FWIS3
In memory of our guiding lights - Russ, Mike and Charlie - “To be a star, you must shine your own light, follow your own path, and don't worry about the darkness, for that is when the stars shine brightest”
michael
Re: michael
by brite » Thu Oct 24, 2013 4:14 pm
I will try and make them available this weekend... Umm... next weekend... the new 8 week session just started and the settle in period is a bitch... loose one class, gain 2... LOL
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brite - Wild Pixie in Action
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Re: michael
by pumpkinpi » Thu Oct 24, 2013 5:39 pm
brite wrote:I will try and make them available this weekend... Umm... next weekend... the new 8 week session just started and the settle in period is a bitch... loose one class, gain 2... LOL
Speaking certainly for myself and assumingly for many here....don't worry about us, get to it when the time is right for you. Just knowing the posts are still in existence and someday again we can read them is comforting.
Too bad ignorance isn't painful.
"Standing at the forefront of human ignorance." Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe
"Standing at the forefront of human ignorance." Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe
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Re: michael
by grapes » Sat Dec 21, 2013 1:46 am
More than a year? Absurd--
It was a minute ago I heard
Rousing rough round rhetoric
Barking at the bedeviled
Catching the unwary in a bind
Of their own devices, lost
And puzzled, perplexed they were,
Amazed to be confuzzled,
And somehow aware that their path
Back was littered with laughter
At their predicament. How can you
Stay quiet now, how can you possibly?
It was a minute ago I heard
Rousing rough round rhetoric
Barking at the bedeviled
Catching the unwary in a bind
Of their own devices, lost
And puzzled, perplexed they were,
Amazed to be confuzzled,
And somehow aware that their path
Back was littered with laughter
At their predicament. How can you
Stay quiet now, how can you possibly?
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grapes - Resident News Hound
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Re: michael
by code monkey » Sun Jan 12, 2014 6:43 pm
thank you, grapes. you've made me cry but thank you.
i keep asking that same question. and thinking about how he'd react to various news stories. what i'd give to see his reaction to the chris christie latest. what i'd give to see him.
i keep asking that same question. and thinking about how he'd react to various news stories. what i'd give to see his reaction to the chris christie latest. what i'd give to see him.
and still i persist in wondering whether folly must always be our nemesis. edgar pangborn
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
-
code monkey - Posts: 1798
- Joined: Wed May 29, 2013 7:41 am
Re: michael
by grapes » Tue Jan 21, 2014 2:32 pm
Yes, yes, that is what I meant.
I just got a copy of last December's Analog, it was off the local shelves when I was looking for it last winter.
I just got a copy of last December's Analog, it was off the local shelves when I was looking for it last winter.
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Re: michael
by code monkey » Thu Mar 06, 2014 7:07 am
i came across this essay recently when i was sorting through some papers. it was published in notre dame magazine several years ago; his second or third sale.
damn, he could write.
And the King Said
Mike Alexander
There is a ritual to it, a proper way of doing things. Done wrong , and you will not find your way. Done right, and you may be richly rewarded.
A tripod is set out in the early evening. The telescope is carried out and attached to it, 60 pounds of glass and metal carefully maneuvered over the setscrew s Earth’s shadow passes overhead and the first mothlike stars come glimmering out. I flip a switch, and the device hums to life. An electronic plumb bob in its base responds to the pull of gravity, making it level. A built-in compass senses invisible lines of force, and it turns to magnetic north. A GPS receiver listens to the call of satellites far overhead, and the telescope swings slightly left to true north, aligned with Polaris peeking over the fir trees, northern jewel on the world’s axle. Only then does it ask for help, and just for the fine tuning.
Pick a star, ay star, the computer seems to say. I pick Arcturus which I then center in the eyepiece and press a button. Give me one more it says, and I swing over to Spica (or maybe Aldebaran or Dhube or Capella, whichever is properly placed on this particular night) and the centering is repeated. A brief internal calculation, and the machine now knows where and when it is.
In Lord Dunsany’s play The Laughter of the G-ds, King Karnos said: A man is a small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders. I can now ask it to show me wonders.
