Good Morning: William Kennedy! Spinoza! Kerouac! Abortions! AI Killers! Bridges!

There was a miss on the writer's group yesterday, but it still took two hours out of my life. Only one other showed up and we chatted for about an hour. Then I went to get some Coke Zero at the closest convenience store only to find out I had left my debit card at home. I gave up waiting for the bus because parts were aching. Instead, I walked home; more like limped. There I got the debit card, caught the number three up to The Dollar General and then back to Riverside Avenue. Thereafter, I stayed home.

I stayed home for the rest of the day. Sleeping took out a chunk of my afternoon. Then I was up till around 2 AM working on my research project. Thinking I could make it to Liturgy, I laid down for a while with the alarm set for 5 AM. I am pretty sure the alarm went off, but now I cannot find my phone.

When I woke again, it was off to the convenience store for tobacco and caffeine.

 Then I started on this post and went through browser tabs and email. What follows is the crop for this morning.

“He Breathes, He Writes”: The Voluminous Memory and Deep Empathy of Ironweed Author William Kennedy, the Library of America is promoting its Kennedy anthology with its usual class.

LOA: Ironweed is many readers’ introduction to Kennedy. What do you think explains this novel’s appeal? Why has it been Kennedy’s breakout book?

PG: Bill will say (novelists always say) it’s like naming a favorite child, but he knows that Ironweed is the top of his game, the best he’s ever written. Along with Legs and Billy Phelan in this trilogy, these novels represent a pinnacle.

The term of the day was “bums.” You look past bums. But Bill didn’t look past them. He gives them prominence, and in Ironweed they’re deeply human and interesting and layered and smart and funny. But they’re also broken, and they kind of fix each other—or try to. And the result is beautiful.

Not much happens in the novel; Kennedy is not a plot-driven writer. The characters walk up and down a handful of blocks in Albany, but they’re looking for home, much like salmon returning to their spawning stream. These two destroyed people, on the edge of survival, they’re never going to get their job or their life or their house back, but maybe they’re going to get a cup of soup that day, and maybe they’ll get a place to sleep, and maybe they’ll find friendship, or love. You’re rooting for these people. And it really is Albany. But it’s also any city.

We all want the same simple things. I think empathetic is a good word to describe Bill. These characters are not written with halos over them. They have a lot of flaws and they’ve done a lot of damage. He’s not canonizing them, but he’s giving them their due. They deserve the love they can find. They deserve to live another day. 

 Kennedy is one of the writers I knew of in my twenties and did not get around to reading until my fifties and wish I had read when I was younger.

Listen in: Spinoza, Atheist is a podcast from Princeton University Press. Spinoza is one of those philosophers I have been aware of since I was a teenager and yet who I never got around to reading. He intimidates me and he feels important; unlike Hegel who I think of as overhyped and empty. I listened to the podcast was I working, it seems to cover only a part of Sinoza's career. 

 I have a wary, on-again-off-again relationship with Jack Kerouac. I never succumbed to On The Road as did many people. Once, I thought it showed the limits of my mind and taste. Only to have the same so-what reaction when I read him again in my fifties. I gave up my plan to read his later novels. What I read about his later works has me thinking I am not missing anything. Yet, I continue reading about him. Which led me to Jack Kerouac: The Pseudo-Saint of Mindfulness by Josh Milton-Bell (Liberties). Not that this changed my mind about reading him further, but it has me thinking, instead, there is something to be learned from him.

What is it about Kerouac that still inspires such fervent devotion among impressionable 17-year-olds, nearly seventy years after On the Road’s initial publication? Kerouac lived the experiences that he wrote about, his novels weren’t sterile thought experiments written from the bowels of ivy-thick scholastic towers but muscular records of a life spent tussling on the forest floor. To his disciples, his spontaneous prose radiates wild, kinetic energy, a dizzying musical propulsion of words building on words building on words, the capstone of generative writing, frantic, compulsive hot wanderlust dripping from the walls as the sun rises up over the San Francisco Bay and gleams madly, gladly, while the — and so forth. 

