist bullshit that you can't enjoy reading the story. This isn't like vaguely maybe possibly offensive, this is the downright explicit horseshit you don't get many chances to read.  I won't' repeat them here and I'll be disposing of the book.  I don't want anyone else exposed to this at my hand.  I'm only glad I read this because now when I hear about tarzan, I can go - Fuck that racist asshole.

Ann Rice creates characters that I don't enjoy interacting with. They are vain and vapid and even their deepest sentiments seem foolish and silly, despite them being hundreds or thousands of years old.  Vampires are dumb. Bampires are cool.
I'm sure in 1988 when this was written that a vampire rock star would make for a super cool story, but reading it today it's like watching a passably good show on TV.  You know there' s probably something better you could be reading.  It wasn't bad, it just wasn't my jamboree.

I mistakenly thought I was reading a collection of children's stories, and I end the book with a man turning into a 7' penis. This was not a children's book. It was brilliantly written and funny and was full of twists that you'd never see coming. I believe there are 22 stories and each is a gem. I'd share this book willingly with lots of adults and would be happy to read it again. It has murder, intrigue, and lots of humor.

It is not my common practice to pay full price for books. I don't hate authors or publishers or paper, there are just so many options that are free or nearly that. When I heard a short bit of an interview with this author on public radio, my interest was piqued. I paid full price and ordered the book which was just published this year.  

What a fascinating perspective.  The book is literary and childish and odd, but not in an off-putting way. Through written words, a person who struggles to be normal in society is able to share that frustration, confusion, and joy. We get to experience some very difficult things but in a way that provides comfort. It feels like a loving book.  I really like that.

The subtitle of the book is "The History and Mystery of the Bicycle".  The real mystery for me is why I devoted almost a month to this book.  It's not a bad book, really.  It's also not a book really, except that it's pages bound together of words referring roughly to bicycles or bicycling or bicycling culture or the author.  The book feels like a college student's term paper that was regarded as excellent by a lazy professor and was supported by a publisher that maybe just loved bicycles.  Reading the back of the book just now I see that the author is usually a magazine article writer, which explains the disconnected feel of this thing.  It reminded me a bunch of times of a magazine article that I'm reading because I'm stuck at the dentist and it's only vaguely interesting. Some sections were downright dumb, like the hyper-sexualization of bicycles. Seemed more an author's fetish than useful information.

I'll put it in the free pile and maybe someone with a love of bikes will connect with it.  It certainly wasn't for me.

I often, almost always forget how lucky I am. I am also often reminded of this because of a book.  Books allow us to hear a voice we wouldn't hear otherwise, and to almost feel as though they were a tiny bit you, and you just didn't realize it.  The story lets you understand yourself better, or to put your own life into a different context or lens.  This is a beautiful book.

This is an important book.  The way the book develops, the pacing and the progression all contribute to this sense of character awakening and growth.  Awakening to what, though - to what terror and tragedy, and for what? So that the cycle could be broken, at least in this one family. I know about waking up, I've experienced it and I hope to experience it more, and books like this one help us to do just that.


2024

Rich people dealing with issues. Book starts with a girl being raped by her father because he was lonely and her mother was dead and she was just too darn hot. She meets a psychiatrist, falls in love with him and he becomes her doctor/lover/husband.  They have fun when she's doing well and don't when they aren't. By the end of the book their marriage is in shambles, she has moved on and apparently been healed through psychiatry, but he is a failed man who crawls into a cave somewhere to disappear. Same dude who wrote the Great Gatsby.  He's a good writer, but who gives a fuck.

Sy writes books about animals that are also about people and how we relate to animals and often, one-another. An inoffensive author, but rarely deeper than a genuinely good National Geographic article.  Worth a read, not worth a purchase at retail price. Hummingbirds are light, they are filled with air, they are delicate, they fight hard with each other, and they are difficult to care for when returning to the wild after injury or death of a parent. The sub was Wonder, Beauty, and Renewal on Wings...I think that's overselling a bit.

`A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession` - Three guys from different backgrounds and different walks of life each devote a year to spotting as many birds in the US as they could.  Much less a book about nature, this is more a book about obsession and competition and how people choose to spend their time and money.  Nothing much rewarding about the book, the rich guy wins, the poor guy suffers.  I'll watch the movie, but not excitedly.

How do you not purchase a book when the back page recommendations include one from Albert Fucking Einstein. 

Lillian Lieber wrote this book just as the US was getting into WWII.  It was so important at the time that they made pocket editions and sent them to soldiers overseas.  The purpose of the book is to introduce the average person to ideas and concepts in Mathematics, from Algebra, to Geometry, to more advanced theoretical math.  The book also tries to use math to prove that Democracy is the only and best option for government. The book does a great job of showing that Math is just a very precise way to talk about ideas and concepts, but that math isn't immutable, that we have to agree to specific rules together for math to work at all.  But, when we are capable of communicating very complex ideas to one another, we can accomplish amazing technological feats which otherwise would be impossible.  The book also explains that there is a place for ideas and concepts with NO immediate commercial use - that it isn't the job of the idea-man to also find a use for their newfound concept. A great Einstein quote is included "ALLES WAS WIR MACHEN IST FALSCH" or "Everything we make is false".

Talk about a book not aging well.  This came out 10 years ago, but is so chock-full of half-racist, half-sexist, half-misogynistic jokes and characters that I can't imagine it could get published today.  I can take a few good things from this otherwise pretty awful book - I appreciate his commitment to his craft. This is someone who really has devoted his life to being an entertainer, I just wish he'd been more to my tastes in his comedy.  He tells stories about being surrounded by people whose autobiography I'd rather be reading. There is one point in the book where he discusses how he does weekly self-assessment on 9 characteristics.  While I don't want to do that, I think some self-reflection is really smart and important, and I might try to do that more.  Otherwise, this book is a stinker.

1910 book about the United States and its travel westward throughout the 1800's. As it was written at the turn of the last century, there are plenty of the old classic racist tropes about inferior races, manifest destiny, and the inevitability of a more advanced people to overcome and replace a less advanced society. Surprisingly, however; the book takes a very honest look at the role that white settlers, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the US government played in mistreating and double-dealing with the native peoples of this land. It does a great job of explaining the chronological intersections of the Civil War, the Gold Rushes, Intercontinental Rail, and war with various indian tribes.  It even delves into some history I didn't know anything about - the early days of Mormonism.  I'm glad I read it, and I'm glad I can still learn something helpful and real from a fatally flawed tool.

A novel from an Italian historian with a focus on early european history and secret societies.  The premise is that a guy who edits books and knows a bunch about the Templars (because he's working on his PHD) meets a few other guys who work for a company that publishes books.  There are two arms of the company, one that does "real" works that are well supported and sell a lot of copies, and another arm that lets cranks write and self-publish their own stuff.  The guys decide to use the templar secret society whackjobs to sell a ton of a new series of books on the occult.  Since the three editors don't actually believe it, they can pretend, and having their access to the stories, and real history, they do such a good job that the cranks believe its all real...and maybe all of the editors do as well by the end.  It was a fun adventure story with too deep a background for me, but for history buffs probably a slam dunk homer.

