South Street

Live Free or Undead

2010-01-25T15:00:00.000-08:00

I’m the editor of New Hampshire Magazine which specializes in local non-fiction, but whether true to life or pure imagination, I love a good story.

Unfortunately, the short story, the basic unit of fiction, is in trouble. Many magazines that once published short fiction and inspired generations of new fans and writers have abandoned the form. Those specializing in such stories have grown rare.

But people who love to read and who enjoy a good novel can also remember the pleasure that comes from a crisp and curious collection of short stories. What other medium immerses readers in a three-dimensional world, strangely familiar or perhaps just strange, inhabited with living, breathing characters, and subjects them to outlandish twists of fate all in the course of an hour or less?

That experience will be revived in a series of anthologies under the banner New Hampshire Pulp Fiction, eventually covering all the classic topics of fiction in its most compelling form and with each story rooted in the familiar locales of our state. The first in the series will tackle the horror genre. Titled “Live Free or Undead: Thirteen Dark Tales from the Granite State,” the book will be produced by the excellent designers and printers of Plaidswede Publishing, my collaborators in creating in the New Hampshire Pulp Fiction series.

The book is scheduled for release in the fall of 2010, but I’m currently soliciting submissions for consideration. Stories submitted should be between 1,000 and 8,000 words. Longer manuscripts will be considered but please query first. Send completed works to the address below.

The horror genre is broad, encompassing everything from the headless Victorian ghosts of Gothic parlor tales to the bloody metaphysical terror of contemporary authors like Stephen King. Stories appearing in “Live Free or Undead” can reflect this same range. Tales can be set in the past or the future, the deep woods or the busy cities, but all must be established recognizably within the boundaries of New Hampshire. We’re looking for stories that offer a sense of place as well as a sense of fear.

Compete manuscripts are welcome and previously published works or adapted works will be considered. In this process we hope to provide an outlet for some of the region’s best writers, to discover new talent, and to create a book that will terrify and delight readers for years to come.

A contract specifying terms of agreement is available upon query. Contact me at nhpulpfiction@gmail.com for details.

I look forward to hearing from you.

-Rick Broussard

Out of Fuel

2009-11-08T19:03:00.001-08:00

Out of Fuel, originally uploaded by Broussardish.

Fuel is an amazing little coffee shop in Mt. Vernon, Iowa. My daughter sent me a bag of their beans. It is gone. This makes me sad.

Still there's more...

2009-09-13T05:56:00.000-07:00

09/13/2009 Route
Find more Runs in Concord, New Hampshire

After my most consistent week of running (18 miles) I ran my most challenging route so far this morning (above). Just 3.5 miles, but with a long uphill stretch on Ironworks Rd. I've been reading Brendan Manning's book "Ruthless Trust" as a morning devotional, and today I realized that, while my running has been increasing in quality and duration, I've never really dedicated a run to the Lord. I guess I'm so "cliche-averse" I miss out on lots of obvious opportunities like that. Anyway, I chose to do so this morning, and that's what inspired me to break off of my standard 3-mile neighborhood run. I didn't do anything too fancy, just kept thanking God for things along the way. This seemed to keep me focused on this "dedication" and somewhere along the way I found myself adapting Todd Rundgren's catchy song "International Feel" with new lyrics that expressed gratitude and amazement. His refrain "Still there's more..." lent itself nicely to my words (I'll have to jot them down later, although they aren't exactly poetry). The result of this bit of discipline, combined with the perfect running weather -- cool, damp and bright -- was a wonderfully visual experience with nature bursting into sight and drawing my eyes down long vistas and into green pockets I'd never noticed before. And over it all, the orb of the sky seemed to gaze down and take notice of the same details as I did, affirming them with extra light. People on my runs are always notable, like gravity wells to a passing asteroid. As I've taken to the same streets over and over, I've started to recognize a few other old shufflers like myself, some real runners and a number of dog walkers. We exchange that little flick of the fingers and a mumbled "namaste" (we actually say "morning" but the meaning is the same) that passes for a greeting when you are slightly winded. Anyway, just as I was nearing home and rounding the last curve from Sunset to Jordan Ave. I saw a man come out of his house with his schnauzer and his little plastic collection bag and he looked up and me and said, "Keep up the good work." I smiled and said thanks. Nothing like a little blessing to end a perfect run.

Transcript Gibberish

2009-09-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

I needed a long interview transcribed, so I decided to run it through speech recognition software. I assumed it wouldn't be perfect, but at least I'd have a kind of baseline of the interview and I could correct the parts I wanted to use a lot more easily than typing the whole thing up -- or so I thought. The gibberish that resulted from the "transcription" was so alien to the actual speech that it was completely useless for my purposes, but it made a kind of weird poetry. Here's a "verbatim" paragraph:

[Speaker 0] he has to do that the students you can see the highlight of my way to Italy three I ran into me you think another thing about it the glass it was at the end the stories I can only announced Wednesday because that way well in my mind how security has been hit by one they called the hearing that is the Army with Jackson and Grant D Haren there's not a scary movie that is going to be their commercials are secure you know I think is so corrupt but I think the fact is there like if you treat it as going beyond that yes and bad with seventeen percent it's creepy a lot of them will be when you see it actually kind of oh it was pretty scared let me add one thing that yanked my inner light the once pristine and I know with my son yesterday an hour there is actually cheaper it's interesting which was a progression for me according to Cannon finally starting to laugh and scary movies because the technology is

P050809PS-0297

2009-05-15T20:21:00.001-07:00

P050809PS-0297, originally uploaded by The Official White House Photostream.

OK, so I'm just posting this because my pirate loving, Ron Paul supporting daughter might find it amusing.

Record Store Day: April 18

2009-04-18T07:45:00.001-07:00

http://www.recordstoreday.com/photo/418453:200

Wahoo. It's record store day. Born right here on our N.E. seacoast and now a national semi-phenom.

Buy music you can touch and it will touch you back.

Posted via email from broussard's posterous

R.I.P. Squawk

2009-04-04T14:48:00.001-07:00

Our adopted feral cat Squawk died, I think a few days ago, defending his attic stronghold from invading raccoons.

I just buried him under the Rising Star Clematis at the corner of the tractor shed.

His body was found tangled in the insulation over the den, pretty torn up, but still proudly wearing his reflective flea collar, a symbol of his citizenship in the Broussard family where his memory will be cherished.

Bye Squawk. You always knew you were more than just a barn cat, even if we wouldn't let you into the house

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Mallove reward poster

2009-03-13T13:37:00.001-07:00

> Here's a reward poster for the murderers of a good friend of mine. > I'm not especially into retribution, but I hope they find whoever > did this and put them away.
>
> I knew Mallove from stories I did on future science and then on the > weird scientific underworld of Cold Fusion research. He was a great > guy, brutally murdered for apparently nothing more than a petty > robbery. The randomness of the universe sometimes just sucks.
>

Download now or preview on posterous

MalloveRewardAnnouncement.pdf (782 KB)

Posted via email from broussard's posterous

feet

2009-03-13T13:36:00.001-07:00

This is a photo montage I made as a Phone Extention Director for our receptionist at work. It was a birthday present. She revels in "punking" people on their birthdays. She also has a severe aversion to feet. This was offered in friendship as a little aversive therapy.

"Sak vide pa kanpe."

— Creole Proverb

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All Dressed Up for NHTA

2009-02-07T11:25:00.001-08:00

Here's Daniel, his girlfriend Olivia, Jemi and me. We all got gussied up for New Hampshire Theatre Awards 7 on Feb. 6, 2009. It was probably the most successful awards night yet, at least in terms of crowds and energy and serendipity (sometimes melancholy). A frequent nominee of the event has been the famous and beloved James Whitmore, who performs just about every summer for the Peterborough Players. He died the day of the awards and we learned about it when the manager of the Players asked if he could say a few words before the annual memorial video, honoring those who has passed in the previous year. Whitmore made a number of other "appearances" through the night, including a couple of comic references to him in skits that had been filmed beforehand (one actor groused on camera, blaming him for making it impossible for anyone else to take home a Best Actor award), in a short clip from his last performance on the Peterborough stage this summer (as the Stage Manager in "Our Town"), and, most profoundly, in an acceptance speech. Academy Award writer Ernest Thompson received a Lifetime Achievement Award that night and after some other remarks, noted that he had spoken to Whitmore, a long-time friend, earlier that week. He had told Whitmore that it seemed like the Lifetime award should be going to him, instead: "because, you know, you're older," explained Thompson. He knew that Whitmore was ill (with cancer) and promised to dedicate the award to him. Naturally, he did, in the most emotional moment of the night.

