I missed February, but it didn’t miss me. Kicked my butt like a plow horse; savage cold. Worst one I’ve had in fifty years. After a negative covid test and four gallons of Nyquil, it left me trembling and weak, repeating “Wha…” over and over in comic book balloons. I’d draw it, but you get the picture. Aa-choo!

So what did this big crybaby do? Surrounded myself with stacks of books. Something about the high of a Vicks VapoRub haze laced with codeine and coricidin makes the reading experience shimmer anew; I re-read Annie Proulx’s Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2, Close Range: Wyoming Stories, and That Old Ace in the Hole. I so recommend ANY Proulx, but these re-reads had me laughing and empathizing with tapped-out ranchers and desperate denizens of the single-wide community so much, I forgot myself and that, folks, is what great books are for. I would go to the crossroads and make a deal if I could write like Annie.

I also started some new (to me) books; The Shards, by Brett Easton Ellis, and Sutton, by J.R. Moehringer. I have always confused Ellis (Less Than Zero) with Jay McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City—which I enjoyed immensely) as both tend to write about privilege (a hand-me-down car might be a fairly new Mercedes, a sedan, but one makes do when one is sixteen), drug use and fighting boredom in the Big Cities. I’m only a few chapters into Shards but it’s hooked me, so I’ll say, yeah, the story looks quite good. Dark, but good.

Sutton is about Willie The Actor, the famed bank robber (“…because that’s where the money is” in answer to “Why do you rob banks?” and now we know he never said it.) But this book is unusually well written, in back and forth eras, with an engrossing interwoven love story. It’s quite gritty in places with descriptions that’ll squinch your face up and curdle your innards for a few paragraphs but it’s also worth reading and pretty entertaining. (I thought I saw Willie on a bus in Tulsa in 1949 [I was eleven] and our eyes met. He got off the bus, but winked at me. I zipped my lip in pantomime and he nodded. I forewent the reward. True story—as true as you get from an 11-year old with delusions and a lively imagination.)

One other book while I’m at it: The Moth. It’s a collection of 50 NPR staged events, but in print. All the same length, by different “raconteurs” as the editors call them.

I was introduced to this one by happenstance; I was watching News on Public TV and they were interviewing a young reporter from Washington on Zoom; his backdrop was shelves full of paperbacks and one spine I could read was The Moth.

I tried to read some others but they kept switching back and forth. I agreed with what the reporter was saying on whatever subject, maybe the illegal murderous war on Ukraine, and I looked this book up. Turns out The Moth was a series of “front porch” events that fell flat at first, but years of tweaking brought them fame if not fortune.

Frankly I disliked some of the stories (one, a researcher making light of wiring up monkeys’ brains for the benefit of Big Pharma—animals were harmed in this story) and wondered how the “raconteurs” could tell them. Stories range from a doctor who performed a life/death operation on Mother Teresa to a pole dancer who performed other stuff on the Sultan of Brunei. They’re all over the place, but all told within a specified amount of time. The staged events had a sax player who would start loudly moaning away if the raconteur was over the time limit, ten minutes I believe. True stories, fifty of them, and bite-sized. I recommend it as did the Washington reporter. It’s on both our shelves.

Speaking of the illegal murderous war on Ukraine, Banksy has done some art projects there and donated the proceeds (he gets a LOT) to the Ukrainian effort to kick the putinthugs out of the autonomous, fiercely-loved country. I ordered a sheet of official stamps, his latest project, and will frame it when it arrives. I like Banksy—if you look at the links to the left, you’ll find a Banksy shop, but the stuff has been sold out for a year.

This stamp gets right to basics; it shows a diminutive judoka kid throwing a phony baloney “black belt” putin, thumpety thump. It says “F**k Putin!” I hope it’s a Forever stamp. I ordered mine on Ebay but you can find them at a number of places.

And this is what fifteen tons of gravel looks like, plopped down on Wise Acres, awaiting distribution, one wheelbarrow at time. In case you think it’s all fun and games and layabout reading here. G is back to his hale hearty self and the first project is a gravel walkway to F’s studio from the house—a much-needed improvement as the path is kind of muddy. Water meter covers will form the walking “tiles” as we have about 100 of them. A bunch of gravel will go on the various driveways and corral crossing, too. Exercise! (Walking daily still: 19,742,597 steps so far, 2 mil makes once around the world) I don’t walk with Freddie, can’t keep up with her.

And finally, J. David Osborne’s BESTSELLER blog. JDO helmed Broken River Books, a press that came up with some very impressive offerings, some of them his. This blog features Iain Ryan on shifting from "bestseller" to "just seller" and is titled Exiting Hitsville. JDO is always worth reading and so is this Ryan fellow. He says forget about bestselling and focus on Just Selling, and he tells you why. If you’re a writer or a reader it should interest you. I read Osborne’s newsletters whenever one pops up (not often enough) and may look for Ryan as well. Interesting stuff.

And, with that, I’m exiting. xx, G (PS: if you bought Chickens, please leave a review. Thanks!)