Monstrously giant part 1 of 3 nontraditional autobiography of Mark Twain, aka Samule Clemens. The thing that makes this autobiography unique, apart from the Author's uniqueness, is his decision to use connected stories based on things other than chronology. He doesn't start as a child and get to a certain age in this volume, instead he starts where he is...something like 70 years old and tells a story. The stories are not a continuous chain, rather just small connected vignets.  In that way we learn about his suffering, and his bitterness at people and society. He had it rough, but also had an adventurous life. I'm excited to read more of his books.

1953 book with inset photos in black and white and color. What an amazing book.  Easy to read. Easy to understand. Easy to be amazed and mesmerized by the stories of the AquaLung - the first ever scuba mask with an automatic regulator.  Jacques and Frederic could for the first time in human history swim for lengths of time underwater unimpeded by huge helmets or hoses. There are so many wild stories about using artificial light underwater in depths seeing coral reefs in colors no human had ever in history seen. So good.

UGH.

What an amazing - disgusting, disheartening book of poems.  I have so little in common with the author, short of living in the same small city, but I can taste the feelings. This is what I want all poetry to do.  This hurt and made me jealous. Northampton MA Poet Laureate.

This is a book in a series of books that I read only because I've heard cultural reference to the title in the past, another example was The Scarlet Pimpernel.  I'm so glad that I read it, it was so enjoyable.  I didn't like the way women were treated in the book, but this may have been an accurate depiction of the culture at that time.  The author clearly has a belief system that they are trying to pass on to the reader, and honestly, I'm cool with it.  The story is fun.  The depth is there.  I'm going to go watch the movie now.

Netflix turned this book into a show and I sort of wanted to watch the show so I read the book.  It's a book about what would happen if humanity made contact with an intelligent life force in space.  There are some interesting bits, but mostly it reads like a television show with wooden dialogue interspersed with complex space jargon made to seem real smart.  I mean, it was fine.

60's slacker adventure story, this time on a boat. There isn't much slack at all in this book, it's really all about how his boat breaks all the time and puts his life into constant danger.  There are some really fun characters to be sure, and some wild stories of the sea, but it was billed as a comedy and for me it was rather tragic.

I'd known of Robert Frost before buying this book. It would be hard to go to school in New England and not have had to memorize at least one of his poems... (From memory) FIRE AND ICE - Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice, from what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire, but I think I know enough of hate, that for destruction ice is also nice and would suffice.

But there is so much more in this.  He could write so well, and so funny...There is a poem about a guy smacking his head on a door in the dark and getting his similies mixed up.  

Maybe don't sit and read page after page in one go...it gets sing-songy that way, just throw it in the shitter and read one or two.

This should be required reading throughout America in every school and should be the focus of an annual discussion because I fear we have lost most of the message and are slipping. The book was first published in the 1850's when slavery was still legal in many states. Hers was a plea to stop it by way of a beautifully written tear-jerking Huckleberry Finn meets Quentin Tarantino book. I am so thankful for finally opening my eyes to this book which hurt so much to read that I often had tears in my eyes. 

All of that said, I think there are paths to freedom that don't involve Christ and I don't think "sending them back to Liberia" was maybe the best way to end the book.  But those are just my opinions, and by no means should dissuade one from picking this up.

Studds is my man, I love him so hard. Studds writes these books where they are really just a series of edited interviews with people discussing a common theme.  He spends time documenting the beliefs and opinions of everyday folks on topics of national importance. In the 1960's he wrote this book about the Great Depression of 1929-1936 (or later as some claim it wasn't resolved until and because of WWII). I was fascinated to learn about the now mostly unknown roles that communists and socialists of all stripes played in defining America and American culture today. We also learn about how the Capitalists tried to overthrow the US government. Some people believed we were close to a revolution, while others didn't know there was even real hunger out there.  Many people talked about how poverty was made less painful by knowing that it was a shared experience amongst all around them, and how they banded together to take care of one another and how they thought that in the 1960s this wouldn't be the case.  I don't wonder about today because I know full well that were a great depression to come, it would be every single person for themselves. Sad but I think very true.

The second book in the silly author name series.  Butler was claimed to be America's most decorated soldier, fighting in wars before, during and after WWI.  He died before US intervention in WWII, but this book is mostly devoted to trying to talk the US out of engagement.  He expresses his belief that US engagement in WWI was because we sold England and France ammunition and then it looked like they would lose the war and not be able to pay their bills. He said that we have a perfectly nice continent here and if we mind our own business, we'd be able to protect it much better than if we go bailing out Europe. Included in the book is a Constitutional Amendment for Peace, and a photo series of the killed and maimed of war. I think everyone should read it.

"Fool me once, shame on me...fool me twice...I won't get fooled again" - GW Bush

Fuck this guy. God damn. If I could meet this artist I'd kick him square in the nuts. Nobody should read this shit, much less act it out on stage. I should have known better, I should have said to myself "self, how come you remember this author name so vividly?".

It's been a few books since I was reminded why I read - this is really incredible, especially considering this is a translation - one that at times seems to struggle. Overall this is a group of stories about death, murder, bad situations, bad people...all this bad written so beautifully. There is a part in one of the stories where the author describes the slow collapse of the body through illness into death into decomposition and reanimation throughout the earth. I think it was the most accurate representation of my own beliefs I've ever seen put to paper. Looking forward to reading more from this author, and someday would love to be fluent in spanish so I can read the original versions.

When I was younger, I couldn't get enough of sci-fi and fantasy writing. I could just disappear into it, these days not so much. This was a relatively well written star war book with a lady needing rescuing, a big bad villain and a young dashing hero.  Some of the tech written about was really accurate to our current future considering it was written in 1969. I think the part I'll take from it most of all is this heesh character, which is really a physically connected entity comprised of 3 unique individuals. In this case, a rhino type animal with a bird thing on one shoulder and a monkey on the other connected by hummingbird tongue-things. Main character is supposed to be the good guy, but he's a scumbag around women and he sort of rapes an enemy animal by forcing it to join with two of his own, clearly against its will to form a helper animal, that I don't think ever actually comes in handy besides as a remote on/off switch.

A series of essays written around 1965. Author has a very acerbic style of tearing loved items down and showing the flaws and issues with socially protected ideals or beliefs at the time.  It's broken into three sections, the first about the hippy scene around Haight-Ashbury, the second about personal beliefs and thoughts, and lastly on geographic places. This book achieved what I want a book to achieve, it made me look at something I thought I knew about in a new and unique light, and there are some genuinely dark and funny parts.  I'll look for more from this author.

In my previous reading, I've come across Hemingway two or three other times, and I'm always left wondering what makes his writing so special or worthy of note, because I wasn't getting it. He seems to always write very Manly things in a very 1950's Manly way...drinking and bullfighting and fist fighting and women.  This book almost justifies all the hype, although it is also just a good story and not much more.  It is about an old man and his life reflections while out chasing a too-big fish. I still don't think I'd go hunting down any more of ol' Ernie, but it was a fun story all the same.

