Sound Advice

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to attend sessions at the Texas Book Festival. In the morning, I had the chance to attend the O. Henry Prize Celebration, which was moderated by Laura Furman, who is the editor of the prize-winning stories. When she opened it up for questions, I asked the writers, Youmna Chlala and Jamil Kochai, about their philosophies on using languages other than English in their writing.

Being a writer who often uses other languages in his work, I am always curious to know how others incorporate foreign languages into their writing. Youmna Chlala was of the opinion that a writer should "just do it," and Jamil Kochai considered the use of his mother tongue essential to his writing about his native Afghanistan.

Laura Furman provided what I would consider universal advice for writers. She said to always assume that your reader is as smart or smarter than you are. Heeding such advice causes a writer to create work that challenges the reader but also the writer, for he or she should always assume that the person reading his or her work is both wiser and more intelligent. That causes a writer to always strive for excellence. That, I feel, is sound advice that I will carry with me down the road.

       

Measured by Trains

In the place where I live, life is not measured by coffee spoons, but by the passing of trains. But not all trains are alike. A train lightened of its load can rattle by in two or three minutes, though an overburdened coal train can take more than fifteen minutes to chug by. If a train has stopped at the mill, expect to have plenty of time to listen to the Allman Brothers' Fillmore East, February 1970 album in its entirety, or if you happen to be in a metaphysical mood, to contemplate the true meaning of existence. Or you can just be happy to have some time to do nothing but sit quietly and enjoy the opportunity to simply be.

Here is a picture I took at a stop sign on the way to work yesterday when I was trying to outsmart a train. I liked the way the eastern sunlight glinted off the cars but only had about two seconds to point and shoot before having to turn right.

And here is ol' Guy Clark singing about a train from his childhood.

  

Festivals and Memories

This Saturday night I will be reading at the Texas Observer's LitCrawl event at the Texas Book Festival in Austin, and I could not be happier. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to hear writers I greatly respect read their work, and I am extremely thankful to the Texas Observer for allowing me to be a part of the event.

Having such an opportunity reminds me of my rock 'n' roll days back in Europe. My band, By No Means, was an opening act at several music festivals, and I loved getting to listen to the other groups after we played.

One of my favorite memories is of hearing the MCH Band play at the Ctverec Music Festival in Northern Bohemia. The MCH Band is a Czech band founded by Mikolas Chadima, who, along with Nobel Laureate Vaclav Havel and other artists and thinkers, was a signatory of Charter 77, the manifesto criticizing the communist government's human rights record. During communism, Chadima played underground gigs using different band names to elude the police. The danger was real, and another band, the Plastic People of the Universe, was actually imprisoned in the 1970s.   

After hearing the MCH Band, who played one of the most powerful sets I have ever heard in my life, I chatted with Mikolas Chadima by his old car, buying one of the CDs he sold out of his trunk. I was humbled by his artistry and his sacrifice. To this day I am truly thankful to have been given the opportunity to play at that festival, for it provided me the chance to meet a man I will remember the rest of my life.

With that said, I am truly looking forward to this weekend in Austin. There are memories to be made.

If I Were an Aquifer

This morning whilst enjoying a cup of coffee on the porch, I got to thinking about all of the rain that has been falling here in North Texas lately. And then while I was wondering about dams and aquifers and such, a jingle entered my head. So I stepped inside, grabbed my guitfiddle, and wrote a couple of silly quatrains just for kicks.

https://soundcloud.com/heath-dollar/if-i-were-an-aquifer

Flying metal pig reflected in the water in a clay pot

True Story: Not Yolking

The other day my wife stopped by the local feed store and bought some eggs from a nearby yardbird farm. As far as eggs go, these seemed rather huge, like maybe they'd been laid by a pterodactyl or something. Then, when Martina started cracking them open, three in a row had two yolks. That, my friends, raised the peculiarity quotient a couple of standard deviations, so I hopped on the internet to learn more about eggs with two yolks.

It turns out that young pullets new to laying eggs sometimes lay double yolkers and that Rhode Island Red, Leghorn, and Sussex hens have a propensity to lay such eggs. Cracking open three double-yolked eggs in a row seemed like the barnyard equivalent to the royal flush, so I felt the need to share this natural wonder with y'all.

Just for grins, here's Hayes Carll singing about chickens in the front yard.

Reflection on the Words of an Honorary Texan

Yesterday morning after breakfast I finished reading Sam Shepard's Spy of the First Person, written in the months before he died from complications of Lou Gehrig's Disease in July of 2017. Shepard, who was hailed as "the coolest honorary Texan of all time" by Austin360, was able to complete this book of fiction with the assistance of loved ones who helped get his words to the printed page.

One sentence that particularly struck me was the following: "Although internally something must change, externally it remains fairly constant." When I read that aphoristic line, I thought of some of my own short stories, where characters are alone or virtually alone in a desolate setting. The world around them does not change significantly, it "remains fairly constant," but the characters themselves change in some way internally, even if, to the outside observer, nothing would appear different. And I thought about the great writer's final days, the lack of mobility, the unchanging quality of the room around him, and I am very grateful that he chose to record his final thoughts for posterity to ponder.

Krasna Lipa: What's in a Name?

My short story, "Ink Upon the Furrows," which was recently released by the Texas Observer, is set in the fictional town of Krasna Lipa. "Krasna Lipa" literally means "Beautiful Lime," and I chose this name because the lime tree is a symbol of the Czech people. 

The lime tree, it must be noted, does not bear citrus fruit. It is what is known as the linden tree in Germany, and in Texas I tend to hear it called the basswood tree. When my wife, Martina, flew back to Texas recently, she came with Lipový čaj, lime tea, in her suitcase, which is a folk remedy for the common cold. I have included a picture below.

   

Here is a link to "Ink Upon the Furrows," the winner of the 2018 Texas Observer Short Story Contest:

https://www.texasobserver.org/ink-upon-the-furrows/