My friend Lynda told me I performed a mitzvah last week. Her father’s home was empty after her stepmother had passed after a long life. I came to help with all the things.

The many many things in the one big thing—the house.

After a few days with this house of possessions  relics and memories, I am haunted by Leo Tolstoy. The Death of Ivan Illych, his short story of a long life touches this subject in his human way. This phrase:

In the dining-room where the clock stood that Ivan Ilych had liked so much and had bought at an antique shop

The stepmother had that clock.

I have that clock.

Lynda has that clock.

Who is this Ivan in the story? Why should Tolstoy write about his deah?

Ivan Ilych’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.

Oh my. I and my normalno life of ordinary simplicity just like Ivan’s terrible clock and terrible life and death.

So many precious things big and little we tossed. So many precious things we carefully saved. Who was this woman I never met?

Coming home at night to sleep, I look at all my surrounding possessions with new eyes.

Who was Ivan Illyich?

At school he had done things which had formerly seemed to him very horrid and made him feel disgusted with himself when he did them; but when later on he saw that such actions were done by people of good position and that they did not regard them as wrong, he was able not exactly to regard them as right, but to forget about them entirely or not be at all troubled at remembering them.

Oh, Vanya. Yes. Have I settled and made compromises? Am I troubled by the memory that I once was troubled. Trading my ethereal dreams for shiny and dusty things I could dream of improving.

What is this house I am living in? What is this life I have rescued from the dustbin of history with the hope of making something beautiful?

or at least comfortable?

Or maybe I hope for something I am not ashamed of

At least I fell into a same unremarkable sameness as those next to me

Do you see me Tolstoy?

Or maybe I see myself

Would I choose myself at an antique shop?  Would fastidious Ivan thought me worth keeping?

He would enter and see that something had scratched the polished table. He would look for the cause of this and find that it was the bronze ornamentation of an album, that had got bent. He would take up the expensive album which he had lovingly arranged, and feel vexed with his daughter and her friends for their untidiness — for the album was torn here and there and some of the photographs turned upside down. He would put it carefully in order and bend the ornamentation back into position. Then it would occur to him to place all those things in another corner of the room, near the plants. He would call the footman, but his daughter or wife would come to help him. They would not agree, and his wife would contradict him, and he would dispute and grow angry. But that was all right, for then he did not think about It. It was invisible.

Tolstoy knows from the start that these little objects are not the thing. After days which the house of the deceased I know—from story and evidence—she clung to the things.

Falling asleep in my carefully selected bed and linens, I am certain I am the same far more than I like—more than is healthy. If I arrange a shelf with a collection of preciosas, does that mean I can found that against the moments of malice I have to the people I should love most?

Am I hoping to fool others so much I that believe the good impressions I have crafted?

Will the flourishes of the golden frame lift the value of the portait it surrounds?

Tolstoy gave Ivan in his last days of life a revelation:

And suddenly it grew clear to him that what had been oppressing him and would not leave him was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to hurt them: release them and free himself from these sufferings. “How good and how simple!” he thought. “And the pain?” he asked himself. “What has become of it? Where are you, pain?”

The exotic teacups and the ceramic elephants a mask to the suffering and the decayed spirit. It’s not new. I hope to release the piles of things I don’t need I reach for the simple.

Our songs travel the earth. We sing to one another. Not a single note is ever lost and no song is original. They all come from the same place and go back to a time when only the stones howled.

Louise Erdrich

Words live in my head. When I think them, they are In my head. Getting ready to write my post here, I have to think it through. Live is full of material to write about.  I make a selection, pursue is and come up with this every week.

When I speak words, though they come out of my mouth. Or my throat. Then again, they come through my lungs. I notice this more when I sing.

OH yes, the singing.  I breathe in from the wide world and breathe it out again, adding my own vibration. Sometimes that is far easier than arranging sentences.

With singing and music, I add the hum.

With writing, the readers, the audience have to choose to read and make it alive, to hear the thrum of meaning in their own heads.

Here’s an update on my musical pursuit. I let you all know I”d been working on singing and playing 100 new songs. I’m up to 66 (here’s the current list).

As I’ve pursed this goal, and kept on it, more opportunities appeared. I found a friendly Open mic, and signed up. I saw a musical friend there, and he introduced me to a bass player. I had a great set and they both offered to join me on the next open mic and be my backup band.