There is room for more than one hundred thousand full moons in the sky. The night is, indeed, very large. I enter the name of the planetary nebula in the
constellation Lyra into the computer, and the instrument slews around, motors whirring, turning its shallow cup of silvered glass up to catch a bit of the musings of the universe. It slows, then stops, pointing ear the zenith.
The Queen said: Men laugh at the gods, they often laugh at the G-ds. I am more sure that the gods laugh too.
Looking into the eyepiece, I see a few bright pinpoints on a sable field. And there, just below the center, is a faint smoke ring blown on the stars.
Even if you know it should be there ir is so unexpected, so insanely strange, that the eye looks away and back, as if to give the gods a moment to reconsider this odd thing flung there like some cosmic raspberry at little Man. The moon, that is breathtaking, but its mountains and valleys and plains, even in gaunt airlessness, are not unfamiliar. A smoke ring blown on the stars, that is something that takes time getting used to.
Arolind said: I do not trust a prophet. He s the go-between of gods and men.
Why do it? stealing hours better spent asleep than plucking the silver apples of the moon or staring at almost nothing somewhere out on the marches of forever? The sky is heedless if I look or not.
Part of it is the ritual itself, the satisfaction gained from the consequences of correct procedure. In this it is no different than a mechanic listening to the purr of a well-tuned engine or an artist stepping back from a freshly finished painting or a priest turning from an altar. I have done something well, and I can appreciate the results without having to take anyone else’s word for it. I have looked at the Ring Nebula, the swarming beehive of the great globular cluster in Hercules, the stark ramparts of Tycho with my own eyes. I have looked through the glass at wonders, and I believe.
Arolind said: She makes me have huge fears of prodigious things.
The sheer depth and breadth of creation gives a re-innoculation of proper humility. Not the “aw shucks, ‘twarn’t nothin’” kind that draws as much attention as it deflects. Proper humility is nothing more than a sense of perspective. Looking at a globe of glowing gas of a size and at a distance that puts even the numbers of the national debt in their place lets one relax and not sweat the small stuff for a while. Infinity divided by any bounded value is still infinity, and there is room for an existential shiver in the dark between the stars.
King Karnos said: I am told that sometimes a man will play all night.
Observing requires a certain patience, the ability to remain alert while at the same time achieving a paradoxical relaxation where the mind is cleared of the everyday and focused on the object at hand. It is an old astronomical truism, yet completely true, that the more you look, the more you will see. A quick glance at Jupiter will show an oblate sphere with parallel bands, but watching for an hour or two may allow a few seconds here and there when the seeing
suddenly snaps into greater focus and swirls and festoons appear on the surface of the clouds. In this it is a very human activity, plugging ahead while waiting for those moments of ultimate clarity.
King Karnos said: Ah. I am glad you love it.
There is the delight in sharing discovery, calling others to see what you have found. (Come see Saturn! See rings around a world! See Albiero! A double star regal in sapphire and topaz! See Orion! Look at the Great Nebula swirling on his sword! Come see wonders!) there is the sharing of history, too, of lore from millenia past. Up there, King Cepheus and his queen, Cassiopeia; Perseus and Pegasus; Draco and the great ship Argo Navis; Cygnus the Swan, flying down the great sky river of the Milky way toward Sagittarius the Archer; the Great Bear and the Hunting Dogs; Berenice’s Hair. Old names, magic names. These are reasons enough to do it.
Ichtharion said: Man’s fear rises weird and large in all this mystery and makes a shadow of himself upon the ground and Mand jumps and says “the gods.” Why they are less than shadows, we have seen shadows, we have not seen the gods.
Sitting in the dark with a forest at my back the night is palpable around me. The lights of the town five miles distnt do not so much illuminate as etch the dark in sharper relief. Down the valley I can hear the occasional ululation of a herd of coyotes. Mountain lions are not completely unknown in these parts.
