NO EXIT
March 10th, 2010Here’s a complete novel, written on a Sticky Note.
http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/StickyEXITsix.mp3
(c) Jim Reed 2010 A.D.
Sticky God
February 28th, 2010This is my complete one-page novel, written on a Sticky Note:
http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/StickyPEWfive.mp3
Jim Reed
Sticky Novel Tells All
February 23rd, 2010
This is a complete novel I wrote upon one Sticky Note.
Click to listen:
http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/StickyBLINDfour.mp3
Mo’ info at:
Deja What?
February 17th, 2010Click here for my latest one-page Sticky Novel:
http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/StickyLOOPINGthree.mp3
and go here to learn more:
FROM DOWNTOWN TO DOGTOWN AND BACK AGAIN
February 10th, 2010
This is an entry from my Red Clay Diary. Just a few years back,
I made a trip to the parallel universe of North Alabama.
FROM DOWNTOWN TO DOGTOWN AND BACK AGAIN
It is just this last Thursday night. I find myself atop a mountain in Dogtown, south of Fort Payne, north of Collinsville, watching a clear cool sky and feeling the wideness of the open spaces around me.
Just east of where I am standing, the red planet Mars is appearing on the horizon, and to the west the diamond-bright planet Venus is about to be occluded by the trees below.
It is a night to take a deep breath and wonder why you can see so many more stars on this mountain, stars that you can’t see in Downtown Birmingham. Years ago, when Reed Books was located within the Wooster Lofts on First Avenue North, I would climb four flights of stairs above my bookloft at night to gaze at the city–Vulcan would wave from afar, aircraft would whoosh past to land–then leave–the airport, lone walkers would dodge the occasional automobile on the streets below. Above, the moon would moon me, a meteor would give me an instant razz, and I could see a bright star or steady planet cruising on by.
Anyhow, back to Thursday night, where my mind is right now. I’ve come to this mountain, two hours from Birmingham, to speak to a gathering of volunteer chaplains who make sure that hospital patients are not alone spiritually when they don’t want to be. Inside the restaurant–much warmer than the outside mountain air–I find folks who are relaxed and happy about where they live and what they do, in Dekalb and Cherokee Counties. They are close to Mentone and Chattanooga, not too far from Birmingham, but far enough away to feel like country folks when they need to.
It’s clear to me, a couple of hours later, as I hurtle back towards Downtown Birmingham, that most of us find a way to have some peace and quiet midst the hustle and smoke and sounds of the city. Folks back in Dogtown can go to people-laden places whenever they need a break from solitude…folks in Downtown Birmingham can find solitude when they’re done with crowds. In Downtown, I see loners finding occasional solitude in their idling cars, in pocket parks, within their earphones, behind their closed-lidded eyes, inside a restroom or in a stock room, on a streetside bench, in a quiet loft room, on the back pew of an empty church. I notice people who, even in a crowd, can find solitude for a moment–at a symphony concert, in the corner at a cocktail party, inside a book huddling in an alcove.
So, Dogtown and Downtown are just names we give places. In each place, people can find what they need if they use a bit of imagination.
Back in Birmingham the next day, as I leave work, I walk onto the parking deck adjacent to the century-old building that houses Reed Books Antiques/The Museum of Fond Memories. It is nearly dark and the sunset is spectacular in the middle of the city. To the west, I can see First Avenue South running straight toward the sun. To the north, the truncated skyscraper we used to call the Daniel Building shows evidence that some employees haven’t fled yet–perhaps they’re taking in a bit of solitude before fighting the traffic. To the east, Mars is struggling to be seen again, and a solitary aircraft dips towards the landing strip. I breathe deeply, realizing that, whether it’s Dogtown or Downtown, I can always find a sky and an interlude just when I need it most.© 2010 A.D. Jim Reed
PS:
Click here for a sticky note novel, complete in a few seconds.
http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/StickyGIDDYUPtwo.mp3
POEM ME, YOU FOOL!
February 2nd, 2010
LISTEN BY CLICKING ON: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/FOOL.mp3
OR READ ON…
When I was a mere bud on the verge of wilting or blooming, I discovered that I was alive. Not just existing, not just the figment of somebody’s bad-joke imagination, not just a folktale, not just a lump of granite…I was actually alive, I realized.