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Bye Bye Birdie Logo

2009-01-06T14:06:00.001-08:00

I created this for a Concord High School production of Bye Bye Birdie. It was never used. Nonetheless, I like it's contemporary sloppiness. Looks like an expensive T-shirt design to me. Maybe I should go into expensive T-shirt designing.

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Jorge Luis Borges Coin 1899-1999

2008-10-30T05:20:00.001-07:00

Jorge Luis Borges Coin 1899-1999, originally uploaded by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³.

I've got to find me one of these.

The Money Shot

2008-07-14T20:34:00.000-07:00

Just back from the family reunion in Shreveport. Well, with so many special moments in a week and a period of hanging out with the entire Broussard clan (minus one, sorry Heather), why does this photo define the experience? It was very late on the evening after visiting Vermillionville in Lafayette (with a 4-hour drive still ahead) and dropping in on the Ancelet cousins and exposing my wife and kids to serious Cajun reality via an evening of eating crawfish and dancing to the Louisiana Rhythm Devils and listening to deep BS storytelling (thanks Barry) and family history (thanks Mary Caroline) that we decided to visit the hamlet of Broussard, La. We drove through looking for something with the Broussard name on it to pose beside and I found a tourist kiosk near a Starbucks. I paused in the road and asked Biz to check it out for good signage. Cop-conscious Daniel noted that it was a bad idea to pause in the road. What harm could it do at such a late hour with no other cars on the road, asked I. Daniel remained nervous and sure enough, blue lights burst behind us. The cop emerged from his cruiser and I pulled out my license and prepared for the routine. The cop asked Elizabeth, who had returned from the kiosk, to stand "here" in the road while he "ran" my license. I explained what we were up to and he seemed to get it, but protocol took precedence. Finally he returned the license and told us to move along. Daniel piped up, "I told him to park out of the road." The cop said I should have listened to him (ironic?). Just as we were all about to leave I leaned out the window and said, "Hey, last time we were in Broussard the police chief invited us into the station and gave us a 'Town of Broussard' video (true story). Can we just take a photo by your car?" The cop frowned and said they discouraged that, since they didn't like such photos turning up on the Internet. Then, probably realizing he'd just rousted some harmless tourists, he added, "I'm doing a walk-through of that Starbucks. I'll just do my business and you do yours." He pulled into the Starbucks parking lot and walked up to the door. Some employee tried to head him off, saying that they were closing, but he insisted that he "walk through" the place. Jemi and I knew this was our window of opportunity and we told Eleanor, Biz and Daniel to quickly pose by the cop car. This is the photo that resulted. Charming and revealing on so many levels. The Broussards do Broussard, La.. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

tight shot

2008-04-27T17:44:00.001-07:00

tight shot, originally uploaded by Broussardish.

We were visiting colleges in the Midwest (go figure) with Biz and at Carleton in Northfield, MN, we got to hang out with a couple of students we know. Famous Concord High drummer Pete Jones showed us a couple of places not on the student tour, like a stone labyrinth on a little island and a cool Japanese garden where we took this photo. Later on, we had Indian food with Hillary Adams, the lovely former stage manager of numerous Concord High plays (including Les Mis), at a little restaurant called the Kurry Kabab in a strip mall. This also, in a way, was a step outside the official tour, since the admissions guy, at the end of his presentation, mentioned this great Indian restaurant right down town that was supposed to be the best in the Minneapolis region. Hillary said that every tour gets that spiel and that there must be some kind of kick back because the Kurry Kabab is better. The Kabab was great and there was enough left over for us to send a large fragrant doggie bag back to Hillary's dorm. Both Carleton and Cornell College in central Iowa were pretty wonderful. The trip was pleasant although we spent a lot of it driving or cramped into airplanes.

The Brotherlode

2008-02-10T11:38:00.001-08:00

BillCloseUp, originally uploaded by Broussardish.

My dear brother Billy (probably Bill to his friends, but I knew him when) just sent me a link to his Photobucket site where he has dozens of old family photos, including this one that my brother John took of him with Dad's old original Polaroid SX70. Billy looks to be maybe 11 or 12? That would make this photo from about 1969? Looking at old photos reminds me of an experience I had in a small airplane taking aerial photos. Looking down on a busy area from that perspective you realize how close together everything is. On the ground, having to drive around with limited visibility, you think of the time to get from point A to B as some kind of objective distance when often point B is just separated from point B by a couple of one way streets and single city block. This analogy probably makes little sense unless you've been up in a plane, but it's my blog, so I'm permitted to ramble. What I'm saying is that, from the perspective of my present age, having raised three kids to college age, I sometimes wonder how when we were kids ourselves, we packed so many changes into such a shot span of time. Anyway, Billy's gift of these photos will be something I'll spend a long time unwrapping. I'm hoping that all the Broussards will start opening up their individual troves of photo gold and share them via online means.

Squash Delight

2007-12-23T11:14:00.001-08:00

squash delight recipe, originally uploaded by Broussardish.

Ernesto commented on my post in which I mentioned an old family recipe that we finally revived on Thanksgiving this year. I think the formula should be visible in this photo of a cross stitching that Jemi did decades ago. It's a pretty simple recipe, but it was my mother's and grandmother's favorite way to eat squash. It's probably a Southern-style recipe, but it went over pretty well with the N.H. family when I recreated it. I substituted yogurt for the mayo, since mayonnaise has never appealed to me. (This aversion is due to some kind of childhood event. It's not clear but one of my earliest memories is of tasting a sandwich and coming to the conclusion that mayonnaise has a disgusting flavor. That opinion had grown less emphatic over the years, but I still avoid it.) The classic squash delight has water chestnuts in it, but I may try pecans when I make it for Christmas.

Farewell Dan Fogelberg

2007-12-22T15:36:00.000-08:00

It's a bit late for a eulogy, but it's not often I read the morning paper, notice some famous person has died, and actually feel a personal loss. When I learned that Dan Fogelberg had died of prostate cancer at age 56 on Dec. 16, I actually let out a groan of sympathy. My daughter overheard and asked what was wrong. I told her and, naturally, she didn't know who he was.

He hasn't been much of a presence in recent years, and he was never a superstar, though he had a handful of "soft rock" hits like "Leader of the Band" and "The Power of Gold." I haven't really thought much about him and I had no idea he was sick. I also didn't realize that he was barely a year older than I. Coincidentally, just a few weeks ago, I was goofing with my old record player and I put on Fogelberg's "Netherlands" album. It's one of those albums that constituted a soundtrack to a period of my life. We used to keep it on rotation on The Farm stereo when that rural enclave was a social nexus to our strange extended family and to an orbiting collection of friends. The album has held up well as a heartbreakingly beautiful and passionate rock symphony. Dan was a musician who could play highly melodic and sentimental music and retain an artistic credibility. Even my old friend Stuart Murphy, a music industry insider who had a pretty critical ear, always liked him.

After The Farm began to disintegrate and my family split up, I found myself living in Baton Rouge with my dad. I'd been doing odd jobs, mostly printing, and I had even tried working in the Gulf as a galley hand on a drilling rig, but it's safe to say I was floundering. I'd settled on a job at a Kroger grocery store, stocking shelves at night, just when Fogelberg's New Years Eve opus "Same Old Lang Syne" was getting some airplay.

The lyrics tell the story of a chance encounter between the musician and an old flame in a supermarket. He's become famous. She's married with kids. They share a beer in the parking lot. She leaves. He stands there alone in the snow with only his thoughts.

During those long winter nights the song would play on the store's sound system in the wee hours and always took me to some place lonely and sad, but I could never resist the trip. I'd find myself looking forward to it each night. The haunting coda, "and the snow turned into rain" was my reminder that you can connect with the past, briefly, but you can't go back. That was pretty poignant for me in those "cusp" years between The Farm and the Sideshow Pizzeria and old long-time girlfriend Pam on the one hand and the totally alien future on the other.

Thanksgiving Reunion

2007-11-22T19:43:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving Day Family Shot 2, originally uploaded by Broussardish.

