So I put it down after getting halfway through and am giving it away. I don’t think there was one likeable character. It became exhausting and in a way a kind of incessant nattering monotone. I read this repeatedly in Amazon reviews; ‘All the characters were unlikeable’ and ‘I couldn’t relate to the major figures in this book’.

And so after all this, finally, I realize that it is the present fashion. It’s not that the writer has no ability (I think) to construct interesting people-on-the-page, it is that unlikeable characters are presently stylish.

This book takes place in a place called New Carthage, Missouri so women are either Steel Magnolias chewing gum or swoshy clods with Keds and multiple chins. But then the people in New York are all awful as well.  This gets monotonous, as in monotone, as in one single note played over and over, a Guantanamo torture.

So these are the present rules for stylish contemporary literary novels in case you are thinking of writing one, which I would sternly discourage unless you have the capacity to sustain a mean-spirited irony for about 300 pages:

—construct shallow, haughty main characters.

—-have them make stupid, nay, witless ‘choices’

—lots of random sex graphically described; afterwards participants more or less forget about each other and might even at some point say, Now what was your name again? Are we married?

—make some off-hand reference to the evilness of George Bush

And there you about have it.

A good thriller, takes place on the Texas Gulf coast, which ain’t all that fancy a place, the authors are actually three guys who’ve known each other for years, one is a lawyer, another an engineer and I forgot the third. Have been at a couple of author’s festivals with them and they are a comedy team. Very funny. the book is great, they have a website.

I was never really able to get a handle on my character Adair in Enemy Women until I found the right image for her. Then she just jumped out at me and was herself. It’s not really a photo from the Civil War era, I found it in a book about women’s clothing, styles, fashions during the 19th century. The woman and era were unidentified but my best guess is that she is from a Mediterranean or Greek ethnic group and the photo is of a quality that would put it in the late 19th century. But it would serve; for Adair, from the Ozarks, 1861. it fired my imagination and I had my character. There you are, where have you been?

German troops surrendering, D Day.

There are so many pictures of the wounded on the landing at Normandy, and I think this is because the photographers were not in the middle of the action, up forward. Mostly they were back with the wounded at the aid stations although some were in the first wave.

It is nearly impossible to protect yourself or be aware of enemy fire when you are looking through a lens and taking a picture. To go into action with your face up against a camera sight is suicidal. Although some have done it. I have been in fast-moving situations taking photos and you forget where your feet are, or anything else except that small field in your lens and so this is very dangerous to the photographer.

So this is one of the rarely-seen photos. instead of the wounded, here are the Nazi troops surrendering, which is, after all, what the soldiers were there for.

Shortly after this my dad was drafted into the Navy and spent a year on a destroyer escort, The USS Finnegan, in the Pacific. He was at Iwo Jima and the battle of Letey Gulf.

Blue Creek Canyon in Big Bend National Park. April Baxter was taking the picture so she wasn’t in it but that gray horse is her pretty little Andalusian mare named Indira. This was back in March.

A most amazing photo by Hattie Barham of Utopia. The Ranch Rodeo was on Memorial Day and on that day the big eight-inch rainfall happened. I could see the lights of the arena from my ridgetop home here and I thought surely it would be cancelled but it was not. Hattie is one of the best — she and her husband are living here (where they’re from) but Hattie has shot for AP, Agence-France Press and all the top venues. so much talent here in this little town. Terrific photo! See them all at Hattie’s site, LoneStarPhotos.com

Love these old sci-fi illustrations!

Some story lines and concerns in the ‘Fifties as now; catastrophic climate change and zippy personal vehicles. I too am writing about ‘after the rain’ or at least ‘during the rain’.

Very very dry here — it just seems this one little pocket, west of meridian 100. This is a longhorn belonging to a Utopia resident named Rusty Reddens.

A link to Caroline Woodward’s new blog about life on the lights— i.e. the life and times of lighthouse keepers Caroline and her husband Jeff, writer and photographers, check it out!

http://bcbooklook.com/2014/02/24/lighthouse-lit/#more-22276

Buck and I on the Rio Grande. It is such a beautiful mountain river here at this altitude. The dark shadowed mountains on the right are in Mexico. Picture taken by april Baxter, a truly accomplished horsewoman and wonderful person to be around. A brave rider. We were at the old movie set where they filmed ‘Streets Of Laredo’ with phony church and fake cantina and spectacular red cliffs. We had come down the Contrabando Trail in the state park.