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Finding My Voice

Here’s an old rumination on point-of-view characters.

Catch a Falling Star

As Big MacIntosh welcomes more little ponies into my insanely large doll collection, I have been reading my published novel Snow Babies. The novel is written in third person viewpoint with a single focus character for each scene. But because the story is about a whole community surviving a blizzard with multiple story lines criss-crossing and converging only to diverge and dance away from each other again, the focus character varies from scene to scene.

20171214_121204 Big MacIntosh finds himself to be the leader of a new group of My Little Ponies.

In Canto Two, Valerie Clarke, the central main character of the story, is the focus character. Any and all thoughts suggested by the narrative occur only in Valerie’s pretty little head. Canto Three is focused through the mind of Trailways bus driver Ed Grosland. Canto Four focuses on Sheriff’s Deputy Cliff Baily. And so, on it goes through a…

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April 5, 2019 · 2:45 pm

March 29, 2019 · 2:25 pm

Little Red-Haired Girl (A Poem and Paffooney)

Here’s a Charlie Brown-based poem for a day when I feel like a blockhead.

Catch a Falling Star

Little Red-Haired Girl

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown

That little red-haired girl, so cute, so nice

You only looked and looked from afar

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown

You could’ve held her hand

You could’ve walked her home from school

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown

She never got your Valentine

At least, you forgot to sign your name

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown

No hope of marriage now, nor children for old age

Happily ever after has now long gone

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie Brown

Now every love poem is a sad poem

And the world is blue and down

You never told her that you loved her…

You never told her that you loved her…

You never told her that you loved her, Charlie…

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March 24, 2019 · 7:46 pm

Random Sunday Ruminations

Sometimes I simply have to stop and think hard about what I am thinking about. You can probably tell by today’s first Paffooney that I am thinking in Biblical proportions today. The picture is called “David Plays for Saul”. In the Bible story, the survival of Israel is definitely in question. King Saul, the anointed ruler, is under intense pressure from governing a kingdom that chose him rather than giving him a chance to choose for himself. He is surrounded by enemies with significant military power. He goes a bit loony over the matter, consulting astrologers and witches, even though God has told him through prophets, “Saulie, don’t do that, boy!” The prophet Samuel even goes so far as to find a new candidate for an anointed king, David the Shepherd, Son of Jesse. Saul uses his irrational mind to come up with a solution to the problem. “I know!” he says to himself. “I’ll murder the boy in front of God and everybody.” (Sort of a Trumpian solution, right?)

And then David plays his harp and sings. That decides the matter. Saul is calmed in his murderous mind and abandons murder plans just long enough to eventually lose his crown along with his head in battle against the Philistines. (No danger of Trump copying Saul there.)

Myself in Iowa at 9, before the world changed.

So, as I sit and chew my cud and ruminate like a mooncalf, I am thinking we need a King David to replace the King Pumpkinhead we have now. And then he or she must fight harder than the Biblical David to overcome what has happened to us. If Israel represents the world, then Israel may soon be destroyed without a wise king. Climate change, dictators with nukes, and Republican kowtowing to billionaires are real problems not solvable through astrology.

Too often, it seems, I am the mooncalf, the monstrously malformed creature created by a lifetime of hard experience, loss, and fear of the future. But in many ways I am a self-made man. I know this because I sewed on my new right hand, implanted new eyeballs, and did numerous brain-enhancement surgeries on myself. (I do hope you realize I mean that figuratively, not literally. No, really! You can put away the torches and pitchforks!) I feel like a monster when I look at myself critically and end up not liking what I see.

Still, the world is full of beauty and wonder, for now, at least. And we must enjoy it while we have it, living the best life we can before it all too soon comes to its end.

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March 23, 2019 · 3:51 pm

Hidden Kingdom (Chapter 2 adding page 17)

The weekly update of Hidden Kingdom.

Catch a Falling Star

If you would like to see the complete Chapter 1, it can be found at this link; https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2018/11/24/hidden-kingdom-chapter-1-complete/

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March 22, 2019 · 2:08 pm

Peach Pie

Whether we are talking Syrians or Hondurans or even relatives from Florida, everybody could stand a slice.

