Author: josephaglynn

Why There Is a Literary Zone

I consider myself an artist. But in most artistic endeavors, I am what you would call a Bad Artist.

I never learned how to play the guitar or the piano. I played the cymbals in my kindergarten band. However, I don’t know of any cymbalists who became famous as the Fab Four or even the Fab Liberace. About the only time I ever heard a cymbal in a rock song was at the end of the Moody Blues’ song “Nights in White Satin”.

When it comes to singing, I am known as the Screechy Frog. I belt out the scales like a scaly case of eczema.

My artistic “masterpieces” will not be shown at the Louvre or the National Gallery of Art. In fact, they are not as good as the paintings you see on the boys’ bathroom walls or the graffiti on railroad cars.

I did a little acting in junior high school. But I knew I would not be the next Marlon Brando or a ham like Porky Pig. Besides, I don’t have a Hollywood face.

I think I tried sculpture once, but the only thing I created was a mess. I like to dance, but I boogie more like Fred Flinstone than Fred Astaire.

But there is one artistic endeavor I do well—writing.

In junior high school, I remember writing a story about a man encountering a snake in the desert. I was pleasantly flabbergasted when my teacher told my classmates the plot of this tale in great detail. Then she castigated me for not writing the story correctly.

In high school, my English teacher loved my story about my tricycle. Later, I was the news editor of the school paper and won a creative writing award.

Because I was a history major in college, I spent umpteen hours banging out research papers on subjects ranging from electric power to central Illinoisans at the Battle of Bull Run to Austro-Hungarian diplomacy in World War I. My senior thesis on the Illinois state legislature in 1958 and 1959 won the best essay prize.

I had a lot of fun presenting a research paper at the Society of American Baseball Research conference in Louisville in 1997. In 2011, I began blogging, and I still love it, man.

Now you know I have a literary zone. I enjoy having an artistic space. And writing is like my golf game—there is always room for a hacker to practice and improve his craft.

Thought From This Blog

The difference between good art and bad art is in the eye of the beholder.

by Categories: features, Great thoughts, writingTags: , , , , Leave a comment

I’M BACK!

Guess who’s back after a long, long hiatus? It’s me, the blogger known as Ordinary Joe!

While my other blog, The Cubby Writers Cubbyhole, is a place for fun and good times without free beer, ice cream, pretzels, and ecdysiasts (fancy word for people who shimmy in the red-light districts) The Glynn Literary Zone is different. Occasionally, I will write on a serious subject that interests me, though I might have a good laugh or two.

Too often in the blogosphere as well as on social media, people have become jerks, loudmouths, Karens, gasbags, and complete A-holes. I will try to write as diplomatically as I possibly can, even though at times I can be the biggest jerk, loudmouth, etc.

Don’t take my opinions too seriously. Sometimes, I disagree with myself a couple of minutes after I write something down on my trusty personal computer. I will be the first to admit that my words are not the greatest words of wisdom since Socrates. I just write ’em like I see ’em.

If you want to get important news from this corner of the literary galaxy, The Glynn Literary Zone is the place to be. Call me a blockhead, but I am just as interested as getting my literary efforts in print as in making some of that filthy green stuff. Of course, I would like to be a best-selling author like Stephen King or John Grisham and make more money than Jeff Bezos. However, I know it is tough for writers to make a buck, and I will be content if I become just one of those hack gentlemanly writers.

When I was a kiddo back in the 1970s (kids, that was back in the days with no Internet, Netflix, smartphones, and TikTok, Heck, it was the days when there was no MTV but people wore polyester leisure suits, had Pet Rocks, did the hustle, and thought The Love Boat was must see TV), I religiously watched Welcome Back, Kotter. I laughed at the antics of Vinnie Barbarino, Juan Epstein, and Arnold Horshack.

Now, it is welcome back to my literary zone, welcome back.

