Great words Dan!
> On Apr 27, 2017, at 5:29 PM, Dan Glover <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I'm thinking how in 1974 I found this book with a funny title clinging > to one of those metal racks they used to store books on. You know. The > kind that you could spin around to see all of the titles available. Do > they still have them? Maybe they do. I hope so. I haven't been in a > bookstore for like the next thing to forever what with Amazon and all. > If I remember right I found the book in a grocery store by the > checkout aisle. A store that closed a long long time ago. That was > back before they had Walmarts and box stores on every corner and you'd > go down to the local neighborhood grocery and buy your milk and bread > and sometimes a book or two if you had enough money. I think it cost a > buck ninety five but can't remember for sure. Thereabouts, anyhow. It > was by an author I'd never heard of before and yeah I thought I could > well be wasting my money but the book called to me. > > > I spent the next week maybe two reading the book mostly while sitting > at a picnic table that sorely needed paint down at the park (under > majestic oak trees that would be uprooted the following year when an > F-5 tornado plowed through) over numerous bottles of cheap but > exceedingly potent wine and to say I was taken aback is a bit of a > misnomer. I'd up till that time read lots of books by many different > writers but absolutely none like that. The author seemed to be saying > something important but I couldn't quite say exactly what. Hell. I'd > never been to college. Never even finished high school. I had no way > of relating to what the author was going on about what with Aristotle > and Chautauquas and dripping faucets and yet I understood on some > visceral level that hey maybe there might just be more to life than > hanging out in bars and partying until the moon said goodnight and > consorting with others of low repute like me. > > > I'd like to say the book completely changed my life. How I mended my > wayward ways, quit drinking and partying, went back to school, and > made something of myself. Only I didn't. It didn't. The book. Someone > saw it sitting on my shelf one day and asked to borrow it and I said > here knowing I'd never get it back and how they wouldn't read it > because they thought it was about motorcycle maintenance and I knew it > wasn't. Instead, the years drifted by each one moving a little faster > than the last like maybe I was falling head first into an unseen black > hole and me getting stretched out a little more with every passing > moment and then one day I noticed whenever I started into reading the > obituaries, a morbid habit I do not recommend, about my old friends > one by one and how they ended their lives in pretty much the same > ignominious fashion. The obits always read how they lived their life > on their own terms and how they died doing what they loved. I wondered > if they really loved drowning in their own vomit all that much. I sort > of doubted it but hey. Who knows. > > > Then I wake up one morning with some biker-looking chick I never saw > before lying in bed beside me and I'm fairly sure if I lift the covers > and look she'll be naked because yep I am and there're empty gin and > whiskey and beer bottles strewn about the house interspersed with > cheap but potent and exceedingly empty wine bottles and me hung over > like a mofo as usual, head pounding stomach queasy eyes like > sandpaper, and it is 1995 and I'm forty-something instead of > twenty-something and when I stumble to the bathroom to puke and happen > to glance into the mirror to make sure I don't have any on me my beard > is no longer a crisp black but rapidly turning white and the same with > my hair. Just like that. It was like I blinked. And the people I used > to know are gone and I'm still living the same lame life only all the > people hanging in the bars are like my kids' age and I just don't fit > in any longer. So then the internet is just beginning to happen. Since > there isn't much else to do I get a provider and play around with the > web some but nothing really appeals all that much. Until a couple > years later when someone I meet in a chatroom suggests how I might > like the Lila Squad. > > > What is the Lila Squad? I asked. Just check it out, he said. Well, > okay. So I did. And lo. They're discussing a book called Lila written > by the same author I read way back in 1974. I didn't realize he'd > written a second novel. So I bought it. Mass-market paperback. One of > my first purchases on Amazon but not the last. O.M.G. I was hooked all > over again. Only those folks in the Lila Squad, well, they were like, > smart. Not anything like me. All I knew how to do was talk smack. But > that didn't stop me. I finished reading Lila and jumped into the fray. > Some of the Lila Squad members were downright mean to me. You could > even say rude. Not that I could blame them what with them being all > college-educated and intelligent and doubtlessly used to going around > looking and smelling and speaking lots better than I did. Most of the > members ignored me. Again. Not that I could blame them. I mean, > really. But a few were actually nice to me. Like they might even think > I had something to say, though I pretty much figured they were simply > placating me. Still. It was something to hang my battered hat upon. > > > So if I remember right, things started getting better after that. Oh, > not all at once. There were still the blackouts and mornings when I'd > wake and whenever I looked my car wouldn't be in the driveway and I'd > have no idea how I got home and my wallet would be empty and these > strange babes would be lying in bed next to me but those mornings > seemed to draw out with more days between them than before. And then a > miracle happened. Honestly. It's the only way I can describe it. > Bodvar Skutvik wrote to say how Robert Pirsig had discovered the book > that Bo insisted I put together which I named Lila's Child and how he > was making notes on it. I was pretty sure Bo was having me on. Only he > swore how he wasn't. All of a sudden, a realization came over me. How > I might be able to put together a real book. Me. A low-life no count > loser. So I asked Bo if he'd ask Robert Pirsig if he might want to > share those notes. You know. With me. And Bo said oh no. No way, dude. > Ain't gonna happen. Absolutely not. But next thing I know. Bo is > writing me saying how okay whenever you finish redoing the Lila's > Child manuscript (which I realized sadly needed doing) to send a copy > to Robert Pirsig and he'd take a look. > > > All of a sudden, I had a purpose. Thank you, Robert Pirsig. > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 8:19 AM, Horse <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> Hi All >> >> >> Many of you will have heard by now that Robert Pirsig passed away on Monday >> 24th April 2017. >> My apologies for not posting sooner. >> If you wish to leave any thoughts about Mr Pirsig then please feel free to >> post here. >> >> >> My own thoughts are that I am proud to have helped, even in a small way, to >> get Pirsig's message out to the world. >> I know that he used to read our discussions on these lists and was pleased >> that there were so many people involved over the years. >> Robert Pirsig made a difference to our world and made it a better world with >> his work and his presence. >> I will miss him greatly. >> >> >> Horse >> >> >> -- >> >> >> >> >> >> "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments >> that take our breath away." >> — Bob Moorehead >> >> >> Moq_Discuss mailing list >> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. >> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org >> Archives: >> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ >> http://moq.org/md/archives.html >> > > > > > > > > > > > -- > http://www.danglover.com > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
