From Gene’s Notebook
…a military recruiter in desert camouflage, ends the final paper work with a
skinny high school grad who’s overcoming pimples; she’s wearing a track t-shirt
from her high school; the recruiter is in a hurry and urges her to sign more
papers, and soon she’ll be off to basic training ….
Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky
July, 2009

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From Gene’s Notebook
…the 83-year old soybean and wheat farmer, truck driver, too, is burning rubbish. “The doctors messed up my medication. I can’t walk without gasping. I’ve rented out my sections (640-acres per section), and this is the first year
I haven’t driven a truck or put in a crop in decades, except for [...]

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From Gene’s Notebook
…The Empire Builder – train from Chicago to the Pacific Ocean – drops me in Fargo, North Dakota, around 3:45 a.m., and in five minutes I’m speaking with two mildly drunk Indians who are sitting on porch steps of a falling house; they greet me, and then return to their beer; when I [...]

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If you’ve been keeping up with Simon’s Cat, here’s the next installment. If you’ve never seen Simon’s Cat before, well, here’s a treat. Enjoy.

If you’ve missed the previous rounds, here’s the Simon’s Cat channel.

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By Gene Novogrodsky
A golden doorknob from the Revolutionary War,
Seriously shown, touched ….
A four-page menu updated weekly,
Seriously discussed, pondered ….
The babies, babies to kids,
Their behavior,
Seriously discussed ….
And the sun on choppy waves
Before a southwest wind and storm,
The same sun reversing the green trees,
Sending them puzzle-like into the waves ….
Overlooked, gone, ignored, blindfolded ….

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By Gene Novogrodsky
“Go ‘head.
Yaw not a kar,”
The flagman says to the cyclist.
“The f—–’ trouble stahted
When yaw went to the f—–’ staw,”
The fat mother, scrubbing the front porch
Says to the fat daughter who’s standing on the porch.
…and where are the accent-division lines in the United States?
Deep South until New Jersey or Pennsylvania ….
Texas until Iowa ….
Lower [...]

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By John Goggin

It’s chilly and wet in Lindau; a grey sky scudding overhead, light rain now and then. We sleep in, still a little lagged. I’m awakened by a tour group outside in the street below. Still in my sleep attire (i.e., nothing), I pop my head out the window, and see them all looking [...]

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If you want some fun on a Sunday evening, come on out!

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Intellectual theft by Stan Raines

Here we have encapsulated the nexus of relational dysfunctions that have in great measure brought us where we are today–the highly dysfunctional citizen who won’t give up credit cards but will give up kids and the credit card companies who are her enablers …

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By Gene Novogrodsky
Harper Lee, you know her,
We’ve all read To Kill A Mockingbird – of course ….

Lee, from Monroeville, Alabama,
I’ve been there – twice.
I didn’t see the thousands
Of prisoners, black men in
Oversized white issue
Behind miles of wire
On my first trip ….
Now I did,
Red sunset behind the
Prisoners, the wire,
Cotton bolls tight, white inside in green,
Soybean oval [...]

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By John Goggin
It’s the solstice, or close enough, June 21, 2009.
Lufthansa from DIA to Frankfurt, then a short hop to Friedrichshaven. Deepest darkest Bavaria. I’m ready.
We leave CO in the afternoon; flying NE over the southern tip of Greenland.
The sun never really goes away. I keep looking out the window on the west side [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
The customers drop,
Daily and weekly.
The paper thins,
Thins some more,
Threatens to close.
All over North America,
And the paper ladies,
Those sleepless drivers of dawn,
Lose customers, and their arms,
Tired in the past from backhanded tosses and flips and throws,
Rest, rest with a cost …as the paper ladies still need gas
And the routes are the same, just shrunken [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
The orange royal poinciana
Retains its orange.
I wish it gone,
Gone at dawn when Mercury,
Mars, Venus and Jupiter heat ….
Night wishes – repeatedly -
Wishes of termination
For the orange ….
I tiredly seek rest,
Sleep and death ….