From the guy that brought you Jurassic Park, a story about what could go wrong if we decide to start bringing samples from space back to earth. The book is from 1969, but has a very advanced understanding of the human microbiome and what it really means to be a living entity inside a planet and its atmosphere.  This is a classic movie style medical thriller; can they find the cure before all humanity ends?

Another translation of the most beautiful misery ever written. This book is essentially a Charles Dickens novel that replaces all of the sad brittish shit like hungry kids and abusive teachers with torture, starvation, rape and murder. The author has presented the story of a town and a family  across many generations from founding to collapse. Even the joyous moments in the book are dirtied and corrupted with awfulness. I have a neck-ache from reading this book because it attracts me with the lyricism and repulses me with the all too human details, much like a flipped camry in a highway median ditch. I'm taking a break though...it's all a lot to absorb.

The title almost says it all, or rather I wish it did. I know more about Edward Gorey than any person needs to know about another person thanks to this detailed book.  It's so detailed that it sure feels like a good chunk is conjecture by the fanboy author.  I've read biographies that were too detailed or boring before to suit my tastes, but this was an exercise in frustration. It was the biographical equivalent of Waiting for Godot, which I fucking hate.  Listen, this isn't a bad book, and if you jizz when you think of ol' Ted Gorey then take this for a spin...otherwise, save yourself the 3 weeks it takes to suffer through.

Pictures by Maurice Sendak. This is a Chech translated story about a fox that is taken as a child into a human family and escapes later in life to live in the wild and annoy humans. The story is rich and fun and not childlike really at all.  Thankfully there is very little in the way of tragedy, so a sort of fun romp.

Short articles originally pulled from Rolling Stone magazine in the late 1970's. Each story is an exploration of a city somewhere in the world at that time.  It reminds a little of Studs Terkel, but this has opinion and great descriptions from one woman's perspective. I'm jealous that this person was able to travel and explore so extensively and I hope to someday be able to do the same. The story about Rhodesia taught me some important history I didn't know, as did the article about South Africa under apartheid. 

Don't judge a book by its cover it is said.  Well, I had been judging this book by its author and title for a long time. I had imagined it a Jane Austen style book. I was wrong.  It was much more like Hemingway.  This is the story of a rich kid who becomes a wealthy famous artist and how none of it matters in a world war.  We get to see his youth and relationship with a doomed family. The writing is from around WWII, and it is very easy to consume. A wonderful story about people I would struggle to care any less about. 

Fuccck. War is bad m'kay. We don't need to be reminded, and yet we keep doing it.  These are fragments of letters that left on the last mail plane out of occupied Russia, written by the German Nazi soldiers who were left there to die by Hitler, as a strategic decision or a failure in his war planning. These aren't the good guys.  They were fighting for evil, but they were still human beings...many of whom knew perfectly well that they would be dead within weeks. It's a whole book of last words, some angry some sad some very poetical. All the waste. 

A thrilling medical drama centered around the most advanced scientific advancements in human reproduction occurring in 1984. First year doctor Raney has discovered something terrible is happening to the women who visit her hospital's clinic. Fetal abnormalities, genetic problems...weird shit.  She figures it out in the end, but of course had to be saved by her boyfriend. It was a fun easy read, like a decent TV movie. I liked hearing the very real fear of those technologies that are so ubiquitous today.

If you were ever on the hunt for a book about someone who devoted their life to one singular thing and doing that thing to the best of their abilities...then this is your book. Paul Simon loved music, moreover he loved communicating, and he loved being able to master something completely; and he was rewarded for it.  The book does not chronicle many difficulties or challenges beyond some simple relationship issues and what I'd consider normal "daddy" issues. He was blessed and allowed to do what he came to do, and we were all rewarded. I don't know all the songs, so some sections were wasted on me, but I learned a lot about an interesting person and their easy life of wild success. Something I'll remember is that despite my impression of ease, he struggled internally. Good to remember.

Fourteen really great ghost stories.

Mr. Dahl claims to have read 750 to pick these 14. 

He did a good job.

Not a stinker in the bunch.

I'll start with a little honesty, and say that I love the writing of Studs Terkel.  He interviews people and writes down what they say.  He never says a lot with his own words, but he paints with the words of others a picture he wants us to see. Each book has a theme, and this one is death.  There are a lot of interviews in the book, from paramedics to surgeons to people who have died and come back. The interrogation of our beliefs around death is so fascinating. I'm learning what my own beliefs are simply from reading the beliefs of others and asking myself...Do I agree? 

Studs was in his 80's when this was written and he'd recently lost his wife, you can feel in the book the searching. Very moving.

I'd heard of this book many times in my life.  Almost always as the butt of some joke about how stupid and backwards an idea it would be to pretend to be a black person in the south when you are actually white.
It sounds offensive, and simplistic to the point of infantility.

Then I read the book and now I feel like the jerk.

How can it be that it was only 60 years ago that people of color were treated so badly, and I know there is still so much trouble today, but...I don't know.

People trying to get to our Country today are probably in close to the same situation. I'm glad I read this. I think we'd all be better people if we read and discuss this with honesty.

Maybe that's where we need to go with this book - bring it back out into the light and disect it as a community. How are we doing?

This book is a sort of Diary of Anne Franke, except instead of a young girl, he is a wealthy middle aged man. Instead of Germany under Hitler, he is in Russia under the Bolshevik revolution.  Instead of a working class person of little means, he is royalty with money hidden everywhere.  Instead of a paucity of friends, or friends with power, he finds himself surrounded by friendly movie stars, KGB operatives, and the best food and wine in the world. They're both in an attic. He busted through some walls and had many rooms. He was free to roam the hotel at any time day or night.

Yes there was dread of the power of the government, but not the same visceral threat. He was able to live fully, love fully and at the end escape any tragedy at all, really.

I'm ripping this book to shit, but I loved reading it.  It was fun. It was easy and engaging.  There's a part in it where he explains the thing about russian literature that has been a real challenge for me...the idea that one character can have 4 correct names depending upon the speaker and the situation.  I'd read more from this author.

In 1934 a Henry Ford superfan wrote a book about the man. This is that book.  The book explains the amazing and exclusively positive impacts this man had upon his world.  From his early days in the 1890's through to the books printing between WWI and WWII.

I did not know that Henry Ford raced cars (mostly just to sell them), he built airplanes, he took over control of almost all aspects of car building, from the rubber tree forests for the tires to the soybean fields for the proto-plastic. I didn't know about his museum or his school. In WWI he commissioned a Peace-boat to stop fighting. He hired spies to track his employees. 

Were I to only know of this man through this book I might be inclined to think of him rather majestically, as we do with folks like Thomas Edison, who Ford worked under for many many years.

For me the takeaway from the book is, we were solving our materials problems with farms before plastic factories, and that people can achieve amazing things, even while being assholes.

The book never mentions Ford's hatred of the Jewish people, or his newspapers and books he self-published and distributed throughout the world explaining that the primary problem of the world were the jews. The fucker was evil. Hitler loved him.

In 1947, these two translators pull out sections of sanctioned Russian educational documents so that Americans can know what they are up to.  Recall that Russia and the US were buddies at this point - at least we were working together against Germany and Japan in WWII.  The Russians overthrew their King/Queen style gov't and replaced it with communism.  We hate communism, if there was anything I was taught as a boy in NY in the 1980's is that communism is pure evil.

