Different Slants

© December 29, 2012

 

Being 62, to me a toggle switch or a cell phone represent the length and breadth of my technological expertise.  Younger people who make fun of that limitation would also probably ridicule a dog because it couldn’t fly.  Must the dog defend itself?  How?

On the other hand, what I lack in contemporary understanding of I-Phones, texting or chat rooms, I make up for with dogged persistence. There’s that dog again.

My beautiful wife Joyce and I respond to perplexing quandaries differently. She views an evidently unsolvable situation as a specific punishment from God aimed at her, and therefore she must accept that ruling.

I, however, even though being one of the Chosen People, don’t actually have a hotline to Heaven, and I see big problems as resolvable with a combination of steady patience and reducing the tangled mass of the problem into little digestible pieces.  Here is a vivid example of such an incident.

Chanukah came in November this year, 2012, and though chronically short of funds, I was able to scrape together enough dollars to buy a 42” flat screen TV on sale at a very cheap price after months of hunting for just that.  It was made by a very obscure electronics company, probably imported from Mongolia.  My theory was that since I could only afford one gift, why not buy something that was the right size and color for all three of us?  The third person is my delightful daughter Sarah, now sixteen. She would have rather had a car…any car…but that wasn’t in the cards for her this year.

So, our little electronic assembly now consisted of a strange-looking, vertical, silver colored device we received from AT&T’s U-Verse division in order to make our TV work and an ancient DVD/video player because we have 100 cassettes of all the Disney classics, they work just fine and our grandchildren are transfixed by those movies, plus that big, wide, skinny new TV. So, fine.

Joyce, being far better able than I am at following complicated instructions—she can use a sewing machine and program the TV clicker—read the little booklet provided so she could correctly attach the two cables provided to both the TV and the old movie player.  The cables were the standard gold-tipped type with a long copper wire sheathed in black rubber and both ends had a single pin that connected most devices made long ago and still today. Everything worked.  I knew they all would because Joy can even program our microwave, so what the hell, right?  No surprises there.

Except for one.

(Read on …)

Robert M. Katzman’s Amazing Story:  http://www.differentslants.com/?p=355

(Reprinted from the original publishing of this story, December 8, 2008, just before Christmas Eve 2012.  I hope it warms your hearts like warm brandy, just like it did mine when this frankly incredible story actually happened, four years ago.

Yes, there are good people out there, and you never know when you will meet them, even on the darkest of days.  If anyone wants to post a comment, there ‘s a space to do that after the end of my tale.  I hope you do want to say something. Maybe you will tell someone else about it if they too need cheering up.  Right now, I believe a lot of people need cheering up.

So, Merry Christmas.  Here’s my little story, set during a fierce blizzard in Chicago, four years ago. Every word you read happened, as in all my stories.)

Charlie Newman, a Jersey guy, will get all this immediately.  For him, I know I don’t have to spell it out.

But for all you other guys, well, it went down like this…

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Once a week, I go to this little place, a small cafe on the northwest side of Chicago–not the glamorous part–and join a rotating group of guys, and girls, to read my poetry and short stories at an “open mike” kind of place.  This venue, cleverly named: The Cafe, is so intimate that there actually isn’t any microphone.

People are quiet and respectful of the spoken word, and so no amplification is necessary.  It is a civilized two hours in our assorted lives, and the outside world doesn’t intrude in out efforts to communicate whatever is in our hearts or loins or whatever.  By around ten o’ clock, when we are done and go on our separate ways, there are hundreds of words scattered around the floor of the tiny stage, and Baki, the silent owner, sweeps them up.

Every week, one person is the “Feature” of the evening.  This means, instead of someone reading a few short pieces in seven minutes or so, one person has about twenty-five minutes to read a longer more complete work.  Some people have their poetry published by different small presses and they sell a few copies.

There are usually about a dozen people who show up to take part in this moment of culture, gradually, by the 8:30 PM starting time, sometimes a half a dozen more.  The place is so dimly lit, that if after a couple of beers, an affectionate couple decided to neck in a corner, near the bar, no one would notice.  Or if they did, well…that’s a kind of poetry, too.

Week after week, this gathering of diverse individuals occurs and the number of participants is always about the same, even though I believe I’ve seen perhaps fifty or sixty different faces that drop by on a particular night, over the time I’ve been coming to The Cafe. It’s kind of mysterious that the number stays the same, but things don’t have to make sense every single time you get involved with something.

Charlie Newman is the Master of Festivities and also reads his own stuff, but at a speed so fast, no one can be sure exactly what it was he was expressing.  Maybe he’s suggesting how fast life flies by and we better not miss it, but I’m just guessing that part.  Charlie does his bit, and then introduces the first poet, and after that, by some Byzantine method only known to him, decides who follows that person on stage.

(Read on …)

My name is Robert M. Katzman and I am a Chicago writer. Like everyone, I too was horrified by Friday’s school killings and that gave birth to a possible solution to the terror.  Not idealistic, but with practical multiple benefits.  Nothing means more to me than protecting our children from terror.  This is it:

Create a domestic service to protect every elementary, middle and high school. Call it the National School Guardian Force, NSGF, or whatever name people agree on.  That’s not important.  Hire only unemployed, honorably discharged, physically-fit veterans between 20-40 years old to cover two different entrances to all schools. Pay them a decent wage or salary. This will solve several problems all at once.

It will add a very good primary layer of protection to all schools. It will remove a very large number of vets from unemployment. They are already covered by veteran’s benefits medically and educationally. They already know how to handle weapons and hand-to-hand combat, or many of them will. But they aren’t paying any taxes if they are out of work.

(Read on …)

© October 6, 2012

A catch in my throat

When I try to speak truth

Words splatter on the page

People still demand proof

When did it happen?

What, where and why?

Can’t I let go

And just let it die?

(Read on …)