FIRECRACKERS

FIRECRACKERS

1 lb unsalted saltine crackers (4 sleeves)
1 cup canola oil
1 (1 ounce) packet ranch dressing mix
2 tablespoons crushed red pepper flakes
1⁄2 teaspoon garlic powder

Line crackers on ends (like dominoes) in an air-tight container.
In a small bowl, mix oil, dressing mix, peppers, and garlic powder.
Stir until all ingredients are well mixed.
Continue to stir to prevent the pepper from settling on the bottom of the bowl.
Spoon mixture evenly over crackers, like drizzling icing on a cake.
Close lid tightly and flip the container over every 5 minutes for about 20 minutes. Lightly shake back and forth to make sure all the crackers are coated.
Store in a ziplock bag. Will keep for about a week.

5 DAY WEEKEND!

5 DAY WEEKEND!

Working on Romeo and Juliet. Find other plays by searching "The Tiny Stage Shakespeare Company", on Google Play (and start scrolling!). Find them there or find links at www.danmanning.com. 

don't lose your bearings.

Don't lose your bearings.

bookmark on your head!

"There was a bookmark on your head!"

this weekend's chess

I played 21 games: (+11=0-10)  https://lichess.org/@/danmanning

sunday: what happened

raked leaves.
did some programming, working on Romeo and Juliet for The Tiny Stage Shakespeare Company.
played some chess.
played some world of warcraft.

Books I Might Read

Some books I might read, as opposed to 

some books I have read

The Castle of Crossed Destinies

Beowulf Michael Alexander version (prose) Seamus Heaney (verse)

Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, Ferdowsi

Storm of Steel, Junger

Heraclitus

Discourses, The Social Contract, Confessions, Rousseau

The Private Memoirs...James Hogg

Ghost Stories, Uncle Silas, Sheridan Le Fanu

Collected Ghost Stories, M.R. James

Satyricon, Petronius

The Anatomy of Melancholy, Burton

The Golden Bough, Frazer

The House of Mirth Edith Wharton

Castle of Otranto by Walpole

White Wine Wednesday + Lightning Storm

It's Wednesday, Deb's off work, and it's payday.

Strong lightning storm, tornado sirens, the works.

Four Black Crows

There were four huge black crows in the backyard when I got home from work today. Omens and Portents.

Also, I'm reading Tartuffe, or The Impostor, or The Hypocrite , by Molière .

Also, also, I' m almost finished with The Taming of The Shrew, writing the app for the Tiny Stage Shakespeare Company.  If you've got an android phone, check it out. 

Motor Scooter on fire.

Firemen hosing down a motor scooter. I'm trying to sleep damnit.

Two cats.

Got two cats yesterday. Brutus and Gus.

Let Them Loiter on The Screen Awhile

A chasm has yawned between myself and my writing. I find it difficult to write as I used; it seems an idle pastime of my recent slightly less-old days. My conceit that no one would ever read my words, as if that matters, seems, irrationally, to matter. No one will read my books, it seems. I have no head for self-promotions. The uncounted keyboards of the world, matched with minds yearning to express that inner-world of subjective thought has flooded the Internet with garbage words, these included. These words, spewing forth from my brain like an overflowing sewer, typed off-hand on some Sunday morning, unsolicited by an uninterested world, flow nonetheless. Not edited, no reverse, just typing forth rubbish into the Internet. Howling into the void, an aging man types on the Chromebook of his dead father. Yet here I sit, starting another sentence that might lead anywhere, as this stream-of-consciousness thing, this aging brain attempting to convey its subjective existence, unable to wrestle down its own thoughts, cannot fathom that there is no reason to continue. The sun shines on half the backyard, shade and bright green grass share a plot of land behind the house I pay the bank to let me use. There is a great tree back there, which for a long time I mistook for a Honey Locust, and maybe it is some species of that line, but it is large, and it is there every day, immobile, but more importantly, unthinking, unworried about the purpose of life or the cost of the mortgage. It will be there, if left unmolested, for years to come, yet I will, restless and malcontent, move about in various circles, getting, spending, worrying and finding distraction, all the while approaching a certain and immobile grave. Then I will be as content as the tree in my backyard, immobile, unthinking, unworried about "the purpose of life or the cost of the mortgage." So. A chasm has yawned between myself and my writing. But maybe not. Because here is a cluster of words, more stuffing for the great Internet, read yet unread, loitering on a screen.

two midnight trifles harvested from dreams.

i.

A titan of such savage grace,
That all who see him genuflect in awe
Or stand aloof,
It matters none to him.
For such is his security
That opinions pass unnoticed,
Like shadows scattered
In the wind.

ii.

Long the sweet sweet
Slumber of the night.
Low murmurs crowd
The echoed canyons
Of the mind.
Crisp sheets and
Darkness sanctify
Death's twin . . .
And morning,
Tardy with indifference,
Charms the starry welkin
With a sigh.

Saturday post

Watched regatta. Read Shakespeare in 1599. Girls went to see Lion King. Played chess. Watched Sinquefield Cup.

R.I.P Lilly

Our cat, Lilly, died.

Saturday Post

Ran three miles. Company is moving this month, very odd this week. Started working on 'THE TAMING OF THE SHREW' as part of my collection of Shakespeare plays.  I am the director of The Tiny Stage Shakespeare Company.  

Friday. It isn't raining. For once.

Worked on an app I'm developing. Shakespeare-adjacent stuff.

Mowed lawn.

Going to buy paint.  Silver Leaf 4006-1A and Roadster Blue 4006-6B

It's finally nice out.

back to writing

After a few changes of workplace, a hiatus, and a chess-distraction, I'm back to writing. Bing-watched Game of Thrones with Deb. After watching the series, I got depressed, and wondered to myself, "Why am I not writing? I should be writing."

So now I'm working on something again, and reading all the Hugo-award winning books I can get my hands on, for inspiration.

It feels good to be writing again. I'm creating something. Not much at first, but every paragraph counts.

Junk-mail Credit card offers are nothing new

"and there were several very courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street money-lenders offering to advance any sum of money at a moment’s notice and at the most reasonable rates of interest."

From The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, first published in 1890.

Cold today

Made fire. Bought steak. Programmed. Played chess. Shaved.