Reading about their philosophy, it doesn't seem evil at all.  It seems methodical, and it certainly creates too much love and trust in a central government, but otherwise - damn if communism worked, that shit would be rad.

They are very clear that you can't hate people because of race or class or even ability - You can't hate any other Russian, you are comrades, and if they are fucking up it's your job to help them do better.

Now, the enemy, he is not human, so their required humanism doesn't extend to these others (us). The best thing you can do for Russia and your fellow man is to become the best person you are able to be, to serve your neighbor and elders and party and army and to have a hatred of the enemy. This isn't blind hate, it is very reasoned - they want to take away our communism, they want to separate us and not allow us to help one another.

Communism has the most obvious flaw that there are powerful rulers that are not even with the rest...but if that were the worst flaw, it would still be about where we are in the USA today.  The President is above the law, we are reminded regularly, as are his billionaire friends.

This isn't an advocacy for Communism, Fuck Stalin, but...you know fuck Hitler too, and Fuck DJT.


2023


"How can you expect a man who's warm to understand a man who's cold"

16 year old author, sad , tragic, and beautifully dark.

A Holocaust book with a Howler Monkey and Donkey as main characters, sort of.

Pushed too hard to succeed as a child, Hans has a breakdown.

Accurate portrayal of 15 months of the Afghanistan war in the Korengal Valley 2007-2008

Fossil story of IDA, 47-million-year-old lemur, possible link to early man.  Tiny horses, lots of animals with elephant snouts, whales used to be cows.

2019 book about where PR is today, how they got there.  Book says that the debt PR owes is illegal, should be forgiven and PR needs to go through a process of De-Colonization.

Middle-aged rich white guy talks about where I live (The Pioneer Valley), Maine, family and some slight humor.

A play about immigration, love, family and jealousy.  Sad, but not tragic.

Written around 1953, this is a remembrance of what life was like around the turn of the 20th century in rural NH, not far from where we live. It uses time to soften the wounds of death in a nice way.

A destruction of 1800's English wealth culture, the terrible impacts it has. 

Early to middle 1900's story of women's reasonable descent into madness. A tiny violin for the children of slave-holders in a recently freed Caribbean. Her money was cursed and she didn't even want it.

1948 book about caring about the planet and your environment.  I had made the mistake of thinking these ideas were NEW and EXCITING - turns out we've just been ignoring smart people for a long time. "I am glad that I shall never be young without wild country to be young in."

Early life and teen years of a young woman in Puerto Rico in the 1950's. Some very funny sections about well-meaning gov't officials, but also very honestly dark about her parent's relationship, and the idea of sinvergüenza (scoundrels).

A Russian version of a Charles Dickens novel, explaining various political beliefs of the time by way of tragic murder and death of two prominent families - The Verkovenskys and the Stavrogins.

Memoire of a wealthy woman throughout the 70's, life in a commune, and feminist ideals. Mental anguish, buying your way out of trouble, and lots and lots of life altering sex. Very funny and fast, and I felt as thought I was given a new perspective to view the world through.

2015 book about modern romance, dating, marriage, and how cellphones have changed it all.  There are very funny parts. There are interesting sociological parts. There is the Aziz being Aziz parts, which aren't so much for me (baby talk). The biggest takeaway for me was a graphic and section discussing long relationships and the change in love from Passionate to Companionate or Compassionate.

1970 Poetry book, the author explores loneliness, sports and faith.  Very straight-forward, no messing about.  I enjoyed it very much especially the poem called "To Begin To Live The Rest Of My Life" about mid-life crises.

A book that ties together two important Sci-fi trilogies, sadly doesn't offer much on its own. As a stand-alone book it is a story of a guy who falls in love with his great great great grandma, who is still hot because her people have a longer lifespan. The bad guy wants to destroy Earth, the only hero is a mind-controlling robot. The one Positive takeaway is the concept of the Zeroth Law of Robotics - helping humanity means its ok to harm individuals when it can't be helped.

On growing up a masculine woman in a feminine society, and the damage that racism and human subjugation have on both the perpetrator and their family and society at large. On how paths diverge and on how love is love no matter what. I enjoy the story and perspective, but I struggle to feel a connection to the narrator because of the alienness of wealth.

Third and final chapter in the life of the main character of two other books.  Written some time after the earlier books, it is certainly different...more full, more of one single story pushing forward through awfulness and sweetness. The book deals with our responsibility to make peace with our families and our histories, no matter what it takes.

A pretend autobiography of a wealthy but unsuccessful artist. Tells the story of the Abstract Expressionist movement in painting through the eyes of someone that wasn't really there, but could have been.  Fun and fast, but nothing very memorable for me personally.

My favorite travel writer, despite this book.  It wasn't a bad book at all, but it also wasn't really a book at all - more a collection of travel stories mashed together.  In his Blue Highways he was a sad man searching the Country's back roads to find solace through history. In this book, he's another content wealthy man with spouse who can afford travel for luxury and recreation. I don't see any personal growth for him inside of this, the way I find in other books. Still, worth reading.

Fantasy planet where the tectonic plates are always shifting and some humans have the ability to control them with mind power.  This causes political and cultural intrigues that are very interesting to consider.  Feeling a need to keep the story contemporary, author chose to have a heavy hand with bisexuality, transgenderism and sexual power dynamics. It's book one of a three book series.  I won't be looking for book 2.

Book 1 of a 3 part youth book series by the guy who wrote A Series of Unfortunate Events.  It is written in the same way, and if you've read a few of them...you probably get the gist.  I don't care for books that don't have some sort of resolution, even if there are going to be other books in that series. This had many loose ends, but with Lemony, they may stay loose forever - at least I'd like to think of it that way and save myself the trouble of reading the other two in this group.

Fresh air, fresh perspective, fresh stories.  Reading this book was like reading something written by a different being than myself. It felt wonderful to work through the story and think about displacement and culture and progress in more complete ways than before. I won't go hunt down more of his books, but would read them if they came past my desk again.

The final book I'm planning to read from this author.  They have a unique and distinctive voice, only its a voice of rebellion from wealth and white power in America, without ever giving up the wealth or the white privilege.  It's like listening to a good story teller telling tales about topics you just don't care about.

A grouping of short stories around characters and places in Dublin Ireland around the beginning of the 1900's.  There is a reason Joyce is considered the best writer to ever come from Ireland.  I don't know much about the history, and there are certainly some references that I miss, but despite all that the stories are clear and clean.  Descriptions are thorough without running long.  I very much enjoyed this and will keep an eye out for other works from this author.

New book to 2022, a look at the religious beliefs of various Rock Stars, and a stretched to the point of  comedy viewpoint that Christ saves, even the most unworthy...and apparently the most un-interested in salvation.  At one point there is a story about the death of George Harrison and how despite being a devout Hare Krishna, he was saved by Christianity.  Hearing small tidbits about the rough living of the lifestyle was fun.  The connection to religion was interesting.  The book overall was dumb as fuck, but easy to read at least.

