{"id":8349,"date":"2020-08-16T13:22:37","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T19:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=8349"},"modified":"2020-08-16T13:22:37","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T19:22:37","slug":"staggering-along-memory-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/the-atheists-pulpit\/staggering-along-memory-lane\/","title":{"rendered":"Staggering along Memory Lane"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read reviews of books, movies, restaurants, even art. Often, I know I won’t read \/ see \/ visit the subject of the review, in which case I especially appreciate spoilers. (This is the only way I can handle horror stories.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This morning, I read a piece in which two authors bandied about favorite books and authors in a genre I hadn’t heard of: fantasy noir. I followed leads to several references. One particular author had written a biography of Richard Brautigan, author of Trout Fishing in America, among others.<\/p>\n

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I read several of Brautigan’s works in my (pre-)teens. I remember liking his stuff. (The biography looks good, too.) But there were a couple of works that didn’t come up in my search. And that led me to the realize I was thinking of another author: William Kotzwinkle, who wrote a book I *loved* at the time, Elephant Bangs Train (short stories). To this day, I think now and then about A Most Incredible Meal, especially when a celebration ignores a tragedy, which happens quite often.<\/p>\n

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But, what about Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle? I’d misattributed that to Brautigan, as well. I find now it was from\u00a0an eclectic collection of poems by then-modern poets. Looking at the table of contents online, I don’t recognize any of the titles, but this one stuck through the years.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Learning involves building connections, particularly non-linear and tangential. We laugh at recalling minutia from decades ago while forgetting what day it is today, but to get a hint of what lies below the surface — the depth of knowledge and experience we might plumb — is a delight. The mind amuses and amazes. You’re never alone once you befriend yourself.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read reviews of books, movies, restaurants, even art. Often, I know I won’t read \/ see \/ visit the subject of the review, in which case I especially appreciate spoilers. (This is the only way I can handle horror stories.) \u00a0 This morning, I read a piece in which two authors bandied about favorite … Continue reading Staggering along Memory Lane<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-atheists-pulpit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8350,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349\/revisions\/8350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}