Author JT Twissel

#ThursdayDoors: Mystery Room

JT Twissel 22 Comments

I was surprised to find these doors and the room they lead to in an art museum. 

Probably because the original purpose of this room is not equated with art, unless it’s the art of the deal.  If you have good vision you can probably read the writing over the door. If not, here’s another shot, this time from inside the room. 

Pretty fancy room, hey? Below is another picture which definitely gives away the room’s historic importance.In the 1970s the original Chicago Stock Exchange was in a building built in the 1890s and it was falling apart. However, due to the efforts of preservationists in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago the actual room where stock transactions took place was rebuilt in a new wing of the museum. Today, instead of being a place where fortunes are made and lost, this room serves as an event center.  Here’s is the story of how the room was reconstructed, if you’re interested.

Around the corner from the event center is a one story stained glass window installation by Marc Chagall. Check out other doors at Norm’s place and Happy Thursday!

One Foot in Hell; the Other in Heaven

JT Twissel 14 Comments

For the last couple of months it has been my honor to help Duke Miller, whose work I love, publish his book. Living and Dying with Dogs went out of print a bit over a year ago. Now comes Living and Dying with Dogs: Turbo Edition. The new book contains extensive rewrites and the inclusion of Handbook for the Hopeless, a bizarre novella cum employment guide for emergency refugee relief workers. How to describe the Handbook?  More on that later.  Despite the title, this 2nd Edition is not about creating a doggie hospice program. It’s about the people who rush into war zones hoping to bring help to victims of genocides, famines, and epidemics and how the emergency aid process alters everyone’s perception of what we quaintly call reality. It’s about what happens to people forced to check their morals at the door in order to do what needs to be done. Do the ends justify the means? Duke explores this heuristic notion where the sick and dying lie. In that sense, this book asks the old questions, but provides new answers. He writes about things we don’t want to think about, like how the best of us can falter or how our furry friends occasionally eat the hands that have fed them.   If this book was an endless slog over mountains of corpses, I’d probably only recommend it for those considering a career in relief work. But it’s not. There’s dark humor here, poetry as well.  Take the beautiful Hollywood agent who the protagonist admits he should have never slept with. She urges him to write more conventional stories that people can understand, like For Whom the Bell Tolls.  Stuff she can easily sell to the movie industry. He dreads her visits but WTF, she knows people. Maybe he’d better sleep with her again. But no…ghosts surround him and the lost appear before his eyes: the invisible ones he’s loved and mourned. A trip home makes him feel like an alien.  Old friends are left behind.  Disease rots his body and always there is the dark alley or endless hallway populated by drug addicts.  However, sometimes “life floods the parched regions” of his heart in unexpected places, like leper colonies, whore houses, and the wounds of a dying child.

Which brings us to Handbook for the Hopeless  in which an online suicide haunts a man tasked with writing a “how to get a job in a war zone” manual by his well-meaning publisher. But every time he attempts to tell it straight, another ghost enters his mind and down he falls into the waiting arms of one humorously dark character after the other.   We were aided in our publishing endeavor by John’s Motorcycle Storage and Rare Book Disposal of Long Island whose logo is above. You can read more about Duke Miller here and here and at TinhatsBlog. The artwork for both the cover and the logo were provided by Duke’s wife, Teresa Miller.

The paperback (365 pages)  is currently for sale on Amazon at $12. Or you can download the eBook for $2.99.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing and now I’m off to snap pictures of doors!

 

Draggin Ass? Dragon Mood?

JT Twissel 4 Comments

Love this gal’s honesty!

joey's avatarjoeyfullystated

I don’t know why we call it draggin ass. Maybe those guys with the droopy pants are draggin ass, but my ass is relentlessly buoyant. My tummy, after three abdominal surgeries in four years, has long been an entity unto itself, but even still, it leads with aplomb.

My mood, now that’s another matter.
I’m about ready for a nap.
I have slept every night, all week. All week with the sleeping at night. Last night, I dozed off on The Mister and he woke me up because I snored at him. Good for me. I love to snore my face. And to beat him to it. I hope I become a louder, more obnoxious snorer as I age. I hope I fall into my pillow and snore within minutes. Imagine us harmonizing — me, a wee hedge trimmer, him, a bigass chainsaw.