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By Gene Novogrodsky
Pop-ups to shallow right field,,
And the second baseman
Drifts back, the pop-up drifts,
To what should be caught – easily.
And usually is,
Like life: breathing, eating,
Drinking, defecating ….
But pop-ups can be dropped,
Can fall to the sides and
Front and back,
Like those functions – a shutdown ….

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By Gene Novogrodsky
Women in thick glasses
Hunch their shopping bags
On their way
On hot sidewalks.
My mother, also in thick glasses,
Never carried shopping bags,
Never walked hot sidewalks.
Oh! She humored me on
Occasion, taking the bus,
Even walking a hot sidewalk.
She hated it: the bus,
The pedestrians, the passengers,
The hot sidewalk ….

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By Kathy Raines
Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Molly’s coughing bark smashed its way into a lush thicket of whorling dreams. Rather engrossed, I thought, I‘ll stay cozied up here, with the barking, mere white noise, a soundtrack. Then she stopped. Ah, blessed silence. Two-thirty a.m., read the clock. Let’s just ease on back into [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
“Hey, cold beer, light!”
Breaks from the background,
Into the announcer’s
Ball-strike narrative

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By Stan Raines

Randy Newman & Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Roelof van Driesten. Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1979
I’ve been playing Randy Newman’s “Guilty” for about a year now and most of the time it’s been fairly well recieved although, in retrospect, the smatterings of applause may have had to do with admiring how, through all the gasping and [...]

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By Steve Trenfield
Valedictory address delivered June 1, 2009 at Sams Stadium, Brownsville, Texas for the 2009 graduating class of Lopez High School
I’d like to start off by saying thank you to some of the people who have helped me get where I am today. To Ms. Ascott and Mr. Simons, for loving their jobs more [...]

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From Cine el Rey

The Wall documentary will screen on July 17th at el Cine el Rey Theatre in McAllen (Cine El Rey, 311 South 17th St., McAllen, TX 78501) and July 18th at Guadalupe Theatre in San Antonio. Both showtimes at 8:00PM. The film will be followed by a Q&A with the director.

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A reminder from Gene Novogrodsky
The NMCAC Writers Forum will hold its July meeting July 7th, Tuesday, 7-9 p.m., in the NMCAC in San Benito – 225 East Stenger ….
Bring works of various sorts; and if you have announcements for the early Summer, bring them, too ….
Contact Robin 423 5477; Beto 350 3905; and Mel 244 [...]

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By Rudy H. García
High atop the bowing, fragrant guava tree branches
At times, I send my being to live as doves live
Cooing under crescent luna skies and star lit heavens
Kissing, cuddling, rubbing and flapping affection
Before reposing, nestled next to my love mate
Another dove, with golden pecks and perfect round eyes.
Other times, amongst the colorful flowering prickly [...]

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Two poems by Rudy H. García
Miss Boudreaux

She had traveled the world, a world traveler
With many acquired customs and languages
Her father, was a civil engineer, bridge builder,
Industrial and commercial, canal waterway digger
With accomplished jobs all around the earth.
She showed us pictures of the Panama Canal,
The Suez Canal, the Erie Canal and the
Intercostal waterways from Texas to [...]

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By Kathy Raines
“Thou shalt not suffer a roach to live.” (Exodus 22:18). All right, King James says witch, or evil sorceress. Different translation. At summer’s incipience, as per two-year tradition, I, like one of those rigid old Puritans, stamp out the crusty, scampering evil, my own private Inquisition. I am judge, jury and executioner. Wouldn’t [...]

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An announcement
The new RGV Film Commission announces the publication of its new website www.rgvfilmcommission.com.
“We’ve been working on the site for quite a while,” said Nancy Millar. Millar is chair of the RGV Film Commission and Vice President of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce’s Convention and Visitors’ Bureau.
“We believe that the website will create new opportunities [...]

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