blue and red and green

blue and red and green

are more of a revelry

here than mere colors

comment devenir un influenceur de médias sociaux

"Vous obtenez ce que vous payez" est un adage plus ancien que les Pyramides d'Egypte ou Windows 8.1. Et les influenceurs des médias sociaux trouvent cela plus vrai que jamais, quand il s'agit d'acheter des abonnés. Le marché des abonnés payants n'a jamais été aussi chargé qu'aujourd'hui, quand tout le monde, des aspirants de la Maison-Blanche à Hollywood, se vante d'avoir des adeptes parmi des centaines de milliers sur Twitter et Facebook. Aujourd'hui, une célébrité sans médias sociaux qui suit un million de dollars est évitée comme un lépreux. En fait, il n'est plus nécessaire d'avoir un talent ou une capacité quelconque pour devenir un influenceur des médias sociaux - tout ce dont vous avez besoin est assez d'adeptes, et les entreprises vont battre votre porte pour vous parrainer leur produit. Alors, comment obtient-on assez de disciples? Je pensais que tu ne demanderais jamais: Soyez prêt à bien payer Évitez les organisations qui promettent des partisans gazillion pour quelques dollars par mois. Sinon, vous vous retrouvez avec des noms comme I.P. Freely et Otto Focus sur votre liste. Vous devriez être prêt à dépenser au moins vingt dollars par mois pour que votre liste inclue des noms comme George Washington et Mahatma Gandhi. Aime-moi, aime mes robots! Les robots sont aussi des gens, vous savez. Traitez donc ces innombrables robots infestant vos sites de médias sociaux avec amour et compassion en sacrifiant un coq noir pendant la pleine lune, en sauvant le sang pour Andrew Zimmern sur Travel Channel. Utilisez ces mots clés dans tous vos posts sur les réseaux sociaux: Kardashian. Atout. Bitcoin. Rutabaga. Nostradamus. Chou frisé. Unilever. Meghan Markle. et Deracinate. Vous aurez tellement de vrais adeptes que vous devrez les battre avec un bâton.

cast your net, spider

cast your net, spider;

you cannot catch the sunlight

nor trap my laughter

The Candy of My Youth

My mother kept a candy dish on the coffee table in the living room.
It was for adult company, not for children. Though I doubt she
kept exact count of how many pieces of All Sorts were in the
dish at any given moment, she did have an uncanny knack of
knowing just when my stealthy hand had been picking through
the mix for a yellow coconut piece.

“Have you been at the candy again?” she would sternly inquire.

“So what if I have, old lady -- what’s it to you?” I’d sneer back
(in my imagination -- in real life I just grizzled a bit and promised
never to do it again.)

I have no doubt that mothers the world over all have the exact
same objection to good honest delicious candy -- “You’ll spoil
your appetite for dinner!”

As a steadily maturing adult, I have exploded that particular
bugaboo entirely. I often start my noonday repast with a Mounds
bar or a handful of malted milk balls. Such a treat works like a
non-alcoholic aperitif, and I enjoy my salami/anchovy sandwich
with potato chips that much more. Before my evening meal a
generous helping of french burnt peanuts or Raisinettes gives a
distinct relish to my poached egg and ramen noodles.

But you’ll never convince a mother, any mother, that a Kit Kat
bar prior to the spinach souffle might entice the little nippers to
eat their veggies hearty.

And, at least with my own mother, candy was just plain wrong
on general principles because it brought me so much pleasure.
My mother belonged to that strait-laced generation that believed
happy children were either wasting time or sowing wild provender.
A dutiful sobriety was called for in children at all times.

Certainly wasting time was one of the main pleasures of candy
when I was a boy. Wayne Matsuura and I would sit on my front
porch, with jawbreakers rolling around inside our mouths, taking
them out from time to time to see the color gradually dissolve from
red to blue to green to orange. This seemed like absorbing work to
our picayune minds. Candy button sheets were another reliable
source of entertainment; you picked them off, one at a time,
attempting to get as little paper as possible with each button.
If not done carefully I’d have to spit out the paper pulp like a
watermelon seed.

Harry’s grocery on the corner sold miniature wax soda bottles
filled with colored sugar water. After drinking the liquid, I could
chew contentedly on the wax like a cow for blissful hours on end.

