Monday, August 21, 2017

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN WILLIAM CALDER





Between the cannibal, the aliens, and the long-distance romance, this gold miner has his hands full.


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
JOHN WILLIAM CALDER




POST 1

Being of sound mind and such, I, John William Calder, son of James Zechariah and Rose Elizabeth Calder, do solemnly write these here accounts from my own life, some of which are sure to be real rip-snorters, and all of which being true as anything.

I figure on writing this here autobiography of me since I already got the implements handy from having to keep records mining for gold. I am now the sole proprietor of the Buckwourth mining camp a good ways up Little Miss River and right on the edge of Indian territory. Regarding gold mining, or mining of any sort, it is true that I know next to nothing on the subject, having never had occasion to undertake the occupation prior to my mother's brother kicking the bucket and me thereby falling into it. But seeing how life as a clerk fits poorly on my disposition, plus taking into account Uncle Luke's certainty of the mother lode about to show, that I am plum willing to give the venture a go, and reckon I can say the same for this here autobiography writing that I am fixing on doing.

In San Francisco I met a man who told me he had been to Sutter's Mill early in '48 and found a fortune in four hours. The biggest chunks filled his fists! Buckwourth being northwest of the Sierra Nevadas, I am nowhere near Coloma, yet cannot say I would too much mind if I was, because at the train station I also met a woman who said she was bound for that very destination, and except for Miss Felicity she was about the loveliest and most enchanting creature to ever trod soil. 

I have cooked up a mess of beans, and they are very good. What with flour, coffee, salt, tea, tobacco and a deal of venison I picked up at the trading post for one of my three fifteen dollar beaver traps, I am feeling fairly well-provisioned. My nearest neighbor is a devoutly religious man by all accounts--most of those coming from the trading post--a trapper and a miner whose piety is reputed to be matched only by his delight on practicing cannibalism. And he's done that at least twice. But the last white man he killed and ate was fifteen years ago, and even though he is older and slower, he has passed up plenty of chances in favor of savages picked up at the post. So with my .40-caliber rifle courtesy of the Hawken brothers of St. Louis, I am not too concerned.


POST 2

My Dearest Miss Felicity,

I have fixed my mind on writing my own autobiography, and would certainly be a good bit into it were it not for the hardships of daily life. Amenities-wise, the outhouse appears in distressed circumstances. After gnawing off a deal of venison this morning by way of breakfast, I have come to learn through hard tribulation to never trust a man trading venison again.

It being spring, the river is bracing and brisk. I have tried my hand at panning. You cannot believe how cold a man's hands get holding a pan in the shallows. Yet this biting cold was made less bitter by the image of your divine visage there to sustain me. Looking at the water I'd see your face floating there. Or if with a crick in my neck from being all hunkered over I looked up, why there you'd be again. I confess I felt a most marked and shameful embarrassment in wondering exactly how much of my hardships of the morning the hovering image of you had seen, but your vision sweetly reminded me in the most angelic manner that I was still working off the ill-effects of the tainted meat.

The bulk of the day went toward repairing the sluice, which I have done as best I can. When I have made my fortune and come calling on you proper, I will share with you this letter along with my autobiography so that you can come to understand the warm ardor with which I regard you as I remain now and forevermore your devoted admirer,

John William Calder


POST 3

A week has slipped along since I last wrote. Though the days pass filled with toil, still I do not lament. I shall persevere in my endeavor to secure my fortune or perish in the attempt. I find the load of my drudgery lightened when recalling amusing incidents which I yet intend to pen. The plain fact is, however, at end of the day, I find both body and mind so beset with fatigue as to preclude all possibility of any sort of further pursuit.

I have discovered an additional neighbor, by all appearances a deformed albino native child. The wretch watched me from over yonder rise while I worked in the river this afternoon. The feeling I was being stared at suddenly washed upon me. On my word, I have never in my life seen a waif half as white as this poor malformed native entirely destitute of clothing.


POST 4

My Dearest Miss Felicity,

I have been cooking up a mess of beans this evening and thinking on that fateful day I first seen your beatific visage. A man gets powerful lonesome with hardly no companionship to speak of other than a family of otters upriver that sometimes chase each other down here and splash around a bit.

On two occasions now I have seen a malformed waif, the slenderest child with the whitest skin and hugest head you ever saw. The wastrel wears not a stitch of clothing, and likewise has no hair. As on the first occasion, I did not achieve a satisfactory view of the elusive creature, but rather glimpsed it when retreating from me in the denseness of a thicket. I am pretty near certain I have a fix on where within the thicket the creature most often resides. If it appears any closer to camp, I am prepared to rout it out.