A Thought From the Blog

Don’t think too often.

by Categories: features, Great thoughts, Other stuff, Personal musings, Sports, writingTags: , , , , Leave a comment

Learning Lessons

Back in the 1970s, John Denver had a hit song called “(It’s Good to Be) Back Home Again”. Well, it’s good to be back in my literary zone again.

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days. However, in my case, the rules were more like brass knuckles than golden.

Throughout my life, I consider myself a learner who enjoys the smell of old chalk in the morning. I still fantasize sitting in classrooms and being taught all sorts of subjects and weird trivia. though mathematics is totally Greek to me (I might understand it better if it used emojis rather than using letters with strange words like gamma, delta, and epsilon) and I am not particularly interested in the sciences except for astronomy with its heavenly bodies and characters like Luke Skywalker and Mr. Spock exploring space.

Unsurprisingly, I have learned many lessons since the first time I eat rotten gingerbread cookies with imitation skim milk in kindergarten. Here are a few:

Don’t worry about the road not taken until your are lost.

Everyone likes reading dirty laundry except your own.

Familiarity breeds contempt but it also breeds content.

Those who can’t do teach and those who can’t teach are in deep doo doo.

Smart people frequently are the dumbest asses.

There is no need for competition if everyone is a winner.

Money isn’t everything but it pays the groceries.

Keep it simple unless you are doing calculus.

Being smart is not the same as being wise.

A fool and his money are soon parted if he does not hit a jackpot at a casino.

If you can’t stand the heat get yourself an air conditioner.

It’s hard being between a rock and a hard place.

If life was easy, it would be a fairy tale.

It’s better to be first than last at a Black Friday sale.

Keep your mouth shut if you are not hungry.

Be in the slow lane when you are being tailgated by a semi-truck.

Happiness is a warm puppy and a semi-warm hot dog at a ballpark.

All that glitters is not gold, especially fool’s gold.

Honesty is the best policy unless you want to succeed in used car salesmanship and politics.

Luck is like bull hockey–it just happens.

You will succeed in the real world if you are a honors graduate from the School of Hard Knocks.

A penny saved is a penny earned especially when you are earning interest in your savings account.

The safest bet is not betting.

Try, try again usually means you won’t succeed.

Every dog has his day and every tomcat has his night.

You will know more about the meaning of life at a graduation party than at a graduation speech.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend and a man’s worst nightmare.

A little rain must fall if you want vegetables.

You know you are a klutz when your name isn’t called for basketball or tiddlywinks.

If you are in the pits, it’s time for a pit stop.

Everything is deja vu all over again when it comes to history.

Weird fact

The oldest school in the United States is the Boston Latin School, which was founded in 1635. Harvard University in nearby Cambridge, Massachusetts, was founded the next year.

by Categories: features Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving!

I could give a long discourse on the significance of the Thanksgiving holiday. But I know probably everyone is more interested celebrating than reading blogs. Consequently, I simply want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving wonderland!. I hope everyone will have fun, frivolity, food, and more food. And please, try to be civil during discussions of politics, football, and overcooked green bean casseroles at the dinner table.

Weird Fact

A horse named Thanksgiving won the Travers Stakes in 1938. He was trained by Mary Hirsch, who was the first woman in the United States licensed as a Thoroughbred trainer.

by Categories: Uncategorized Leave a comment

Why I Write

The German artist Joseph Beuys once said, “Everyone is an artist”.  However, not everyone is great in every artistic endeavor. 

I tried to be a singer, but I sing like a frog stuck in a rack.  Nowadays whenever I sing the scales, my dog starts howling like a coyote on the lonesome prairie. 

I can’t draw except for Picassoish stick figures and squares that look like blobs of chewing gum.  I could call it “abstract art”, but everyone would know I have less talent than a middle school artiste. 

I played the cymbals in kindergarten, but I couldn’t stand the sound of clanging metal.  Besides, how many cymbalists became rock, rap, or even elevator music stars?  Maybe I should have played a different instrument like the glockenspiel, the bag pipes, or spoons. I might have been a contestant on American Idol. 

