Message From Mr. Christmas

I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

War is a Racket

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
—Marine Major General Smedley Butler, two-time Medal of Honor recipient

The Lady's Dressing Room

By haughty Celia spent in dressing;
The goddess from her chamber issues,
Arrayed in lace, brocades, and tissues.
Strephon, who found the room was void
And Betty otherwise employed,
Stole in and took a strict survey
Of all the litter as it lay;
Whereof, to make the matter clear,
An inventory follows here.
And first a dirty smock appeared,
Beneath the arm-pits well besmeared.
Strephon, the rogue, displayed it wide
And turned it round on every side.
On such a point few words are best,
And Strephon bids us guess the rest;
And swears how damnably the men lie
In calling Celia sweet and cleanly.
Now listen while he next produces
The various combs for various uses,
Filled up with dirt so closely fixt,
No brush could force a way betwixt.
A paste of composition rare,
Sweat, dandruff, powder, lead and hair;
A forehead cloth with oil upon't
To smooth the wrinkles on her front.
Here alum flower to stop the steams
Exhaled from sour unsavory streams;
There night-gloves made of Tripsy's hide,
Bequeath'd by Tripsy when she died,
With puppy water, beauty's help,
Distilled from Tripsy's darling whelp;
Here gallypots and vials placed,
Some filled with washes, some with paste,
Some with pomatum, paints and slops,
And ointments good for scabby chops.
Hard by a filthy basin stands,
Fouled with the scouring of her hands;
The basin takes whatever comes,
The scrapings of her teeth and gums,
A nasty compound of all hues,
For here she spits, and here she spews.
But oh! it turned poor Strephon's bowels,
When he beheld and smelt the towels,
Begummed, besmattered, and beslimed
With dirt, and sweat, and ear-wax grimed.
No object Strephon's eye escapes:
Here petticoats in frowzy heaps;
Nor be the handkerchiefs forgot
All varnished o'er with snuff and snot.
The stockings, why should I expose,
Stained with the marks of stinking toes;
Or greasy coifs and pinners reeking,
Which Celia slept at least a week in?
A pair of tweezers next he found
To pluck her brows in arches round,
Or hairs that sink the forehead low,
Or on her chin like bristles grow.
The virtues we must not let pass,
Of Celia's magnifying glass.
When frighted Strephon cast his eye on't
It shewed the visage of a giant.
A glass that can to sight disclose
The smallest worm in Celia's nose,
And faithfully direct her nail
To squeeze it out from head to tail;
(For catch it nicely by the head,
It must come out alive or dead.)
Why Strephon will you tell the rest?
And must you needs describe the chest?
That careless wench! no creature warn her
To move it out from yonder corner;
But leave it standing full in sight
For you to exercise your spite.
In vain, the workman shewed his wit
With rings and hinges counterfeit
To make it seem in this disguise
A cabinet to vulgar eyes;
For Strephon ventured to look in,
Resolved to go through thick and thin;
He lifts the lid, there needs no more:
He smelt it all the time before.
As from within Pandora's box,
When Epimetheus oped the locks,
A sudden universal crew
Of humane evils upwards flew,
He still was comforted to find
That Hope at last remained behind;
So Strephon lifting up the lid
To view what in the chest was hid,
The vapours flew from out the vent.
But Strephon cautious never meant
The bottom of the pan to grope
And foul his hands in search of Hope.
O never may such vile machine
Be once in Celia's chamber seen!
O may she better learn to keep
'Those secrets of the hoary deep'!
As mutton cutlets, prime of meat,
Which, though with art you salt and beat
As laws of cookery require
And toast them at the clearest fire,
If from adown the hopeful chops
The fat upon the cinder drops,
To stinking smoke it turns the flame
Poisoning the flesh from whence it came;
And up exhales a greasy stench
For which you curse the careless wench;
So things which must not be exprest,
When plumpt into the reeking chest,
Send up an excremental smell
To taint the parts from whence they fell,
The petticoats and gown perfume,
Which waft a stink round every room.
Thus finishing his grand survey,
Disgusted Strephon stole away
Repeating in his amorous fits,
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!
But vengeance, Goddess never sleeping,
Soon punished Strephon for his peeping:
His foul Imagination links
Each dame he see with all her stinks;
And, if unsavory odors fly,
Conceives a lady standing by.
All women his description fits,
And both ideas jump like wits
By vicious fancy coupled fast,
And still appearing in contrast.
I pity wretched Strephon blind
To all the charms of female kind.
Should I the Queen of Love refuse
Because she rose from stinking ooze?
To him that looks behind the scene
Satira's but some pocky queen.
When Celia in her glory shows,
If Strephon would but stop his nose
(Who now so impiously blasphemes
Her ointments, daubs, and paints and creams,
Her washes, slops, and every clout
With which he makes so foul a rout),
He soon would learn to think like me
And bless his ravished sight to see
Such order from confusion sprung,
Such gaudy tulips raised from dung.