Weird to think we're already having an event that qualifies as an immediate family reunion, but when Daniel and Eleanor came home from their respective colleges for Thanksgiving, that's what it was. We had a great meal and, as we tend to do, we also celebrated Daniel's and Grandpa's birthdays (21! and 75!) since they both actually fall in the next week. In a fit of inspiration, I decided to make an old family recipe for something called Squash Delight. It was Grandmother's favorite vegetable recipe, and since she was practically a vegetarian, that was saying a lot. Mom used to make it as well, and it was one of the few dishes I'd ever eat that has mayo in it. In my version I substituted plain low fat yogurt. It was a hit with just about everyone who tried it (Jemi has a problem with green peppers, but she was polite). If anyone reads this and would like the recipe, leave a reply and I'll post it.

Rick Makes a Splash

2007-07-23T16:31:00.001-07:00

Rick Makes a Splash, originally uploaded by Broussardish.

I was invited to make one of the first splashes on a Pollock-esque painting, a community participation art project at Holman Stadium in Nashua. This is the first of 17 coats of splatter that will go on the 8 by 48-foot "canvas." It was fun. Artist Ken Gidge, who oversaw the process, said I had a knack for the format.

2007-07-23T16:24:00.001-07:00

Open Secrets

2007-05-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is half of the title of an amazing book by one of the tutors at my son's school: St. John's College. I've been dipping into it more and more often lately. The complete title is Open Secrets/Inward Prospects and the author is a sweet-faced, gray-haired woman named Eva Brann. I picked up a copy on the advice of someone while visiting the school. It's not a linear book, more like a book of quotes all by the same person. You can dip in anywhere and find something fascinating. Since she is relatively old and teaches the young, a lot of the book deals with issues of age, generational disparities, what has been gained or lost over time for individuals and for the world. Her language is embued with the style and richness of the classical literature that is the DNA of St. John's.

Here's one quote, picked randomly:

"What are the young deprived of; nearby green groves with a hidden observant Pan, open churches with their heirarchy of pomp, stifling cities and their heavy neighborhood-auras, brooding pasts with beautiful archetypes, stern courts with dangerous power, the elegant malevolences of smart strong teachers. What they get is prosperous freedom. Does it have a savor?"

or

"Surely flagellating the imagination with hallucinogenics is a huge admission of its failure."

or

"The bully conservatives know as little about conservation as the officous liberals know about liberty or the ranting radicals know about roots."

None of these by itself does the book justice. The effect of reading it, the gestalt, if that word applies here, is that of being submerged in a vast mind with an excellent librarian who stands ready to show you the spine of every great book you've always wanted to read -- and not the paperback editions: the original printings with etched plates, stiff bindings and pages uncut, awaiting your investigation.

I understand she was recently named a national treasure by someone in the Bush administration.

I still remember seeing her at St. John's, surrounded by students and their parents. To say she had a saintlike glow might be extreme and a projection, but she was serene. I went to get the book from elsewhere to have her sign it and she had disappeared.

Now that I'm familiar with the book, I realize how redundant it would be to have her adorn it with her autograph.

Award-winning Art

2007-04-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

I actually won a prize for the creation pictured here. It's hard to appreciate the inspired design and fantastic detail from this ancient slide that I recently had scanned. In case it isn't obvious, that's the Mummy about to clobber the Wolfman with a large bone. Both are standing in a swampy graveyard beneath a tree full of bats next to a pit of quicksand. Oh yes, barely protruding from the quicksand is the face and hands of a terrified man -- the only witness to the battle of monsters taking place as he slides to his ghastly doom. I made the tableau out of paper mache, found objects and Aurora models. It was my entry in the Master Monster Maker contest, sponsored by the model company and a local hobby shop. I won first place and got a cheesy plastic plaque made to look like a green Frankenstein monster face. Wish I still had it. I could add it to my tiny case of awards earned over the years.

Sic transit gloria mundi

Oh, yeah, that's the foot of our dalmatian, Chicory, appearing at the top of the frame. This photo was taken in the gazebo of our house on Poquito Bayou Road in Shalimar, probably around 1964.

I always wanted a hedgehog

2007-02-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

adopt your own virtual pet!

Just for fun.

My wound

2007-01-28T05:33:00.000-08:00

My wound
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

On New Year's Day I was following my routine for lunch and making a can of soup. I had the soup can in my right hand and with my left I reached over to stove for a Corningware pot. When it slipped from my grasp, my left hand automatically descended to try to grab it before it hit the countertop. My hand arrived a split second too late and was impaled on a shard of Corningware. I knew it was bad (lots of redness and gapingness) and I made some groaning sounds which my youngest daughter heard from the adjoining room. She found me rinsing my gushing wound over the sink. She remained calm and drove me to the emergency room where I had to sit and bleed on the carpet for a while. We managed to reach my wife and other daughter before they returned to the house to find us missing with blood everywhere. I finally got 7 stitches along my "head" line on my left palm. I also cut or nicked a nerve which supplies sensation to the middle and ring fingers of that hand. More on that later.

Miracle on South Street

2006-11-28T20:37:00.000-08:00

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like the world goes a little faster every year. This becomes most apparent at the onset of winter, which is kind of like an annual deadline. There are some things that just have to be done before it gets too cold or else they simply have to wait, and the list of undone tasks grows every fall. For instance, this year I never got around to planting bulbs, one of the easiest ways to cheer up mud season. My driveway is about five years overdue for a coat of sealant. I still have leaves from my late-dropping silver maple all over my yard. (I know, there’s no snow yet and the ground isn’t frozen, but I’m already resigned to cleaning up the yard after the thaw.) I never turned the mulch pile or tilled the garden before I dumped the few measly tarps of leaves I was able to scrap together. My plan to paint the exterior of the house in sections is such a bold initiative that I suppose I can wait another season to start it up.

At a certain point, the activities of the year actually “lap” you and leave you in their dust. But it’s only at that point that you begin to discover the true blessings of procrastination. Case in point, the storm doors and windows I never took down last spring (it was so cool last summer I never felt the need) are fine just where they are. Mission accomplished. But then, while casing my forlorn yard, I noticed that the Christmas lights I strung last year and never took down had been chewed by squirrels and their wires were dangling.

I found some duct tape and with my pocket knife I was able to strip and splice them right where they hung. I pulled the old extension cord out of the weeds, stretched it to the outlet and plugged it in. There were a few goners, but most of the strings worked just fine.

The Broussard home was one of the first on the block to have trees aglow with twinkle lights.

It was like a Christmas miracle.

Happy Anniversary

2006-09-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

cassette
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

In the future, when the robots take over and treat humanity like an exotic breed of cats who require space and pampering, I suspect that all we'll do is lie on plush mats and bat a mouse around to navigate the "Ultranet" (or whatever they will call it). I'm glad that there already are some cats with enough free time on their hands to come up with stuff like this (visit www.says-it.com to create your own). At a record sale in downtown Concord this summer I picked up a batch of cassettes for a buck apiece and I've been enjoying the fidelity and ease of use (my car has a cassette deck, so to play a CD requires two adaptors and all the wires and a place to put the portable CD player). Since then, I've been singing the praises of the cassette. It was such a durable format. I still have a few of them from the 70s that play just fine. I somehow doubt that any CDs that are getting steady use will hold up as well. When I discovered this fun little cassette label generator, it seemed appropriate to use it to acknowledge the most durable format of my life, my marriage to my band-mate Jemi. Our 21st anniversary was last week, and we exchanged notes and had dinner and such, but it wasn't quite as sentimental as it ought to have been. Here's a chance to declare my eternal love in music, without having to actually sing. And you don't want to hear me sing, trust me.

Mighty Clods of Joy

2006-08-19T04:42:00.000-07:00

Here's a term I think merits coining: googlestalgia.

You know, it's when you remember something, someplace, or maybe some name from your youth and decide you want to plug it into Google at the next opportunity to see what turns up.

I had a bout of googlestalgia the other day, when a familiar phrase from my youth came to mind and I realized that I had never heard anyone else (other than my older brother) use it in my entire adult life. The phrase is "dirt clod war."

When I was an adolescent those three words caused a thrill at the core of my being. There were only a few places in sandy N.W. Florida, where I was growing up, where high caliber dirt clods could be found, but a trip to one of them with a group of friends was about as excting as life could be back then. The red clay bluffs of "Field 4" on the Eglin Air Force Base reservation near Ft. Walton Beach was the ideal dirt clod war terrain. There was plenty of cover and lots of high ground from which to launch attacks. There was even a clear-running stream in the nearby woods to provide hydration and clean-up.