As a child of the suburbs I grew up in the light and was afraid of the dark. Some of that remains and find myselt at first staying close to the telescope, like a hunter’s fire, for protection. I jump at the sound of a falling pinecone rattling down the roof of the shed, freeze at eyes glowing beyond it. cougar? Housecat. The longer I stay the more my eyes adapt and after an hour I can move around without any trouble. The more you look the more you will see. The dark becomes an ally, and you curse the rare car that passes or the neighbor who turns on a distant porch light. How dare you!
Ludibras said: they are like no tangible thing in all the world. They are like faint beautiful songs of an unseen singer.
On a moonless night at the right time of the year, the core of the great galaxy in Andromeda can barely be seen with the naked eye as a small, faint, fuzzy patch, an illumination in the window of heaven two million years old. The telescope is a time machine, everywhere we look we look into the past, constrained by the finite velocity of light. (But not the light itself: Traveling at the speed limit of the universe, a photon experiences no duration of time at all. In its own frame of reference the moment of its creation is also the moment of its destruction. It is not obvious that, to itself, a particle of light even exists. That is a wonder, too.) Andromeda is actually several times the width of the full moon, but distance dims it so that only the supernal core is visible to the unglassed eye, looking as it was before men wore clothes. Before men.
From my vantage I see only half the sky, with the other wonders waiting in its hidden hemisphere. To the south lie the Magellanic Clouds, the Tarantula Nebula, the giant star Eta Carinae. Below the horizon is Alpha Centauri, Far Centaurus, also called Rigel Kent, our nearest neighbor after the sun. (Rigel, Arabic, Rijl, lit. foot) a name meaning the Foot of the Centaur, a bit more than a hundred trillion miles away. How easily the trillions roll of the tongue as we pad our limited imaginations with zeroes! (How far away is it, Daddy? About a billion jillion skillion miles, dear. Is that further than New York?)
Voice-of the Gods said: the sun is falling low. I will leave you now, for I have ever loved the sun at evening. I go to watch it drop through the gilded clouds, and make a wonder of familiar things.
This evening, if it is clear, if the seeing is good, I will repeat the ritual. Overhead, as the light seeps away, the Summer Triangle shimmers: Vega, Deneb, Altair. Old names, magic names. The Northern Cross points to the southern horizon, the Swan flying endlessly down the river of stars toward the heart of the galaxy. Around the bulge of the world. Far Centaurus burns in the night, waiting for me, someday, with the patience earned of five billion years.
I wish you wonders.
damn, he could write.
And the King Said
Mike Alexander
There is a ritual to it, a proper way of doing things. Done wrong , and you will not find your way. Done right, and you may be richly rewarded.
A tripod is set out in the early evening. The telescope is carried out and attached to it, 60 pounds of glass and metal carefully maneuvered over the setscrew s Earth’s shadow passes overhead and the first mothlike stars come glimmering out. I flip a switch, and the device hums to life. An electronic plumb bob in its base responds to the pull of gravity, making it level. A built-in compass senses invisible lines of force, and it turns to magnetic north. A GPS receiver listens to the call of satellites far overhead, and the telescope swings slightly left to true north, aligned with Polaris peeking over the fir trees, northern jewel on the world’s axle. Only then does it ask for help, and just for the fine tuning.
Pick a star, ay star, the computer seems to say. I pick Arcturus which I then center in the eyepiece and press a button. Give me one more it says, and I swing over to Spica (or maybe Aldebaran or Dhube or Capella, whichever is properly placed on this particular night) and the centering is repeated. A brief internal calculation, and the machine now knows where and when it is.
In Lord Dunsany’s play The Laughter of the G-ds, King Karnos said: A man is a small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders. I can now ask it to show me wonders.
There is room for more than one hundred thousand full moons in the sky. The night is, indeed, very large. I enter the name of the planetary nebula in the
constellation Lyra into the computer, and the instrument slews around, motors whirring, turning its shallow cup of silvered glass up to catch a bit of the musings of the universe. It slows, then stops, pointing ear the zenith.
The Queen said: Men laugh at the gods, they often laugh at the G-ds. I am more sure that the gods laugh too.