We all have relationship goals, amirite?

26-53917-relationship-goals-when-im-old

I see…

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#ThursdayDoors: Cloud Gates and Pierogies

JT Twissel 43 Comments

I wish I could say that I start each new vacation looking forward to expanding my horizons, meeting new people, riding a zip line through the jungle, or even joining an archeological dig.

The Cloud Gate in Millenium Park – if you could find the “gate” where do you think it would lead?

But alas, I’m a person ruled by my taste buds and not my head. Before even heading for the airport, I’m thinking of all the food adventures awaiting me. You might deduce that I’m some sort of a foodie interested in haute cuisine.  However, nothing could be further from the truth.

From the original doors

I’d rather have Potato Pierogies and Gedadschde at a place like Berghoffs  (above) than nibble on an elegantly presented morsel of steak tartare served on ginger-roasted sea urchins. Berghoff’s Grill, one of the oldest in Chicago, is the sort of place where they don’t make you feel like old Aunt Nellie who lives on fried spam and canned peas if you ask about the ingredients. The matronly waitresses call you “honey” and it’s assumed you want a beer to go with that humongous Bavarian pretzel hanging in the middle of the table for sharing and dipping.

My favorite eatery in Washington DC is also a “grill:”  The Old Ebbitts Grill.Aside from its long list of famous regulars, this establishment (which claims to be Washington’s Oldest “Saloon”)  is famous for its decor. the game heads hanging on the walls were supposedly bagged by Teddy Roosevelt.

The Cabinet Room is famous for its collection of  paintings of tropical birds by Robin Hill.  However, it’s used primarily for private parties and thus we were unable to get a peak inside.

How about you – are you a pierogie or tartare sort of traveler?

Check out other doors at Norm’s place.

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ThursdayDoors: Loop-di-loos

JT Twissel 35 Comments

Reflection in the galley window – SF Bay on a beautiful day.

For the last few years my only reason to leave the house seems to be to take pictures of doors and blog about them. Norm Frampton has saved me, and probably a bevy of other bloggers, from  permanent butt-spread with his #ThursdayDoors challenges. 

In the San Francisco Bay Area, early October means Fleet Week, five days during which the Navy comes to town. Among the many events are the Blue Angels air shows which can be seen (and heard) throughout the bay as they rehearse and then perform.

Several locations are ideal for viewing the air shows, and we’ve been to most of them, however this year we decided to view one of their “practices” from the middle of the bay aboard the San Francisco Belle.

Our friends and their grandkids in front of the San Francisco Belle

The Belle is a three story, mock paddlewheel steamer used primarily for parties, weddings and anniversaries. After boarding they feed you and ply you with champagne as they “paddle” to the middle of the bay and stop.

Beyond these modest doors is the grand staircase leading to the ballrooms.

After the show began, we walked up to the observation deck and watched as the jets pivoted through the skies at frightening speeds.  I’m not usually all in for military shows but my father used to teach Navy pilots aeronautical engineering in China Lake (Southern California) and he loved to do what I called loop-di-loos high above the desert floor to scare the crap out of me. He died on this day ten years ago so I’m feeling a bit sentimental for those loop-di-loos.

Vampire Lives Matter?

JT Twissel 22 Comments

All the colors found in the skin tone of a typical Caucasian. Note, white is the last one.

The only thing I have to say to all those people parading around with White Lives Matter posters is, you’re not white. Often you’re raw siena and alizarin crimson, or you’re cadmium yellow and carmine. You have aquamarine or viridian – depending on the amount of yellow in your skin tone – in the hollows of your cheeks, under your chin and along your hairline. 

But guess whose skin tone is mixed using mostly titanium white?  Vlad the Impaler, otherwise known as Dracula. So my take away is that y’all White Lives Matter folks are trying to save your guy, Drac, from that evil Buffy the Vampire Slayer, right?  Such a kindly gesture and come Halloween night, I’m sure he’ll slither on down your chimney to say thanks and invite you to donate to his favorite charity, Vlad’s Blood Bank.