***

Kerouac was pathologically incapable of escaping his desires, of surrendering himself totally to faith. But unlike our wellness industry salesmen, Kerouac actually took his spiritual quest seriously enough to be disturbed by his own failure to rise to it. To some degree he understood these inner contradictions, and desperately wanted to go beyond, to grasp onto true faith and outrun himself. In the second half of The Buddhist Years the reader watches as Kerouac becomes increasingly repulsed by his own inadequacy.  

The essay notes that Kerouac was depressed; some quotes remind me of how I thought when despondent. Then it gave me a reason for my paying attention to Kerouac:

But Kerouac was nothing if not authentic. And this authenticity is no less poignant for being the true expression of a limited man. His continued relevance does not follow from the depth of his spiritual ideals but the poignancy of his sincerity, his evocation of that tormented — sometimes sublime — search for meaning that can come in the absence of true belief. Reading these ragged efforts to will himself into faith, rushing and writhing to ascend beyond, it’s difficult to not feel a profound compassion for him.

He held nothing back from us. Kerouac was unafraid to fail spectacularly, cosmically, infinitely. The inadequacy of his faith may be his greatest legacy.

I worked yesterday on my research project. It came out of the Indiana Supreme Court upholding Indiana's abortion statute. This morning I read Sheila Kennedy's Culture War Consequences, and it puts my work and the work of Indiana's Republicans in perspective:

When it comes to culture-war issues, however, they are simply unable to connect the dots, despite the fact that a number of Indiana businesses predicted–and are now experiencing– problems recruiting employees as a result of the ban.

That connection– between Indiana’s ban and the state’s ability to attract a talented workforce–emerged during a recent, enlightening conversation with some friends.  A former colleague who recently became a grandfather noted that his son and daughter-in-law intended to have another child–but not while they still lived in Indiana. Both are high-tech workers of the sort Indiana desperately needs, and both currently have excellent positions. But they plan to relocate, because–as my colleague’s daughter-in-law explained–she fears what might happen if she has a troubled pregnancy.

Another friend concurred, noting that he had counseled his daughter–a recent elite college graduate–not to return to Indiana. As he explained, although his family would have the means to send her out-of-state for necessary care in normal course, that wouldn’t protect her in the case of an emergency situation.

Is this the plan - to have the educated, the talented remove themselves from Indiana? Think about it.  

 

 Okay, there is a West Newton, Indiana, but no East Newton, or a Newton. Such is Indiana geography.

 Meet the New ICE Queen. Same as the Old ICE Queen. (The Bulwark): Is there any Trump appointee who is competent?

Okay, I’m overstating it. But yesterday, a new report in the Daily Mail1—a hotbed, recently, for scoops from leaky and disgruntled DHS employees—featured anonymous Mullin underlings griping about some remarkable parallels between life under the old boss and under the new boss. For one thing, Mullin is reportedly trying to get his wife Christie on the DHS payroll as a “Special Government Employee”—the same arrangement Noem once used for her boy-toy adviser Corey Lewandowski.

For another, Mullin appears still to be flying around in the same $70 million luxury jet that helped end Noem’s tenure—and using it to spend a good chunk of his working time in his home state of Oklahoma. “He leaves on Thursdays a lot at 11 in the morning and doesn’t fly back until Monday afternoon,” one source complained to the Daily Mail. “He is barely in the building.”

“Mullin seems to think ICE requires less work than a senator, and it shows,” griped another. “Meanwhile, ICE has no direction.”

The Pope WARNS The World About War, AI & Unchecked Power:

 Morality, what a concept.

Feta fries, a hot chicken biscuit and the east side’s favorite rectangular pizza: an illustrated food tour for part of Indianapolis.

Tuesday's song of the day:

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Pondering Character

 I managed to read Highsmith's Tom Ripley novels only in my fifties. Everyone says there is a strangeness, a dangerous quality, in her work. They are right.

But David Bergen on Patricia Highsmith, Backstories, and Why Tom Ripley's Character Works catches the ineffable quality of Highsmith, or so my memory tells me.

 Critics and readers have focussed on Ripley’s latent homosexuality, and how the repression created an angry young man capable of killing Dickie Greenleaf, a blond blue-eyed young American whom Ripley might desire; a few seconds before swinging the oar, Tom thinks “he could have hit Dickie, sprung on him, or kissed him, or thrown him overboard….” However, Highsmith is more interested in the impulses at the edge of desire, in alienation, in the act of survival, and the subconscious urge to run towards an ideal.