With that confidence boost, I invited more people to come to the next open mic. A classical cellist was interested and she joined me too.

Nothing wins like winning so I made music performance a higher priority on my schedule.

A drummer from a local band was joining in with a jazz ensemble, so I blew off another obligation to see him play. He was delighted to see me and introduced me to the rest of the band.

Their organist Mass plays every week at another local spot. I dropped in on that one and found he had a whole jazz drop-in situation.

Now I have a reason to learn to practice jazz vocals. He said he’d play behind me if I wanted to sing.

It is so right that a jazz musician holds the gate open “come on in!”

Miles David said there are no wrong notes in jazz, only notes in the wrong places.

Some art is meant for music, and some is meant for sentences.

Or maybe words.

As I play in each of the spaces, I learn more how they fit.

How I fit

There is a lot of Buzz about A.I.

“AI will act as your personal force multiplier, streamlining your daily schedule, sparking creative ideas when you’re stuck, and handling repetitive tasks so you can focus on what truly matters to you.”

Or

“AI will quietly become your most reliable co-author, research assistant, project manager, and idea sparring partner—handling the tedious parts of writing your next book, organizing your knowledge into fresh frameworks, spotting blind spots in your arguments, and giving you instant second drafts while you stay focused on the uniquely human parts: insight, voice, and meaning”

That’s an introduction in the words of AI engines Grok and Gemini. My readers (hi!) can see immediately that is not something I would write. I write differently.

A.I. aficianados would say that the A.I. could be trained to write like me.

Probably. I am a person of quirks, habits and patterns, many of which are intentional. I could train (program) a computer to us those same consistently.

And if I believe the A.I. it would become a “personal force multiplier.”

But is it art?

Is it silly to always be thinking about art? Sometimes a spade is a spade, especially when I need to move a little dirt.

Flashing back to Miriam in my first book, I think of camels crossing a desert. If me and the camel caravan need to get out of the blazing hot sun, it doesn’t need to be art. Miriam needs a respite now, and anything that supplies shade is a blessing.

Yes and yes. Use the tools and the grace that comes. Maybe it’s the shadow of a big rock, and maybe it’s an A.I. engine.

I’m still pondering Leo Tolstoy’s definition of art:

When the artist takes a feeling he or she has had, expressed it and is able to inspire that same feeling in the audience, that is art.

Art makes the connection, Inspiring and transmitting a feeling from person to another.

If a person created the shade with intention and imbued it with sentiment or emotion and if that creative self-expression had enough craft to spark an echoing response in another person

Art made something new in the world. That connection. The best art comes with a sense that I already know what has been shown.

The newness is the connection between the artist and the feeling arising in the observing audience.

With this working definition, I can justify that A.I. output cannot be art. There is no person originating a feeling.

And no person to connect to. Art is not only about beauty. I am beginning to see it’s about connection as well.

Is this impressive enough?

I’d like to write something extraordinary and profound. Metaphors, images and similes so you, my reader, could feel what I’m feeling. I’ve done it before. But here I sit, the night before my arbitrary deadline for this essay, I am clogged up feeling pressure and running dry on inspiration.

I’ve always hated the last minute. But this week I had a good reason to delay: two other writing projects.

I’ve spent the last week working on updating my resume. That is so painful and awkward I’d be to see profound resume. This genre of writing is meant to deaden all emotion. I will confess I took advice from artificial intelligent on verb choice. The bots are the intended audience so using then as beta readers is only right. So why does it feel so wrong?

The other project is far more satisfying. This Tuesday I went on a podcast to promote my latest book. I’ve been working on it for 5 years now, and I’m so eager to publish it. It’s a handbook for project management, my career for more than 15 years now.

There is a dark little voice telling me that it doesn’t count, that it’s not a REAL book, because it is a technical how-to book. That dark voice tells me myself and I that I haven’t written the right kind of book.

That same voice comes at me for most of these blog posts. Each week I win on a technicality because I do write. I make the post.

So this book is technically a win because I did the work of finishing it.

Practically profundity is meaningful too. When I am in the deep with a problem I don’t have an answer for, and a book comes to hand with a solution—or even a new approach—I feel a physical wave of relief.

This is my 5th book. I have experience with the hard work to get a big idea into the world. The effort is categorically different than a short form essay.

These weekly wonder essays are my promise to myself. I keep going on them, because they keep the pipes clear for the big ideas I am trying to have. It’s the fate or the artist to have more ideas than time.