Naming of Cats

T.S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, or George or Bill Bailey -
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum -
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover -
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Thinking and Feeling

I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. I feel, therefore I am is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that's alive. My self does not differ substantially from yours in terms of its thought. Many people, few ideas: we all think more or less the same, and we exchange, borrow, steal thoughts from one another. However, when someone steps on my foot, only I feel the pain. The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self. Suffering is the university of egocentrism.
―Milan Kundera

For Combat Veterans From Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

In marching, in mobs, in football games, and in war, outlines become vague; real things become unreal and a fog creeps over the mind. Tension and excitement, weariness, movement--all merge in one great gray dream, so that when it is over, it is hard to remember how it was when you killed men or ordered them to be killed. Then other people who were not there tell you what it was like and you say vaguely, "yes, I guess that's how it was.”
—The Moon is Down 

Woodstock 2017: The Kids Are Alright

It’s mid October in Woodstock, but at the woodsy Applehead Studio it feels more like Midsummer’s Eve, missing only Titania and Oberon. Mature trees out front are illuminated to the canopies with bulbs no brighter than fireflies. Several folk are roasting marshmallows on the perimeter of a soaring bonfire. Others enjoy the taste of the crackling fire, its multiple orange tongues licking up the darkness. A small bar beneath the trees dispenses beverages and the fixings for s’mores. The night is a starry dome, but no scratchy rock and roll tonight. Instead it’s indoors to witness the reimagining of Joni Mitchell’s Blue by Arc Iris.

Jocie Adams, Zach Tenorio-Miller, and Ray Belli want to honor the singer-songwriter, but aren’t interested in a tribute band’s nostalgic performance. They want to remake the forty-six-year-old album for a younger generation. Implicit, but unspoken, is their desire not to offend old farts who bought the iconic vinyl half a lifetime earlier when they were the age of today’s band members. The free concert is being filmed and recorded before an invitation-only audience. It’s also being streamed live on Facebook.

Back in the day, I attended some intimate concerts. One summer Minneapolis’ fourteen-hundred-seat Guthrie Theatre, with its thrust stage, hosted luminaries like Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, and Jethro Tull. I remember seeing folkies like Tom Paxton perform before a full house that numbered fewer than a hundred patrons. I didn’t count heads, but figure some number south of fifty were invited to the Arc Iris show. It was like attending a concert in your living room.

I’m something of a purist when it gets down to people messing with the Canon, but I’ve noticed the music industry (not a pleasant rubric for singers and songwriters who are mostly artists and not really an “industry”) is quite good at policing itself, unlike “literary” folk who mess with Conan Doyle, for instance. I chalk it up to a reverence, camaraderie, and sensitivity, which inhibit folk from messing with something bigger than they can handle. I’m not aware that Arthur Brown or James Brown covered a Dylan tune, but I think Jackson Browne could.

That said, I walked away from the Arc Iris show impressed with the new sound, which did not in any way diminish Joni Mitchell but certainly enhanced Arc Iris. It was a magical evening. As Pete Townsend might say: the kids are alright.

Thoughts While on the Road to Woodstock

It often seems people who demand equality really desire to be more equal, as did the piggies in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. This occurred to me while driving through eastern Canada. Leaving the no-longer-so-good U S of A (I’m in the apparent minority who believe the “Party of Lincoln” has evolved into the “Party of Hitlerjungend”) at Sault Ste. Marie, we headed toward Montreal. It had been many years since I’d been to Ontario. I was quite surprised to find the Trans-Canada Highway was still only a two-lane ribbon of asphalt (with regular passing lanes) though it broadens near major municipalities. I quickly became aware the highway signage was in English and French, which surprised me not at all.

At the turn of the last century, Canada created the territory of Nunavut, essentially turning over political control of one-fifth of the country’s land, a chunk of real estate larger than Alaska, to the indigenous Inuit. A country that would do that would have no problem dictating road signage be in French and English to satisfy the Quebecois, the Francophone population.