But seriously, if those White Lives folks want to know who really matters, they should go to a museum.  Might I suggest the one below?

It’s the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. When you first enter this museum, you are directed to an elevator large enough to fit a football team and taken three flights underground. There, in the dim light, you relive the experience of being chained together in the dark, dank bowels of a wooden sailing vessel with no idea where you are going or what will happen to you or the ones you love.   As you make your way up the ramps leading from floor to floor, the often bloody history of the African American struggle for equality unfolds.  I didn’t get many pictures as the halls were dark and the atmosphere, reverent.

In contrast, the upper floors of the museum are full of light, color and music as they celebrate the contributions of African Americans to our culture. You leave those floors grateful that Black Lives really do matter and without them, American culture would certainly not be the envy of the world. Think the experience would cause those White Lifers to change their attitudes?

Happy Halloween everyone!  I hope you all spend it with the people who matter the most to you.

From Brownie Fright Night

What a Miserable, Mother-Swiving Profession

JT Twissel 28 Comments

“What a miserable, mother-swiving profession it is…”

“. . . to be a writer.” Christopher Marlowe

I’d rather be pussy grabbed by Trump than re-publish a book of mine ever again. Flipka, my first book, has had four editors over the stretch of four years.  As a result, I’ve been hornswoggled into a flummoxed higgledy-piggledy, lolly-gagging pusillanimous puke.  It’s not the editors’ fault.  They just didn’t agree with each other which always puts the writer on a ride down the Iron Maiden.

Coincidentally I’ve also been watching the miniseries “Will” which focuses on the so-called “lost years” of William Shakespeare, in this case, the years during which he made a name for himself in London.  Since not much is known about those years, the writers took a few liberties based on events of the day. The first season focused on the dangers he would have faced in London because he was Catholic in a society dominated by blood-thirsty Protestants. This is not something I remember coming up when studying Shakespeare in college but perhaps it did and age has dulled my mind.  I do remember endless discussions about his sexuality which brings me to that other great playwright of the time: Christopher Marlowe.

In this series, Marlowe is the “writer,” agonizing over the meaning of life and the futility of it all, whereas Shakespeare just wants to make a buck to support his family.  He’s the story teller.  I know people who consider it a personal effrontery to be called a story teller. They are “writers.” Their work does not rely on a plot or characters but journeys to the soul of the reader through the divinity of their prose.  Well, that’s cool. But few people can actually do that and I’m not one of them.

Anyway, if I wanted to spend my days intellectualizing over a process no one really understands, I would have made my father a very happy man and gone on to graduate school.  So, my question for you all is, are you a story-teller or a miserable mother-swiving writer?

By the way, I’ve been reposting a lot of “cuttings” from Duke Miller’s soon to be re-released (hopefully) Living and Dying with Dogs, Turbo Edition.  In his over twenty years traveling the world working with refugees he’s seen things most of us only run into in sweaty nightmares of the Apocalypse. It’s a remarkable report from the wreckage of Planet Earth: the Human Edition.  Quite timely.

Dying by a Lake in England

JT Twissel 3 Comments

Duke Miller's avatartin hats

THE MARRIED COUPLE came into my office upset.  He was about fifty years old and looked like somebody had switched his head with a skeleton’s skull. She was pretty and younger, but her eyes were two black tunnels drilled into the side of a German mountain. There was probably no way out of the darkness once you drove into them.

The pair was there to complain about cuts in their project funding. Both were psychiatrists working with rape and torture victims. They explained how large their caseloads were and about how much stress they and their patients were under and that the project could not afford to lose support staff or facilities.

The man’s voice rose in harsh judgment as he spoke and the woman shed a few tears. Professionalism fell across my face and I began to emote like a tired bureaucrat. I sympathized with them, but kept saying…

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Half A Breath

JT Twissel 5 Comments

Duke Miller's avatartin hats

I MET A YOUNG BOSNIAN WOMAN in Sarajevo who told me there “was nothing like love in Sarajevo during the siege.” All the joy and sadness in the world enriched her eyes. They shone like two tears of blue obsidian.  Over a beer, she showed me a set of song lyrics she had written.  “This comes from my heart,” she said.  “The good ones usually do,” I responded.