*** 

Highsmith gives us little history of Tom Ripley, and so we have no sense of what “made” Tom. Another writer might introduce a traumatic childhood, or some abuse newly recalled, or the horrible evil stepmother, to justify a character who kills with robotic coldness and efficiency and then cleans up his own messes with very little emotion; a dead body is a mere object to get rid of.

Ripley knows what he has done, but he justifies each violent action as an unfortunate necessity. To create a character who has no background, no formative traits, no history, no emotional purchase, and then to make that character believable and sympathetic, is a feat. 

Origin stories seem a rage now, following the rise of comic books. Yes, David Copperfield and Oliver Twist have origin stories; Morte d'Arthur has an origin story. The Bible has its origin stories. But what are the origin stories of Hamlet, Lear, Ivanhoe, Elizabeth Bennett, Sam Spade, or Jake Barnes? 

It seems to me that some stories require the character's origin. Those seem to be the stories that follow a biographical method. We need to see the beginning to understand the end. Again, see David Copperfield. The character directs action?

Others tell the story of what I am calling a functional character. We do not need to know the complete biography of Sam Spade or Hamlet. Of the latter, all we need to know is he is the Prince of Denmark and his father was murdered; what he was studying at Wittenberg is irrelevant. The action shows the character? 

But The Great Gatsby presents a problem for me. Jay Gatz alters his origin because he aspires to Daisy, but the alteration does not become known until after Gatsby's death. Dreiser works a similar story in the biographical form with An American Tragedy.  So does James T. Farrell in the Studs Lonigan trilogy. We have seen Gatsby chasing after Daisy. When we find out about Jay Gatz, the novel approaches tragedy.

Is the origin story related to the trauma plot? Are we delving into the trauma to understand the character? For Melville, it was enough to tell us that Moby Dick took Ahab's leg to start off Moby Dick. 

Well, enough meandering thoughts before dawn.

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Pig's Feet! Romans! Climate Change! Trump Still Thieving! Libertarians! Addiction Games!

 I talked to Joel C and KH last night. It came in and between my working on the research project.

I had pig's feet for last night; I have three more in the refrigerator.

How to Cook Pig Feet in the Oven? 

The spot where the tooth was pulled is tender and so the face above it. My CPAP mask hits that spot. I did not sleep much last night, so I got up and got to work on blog posts. I also started clearing out the tabs in my Zen browser.

The Guardian published Woman fired from Indiana university over Charlie Kirk post wins $225,000 settlement. It shows off the best of Indiana:

 Mearns said Swierc’s post resulted in a flood of outraged phone calls and emails to the university. Some warned they would withhold donations and at least one parent said she planned to withdraw her children from the school. Some callers threatened violence, Mearns said.

“The reaction was extraordinarily damaging to our University’s reputation and image, and it was exceptionally disruptive to our mission and our people,” Mearns said in his statement.

Having fun with the Romans: Mary Beard on the Classics  

Could nature itself hold the solution to climate change? (The Guardian)

In Argentina’s Iberá national park, you can see a stunning example of runaway revival. After decades of degradation, the reintroduction of jaguars has reduced bloated herds of grazing herbivores, allowing wetland plants to recover. The plants’ roots trap moisture in the soil, and their branches provide a habitat for species that make this one of the most spectacular wetlands – and carbon sinks – on the planet. After just a few years, caimans now bask on the banks, macaws flash scarlet across the sky and giant otters patrol the waterways.

Of course, nature-based solutions are not always so successful. Companies have created vast carbon farms via monocultural tree planting, destroying native species in the process. The drying of peatlands to reduce methane production leads to the release of huge amounts of CO2. Nature’s power lies in its complexity, so attempting to simplify or reengineer the system often backfires.

The risks and trade-offs tend to disappear, though, when you get one vital part of the equation right. Time and again, when the revival of local biodiversity improves the livelihoods and wellbeing of local people, change becomes truly sustainable. Whenever people are intrinsically motivated to protect the environment around them, they become an integrated part of a natural feedback loop that can quickly gather momentum. 

