www.richardjespers.com
  • Home
  • Books
  • Journals
  • Blog

My Journey of States-42  Utah

7/31/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
​The best poetry has its roots in the subconscious to a great degree. Youth, naivety, reliance on instinct more than learning and method, a sense of freedom and play, even trust in randomness, is necessary to the making of a poem.
— May Swenson
Born May 28, 1913
Logan, Utah
Died December 4, 1989
Picture
M. Swenson
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the forty-second post of fifty.

Utah (2015)

The first time Ken and I were in Utah the visit was rather unintentional, hardly worth mentioning, but I shall. We had booked a Southwest flight from Lubbock to Boise, one of us, ahem, assuming we had only one stop in Las Vegas, the western hub. Wrong. We wound up stopping both in Reno and Salt Lake City before touching down in Idaho. Our second visit was still sort of a pass-through, but, at least we spent the night south of SLC, in Provo. We ate dinner at the Village Inn, and the most interesting aspect of our dinner was that we were seated in a booth wedged between two young couples, both Mormon, we assumed, by virtue of their conversations: two-year service and such. I can’t really remember, but we clearly witnessed the two most innocuous heart-to-hearts I’ve ever overheard in a restaurant, especially for people in the shank of their youth. ¶ The next day, we stopped at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, which totally redeemed the dismalness of the night before. I’ve posted a number of photographs of the birds we were able to snag while there. It was a lovely way to spend a morning!
 
It became the forty-fifth state on January 4, 1896, and celebrated its centennial on that date in 1996.

HISTORICAL POSTCARDS & Trunk Decals

If you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link:
1-Kansas                13. New Jersey     25. Michigan     37. N. Hampshire
2-Oklahoma        14. Delaware         26. Wisconsin 38. Maine
3-Texas                   15. New York        27. Minnesota  39. Rhode Island
​4-Louisiana         16. Connecticut     28. Iowa               40. Idaho
5-Missouri           17. Colorado         29. Hawaii           41. Nevada
6-Illinois               18. Arkansas        30. Georgia
7-Indiana              19. California       31. S. Carolina
8-Ohio                   20. Florida             32. N. Carolina
9-Pennsylvania    21. Mississippi    33. Alabama
10-West VA        22. New Mexico     34. Kentucky
11-Maryland       23. Tennessee      35. Massachusetts
12. Virginia          24. Arizona            36. Vermont
NEXT TIME: My Book World | Robert W. Fiesler's Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation
0 Comments

The Corfu Trilogy: A Delight to Read

7/26/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; and do not outlive yourself.
​George Bernard Shaw
​Born July 26, 1856
Picture
G. Shaw

My Book World

Picture
Durrell, Gerald. The Corfu Trilogy: My Family and Other Animals; Birds, Beasts, and Relatives; The Garden of the Gods. New York: Penguin, 2006.

In viewing the PBS Masterpiece series The Durrells in Corfu, I was spurred on to read the original material, and I was not disappointed. Gerald Durrell, youngest of four children, records his eccentric family’s doings in a rather unique and remarkable manner. In all three books--My Family and Other Animals (1956); Birds, Beasts, and Relatives (1969); The Garden of the Gods (1978)—Durrell wafts back and forth between two kinds of scenes. In one type, he writes extensively of his family: his mother, his brothers Larry and Leslie, and his sister Margo, not to mention a host of odd characters both Greek and British, who visit the Durrells in Corfu. In the other type, Durrell writes elegantly of his love for the natural world: spending entire chapters sometimes describing odd or unusual creatures from the very small to much larger, from owls he rescues to a stubborn mule he bargains for. I kept reading the 750 pages, with delight, until I was finished—almost sorry that the adventures were over. Well worth your time if a saga about a British family living on a Greek island just prior to World War II piques your interest.

NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-42  Utah
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit

7/25/2019

0 Comments

 
If you can't write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don't have a clear idea.
​David Belasco
Born July 25, 1853
Picture
D. Belasco
NEXT TIME: My Book World | Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy 
0 Comments

My Journey of States-41  Nevada

7/24/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
If women could go into your Congress, I think justice would soon be done to the Indians.
--Sarah Winnemucca
Born c1844
Near Humboldt Lake, Nevada
Died October 16, 1891
Idaho
Picture
S. Winnemucca
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the forty-first post of fifty.