Today’s offering is newsy rather than a cohesive concept. I’m learning to trust you, my audience to accept my peanut butter and jelly offering. I appreciate you coming alongside as I try, and we can share a little stick-to-your-ribs art today.

What will the new year hold for me? I eagerly desire to consume or experience more art, and even better to create art.

In the library I found “What is Art?” by Leo Tolstoy. It’s not an novel, not like his epic War and Peace or Anna Karenina. The was an academic exploration with careful and tortured sentences—poor miserable academics!

I discover this conclusion that art is how a person can share a feeling with others. When I feel alone, stuck with the feelings, thoughts and experiences I long for connection with someone else. 

Tolstoy concludes that when a person shares a story, for example, and the audience feels what the story teller felt, that spark of transfer is the connection that makes it art.

One answer to the question

“What is art?”

Is that what you are sharing with me, Leo? Maybe your convoluted sentences gave me the thrill you got when you arrived at this definition. I can carry around this answer like a gemstone in my mind.

Can I be pleased with my art if it meets this specification? There is a warm feeling in my heart as I accept it.

Is that enough? And also, how can I do it even better?

That’s what this blog is about, to share my ideas, thoughts and feelings. To do it to the best of my ability.

In my isolation, I’m not alone. Tolstoy called it, and other artists must feel it:

I don’t know how I’m doing. Did I arouse that feeling in my readers?

If it is read, it must have achieved a bit of that. Interest is the lowest rung. Stronger feelings are higher up the ladder.

And a response!

In this digital landscape, a like or even better a comment back, is an indication

I plucked a resonant string.

This is me realizing and appreciating the connection I have with my readers, as we make this together.

Also, it’s me asking:

If you read it, click the heart.

If it made you think or laugh, I’d be very interested to hear it.

We don’t have to be alone in this human experience.

1. The General theory of Employment, Interest, and MOney by John Maynard Keynes – finished
   • i listened to this book on audio, because it woudl have been impossible ot sit and read it. But i have an undersatndign and respect for KEynes that I didn’t expect, even though I dont’ udnerstand it as well as I would have if I’d read it on paper
2. good things by samin nosrat
3. the Wedding People
   • this book reminds me of the rule, that modern “Literary fiction” has to have a suicide. I’ts darkly humourous, that this dpressing book is an unepected literary book, I thought it woudl be a romance novel, ok, it kinda was, but I didn’st like how liekly they treated the suicide
4. Caliban’s War
5. the feminine mystique
6. What is Art by Leo Tolstoy
7. Art and Fear
8. Monkey King
9. how to argue and win every time
10. a girl named Zippy
11. She got up off the couch
12. something rising
13. can’t hurt me
14. How to fail at almost everythign and still win Big
15. the used world
16. Farewell to arms
17. THE PRincess bride (NOVel)
18. Indistractable
19. Making money
20. Dear Debbie
21. The Borrowed LIfe of Frederick Fife
22. Silas Marner
23. wintersmith
24. Jude the Obscure
25. Cyber Crisis
26. turning data into dollars and sense
27. DEvops for Humans

Good things

2 The wedding people

3

good things by samin nosrat

Caliban’s War

The General theory of Employment, Interest, and MOney by John Maynard Keynes – finished

What is Art by Leo Tolstoy

Art and Fear

Monkey King

• +

The duckling had satisfied himself with what he was: Ugly.

He had a good personality. Or that’s what he told himself for consolation. His very weird bleached feathers could maybe seem interesting, but try not to bring attention to them.

It seemed obnoxious and off-putting to be as white and big as he naturally was.

No one else seems to care that he keep himself nice so he stopped making the effort.  

He didn’t work to stay too clean. All the others around him were speckled. Was he supposed to be slovenly?

There was a difference though. He knew the other birds around him were clean. They naturally had speckles, and he could only get them if he didn’t wash.

He liked being clean. He didn’t feel like himself when he was speckled and dirty. But he didn’t like standing out.

Things weren’t comfortable either way. If he didn’t make the effort, he could be speckled and blend in with the others.

Every once in a while he couldn’t stand it anymore and was as clean—as white, smooth and sparkling as he could possibly be. He would strut  around alone, feeling fine and handsome in his natural state.

He felt he had to hide at these times, but he still wanted to  feel his full self.

“How else will I be recognizable to my people?

If I find them.

If they exist.”