The rules were simple. Form teams (or make it every man for himself), find some patches of good clod-rich dirt, wait for the enemy (or seek him out), and throw dirt at one another. I can remember the sensations as clearly as my first kiss: the shock of the impact of getting a clod on the back or neck and the following cascade of dirt and sand into the hair or underneath the clothes — and the absolute bliss of watching a clod arc from my own hand and intercept a running figure. When conditions were perfect, red clay dust would explode into the air like a mist of blood. Oh yeah, the only other rule to dirt clod war was that the game would not end until someone got hurt.

I don't think this rule was ever agreed upon. It was just inevitable that someone would get a rock in the eye or go flying down a red clay crevasse long before we were ready to go home, so this would be the signal that the game had to end.

So I typed "dirt clod war" into Google this morning and only got about 257 matches. I suppose that means the dirt clod war experience is actually pretty rare. Pity. Maybe other people called it other things. Here in the frozen North, where I now reside, I'm sure the abundance of snow makes my old gang's weapon of choice seem primitive and inelegant. (My mind's eye just attempted to picture a new Civil War where the South was armed with dirt clods and the North with snow balls. I think I'd put my money on the South in that conflict.)

Many of the "dirt-clod" sites I found were drenched with nostalgic feelings not unlike my own, so after browsing for a minute I typed "googlestalgia" into Google. The search only turned up two relevant sites, both blogs. So I went to Go Daddy and bought the domain googlestalgia.com. Not sure why, but it'll come to me.

Spume of Summer

2006-06-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

Spume of Summer
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

My funny wife read somewhere on the Internet that if you drop Mentos into soda pop it results in a spectaucular geyser. Since today was the last day of school she decided to bring the elements to Concord High School for an experiment when she went to pick up the girls. Apparently the first attempt resulted in ginger ale spurting into someone's nostrils. They regrouped and tried again with an improvised funnel and Jemi had her camera ready. This time it worked perfectly and she captured the spume at its peak. It seems like a metaphor for the last day of school, so here it is. Happy summer!

Respond to This

2006-06-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

BRESETTE THEATRE PRODUCTIONS

Bresette Theatre Productions announces the New England premier of "The Pen!s Responds!" by Oscar winning writer Ernest Thompson.

BT Productions is a new theater company with a unique mission — to bring theatre to the masses with a "pay what you can" admission based on the idea that quality live theater should be for everyone.

Josh Bresette had the dream of starting a non-profit theatre company, which would offer high-quality drama and comedies but bring "something different" to the live theatre experience. "I have had this in mind for a while, and Billy Butler was the perfect person to help me kick it off. He is a theatrical force to be reckoned with," says Bresette.

BTProductions will launch their 2006 season with the New England premier of "The Pen!s Responds", by Ernest Thompson known for his play, "On Golden Pond," which earned him an Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy award. This 90 minute tour de force will have you laughing, weeping, and squirming in your seat. Josh Bresette and Billy Butler are the two-man cast, and will play a multitude of characters including women, men, children and aging queens. Bresette describes the play simply as, "Two actors playing twenty four characters in twelve scenes about 1 subject!"

Says Butler, "It's a great show and we are aroused by the chance to expose it to the seacoast. This is the perfect chance to share the love with theatre fans who are looking for something different."

"The Pen!s Responds!" opens at The West Studio Theatre in Portsmouth, NH on June 2nd and runs through June 18th. With two nightly performances on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 and 10 pm, and Sundays at 8 pm. The show then moves to the Portland Stage Company, in Portland Maine, June 23rd through July 9th. Finally, the Boston Center for the Arts, July 22 through August 5th. Due to subject matter, this production is not appropriate for young children. For tickets call 603-430-0770 or visit www.BTProductions.org

--
"Unnecessary failures are the ones where an artist tries to second guess an audience's taste, and little comes out of that situation except a kind of inward humiliation."
David Bowie

Tag, I'm It

2006-06-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

I got "tagged" recently by Kristen to list these groups of "favorites with kids"... This is apparently one of those self-propagating list deals, but unlike the ones for youngsters that ask things like "name your crush" this one is geared to parenting. OK. I'm cool with that. It needs to be understood that I'm almost done with the close-quarters, hands-on parenting phase. My urchins are in high school and college. Sadly, we don't really do all that much as a group any more. Here's what I came up with.

Four places I'd like to take my kids on vacation

1. Big Sur
2. Dominique
3. British Isles
4. Some desparately poor country -- Haiti or India -- to show them how good they've got it.

Four shows I like to watch with my kids

1. Gilmore Girls
2. Everwood (now cancelled, alas)
3. American Idol
4. Saturday Night Live

Four restaurants I like to go to with my kids

1. Bagel Works
2. Texas Roadhouse
3. Moritomo
4. Arnies

Four things I want my kids to be good at

1. Listening
2. Understanding
3. Communicating
4. Caring

Four websites I visit daily

1. NHMagazine.com (It's the default on my browser.)
2. Drudge Report( Just to be sure the world is still there.)
3. Ernesto's and/or Kristen's (OK, I don't visit every day, but often enough)
4. Area 603

Four people I'll tag with this

This is embarrasing, since the point of these self-propagating Web dealies is to spread them around, but the truth is, I don't know that many people with blogs and kids. My kids have blogs. None of my siblings do. The few close friends I know to have blogs are Kristen and Ernesto.

I Was There (I Think)

2006-04-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

Miss NH cowgirls2
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

So I spent my weekend judging Miss New Hampshire 2006 and I'm just beginning to recover. Last night, the judges and officials stayed up until 3:30 a.m. evaluating the candidates and coming up with suggestions for improvements in the performance and appearance of the winner (Emily Hughes: Miss Winnipesaukee), to prepare her for the Miss American competition. I’m finally back at home after three nights sequestered in a hotel, van, limo or nice restaurant, surrounded by people for whom the Miss America track runs straight to the heart. (One judge from Atlanta knew the contestants AND RUNNERS UP from virtually every state for the past 20 years. Even the local Miss NH geeks were impressed.) As the “novice judge” I was frequently asked what I thought of everything and, in truth, it was fun and fascinating, but I'm just realizing the profundity of the psychological effect of all this "judging" of smart, beautiful, driven women. Looking back, it seems like an unnatural relationship, a little schizoid, simultaneously voyeuristic and paternal. I feel like I may need some Lithium, or a deprogrammer.

Ten Summer Songs

2006-04-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

On the Area 603 blog someone asked for people to compile a short list of songs they'd want to have on a tiny iPod for an endless summer. I wanted to pad my list with things like "Neon Meat Dream of a Octofish" by Captain Beefheart, but I decided to go the sincere route. Here's what occured to me to write, and some of the why behind each choice.

My Critical Summer Songs in Chronological Order of Psychological Imprint

1. God Only Knows, Beach Boys (My first-ever dance at a real boy/girl house party)
2. I Got a Line on You, Spirit (Best song ever to make an entrance to on the Ft. Walton Bch. teen nightclub scene)
3. Summer Breeze, Seals and Crofts (Moved to Tallahassee with my girlfriend and got dumped by her the first day there. This song played constantly that summer and there really was Confederate Jasmine in the air.)
4. Itchycoo Park, Small Faces (Early days of, uh, experimentation)
5. You Ain't Going Nowhere, The Byrds-Sweetheart of the Rodeo (Coming down)
6. Street Fighting Man, Rolling Stones (Growing up)
7. Band on the Run, Wings (That road trip to California in my brother's Dodge Dart Swinger)
8. Mambo Sun, T.Rex (That pagan summer at the farm in N.W. Florida)
9. Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen (Atlanta, my third Springsteen concert. The promise of the summer, the warning of the fall.)
10. Save it for a Rainy Day, The Jayhawks (This recent fave took me back to that first boy/girl dance party, older (much) and wiser (a bit)).

Can I start all over again? I'm sure I could come up with a few dozen more summer imprints.

Meet a Real Pirate

2006-04-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

Aye mateys. Thanky to all who left such yar comments on me last posting. Like it or not, ye all are now members of my crew. And a scurvier bag of bilge rats I've never laid me eyes upon. So avast and heave ho and man the poop deck, we set sail at dawn (to beat the traffic on I-93).

My daughter, a certified World of Warcraft addict, has created a wonderful pirate character named Baracilla. She's a pirate queen whose heart was stolen and broken by a dashing young corsair who went to sea, after the one night they spent together, and then never returned.