Todd Blanche’s Effort to Grant Trump and His Family “Forever Immunity” Hides a Greater Danger 

 The Libertarian Party of Indiana (oddly no updates to its blog since last year, are they sure about offering a choice?)

Elevating The Mediocre (Sheila Kennedy) has an interesting study of how the under-educated get recruited and stay loyal to tyrants.

Struggling to get your children off Fortnite? There’s a reason for that (Irish Times)

Schüll’s central insight is that machine gambling is not primarily about money. Instead, gamblers are in search of a flow state that allows players to “manage their affective states and create a personal buffer zone against the uncertainties and worries of their world”.

While flow states are good, both gambling machines and video games can weaponise them to the extent that some players become numb to everything else.  

The Book That Plunges You Into Messy American History (The Atlantic)

During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration made what may well be the nation’s most explicit and pernicious attempt to demand loyalty. In 1942, roughly two months after Pearl Harbor, the government began to detain Japanese and Japanese American residents of the West Coast and Hawaii. Eventually, some 120,000 people, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were imprisoned in large inland camps. During their detainment, which lasted up to four years, internees had to take a survey that, among other things, asked whether they would serve in the Army “on combat duty, wherever ordered” and “swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America”—that is, to the country that had just imprisoned them, presuming their disloyalty. If Loyalty Day is uninteresting because it’s artificial, then this was something far more sinister. For many internees, the so-called loyalty questions seemed like a threat.

Questions 27 & 28, the author Karen Tei Yamashita’s tenth book, gets its title from those loaded questions. The novel roves through time, space, and literary styles to tell stories of many Japanese immigrants and their descendants in the United States. She brings to life nearly 100 people who were interned—or their ancestors were, or their children, or their legal clients, or a wide range of other connections. All of these stories merge into a sprawling exploration of what it was like to have to answer the loyalty questions, and how those questions echo through American history to this day. Crucially, Yamashita does this without ever legitimizing the test itself. “Those questions,” she writes, “that damned questionnaire, are meaningless, but the consequences of interpreting them, choosing yes or no, shape the future.”

Is this when America was great? 

Onto other things, like getting ready for the writer's group.

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Reading Lists

 I have a pile of books here to read, some for personal reasons and some for research, but I keep looking at lists of books for which I lack the time to read. Maybe I can come back to them, and perhaps you can get to them before me.

Midwest: A Regional Spotlight on Independent Publishing (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses)

A Reading List for Jewish American Heritage Month 2026 (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses)

I got two things from 19 Novels You Need to Read This Summer (Literary Hub). First, Téa Obreht has a new novel (about time), and then this that gave me thought about my writing:

But the thing one craves in good fiction is the eye-widening prompt to see things differently. 

Makes me wonder if I do enough of that.

We Should All Be Autodidacts: The Case For Reading the Great Books at Your Own Pace (Literary Hub) is not a list but about reading a particular list that puts the pin into scholarly pretensiousness.

When people ask whether they should read these books, I have two answers. The first is “Why would you not want to read all these old famous books that you’ve heard about all your life?”

The second answer is that the Great Books tend to share one quality. They have a lot of integrity. They tend to be unflinchingly honest about whatever their subject happens to be. And this means that even when they come down on one side of a question, they usually make a fair case for the opposite side.

Books ‘Andy Burnham’s life was changed by the poet Tony Harrison’: writers discuss literature, politics and the 100 best novels is about a list.

The Guardian’s list was topped by Middlemarch, and while it featured many 19th and 20th-century classics, newer novels including The Vegetarian by Han Kang, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante also made the cut.

Asked why older titles are finding popularity among young people, Mosse said that such books “contain a wisdom that is not about the endless revolving door that we live in now”.

“This is a time of transition and it’s a very bewildering moment,” said Shafak. “We’re dealing with so many crises. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re focusing more on 19th-century literature unknowingly. Most of the problems that we are dealing with today are actually still the repercussions, the ramifications of the 19th century.”

I will end with a little Joe Tex whimsicality:

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Group Notes 5/8 -5/22/2026

  I got behind on my session notes, the last I can find is from 1/2/2026, and so let's go.