2018 Super-deep investigation into the story of Massachusetts in 1675 - 1676 and the surrounding years. There are things you "know", like that war is awful and people are terrible to each other; but having the true stories adds some genuine perspective.  I never knew that indians taken from New England were often sent directly to the Caribbean to be slaves.  I also didn't know there was so much head-chopping-off going on.  I also learned how impactful cattle and farm animals were in harming the indigenous people and their ways of life.  It is an amazing book.  It seems a lifetime of effort to pull out all of these details, and to make it a real adventure to read.

I might make a WEETAMOO LIVES shirt next.

This is another deep dive, this time into the start of psychedelic research in the 1950's up through to the introduction and demonification of Timothy Leary. The book spends lots of time introducing each important person and their connection to society, whether it be Aldous Huxley and writing, or members of the CIA and their MKUltra project.  A very big takeaway for me from this book was that to be a good scientist in this field in the 50's you were expected to use the chemicals yourself first, to understand the effect it might have on others.

The life of Tim Leary in his own words from Birth to 1983. He lived and was active for another 13 years after this story concludes.  What a story it is! He fucking escaped from prison! I did not know that.  While like so many other authors, his wealth and opportunity are so frustrating to read about as if negligible or unimportant; he is also a charming and thoughtful writer.  Each chapter has an introduction to an important personage related to his life, from Socrates to Herman Hesse to Alan Ginsburg.  I think my biggest takeaway from this book is that LSD with the right set and setting could open new ways to think and to philosophize on life.  He made some really bad choices in life, and he doesn't seem to take any responsibility for those choices anywhere in the book, but then again, he is a rich white guy. Par for the course.

A 300-page advertisement for Transcendental Deep Breathing, which can only be taught in person...and requires a babysitter apparently. Take out the constant foolishness about the ONLY WAY to achieve a god-like bliss state is via their patented method, and there is a ton of really great philosophy in there, and a bunch of easy-to-understand explanations for other religious texts and beliefs.  The expansion of happiness is the purpose of creation. Everything is in constant motion, everything is literally interconnected, distinct things are simply the  tips of waves. Waves are real, but also just a collection of drops going the same way for a minute.

A multi-part book that starts with the story of the Raid on Deerfield in 1704 and subsequent hostage life in Canada for the Author, a minister of Deerfield MA who was taken along with his family.  Some of the more interesting parts of this section are the explanation that this was less about Indians against colonists and much more about France fighting with England by way of the colonies. John had 7 kids when this all went down.  2 were killed either during the raid or on the forced march. His wife was also killed on the march after falling in the river about 2 miles from where I write this now. John spent 2 years in Canada between Quebec and other places as a hostage of France, often treated very well and fed and cared for.  HIs daughter was taken by a Protestant Mohawk and lived the rest of her days "as an Indian" -dying at 90 years old. Her father's concern wasn't the pagan ways of the red man, rather that she would come to believe in the Pope and to kiss the cross.

  The second part of the book is a biography of John Williams. Then there are some notes and appendix with testimony written either in the 1700s or 1800s depending on the subject.  The book ends with an odd section on how an heir to John Williams and his unredeemed daughter Eunice was claiming to be the Dauphin, or rightful king of France, and how that was all bullshit...must have been popular in the news when this section was added in 1853. Book should sit on the shelf next to Our Beloved Kin.

Super fun story of two kids getting into mischief. The adults are all bad guys, the smart kids use their smarts to outwit the evil Witch and Uncle...then they go to the land of Lion Jesus, and he creates a new earth called Narnia where the boy is now responsible for introducing evil, by way of the witch hitching a ride. The boy is tempted by evil in a garden with apples, but he's like naw, I'm doing what lion Jesus says. Lion Jesus saves they boy's dying mom in the other real earth as a reward for him not disobeying. The kids bury the magic rings and magic apple core and that's where the magic dresser from the subsequent books comes from and why its magical. Oh, and there is a Pegasus and a cab driver that becomes a king, and his poor wife becomes queen in the new world but doesn't have a say in the matter.

As I enjoyed The Magician's Nephew and I love the stories of CS Lewis hanging out with JRR Tolkien, and seeing as how we had the whole set on the shelf, I've decided to go ahead and read the full Chronicles of Narnia.  Book 1 I've read before and have seen the film, but I wanted to reacclimate myself to the Narnian climate, so read this again.  I think that Edmund gets off way too easy for being pretty clearly an evil little shit, but maybe that's Christianity in a nutshell, right? And that is clearly clearly what these books are - just biblical stories of the greatness of God in the shape of a space lion. Resurrection and all.

Those zany kids are getting up to no good once again in Narnia...having been called off their train platform (a la Harry Potter) they find themselves 100o years in the future where some bad humans have taken over again and made life shitty for the critters.  A young prince learns from his nurse and teacher of the old Narnia when shit was cool.  The prince has to run away to save his life and quickly turns to war on the advice of a centaur.  Good thing lion Jesus and the kingly kids arrive in time to save the day. The moral of the story is have faith and all will be well.

In today's episode of Jesus Lion and the kids, a new kid and some silly critters are introduced, and some swashbuckling ensues. This book introduces a kid worse than Edmund, named Eustace.  He I think is the son of progressive Mormons, by the comment about special underwear.  He turns into a dragon for a few days with a sore arm to learn his lesson and becomes slowly a better person.    The book feels like a tv show that has jumped the shark, but it is still a very fun read and worth the day's investment.  

Now we're getting into some shit...the kids are taken to a bacchanalian orgy, but don't worrry...nothing weird happens (in print).  Eustace is back with a school friend, by way of a boat painting to help Lion Jesus defeat another evil witch.  This time there is a dark knight who might be a good guy, might be bad...oh, and he's possessed by a chair.  Turns out he was Prince Caspian's son. Kids win in the end.  oh, shit - almost forgot about the huge comic-relief frog man a la ewoks.

A great fun western story about a quiet but deadly guy with a past. He gets rich in railroads, but his girl and her Dad try to have him killed...little did they know that he was already on death's door from Cancer.  Flint decides to live out his days alone in the west where he was raised, only to be drawn back in...for ONE LAST BATTLE.  

Autobiography of a Mormon librarian and his personal struggle to live with Tourette's. There are some really special moments, like when an autistic weight lifting coach shows him that by working on controlling his breathing, he could control his tics.  There are dark parts too, when he finds that his child might have the same condition, and when the Mormon church reject he and his wife for adoption.  I like the literary references and the tales of what its really like working in a big city library.  These are interspersed with fighting to control his body against this disease.  He closes with a new battle, this time with his faith and his church.   

In this week's episode of Lion Jesus and the kids we are introduced to a few new main characters.  The poor son of a cruel Fisherman father hears plans to sell him off to a big bad and escapes on what happens to be a talking horse.  On the road he meets another escapee, this time in the form of a young lady escaping a planned marriage.  Lion Jesus gives this girl 10 lashes across her back for tricking a slave into letting her escape. The boy is, of course, a long-lost Prince.  His bravery (bolstered by Lion Jesus) pays off in the end and the big bad gets turned into a donkey.   