Here's one description of herself from a story she wrote called "The Bloodsail Abduction." (Her character is not confined to the game and often sneaks out into the "real" world.) The scenes takes place on board Baracilla's ship "The Darling Pearl."

The walls moaned at the wooing of the waves. She clicked her cabin door shut, releasing a breath. Turning, she faced a tall, tarnished mirror, propped carelessly on the wooden sill before her. Looted from a month-old shipwreck, the surface was warped and grimy, but she could still make out the image of herself, imposing and tawny-skinned, garbed entirely in red. She stepped towards her reflection, sharp russet eyes meeting themselves in the tarnished pane. She studied herself briefly, running a hand through her unruly silver locks. There was a squawk and the shuffle of feathers. Peril bobbed his head, peering through the wire of his cage with beady blue eyes. Baracilla cast a smile on her loyal parrot, abandoning the mirror and crossing the room. She strolled past Peril’s cage, dipping her hand into a small wooden crate. Her glove enclosed around the neck of a tall, dark, glossy friend. With a flash of teeth she wrenched its cork free and fell back on the pilfered silk sheets, taking a long, indulgent drink.

Ah, the pirate life.

Arrr

2006-03-19T07:37:00.000-08:00

You know you are in a fairly desperate mode when you post this kind of thing to your blog, but I couldn't resist. (What is the growing appeal of pirates all about, anyway?)

My pirate name is:

Iron Jack Flint

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Monster Lab Game

2005-12-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

Monster Lab Game
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

This photo was sent to me by Kirk Demaris who runs the wonderful kitsch and nostalgia Web site www.secretfunspot.com. It's linked in my blogroll so check it out. I'm copying some correspondence I had with Kirk into the comments below, so if you are curious about the how the Monster Lab Game came to be my most current post, follow the thread.

Absolute Beginner

2005-12-07T18:35:00.000-08:00

Rick at Wildcat 3
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

Last Saturday I stepped waaay outside my comfort zone to produce a story we needed for New Hampshire Magazine. The idea was to have a middle-aged person who had never before set foot in a ski boot, go to the slopes and try to learn to ski in a single day. I happen to be a middle-age person (if 53 still fits in that category) and I've never skied so I assigned myself the article. The experience was grueling, but rewarding. I did learn, but I'd hesitate to say that I can really ski. I got to that point where I knew I could go back and have a less grueling time. Anyway, here's me and my instructor, just before I went back up on the lift for my second run. At this point I was actually thinking about declaring myself unfit and going home. It turned out that I was glad I stayed. I'll link this post to the whole story when it's online at the magazine Web site.

That Real 70s Show

2005-11-04T06:12:00.000-08:00

Chissom
Originally uploaded by skinnergy.

My good old friend Billy Garrett, who was probably in kneepants when this photo was taken, sent me a link to a collection of photos from the Ft. Walton Beach nightclub scene, circa 1970s.

(You can see it here.)

I liked this one, mostly because of the highly evolved facial hair. I don't remember this band (Chissom) but it got me thinking about the names of other bands from that era. I remember Big Al Zipper and The Phaetons and The Little Juice Band (TLJB are pictured in this collection) but I'm shocked at how few of them I can conjure up from my misty brain cells. Nightclub names were pretty transient back then. I remember the Mind's Eye (some friends and I did the design for their psychedelic wall painting and logo). I remember the adult establishments like Cash's Faux Pas.

I'd love to archive more of this kind of Miracle Strip trivia for a possible book on the era. And if anyone has photos from the 70s of such night spots or even downtown hangouts like Jimmy's Newsstand or the Palm Theater (not actually downtown, but I think the downtown Tringas Theater was condemned due to health code issues), I'd love to start collecting them here.

Drop me a line if you know of some resources for such material. There must have been people taking pictures back then. And there must be a few folks who didn't totally blow out their memory centers with recreational drugs. Mustn't there?

The Dragon Meets his Saint

2005-10-30T07:54:00.000-08:00

The Dragon Meets his Saint
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

One of the many reasons that I've not been updating my blog (the main one being the distraction of having to hold up my end of a religious debate on the blog Detente. (click here to visit it.)) is that I agreed to build a "life-size" dragon puppet/costume for the production of The Reluctant Dragon by the Children's Theatre Project here in Concord. My family has been a part of this group for 10 years, so a contribution of this magnitude was called for, I guess. The dragon turned out pretty good. He performs very well on stage, thanks to some talented kids doing the voice and puppeteering. Here's a look at him in action. For any PETA or animal rights folks out there, fear not. St. George is only pretending to spear him. And he's, of course, only a pretend dragon. And, of course, a dragon is only a pretend animal.

Here's a link to a great album of photos from The Reluctant Dragon.

Ode to (or for) Mom

2005-10-02T04:43:00.000-07:00

Here's something that's been rattling around in the back of my mind for a long time. I've been feeling closer to my folks lately, even though I do a lousy job of keeping in touch with Dad and Mom passed on years ago. But somehow it seems right to try to carry on or complete some work that belongs to one's parents. I've been following in my father's footsteps in puppetry, and thinking about cooking and bread making to honor Mom. The following, I hope, explains itself. It's still a work in progress.

The Ballad of the Built-in Fingernail

While my mother always believed she could write
Her poetic musings took over at night.
With family in bed and the house still chaotic
She'd spin the mundane into something exotic.

But glasses of Coke mixed with old Heaven Hill
Doused the fire of her muse and gave it a chill,
And bright seeds of poetic inspiration
Bloomed into dark flowers of accusation.

Mom wasn’t content with how her life turned out.
She drank to find peace and her faith turned to doubt.
But still she had dreams and a few great ideas
Of how to make hay in the poetry biz.

She’d write an homage to Erma Bombeck:
An author best known for describing the wreck
That comes when a maid turns into wife and mom,
She turned foibles to fables with pen and aplomb.

While now we bow down to our domestic divas
Bombeck’s works were odes to a domestic Shiva.
Her observations were both funny and frank.
(And grass still grows greener o're the septic tank.)

My mother and thousands of others found hope
To know that it really was common to cope
With clutter and chaos and lackluster kids
And husbands accustomed to life on the skids.

Now our house would get cleaned for special occasions
And all would be ordered to our battle stations
When Grandmother came to survey the domain.
We’d shuffle the clutter and cover the stains.

And during one flurry of hectic housekeeping
Came the inspiration that Mom had been seeking.
“I wonder,” thought Mom, “why no mop, sponge or broom
Can finish the cleaning required of a room?

“Why no soap solution can lessen the toil
Of cleaning the final small, dark clumps of soil.
A vacuum can suck up the bulk of debris,
Dead bugs and dust bunnies that long to run free.

“But to whack that last lonely sticky detail
The weapon of choice is a good fingernail.”
“Aha,” said my Mom, “Here’s a message to share.
With housewives and cleaning girls everywhere.

“You’ve heard the commercials that tell you what’s new
To make your house perfect. Well tell them, ‘Scrub you.’
"You’re more than the sum of your cleaning supplies
And the greatest tool lies right before your eyes.

Someday an inventor will set us all free,
We’ll never more grovel upon bended knee
The greatest companion to woman and pail
Will be the Mop with the Built-in Fingernail!"

As epiphanies go, this wasn’t as hot
As a bathtub “Eureka,” or Einstein’s big thought
But Mom warmed her muse and she sat down to write
And writing continued late into the night.

I never did see the poem that resulted
But friends that she showed and the family consulted
Agreed that the poem was a quite worthy text
That rivaled the writings of Erma Bombeck.

“Submit it’” they’d urge. “It deserves to be seen
in Reader’s Digest or Redbook Magazine.”
But it's one thing to open your heart to your peers,
Another to welcome professional jeers.

As far as I know now the poem is still bound
In some yellow pad, nowhere to be found.
But in garret or attic it bears her initial
And glows like a light, hidden under a bushel.

Now Mom has passed on and left so much unspoken
That I collect each of her words as a token.
I cherish the wisdom she freely imparted
Much more near the finish than when I first started.

For life takes a turn when you get near the end,
And looking both ways as you head ‘round the bend.
Beginning and end shine with bright clarity
Revealing how simple life’s answers can be.

How time washes off all the grime of the past
Exposing the memories destined to last.
How things that seemed small in the daily debris
Can glow like the stars in God's eternity

So now it is my chance to say what I see
To my son and daughters who come behind me.
And something as handy as Mom’s cleaning tip
Is precious, indeed, to provide for the trip.

