Year in Review: 2023
“How now, madam?
Still lamenting and mourning for Suffolk’s death?
I fear me, love, if that I had been dead,
Thou wouldst not have mourn’d so much for me.”
King in Shakespeare’s 2 Henry 6 (IV.iv.20-4)
Hemingway & Myths
There are two myths, and I’m dredging memories for this, a Mercury in Retrograde kind of memory, about how the man worked.
I’ve heard two stories, not really done a deep dive because this is from an era in my life when I believed everything the teacher, the professor, said. Then, too, this is a memory shaded with years of my own labor.
The story was, Hemingway kept two sets of text in single journal as he wrote, by hand, his heavily anthologized and frequently taught The Old Man and the Sea. One side of the open notebook was the story itself, and the other side was an open letter to his editor, so for every page of story, there was back story, emendations, suggestions, and notes about what he had for lunch.
The second memory was sitting in a guy’s home office, someplace, a desk piled high with papers, clogged with similar appointments, he was looking over me, “You’ll like this,” he said, pointing at a typewriter, “it’s a Hermes Portable, just like Hemingway used.”
Both stories are presented as myth, recollections, not verified data points, although the typewriter, think I’ve heard that elsewhere as well.
To do that as a “Year in Review: 2023” piece? The ongoing horoscopes, thats’s the one side, and it’s not done with a typewriter, but word processor that exports directly to the web, and the notes? From the opposing page? That’s the weblog.
Political Points
A really old entry, originally from my now defunct, Bexar County Line, Perot, ’92. I remember voting for Perot, not because he would win, but because it was a way to gesture my displeasure with the current system.
If nothing changes, probably not how I’m going to vote in the coming year, but I do vote. What amazes me, is the way a certain portion of the population seems immune to the reality that the leading candidate is now a criminal, not like a slur, but proven in court, twice thus far.
Technical Issues
Weblogs became blogs, the ugliest portmanteau, I think, and mine has been around for two dozen years, in various forms and formats. Along with that, a little over two decades back, I discovered the need for a blog-motor to run the horoscope delivery.
My current goal is a way to reduce overhead, both computational and ease of use, for myself, and have an eye on long-term sustainability.
I keep playing with it, and I have arrived at no firm leaning, either way, as KramerWetzel.com is on a permanent hosting arrangement, but it has limited space. Good for deep archives, bio, and pointers.
Love and Loss
It was another year tinged with sadness. There were two losses, late in the year, and a harbinger of the future, as there was a single kind of of cloud that hung over, heavy on the heart. Two family funerals, two months apart, and one that bore an uncanny resemblance to previous family adventures. Not always fun. Not unexpected, but not properly anticipated.
The funerals, memorial services, those are for the living so we can move forward despite loss.
Came up in conversation, it was the Willie Nelson comment to Jimmy Buffett, about, “Retiring from what? Playing music?”
Grammar
i.e. versus e.g., when, which, and what?
i.e. is “id est,” that is, “here let me show you what I mean,” restating the the same data set in different words.
e.g. is “exempli gratia,” more commonly, “for example.”
Grammar notes are now concluded.
No, wait, one more, “QED” is short for the Latin expression, quod erat demonstrandum. English translation? “Right, so there you go you bastard.”
Past Events
More than 30 years ago, I started doing readings, first out of an apartment, then in Austin, and eventually, on the road as an itinerant astrologer. In the last year, I noticed that the events are getting more and more limited. No West Texas shuffle, no events out of the (dreaded) I-35 corridor, just Austin and San Antonio, seems like. Travelled further but less for work. Looking it over, it was either Nature’s Treasures in Austin, now passing a decade in service, at that place, or it was Eagles Nest in San Antonio, the monthly shows, and an occasional foray into Austin, or at the shop in San Antonio.
In more than three decades of shows, on the road, and so forth? That Eagles Nest promoter is far better than any other I’ve worked with. For. Whatever. Best.
One reason, I think, in a speculative, retrospective moment?
Her business was built from the ground up as a metaphysical community, as a business, and with different spokes, all serving a central hub of sorts. But the more I thought, protracted analysis, like looking back at the last year? I think the term long term, “purpose-built, from the ground up,” covers the material.
Year in Review: 2023
The annual pointers:
- KramerWetzel.com
- astrofish.net 2023 year ahead
- Last year, year in review
- Librarian
- Past event listing.
