They will never make another Ray Price; that is for sure. Nor will they stamp out another J.J. Cale or another Lou Reed or another Jean Stapleton or another Nelson Mandela--because there just is no mold for genius. Speaking of breaking (or not having) molds...I interviewed someone for an article (yes I got some freelance writing work, thanks to my sister Amy) about 3-D printers and their various potential applications in the real world. This sparked a memory that I might not have otherwise encountered....and it also made me think about the kind of good 3-D printers might accomplish in the world if, along with toners, ceramics, metals, and plastics, materials such as foodstuffs or water could be used to create things that people really need. Anyway, when I was about 8 years old, I had my first experience with a photocopier. We were in the Detroit airport and for some reason they had a Xerox copier in the terminal. My father, or other male relative I was with at the time, perhaps my uncle, said "if you put something on the screen, the machine will copy it." I immediately thought, well, I might lose one of my mittens. So if I put a mitten on that glass screen and push the button I will have an extra mitten on hand. Imagine my disappointment when all that emerged from the magic machine was a PICTURE of a mitten. And in black and white at that. It didn't match my green mittens at all! Well, times have changed and now we have 3D printers that can replicate any object, I suppose. So now we can make ourselves another mitten if we want to. Or a gun. Or an omelet. Or a bottle of gin. Do you think they will be used to create food for the hungry? Drinks for the dry? Mittens for the cold? Somehow I doubt it. Oh wait. I have an idea: how about using a 3D printer to change people's minds? You know, like a new kind of transplant? Maybe we could get people to just accept the fact that we have a black president, for example. They seemed to adjust to it pretty well in South Africa, didn't they? Of course there were those who would not adjust to having a black leader and they fled to other countries. Like the U.S., for example. I wonder if they are still here. *********************** The last time we went to L.A. we realized how difficult the restaurant experience can be. Never mind my usual gripes: waiters and bus personnel who grab your plate before you are finished eating, claiming that they are "getting it out of your way," or the dude at the next table with the Bluetooth, talking loudly about his assets....What got to us this time was the loudness of the place. Granted, we are AARP-aged citizens who spent most of our lives playing and listening to loud rock 'n' roll so we hear the chatter of thefamily at the next table much more clearly than we hear those seated with us. But it kept happening: everywhere we went we had to shout over loud piped-in music in order to carry on a conversation with our dining companions. Yeah, I know, conversation is dead. But some of us dinosaurs still like to try to have them. When EVERYONE in the entire restaurant is shouting to be heard over the piped-in music, the din is raised to the level of flood-water that has reached just below a person's chin, thus inciting panic. The heartbeat increases, and on top of that one gets mighty thirsty and the toxic combination of panic and dry-mouth causes one to continuously order drinks. One also acquires the inclination to shovel in the food and get the hell out of there. Which is probably the point....get your eating, drinking, and shopping (because this also happens in shops and it is even worse because you can actually hear the crappy lyrics and auto-tuned vocals more clearly than you can in a dining room where some of it is, praise God, masked by other people shouting, the clang of flatware, and the clinking of wineful glasses) finished and get the hell out so we can sell more food/ drinks/ hip boots. And, just to make a distinction for those of you who might not guess: I never mind, nor have I ever minded, nor will I ever mind, standing in a club, shouting back and forth to have a conversation when a good LIVE BAND is playing in the room. THAT, my friends, is just alright with me. Just wanted to make that perfectly clear, thanks. By the way, that freelance writing job I got? Guess what I sent as a writing sample. Give up? The article (available upon request) I published in the Rio Grande Sun last December 19th about the college's hard-working maintenance staff (and farolitos) that got me in so much trouble. Or at least that's what I suspect it was that got me in trouble—other than the union organizing of course. Truth be told, I really have no idea, so I am avoiding further trouble by remaining mostly unemployed for the nonce. And yesterday was December 19, the one-year anniversary of my having been "disappeared" by the authorities. I gotta say that Kip and I are better off now. We are in California, for one thing. We own a house and have no mortgage payments. We can buy really good-looking-and-tasting produce at the regular grocery store. We are warm most of the time. We are playing music on a somewhat regular basis, albeit mostly for free (nothing new there...). We can see a National Park from our front window. We can also see/ hear/ and feel a military base from our front window (and you already know my opinion about that). And, even though we live in the desert, we can go to the beach sometimes. So, on the anniversary of maybe the weirdest thing that ever happened to me, we happened to be hanging out in L.A. To commemorate the occasion of having been eviscerated from my job, Kip and I met our good friend Heather (who is visiting from New Mexico and who still teaches at the college) and her friend Jacqueline. We walked up and down the Santa Monica Pier in the sun that had been supposed to be rain, gazed at the sparkles in the water, and considered the Ferris wheel. At the foot of the pier, we discovered a bar called Rusty's. For those of you who don't know, Rusty is the self-adopted handle of the Northern New Mexico College President. Well nothing seemed more appropriate to us than stopping in at Rusty's for a refreshing beverage. We raised our glasses in a toast to the bygone year, and then we raised them again, along with our voices in a resounding general curse upon those who spent the year hurting others and an equally resounding general blessing upon those who have helped others. It always comes down to the same old question: Have you been naughty? Or have you been nice? Whatever you decide (since it is really up to you after all) I wish all of you a nice holiday time, and I certainly hope that we blessed you and didn't curse you yesterday. Not that we have that kind of power, but you know what I mean. The year is ending, so I thought I would send a couple of my favorite endings in literature. One is the final paragraph of James Joyce's short story "The Dead." A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, on the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. The other is the final paragraph of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.