So here is Mom's motto for my kids to keep
Even when their dreams wind up in a heap:
Sure life is a mess, but don’t sweat the details.
As long as you’ve got your built-in fingernail.

Symbol Status

2005-09-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

So much has been happening that I haven't been posting very regularly. I know, this statement reveals that I am not a "true blogger" or the opposite would be the case. Anyway I thought I'd post my Editor's Note, written for the October issue of NH Magazine, since it's probably more timely now than it will be when the magazine finally is shipped at the end of the month.

I posted this same thing to my "official" editor site, www.granitegumbo.blogspot.com. That's how lazy I am.

Here's the post:

My wife and I just dropped our son, our first-born, off at college. The ancient trees of his small campus in Maryland were throbbing with the shrill orchestra of cicadas that had recently emerged in droves from their 17 years of larval life underground. I plucked a few of their amber husks and showed them to my son and his roommates. I thought the cicadas were a particularly apt symbol for college freshmen. After all, their fine young minds were just emerging after a similar number of years in the cocoon of homes and public schools, but they were a bit too excited about the opportunities before them to dwell upon symbols of the past.

Back at home, one week later, Hurricane Katrina hit the shoreline of my past. When I was growing up in Florida, my family took an annual summer drive through Biloxi and over Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain Bridge on our way to visit my Cajun grandparents in Lafayette.

The contrast between the secure seaside village where my son was now soaking up great books, and the demolished seaplains of my ancestral homeland made me feel a bit like a survivor of some great tragedy, like a Jew who had traveled out of Warsaw before the Swastika cast its black shadow across Poland. (Can you tell we took a side trip while in Maryland, to visit the Holocaust Museum in D.C.?)

Since then I’ve heard many people trying to convert the devastation of the Gulf Coast into some kind of dark symbol: Environmental Revenge or God’s Wrath poured out because of Abortion, The War in Iraq, Mardi Gras Debauchery or Fill-in-the-Blank.

I’m a great lover of symbols. Like Orthodox icons, I see them as windows into heaven, links to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. But here’s a lesson I just learned from my son. Symbols pale beside opportunities.

The catastrophe on the Gulf Coast is big enough that everyone in America needs to lend a hand. It’s so big that other countries, so often the beneficiaries of American aid, have an opportunity to return the favors. The purpose of a powerful symbol is not to fixate upon the past, but to guide us toward the future. The great struggles of our history, from the Revolution to the Depression to Vietnam, have become guideposts for our culture. More recent ones, like 9-11, are still being processed. When the challenges are finally faced and overcome, each momentous event can become a symbol of hope and inspiration.

I hope that when Hurricane Katrina is finally boiled down to a historic icon, it stands not as a symbol of judgment or disaster, but one of unity and self sacrifice. In a country (and a world) that is so often divided against itself, that’s the kind of symbol I can get behind.

Rick with Puppet Friends

2005-08-17T05:40:00.000-07:00

Rick with Puppet Friends
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

We just got back from a long drive to explore the neighboring state of Vermont and to visit good friends Ernesto, Kristen, David and Sophia. A highlight of the trip was a visit to the Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, north of St. Johnsbury. We arrived there as it was growing dark, just in time to visit the museum for a minute before the Friday night "dance" performance. The evening was cool and damp and there was a feeling of destiny in the air. Young creative people hovered about and older creative people mingled easily among them. Odd wooden buildings, old vehicles, a painted bus and a myriad of unfinished projects seemed to sprout from the soil and weeds. At one point, Jemi mentioned that the Bread and Puppet farm must remind me a bit of our old farm in DeFuniak Springs, and I replied, "It's like the Farm fully realized." And it was uncannily like the farm might have been if my friends had focused their creative energies and allied with those of my mom and dad. Puppetry and bread baking were always key expressions of art (and love) in my family. I'm still making puppets (so is my dad). After this trip, I'm planning to try my hand at baking bread. Peter Schumann, the genius behind the theater, uses an outdoor clay oven to bake the bread that they hand out at their pageants. I've begun to investigate the materials and specs to put such an oven in the backyard here at 233 South St.

I guess artistic hunger is contagious.

Frank Thompson Joins the Foreign Legion

2005-07-26T19:40:00.000-07:00

Had a nice e-mail back-and-forth with one of my best old friends and learned that he has a Web site. It's very cool, so I'm linking to it below. Frank Thompson encouraged me to submit the very first article I ever had published in a "real" magazine. He also introduced me to the pleasures of silent films -- D.W. Griffith to Georges Milies -- and to old black and white classics like "Scarface" and "Beau Geste." In fact, the page I've linked to on his site has an essay on the French Foreign Legion, one of Frank's many eternal boyhood obsessions, but every page in his site is as packed with treats as a new bag of marbles and evokes the past like a whiff of smoke from the barrel of a cap gun.

Enjoy.

Frank Thompson--Foreign Legion

Graduation Day

2005-07-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

Graduation Day
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

I suppose the past couple of posts are good illustrations of how quickly the milestones pile up when your kids are teens. Day before yesterday prom, yesterday graduation, today sleeping late and avoiding work, tomorrow a bright collegiate future. We hope. At least we have this photo of a pretty special day.

Prom Mom

2005-06-11T05:10:00.000-07:00

Prom Dan and Mom
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

As a maturing parent, facing "phase three," i.e. the prospect of adult children, I've come to realize that kids owe their parents a few things. They owe some modicum of respect amidst the sheer emotional and physical chaos of growing up. They must provide at least one real moment of eye contact and mind meld each year, so that the parents can know that, deep inside, the kids are all right. And the kids must eventually leave home and not come back without grandkids. Jemi expects a bit more than this. When Daniel and his girlfriend, Lauren, split up in the waning months of senior year, she felt personally robbed of one of her expectations: prom photos. Turns out Daniel and a number of other eligible seniors were going solo. In Jemi's day, many suffered though less-than-ideal dates to the prom or even experienced the ignominy of getting "fixed up" for propriety's sake, so this concept took a while to soak in. He made things worse by implying he might attend the prom in one of his band disguises (he has a group called "Mystery Flavor" that plays funky music in hot pants, for instance) but Jemi tripped him into at least getting a tux. Soon Daniel's love of wardrobe kicked in and he found one he liked. Prom day arrived and we went to a friend's house where the backyard was in bloom and the kids could pair off in the sun and be admired by all the parents. They indulged us. We embarrassed them. And although we didn't get a picture of Daniel with a beautiful girl on his arm to post on the eternal refrigerator, I did get this shot of him with the woman he loves.

Bright and Beautiful

2005-06-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

Prom Pix 1
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

Dan and his friends pose on Prom Day, June 2005. You know, they probably don't have a clue just how beautiful they really are. I never made it to my senior year in H.S. so I never had to deal with the prom thing at all (I'd have probably sat it out), but the prom ritual became clearer to me having witnessed it through my son. It's really phase one of a two-part coming of age drama. The prom is where the kids stay out late (or all night, in our case) doing God knows what, so the white-knuckled parents pretty much have to say, "I've done all the moralizing I can do for them. They are now morally independent units." The next phase is graduation where the parents have to say, "I've done all the homework and schooling I can do for them. They are now intellectually independent units." Of course, deep down, you never let go, but these rituals take a little bit of the pressure off. I suppose the final phase is graduation from college when the parents say, "I've spent enough on the little ingrates. They are now economically independent units." I can dream, right?

Broussards at MacDowell

2005-05-08T07:51:00.000-07:00

Broussards at MacDowell
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

Today is both Mother's Day and the birthday of my wonderful wife -- a woman who has told me repeatedly that blogging is essentially a self-centered practice for which she has little time or patience. In her honor (and to prove her slightly wrong), I'm posting this photo of a few of my favorite people who are not me. Happy Mother's Day/Birthday dear Jemi.

I love you more than ever.

A Timely Invitation

2005-05-07T14:17:00.000-07:00

Today is the date of the Time Traveler Convention taking place place at MIT. It's a rainy day in the Northeast, so this may discourage any future folks planning their weekend visits to the early 21st century. Still, the convention planners say that if time travelers don't show up in force there are only a few possible explanations. Either (A.) time travel is impossible, or (B.) Earthlings never figured it out, or (C.) the announcement of a Time Traveler Convention at MIT just didn't generate enough buzz and support in the present. It would take a lot of noise to make an impression that could last until such a time that time travel is possible and the invitation just might never reach its intended audience. (Planners actually recommend that supporters of the concept slip acid-free paper announcements into obscure technical books in libraries to help publicize it.) I guess a fourth possibility is that the future got the message and just had better things to do with the technology.