Looking into the eyepiece, I see a few bright pinpoints on a sable field. And there, just below the center, is a faint smoke ring blown on the stars.
Even if you know it should be there ir is so unexpected, so insanely strange, that the eye looks away and back, as if to give the gods a moment to reconsider this odd thing flung there like some cosmic raspberry at little Man. The moon, that is breathtaking, but its mountains and valleys and plains, even in gaunt airlessness, are not unfamiliar. A smoke ring blown on the stars, that is something that takes time getting used to.
Arolind said: I do not trust a prophet. He s the go-between of gods and men.
Why do it? stealing hours better spent asleep than plucking the silver apples of the moon or staring at almost nothing somewhere out on the marches of forever? The sky is heedless if I look or not.
Part of it is the ritual itself, the satisfaction gained from the consequences of correct procedure. In this it is no different than a mechanic listening to the purr of a well-tuned engine or an artist stepping back from a freshly finished painting or a priest turning from an altar. I have done something well, and I can appreciate the results without having to take anyone else’s word for it. I have looked at the Ring Nebula, the swarming beehive of the great globular cluster in Hercules, the stark ramparts of Tycho with my own eyes. I have looked through the glass at wonders, and I believe.
Arolind said: She makes me have huge fears of prodigious things.
The sheer depth and breadth of creation gives a re-innoculation of proper humility. Not the “aw shucks, ‘twarn’t nothin’” kind that draws as much attention as it deflects. Proper humility is nothing more than a sense of perspective. Looking at a globe of glowing gas of a size and at a distance that puts even the numbers of the national debt in their place lets one relax and not sweat the small stuff for a while. Infinity divided by any bounded value is still infinity, and there is room for an existential shiver in the dark between the stars.
King Karnos said: I am told that sometimes a man will play all night.
Observing requires a certain patience, the ability to remain alert while at the same time achieving a paradoxical relaxation where the mind is cleared of the everyday and focused on the object at hand. It is an old astronomical truism, yet completely true, that the more you look, the more you will see. A quick glance at Jupiter will show an oblate sphere with parallel bands, but watching for an hour or two may allow a few seconds here and there when the seeing
suddenly snaps into greater focus and swirls and festoons appear on the surface of the clouds. In this it is a very human activity, plugging ahead while waiting for those moments of ultimate clarity.
King Karnos said: Ah. I am glad you love it.
There is the delight in sharing discovery, calling others to see what you have found. (Come see Saturn! See rings around a world! See Albiero! A double star regal in sapphire and topaz! See Orion! Look at the Great Nebula swirling on his sword! Come see wonders!) there is the sharing of history, too, of lore from millenia past. Up there, King Cepheus and his queen, Cassiopeia; Perseus and Pegasus; Draco and the great ship Argo Navis; Cygnus the Swan, flying down the great sky river of the Milky way toward Sagittarius the Archer; the Great Bear and the Hunting Dogs; Berenice’s Hair. Old names, magic names. These are reasons enough to do it.
Ichtharion said: Man’s fear rises weird and large in all this mystery and makes a shadow of himself upon the ground and Mand jumps and says “the gods.” Why they are less than shadows, we have seen shadows, we have not seen the gods.
Sitting in the dark with a forest at my back the night is palpable around me. The lights of the town five miles distnt do not so much illuminate as etch the dark in sharper relief. Down the valley I can hear the occasional ululation of a herd of coyotes. Mountain lions are not completely unknown in these parts.
As a child of the suburbs I grew up in the light and was afraid of the dark. Some of that remains and find myselt at first staying close to the telescope, like a hunter’s fire, for protection. I jump at the sound of a falling pinecone rattling down the roof of the shed, freeze at eyes glowing beyond it. cougar? Housecat. The longer I stay the more my eyes adapt and after an hour I can move around without any trouble. The more you look the more you will see. The dark becomes an ally, and you curse the rare car that passes or the neighbor who turns on a distant porch light. How dare you!
Ludibras said: they are like no tangible thing in all the world. They are like faint beautiful songs of an unseen singer.
