Rejection

I found this rejection from a Chinese publisher in Noah Lukeman's book, The First Five Pages:
Most honorable Sir,
We perused your MS.
with boundless delight. And
we hurry to swear by our ancestors
we have never read any other
that equals in its mastery.
Were we to publish your work,
we could never presume again on
our public and name
to print books of a standard
not up to yours.
For we cannot imagine
that the next ten thousand years
will offer its ectype.
We must therefore refuse
your work that shines as it were in the sky
and beg you a thousand times
to pardon our fault
which impairs but our own offices
--publishers

p.s. from me: ectype--a reproduction or copy

where to find me

This week I posted as a special guest at 2poets.blogspot.comCheck them out.

check this

www.grizzlybay.org/SarahPalinInfoPage.htm

and this

The Perils of Community Service

I volunteered to help out with LAAFF--Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival, I believe. I like it because it's local. Local artists, local bands, local attendees. It's a refreshing change from Bele Chere, the annual traffic jam of food, beer, and generally lousy music that takes over our town once a year.
Anyway, I volunteered for Trash and Recycling. I pictured myself with a colorful plastic garbage bag, walking around and picking up things people had dropped. Turned out, my job was to don big gloves and go to stations where there were 3 cans: one for landfill, one for recycling, one for everything else, and DIG through them, find the stuff that was in the wrong can and move it to the right can.
Later, when I got sick, it occurred to me that I spent two hours handling peoples' half-eaten food, cups, diapers, kleenexes and napkins. That was in addition to the muscle spasm that started in my shoulder blade and crept to my neck, incapacitating me for several days.
It's all better now. Next week's community service: House Manager for Moving Womens' Dance for Peace. That can't be dangerous.

Masons and Megachurch

The Masons opened their lodge to the public a week or two ago--they gave tours, answered questions, and there was a fundraiser dinner. Here are some of the things I saw: A book called The Great Psychological Crime--it had a chapter called "post-mortem hypnosis."; a fragment of stone from the corner of King Solomon's Temple. I learned that the Grand Master sits to the East. No one sits to the North because it is too far from the sun. I found a program for a Service of Remembrance. It opens: "It is the hour when the veil of the Temple was rent in twain, when darkness resigned and consternation oppressed all the earth. When the Flaming Star was eclipsed and the shadow overcame the Light; when the Columns and Working Tools of the old Masonry were shattered and when the Cubicle Stone sweated water and blood; the instant when the word was lost."
Two days later I visited a Baptist MegaChurch. I forgot my notetaking tools. Here is what I remember: County police direct traffic in and out of the church parking lot. It looked just like on TV, and if you wanted, you could make it exactly like TV by watching one of the two giant TVs. Nobody was sweating or fainting. The pastor started off with a sexist joke. Every body laughed. The music had neither the solemnity of hymns in say, the Methodist or Episcopalien or Catholic churches. Nor did it have the charisma of gospel or the pentecostal churches. We left early.

who knew this song was so good