I did some acting in junior high school.  However, I didn’t have the movie star good looks, though I could always be a comedian.   Groucho Marx, Jackie Gleason, George Carlin, John Belushi, Rodney Dangerfield, and David Letterman were not exactly handsome, yet they made a fortune telling jokes.   

Yet the allure of Hollywood, Broadway, and the local comedy clubs didn’t allure me.  Maybe because I don’t like being a ham in front of an audience.  

I don’t know how to sculpt, I am not a great photographer, and I dance more like Fred Flintstone than Fred Astaire. 

That is why I write.  It is the one artistic endeavor I can do successfully. 

Writing for me is not easy.  Not only am I not a fast typist, I suffer from that dreadful malady—writers block.  Besides, with the internet, I spend too much time reading news stories and looking at sports scores than writing sentences and paragraphs. 

Besides not being easy, writing can be so exasperating.  I am a perfectionist when it comes to the written word.  I can spend hours writing a simple declarative sentence.  Besides, punctuation can be as nerve wracking as seeing the Greek letters in calculus theorems.  I would like to write something without punctuation, but then my writing would look like incomprehensible streams of consciousness. 

Yet the writer’s life does have its allures.  Even if I don’t write down a single word, I enjoy sitting in front of my trusty computer devising great thoughts.  While I am not a tailor or a tinkerer, I am definitely a great thinker. 

Like every wordsmith, I dream of authoring a New York Times bestseller or winning the Nobel Prize,  But even though I don’t, I will continue writing and writing. 

Weird Fact

When writing, Nobel laureate John Steinbeck used up to 60 pencils a day.

by Categories: Uncategorized Leave a comment

A Few Words of Welcome to the Glynn Literary Zone

You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. . .oops, that’s Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone. This is the Glynn Literary Zone.

It is customary for a blogger to have a few words of introduction.

So, call me Joe.

I am not a politician, a Fortune 500 executive, a superstar athlete, or even one of those reality show celebrities. Instead, I am one of those schmoes you see in the grocery stores and Walmarts. I work at an ordinary job, live in an ordinary neighborhood, and for the most part eat ordinary foods.

Ever since my high school English teacher praised my lachrymose essay on my tricycle, I have a passion for writing. I know writing can be as much fun as spending an hour on a rack in the middle of a Mojave Desert heat wave, but I just can’t stop tinkering with words and sentences.

Although I know blogging is considered to be passe, I am a huge fan of the blogosphere. Whenever I discover an intriguing blog, I get that “Wow!” factor that I almost never get reading Twitter and Facebook or watching Tik Tok videos. I am astounded there are so many unsung great writers producing so many great blogs on a variety of topics. They make internet surfing so much more fun than watching surfing movies.

I intend this blog to be more serious and more insightful than my other blog, The Cub Writers Cubbyhole. I will take a subject that interests me and expound on it.

Be assured I won’t write about subjects like calculus (mathematics is totally Greek to me), Sumerian philosophy (I don’t know an Aristotle from a Plato), or the best recipes for quiches (I don’t have a cook book, and my idea of fine dining is a McDonald’s Happy Meal). I hope the subjects I will about will interest you as much as it interests me.

I know that not everyone will agree with my opinions. But they are my gut opinions. Sometimes like gut feelings, gut opinions are the right ones. Often, they are false as unpleasant gas pains. Nevertheless, I will strive to mean what I say and say what I mean like Dr. Seuss’ Horton.

Welcome to the zone! I hope it will become something like the Twilight Zone–a land of “both shadow and substance, of things and ideas”.

Weird Fact

In the Glynn Literary Zone, I will have a weird fact. Today’s fact is the composer of the score for the premiere episode of The Twilight Zone was Bernard Herrmann, who also composed the scores for Citizen Kane, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and Taxi Driver.

by Categories: features, writing Leave a comment