On a moonless night at the right time of the year, the core of the great galaxy in Andromeda can barely be seen with the naked eye as a small, faint, fuzzy patch, an illumination in the window of heaven two million years old. The telescope is a time machine, everywhere we look we look into the past, constrained by the finite velocity of light. (But not the light itself: Traveling at the speed limit of the universe, a photon experiences no duration of time at all. In its own frame of reference the moment of its creation is also the moment of its destruction. It is not obvious that, to itself, a particle of light even exists. That is a wonder, too.) Andromeda is actually several times the width of the full moon, but distance dims it so that only the supernal core is visible to the unglassed eye, looking as it was before men wore clothes. Before men.
From my vantage I see only half the sky, with the other wonders waiting in its hidden hemisphere. To the south lie the Magellanic Clouds, the Tarantula Nebula, the giant star Eta Carinae. Below the horizon is Alpha Centauri, Far Centaurus, also called Rigel Kent, our nearest neighbor after the sun. (Rigel, Arabic, Rijl, lit. foot) a name meaning the Foot of the Centaur, a bit more than a hundred trillion miles away. How easily the trillions roll of the tongue as we pad our limited imaginations with zeroes! (How far away is it, Daddy? About a billion jillion skillion miles, dear. Is that further than New York?)
Voice-of the Gods said: the sun is falling low. I will leave you now, for I have ever loved the sun at evening. I go to watch it drop through the gilded clouds, and make a wonder of familiar things.
This evening, if it is clear, if the seeing is good, I will repeat the ritual. Overhead, as the light seeps away, the Summer Triangle shimmers: Vega, Deneb, Altair. Old names, magic names. The Northern Cross points to the southern horizon, the Swan flying endlessly down the river of stars toward the heart of the galaxy. Around the bulge of the world. Far Centaurus burns in the night, waiting for me, someday, with the patience earned of five billion years.
I wish you wonders.
and still i persist in wondering whether folly must always be our nemesis. edgar pangborn
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
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code monkey - Posts: 1798
- Joined: Wed May 29, 2013 7:41 am
Re: michael
by geonuc » Thu Mar 06, 2014 10:22 am
No time to read it properly now, but will have later tonight. Thanks for posting it, though.
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Re: michael
by grapes » Thu Mar 06, 2014 4:35 pm
Here is a link to the polished copy, at nd.edu:
http://magazine.nd.edu/news/9958/
Looks like there are other ones there, one on obituaries, and a reflection on his own finitude:
http://magazine.nd.edu/news/10477/
And one on fire:
http://magazine.nd.edu/news/1156/
Good reading.
http://magazine.nd.edu/news/9958/
Looks like there are other ones there, one on obituaries, and a reflection on his own finitude:
http://magazine.nd.edu/news/10477/
And one on fire:
http://magazine.nd.edu/news/1156/
Good reading.
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grapes - Resident News Hound
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Re: michael
by FZR1KG » Thu Mar 06, 2014 9:10 pm
Mike had a way of describing even the simplest mundane things and gave them life.
I remember when he first got his observation dome and how excited he was about it.
We even got the pictures on FWIS.
That second link you gave grapes, that just gave me chills.
I remember when he first got his observation dome and how excited he was about it.
We even got the pictures on FWIS.
That second link you gave grapes, that just gave me chills.
- FZR1KG
Re: michael
by grapes » Thu Mar 06, 2014 10:28 pm
Yeah, I almost left it off...but hey, Mike wrote it
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Re: michael
by code monkey » Fri Mar 07, 2014 5:07 am
the slice of life was his first sale. i had the check xeroxed and framed it. (the xerox was so good that when i gave it to him he said, 'thank you, dear but i really did want to cash it.') thank you for finding the essays, grapes.
and still i persist in wondering whether folly must always be our nemesis. edgar pangborn
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
-
code monkey - Posts: 1798
- Joined: Wed May 29, 2013 7:41 am
Re: michael
by grapes » Fri Mar 07, 2014 2:09 pm
My pleasure.
