ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

QUOTATIONS

  • FRIDAY FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Jerry on the Dead

    “We’re like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.” ~Jerry Garcia Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee & Cigarette

    It wasn’t completely light when I woke up again, but the foggy, half-light that sometimes lingers along the coast in August. I got up and put some coffee water on and got under the shower. Pain leaped through my stomach and my head felt like a coconut that had fallen from a tall tree. I… Read more

  • FRIDAY FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Merton on Consumerism

    “We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the… Read more

  • Hard-Boiled Coffee Beans

    “There was a pot of coffee perking in the kitchen. Real coffee. The aroma reminded me of a little store I used to know in Newark as a kid, where fresh coffee beans always spilled out of a grinder into the window. It was the only street in my neighborhood that didn’t stink.” (cf. Vorzimmer,… Read more

  • Catchers and Pitchers Report

    This week catchers and pitchers report to Spring Training. The long, dark days of winter are coming to an end. For baseball fans, Spring Training means hope and possibility. Here are some of my favorite quotes about Spring Training. Spring training means flowers, people coming outdoors, sunshine, optimism and baseball. Spring training is a time… Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Problems

    You know something? It wasn’t so bad having a cup of coffee with her. I mean this was the first time we were alone together and she had a very sweet way about her. But what the hell, I had my own problems. (cf. The Best of Manhunt 2 (p. 398). Stark House Press. Kindle… Read more

  • FRIDAY FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Einstein on Class

    A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly drawn to the simple life arid… Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Shot

    Flack went into his desk again, took out a fifth of bourbon, and poured some into his coffee. He grinned. “Wanna cheer yours up a little?” “No thanks.” I got up, “I’ll keep in touch, Julian.” Flack’s grin disappeared. “Don’t call me Julian. And watch your step. I got enough trouble without having you turn… Read more

  • FRIDAY FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Henri Lefebvre on Capitalism

    [U]p until now ‘progress’ has affected existing social realities only secondarily, modifying them as little as possible, according to the strict dictates of capitalist profitability. The important thing is that human beings are profitable, not that their lives be changed. As far as is possible, capitalism respects the pre-existing shape and contours of people’s lives.… Read more

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “As I Lay Dead” by Fletcher Flora

    I have mentioned here before that Noir and Hardboiled fiction are my guilty pleasures. The tough, cynical protagonists, the fast-paced, action oriented plots, the tone, the dialog, and the style all appeal to me in a way that no other fiction really does. Manhunt first appeared in 1952. According to information Here is some information… Read more