Up to that point in my brief life, I had existed on pure instinct and template, breathing, eating, obeying the rules created and enforced by beings in charge of my care. I got along, and it looked as if the world around me got along, too.
Then, one day, I yelled Shazam! and woke up to the fact that I was alive.
It was an amazement.
This kind of thing can happen only once, you know. It’s a unique experience. After all, you can’t wake up one day and discover that you’re dead. Alive is all you know.
Anyhow, after I was born, it took me a few years to come alive…but once alive, I began to record my living, my life. I wrote with crayons on walls, with large thick grammar-school-red number two pencils on butcher paper, with quill dipped in indelible ink on onionskin, with strong finger-jabs at manual typewriter keys, and eventually with keyboard-clickety glowing electronic screen.
What did I write?
Well, poetry, I guess.
What was my first poem?
Uh, I don’t know. But a very early poem came from my telescopic examination of the universe above me. I noticed that planets and satellites had texture, some human-made, some accidental-acts-of-geology-made. Thus, the poem:
Mars has scars,
The Moon has moles,
Jupiter has bars,
And Earth has H-Bomb holes.
Go figure.
Every poem or story I wrote reminded me that I was alive. What came out of my mind and heart and gut traveled through my fingers and wound up in print. Most of the time, the writings just popped out, unedited and ready to read. Sometimes I had no idea where they came from or what they meant. But they were always deeply felt. I had the idea that if I felt what I was writing, the reader would, too. After a half century of writing, this fact eventually had gravitas. After I wrote a few thousand pieces, I became confident, the words flowed easily, and I developed a to-heck-with-rules attitude and just write what I damned well please.
This is fun.
Now, it’s your turn to discover that you are alive.
Prove it.
Write me a poem
© 2010 A.D. Jim Reed
THE PAST EVER PRESENT
January 28th, 2010
It’s 1998 A.D.
I’m dining inside the Tate Gallery exhibition hall at Royal Holloway College outside London, surrounded by Victorian paintings of every size and shape. These works depict different levels of society, from the outrageously poor treatment of the disenfranchised, to the pompous privilege of upper crust folk. It’s a visual kaleidoscope of the past world, hardly different from today’s world in so many ways.
The work of art that amazes me most is one by Edwin Long (BABYLONIAN MARRIAGE MARKET) depicting slave brides being auctioned at Marriage Market in ancient Babylon. There are thirteen girls being sold to the highest bidder, arranged in order of beauty. The painting is so large it occludes from view everything else in the gallery. Suddenly, I am inside this work of art, smelling the perfumes and sweat of the auction block, staring back at the one girl who is staring at me, wondering at the testosterone gazes of the men who are trying to purchase these women, trying to guess what the most beautiful woman looks like (her back is to the viewer), what the least attractive woman looks like (she covers her face with her hands).
The girls wait barefoot on the tiled floor, resting pensively on animal pelts, awaiting their fate. Some seem hopeful (perhaps being owned by a rich man is a better fate than being battered by an impoverished life), some are frightened, some sad, some dazed.
One man keeps tab of the auction on a red clay cuneiform tablet, a scale nearby, the richest men in the audience try to see through the gauze clothing, each person is dressed and coiffed according to station and wealth. In the hands of the master painter, you can tell much about everyone in this painting. In the hands of the master painter, there is much mystery that draws you in and makes you only guess at what’s really happening, what led up to this moment, what the next moments will bring.
These daughters and granddaughters, nieces and neighbors, are all beyond my assistance, their journeys are individual and lost to all tracking systems, their existence only remains in memory and imagination.
Now, it is 2010 A.D.
I am once again visiting this painting at the Huntsville Museum of Art. This is the work’s first and only visit outside England in its 135 years of existence. My girls are still there, frozen in time. The auctioneers and attendees are still hoping to sell and purchase their dreams.
I am left to wonder whether this kind of thing is happening all over the world in different but identical ways, whether we as a species will ever stop bartering with the souls and bodies and futures of those unable to fend us off
© 2010 A.D. Jim Reed
HOLISTIC EAR-FLAP SMOKER SKIPS MLK/REL LAUNDRY DAY
January 19th, 2010Listen by clicking below…or read on!
http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/holistic.mp3
It’s not just any Monday morning.