Catch a Falling Star

peach pie12

In the 1960’s back in Iowa, family reunions started happening around this time of year. We would make long treks to distant parts like Spencer, Iowa or Coralville, Iowa to meet with cousins by the dozens, with Great Aunts and their great families… people we looked somewhat like and were actually related to, but usually didn’t see more than twice in any given year. And there were some who lived in far off Cleveland, Ohio that you only saw twice in the entire decade. And it isn’t real easy to play with the kids you are related to but don’t see every day. Squabbles happen more often than not. What was the solution to that kind of warfare? According to Great Aunt Marie, the solution was a nice piece of peach pie. The offending cousin and I would each get a slice of the solution to eat side by side…

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March 22, 2019 · 1:55 pm

On the Highway (a quick poem about going faster)

I am a truly awful poet. And I know it. But my feet don’t show it. They are not Longfellow’s.

Catch a Falling Star

The Road Home I painted this oil painting looking West on Highway 3. My home town in Iowa is just beyond the next hill.

On The Highway

Leave dirt roads behind…

On the highway you go faster.

Pavement gives you ease to speed.

In fact, why use that two-lane road?

The Interstate is faster.

Limited access off and on…

The legal limit goes up to 70…

Or even 75…

85 with no cops around.

Straight over the horizon…

Into the mist-blue distance…

You are not really going anywhere…

But you will get there faster!

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March 21, 2019 · 3:17 pm

The Unquiet Teacher Brain

I still think like a teacher at five years retired, so I present this blog post as proof that I don’t take my own writing advice when I write.

Catch a Falling Star

Yesterday, as I was reviewing a movie that is almost as old as I am (in December, 1961 I was 5), I couldn’t help but think like a teacher. If I were going to teach this movie as a piece of literature (and movies ARE literature! Don’t argue with me!!!), I would start with an anticipation guide… or I could call it a lesson focus. I would tell the students a little bit about why this movie is important to me. I would give the background information about how Walt Disney wanted to make a musical picture like The Wizard of Oz, and even bought the rights to Oz books by Frank L. Baum to make it happen. It was supposed to be a starring vehicle for his popular Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeers, and ended up starring Annette Funicello (and I would never mention anything about my childhood desire…

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March 18, 2019 · 10:05 pm

Killing Time Without Internet

Some wonderful driver ran over the relay box in the neihhbor’s yard. So no Internet today. Since posting from my phone is difficult with arthritic fingers, I will simply show you a photo of the toy I bought to make myself feel better.

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Google “PAFFOONEY”

Catch a Falling Star

One of the most important things about my blog has been that I can share my artwork. I have always been capable of a reasonably high level of drawing ability. I can also paint and create artistically original photographs. I have that artist’s eye that sees creatively. If you follow directions in this first Paffooney, you will see a wider variety of the kind of Paffoonies I post than I will post here. This will be, however, a picture post. I intend to share a bunch of my artwork here, both old and new. Take a gander. (And while you hold on to that male goose, look at some of my pictures, too.)

Animal Town tree time_ginger Aztec

You have to admit that I am clearly not an artist like Van Gogh or Picasso… certainly nothing like Andrew Wyeth or Winslow Homer. I am more of an illustrator, or … worse, a cartoonist.

Blue in the back yard

So, this…

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March 15, 2019 · 2:27 pm

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The Gallery of Goofiness

An old picture Paffooney post revisited.

Catch a Falling Star

Looking for stuff to organize into a post today led me to realize that I currently exist swimming in a tidal wave of goofy images that I myself have created.

20160104_141546

So, lazy and goofy old me will now show you some of these things.

I don’t even remember why I drew some of these things.

Some of it, is obviously because I was a teacher.

mythos

But some of it is merely wacky.

flying-goldfish

Though some might be considered inspirational.

wings-of-imagination

new-kid

While some of it is just meant to be appealing.

But all of it provides me with an easy post that you can read fast, but still get plenty to think about from. It is even good for a re-post if I add something newer.

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March 15, 2019 · 1:46 pm