The evening sky, profusely bedecked with a myriad of stars, shines in great magnificence, but next to thoughts of you it stands hardly even better than the rear end of a green apple mule.

Your ardent admirer,

John William Calder


POST 5

Today my nearest neighbor, a disagreeable man and thoroughly wretched in most respects, stopped by for a visit. "Name's Red Meat Bob," he said while I was fixing the slough. "Reckon you prolly heard I et white folks back when."

"Yep," I says.

"Well, I'm plum done with that. Been done these seven and a half years. Whaddaya call this operation?"

"This here's the Buckwourth mining camp, mister."

“You play cards?”

“Ain’t no hand at poker,” I says.

“They say the beginners have the best luck.”


Regarding Red Meat Bob, beyond all doubt he has shown himself to be of less than any use where work is to be done, but verbosity has its benefits. The old coot jabbers away rain or shine. Upon occasion, I confess, I have found myself not entirely averse to the sounds of social company. Half the time, what comes out of the pious old sinner's hairy head sounds almost like a kind of singing. Often he says to pardon his French, but then he goes ahead and says it all again louder.


Upon my word I was like to knock Red Meat Bob sideways into the river just this very afternoon, on account he refused to shut up, except for he scampered off easy enough with me up on the sluice. I will tell the world I was plum angry.


Come suppertime he shuffles round closer.


"Them beans smell good," he says. Couple crickets chirp by way of reply. "Coffee smells good too," he adds.


By way of reply with my Hawken at my side I told Red Meat Bob he could go to hell...









NOTE: Several new pages of the story are ready to go, and more will be written by Thursday to appear here.




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Sunday, August 20, 2017

NIETZSCHE DOC DYNAMITE



          "Also Sprach Zarathustra".
          Stanley Kubrick used Richard Strauss's music in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Elvis Presley used it as his own concert introduction theme. But before it was Strauss's music, Thus Spoke Zarathustra was Friedrich Nietzsche's book.
          He's the German philosopher in the 1880s depicted with the giant mustache who says, "What does not kill me makes me stronger."
          Misrepresented in death by his sister, who altered a book he had abandoned and gave it to Hitler as an all-purpose excuse for evil in a moral vacuum, for decades the misplaced idolatry of the Nazis for Nietzsche ruined his posthumous reputation, but in the 1950s scholarship revealed the error and his thought has been widely used ever since by disparate groups and individuals for varied ends.
          In the excellent 2016 BBC documentary "Genius of the Modern World--Friedrich Nietzsche", engaging host historian Bettany Hughes cogently distills Nietzsche's often notoriously elusive ideas. And she visits scholars with their own observations.
          For example, one scholar responds to the question of who is a Nietzschean Ubermensch or Overman, "An Overman is one who is no longer reliant on external goals." It is someone "who is able to commit to goals that you set yourself."
          The documentary travels to the areas in Europe where he lived, showcasing the panoramic views of Sils Maria, Switzerland, the forests, rivers, and snow-capped mountains that inspired a philosophy of celebrating this life here and now and finding joy in overcoming obstacles and thereby reaching new heights.
          Born in Rocken, Germany, in 1844, the philosopher who said, "I'm not a man, I'm dynamite!" began life as the son of a Lutheran minister in a household that, according to Hughes, "lived and breathed Christianity." It has been said of Nietzsche that he did not speak until he was four. It was at that age that his father died, an early event which shook young Nietzsche's faith.
          In his early twenties he decided not to follow in his father's footsteps, but instead became a professor of Philology (Linguistics today) at Basel, Switzerland, the youngest professor in the university's history.
          At this time he met Richard Wagner. Wagner was thrilled to have the young philosopher as a fan whose academic stature lent the composer additional weight. But after the opening of the new theater in Wagner's honor at Bayreuth and the production of his opera, The Ring, Nietzsche was deeply disappointed.
          Itching to spread his wings, Nietzsche cited ill health (accurately enough) and resigned from the university, crisscrossing Europe and spending "the rest of his adult life in a state of nomadic solitude."
          But he had, as Hughes observes, "his mind for company."
          Part of a highly informative 3-part series focusing on great thinkers of the late-19th century whose ideas resonate today.
          Freely available  online.




Stewart Kirby writes for










And I also write short stories, short novels, and a couple of screenplays.


