Anyways, if you go to his website THE MALCOLM GLADWELL BOOK GENERATOR, you will have an enjoyable few minutes.  Especially if you actually still read books.  Go…click on the link!

SOUL MURDER

The child sat with his head in his hands, rocking back and forth. “And if you did not want it, you should not have asked for it,” the woman said, “for you do not know what it means to deserve something, for you do not know what it is to work for something.” She paused. “Do you?”

The boy did not look up. And it seemed the woman did not require him to. She rubbed one eye for a moment, and while she rubbed it, her mouth went slack. The boy continued rocking.

“Now,” she said, “when we get home, do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take your toys and box them. And I’m going to ship them away. Do you think I’m fooling?”

The two other children — probably his brother and sister, the man thought — looked on, not dispassionately, but at a remove. Well certainly, the man said to himself. If they were to intervene, what would they say?

The boy stopped rocking and rose from the bench and began to walk, stiff-legged, looking down.

“Where are you going?” the woman asked.

He raised his head, cow-eyed, to indicate his destination — the men’s room across the waiting room.

“Then why do you walk like that?” the woman said. “I’m talking to you. Why do you walk like that, for God’s sake?”

His mouth moved like a fish’s for a moment.

“You sit down,” she said, “and I’ll tell you when I want you to go somewhere.”

He waited a moment and then sank down on the bench. His mouth was open, and his hands were pressed over his ears. He put his head down, just above his knees, and began rocking again.

The woman addressed herself to the other two. She drew them close around the pile of baggage and spoke softly to them.

Yes, that’s right, the man thought. Yes, that’s right.

She gestured to the baggage and pointed at them, and they nodded; and she gestured at the washroom and she nodded and then she, and then they, looked over at the other boy. She got up quickly and gathered herself together and walked crisply off.

The other children looked guiltily at the boy and then they determinedly busied themselves with their books.

Well, now’s the time, the man thought, and he had this fantasy: He would walk over to the boy and sit beside him. “Do you know who I am?” he would say. The boy would look up. “I am your guardian angel. I have been sent to tell you this: You are not bad, but good. Do you understand? You are not bad, but good. I only have a moment, but you are to keep this.”

He inventoried his pockets for something to give the boy.

“You are to keep this — it’s a magic quarter. Every time you see it, every time you touch it, you will magically remember that you are not bad, but good. You are good. Do you understand?

“Now, listen to me — one day you will lose the quarter. This is part of the plan. When this occurs, it means that each time you see any coin then you will remember that you are good.”

In the fantasy the man pressed the coin into the boy’s hand and quickly stood and walked away.

As he finished the fantasy, he saw the woman walk out of the washroom and return to the two good children and saw the three of them smile and rise and organize themselves around their bags. Just before they left, she looked at the boy on the bench and glared at him as if to say, “Well?” And the boy rose and followed them.

– David Mamet

Wanna climb off?  Me too.  So when I received a copy of “A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook,” I did a quick read-thru and then asked a nice PR lady named Lorna to hook me up with one of the authors.

On Monday, I chatted with Bob Stahl, one of the co-authors and the founder and director of mindfulness-based stress reduction programs in and around San Francisco and also teaches at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  He explained what mindfulness is, how easy it is to fall out of mindfulness, and we also talked about The Dalai Lama and Jews.

I hope you will take about sixteen minutes out of your busy day and listen to some wise words from a man who’s journey actually started here in the Northeast Kingdom…at Lyndon State College:

Bob Stahl, \”A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workshop

The book is only $16.47 at Amazon, and that includes an EIGHT-HOUR CD of guided meditations.  Such a deal!!  You can click on the right side down below at the Amazon link to order your copy.  (When you use the link below, you also help support everything that goes on here at VermontMornings.com)

Will this workbook reduce the amount of stress in your life?  What do you want it to do?

Editor’s Note:

He finished his last show at Dead North in Danville nearly four years ago and then disappeared into the night. Until today, nobody knew where he’d been.  But the man known as Jingo The Dark Clown is back in St. Johnsbury, preparing to perform at the Belly Dance Circus, at Catamount Arts on September 26. He sent this note.

I’m back…but I’m not sure why. But here I am.

I can tell by the scene unfolding on this old Emerson TV in my dressing room tonight that a lot has changed in this country since my departure four years ago.

I was without a television for most of that time, working two shows a night in a Cairo nightclub frequented by local bureaucrats, off-duty Blackwater guys and several of the lesser Mubaraks, second and third cousins mostly.  Losers, mostly.

I knew Obama had gotten elected but not much else.

When I left the United States, the Republican Party was run like a machine, by a cabal of skilled operators that demanded loyalty and obedience from its members.  In Congress they spoke with one voice, staying on message at all times, marching in perfect unison.  They crushed the Democrats, year after year after year.