Though my tastes in candy were liberal and catholic, I never
could quite cotton to the many peanut-based candies around,
like the salted nut rolls handed out by ersatz Santas at Christmas
or the stash of peanut brittle my mother bought at Powers
Department Store to nibble on when she tried to quit smoking.
I prefered anything with chocolate and coconut. And marshmallow --
although after viewing one of Don Herbert’s “Watch Mr. Wizard” tv
shows where he put a marshmallow in a vacuum jar and pumped
out all the air, causing the marshmallow to expand to the size of
a basketball, I grew obsessed with the fear that I might someday
be eating a bag of Peeps and suddenly be sucked into the vortex
vacuum of a tornado and thus explode into sticky white pulp.

Bubble gum was exempt from my mother’s interdiction, since
there was nothing to swallow. I always bought the Bazooka brand,
because each wrapped piece contained a Bazooka Joe comic
panel on waxed paper. I fondly recall one panel where Bazooka
Joe is wearing a belt made of clocks and one of his sidekicks tells
him it’s a “waist of time.” When you’re six years old, it doesn’t
get much funnier than that.

Of course Halloween was my saturnalia of sugar -- all the candy
I could collect and carry; so damn the cavities, full speed ahead!
Back in the Eisenhower era adults at least had some idea of how
to celebrate the day with overflowing generosity. There were none
of those wretched bite-size bars or disappointing candy kisses that
are palmed off on kids today. No siree bob! My bag was filled
to the brim with full-size Hershey bars, homemade popcorn balls,
gigantic all-day suckers, caramel apples, big bags of M&Ms and
candy corn, log-size Tootsie Rolls, and hefty boxes of Dots or
Milk Duds. (Just writing about such wonderful sweet excess makes
me think I should get my blood sugar checked right away . . . )

The ne plus ultra of candy in my neck of the woods was a box of
Fanny Farmer assorted chocolates. They only appeared at
Christmas, when my dad would bring home a one pound box
on Christmas Eve. We children were allowed to pick one piece,
just one, out of the red satin innards of the box -- and I always
seemed to choose the one with maple nut nougat, which I
thoroughly despised. To me, maple was not a candy flavor
at all. One year I finally got fed up with this state of affairs,
and when no one was looking I surreptitiously took a bite
out of half a dozen pieces until I found one with a creamy
coconut center, which I scarfed down in a trice. The resulting
furor when my clandestine gnawing was discovered sent me to
bed early, with a grim warning that Santa would be informed of
my malfeasance -- which just might interfere with his
open-handed spirit that year.

I slept badly that night, as only a greedy and guilty little boy can,
but the next morning proved that the jolly old fat gent had not
stinted despite my crimes. I got a Wham O Air Blaster, an
Erector Set, and a stocking full of chocolate coins wrapped
in gold foil. Having demolished the chocolate coins in one
piggish sitting, I declined the waffles mom had made that
morning for breakfast. And for once, thank heavens, nobody
prated at me about spoiling my appetite.

handsome

am I so handsome

that a tree knot looks homely

and so out of place? 

Explaining my Shopping List

I could go grocery shopping every day, and never feel bored or weary. I love to see the latest wrinkle in pastas, produce, and pickles. But like the gambler in Las Vegas or the bookworm in Barnes & Noble, I have to pace myself lest I blow the rent money. 

Having spent all morning today writing light verse, haiku, and a brief memoir about telemarketing for Time/Life Books, I felt I deserved a break, a respite from the cares of literary tomfoolery. So my little blue cart and I traipsed off to Fresh Market, just two blocks away. But I did not just dash out the door, helter-skelter, no indeed! I first sat down and used the back of a discarded outside envelope from some importunate bill collector to make up my list.