# # #

I’m piggybacking on a well-known story. The ugly duckling is a comforting story of the true nature finding belonging and appreciation.

If that duck was trying to find his people, I’ve been trying to find myself again.

I know who I am, I know what I’ve been capable of. But somehow this year I started to let things that made me ME slip away.

I’m getting ready to publish my 5^th book, a handbook. This weekly wonder, this substack is my weekly proof that I’m a writer. Past performance was not enough for me, I keep this blog up so I feel it in my bones. I am a writer because I write.

Although I’ve kept up with writing every week, I haven’t really saved my writing. I have always made a careful point of saving each offering in it’s file. Somehow I stopped this year. Did I start neglecting even last year…?

This year I also stopped tracking my books. I have kept a list of them for more than 10 years.

But this year I didn’t.

What’s happening? How do I explain this change?

Like the ugly duckling that comforts himself in his laziness. I have not felt like myself, and I let things slide.

I don’t ‘know what is possible this year, but I don’t want to settle and not show up as my best self. Come on Ducky! Brush off the dusk and see what you can be. There is a big world out there.The duckling had satisfied himself with what he was: Ugly.

He had a good personality. Or that’s what he told himself for consolation. His very weird bleached feathers could maybe seem interesting, but try not to bring attention to them.

It seemed obnoxious and off-putting to be as white and big as he naturally was.

No one else seems to care that he keep himself nice so he stopped making the effort.  

He didn’t work to stay too clean. All the others around him were speckled. Was he supposed to be slovenly?

There was a difference though. He knew the other birds around him were clean. They naturally had speckles, and he could only get them if he didn’t wash.

He liked being clean. He didn’t feel like himself when he was speckled and dirty. But he didn’t like standing out.

Things weren’t comfortable either way. If he didn’t make the effort, he could be speckled and blend in with the others.

Every once in a while he couldn’t stand it anymore and was as clean—as white, smooth and sparkling as he could possibly be. He would strut  around alone, feeling fine and handsome in his natural state.

He felt he had to hide at these times, but he still wanted to  feel his full self.

“How else will I be recognizable to my people?

If I find them.

If they exist.”

I’m piggybacking on a well-known story. The ugly duckling is a comforting story of the true nature finding belonging and appreciation.

If that duck was trying to find his people, I’ve been trying to find myself again.

I know who I am, I know what I’ve been capable of. But somehow this year I started to let things that made me ME slip away.

I’m getting ready to publish my 5^th book, a handbook. This weekly wonder, this substack is my weekly proof that I’m a writer. Past performance was not enough for me, I keep this blog up so I feel it in my bones. I am a writer because I write.

Although I’ve kept up with writing every week, I haven’t really saved my writing. I have always made a careful point of saving each offering in it’s file. Somehow I stopped this year. Did I start neglecting even last year…?

This year I also stopped tracking my books. I have kept a list of them for more than 10 years.

But this year I didn’t.

What’s happening? How do I explain this change?

Like the ugly duckling that comforts himself in his laziness. I have not felt like myself, and I let things slide.

I don’t ‘know what is possible this year, but I don’t want to settle and not show up as my best self. Come on Ducky! Brush off the dust and see what you can be. There is a big world out there.

When I do my cardio at the gym, I choose a treadmill facing a big window.

In the morning dark, the glass acts like a mirror reflecting the inside of the gym. Those people behind me, doing lunges and lifts. I’m locked in place as I run so I see the flit of my pale legs running.

As the sky lights up the jacaranda trees and the houses across the street take form from the mechanical world of the fitness equipment.

There are a few houses and a two story office building. The houses are a unique kind of “found art” material special to my town. During the depression, a creative polish immigrant took concrete-typle material meant for demolitions and repurposed it. He strategically cut and stacked like bricks into an inhabitable house. Then another one. It catches the eye, since it’s not like anything else. It’s precise and even like bricks, but it’s a decent enough house. It’s become cute and the neighborhood is registered as historical “folk architecture.” They do have red tile roofs.

The office building next door was built more recently—maybe 20 or 30 years ago. With two stories and tall smooth columns is evoking a modern Romanesque style to break up the boxy right angles. Next to the red tile roofs, it pleases my eyes and make me think of Roman villas.

This summer we were looking at the ruins of Roman aqueducts in Germany. Germany and Rome had an uneasy relationship, but the Spanish that came over to California appreciated, emulated and kept the Roman flavor going. A whole group of people refer to themselves as Latin—Latin American.