5/1 No notes 

5/8

Recapping schema

Mental representations

Schema = sum total of everything in your head. 

Experience - emotional reasoning (I feel therefore I am) 

Then negative thinking- giving it undue attention.

Black & white - all or nothing. Thinking at extremes.

1. Overgeneralization - all or nothing
1. Always being right (for no good purpose)
2. Fallacy of fairness (put same in, get same reqard) 
2. Fortune telling: assume outcome
3. Self-fulfilling prejudices
4. catastrophizing

[Goes back to 1/16 .]

5/15: 

Control fallacy - [Goes back to 2/6.]

1. overresponsibilities - how things are happening - micromanagement
2. powerless - things happen to you

 (but if the facts show you are persecuted?)

 

Has to be no rational basis.

 

Blaming others - definition of powerlessness - condemnation [Goes back to 2/13.]

 

Discounting positive [Goes back to 2/20.] 

 

Fallacy of fairness

Always being right

What-ifs, more like?

(not a counterfactual - imaginative)

5/20 

Interventions [Goes back to 4/3.]

Journaling cont'd

go to labeling

1. cognitive disorders 

look for frequency,  impact what drives thought (conductor)

deal with impact most if something causes a lot of harm

(spiraling out of control?)

Then

So what? Treat as real & deal with it.

Make a plan.

Find the cause.

Change.

Paradoxical Intention - when to stop

Ask yourself questions

why this idea, why this feeling, what do I want?

Put all on yourself & ask for validation.

Bird's eye view (ostrich)

God's eye view

5/26 

About ostriches, have we ever wondered what the world looks like to an ostrich? I remember being rather close to an ostrich when the Irving family still had their exotic animals on their Hancock County property. Those are very large eyes. Just now a memory came to me from Moby Dick where Melville writes about the placement of the whale's eyes on opposite sides of the body and speculates on what this did to their vision. A bird's eyeview does exclude flightless birds, doesn't it?

I have a recurring thought that all we are being asked to do is to live an examined life. Always going back to the Greeks: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” We might as well read Plato, Aristotle, and Walden. Come to think of it, that is what I did in prison. Only I was not contributing to anyone's income.

This program reduces everything to emotions. Rationality is covert emotionalism. We are perpetual children; adolescents if we are lucky. Instead of confronting an adverse idea on a rational basis, it can be dismissed as mere emotions. This leaves me uncomfortable.

But now that I have caught up my notes, I am off for a Coke.

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Group Session 4/2026

 I got behind on my session notes, the last I can find is from 1/2/2026, and so let's go.

4/3

How to identify

• journal
• label
• graying - scaled distortion
• listing evidence against
• list all possibilities

More towards anxiety issues:

1. So what?
2. Paradoxical intention 

4/10: 

PI (Paradoxical intention): chill out. okay to panic. Just because you have urges, no need to act.

1. ask yourself questions: *** cognitive, above or beyond situtation - get to an endgame/goal
2. next step - ask other person, questions wo/ shouldn't blaming & listen wo/ deflection. 

4/24: 

Taking a bird's eye view

Seeing things from above 

G.V. (God's view) - makes everything seem smaller 

Yep, that is all I have in my notes. Of course, we did our weekly check-ins. 

 I started this post on 4/24. This is what else I wrote then:

The fellow leading the group sessions on Friday said something on 4/24 about me getting out, as if I need to be more sociable. Having spent too much time the past two months being ill and lethargic and not getting much work done here, I would like to get out more.

I mentioned this issue to my friend E. She remarked that I have always been a loner. What I told her, it is not so much that I am a loner; I just do not want to impose on others or be imposed upon. Just being social to be social does not suit me. I prefer the friends I have, and what time I have left needs to be for them. This writing group I've been going to has been a good thing. I was talking to another friend last night. I do not feel trapped in my life, as I once did. It is also that I do not feel alone. 

Finding someone who might provide a better conversation than I what I get from my writing seems unlikely.or

Speaking of a global viewpoint, Austin Kleon's How to get some cosmic perspective gives a better explanation of this idea.