Nevada (2009-2018)

​I have long held a disquieting feeling about Christmas. Its messages are mixed: on the one hand, it is religious celebration of the birth of a major religious figure; on the other, Christmas is the biggest Capitalist opportunity to get rich (or break even) off the back of that little baby born 2,000 years ago. No cognitive dissonance for you? Well, okay, I’m just built that way, I guess. Anyhoo . . . in 2010, when a friend invited Ken and me to spend six days as her guest in Las Vegas, we said, “Hell, yeah.” No tree to set up. No presents (the trip is our gift to one another). No holiday parties to endure. And we are now approaching our tenth Xmas in Vegas.
​Nevada, itself, is filled with paradoxes: a state with nearly twenty Indian reservations yet one city with all the largest casinos; Las Vegas with its two million Bedouins living like city slickers; LV with its magnificent water features yet a limited single source (Lake Mead); a city of great riches yet poor souls passed out on The Strip, some with tin cups in hand; blazing summers yet AC that induces one to wear a hoody indoors. Lowbrow and highbrow entertainment, all in one city. What more could a tourist ask for? Honestly, I love Christmas in Vegas. There, the holiday is but a footnote, and that makes me happy. 
 
Nevada was the thirty-sixth state to be admitted into the union in 1864 and celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2014.

Historical Postcards

If you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link:
1-Kansas                13. New Jersey     25. Michigan     37. N. Hampshire
2-Oklahoma        14. Delaware         26. Wisconsin 38. Maine
3-Texas                   15. New York        27. Minnesota  39. Rhode Island
​4-Louisiana         16. Connecticut     28. Iowa               40. Idaho
5-Missouri           17. Colorado         29. Hawaii
6-Illinois               18. Arkansas        30. Georgia
7-Indiana              19. California       31. S. Carolina
8-Ohio                   20. Florida             32. N. Carolina
9-Pennsylvania    21. Mississippi    33. Alabama
10-West VA        22. New Mexico     34. Kentucky
11-Maryland       23. Tennessee      35. Massachusetts
12. Virginia          24. Arizona            36. Vermont
NEXT TIME: My Book World | Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit

7/23/2019

0 Comments

 
The greatest texts, I think, first dazzle, then with careful rereading, they instruct. I have learned from Virginia Woolf more than I even know how to articulate.
​Lauren Groff
Born July 23, 1978
Picture
L. Groff
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-41  Nevada
0 Comments

Chee Conquers His Autobiography

7/19/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
Everybody has parents. As a dramatist, whenever you write a character, you must write their parents as well, even if the parents aren't there.
​Mark O’Donnell
Born July 19, 1954
Picture
M. O'Donnell

My Book World

Picture
Chee, Alexander. How to Write an Autobiographical
       Novel: Essays. Boston: Houghton, 2018.

​This collection of essays is a staggering one. In the way that fiction writers link short stories, Chee links essays to explicate how he works as a fiction writer. His metaphors are simple yet profound. His advice is wrenched from the heart, and yet at no time does he allow sentimentality to interfere with his message. The entire collection—like a group of short stories, like a novel—possesses a narrative arc that is subtle, inching readers toward the climax, easing into a quiet denouement. The book seems nonlinear, but Chee glides readers from a few youthful months spent in Mexico becoming fluent in Spanish, to his older youth in college with Annie Dillard as a professor, to his maturation into an astute, caring professor of creative writing, to the publication of his first novel and how it explores and ultimately exposes the biggest secret of his life. 
 
The Publishing Triangle, a long-established organization for LGBTQ writers based in New York, recently awarded this work the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction. I hope, as a tour de force, it will win even more accolades in the coming months or years. Chee is a remarkable writer, and anyone who takes a seminar from him ought to feel fortunate.

NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-41  Nevada
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit

7/18/2019

0 Comments

 
There are two kinds of marriages—where the husband quotes the wife and where the wife quotes the husband.
​Clifford Odets
Born July 18, 1906
Picture
C. Odets
NEXT TIME: My Book World | Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
0 Comments

My Journey of States-40  Idaho

7/17/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market.
Ezra Pound
Born October 30, 1885  Hailey, Idaho
Died November 1, 1972  Venice, Italy
Picture
E. Pound
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the fortieth post of fifty.

Idaho (2008, 2010, 2015)

Some places you visit because you know people who live there. In teaching graduate students at Texas Tech summer school, my partner Ken introduced one of his female students to a young English professor who was teaching creative writing at the same time (I believe this to be true). The couple later married, and the professor was instrumental in getting me into the MA program at TTU. Before I could finish my degree, Ann and Daryl moved to Boise, and years later, after Ken and I retired, we visited them at their home, once in summer and once in autumn.
Boise is a well-kept secret, with a fine university. A river running through it (couldn't resist), in fact, a cultivated green belt for athletes, zoo-goers, museum attendees, and fresh-air breathers of all kinds. A great center for cinema, especially the Egyptian Theatre. A breeding ground for writers and authors. Most of all, a humane population. One night, after the four of us had attended a play at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival Amphitheater, the crowd strolled toward a huge parking lot. I figured, as in Texas, that there would be a huge push—cars streaming in all directions—to scramble to the closest exit. I was astounded when, as we reached a certain nexus, a four-way stop, each line of drivers took his or her turn heading for the exit. Ken and I asked if that was normal, and our friends quietly insisted it was. A state that uses a saying like “Drive Friendly” could sure learn something from that genteel bunch of Idahoans. Ken and I confessed that if we’d only encountered the place ten years earlier, we might have retired there. Of course, it just could have been a bunch of talk.

Idaho was the forty-third state to be admitted into the Union on July 3, 1890. Its state bird is the Mountain Bluebird, and it boasts a population of 1.7 million people.

HISTORIC POSTCARDS AND TRUNK DECALS

If you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link:
1-Kansas                13. New Jersey     25. Michigan     37. N. Hampshire
2-Oklahoma        14. Delaware         26. Wisconsin 38. Maine
3-Texas                   15. New York        27. Minnesota  39. Rhode Island
​4-Louisiana         16. Connecticut     28. Iowa
5-Missouri           17. Colorado         29. Hawaii
6-Illinois               18. Arkansas        30. Georgia
7-Indiana              19. California       31. S. Carolina
8-Ohio                   20. Florida             32. N. Carolina
9-Pennsylvania    21. Mississippi    33. Alabama
10-West VA        22. New Mexico     34. Kentucky
11-Maryland       23. Tennessee      35. Massachusetts
12. Virginia          24. Arizona            36. Vermont
NEXT TIME: My Book World | Alexander Chee's How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit

7/16/2019

0 Comments

 
I find writing very difficult. It's hard and it hurts sometimes, and it's scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities.
​Tony Kushner
Born July 16, 1956
Picture
T. Kushner
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-40  Idaho
0 Comments

Anna Burns's 'Milkman' Is Stunning Novel

7/12/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
Imagine a world in which no writer has written a literary novel in sixty years. Imagine a place where not a single person has read a book that is truly about the character at its center.
​Adam Johnson
​Born July 12, 1967
Picture
A. Johnson

My Book World

Picture
​Burns, Anna. Milkman. Minneapolis: Graywolf, 2018.

This winner of the UK’s Man Booker Prize is a stunning read. From the outset, one is struck by this Irish writer’s Joycean style or even point of view. The novel is ostensibly set in Northern Ireland of the 1970s. Her stream-of-consciousness prose includes the practice of keeping her characters anonymous. The narrator calls herself middle sister, one of several female siblings, and refers to them as First Sister and so forth. Other characters include Milkman, the real milkman, and Somebody McSomebody. Such a practice paints a society of strict norms, in which everyone is judged by whom they associate with or don’t associate with, why one isn’t married to a particular man by a certain age. The practice keeps the reader at a distance, viewing this particular time period of strife with as much objectivity as possible. The novel might have been reduced by pages if the author had chosen real names instead of hyphenated characters like maybe-boyfriend being repeated hundreds of times, yet after establishing its own pace, the prose swoops in and snatches the reader up. At times you cannot put down the book. The narrator is her own Stephen Daedalus, striving to know her world, but also afraid to find out too much. Finding out too much might get her killed. A must read for 2019 and always.
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-40  Idaho
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit

7/11/2019

0 Comments

 
One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
​E. B. White
Born July 11, 1899
Picture
NEXT TIME: My Book World | Milkman by Anna Burns
0 Comments

My Journey of States-39  Rhode Island

7/10/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
To me, poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment. 
Galway Kinnell
Born February 1, 1927 
Providence, Rhode Island
Died October 28, 2014
Sheffield, Vermont
Picture
G. Kinnell
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the thirty-ninth post of fifty.

Rhode Island (2003)

I must admit that Rhode Island is one of the fifty states through which I made one of those pass-through visits, as I did with Delaware. However, I feel a literary connection with the state because of one writer, Edith Wharton. If Ken and I had had time, we most surely would have visited her former residence, Land’s End, located in Newport and portrayed in her novel, The Age of Innocence. I visited her other home, The Mount, in Lenox, Massachusetts three times over the period of a decade, and so, upon my return to the state Newport shall be my first stop.

​Rhode Island became thirteenth of the original thirteen states, in 1790, and its official name is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. 

Historical Postcards

If you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link:
1-Kansas                13. New Jersey     25. Michigan     37. N. Hampshire
2-Oklahoma        14. Delaware         26. Wisconsin 38. Maine
3-Texas                   15. New York        27. Minnesota
​4-Louisiana         16. Connecticut     28. Iowa
5-Missouri           17. Colorado         29. Hawaii
6-Illinois               18. Arkansas        30. Georgia
7-Indiana              19. California       31. S. Carolina
8-Ohio                   20. Florida             32. N. Carolina
9-Pennsylvania    21. Mississippi    33. Alabama
10-West VA        22. New Mexico     34. Kentucky
11-Maryland       23. Tennessee      35. Massachusetts
12. Virginia          24. Arizona            36. Vermont
NEXT TIME: My Book World | Milkman​ by Anna Burns, Booker Prize Winner
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit

7/9/2019

0 Comments

 
The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think.
​June Jordan
Born July 9, 1936
Picture
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-39  Rhode Island
0 Comments

Back in the Saddle

7/8/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
In brief, I spend half my time trying to learn the secrets of other writers—to apply them to the expression of my own thoughts.
​​Shirley Ann Grau
​Born July 8, 1929
Picture

This and That

THIS: I haven't posted for over five months for the reasons I stated at the end of January. First, my longtime partner of forty-three years, Ken Dixon, was diagnosed with a BIG spur on his C5 vertebra which was crowding his spinal cord in a BIG way. In order to knock it off in the least invasive way, the surgeon came in from the front, and removed C6 to get at the spur and screwed in a spacer between 5 and 7, filling it with bone debris that has and will continue to make new bone material. The surgery and recovery went well, but being in charge of everything made me a very busy boy. The procedure, a corpectomy reduced his pain and stabilized his blood pressure, yet he continues to work with other professionals solving the riddle of vertigo. He's back in the studio for limited sessions.
THAT: I spent the entire month of June at a dandy place in the Texas Hill Country known as Hacienda Maria, what I refer to as a mini-villa that one can lease from the Native American Seed company of Junction, Texas. Just rural enough to enjoy the pastoral nature of the country roads, it was also a short six miles into town to buy groceries or mail a letter. ¶ I was able to read ALOUD my 550-page manuscript twice, literally finding my voice for the book. I made and entered in the computer numerous corrections, attempting to smooth out clunky language, as well as other problems which I shall not go into here. Anyway, I probably accomplished four months of work in one, putting me closer to finishing the monster.
MORE THIS: I plan to post regularly again, continuing my Tuesday/Thursday posts of A Writer's Wit, advice other writers have offered either about their work or the writing process in general. On Wednesdays, I shall continue my series, My Journey of States, until I have finished with all fifty! And finally, on Fridays, I offer profiles of new (or vintage) titles in My Book World series.
THE LAST OF THAT: A year ago I deleted my Facebook page primarily because I was disgusted with their cavalier approach to running a business. During that time, their corporate leaders have done even more to make me glad I dropped out. Personally, I believe the organization will have to shut down and do a FB 2.0 to build a more secure Web site from the ground up. Until it's improved at least, I remain a departed client. HOWEVER, I do miss seeing what's happening with family and friends. Drop a line, plee hee heez. ¶ I also deleted my Twitter account. I never was able to garner more than two hundred fifty followers, and, because I'd made the mistake of following some political operatives instead of sticking to purely literary interests, I was having to read a lot of negative stuff. It wasn't my followers' words but those of people "commenting." Negative. Negative. Negative. My only social media presence is now on LinkedIn, and if anyone can tell me how to make the most of THAT, I'd appreciate it. WHEW! I've said more than I wished to. I look forward to seeing and hearing from you as I regain my Internet presence. 
NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-39  Rhode Island
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit

7/4/2019

0 Comments

 
One of the things you hope you've done as a playwright is create roles that can sustain different interpretations.
Tracy Letts
Born July 4, 1965
Picture
T. Letts
NEXT TIME: My Book World
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit

7/2/2019

0 Comments

 
“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
From Siddhartha By Herman Hesse 
Born July 2, 1877
Picture
H. Hesse
NEXT TIME: My Book World
0 Comments
    AUTHOR
    Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA.
    Subscribe to richardjespers.com - Blog by Email
    See my profile at Author Central:
    http://amazon.com/author/rjespers
    Richard Jespers's books on Goodreads
    My Long-Playing Records My Long-Playing Records
    ratings: 1 (avg rating 5.00)

    Archives

    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011

    Categories

    All
    Acting
    Actors
    African American History
    Alabama
    Alaska
    Aldo Leopold
    Andy Warhol
    Arizona
    Arkansas
    Art
    Atrial Fibrillation
    Authors
    Authors' Words
    Barcelona
    Blogging About Books
    Blogs
    Books
    California
    Cars
    Catalonia
    Colorado
    Cooking
    Creative Nonfiction
    Culinary Arts
    Deleting Facebook
    Ecology
    Education
    Environment
    Epigraphs
    Essays
    Fiction
    Fifty States
    Film
    Florida
    Georgia
    Grammar
    Greece
    Gun Violence
    Hawaii
    Heart Health
    Historic Postcards
    History
    Idaho
    Iowa
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Literary Biography
    Literary Journals
    Literary Topics
    Literature
    Maine
    Massachusetts
    Memoir
    Michigan
    Minnesota
    Mississippi
    M K Rawlings
    Musicians
    Nevada
    New Hampshire
    New Mexico
    New Yorker Stories
    Nonfiction
    North Carolina
    Novelist
    Ohio
    Pam Houston
    Parker Posey
    Photography
    Playwrights
    Poetry
    Politics
    Psychology
    Publishing
    Quotations
    Race
    Reading
    Recipes
    Seattle
    Short Story
    South Carolina
    Spain
    Susan Faludi
    Teaching
    Tennessee
    Texas
    The Novel
    Travel
    Travel Photographs
    #TuesdayThoughts
    TV
    U.S.
    Vermont
    Voting
    Washington
    Wisconsin
    World War II
    Writer's Wit
    Writing

    RSS Feed

    Blogroll

    alicefrench.wordpress.com
    kendixonartblog.com
    Valyakomkova.blogspot.com

    Websites

    Caprock Writers' Alliance
    kendixonart.com
    tedkincaid.com
    www.trackingwonder.com
    www.skans.edu
    www.ttu.edu
    www.newpages.com
    www.marianszczepanski.com
    William Campbell Contemporary Art, Inc.
    Barbara Brannon.com
    Artsy.net
WWW.RICHARDJESPERS.COM  ©2011-2021
                    BOOKS  PHOTOS  PODCASTS  JOURNALS  BLOG