This 7-book children's series closes as most children's books do...with all the kids dying tragically, both in war and in a train crash.  But it starts just a little uniquely - with a false god and some very descriptive bad guys, with lots of focus on their dark skin (They shout Darkies! many times) and their smelling of garlic.  There is an ape who controls the false Aslan (asslan) and a discussion of what happens to people who follow the wrong god, but in the right way (redemption) and for those who follow the right god but the wrong way (eternal damnation).  Boy, I'd call this racist as fuck if it weren't written in...oh, wait 1956? Ugh. I feel dirty having read this.  

Silas is the story of a guy who gets cheated by his church, moves away and lives quietly getting rich. He gets robbed but also finds a little girl in the snow with a dead mom, so he claims the kid as his own.  She grows up and makes him happy, his gold is found on the dead body of the thief when they drain a pond. The little girl's real dad eventually confesses but is rebuffed, but he loads them up with money anyways since he's rich and didn't have any kids of his own with his new wife (as punishment by god). A nice M. Night Shamalan twist at the end when he finally goes back to his old town to see if he can set things right...instead his whole neighborhood is now a giant factory.  Really amazingly long sentences packed with fun bits, I really enjoyed this a lot, especially for 1861.  

Well I was waiting outside for my Thai food downtown and there was this free little library book box and I found this book and started to read it and I enjoyed it a whole heck of a lot.  This is the story of a boy who has to spend a month with his father while his mother gets married and has a honeymoon with the new guy.  The kid hasn't seen his dad in over a year and he's learning to be a rich kid, so that he fits in with his school and new Father-In-Law...but his real dad is a Camel Owner/Renter/Rider and he is the opposite of rich.

His trailer is the smallest in the park and he travels and lives with a camel.  The adventures they have in that month are the basis of the book, along with a fun side character named Sabrina (10) who with her mother are convention crashers in the summer. 

A rabbit tale of mystery that never gives up the ghost.  We don't ever know if the bunny was really a vampire or not, but it was fun all the same.  I will finish The Book of Disquiet, but I needed a break...that dude is sad.

This is a different book.

This book is sad but important.  It says out loud some thoughts that must be universal because I also think them and he describes the interiors of himself in such clarity and explains that because of this self-knowledge he is cordoned-off from the rest of humanity. He at some point in his life decided that to act is to betray and better to avoid all interaction.  Oh, he is so beautifully gloomy and his distress makes your own feel silly. An autobiography to be read in any order about a man that never existed full of no facts whatsovever.  It's like the journal or diary of a terribly unhappy man who revels in his misery.

Hard cover graphic novel about modern immigration from Africa.  One man's tale taking about a year presented as mostly black and white marker drawings with intentional water marks and occasional photography intercut. Little splashes of color. The story is presented factually as accurate, and if so it is most depressing. There has to be a way to help. How can good honest americans like me hear a story such as this and not ask, how can I help to change it.  Pessoa in the book above says I cannot change it and trying will only make it worse. I'm not sure I believe him, and it brings me no comfort...stumped.

1950 space story about a 15-year-old boy scout who leaves earth to live on Ganymede and the adventures that ensue. The first 85% of the book is about the difficulties of being a settler in a new country. Then gears turn and old space technology is found, perhaps a setup to a second book? It was fun and silly and for scouts, a really great book. I read it because of Stranger In A Strange Land, and the discussions I have had with folks about that book.

One 6th grade class in NYC in 1964. Author was classroom teacher and this book chronicles the year, the kids, his thoughts and theirs.

I have to wonder if anything has changed. I hope, but am uncertain.

A series of excerpts and thoughts from lectures to colleges by an expert in divinity and evolution in 1966. Most of this was over my head, perhaps expecting the reader to have a stronger base knowledge of various faith systems and beliefs. What I could glean is that the author feels that at one time man wanted to find his place in a static image of the universe, but that we've evolved to want to explore our place in space-time, not a still photograph, but our place in the real scientific universe of interconnectedness. This leads him to swap places with the conventional argument that proof of god is in the orderliness of the universe, rather that proof of good is that we exist despite all of the chaos and uncertainty in the real world.  His idea that evolution is more than the physical changes occurring over years and includes an evolution of spirit. As we grow and expand our mental acuity and understanding of science, those of faith can believe that their soul has also expanded and grown and changed.  He touches on how before Jesus Christ, God was a god of anger and retribution, but after his death and resurrection that God became a god of love and comfort...not that our thoughts about God changed, but that God itself changed.  What an idea!

A lady decides to devote a good chunk of her life chasing terrible humans who get away with things.  The amazing twist? She dies before catching her biggest prey.  They close the book by being ambiguous about if her work even helped to eventually solve the case. It sucks that there are shit bags in the world who do bad things. I don't want to read about them. 

The subtitle is Baudelaire's classic work on Opium and Wine. Its a grouping of tales about the authors personal experiences with wine, hash, and opium around the middle 1800's.  He also dissects another artist's descriptions of opium (DeQuincy). The Questions I learn to ask from this book includes "Is it enough to think?". "Do we have an obligation to humanity to do anything more than dream? " "If opium, hash or other drugs can make you a better artist, should you do it, even if the overall effect on you is terrible? "

This was the first book I've ever read that elevated the arts to the level of business, and assigns as much value to thinking as to doing.

The first book of 2023 that I didn't enjoy in the least. Meant to be a silly tale of the end of days and a humorous jab at religion, it just wasn't funny.  I had a hard time understanding the dialogue, maybe because two people were writing one character, maybe not. I'm not against loving the show, perhaps it will be great.  The book for me wasn't.

This was my second time around with this book.  I love the art from R. Osborn so much I'm thinking of getting one of the images tattood on my person.  The book is from 1950 and is a layman's explanation of the new (then) concept of Game Theory. The first part of the book focuses on concepts and theoretical games and the rest of the book extrapolates that into other fields.  One important takeaway concept for me is the idea that in addition to "survival of the fittest" and "survival of the most cooperative" there is also "survival by being an alternative to two competing forces".  

LETTERS TO ED

*Published March 2024 in Montague Reporter, Montague MA.