What did surprise me was entering Quebec and finding all English signage gone, something that would piss me off if I were a resident of Ontario. More interesting, perhaps, was the denial or perhaps the neglect of the province’s own history. Communities settled by the English and later taken over by the French haven’t gone so far as to deface the English words carved into the stone of public buildings, as the Copts did to Egyptian hieroglyphics, at least as far up as they could reach without a ladder.

Some local historians aren’t so much revisionist as moronic. How many century-old buildings have a history that reaches back to only 1937, for instance? They do exist in southern Quebec. While this behavior doesn’t reach the enormity of the destruction of the Buddahs of Bamiyan, I find it reprehensible.

Of course, a sizable number of Quebec’s population want secession and their own country, but the French tend to be better lovers than fighters—it’s been a long time since Napoleon. One might argue the French won WWII as a member of the allied forces, but that is stretching it. How many French units stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day? Then again how many wars has the US won since 1945? My guess is about the same number as the French have.

Maybe in the end Quebec will become an independent country and designate French as the only official language, as does France and Monaco in Europe, which will make Quebec one of fourteen countries to recognize French as the only official language, joining several island nations such as Haiti and Madagascar and a handful of African countries.

On Sisyphus

Albert Camus

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Your son is in a burning house. Nobody can hold you back. You may burn up, but what do you think of that? You are ready to bequeath the rags of your body to any man who will take them. You discover that what you set so much store by is trash. You would sell your hand, if need be, to give a hand to a friend. It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself, and there is no other you. Your body belongs to you: it is not you. Are you about to strike an enemy? No threat of bodily harm can hold you back. You? It is the death of your enemy that is you. You? It is the rescue of your child that is you. In that moment you exchange yourself against something else; and you have no feeling that you lost by the exchange. Your members? Tools. A tool snaps in your hand: how important is that tool? You exchange yourself against the death of your enemy, the rescue of your child, the recovery of your patient, the perfection of your theorem...Your true significance becomes dazzlingly evident. Your true name is duty, hatred, love, child, theorem. There is no other you than this.

An Immodest Proposal

Oscar Wilde said that the one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it. The nation is in a revisionist mood. Why not start today? And why not start at the beginning?

The fact is twelve of the first eighteen US presidents owned slaves, and the zeitgeist of our era suggests it’s time we do something about it. The coincidence of having a sitting president who enjoys good relations with the Russians could be fortuitous. If the American public could convince Trump to invite Putin to play eighteen holes, our country could be the better off for it. If you are of a certain age, you may not remember how surgically adept the Russians are at disappearing those who have fallen out of favor—images and names of the discredited disappear from public records. Even entire cities fall off maps.

Extra care will have to be taken for the top-three criminals: Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. Adjusting names might be a good start in changing the identities, the rhetoric, and the mythos of the guilty.

George Washing is fairly simple, as he is already known as the man who would not be king. A little fiddling with documents will show his dominant wife, Martha, was the actual slave owner in the family. If we wished to discredit him further, we could remove Valley Forge from the map of Pennsylvania. No Valley Forge, no suffering.

Thomas Jeffers is easy. He did not write the Declaration of Independence. The document attributed to him uses the word inalienable, but the revised document uses the word unalienable, enough evidence to show the author was actually John Adams. With enough digging, the license Jeffers and Hemings used to marry might be found secreted in a butter churn at Monticello, which was built to the design of Hemings, a white woman who married the enslaved black man, Jeffers.

John Madman is problematic. He and his two fellow authors of the Federalist Papers (a practice run for the Constitution), Jay and Hamilton, owned slaves. The eponymously named musical has made Hamilton a star. If Ringo, another Starr, were to create a musical about the fifth president, the nation might forgive and forget Madman’s foibles. Another possibility is the moronic majority on the Supreme Court, with enough incentive, may just declare the Constitution unconstitutional.

Coming up. Monroe and Jackson, two more pesky presidents.

House With a Heap of History

“House on Virginia Avenue” was printed in the lower right-hand corner of the drawing of the building’s front façade. Below it was the architect’s name, “Cass Gilbert.” Virginia was no longer an avenue, but a street. Nor did the house sit on its original site. It had been moved two blocks south to make way for the Aberdeen Hotel, built in 1899.

