Consortium of Seven

For those of us who write, or who think we might want to write, It's my view that we ought to take a moment to think about our readers. I'm not talking marketing today, though of course focusing on your demographic(s) is important if you want your work to reach a wider audience. Today I'm thinking about the effects our words have on our readers. Personally, I like to leave my reader better off than when they started reading my words. As anyone who was in Scouts or the Camp Fire programs learned, one is supposed to leave a campsite better than they found it. That's my goal for people who have begun (and finished, I hope!) one of my books or stories.  Now, the meaning of "better off" could be a matter of debate. if someone felt fine when they started my story and then they were sad afterward, one could argue that "better off" might be the wrong phrase. But if someone does feel sadness, my intention is that this would be as a result of...

Memories of my Great-grandmother, or as me and my siblings called her, Granny, are deeply tied to my childhood memories of my Grandma’s house. Harriet Ellen Miles was her birth name, born in 1886 to John Miles and an unknown to our family, Cherokee woman, in Kentucky.  She dropped the Harriet portion of her name and was known only as Ellen throughout her adult life. She despised the name, Harriet. This, however, presented no problem for things like Social Security in her later life as she had no certificate of birth to contradict her preference. In those days it was not uncommon among the poor, born at home to lack documentation.  There are many lapses in Ellen’s early history, she was tight-lipped about the very little she knew about her mother or that period of her life. We do know however that John Miles at some time around the time Ellen was four or five years old married a woman who’s name I do not know. This woman wanted no part of raising a female child...

    Jill  In 8th grade, I had a best friend, Jill Hartmann. School mornings I'd walk to her house from my family home on the SE corner of Wilcox and Christy, and together we'd make our way to Susan R Buder Elementary. Jill was smart, artistic, and a brilliantly perceptive girl. We had met the previous year and soon became the best of friends. As is the often the case with best friends, we could see the spark in each other's eyes, recognized it; we got each other. We had both been social outcasts but now had an ally. Before Jill came along, I had been told by a classmate, her eyes lowered - nose held high, that I read too much, and they didn't want me to hang out with them anymore. I was stunned; how was that bad, was it even possible? Not being able to figure that out proved the point I suppose. I spent the summer between 7th and 8th grade at the library, riding my bike alone to the many parks in south St. Louis, babysitting neighbor kids, and at home listening ...

Another glimpse or two of our Saturday Guy as works with his medical team to get well and post here once more. Here we go! Rey, the nature lover.  When bored, Rey seeks artistic expression.  Rey in patriotic mode.  And last (for today), Rey offers again-timely cultural criticism.  Go to next C7 post

Friday! Next week's column will be landing on Black Friday, when I'll already be two days into a 4-day holiday weekend where - ideally - I won't be stepping outside farther than's necessary to retrieve mail.     Yes, there will be much cooking, and some time spent with family, but much of the time's likely to be spent with screens, enjoying a much, much more relaxed schedule. As that'll have begun Wednesday night, it makes sense for me to look at this week's blog piece to at least mark a running start into the break.     Those who are into college and/or pro football, and/or hockey will reportedly have much to watch that weekend. I don't give a rat's ass about any of that. It's never been my thing. I didn't grow up with it, and if I want to fall asleep there are plenty of more enjoyable ways for me to do it.   If you're looking for something that's already available, especially if you haven't read my earlier pos...

   I sit and think about how music evolved.  I wonder about the first percussion that made the next and the next.  I wonder if it was wood on wood, rock on rock, or the mere splash of a stone being thrown in the water.  I then wonder about the first stringed instrument.  Who ever came up with that? Who came up with a fret board?    Then there are the more complicated of instruments, like pipe organs, a piano, flutes?  I can not even imagine the first complicated flute. I am sure that I could do the research, but this is just a place where I ponder and share.  There are so many things, objects that can be used as or construed as instruments.    The water on the edges of glasses, singing bowls, steel drums.  Instruments I have never heard of as well.  I love the instrument that is stringed, that I am aware Geisha's play.  I don't know what it is called, and am too lazy to look it up, but what a beautiful sound it...

The single-digit street address of the art museum in Portland, Maine.