And, for the most part, I stuck to it. I attempted to group together everything I would need until next Saturday, so I would not be tempted to go back during the week for a fresh bagel or some of their excellent fried chicken. Here's the breakdown:

1 can frozen orange juice.  $1.59
1 can white grape juice.      $1.89
1 bag baking soda.  $1.79 -- I use it both in my laundry and when I soak my feet. Much cheaper than Epsom salts. 
1 small jar mayonnaise.  $2.49. I needed it for my chicken pasta salad I'm serving before Sacrament Meeting here in the lobby tomorrow. I could have gotten a huge jar of a different brand for $2.99, but I already have a jar of jalapeno mayonnaise I'm using on my sandwiches. Too much mayonnaise in the fridge has led to some unfortunate culinary experiments in the past.
4 packages of Ramen noodles, pork flavored. $1.00
1 box bow tie pasta. $1.69
1 bottle of Shasta orange soda. 59 cents
1 can white meat chicken.  $2.89
1 jar orange marmalade.     $3.49  (Pricey!)
1 can mushroom stems & pieces.  77 cents
1 can sliced black olives.  $1.49
1 lb sliced beef heart.  $2.90.  Much cheaper than hamburger, which was originally on my list because it's so versatile. But beef heart, when pounded a while, fries up just as tender and savory as hamburger.  I'll use it for sandwiches.
1 package Canadian bacon.  $2.99. I've been frying up a lot of bacon the last two weeks, so thought I'd better switch to something less greasy. 
1 roll paper towels.  99 cents. 
1 gallon 2% milk.  $1.99
1 package American cheese slices.  $2.49
1 bunch celery.  $1.29
1 pack mini carrots.  $1.69.  I'm really proud of this purchase, which I bought instead of the potato chips I had listed, to eat with my sandwich. When I'm engrossed in a sandwich and a book, as I often am, I really don't care what I eat with the sandwich. So why not raw veggies? They're actually cheaper than chips. Time will tell how much gas and indigestion they leave me with, as they have done in the past.
1 dozen large eggs. $1.79
1 box Eskimo pies.  $2.49
1 loaf white bread.  $2.59

I'm really proud of myself for not buying any pickles. I love 'em, but even a small jar of gherkins is getting outrageously expensive.

  My food stamps came in yesterday, so I used them to partially pay for these groceries. I'd forgotten to use my stamps last month, so added to this month it came to $36.00. So I only had to pay a little over eleven bucks cash for my groceries today. My Social Security won't come in for another week at least, so I'm gonna have to make do with what I've got on hand. (I'm holding back a ten spot in case the grand kids want to go see Incredibles 2 and ask me to come along.)

Another Artist Attacked by Trumpinistas

Rob Rogers, an editorial cartoonist at the Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh

Press for more than 30 years, announced on Twitter Thursday that

he had been fired after weeks of conflict over cartoons and ideas

he'd submitted that were never published. Rogers told multiple

outlets he'd disagreed with the paper's new editorial director,

Keith Burris, over criticism of President Trump in his cartoons.

Tribune Review

There once was an artist named Rob

Whose cartoons did cost him his job.

His Trump illustrations

Were called aberrations

By a redacting lynch mob.

When Adam Burnt the Food Storage

In 1989 I was redlighted by the Tarzan Zerbini Shrine Circus.
That is circus lingo for abandoned without any pay. It happened
in Arkansas, when I was sent ahead of the show to supposedly
do some publicity for the upcoming performances as a clown.
However, when I reached my destination I found that the show
was not scheduled to play there and that my phone calls to the
show office in Missouri (this was before the days of personal cell
phones) were not answered. I had been fobbed off with a wild
goose chase, and the Welcome mat was decidedly withdrawn.
Tarzan Zerbini was a loutish boor more at home as a carny barker
than as a showman, and we did not get along -- so my rude jilting
did not come as a complete surprise.

However, it did throw a large and determined monkey wrench
into the financial works of the Torkildson clan. It was too late in the
season to get another circus gig, so I parked Amy and the kids with
her parents in Tioga, North Dakota, while I drove down to
Minneapolis to visit my alma mater Brown Institute of Broadcasting
for help in putting together an audition tape to find work in radio again.
Brown had an excellent placement service for all their ‘Brownies,’
and could usually get their graduates a job within a week or two
of being asked for help. But 1989 was not a lucky year for me,
career-wise. I waited and waited for job offers, staying with my
parents. Finally I realized that I’d better just take the first job I
could find in the Mini-Apple so I could bring the family down from
their Siberian exile in North Dakota. And that’s how my oldest son
Adam got to set fire to our food storage.