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Worth A Milliion In Prizes

 I wish I were worth a million. I have not felt like a red cent (a phrase soon to be archaic) in months. 

 

Some posts started, almost forgotten, and that I am including here. 

5/15:

I revised “After Making Landfall” because Pangyrus had a deadline of tonight and it seemed a good idea. I had already written up the changes I wanted to me (well, some of them). 

I have done nothing more than glance at the opening page of The Washington Review of Books, but it looks interesting enough to pass along. It is another Substack. 

I cut 2000 words last night from “Unintended” so I could get it into Apex Magazine, but I had sent it there 2 years ago and it would not let me submit. So, I sent it to Clarkesworld. 

I'm going to send “Psychotic Ape” to Apex, but I had sent it there 2 years ago and it would not let me submit. Intead, I sent it to Interzone.

Sound busy? Dishes need washed.

I did the CT scan yesterday. Today, I am getting a car and going on a road trip tomorrow, down to Versailles. I am finally trying to do something concrete about “Chasing Ashes”.
And that is life, so far. 

[What I wrote about my attempts at a road trip are: 5-17-2026: Anderson to Indianapolis; a Day of Futility and 5/18-5/19/2026: Muncie to Indy to Muncie to Anderson.]

5/20

This I wrote last Wednesday. 

Thank you for submitting to New Letters. Although we are not able to publish your work at this time, please be assured that we value your submission and your interest.

Our general reading period is open. You may also send fiction, poetry, and essays to our award programs with yearly deadlines in mid-May.  Awards total $8,000.00 annually.

Thanks, again, for thinking of New Letters.

With best wishes,

 And:

Thank you for sending us "After Making Landfall." Although we must decline your submission at this time, we appreciated the chance to consider it.

We hope you are well and wish you and your work all the best. 

Sincerely,

-Pangyrus Literary Magazine 

Pretty sure this was the day that I learned my problem is a bilateral hernia. Surgery in my future.

Maybe I went to Payless. Pretty sure I went down to the convenience store.

I did go to the writer's meeting. 

Maybe I went to Walmart.

5/21: a bad day spent at the apartment writing. I started on my constitutional law research project. "The Psychotic Ape" rejected:

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to consider your submission. Unfortunately, this particular piece is not right for the magazine. I wish you all the best with your writing, and I hope you'll send Interzone another story in the future.

Yours sincerely,

Gareth Jelley, Editor
Interzone 

5/22: CC reappeared. I was so angry at her. I decided it was wrong to be so angry, and I helped her out. I was bothered enough by how angry I had been since Saturday that I went to Vespers and did confession.

5/23: Walmart for groceries. Worked on my research project. Dealt with the pain.

5/24: Church for Liturgy, home to write and sleep. CC showed up. Angry, chattering, she distracted me from my work. Instead of staying, she left. I went back to work.

 5/25: Memorial Day. CC did not reappear. I worked myself senseless on my research project. Started catching up on my notes for blog posts. A very bad night. 

A rejection:

I appreciate your considering AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought as a potential platform for "Pieces About A Small Indiana Factory Town, 1976 - 1984". The piece is not quite right for us, but I do understand that much time and effort goes into the literary realization of a creative thought; I earnestly wish you luck in placing it with the right journal.

Though we do not have the resources to provide personal feedback for each submission, what I can illuminate (for the curious) is that--much like those of most journals--our decisions are highly subjective, merely matters of taste and style. Just as one opts for certain books (and not others) from a vast shelf, we choose the works that compel us personally, fully recognizing that others are of equal merit, standing in wait to dazzle another potential reader. After all, diversity in aesthetics is precisely what makes the array of literature beautiful.

To fulfilling successes in your writing life!

Best,

Sakina B. Fakhri

 

 

 5/26: So far, I finished with my group meeting notes, went to Walmart, and almost fell asleep in the bath tub. I'm still recuperating from the flaring up of pain last night. No word from CC. Planning to get on with catching up the blog posts. They are being published today. And theere is one rejection today.

Thank you so much for submitting Love Stinks, but I'm afraid we are going to pass on this. Good luck placing it elsewhere.

Best wishes,
Jessica Bell
http://www.vineleavespress.com

 

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