_The Sand Pebbles_ As a Recurring Absence

Glossy magazines, unlike underground comix, continue to thrive. And so, lacking a venue that carries the latest Crumb cartoons, I find myself at Safeway surveying the magazines. And lacking anything else new and noteworthy, I find myself eyeing the military titles. Are there more than before? Or is this just another of the countless areas I can't keep track of?
    One grabs my eye

Choose sides! Choose sides! (Iraq 2003)

Another oldie-essay, written in 2003 about the time the U.S. military was reaching Baghdad. The Globe and Mail Book section at the time had a regular feature called "Three for Thought" wherein freelance writers would recommend three books on a subject. Margaret Atwood had already done a war-related piece, but I found it a bit tepid, and her three books academic and uninspiring, so I set myself the task of cobbling together something a bit more galvanic. Something to commemorate great war-literature. Something to get my moribund writing career restarted.

The following was what I (typically) wasted too much time composing. I mailed in and waited. Nada. Not even a "sorry but it doesn't meet our needs" letter. Well, what the hell. One for the alumni of Hard Knocks College. But it may still have some residual relevance as an Iran conflict looms, so here it is:

         *         *         *
(Once again, gotta find the lamentable thing. Hey, I'm beyond embarrassment...)

"Till next Tuesday"?? -- hahahahahaha

Election day! For myself, time to think about something else to avoid depression (although I did cast my "Perverse Conservative" vote for the NDP... don't ask. Okay, ask, but you are going to be sorry. Very, very sorry).

So, anyhow, my excuse for plummeting into this "Blogger" spot is that AOL is currently scrapping their blog-site "Journals" (where the first post appeared three years ago as a hesitant experiment) due to declining interest. Big surprise, that, eh? A gazillion morons with computers, thrilling themselves and nobody else by seeing their inane "thoughts" IN PRINT!! In cyberspace!!! Woo hoo!!!!

Then (then!) they ultimately see (if they aren't blinded by ego and wishful thinking) that, hell, I am but one pitiful voice crying in the e-wilderness...
Ignored. Totally. Damn! Didn't those Internet people promise to CONNECT us all together in wonderful togetherness?? Hey, who voted these Internet people into power anyway?

The original RCMP* plan (click here for Zen exercise in futility) was to provide a dumping ground for stray thoughts, unsuccessful pieces that no publication in their right minds would want to buy,** pitch the projected culture magazine, and maybe educate my clueless, dilapidated self about a thing or two in the electronic media. All while regularly exercising those scribbling muscles between my ears!

Well, three years later I still feel clueless. The magazine is nowhere. And four gazillion other chores scream to be done. So, um, another "week" or so to the next post? =]
Possible topic: Margaret Atwood's politics, if the subject isn't, like, totally YESTERDAY.


* Cute acronym, eh? Okay, maybe it WAS, when the title of the blog was Rudimentary Culture Monitor Precursor.
** Anybody want to see posted the "Three for Thought" essay I wrote on the subject of war (title: "Choose Sides! Choose Sides!") and sent to the "Books" department at the Globe and Mail during the 2003 Iraq invasion (response: dead silence). Anybody? Nobody?