Readers and writers blog

O mighty Caesar. . .
Are all thy conquests,
Glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure?

–Shakespeare, ‘Julius Caesar,’ act 3, scene 1

In my case, the answer is yes, but I’m at a point in my life where even little victories are triumphs, and I am proud to report that this week has brought me three of them.

The principal one is a poem from a new contributor, Laura Elliott of Derby, England, who submitted a work called ‘This Is Your Rock Opera,’ a lyrical piece that brings to my mind images that Picasso or Salvador Dali might have painted. But that’s me. You decide for yourself.

The poem also has special meaning to us at R&W Blog — and perhaps to Laura as well — because it is the first work she has ever submitted for publication, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit we’re flattered to the bottom of our socks that she chose us.

She is a 2004 graduate in English and history who writes both poetry and fiction. Her contribution expands the scope of our Works section, which already includes nonfiction, fiction and poetry by writers from the East to the West Coast of the United States and several provinces in Canada, now to the seat of the empire, the United Kingdom.

That also is one of the reasons I led this blog entry with poetry emanating from that same place.

Well, in comparison, my other two victories this week are little indeed, and while I worry that they may seem too much like the personal trivia that I shun in daily-diary blogs, I offer them to show how the horizons of a life can creep closer as the years advance:

• I’ve caught up on my blogroll reading — again. Our blogroll has 39 active sites and five inactive sites, all of which are as diverse as I could make them and all of which I’ve tried to read as new entries are posted. Well, that worked for a while — before we started receiving more and more contributions to our Works section from other writers, which is, after all, the whole point of this weblog. But I also like to continue reading what a diversity of other bloggers are writing, and I certainly feel obligated to keep current with those we have listed on our blogroll.

My attempts to limit our blogroll to those I can keep up with have been only partly successful. Because I find myself reading other blogs as well. I’m going to have to do something about that.

I’m still not overworked, but I find myself spending more and more time at R&W Blog.

• I beat the heat. Literally. I’m no longer an outdoors person, but I still hate to be trapped indoors, which is what the heat wave early this week threatened to do. High temperatures in southern New York on Monday and Tuesday were a humid 97 and 98 degrees, respectively. We use air conditioning, if at all, only late at night, so the daytime temperature in our house on those days was about 85 degrees. So Monday, instead of doing my daily mile walk on the treadmill, I decided I’d go outside.

Big mistake. I got only six-tenths of a mile around the church parking lot across the street before the ozone made my lungs feel like they were being ripped apart. I finished the mile indoors on the treadmill. Thank goodness for that treadmill. If it hadn’t gotten me in shape to do an easy mile, I’d have sworn I was having a heart attack.

I was smarter on Tuesday. I walked a mile around the perimeter of our back yard. Grass is cooler than asphalt, and there’s a lot more shade. I figured if I keeled over, I could crawl to the porch and make it inside the house.

Enough personal minutiae. Today’s new offerings in Works:

• Laura Elliott’s poem, ‘This Is Your Rock Opera.’

• Chapter 18: Ocean Beach of Gerard Jones’ nonfiction novel Ginny Good. Their friend Elliot drops out of sight after his father commits suicide, and Gerard and Ginny, after separating during one of her post-holiday binges, get together in the spring of 1965 and make plans for an acid trip.

• Chapter Six of R.J. Keller’s novel Waiting for Spring. A visit to the hospital to see her sister-in-law’s newborn baby stirs painful memories in Tess Dyer about the failure of her own marriage. Her husband wanted children, but to Tess, she told him, “just the thought of being a mother makes me sick to my stomach.”

– Sid Leavitt

NOTE:

The image at top shows Marlon Brando as Mark Antony standing over the body of the murdered Caesar (Louis Calhern) in the 1953 movie “Julius Caesar.”