Time’s Plague

Author: Kramer Wetzel Published: 06/25/2022

Time’s Plague

’Tis the time’s plague, when madmen lead the blind.

Gloucester in Shakespeare’s
The Tragedy of King Lear (IV.i.46)

#shakespeare

Because we lost

Author: Kramer Wetzel Published: 06/24/2022

Because we lost.

As a clue, a source file.

But the way I remember it? It was a Faulkner quote, attribution, mired, and buried in time.

“The south has produced so many great writers because we lost the war.”

In modern more contentious and litigious times?

“If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate. The ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’ is worth any number of little old ladies.”

previous mention

(Hi Mom!)

I couldn’t find, in a quick search, that as a Faulkner quote, “The south has produced so many great writers because we lost the war.” Instead? Looks like Walker Percy.

Because we lost.

Without a quick source, I can’t rely on a vague memory as a verified, fact-checked source. Might be a Walker Percy quote, for all I can quickly dig up, but the sentiment remains, and by his end, awards and all, Faulkner was a dreadful drunk.

He was, depending on source, deeply ashamed at the cultural legacy leftover from the old south, and in the same tone, reverential about the old south, despite that horrible historical blot.

I don’t think he was ever able to reconcile those internal differences. Listening to a client, with her deeply Southern lilt — a gorgeous accent itself? The acknowledgement that Faulkner’s position as royalty might be a little overrated. “A bit wordy.”

I’ll accept that.

I’m always a little leery of revisionist history.

Because we lost.

Never having done a thorough assessment of the literature of the north versus that of the south, best I can do is accept that part of my family is southern, with a touch of the true southern gothic layered into the mix, just as an added flavor. Like a touch of pepper in a deep-fried batter mix.

It’s there.

Doesn’t make any of this more — or less — right.

Pink Cake

Pink Cake: The Quote Collection

Pink Cake: The Quote Collection

<br />
Pink Cake: A Commonplace Book

Sparring Partners

Author: Kramer Wetzel Published: 06/23/2022

Sparring Partners

It’s a different format from what I recall. No, the settings are familiar, lawyers, crooks, the corrupt south, and death row. Just the structure, like three different tales, say, a hundred pages each, roughly?

Maybe that’s not it, exactly, a novella, an overly long short story, and the titular tale, which might be a short novel in itself.

I’m not sure.

One of my older rules about travel, especially air travel? Always carry a book to read. In the last decade, or thereabouts, I’ve gotten more accustomed to reading novels on a tablet, but this was a Costco book. I started reading in the San Antonio airport, boarded a flight to Dallas, read the whole way, paused to land in Dallas — Love Field — get an expensive breakfast sandwich, then line up for a flight to Austin. Got some Jo’s Coffee in the Austin airport, got back on the same plane, and continued reading while passing over West Texas, with the oils fields looking like cosmic pin cushions from 30,000 feet up. Southwest pulled a fast one, and routed the plane funny like that, but we arrived on time, and I was part way through that last section of the book.

We’ve got a copy of Ford County at home, and I’m pretty sure I read it. I finished the last section, Sparring Partners as the New Mexico coyotes were echoing in the dry arroyo behind the house in Santa Fe.

Airport reading at its finest, I must say.

Sparring Partners

More Southwest Memories

Author: Kramer Wetzel Published: 06/22/2022

More Southwest Memories

I was living in Austin, think trailer park in old Austin, must’ve been before that, probably at that old apartment on East Riverside. It was a long time ago, in a student barrio.

I had a $25 ticket from El Paso to Austin. Cheap, really cheap, back in the day. Bubba was picking me up in Austin. I left sunny El Paso, as the trip, the plane, 737 SWA , the route was El Paso, Lubbock, Dallas, Austin. Sunny Monday and late fall desert balmy in El Paso, me probably in shorts, landing with 6 inches of blowing snow in Lubbock, then rain — same weather pattern — Dallas, and waved off on the final approach into Austin. Lined up over the old Flight Path Coffee House, how’s that for old Austin roots?

Last minute? On final approach? Flight diverted to San Antonio, heavy weather.

Walking down the angled corridor, heading to gates 10 and higher? I think about that first time I landed in San Antonio, then called, “Old San Antonio.” It’s a sharp, distinct recollection. Snow on the ground and blowing in Lubbock, might’ve been Amarillo, probably was Amarillo, not Lubbock, there was no plane change, just stop to unload and load passengers. Rain in Dallas, then flight diverted from Austin.

Stepping into the corridor of the San Antonio airport, just long enough to find a pay phone, and call Bubba on his cell, I had to use a phone card at a pay phone. San Antonio to Austin was “long distance.”

“They told us they lost the plane.”

Not lost, just stuck in San Antonio for a few minutes, and I was back in Austin.

Bubba’s version, he got to the airport around six or seven in the evening, and he had a Prince Albert piercing as well as other parts, so his version of walking through a metal detector was always long-winded, with details about what was said about his various metal bits.

Cell phones, truly cellular, were less common, and more a toy for landed gentry, even a luxury. He told the story of fishing the phone out of his pocket, to answer my call, and I let him know I’d be in a few minutes.

His version was the look of shock when he pulled that phone out, as he didn’t look like an executive. Long, long-ass hair, and talking a mile a minute.

“They ground crew brought in a tub with ice and cold drinks, told us to help ourselves, beer and coke, as they couldn’t find the plane. We were going to be here a while.”

After he rang off with me, I’m pretty sure he didn’t stop talking for the extra 45 minutes or so it took us to all clamber back on the plane, and the short ride to the old Austin airport. There was also the assumption, the long hair and phone in his pocket? There as an assumption he was a drug dealer of some sort. Just a radio DJ.

“No ma’am, I play music on the radio, in the mornings.”

More Southwest Memories

Amarillo. I’m guessing that the stops were Amarillo, then Dallas, then Austin (via that impromptu San Antonio detour).

That recollection, courtesy of the downward slope on the San Antonio concourse, in airport, slipping downhill. Plastic boarding passes, that’s an age itself.

Baseball. Baseball brought up Southwest Memories.

Southwest is no longer the spunky underdog, more a major air carrier, and the rebel attitude is less prevalent.

The flight attendant boarding us in San Antonio? I joked and because Bubba said the ground crew in Austin called the pilot a chicken, and the attendant was angrily defending the flight crew’s choice as safety first. Think that’s about the only time I’ve ever seen an adamantly angry Southwest crew member.

The days of hopping on and hopping off planes are long gone, following that slippery slope down the San Antonio corridor.

Southwest Memories

Ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night?

Or the wet fuel cell lettering?

Southwest Memories

“piscantur dux ad astra emeritus”

Horoscopes for 6-21-2022

Author: Kramer Wetzel Published: 06/21/2022

Horoscopes for 6-21-2022

Give me leave
To tell you once again that at my birth
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have mark’d me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.

Shakespeare’s Henry IV, part 1 (3.1.35-42)

Horoscopes for 6-21-2022

Summer Solstice, Sun moves into the Tropical Zodiac Sign of Cancer? June 21 4:14 AM. Mercury and Venus in Gemini are barely visible as morning stars. Venus moves into Gemini June 22, 7:35 PM. All times are, as expected, approximate.