Looking out the window going nowhere as fast as I can I think about those buildings. Architecture is so many things—shelter, comfort and doing business.

The office building is standard underneath the exterior, with ordinary struts and sheetrock inside. They took the time to make it pretty on the outside. I see that it was built so it could be reskinned to show a different style.

What if these memories of Rome wanted squashing? The bones of business could wash its face and put different makeup on very convincingly.

The scrap house couldn’t change that fast. A different roof, yes. But it was deeply what it was and couldn’t change its shape.

And I run. The weight plates clang and people grunt behind me as we all work with the material we’ve found in ourselves.

Before there were YouTube Shorts, there were short stories. With Christmas nostalgia, I have to think of The Gifts of the Magi. Who else remembers O. Henry?

He was the king of the magazine short story, famous for the surprise twist at the end. This story was from 1905. The story showed up in American literature textbooks for decades, it is probably still in some to this day.

The world he shows is grim. Britain had Dickens as the literary evangelist of the street urchin. The growth of the American cities created an outpouring of literature about the working poor, or just straight up homeless.

As was the fashion at the time, he was a socialist back when I was a theory without a lot of practical application. The idea then was to be nicer, share and have compassion on one another. The rich guys are not the heroes. The world might be against eh little guy, but things have a a way of turning out different than you’d expect.

The heroes in this story, are not terribly heroic. They were a young struggling married couple, desperately in love. They want to give each other their very best on Christmas.

The story invokes the three wise men of the nativity. These men study the stars and are so sure of what they know they set off to find what the star indicated.

O. Henry starts with the practical facts at the very beginning:
One dollar and eightyseven cents.

The wife, Della, has managed to save only this much for husband Jim’s Christmas present. She falls weeping at the thought of what she cannot give him. The story if very specific asbout their income and their costs. They don’t have much.

Even today, I have heard people complain about how Christmas is too commercial. Della want to give a good gift to her beloved. She sells the only thing of value she has: her long gorgeous hair. She didn’t earn her hair, it was a gift of genetics that she was able to have hair past her knees. She sold it to buy her husband a chain for his watch.

Jim had inherited his watch, passed from his grandfather to his father and to him. It didn’t have a chain.

And as he cam home to his wife’s shorn head, he is dumbfounded. He hugs her and she discovers that he sold his watch to buy her jeweled hair combs.

The IRONY!

He closes the story saying the Magi would approve of this couple. Hard to agree, since their sacrifices were in vain.

Schoolchildren have discussed and argued what these two should have done. As I review it, I see that there is a bit of arithmetic and home economics in there. It’s a good story for kids to learn from .

I could understand that a socialist would see the materials things as less valuable. And the celestial angels would agree. The point of the gift is that each gave their very best. I’d like to shake both of them and tell them to use their common sense.

Foolish as they were, they did know each other very well. They paid attention to what lit up their eyes. I am sure I will not be as wise as I hope with all my Christmas preparation, but I do hope to see delight in the eyes of those near me.

He’s making a list and checking it twice

Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice

watch out! Don’t get on the naughty list. I want to be good. I would be ashamed to be caught out in some failure, not matching what I’m supposed to be.

The truth is we all fall short. Lord save us from our falling shorts, speaking of the naughty list.

But seriously, if I take a cold hard look around, failure is way more common than success. For those following along, I’ve been sitting in my mud puddle of failure lately. I’m not living up to what I wish I could be. It’s a cold and slimy feeling. It’s been a tough couple of years.

I guess if I’ve stuck in the mud, I can make mud pies. There is a lesson in failure

It’s taken me those years, but this week I finished David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me. He tells how he set out to break the record of pull-ups done in one day. He went on TV to break the record in front of everyone.

And Failed. In front of Everyone.

He knew what’s he’d done wrong though, and set himself up for success for the next time.

And Failed. Again.

This time it was serious. There were reasons to call it impossible.

Not for this guy. Since he’d failed so publicly, he gathered all the insults, jabs and criticism and reviewed the video. There is a lot that went right in his failure. He dove deep to see what went right and get a clear view on what he could change to beat that record.

These stories in my mud puddle could use a different angle. He was right. I can walk back these stories I’ve been telling myself of how I fell short and look for how I did well. With some thought and strategy I can do better than next time and get higher on that list.

That would be nice.