I pull up to the laundry next door to Golden Temple, drop off my week’s worth of wash/dry/fold, not very surprised that the laundry is open despite the fact it’s a national holiday. The laundry lady sighs when I say, “I see y’all are open on Doctor King’s birthday.” Her eyebrow movements tell me a lot.
A scruffy chain-smoking guy in ear-flap hat pulls at the locked Golden Temple door, carefully reads the sign, takes another drag, then saunters on down the street, just barely missing a chance to pick up some holistic medical advice…about how to quit smoking? Maybe?
Eleventh Avenue South is almost barren.
A Christmas tree peeks over the back gate of the pickup truck in front of me, waving a forlorn good-bye to the season.
At the shop, computer tech Daniel reminds me that this is also Robert E. Lee’s birthday. Sorry I forgot, Bob.
I unpack my bag of show-and-tell goodies from yesterday’s speech at the Alabaster public library, receive an e-mail thank-you from one of the attendees, and wonder what it is I said that made a difference in her day.
I pack for shipment a leatherbound limited edition of Ayn Rand’s THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS, prepare rough drafts of the weekly message I’ll be sending out to fans and subscribers, and send a note to Joey Kennedy, thanking him for granting me permission to publish one of his stories in a future Birmingham Arts Journal.
I think about the world and all its incredible inconsistencies, small joys, hugh terrors, gentle comforts.
I think how nice it would be to have a national holiday devoted to unselfish kindnesses
Jim Reed (c) 2010 A.D.
WHAT TO SAY AFTER ALL HAS BEEN SAID
January 12th, 2010
WHAT TO SAY AFTER ALL HAS BEEN SAID
Read below or click and listen!
http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/rapt.mp3
What in the world would somebody like me have to say to a rapt audience had I the opportunity to say something useful?
I never know the answer to that question, but that does not prevent me from accepting invitations to speak before all kinds of groups large and small, young and old, literary and non-literary. People invite me to speak or teach, and I almost always accept. For instance, this coming Sunday at the Alabaster Library I’ll be speaking on the topic(s) “How To Become Your Own Book” and “What to Keep and What to Toss.”
The first is all about the joy of writing, how to find it, how to keep it, how to do it, how to stop doing it if it isn’t joyful (see my outline at http://www.jimreedbooks.com/become.html )…the second is in answer to the age-old question that we all ask eventually: Do I need to keep this or throw it away or donate it or stomp it or re-gift it or sell it? (I have the answer, though you might not like hearing it).
How does all this running about and making public appearances fit in with my otherwise hermit lifestyle, the lifestyle of a bookish bookie who writes books, sells books, reads books, edits books, purchases books, gifts books, donates books?
Well, here are a few answers to that question:
1. Making speeches, conducting seminars, teaching…all serve to get me out of the shop, out of my shell, re-connect me with the general public I tend to hide from most of the time. I obviously-and reluctantly-need some social contact now and then.
2. Doing all this public stuff allows me to spread the gospel of respecting old things, old memories. It’s important to recognize the past as part of our journey into the future. It comforts and sustains us, teaches us what works and what doesn’t work, what is right and what isn’t right. We don’t just wake up one morning wise…we have to travel forth and experience life in order to learn much of anything worth learning.
3. Going forth introduces me and my hideaway (Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories/The Library of Thought) to folks who long to know such a place exists somewhere in the world. Believe it or not, after 30 years of my owning the shop, most people still do not know it exists. Each day, new visitors arrive at the door saying, ”Why didn’t I know about this? Awesome!”
I get a kick showing them around or leaving them alone to wander through the looking-glass all by themselves. They almost always find a treasure or two they don’t want to live without.
4. Wandering around telling my tales gives me a chance to hear other peoples’ tales, too…and everybody has them! Some even become so excited that they begin to write them down, after I’ve simply given permission for them to do so. It’s an amazing thing to behold.
And so on.
There are other reasons for getting Out There and sharing myself, but these will do for a start.
Every day is a new reason for leaving a legacy of respect for the past, appreciation for the present, and hope for each future day we can make better in some minuscule way.
Let’s get out there and do it alone together
© 2010 A.D. Jim Reed
TO TELL THE TOOTH
January 4th, 2010WRITING THE TRUTHS OF YOUR LIFE.
First, think of the most unlikely, or the most annoying, or the most seemingly unimportant thing in your life and start writing about it. For instance: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/tooth.mp3
(c) 2010 A.D. Jim Reed