HONORING MIKE KITTREDGE'S TRUE LEGACY


GREENFIELD – 

Newell is a multinational corporation that owns, among other things, the Sharpie brand, the Rubbermaid brand, and Yankee Candle brand. A local paper announced recently that 350 jobs would be leaving the area as Newell consolidates businesses and seeks efficiencies in operations. This story is so far from unique that it wouldn’t be worth noting, except that I think I have a bit of a unique perspective on the subject by having worked six years at Yankee Candle, by having helped design the facility they are closing, by having been both loved and mistreated egregiously by the company, and by having an audacious plan to get just a tiny bit of retribution or remuneration. Around the year 1997, I was 18 years old with a wife and baby son. I was working at a local vegetarian food factory doing manual labor, packaging and light warehousing. I saw an advertisement in the Greenfield Recorder for warehouse workers at Yankee Candle with a starting pay over $12 per hour. When I got that job I thought I was the luckiest person on earth. In 1997, this would be enough for rent and food and a car if I busted my butt. Prior to this my only daily transportation was a mountain bike. I started out on Christian Lane in Whately, loading boxes onto belts and into order-picking bays, and transitioned to driving a forklift shortly thereafter. I learned to drive a forklift by visiting an offsite warehouse with another young employee where Mike Kittredge stored some of his car collection, right along with excess candle merchandise. My first pallet move was over the hood of a black Porsche 911 Turbo. I met some of the most amazing people at Yankee, and am still very close friends with a guy who now lives in Sacramento. When I started working there, Mike K. was still the owner – he hadn’t yet sold it to the first of many subsequent owners. Things were good in the Mike K. years. There was free pizza for lunch every Wednesday. While the pizza came on Wednesdays, there were always leftovers on Thursdays, and often still on Fridays. This meant that my total lunch costs for the week usually worked out to about 80 cents, I would eat a pouch of Ramen noodles with microwaved water on Monday and Tuesday, and pizza for the remainder. Around 1999, Yankee began to build a new office headquarters and a new distribution center – both now closed or scheduled to close. The new D.C. would use the latest warehouse management software, so trainers were needed to teach the staff how to use these tools. Managers and Supervisors in the company selected some of their most capable floor workers to become Trainers. I made that list. After a successful transition, the company made my role permanent and I became a Warehouse Management Systems Specialist, which was a salary! No longer hourly, I’d have security to raise a family, with a second baby on the way. At the same time, things were changing for Yankee – Mike K. sold the whole shebang to a private-equity firm. The salary, I found out, was the lowest legal salary that could be offered without having to pay overtime and other hourly benefits. The minute I became a salaried employee, my relationship with the company changed. I was told to work all shifts, ensuring training was consistent throughout. I was told to stay as late as necessary to get certain jobs done. Our first inventory after the switch to the new WMS system was a huge debacle, and I was told “you do not go home until this is done,” I was on site 20 hours one day, and across three days was in the facility 50-plus hours. I was so sleep-deprived that I found myself one morning in the women’s bathroom, wondering what the machines on the wall were for, and why they weren’t there yesterday. I saved up vacation time, sick time, and whatever else I could so that I could be with my wife when my second son was born. I had three weeks accrued. The day he was born – five weeks premature, moved to Baystate’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – I got a call from work. There is a problem, you need to come in. I told them I have time, I have a sick baby, a distraught wife. They said be here or you no longer have a job. I worked 12-hour days at Yankee, and from there went daily to Springfield to spend the night with the baby, stopping at the company gym to shower. I was tasked once with finding out why our shipping costs were wrong with a certain carrier. I worked with another leader, a very smart woman, and we figured out the issue was double-billing in the software we were using. We alerted the company, which in turn got a rebate check from that carrier for over $750,000. I was thanked with a $100 YCC gift card. I owe a tremendous debt to this company. Yankee put me on an airplane for the first time in my life – I went to visit distribution centers in Salt Lake City, Utah, and call centers in North Carolina. They paid me well. They taught me a ton. People were kind most of the time. In or around 2002, the changes that private equity had put into place were making life at Yankee pretty bad. Pizza was still free, but only once a month. The pool tables were removed from the breakroom, and the summer picnics no longer had vacation prizes, lobster, and steak on the grill. Those were the superficial niceties that disappeared, but the real trouble was when the company decided to institute productivity quotas. If you’ve never worked in a factory or manufacturing facility, a quota is a set amount of work the average worker should be able to complete in a given workday. This seems reasonable enough, but as anyone who works for Amazon or C&S will tell you, management slowly turns the dial... higher and higher until the average worker fails and only the strongest, hardest working survive... until they also burn out and get replaced. Workers are not people under a quota system; they are tools that can be replaced when they fail. A forklift operator I’d worked with for many years at Yankee approached me at my cubicle one day, I now having a luxurious office job. He told me that while they were setting the quotas, it would be helpful if the workers knew the metrics being used, so that they knew where they had to perform best and where they were being judged less harshly. Inside that request was a moral quandary. Is my responsibility to the mega-corp that paid me, or to my co-worker who simply wanted to make each work day a bit more survivable? I chose to help him. I told him the internal metrics that would be used. Someone overheard us – again, it was cubicles, not some clandestine meeting at Wolfie’s – and ratted us out. I was pulled into HR, where I first lied, then knew I was caught. I called a high school friend who ran the “packaged applications” (IT) department of Ringling Brothers Circus, and he got me a job in DC. That was how I left Yankee. I reached out to some friends still there years later, and was told in no uncertain terms that there was in fact a “DO NOT HIRE” list and I was on it. I’m kind of proud of that fact now, but at the time being barred from employment with the biggest name in the county was a challenge. So, to wrap this all up... Newell just announced they are closing this Distribution Center. Last year they closed that new corporate office building. In related news, Mike Kittredge’s son Mick has recently listed his father’s house in Leverett on the market for $23,000,000. It has a bowling alley, movie theater, lazy river, classic car garage, tennis courts... Mike worked hard to earn those things. He was smart. He was kind. He was savvy. Mike deserved this, all of it. I don’t know Mick, I’ve met him three or four times... shared lunch with him and a friend twice... argued with him about the stupid Dunkin’ in Bernardston. He might be as great as his Dad, I don’t know. But he didn’t start a business in his mom’s basement. He didn’t bust his ass to become a billionaire with a 270-foot yacht. He was just lucky enough to be born. I think the best way to honor Mike Kittredge’s true legacy would be to open that mansion as a public park and use some of his riches to pay to keep it clean, open, and free. Mike was a rockstar, both figuratively and literally. (The house has a full stage!) At the very least, and I mean really the very least... Open a weekend invitation to former Yankee Candle employees to visit the house, or the yacht. Let them drive one of the cars, drink one of the $500 wines. Why not? 

Chris Joseph lives in Greenfield. 

*Published January 2024 in Montague Reporter, Montague MA.


Perseid


It was a cold night. I will not describe it further. It was cold.

TV said the space show would start after 10 pm

As I watched the first streak by

I began to wish one would 

The More You Know

straight at my face

what a warm and wonderfilled

way to die.

*Published September 2020 in the Greenfield Recorder, Greenfield MA.

Are They Really Learning in Their Virtual Classroom?


Have an honest talk with your school age children.

Are they really learning right now in their virtual classroom? I’d wager the answer for the overwhelming majority is No.

Is that the fault of the student? No, they were never taught how to learn remotely. It takes completely different skills than learning in person. There are variables that just don’t exist in a school — internet connectivity, internet attention magnets, no eye contact, limited one-on-one help, volume controls, screen reading, brothers, sisters, just a world of differences that we can’t pretend don’t require new techniques to learn around.

Since March I haven’t seen a local, state or national plan to teach these skills.

Are the teachers to blame? No, they were hired to teach in a classroom. They went to school and practiced in a classroom; they were taught a pedagogy based on in-person teaching. This is akin to asking veterinarians to play doctor. They can, and often do play this role in an emergency, but they don’t become doctors forevermore after the event.

Since March I haven’t seen a local, state or national plan to teach these skills.

Our state and local school boards are telling us that this global emergency requires we enlist all the classroom teachers to automatically become online virtual education teachers. They are telling us that because it is unsafe for kids to be in classrooms in person that the only alternative is to “go online.”