She sang low, a cappella, there in the little café.  It was a sad tune and I turned my head away from her at the end and told her I needed another drink.

She had picked up the phone one day in Australia and answered a call from a Bosnian soldier fighting the Serbs. It was a wrong number, but he explained he was calling from Sarajevo. Over the days they talked on the phone and soon they fell in love with…

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First, Do No Harm

JT Twissel 26 Comments

Recently a number of bloggers I respect have started writing opinion pieces stating basically that  Trump should not be blamed for the rise of the Neo Nazis and their ilk, as he is only a “symptom” of the problem and not the cause.  They admit  that  he’s a despicable and vile human being but… 

I don’t know about you, gentle readers, but those “buts” always get me.  My first thought is always “Oh no, they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid.” But then I realize those bloggers have shied away from political rhetoric in the past, perhaps not wanting to offend potential readers. Thus, when they do leap to his defense, they must add a caveat to their statements such as “he’s slime but he’s not filth.”  Okay, he’s not filth but he’s also not a symptom.

A symptom is the dead canary in a coal mine, a high fever on a child, dark spots on rose leaves, or a sinister rattle under the hood. The cause is not yet known and must be acknowledged and then analyzed. Hate groups have been analyzed for a long time.  We’re way past canaries.

I think of the president as a doctor hired to heal the country.  It’s important for him to understand the country’s many open wounds but it’s equally important – if not more – to first, DO NO HARM. 

If we think about the political parties as doctors proposing cures, if you were coming down with a cold in the ’70s, Dr. Democrat would prescribe bed rest, chicken soup and plenty of liquids. Generally he wouldn’t blame you for the excessive smoking, drinking and carousing all night long that brought on the cold. He would prescribe a cure.  On the other hand, Dr. Republican would tell you that sickness was for weaklings and hospitals were for the dying.  But, if you didn’t have insurance and got pneumonia, he’d work out a long-term payment plan for his bill.  Both sides were different but not enough to confuse voters.

Fast forward to the Obama Era. If you’re coming down with a cold, Dr. Democrat would tell you to make healthy choices in your diet and exercise routines but if you did require medicine, he’d try to make sure it was affordable. 

On the other hand, Dr. Republican would tell you that you’re at liberty to live however you want, and that admonishing you to live a healthy lifestyle (as Dr. Democrat has done) violates your Constitutional rights.  If you did get pneumonia, Dr. Republican would  demand your insurance card.  And if you didn’t have one, he’d tell you that you shouldn’t be buying iPhones. But he’d also tell you to have more children because birth control is a sin.   

By 2016 the intensive squabbling between the two doctors caused patients to look for other opinions and along came:

  • Doctor Feelgood:  His cure was free healthcare for all, free higher education for all, and stricter controls on financial institutions.
  • Doctor ToughLove: His cure was to burn down all the institutions and go back to living in a log cabin. If you did get pneumonia, get a church to take care of you. 
  • Doctor Greenie: The only patient he cared about was Planet Earth, because once she was diagnosed as terminal it really wouldn’t matter how healthy the humans of the world were.
  • Doctor Denier:  You don’t really have a cold. 

Good Grief!!  It’s no wonder the country lost all confidence in doctors. So it’s no wonder that when a new doctor flew into rusty towns and villages on his magic carpet, and with all the right mojo, claimed he alone had the answers, they believed him because they’d seen him on that great altar of truth, reality television. They’d seen him in his golden tower, with his golden children and his barely clad exotic bride. Unlike other doctors, he didn’t warn them of the complications of the medicine he would prescribe if they hired him. No, there’d be no complications, there’d be no poisoned water to drink, there’d be no draft of their young sons for his wars to fight, and, best of all, political correctness would be a thing of the past. 

From Disney’s The Princess and the Frog

And when he saw those cancer cells growing in his crowds, he violated that first rule of being a doctor: first DO NO HARM. Trump isn’t a symbol of anything. He’s the Voodoo Doctor.

*The images in this post are all from Bing Images.