The Aberdeen, once the most posh residential hotel in St. Paul, was long gone. After WWI, the federal government leased it for use as a veterans’ hospital. By 1927, it was vacant. Ten years later, a thirty-year-old waitress, Diane Munson, was found brutally murdered after a second-floor fire. In 1944, the building was razed.

Though the years had been unkind, the Virginia Street house still stood. Many of the original shingle-style details had been lost when the building was moved. Others likely just rotted away. The original interior was barely recognizable. A slumlord had gotten hold of it during the Depression and carved it up. The original living room had been converted to two apartments with back-to-back baths. The staircase to second floor had been reworked and pedestrianized.

The proud new owner dragged me over to the seller’s house. I’d seen some pretty cool libraries in my day—public and private—but nothing prepared me for Mister Earl’s. One wall of his office, floor to ceiling, were shelves filled with abstracts of title. He found the one for the Virginia Street house. A notable early owner was Judge Flandrau. Flandrau’s father practiced law with Aaron Burr. Flandrau served on the Minnesota Territorial Council, Minnesota Constitutional Convention, and Minnesota territorial and supreme courts. His real claim to fame occurred after the Sioux Uprising in 1862, when he joined the Union Army as a captain and raised a force to relieve the siege of New Ulm. Flandreau (sp), South Dakota is named after him.

The new owner began his years’ long research of the building. A later tenant of Flandrau was his son, Charles, a writer. An earlier tenant was Jerusha Sturgis, widow of Civil War General Samuel Sturgis (Sturgis, South Dakota is named after him). He graduated from the US Military Academy in the class with McClellan, Reno, Stoneman, “Stonewall” Jackson, and Pickett. After the war he commanded the infamous 7^th Cavalry. He just happened to be on detached service in St. Louis when his second-in-command met Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. One of Sturgis’s sons died at the Little Bighorn. Another became a general as did his son. It seemed there were a lot of Civil War generals, as Samuel Gilbert, the father of the building’s architect was also a general as was his brother, Charles, and his great uncle, Lewis Cass.

Jerusha Sturgis’s granddaughter revisited the Virginia Street house in her ninth decade, arriving in a chauffeured car. She rattled off the names of the neighborhood’s children. She noted the changes to the building, describing the original staircase. She didn’t have any inside information on the diary found in the attic of a neighbor’s house, a diary belonging to William Clark, Meriwether Lewis’s second-in-command.

Jerusha’s granddaughter, Eleanor Jerusha Lawler married John S. Pillsbury. Why do I care? My grandmother, a widow with two children, dated her son, and my grandmother’s son attended Pillsbury Military Academy. I didn't ask enough questions. All the players are dead. The truth may be out there, as Mulder and Scully claim, but not the answers.