Virtual education is useless for allowing parents to go to work.

Virtual education will fail our students if they and the teachers aren’t trained in its use.

Physical classroom education is stupid and deadly right now.

Maybe we need to think bigger, shut down all schools completely, and use that time to teach our students, teachers, faculty and family what it takes to succeed in a remotely connected world.

We need to stop pretending COVID will just go away, and we need to wake up to the new reality.

This half-assed approach to education isn’t helping teachers, students or parents.


*Published February 2021 in Greenfield Recorder, Greenfield MA

The Greatest Country on Earth

I was born in America. I grew up a proud American. As I came to understand that we are a nation with a violent and sometimes cruel history, I learned to love America, warts and all. …

But then ...

Yesterday ...

I had to drive to a pharmacy in a storm and wait in a line in hopes of getting some leftover vaccine that might keep us alive a bit longer. I’m remembering the stories of people waiting in line to buy bread. I used to wonder … how could they let this happen?

I was third in line. The woman first in line had arrived 15 minutes earlier than me. She got the vaccine that day, I did not. Fifteen minutes. I thought to myself … what if I was a millionaire? I could walk up to this woman and offer her $10,000 cash for her spot and she would have taken it. Extrapolate just a tiny bit and you see … how was it that I could be in line instead of at work? How was it that I even knew to go check for leftovers, except that I have access to high-speed internet and a good running truck?

In the greatest country on earth, how is it that to get medical care I have to use the skills I learned to buy concert tickets online through TicketMaster?

This is not a COVID-19 problem.

This is an America problem.

I was born here and raised here and I know that there is evil and I know that there is good but this American In-between is getting to be too much.


*Published July 2022 in Greenfield Recorder, Greenfield MA.

All is Lost

I wrote before the last election about how I’d be voting for Biden because, while I held out little hope for our nation, I felt he was the best of the little hope we could have.

I saw a photograph this week of President Biden fist-bumping Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. That was the man who personally had a U.S. resident journalist tortured and murdered in an embassy while trying to get a marriage license. This was recorded and audio is available to this day on the internet. I’m certain our sweet uncle Joe heard it before his visit.

How, after this, can we pretend … even a little that we are a moral country? What is our center, if not basic justice?

Our own president has shown us that, in our country, only money matters.  I knew this was true of the modern Republicans, but I somehow thought the Democratic party were different. I was born here and raised here and I know that there is evil and I know that there is good but this American In-between is getting to be too much.


*Published March 2023 in Montague Reporter, Montague MA.

ON HUNGER IN AMERICA

Sometimes a simple question requires a complex answer, and sometimes folks will just say that so they can profit from keeping the solution hidden.

How do we solve Hunger in America?

Our current solution is to setup a network of food banks, layers and layers of non-profit organizations and scores of volunteers filling bags in church basements. Selling pies and magazines and begging for change. Put a box near the cash register. SNAP benefits…

Stop just a minute and ask yourself a few questions:

 

The solution is right there. If you want to make literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year in profits from moving food, well then, you also have to be the framework that feeds the hungry.

Sending pallets of food to a Food Pantry is exactly the same as sending to a Piggly Wiggly. The only difference is the profit margin.

 

In our area, the Wholesale Grocer isn’t some evil multi-national corporation – it’s America’s #8 Largest Privately Owned Business with $30 Billion (with a B) annual revenue.

Something to think about anyway.

*Published May 2022 in Greenfield Recorder, Greenfield MA.

Ashamed and Sorry

I just finished reading the complaint against the Greenfield Police Department. I am sick.

Why hasn’t the Recorder made this obvious corruption the top of every page?

Why hasn’t the mayor resigned in shame? Why hasn’t her chief of staff?

They let this all happen, they knew! Where was the oversight?

If you haven’t read it — it is so much more than just passing over a guy for a promotion.

Getting a nurse fired and calling child services for revenge. Frightening an innocent man to the point of physical illness over dating a cop’s daughter.

Drunk-driving in cruisers, not to mention the fake promotions and uninvestigated accusations. 

The Greenfield Police clearly do not care about protecting or serving anyone other than themselves.

I am ashamed and sorry that this happened in my city.

Shame on you all.

*Published October 2023 in Montague Reporter, Montague MA.

A Petition

I am petitioning the city of Greenfield MA to change the name of Eunace Williams Drive to Eunace Williams Drive.

As I'm sure you know, Eunace Williams Drive is home to the pumping station, a man-made waterfall dam, one house, and the Eunace Williams Covered Bridge.  The only covered bridge in Greenfield.

The covered bridge and the road were named after a woman, Eunace Williams, who was killed during a forced march in 1704, led by French soldiers and mostly Mohawk and Abenaki Indians.
There is a monument on the site, written by her husband about the blood thirsty savage who slew her with one swing of the hatchet.

While it is tragic that a woman was murdered, we don't traditionally name streets after tragedies.

While it is true she was slain with a single stroke (at least that's what the people who witnessed it reported (not including her husband who was waiting for them at the top of the hill)), this was not malicious or blood thirsty action; rather this was a professional team of soldiers moving a large group of people to Canada quickly, so that they could be used as hostages (to free a Pirate (not joking)) by the French in their active war with England being fought in the colonies, specifically the Massachusetts bay colony (Queen Anne's War).  Eunace had just given birth 6 weeks earlier and witnessed the baby being killed back at their home in Deerfield, along with one of their two slaves (did I mention they kept slaves in Deerfield in the 1700's)...the witnesses say she wasn't keeping up.

These Indians and soldiers were tasked with getting as many people over to Quebec as they could as quickly as possible...a slow grieving woman probably wasn't worth the lost time to them, and they made a cruel decision.

So -

Instead of naming the place for a tragedy compounded by generations of hate against native peoples for their savagery, perhaps we should name if for someone from a similar era who maybe provides a better, more honorable, and more realistic view of the people and the time we venerate. In this we could use Eunace Williams, daughter of Eunace Sr., and "unredeemed captive".

The younger Eunace was 7 years old on the day her family was taken on that march.  She was never delivered to the French to barter with, instead she was given as a sort of reward to one of the Mohawk families that participated in the raid.  Eunace was raised by this family - now please don't be confused and think because she was raised by Indians that she was somehow more wild or rugged or backwards than any of the Europeans living in the colonies at this time - in fact she went to church very regularly and was raised in a Catholic Mission Fort.

Her dad was not nearly as upset that she was with savages, as he was that she believed in the Pope. He tried the remainder of his life to Redeem her and return her to her puritanical salvation, but remember how Puritans treated women? Yeah, she passed on the offers - married and had two kids and lots of grandchildren, and she died at 89 years old.

The younger Eunace was stolen from her family, which is a tragedy in itself, but she was redeemed by a family that loved her and gave her choices and opportunities she never would have had as a daughter in puritan Deerfield in the 1700s. Daughter Eunace's story has more meaning, more reality and more hope than Mother Eunace's story and it is the one I think we should be celebrating on beautiful fall days as we drive past the monument to murder and confused hate across a bucolic new England landscape.

And, best of all - nobody needs to update their address with the Post Office!

poker player - credit R. Osborn