Now, this once powerful machine appears to be run by a group of lecherous, ham-handed and vastly inferior men.

It’s true. The GOP was once so powerful that it rolled without apology, blitzkrieg-style across the American electoral landscape, devouring Democrats like Hitler took Poland.  Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, Trent Lott, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove. These were men to be feared. Dominating in a street fight, deadly when backed into a corner, always a step ahead of their opponents, they were Rommelesque in the strategic deployment of wedge issues.  They seemed to never lose, and if things did get bogged down in the mud, well, there was always a self-destructive Democrat like Bill Clinton around to smooth things over. No worries.

But those guys are gone now and their replacements appear to be a decrepit collection of second stringers, coat holders and bad poker players.  They are the backup quarterbacks of conservative politics.  And the most bizarre part is that they’re all still strutting around like they’re the Party of Reagan.

I saw it all, playing out right there on my dressing room TV.  There’s the Prez at the podium, talking about the need for health care reform. He’s on a roll, he’s got the good stuff working. He’s painting the corners and heading for a complete game, when an irrelevant douchebag back-bench Republican Senator from South Carolina, Joe Wilson, delivers his now infamous line.

“You lie!” he shouted from the cheap seats.

I’m just guessing here but I figure Delay, Rove and the rest of the legends must find it incredibly painful that the once vaunted Republican troops are now being led into battle by the likes of Joe Wilson – AKA – “The Heckler.”

I know a little something about hecklers. I deal with them all the time. It’s part of the job.

There are fun hecklers and they are a lot like happy drunks.  These are guys who just want to have a good time, even if they do it sloppily.

Then there is the angry heckler.

He’s easy to spot but, like landmines, he’s difficult on the surroundings.  It’s usually a middle-aged man seated alone at a table, in the back, beyond the shadows.  He’s drunk, agitated and pissed-off, talking loudly to no one in particular and about to get shut-off.  He’s been hooting and hollering along with the crowd, but then doesn’t have enough brains to realize that the rest of the crowd has suddenly become quiet.

“You lie!” he shouts, and everybody pauses for just a moment.  It’s too much, it’s at the wrong time. It’s not funny. Who is that guy?  For a brief moment the mystery man is King. But nobody knows his name and the act continues on and the angry heckler goes back to being…no one, a lonely, dark figure in the shadows. And that is the saddest thing of all.

Let me be clear.  I’m not saying that Congressman Wilson was drunk, or even lonely.  I don’t even know if the man drinks, and I really don’t give a damn, but I can tell you from personal experience that booze likes to do a lot of talking, and it certainly makes sense if the whole ugly scene began with the seductive charms of a nearly-empty bottle of cheap Kentucky whisky.

But if it wasn’t alcohol doing the talking, what was?  Is he just…that…stupid??

This “spontaneous” outburst – as he called it – occurred right in the middle of a speech where Obama was calling for a civil debate on the health care issue.  And in one simple moment, the man from South Carolina did more to help the President than Ted Kennedy ever could.

It also helped Wilson’s democratic challenger, who, thanks to the Internet, suddenly found himself about four hundred thousand dollars richer in campaign funds the very next day.

I suppose the whole thing could have part of some secret strategy devised by Republican National Chairman Michael Steele…no, never mind, forget I even brought it up.

No, this is not the party of Ronald Reagan, no more than the Democrats in the 1980’s were the party of JFK or FDR.

Maybe it’s just a South Carolina problem?  After all, the Palmetto state’s governor, Mark Sanford, is a super visionary guy who figured out a way to combine lies, infidelity, sleaziness and a secret trip to Argentina into a kind of credit default swap of public disgrace.

And…he’s not resigning. Wow. Those are some big balls. At this point he’s probably just banking on the fickle nature of the press and public and praying for some other elected schmuck to get caught doing something embarrassing….

….News Flash! Tick Tick Tick Tick…Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the show: California State Republican Assemblyman Mike Duvall!

Duvall is the guy who was caught on tape bragging about all the kinky things he did to a couple of lady lobbyists – neither of which was his wife.

Good news for Sanford…but uh-oh…Duvall has just resigned!  Bad news for Sanford.

But Sanford’s lucky he’s a member of the New Republicans, because if this were the old days, the late, great political strategist and formidable guitar player Lee Atwater (also from South Carolina…hmmm) would still be alive and Sanford would already be gone, either voluntarily, or with Atwater’s Fender Telecaster wrapped around his unbelievably red neck.

That’s the way those things were done back in the day. You screwed up, you were gone. The Party and The Fight were simply too important to allow the B-list guys to ruin it.

But now it’s everyone and their potty mouths and their mistresses and their back-of-the school bus bravery and their full ride government health insurance benefits for themselves.