The Death of the Hired Man

Robert Frost

MARY sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
And put him on his guard. “Silas is back.”
She pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut it after her. “Be kind,” she said.
She took the market things from Warren’s arms
And set them on the porch, then drew him down
To sit beside her on the wooden steps.
“When was I ever anything but kind to him?
But I’ll not have the fellow back,” he said.
“I told him so last haying, didn’t I?
‘If he left then,’ I said, ‘that ended it.’
What good is he? Who else will harbour him
At his age for the little he can do?
What help he is there’s no depending on.
Off he goes always when I need him most.
‘He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,
Enough at least to buy tobacco with,
So he won’t have to beg and be beholden.’
‘All right,’ I say, ‘I can’t afford to pay
Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.’
‘Someone else can.’ ‘Then someone else will have to.’
I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself
If that was what it was. You can be certain,
When he begins like that, there’s someone at him
Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,—
In haying time, when any help is scarce.
In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.”
“Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,” Mary said.
“I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.”
“He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove.
When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here,
Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,
A miserable sight, and frightening, too—
You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognise him—
I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed.
Wait till you see.”
“Where did you say he’d been?”
“He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house,
And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.
I tried to make him talk about his travels.
Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.”
“What did he say? Did he say anything?”
“But little.”
“Anything? Mary, confess
He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.”
“Warren!”
“But did he? I just want to know.”
“Of course he did. What would you have him say?
Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man
Some humble way to save his self-respect.
He added, if you really care to know,
He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.
That sounds like something you have heard before?
Warren, I wish you could have heard the way
He jumbled everything. I stopped to look
Two or three times—he made me feel so queer—
To see if he was talking in his sleep.
He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember—
The boy you had in haying four years since.
He’s finished school, and teaching in his college.
Silas declares you’ll have to get him back.
He says they two will make a team for work:
Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!
The way he mixed that in with other things.
He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft
On education—you know how they fought
All through July under the blazing sun,
Silas up on the cart to build the load,
Harold along beside to pitch it on.”
“Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.”
“Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.
You wouldn’t think they would. How some things linger!
Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him.
After so many years he still keeps finding
Good arguments he sees he might have used.
I sympathise. I know just how it feels
To think of the right thing to say too late.
Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin.
He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying
He studied Latin like the violin
Because he liked it—that an argument!
He said he couldn’t make the boy believe
He could find water with a hazel prong—
Which showed how much good school had ever done him.
He wanted to go over that. But most of all
He thinks if he could have another chance
To teach him how to build a load of hay——”
“I know, that’s Silas’ one accomplishment.
He bundles every forkful in its place,
And tags and numbers it for future reference,
So he can find and easily dislodge it
In the unloading. Silas does that well.
He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests.
You never see him standing on the hay
He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.”
“He thinks if he could teach him that, he’d be
Some good perhaps to someone in the world.
He hates to see a boy the fool of books.
Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope,
So now and never any different.”
Part of a moon was falling down the west,
Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.
Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw
And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand
Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,
Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,
As if she played unheard the tenderness
That wrought on him beside her in the night.
“Warren,” she said, “he has come home to die:
You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.”
“Home,” he mocked gently.
“Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.”
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”
“I should have called it
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”
Warren leaned out and took a step or two,
Picked up a little stick, and brought it back
And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.
“Silas has better claim on us you think
Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles
As the road winds would bring him to his door.
Silas has walked that far no doubt to-day.
Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich,
A somebody—director in the bank.”
“He never told us that.”
“We know it though.”
“I think his brother ought to help, of course.
I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right
To take him in, and might be willing to—
He may be better than appearances.
But have some pity on Silas. Do you think
If he’d had any pride in claiming kin
Or anything he looked for from his brother,
He’d keep so still about him all this time?”
“I wonder what’s between them.”
“I can tell you.
Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him—
But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.
He never did a thing so very bad.
He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good
As anyone. He won’t be made ashamed
To please his brother, worthless though he is.”
“I can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.”
“No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay
And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.
He wouldn’t let me put him on the lounge.
You must go in and see what you can do.
I made the bed up for him there to-night.
You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken.
His working days are done; I’m sure of it.”
“I’d not be in a hurry to say that.”
“I haven’t been. Go, look, see for yourself.
But, Warren, please remember how it is:
He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.
He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.
He may not speak of it, and then he may.
I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud
Will hit or miss the moon.”
It hit the moon.
Then there were three there, making a dim row,
The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.
Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her,
Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.
“Warren,” she questioned.
“Dead,” was all he answered.

This Man is Your Enemy

I republished two books and published one new book with companies belonging to this man. One company published the trade paperback of all three books, the other the e-books. A third company markets them. The titles are:

Greater Trouble in the Lesser Antilles (2 May 2017)

Low Jinks on the High Seas (8 May 2017)

Epic Trials in the Leeward Isles (13 June 2017)

For three months I have been trying to get the marketing company to list the three new editions on my “Books Page.” Twice they have been successful, but the success lasted only a couple of days. For the same three months I have been trying to get the three new editions listed on my “Author Central Page.” The marketing company has not been successful once.

Initially, I was told the problem was the new editions were linked to the older editions, as if they were doing me a big favor by listing all editions of all titles. Nobody at the Monopoly has been able to explain why if the editions are linked all but five of the book reviews disappeared. Nor has anybody been able to explain actually why a reseller of Greater Trouble has his book on my “Books Page” while my newer edition is entirely absent. The penultimate excuse was that eventually the resellers will have sold all the copies of the older edition and the newer edition will then appear automatically. As I have had the “Books Page” for ten years and have never not had resellers hawking my books, I was reluctant to accept the excuse.

Aside from the “Linking” issue, there is the “Algorithm.” Nobody can explain it either, other than it’s “Automatic.” During the last three months CreateSpace and Author Central have blamed each other for my problem. Now they blame either the “Linking” or the “Algorithm,” as neither is able to communicate with me. You can't just e-mail an algorithm. Mostly what they have done is blame me for doing business with them in the first place.