I engaged in a similar bit of silliness myself awhile ago when I was asked to send a message to the people of Portsmouth in the year 2100. They buried a time capsule at the John Paul Jones House as part of some kind of centennial ceremony and I was among the dignitaries who got to toss my two cents into the next century. I was going to say something very serious and official sounding, but then I realized that one-way communication with the future was pretty unsatisfying. I decided to ask the future recipient to attempt to get a message back to me. I explained that, while physical travel through time might never be possible, what about digital communication, or something like telepathy? I even speculated further. What about prayer? Since the afterlife and eternity are concepts that transcend time, the only true time travel may indeed come when we "slip the mortal coil," so to speak. What is prayer but an eternal act performed by a temporal being?

I noted all this to the future person and wrote something like, "Way back in the late 20th century, many people believed that a man named Jesus Christ was the only real time traveler. He was around before the foundations of the earth and will be around after the universe has run its course. If this is true, then the best way to get a message to me would be to connect with him."

Wouldn't it be cool to arrive at that great time traveler convention called Heaven and to find out that the message got through?

Time Travel via Offspring

2005-04-24T07:05:00.000-07:00

A middle-aged man finds himself catapulted into the past. Standing there before him is his 30-year-younger self, lean and inquisitive, cocky, unaware of the pitfalls, the heartbreak, the struggles just ahead on the path of time. Even as the middle-aged man recognizes his younger self, the time portal begins to recede and he knows he has only a short while, a magical opportunity in which to speak, to warn and to offer encouragement. Words pour out: advice, prophecy, reassurance, admonition, secrets of life. The younger man ponders the wild apparition with a grin but without a glint of recognition. The first distraction calls him away from the scene. The portal closes. The middle-aged man, along with his prophecies, fades back into the future, mostly forgotten.

This is the experience of having a teenage son.

Amarcord or not

2005-04-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

Trying to get the memory ball rolling for others by posting my own comment to my last post turned out to be a bust. The only response I got was a note from my dad, disputing some of my recollections. He remembers the little boy who found the gun in his father's truck, but says he shot his sister, not his brother, and Dad says he didn't ever bring him to the farm. But he did remember the story about the little boy in the witches cradle. When I asked him who that little boy was, he couldn't remember, and finally conceded that my recollection might be right. I'll concede that the boy shot his sister, not his brother. But the whole thing is a reminder of just how slippery a creature a memory can be.

I'm struggling lately with memory issues. And I'm becoming aware of how much of human behavior revolves around this kind of struggle. I know that I often don't speak to people in casual social situations because I really should know their names but I can't remember them. It just stands to reason that what I imagine to be rude or snobbish behavior from middle aged acquaintances of mine might often be simply their inability to place me.

For day-to-day business, my mind often works like RAM that clears when the power goes off, or one of those old slates that you write on with a stylus and then peel up the plastic sheet to erase the words. I'll keep some important fact in my head just long enough to pass it on to other people who need to know. Then, days later, those people will act as though they were never told and I have to dredge through the vaults for clues -- did I forget to tell them or did they forget that I told them? People become very defensive about this sort of thing, so I've taken to writing such communications down.

I suppose that my memory isn't really bad. I can still shine sometimes in my ability to pull details out of the air and facts from the past, but my memory is glitchy. And it's worse on some weeks than others, like a mnemonic biorhythm. But just as failing vision affects the ability to navigate a crowded room, glitchy memory makes conversation or social interaction more difficult. You have to adapt new tools and techniques, and become more forgiving of others.

It's not exactly reassuring, but it puts it in perspective to realize that I've always had a struggle with memory, particularly remembering names. Even in my youth, close acquaintances have become blanks to me when I've been called upon to handle introductions. And yet I can still recite nonsense poetry that I learned from Mad Magazine when I was 12.

Grundig Blaupunkt
Luger Frug
Watusi Snarf Wazoo.

Nixon Dirksen
Nasahist
Rebozo Boogaloo.

Head 'em Off at the Past

2005-03-20T23:24:00.000-08:00

As I continue to blog, I've come to realize something about the form. It's really all about weaving information, memories and connections, into a unique pattern that reflects the life or interests of the blogger. Ultimately, new strands must be drawn in, and this search for strands, for me, has become a recall of memories of the past. After all, memory is like a song in search of a refrain. Or so I thought.

I've been sending out notes to old friends. "Check out my blog," I write, hopefully, then ask: "What do you remember of those strange days when we always had something to say, when we were too fascinated with life to have anything to do with boring people? Recall some of the routine magic we conjured up, the fatal errors we survived, the intentional deaths we took in stride."

So far, no one has taken me up on the offer.

A couple of old friends are too caught up in present day realities to dwell upon the past. A note from one of the pivotal figures of the "olden days" wrote me the following:

"What we did in the 60s and 70s..... I don't remember. The parts I do remember would probably sound more like a confession...the other areas would not be believed. I have a hard time believing them, sometimes...."

I guess it is a lot to ask, for people to distill the most sensation-drenched period of their lives into an anecdote or two, but I'm puzzled by the reluctance of some to revisit the past. So this entry is simply another invitation. What was a defining experience for you when you were still young enough to be defined by experiences?

An Idea I Intend to Steal

2005-03-16T16:14:00.000-08:00

What follows is a list from a blog belonging to Steven Riddle that I stumbled upon. I love the concept and may try to turn it into a magazine article. It reminds me of a story that local historian Fritz Wetherbee tells about how he once peed on Betty Davis (he was a baby at the time). My dad, famously, once ate meat from a prehistoric animal (mastodon? giant sloth?). Anyway, I need to ponder my own list (which will not be nearly so impressive as Mr. Riddle's), but I eagerly solicit submissions from my readership (all five of you) of your own lists of things you've done that most others probably have not.

Flos Carmeli: March 06, 2005 - March 12, 2005 Archives: "10 Things

Okay, I've resisted temptation up until now, but like Oscar, 'I can resist anything but temptation.' So my list of ten things most others might not have done:

1. Won first prize in an annual James Joyce writing competition for a poem composed in a composite language modeled on Finnegan's Wake

2. Named a species of fossil after my wife. (It was a compliment not any implication about the spouse.)

3. Had dinner and a knock-down drag-out fight with Stephen Jay Gould over the theory of contingency and whether it properly understood was science or not. (Okay, I admit it, that's an exaggeration. Let us say an animated and lengthy discussion complete with table napkin drawings and other paraphenalia.)

4. Went to a poetry reading (and read) in a State Penitentiary

5. Demonstrated origami for International Children's Days on the National Mall.

6. Assisted in digs on Mount Vernon Grounds and Williamsburg.

7. Helped excavate a mammoth, a dog-faced bear, and a peccary the size of a horse.

8. Went on a field trip to San Salvador, Bahamas to study modern carbonate depositional environments and joined the islanders in an iguana and conch feast.

9. Sat on Sophia Loren's lap in a helicopter shuttle for Kennedy Airport to La Guardia.

10. Presented a paper in a National Geological Convention on the periodicity of Mass extinctions and was congratulated and assisted by no less than David Raup and Jack Sepkoski themselves.
"

What's in a Name?

2005-03-15T22:22:00.000-08:00

I got the following note from my father the other day. I've been meaning to answer it, so I figure I might as well post my response here.

Dad wrote:
A thought which I had early (about 4 or so AM) this morning, was the changing of one's name--even in a small manner, in the course of life. I'm sure someone has written about this. Percy [Gilmore - friend of dad's since his youth] changing his to Ken. My given Irvin to Bruce, and yours, slightly, to Rick. There are certainly reasons we do this, and, maybe consequences which might be interesting to explore. I know mainly that--I "ve gone through a few existential doorways during the early part of my life and for some now mainly forgotten reason--Irvin did not seem to fit. But the consequences, though not serious, sometimes create confusion in the ordinary commerce of daily life. "OH, I thought your name was Bruce!" And I got to thinking, could this give you a new and different persona, personality---maybe not.