I went to work as a telemarketer for Time/Life Books, in their Grain
Exchange Building office downtown. For those unfamiliar with
these monolithic highbinders, Time/Life offered a vast series of
coffee table books on everything from a sixteen volume set called
“Australians at War” to “The Encyclopedia of Collectibles.”
 Cookbooks. History. Sewing and photography DIY -- they
covered every known facet of the human experience, and
by golly they were bound and determined to sell every single
person on the planet at least a dozen books this very instant
come hell or high water. That’s were I came in. I was given
sixteen pages ripped from a Canadian telephone directory
and told to call each number to offer “How Things Work” or
some other glossy almanac at a discount price. I quickly
learned to push the telephone buttons with the eraser end of
a pencil and not my index finger to save said digit from becoming
painfully inflamed.  

And I had amazing initial success. I was calling a town called
Iqaluit up in the Canadian Territories -- home of the Inuit tribes.
They were extremely complaisant people; everyone I talked to
agreed to take the book and sign up for the Time/Life Book Club
as well. I got a tremendous cash sales bonus that first week
and was able to bring the family to Minneapolis. Of course
nobody in Iqaluit ever paid for their books, and eventually I
was fired for it. But by then we were well established in a five story
rent-controlled townhouse on Como Avenue, and I quickly
found another telemarketing job at Fingerhut.

Together at last as one big happy family, my thoughts as an
LDS paterfamilias turned towards a major religious bugaboo
of the times -- food storage. This was an era when the LDS
Church asked every family to lay in a two year supply of food
and water. Nothing was ever said about Judgement Day or
the Apocalypse -- it was just considered a prudent precaution
in case of layoffs or local natural disasters like floods and tornadoes.
With my ever-growing brood I was hard pressed to find the
wherewithal to stock up to such an extent. The best I seemed
able to do was to buy a few extra canned goods each week.

One particular Sunday in Sacrament Meeting the High
Councilman gave a very stirring talk about the absolute
necessity of having that two year supply on hand -- no excuses
or temporizing! I could see it had a strong effect on Amy,
and as we drove back home after church she said to me
“Timmy, we’ve got to follow the prophets on food storage!”
I agreed with her, saying that we would keep accumulating
canned goods and filling empty distilled water plastic jugs
with tap water until we reached the two year goal. But I could
tell she was not at all satisfied with my lackadaisical attitude.
It smacked of heterodoxy.

And so a few weeks later it came to pass that a UPS truck
delivered unto us forty brown cardboard boxes filled with one
gallon cans of dried beans, egg powder, sugar, oatmeal, cracked
wheat, yeast, dehydrated onions, flour, powdered milk, peaches,
and so on. The total came to two thousand dollars. Payable at
sixty dollars per month. Amy had placed the order with a
company in Utah without consulting me.

I decided to approach the issue in a calm and dispassionate
manner.  But first I sat in our blue Ford station wagon,
locked the doors, and screamed until my vocal cords began
moulting. I also beat my head on the steering wheel. Then I was
ready to face Amy.

I asked her to please consider sending it all back and getting
a refund, but that met with such a cold response that I turned up
the lapels of my jacket and wearily agreed to keeping it all in the
basement and using it up little by little, to see if it would help
stretch our grocery budget so we wouldn’t have to go on food
stamps again. Just one of those amusing little episodes that go
to make up the rich tapestry of a solid marriage.

At the same time our son Adam began playing with matches.
Every little boy goes through that phase. Usually a few stern
words and the careful secreting of matches in an out of the way
place is enough to discourage a young boy from burning down
the house around his ears. But Adam did not take kindly to being
told “no.” Not then, and not now. Once his mind is fixed on an action
or idea, he carries through no matter the obstacles -- or consequences.
In this case, he simply went next door to the neighbors, noxious
chainsmokers, and procured another book of matches without
any trouble. Then he lit a fire in our basement, using some scraps
of paper and cardboard from the food storage boxes.

Luckily I caught the blaze before it did too much damage, using
the kitchen fire extinguisher to douse it. Several gallon cans of
egg powder had burst from the heat, leaving behind an evil
smelling yellow stain on the basement walls.

I went out to the Ford again for another screaming session.
Then both Amy and I talked earnestly and kindly to Adam,
who seemed sincerely abject about the alarm and destruction
he had caused. He never tampered with matches again, and
we eventually ate up all the food storage in the basement --
and paying for it long after it was gone.  

writhing

writhing with mindless

intent towards the pale blue sky

and the climbing sun

when they are stepped on

when they are stepped on

they lose their motivation

as part of a mob