As it now stands, my newer edition of Greater Trouble is absent from my “Books Page,” and is replaced by a reseller’s book that will make money for the reseller and the Conglomerate, but no money for me. My “Author Central Page” shows new editions of my first and last titles, but my newer edition of Low Jinks is absent, so there is no sales information and no ranking.

The Conglomerate’s final word is there is nothing they can do. It reminds me of an old cartoon with a mechanic scratching his head and telling his customer “There’s still a lot we don’t understand about the internal combustion engine.”

I have better things to do—like editing my latest book or marketing the three existing titles—but I have a mission to embarrass the Conglomerate enough that it will unlink my books or fix the algorithm. I do not expect to find success. The Conglomerate giveth and the Conglomerate taketh.

I Met a Man

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I met a man who told me about a call from a mutual friend who suggested he visit W. Averell Harriman, in his early ’90s at the time, who could use some company.

After graduating from Yale, Harriman inherited the largest fortune in America and in the 1920s, founded a banking business that became Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Notable employees included George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush. When FDR became president, Harriman’s sister urged him to leave banking and work to promote Roosevelt’s political and social agenda. He joined the National Recovery Administration, a New Deal program.

As WWII raged in Europe, Harriman became FDR’s European Envoy, coordinating Lend-Lease. In 1942, Harriman accompanied Churchill to meet with Stalin to explain why allied efforts were focused on North Africa instead of the promised western front. In 1943, he became US ambassador to Russia. He was present at the major conferences: Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam.

After the war, he was instrumental in forging the US Cold War strategy of containment. After serving as ambassador to Britain, he became Truman’s secretary of commerce. In 1948, he took charge of the Marshall Plan. He was defeated twice by Adlai Stevenson in is bid for the presidency. In 1954, he became governor of New York. He took positions in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

The man I met made the call to visit Harriman, unsure of what to expect, meeting a man who had been present and involved in major national and international political events in the 20^th century. Quite surprised, Harriman wanted to talk about his Yale years and his passion for rowing or crew.

His senior year, Harriman’s coach pulled him aside and told him he would not make the varsity, but offered him an opportunity to visit England and learn the finer points of coaching crew and take over his job the following year. Harriman met with the school’s president who agreed to excuse him from classes if he promised to remain in England for no more than two weeks. Harriman agreed.

When Harriman got to England, he learned to his dismay a regatta was scheduled at Henley, the world’s most prestigious rowing venue. The regatta was three-weeks out. He went back and forth in his mind. He had given his word as a Yale man, but the temptation to stay an extra week was great. He researched transportation home, still dithering over his decision.

Keeping his word as a Yale man made all the difference in his life, he said. When asked why, he stated the alternative ship was the RMS Titanic.

The Monopoly Strikes Back

 

Something like 1.2 million books were published last year. Finding a way to make your book stand out is difficult, unless you assassinate a public figure or have sex with one on television. The task is made even more difficult if your publisher is so indifferent it does not bother to acknowledge your book exists.

Top Reasons Republishing on Amazon is Problematic

1.     Your new edition or its image may not show up on your Books Page.

2.     Your new edition or its image may not show up on your Author Central Page.

3.     Not only are #1 and #2 likely, there is a chance that a reseller of your older edition will take your place on your own Books Page, and your new addition may not be there at all.

4.     You may lose most of or many of your Book Reviews.

5.     Createspace, Author Central, and Kindle are separate entities and mesh as well FBI, CIA, and NSA, and each passes the buck to its less than collegial neighbor.

6.     Amazon Links your old and new editions.

7.     Amazon employs an Algorithm.

The major reason numbers six and seven are important to you is because one or the other is most often cited as not only the source of your problem, but also the reason the problem can’t be fixed. I have republished two titles through Createspace:

Greater Trouble in the Lesser Antilles

Low Jinks on the High Seas

In addition I have published one new title:

Epic Trials in the Leeward Isles

It has taken three months of e-mails and phone calls to have the three books and their new images appear on my Books Page. In that time, there have been various combinations of old and new additions. The most recent combination I found the most interesting. A reseller of my out-of-print edition of Greater Trouble in the Lesser Antilles took the place of my Createspace edition. This was doubling troubling. My edition of a book I was trying to sell was totally absolutely absent. My competitor’s book was present. Best of all, Amazon still made a profit, while I made nothing.

