Five Easy Pieces

This movie from 1970 is the first movie I ever saw with Jack Nicholson in it. He looked and sounded like Jack but young, handsome and with lots of hair. The cast was great, sound track interesting, lots of cool actors like Sally Struthers that I hadn't remembered in the movie. Karen Black. Susan Anspach. An even younger Jack Nicholson was in an Antonioni movie, but I saw that later. Good cinematography. They don't make movies like this anymore. Times have changed. It sure as hell isn't 1970. The movie was about alienation which I have been thinking a lot about lately. Why?

When one feels excluded from the a group, that is alienating. The exclusion can be self-exclusion, but right now agents are excluding me from the group of writers with agent representation, and therefore I am feeling a little, well, alienated. I first recognized alienation in Camus' L'Etranger, the Stranger. You know this is weird but I can't remember if I read it in English or French. Surprising to think I could ever read French that well. We read a bunch of novels and some of them went right over my head, that for example, the main character was gay or whatever. But Camus was different. Malraux, too. Sartre is diffciult in any language.

I have been having troubles reading mysteries lately. I pick them up and then I mostly put them down. So I've been reading non-fiction, but I should be reading in the field. Can't remember the last one I loved. Mostly its a struggle to finish. Maybe I should not even try to ready mysteries when I am writing one. Maybe maybe maybe.

Today I took the train into Boston and attended a computer security seminar, since I am in theory writing books about computer crime. Interesting stuff. Met a friend for lunch. We ate at the Barking Crab by the courthouse. Blackened halibut sandwich. Yum! Sure do cotton to blackened fish.

I have just about finished mapping out the Great Adirondack Tour. This is pretty exciting. Picked up the AAA book today, and a New York State Map. I'm hoping the trip inspires me to write a thrilling action-packed conclusion. Right now I am struggling a bit. Maybe there comes a time in every novel where the writer think, "well, this is pretty stupid." I am at that point now. And I am procrastinating over the longer, more detailed synopsis. God, it would be nice just to write. Let the words flow. Sometimes they do. But not always. I could try longhand. The brain to fingers connection.

Time to coax the cat out of the garage and hack away at that mystery.

Stay tuned for a chicken casserole that rocks and a plum dessert that is so easy anyone can make it. Anyway who can turn on an oven and slice a plum.

Onward,

Grapeshot