September 4: Gene Wilder, Willy Wonka, Classic Saint Marty

I'm sitting in my living room, watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory with my wife and daughter.  As my two Constant Readers are probably aware, Gene Wilder died this past week, so I've been feeling a little nostalgic.  I used to watch Willy Wonka on TV with my whole family when I was a kid.  My mother would cook up a big pot of popcorn, and we would all gather in the living room.  It's one of my fondest memories as a child. 

I used to wish two things when watching the movie:  I wanted to be Willy Wonka, or I wanted to be Gene Wilder.  Either way, I would have a purple velvet jacket, top hat, and cane.  Even sitting here tonight, I sort of feel some kind of yearning.  Perhaps for a simpler time, when I believed I could have an edible chocolate room.

Planning on sleeping in tomorrow morning.  Not setting an alarm.  I can't remember the last time that I've gone to bed and not set an alarm.  It will be absolutely heavenly.

Tonight's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired two years ago, when I was pretty sick.  An early autumn case of tuberculosis.

September 4, 2014:  Hard to Sleep, Coughing, Book Bag

The night seemed long.  Wilbur's stomach was empty and his mind was full.  And when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's always hard to sleep.

Wilbur is excited.  A voice has promised to be his friend, and the voice said she would introduce herself in the morning.  Therefore, Wilbur is unable to sleep.  He waits and waits for the first rays of sun in the sky.  For his new friend.

I use this paragraph as an introduction because I have been having great difficulty sleeping this past week.  Not because of some disembodied voice.  Not because I'm hungry.  And not because my mind is full.  It's because I spend most of the night coughing up a lung.

I caved this afternoon and made an appointment with a doctor.  The doctor told me I have acute bronchitis, exacerbated by possible asthma.  Basically, the cold I had last week has settled in my lungs and is now turning my nights into tuberculosis time.

I have not had the energy to read a whole lot this past week.  I recently started the book Struck by Genius by Jason Padgett.  It's about Padgett's traumatic brain injury and onset of acquired savant syndrome.  Basically, Padgett went from being a shiftless, partying 30-year-old boy to a mathematical genius.  So far, the book is brilliant.  More to come on that.

That's my book bag at the moment.  My thoughts are clouded, and my lungs hurt.

That's all Saint Marty's got.

A portrait of last night

June 15: Willy Wonka, Adonis, "The Beginning of Speech"

I often wonder what I would say to my younger self.  As a kid, I knew I wanted to be a writer.  Of course, I also wanted to be a movie director, Willy Wonka, and Doug Henning (don't laugh--he was a really cool magician).  However, the main dream has never changed.  Publish books.  Maybe win a prize here and there.  An occasional Pulitzer Prize.  I wouldn't turn down the Nobel, either.

I've published a book of poems.  I've been the poetry editor of a national literary journal.  I've been nominated for the Pushcart Prize a couple of times.  No Pulitzer.  No Nobel.  Yet.  I suppose, if I could say something to my younger self, it would be, "Watch out for skunks!"  (I have had a couple very close encounters with skunks that have cost me a good pair of running shoes and an expensive book bag.)

Saint Marty is still dreaming.

The Beginning of Speech

by:  Adonis

The child I was came to me

once,

a strange face

                He said nothing              We walked

each of us glancing at the other in silence, our steps

a strange river running in between

We were brought together by good manners

and these sheets now flying in the wind

then we split,

a forest written by earth

watered by the seasons’ change.

Child who once was, come forth—

What brings us together now,

and what do we have to say?