ETA: just a gentle reminder...
ETA: just a gentle reminder...
brite wrote:I will try and make them available this weekend... Umm... next weekend...
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grapes - Resident News Hound
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Re: michael
by brite » Fri Mar 07, 2014 3:26 pm
I'll try to figure it out this weekend... No promises.... Full school load and a four year old, and Fisher (he needs more looking after than the kid!), not to mention I'm making this shit up as I go along..... 
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brite - Wild Pixie in Action
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Re: michael
by code monkey » Tue Mar 25, 2014 3:46 pm
the clarion west scholarship page has a nice write-up for michael and elliot. it includes a list of michael's published stories and essays.
http://www.clarionwest.org/workshops/summer/scholarships/
http://www.clarionwest.org/workshops/summer/scholarships/
and still i persist in wondering whether folly must always be our nemesis. edgar pangborn
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
-
code monkey - Posts: 1798
- Joined: Wed May 29, 2013 7:41 am
Re: michael
by Swift » Tue Mar 25, 2014 7:23 pm
Shit... I went and read K.C. Ball's piece about Mike there and now I'm a work and the allergies are going strong...
Never, ever forget: we did this. This is what we can do.
In wilderness is the preservation of the world. - Henry David Thoreau
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead
In wilderness is the preservation of the world. - Henry David Thoreau
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead
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Re: michael
by Loresinger » Tue Mar 25, 2014 7:51 pm
thanks cm it will give me the chance to "know" him even remotely better. I am sorry I haven't had more time for enjoying some good literature.
Dance in your kitchen; play with your food
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Loresinger - Mistress of the Ink
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Re: michael
by Sigma_Orionis » Tue Mar 25, 2014 11:44 pm
Very nice of them Mr. Mono.
I wish I could have met Mike in person.
I wish I could have met Mike in person.
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
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Sigma_Orionis - Resident Oppressed Latino
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Re: michael
by code monkey » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:25 am
swift, i've read kc's essay several times and it never fails to reduce me to tears. she's an amazing writer and an amazing person. i wish that she had more recognition.
the clarion people did a nice job with the pages (although i'm not crazy about the picture of him that they used) and his classmates from the workshop said some lovely things. i'm so glad that i urged (ok, pushed. shoved.) him to apply.
thank you, sigma.
now, everyone go hug those close to you and tell them that you love them.
the clarion people did a nice job with the pages (although i'm not crazy about the picture of him that they used) and his classmates from the workshop said some lovely things. i'm so glad that i urged (ok, pushed. shoved.) him to apply.
thank you, sigma.
now, everyone go hug those close to you and tell them that you love them.
and still i persist in wondering whether folly must always be our nemesis. edgar pangborn
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
-
code monkey - Posts: 1798
- Joined: Wed May 29, 2013 7:41 am
Re: michael
by code monkey » Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:27 pm
yesterday was 3 years since michael and i drove to elliot's dorm to bring him home for thanksgiving break and learned that he was never going to come home. and that means that in 2.5 weeks it will be 2 years since michael died. years. remember when a year seemed impossibly long? even though there have been days that i thought would never end it doesn't seem possible that it could be so long that i've been without them. yet it is. i've come to hate this time of year.
i so miss them. i have flashes of memories at the oddest times. elliot as a newborn. elliot expressing rare admiration that i knew what the blood eagle was. elliot playing sir toby belch in the senior play. he was amazing. yes, scenery was chewed. elliot's talk at graduation. the last time i saw him, walking back to the dorm after a wonderful visit. i am so thankful that i said nothing critical to him.
i wish that i believed in an afterlife so that i could look forward to being reunited with them but i don't and i can't. i will continue to muddle through. i will keep putting 1 foot in front of the other because if one doesn't one falls over. i will remember the final scene of mother courage (and isn't it just typical that i draw inspiration from a character in a play meant to illustrate the futility of her actions?). i will continue to keep my promises because there really isn't anything else to do.