Check out my Nietzsche screenplay by clicking the link to OVERMAN below:


http://stewartkirby.blogspot.com/2013/04/some-of-my-nietzsche-screenplay.html








Can't get enough Nietzsche action?
Check out my story MOTHERS WITHOUT MASTERS, wherein we learn that Nietzsche never died at all, but actually went on to form the world's foremost fighting team...


http://stewartkirby.blogspot.com/2017/03/mothers-without-masters-chapter-one.html











Sunday, August 13, 2017

DISNEY UFO DOC STILL BAFFLES



          It's not a "lost" documentary. Nor was it banned. Nor is it even a documentary.
          "Alien Encounters From New Tomorrowland" aired briefly in 1995, then got promptly shelved.
          Written and directed by Andrew Thomas, "Alien Encounters" features narration by Robert Urich taking a decidedly unprofessional approach for a documentary by treating the subject as established fact.
          Plucked from obscurity, Thomas followed directives and presented Disney with the product as requested. Strangely, the Disneyland ride ostensibly promoted received scant attention.
          After being randomly aired in a few cities in only five states, Disney pulled it. Strange way to conduct a marketing campaign.
          Especially considering that then-CEO of Disney Michael Eisner surprised Thomas by getting his own camera crew to film him introducing "Alien Encounters". Apparently Eisner thought the show was important. So why did it get pulled?
          In the late-1950s, promoting Tomorrowland, Walt Disney had Wernher von Braun appear in three space-related films. Von Braun, a former member of the Nazi SS, invented the V-2 rocket. But he died in 1977, so in 1995 Disney went with likable, trustworthy Robert Urich.
          It does seem a tad askew for Urich to state as fact through Disney that beings vastly more technologically sophisticated than ourselves regularly visit, and the government lies about it in order to stay in power. Particularly when the material was written by someone with no prior knowledge of the subject.
          By contrast, UFOs: Past, Present, and Future (1974) does the job right. Based on the book by Robert Emenegger, the documentary attempts to uncover proof of the existence of aliens. Presented by Rod Serling, and narrated by Burgess Meredith and Jose Ferrer, the film was re-released a few years later due to the popularity of the subject with films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
          It wasn't a "publicity stunt". If the director had pretended to be abducted by aliens in order to draw attention to the Disney ride before the show aired, then that would be a publicity stunt.
          And the 40-minute film has nothing in common with Orson Welles' radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. Orson Welles altered the book by H.G. Wells significantly, and started the Halloween broadcast with a disclaimer that many listeners failed to catch.
          "Alien Encounters" is nothing like that. It's not particularly well done, but it does feature information found in more reliable sources. And it remains a mystery.
          Freely available online.




Stewart Kirby writes for



Saturday, August 5, 2017

KINGDOM OF THE PESCADOR



THE LOST ACCOUNT OF THE 1922 PYRAMIS EXPEDITION!


EXPLORERS SEARCH THE AMAZON RIVER...


IN SEARCH OF ANCIENT PYRAMIDS...BIGGER AND OLDER THAN ANY IN EGYPT!


RESEARCHERS FIND PYRAMIDS UNDERWATER DEEP UP THE AMAZON...


AND FIND PROGRESS HALTED BY UNEXPECTED ATTACKS...


FROM SHOCKING CREATURES UNKNOWN TO SCIENCE,


CALLED BY NEAREST NATIVES


EL PESCADOR...THE FISH-MAN!


NINETEEN YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER OF LEAD RESEARCHER KEEPS JOURNAL,


RECORDS OWN HARROWING CAPTURE BY CREATURE GUARDING ENTRANCE!


...Amid the glittering iridescence of the towering verdure may be found sundry birds of Paradise and nimble monkeys following the boat along the winding never-ending River. The beauty of the wide array of flora and fauna notwithstanding, Father warns me of the many dangers at every available opportunity...


FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE UNKNOWN COMES THE ACCOUNT WHICH INSPIRED


THE FILM THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON!


PLUNGE INTO THE WATERS WHICH HIDE PYRAMIDS OF ANCIENT GIANTS...


AT THE PERIL OF YOUR OWN SANITY!


...Father says the Pescador seem to have resulted from the laboratory experiments of ancient scientists, a race of giant people far pre-dating conventional acceptance...








NOTE: These preliminary notes are how I feel out a tone, develop voice, remind myself later on when I have more time to hit it how to approach. All part of my process, folks. Thanks for checking in.


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