I, of course, e-mailed Author Central. A few days later, while in the midst of something important, I received a phone call in reply. The man had apparently drunk too much of the Kool-aid. He told me not to worry about it, as it would eventually straighten itself out. When I asked how that would happen, he replied that eventually all the books in the hands of resellers would be sold, so it would no longer be a problem. He mentioned Linking and the Algorithm, but by then I was too dazed to pay attention. I have had the Books Page for ten years, and there was never NOT a time resellers were hawking their books on it.

I’m now down to one problem (though I’ve been down to one problem in the past and fixing the final problem always created another problem). The image of Low Jinks on the High Seas on my Author Central Page is of the out-of-print edition and not the current Createspace edition. I inquired how I was to track sales (one of the advertised features of the page). I got a half page of directions on how to accomplish it.

As for Book Reviews: Only five reviews for each of my republished books carried over to the new editions. I am led to believe Linking is responsible. So I’m sure the reviews are in a storage facility on Alpha Centauri and will some day sift back through the ether. I’m not even going to mention all the reviews Amazon axed in one or another of its purges.

So I now have three books for sale on my Books Page. Most of the reviews are gone, which to a buyer suggests my five friends each wrote a review. (Greater Trouble in the Lesser Antilles won first place for fiction from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association, so it’s a step up from a potboiler.) My marketing plans sort of disintegrated along the way, as all my spare time was spent dealing with Amazon, which sucked the joy from the experience of publishing a book.

I’ve operated businesses in my life. Some were located in areas where things like the availability water and electricity were problematic, not to mention supplies. That’s where employees take over to make customers’ experiences as pleasant as possible under trying conditions. Now if I employed 341,400 employees, I’d tap one on the shoulder and tell him or her to take care of the Linking problem and another to fix the fucking algorithm.

I may live long enough to have a worse business experience. It’s hard to say, as the present one is far from over.

I didn’t cover number five. I let Amazon do it for me:

Hello Charles, Thanks for reaching out Author Central! We've added the title on your Author Page according to the ISBN provided on the previous correspondence, if you click on "View on Amazon.com" from the "Books" section of your Author profile, you will see the Cover Image provided by Create Space: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545525196 If, for some reason the Detail Page is showing up an incorrect cover image, please contact the CreateSpace team in order to correct the information at: https://www.createspace.com/Contact.jsp While CreateSpace is a part of the Amazon.com group of companies, it operates as an independent site and handles all inquiries directly. Remember that you are more than welcome to contact us with any other issues you may need assistance with. I hope this information helps and that you have a lovely day! We'd appreciate your feedback. Please use the buttons below to vote about your experience today. Best regards, Bianca S. Amazon.com

I contacted Createspace.

Hello Charles,

Thank you for contacting CreateSpace.

I understand you have questions about your title "Low Jinks on the High Seas" showing worng cover on Author Central page .

I’m currently unable to transfer you to the Author Central Phone support team because they work Monday-Friday 5:00am to 5:00pm Pacific Time. However, I've forwarded your information to the Author Central team for follow-up. You should hear back from them in the next 1-2 business days.

You may also reach them directly at https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us

We appreciate your understanding in this matter.

Best regards,

Vemana

CreateSpace Member Services

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Your original message:

Charles Locks, Member ID 503901

The detail page on my author central page is correct except that it shows the wrong image for Low Jinks on the High Seas. The image I want is the Createspace image: Low Jinks on the High Seas, ISBN-13: 978-1545525197. Author central told me I should contact you. Thank you for taking care of it.

So I contacted Author Central.

Your Account Amazon.com Message From Customer Service
Hello Charles, I'm following up on your recent contact and I understand that you are concerned about the cover image of the older edition of your book "Low Jinks on the High Seas" being displayed in your Author Central account. To help you with this issue, I checked the details of the book and I found that, the older edition and the latest edition of the book are linked together. Please understand that, when multiple editions of the book are linked together, the cover image of the edition which shows up in your Author Central account will be the default edition and this default editions are sorted automatically based on actual customer shopping behaviors and the order is not manually adjusted for the titles shown in this feature. Newer editions are generally preferred over older editions. Occasionally, there are delays obtaining the latest data about certain editions, which may result in another edition being displayed temporarily. Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to seeing you soon again.
Best regards, Beaulin

Amazon.com

As soon as I figure out what “Customer Shopping Behaviors has to do with listing the current editions of my book on my Author Central Page, which as far as I know is accessible only to me, I’ll let you know. The ride is not over.