I reply:
It's alway amuses me when I'm around my dad or one of my old friends and get called "Ricky." When I was 6, I actually "changed" the spelling of my own name to "Rickey." I don't know that any deep reason was behind my adding an "e" to distinguish myself. I remember I was at Lakeshore Drugs in Baton Rouge and looking through one of those racks of personalized badges, you know, "Aaron to Xavier," and the only one with my name on it had that peculiar spelling, so right then I adopted it. I was Rickey until I became Rick, I think in junior high. For a year or two, my son Daniel (his friends call him Dan) took to signing all his class papers "Dan!" -- no last name, just an exclamation point -- to the bemusement of his teachers. I do think that changing or modifying one's name is a rite of passage. Of course there are plenty of Biblical references to this rite: Jehovah changing Abram to Abraham, Jesus changing Simon to Peter, the passage from Revelation: "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth [it]." I think it's safe to say that our relationship to our names has something to do with our relationship to eternity, or to God. After all, a name is an artifact, something added to you by an authority outside yourself, but it's also the only thing about a person that doesn't constantly change. Everything else is either superficial, like belongings, or temporary, like body cells and fluids, or evolving, like thoughts and affections. Your name is the one part of you that doesn't change unless you change it, or at least allow it to change. And it's the part of you that most genuinely survives death in the mortal world. A name is the icon by which someone is remembered, revered or maligned. So, maybe there is some real insight to be gained from how a person manipulates this icon in life. But, as Dad said, surely someone has written on this.

Milkweed Hill: Not Just for Ladies

2005-03-12T11:05:00.000-08:00

Milkweed Hill: "I had a SAHM first this week, and surprising that it should have taken so long for this 'first' to come about. David, Sofia and I embarked on our first playgroup session. As a mom of a 2 and 1/2 year old and nearly 10 month old, you'd think I would have made it to at least one of these by now, but nope. Not formally, anyway. We've gotten together with other small groups of moms and their kids, but nothing quite so organized as this. I found myself looking forward to it and then immediately thought, 'oh how sad that this is exciting for me.'"

The above is the lead for a nice entry to the blog of my friend Kristen. Her site is ostensibly dedicated to "attachment parenting," a child-rearing concept that I would have viewed skeptically back when I thought I knew something about parenting (i.e. before my kids began talking back). Now, with my own brood eyeing college, I ascribe to the "whatever gets you through the night" school of parenting. Anyway, Kristen's blog doesn't really advocate for anything so much as it presents a keen eye on the circumstances and details in the life of a talented, dedicated stay-at-home mom. It's as warm and invigorating as a perfect cup of tea.

Broussard's Black Rice

2005-03-06T12:38:00.000-08:00

Everyone should discover a tribute Web page like this (link below) somewhere, posted by an old friend. This one, dedicated to my family, has been up for a long time, thanks I guess to the stability of the Geocities community. It looks like the site hasn't been updated in a couple of years. The author of the page, Nancy Garrett Brown, was one of my best friends, growing up. She was pretty, funny, smart, talented and kind -- all in equal measures. Not to turn this into a mutual admirational society, but Nancy's own family (at least her brothers and her kids) always resonated with a spunky grace and a recognizable vibe. They were (probably are) all musical and brilliant and so inherently curious about people and things that in their presence you felt like your soul was drawn in, admired and tickled.

The recipe that Nancy uses to lead the page is one of three or four meals that defined the Broussard household at the farm. Two of the others were a savory lemon chicken and an incredibly rich beef stoganoff variation that my mom made. My sister still knows the secrets (though she's become a vegetarian) and my brother was the chef heir apparent after my mom died, but I'm getting more interested in cooking lately. I may have to attempt to recreate a few of these great meals from the past.

broussard

My daughter the world-famous poet

2005-02-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

About six years ago I was saying goodnight to my daughter, Eleanor, and we were talking about poetry. She said she didn't think she could write a poem so I challenged her to try. I told her to make the poem up and I'd write it down. At the time she was in the grips of a totemic affection for frogs and amphibians so the topic of her poem was no surprise, but the rhymes and the plot twist of what she dictated were so amusing that I not only wrote it down, I must have submitted it somewhere for publication. I say I "must have" because I don't recall doing so, but I don't know how else it could have wound up posted online. The truth is, I'd forgotten about the poem entirely but today at lunch Eleanor mentioned she had "discovered" it while Googling something. Sure enough, her poem "Frogs and Dogs" can be found on the Web site of the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program and on a site for the Australian Joey Scouts. As far as I'm concerned, this makes my daughter a world-famous poet. Her poem, beloved on two continents, can be read below (including a typo that I don't recall making, but which appears in both versions).

rym: "FROGS AND DOGS-

Frogs, frogs, they live in bogs,
And very moist they feel,
Dogs, dogs, the enemy of frogs,
They might make them a meal.

The frog runs away from the dog,
How very scared he feel,
The dog catches the frog,
And makes him do a deal.

The deal, says the dog, is to clean my house
And I won't make you a meal.
Now the dog and the frog are happy,
Cause they did that deal for real.

by Eleanor Broussard, Age 9

(By the way, the literary promise exhibited by this first effort has developed into a remarkable proficiency. Eleanor now writes with lush complexity and surprising maturity, though her affection for frogs seems, sadly, to have diminished.)

ErnestoBurden.com

2005-02-07T16:56:00.000-08:00

ErnestoBurden.com

This post is the result of me playing around with the functions of the Blogger system. I visited a site of a good friend to see what happens when you hit the "blog this" command. Now I know, the link simply appears in the Post section. Well, ErnestoBurden.com is a great blog, so I'll just let this stand. What I was trying to do was to figure out how to create a list of links on the side of the page. I notice that other blogs in the system have them, so I know it can be done, but I've poked around in the menus and can't figure out how. That's the computer world for you: always looking for needles hidden in plain sight -- in haystacks.

Arlo & Us

2005-02-06T20:42:00.000-08:00

Arlo-Broussardfamily
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

This photo was taken a while ago, but I wanted to post it so the world would know that I stood so close to Arlo Guthrie. I was going to describe Arlo as a hero of my younger days, but he never seemed so much like a heroic figure. He always seemed like someone it would be easy to hang around with. In fact he always reminded me of some kind of a composite of a few of my real life friends. I tried to tell him this when we met. I think he appreciated the remark, but our "meeting" actually consisted of a few seconds as he left the stage at a benefit performace at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, NH. I knew one of the organizers and she arranged for me to shake his hand. It turned into that kind of awkward collision that results when a celebrity encounters a fan's projection of familiarity. Actually, Arlo was very kind and patient with us.

I Like Awards Shows

2005-01-28T21:31:00.000-08:00

Most people profess a dislike or admit to only a casual interest in awards shows like the Academy Awards and Emmys. I really like them. I find myself looking forward to the chance to vegetate in front of a TV and watch a bunch of nicely dressed people walk up to the microphone and thank people. I'm not nearly as interested in sports, except the big games, like the World Series and Superbowl, but I suspect it's a similar feeling to the one that sports fans have. When a football fan loooks forward to a Sunday afternoon with snacks in front of the TV watching two teams push a ball up and down a field, it's actually as irrelevant to them as the honor that is bestowed upon some actor or singer at an awards night is to me.

I wonder if there are some personality classifications that can be determined by the kinds of victories in which we find vicarious pleasure.

Our Fair City

2005-01-21T11:10:00.000-08:00

DSCN7569
Originally uploaded by Broussardish.

I live in the charming capital city of New Hampshire, which was recently named the top "micropolitan" community in the country. Here's a glimpse of the Concord skyline with our lovely capitol dome in view.

South Street North

2005-01-16T15:17:00.000-08:00

I've been resisting this whole blog thing too long. Now it seems a bit pathetic, trying to write something that people will care to read in such an overpopulated universe. It's sort of like standing on a street corner at rush hour in the city, hoping that someone will notice you and invite you home for dinner. But, stranger things have happened. In fact, I was once standing on a street corner (actually at a train terminal) in a strange (to me) city (actually, Beverly Mass.) and someone noticed me and put me up for the night. The next morning, he and his girlfriend made me hash and eggs and sent me on my way. I had never had hash and eggs before and they were delicious. This was my very first day in New England. I was on my way to visit a friend in Cambridge, I had hitched a ride on a private plane and, frankly, had no clear plan on how to get to where I was going. I've never forgotten that bit of kindness. I even remember the guy's name: Kip.

Hi, Kip, whereever you are.

I guess I'll dedicate this blog to you.

It seems less pathetic already.