i so miss them. i have flashes of memories at the oddest times. elliot as a newborn. elliot expressing rare admiration that i knew what the blood eagle was. elliot playing sir toby belch in the senior play. he was amazing. yes, scenery was chewed. elliot's talk at graduation. the last time i saw him, walking back to the dorm after a wonderful visit. i am so thankful that i said nothing critical to him.
i wish that i believed in an afterlife so that i could look forward to being reunited with them but i don't and i can't. i will continue to muddle through. i will keep putting 1 foot in front of the other because if one doesn't one falls over. i will remember the final scene of mother courage (and isn't it just typical that i draw inspiration from a character in a play meant to illustrate the futility of her actions?). i will continue to keep my promises because there really isn't anything else to do.
and still i persist in wondering whether folly must always be our nemesis. edgar pangborn
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
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code monkey - Posts: 1798
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Re: michael
by pumpkinpi » Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:34 pm
I knew this was coming, because I've been seeing the "in memorium" stickers on the books of Eliot's that you shared with us. Leo can read now, so he asked what the sticker means. I told him that we got the books from a mom who doesn't have her son anymore.
Despite the tears coming from my eyes, I'm so happy to have you here and so happy when you share your loving memories with us.
Despite the tears coming from my eyes, I'm so happy to have you here and so happy when you share your loving memories with us.
Too bad ignorance isn't painful.
"Standing at the forefront of human ignorance." Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe
"Standing at the forefront of human ignorance." Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe
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pumpkinpi - Posts: 2054
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Re: michael
by code monkey » Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:48 pm
thank you, pumpkinpi. i never thought about the impact the bookplates would have on a child. i hope that leo was not upset; your explanation is so tactful and elegant.
there will be more books in the future. please let me know when he gets to the dinosaur phase.
a memory. elliot, approximately 5, asked me what my favorite dinosaur was. dimetrodon, i said. he looked at me very sternly and said that he'd asked what my favorite dinosaur was and dimetrodon wasn't a dinosaur!
there will be more books in the future. please let me know when he gets to the dinosaur phase.
a memory. elliot, approximately 5, asked me what my favorite dinosaur was. dimetrodon, i said. he looked at me very sternly and said that he'd asked what my favorite dinosaur was and dimetrodon wasn't a dinosaur!
and still i persist in wondering whether folly must always be our nemesis. edgar pangborn
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
come gentle night. come loving black browed night
give me my romeo. and when he shall die
take him and cut him out in little stars
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all will be in love with night
and pay no worship to the garish sun. william shakespeare
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code monkey - Posts: 1798
- Joined: Wed May 29, 2013 7:41 am
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Sigma_Orionis - Resident Oppressed Latino
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Re: michael
by Thumper » Thu Nov 20, 2014 12:22 pm
pumpkinpi wrote:I knew this was coming, because I've been seeing the "in memorium" stickers on the books of Eliot's that you shared with us. Leo can read now, so he asked what the sticker means. I told him that we got the books from a mom who doesn't have her son anymore.
Despite the tears coming from my eyes, I'm so happy to have you here and so happy when you share your loving memories with us.
Worth repeating ^
Look for the Helpers. You will always find people who are helping.
-Mr. Rogers' Mom
-Mr. Rogers' Mom
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Thumper - Ichi-Ban Tomodachi
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Re: michael
by Rommie » Thu Nov 20, 2014 1:46 pm
I was thinking of you yesterday, hoping that by sending some good thoughts your way it might make the day go better. I wish it were that easy to help someone else find peace.
*big hugs*
*big hugs*
Yes, I have a life. It's quite different from yours.
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Rommie - Posts: 4057
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Re: michael
by grapes » Thu Nov 20, 2014 3:26 pm
Mike was an inspiration and I only wish that I can be as strong in the face of adversity when my time comes. What more can anyone hope to leave behind?
I sometimes read FWIS 2.0, and marvel that I can.
grapes wrote:ETA: just a gentle reminder...brite wrote:I will try and make them available this weekend... Umm... next weekend...
I sometimes read FWIS 2.0, and marvel that I can.
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grapes - Resident News Hound
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