Screw everyone else.

So I’m back.  I’m here.  Please come to the show at Catamount. And if you can’t make it, please send liquor.

More ice.  Now.

Jingo

There are gazillions of Self Help books out there.  Most are a waste of your time and money.

This is not one of those.  There’s no magical cure for what ails you, you will not become a healthy, buff overnight success when you read this.  If you want to get something out of this book, you have to commit to some of the authors’ suggestions for three to six months.  And then you have to go back and reread the book.  And keep at it.  Again and again and again.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is 250 easy to read pages.  You begin by taking an online test that will give you an Emotional Intelligence Appraisal.   Then you read.  Then you work on it.  I’m going to do that.

Co-author Travis Bradberry called in Monday morning  and gave an overview of what this is all about.  What this is all about is…AWARENESS.  Give a listen.

Travis Bradberry Emotional Intelligence 2.0

If you decide you want to buy the book, you will save money (and help VermontMornings.com) by using the Amazon link below and to the right.

–SN

Some nights, can’t sleep, I draw up a list,
Of everything I’ve never done wrong.
To look at me now, you might insist
My list could hardly be long,
But I’ve stolen no gnomes from my neighbor’s yard,
Nor struck his dog, backing out my car.
Never ate my way up and down the Loire
On a stranger’s credit card.

I’ve never given a cop the slip,
Stuffed stiffs in a gravel quarry,
Or silenced Cub Scouts on a first camping trip
With an unspeakable ghost story.
Never lifted a vase from a museum foyer,
Or rifled a Turkish tourist’s backpack.
Never cheated at golf. Or slipped out a blackjack
And flattened a patent lawyer.

I never forged a lottery ticket,
Took three on a two-for-one pass,
Or, as a child, toasted a cricket
With a magnifying glass.
I never said “air” to mean “err,” or obstructed
Justice, or defrauded a securities firm.
Never mulcted—so far as I understand the term.
Or unjustly usufructed.

I never swindled a widow of all her stuff
By means of a false deed and title
Or stood up and shouted, My God, that’s enough!
At a nephew’s piano recital.
Never practiced arson, even as a prank,
Brightened church-suppers with off-color jokes,
Concocted an archeological hoax—
Or dumped bleach in a goldfish tank.

Never smoked opium. Or smuggled gold
Across the Panamanian Isthmus.
Never hauled back and knocked a rival out cold,
Or missed a family Christmas.
Never borrowed a book I intended to keep.
. . . My list, once started, continues to grow,
Which is all for the good, but just goes to show
It’s the good who do not sleep.

–Brad Leithauser ]]> http://vermontmornings.com/wordpress/2009/04/21/in-the-middle-of-national-poetry-month/feed/ 0 http://vermontmornings.com/wordpress/2009/04/08/its-poetry-month/ http://vermontmornings.com/wordpress/2009/04/08/its-poetry-month/#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:50:54 +0000 admin http://vermontmornings.com/wordpress/?p=332 Voices

Imagined voices, and beloved, too,
of those who died, or of those who are
lost unto us like the dead.

Sometimes in our dreams they speak to us;
sometimes in its thought the mind will hear them.

And with their sound for a moment there return
sounds from the first poetry of our life—
like music, in the night, far off, that fades away.

–C. P. Cavafy (1863-1933)

Like thousands of other Yankee Magazine subscribers, I begin each read from the back inside page.  I am a great admirer of Edie Clark, and for seventeen plus years, Edie has written a regular back-of-the-magazine column, first “The Garden At Chesham Depot,” now “The View from Mary’s Farm.”

I met Edie last Thursday, when she gave the keynote speech at the Northeast Kingdom Chamber of Commerce‘s annual meeting.  I introduced myself, we chatted, I showed her my checkbook.  (That’s another story for another time)  Edie’s speech was in great part about  what she learned writing the story that appears in the current issue of Yankee, “Along The Border.“  It’s about the border (and everything else) that we share with our friends, neighbors and relatives just a few miles to the north, and how dramatically things have changed there (as elsewhere) since 9/11.  Like so much she writes, this resonated deeply with me.

On Tuesday morning, Edie called in from Mary’s Farm and we chatted about the current story, the state of the magazine industry and  her love for the Yankees.  The New York Yankees!

audio

Spend ten minutes with this wonderful writer and then visit her website.  If you enjoy her columns, let her know.  Buy a book while you’re there.  Whatever you choose, it’s a great read.

–SN

Rachael?  Martha?  Thpffft!  This is Nadia G, proprietor of Montreal’s Bitchin’ Kitchen.  We had a chance to chat Friday morning about food, comedy, food, relationships, accents, food, her webisodes and…food.

audio

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

  –Robert Frost