clerkmanifesto.com
The Clerk Manifesto: No blood on my hands
http://www.clerkmanifesto.com/2015/05/no-blood-on-my-hands.html
Somewhere between "the cream rises to the top" and "dead things float" lies the truth. Thursday, May 7, 2015. No blood on my hands. Early this evening, exhausted, I lay on the couch, my head on my wife's arm, lap, leg. I am dozing. I am remembering a long ago time with her. I am remembering being 17, having left a work/study program with few funds, sleeping rough on the hard floor of a temple in Jerusalem. A ragged night, one of cold, discomfort, kindness, and fear. May 8, 2015 at 4:38 AM. Upcoming soon,...
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The Clerk Manifesto: The first book
http://www.clerkmanifesto.com/2015/05/the-first-book.html
Somewhere between "the cream rises to the top" and "dead things float" lies the truth. Friday, May 8, 2015. Here I am reading the first book. Don't we all have a first book? The first book, made of meat and bone, we ever read? I have not read this book in a long time. Alas that one times one is one. I had read books before Tortilla Flat. A couple years earlier I had read The Lord of the Rings. Is not on its own in greatness like. Maple syrup, the paintings of Caravaggio, Blood on the Tracks. Despite its ...
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The Clerk Manifesto: Gardening and me
http://www.clerkmanifesto.com/2015/05/gardening-and-me.html
Somewhere between "the cream rises to the top" and "dead things float" lies the truth. Saturday, May 9, 2015. It has turned out to be impossible for a man with my brownish-gray-green thumb to grow a proper garden in my yard. The skies of summer are soon heavily sketched over with a sprawling foliage of an. The oldest in the nation, by any of the really important standards it pretty much is. I am fully convinced that our garden plot is going to provide so many glorious, sweet, and strangely wonderful heir...
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The Clerk Manifesto: Prophet of the gods
http://www.clerkmanifesto.com/2015/05/prophet-of-gods.html
Somewhere between "the cream rises to the top" and "dead things float" lies the truth. Friday, May 15, 2015. Prophet of the gods. As a reasonably learned person your only experience with Prophets of God involve crazy people whose very madness belies that they are not, actually, Prophets of God, and historical figures who may or may not be fictional, who may or may not have actually been Prophets of God, but it was all a long long time ago, and it all seems a bit fishy anyway. I am a Prophet of God. It's ...
clerkmanifesto.com
The Clerk Manifesto: Non fiction shelving
http://www.clerkmanifesto.com/2015/05/non-fiction-shelving.html
Somewhere between "the cream rises to the top" and "dead things float" lies the truth. Tuesday, May 12, 2015. So why do I like shelving here less? Marylynn Petterson, Marianne Patterson, Mary Anne Pattersen, Manny N. Paterson, and so on and on. But that's not the main reason. I am okay with nearly all the books in fiction. Yes, there are works of evil there, and an occasional book irritates me to no good end (I'm looking at you Kazuo Ishiguro! Not so in non fiction. There are agendas. But occasionally to...
clerkmanifesto.com
The Clerk Manifesto: Complainers
http://www.clerkmanifesto.com/2015/05/complainers.html
Somewhere between "the cream rises to the top" and "dead things float" lies the truth. Wednesday, May 13, 2015. And yet we were given one gift. One gift that is only ours. We alone can judge the gods. I just think it would be a shame to waste it. Oh how we love comments, maybe a trifle too much at this point. And we have become quite fastidious about answering them. Is there some point I wont respond to, some lack of interactivity on the part of the commenter that causes me to remain mute? Click links be...
clerkmanifesto.com
The Clerk Manifesto: Not your dad
http://www.clerkmanifesto.com/2015/05/not-your-dad.html
Somewhere between "the cream rises to the top" and "dead things float" lies the truth. Sunday, May 17, 2015. It's one thing to already be here, but if you take a fair look at the thing from an outside perspective you will have to agree that life is, sadly, an unreasonable burden to put on someone. Better. It is childish to call this. It would be like walking into someone's farm home in Iowa and seeing their lovely Pissaro, then faulting it for not being a Monet. So I admire this fountain very much. I...
clerkmanifesto.com
The Clerk Manifesto: Amazing true life library story
http://www.clerkmanifesto.com/2015/05/amazing-true-life-library-story.html
Somewhere between "the cream rises to the top" and "dead things float" lies the truth. Tuesday, May 5, 2015. Amazing true life library story. So there I am at the front desk of the library. A woman comes up to the desk with 11 or 12 DVDs she pulls messily from a bag. She wants to check them out. Or, more accurately, in a world full of self check out machines, she wants me. But people don't usually do this with movies, so I figure I'll just check. Do you want both of these? May 5, 2015 at 3:38 PM. Here by...
clerkmanifesto.com
The Clerk Manifesto: They find me
http://www.clerkmanifesto.com/2015/05/they-find-me.html
Somewhere between "the cream rises to the top" and "dead things float" lies the truth. Sunday, May 3, 2015. My river walks are so good now, deep in the lost world of sewers and geese and walking trees and mad and generous graffiti, that it could take many small essays here to tell you about them. Their great honking is more unmistakable. Not a jealous bird the turkey, they welcome me with an astonishing placidity. I climb into the grass and squat with them awhile. I dont know. Try me. I have redone the b...
clerkmanifesto.com
The Clerk Manifesto: To get to the other side
http://www.clerkmanifesto.com/2015/05/to-get-to-other-side.html
Somewhere between "the cream rises to the top" and "dead things float" lies the truth. Monday, May 4, 2015. To get to the other side. I think there's going to be a moral to this story, but I don't know what it is. I have been biking again. It is part of an elaborate patchwork of activities I am engaged in these days. When I bike I skirt along all the outside edges of what is safe, customary, and legal. I like to think I am a safe biker (my slow speed surely helps! But, if what everyone likes. Actually, I...
