Random, unread and repeated - I have too many books in my Kindle account. It is not my fault and it is not Obama's fault. It's the lure of low prices that may be only temporary and the result of being undisciplined. I needed a randomizer so I could pick books I have already bought and give them a good try. I didn't have a randomizer but with an aging, short memory, I have found that switching my listing to alphabetical by title or by author works as well. Plus, every now and then, I like to re-read something that was especially good or especially murky.
Edgar, Ogen and me - Edgar Allan Poe is often considered a Baltimorean even though he was born in Boston and raised by unofficial foster parents in Virginia after the death of his parents. He was imaginative as a writer and poet but died at the age of 40. Ogden Nash is an outlier among poets. He also lived elsewhere but is associated with Baltimore. He liked to do unusual things with poetry but not of a high-class kind. Every day that I write in this blog, I use scrap paper. Many of the sheets have Nash's work printed on them. Just today, I met his poem called "The Boy Who Laughed at Santa Claus". Santa got the last laugh. Jabez Dawes was convinced that Santa didn't exist but HA!
Then, Jabez fell upon his knees
With cries of "Don't!" and "Pretty Please!"
He howled "I don't know where you read it,
But anyhow, I never said it!"
"Jabez" replied the angry saint,
"It isn't me, it's you that ain't.
Although there is a Santa Claus,
There isn't any Jabez Dawes!"
Said Jabez then with impudent vim,
"Oh, yes there is, and I am him!
Your magic doesn't scare me, it doesn't"
And suddenly he found he wasn't!
From grimy feet to grmy locks,
Jabez became a Jack-in-the-box,
An ugly toy with springs unsprung,
Forever sticking out his tongue.
