Author: Diane Griffin

Diane is a writer of Fantasy, an intermittent blogger, and a generator of nonsense.

My All-Time Top-Ten Favorite Albums, Until I Decide Differently

As of 10/22/23

1.) The Beatles — Revolver
2.) The Anthology of American Folk Music
3.) Yes — Fragile
4.)Siouxsie and the Banshees — Juju
5.) The Beatles — s/t (The White Album)
6.) Sex Pistols — Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
7,) George Harrison — All Things Must Pass
8.) John Lennon — Plastic Ono Band
9.) Yes — Tales From Topographic Oceans
10.) Buzzcocks — Another Music in a Different Kitchen

Honorable Mention:
Pink Floyd — Saucerful of Secrets
Paul and Linda McCartney — Ram

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This is me trying to give my life-long top ten. I’m still exploring, so this is still subject to change. So many Beatles thingies on this list…

I am in a proggy phase right now, hence all the Beatles and the Yes stuff. Maybe at some point I will post an all-time favorite Prog albums, which I think the Beatles may not appear on (well, maybe Revolver will show up, because I think that is the original prog album!)

Thoughts, 10/16/23

Somewhere in the distance,
The sound of thunder
Shakes the ground
Banishing the snakes
Under what could soon be
Israel’s newest neighborhood.

Last week,
Hamas took 200 hostages.
It still has them.
They killed 1400 Israelis.
In response,
The Israelis have killed
2750 Palestinians
As of yesterday.

There’s always tomorrow.
Except for the children of Gaza.
What does their tomorrow look like?
Terror breeds terror.

MSNBC has three Muslim anchors:
Their greatest experts on this ongoing conflict
They’ve taken all three off the air.

A Florida Congressman, Brian Mast
Turned up on the house floor
Wearing an IDF uniform.

Maybe that’s him giving cover
To Rashida Tlaib’s Palestinian flag
Which stands outside her office door.

I saw a cockroach
In an editorial cartoon
With a Palestinian face;
A big brown boot
Hovered above it
With the letters
“IDF”
Emblazoned across it.

Truth is the first casualty.

But here is something true:
Israel operates an open-air prison
With over 2 million inmates
–Half of them children–
Which it is now bombing
Again, an action
An Israeli security expert has called
“Mowing the grass.”

This is the exact
Opposite sentiment
Of Whitman’s use
Of this same metaphor.

Grass as life.

Outside my window
A fog is hanging thickly
Above my home’s
Beautiful lawn.

We have been
Letting it become
A meadow.
I have been letting
The grass become long,
Luxurious, and uncontrolled.

There are snakes out there.
I’ve seen them.

Snakes strike when cornered.
Shall we destroy snakes?

But the snakes in my meadow
Are not my enemies.
They do what snakes do.
Catch insects.
Sun themselves.
Make holes in my yard.

But if I had rattlesnakes,
Or cottonmouths,
Or cobras in my yard,
I would only want to rid myself
Of that which is venomous.
Not the bunnies.
Not even the skunks.

But in the fenced-in yard
Called Gaza,
White phosphorus rains down
On the innocent,
And the tractors that will
Mow that lawn
Idle at the ready.

Again:
For the children of Gaza
What will tomorrow look like?




Update About My Incessant Scribbling

I guess this is a thing now.

I recently got published in Meat For Tea: The Valley Review with a piece called The Casserole Tree. I read at their issue release party at Gateway Arts Center in Holyoke. I didn’t read the published piece, I had already read that one out, and there was something else I preferred to share. I liked that event. It’s in a bar, there was music and visual art and poetry and rock music. I’m looking forward to the next one.

As far as the piece I read at Gateway Arts, I plan to read that one again at Paul Richmond’s Third Tuesday Word this week.

Work on the summary of The Story is proceeding. It’s taken me months to even summarize this thing, and all I can think as I go through it is how much work it needs. I am sure it’s going to grow from the current 120K draft, but who knows by how much? All will be revealed in time, I suppose, but this thing is not going to get shorter, and there is so much work to do. It really is going to take years.

I want to read an exerpt from the thing in front of people, but open mike slots are 5 minutes as a rule and I want to read for at least 10. I haven’t found a 5 minute chunk that’s worth excerpting!

In other news, I still have the Socialist Ghost Story sitting out, waiting to be returned to. I was struggling with that one a bit, but I theorize that the reason I was struggling is Too Many Irons In the Fire. Once I can devote my whole brain to it, it will come into sharper focus. I am afraid it might be a while before I do get back to it. Maybe I should drawer it, but I definitely want to go back and finish it.

Another Quick Writing Update II: The Sequel.

F & SF did not want the thing I read at open mikes back in June. Trying to decide what to do with that one next.

Submitted a piece to Meat For Tea called “The Casserole Tree.” Found a typo in that one, and I absolutely HATE my second sentence, all found after I had submitted. That one needed more time in the hopper. I expect it to be rejected.

I’ve temporarily abandoned the ghost story to concentrate on the byzantine pirates. It’s fun reading it and taking notes as I go. I’m building a “bible” for the characters and doing a scene-by-scene summary, too. I just got to add a page for one of my favorite characters today, which makes me happy. Progress!

Going to the Tuesday Word this week. Will probably read a version of “The Casserole Tree.”