Dear Reader,

Nothing stays the same.  That is true of my work situation as much as it is true of life in general.  I’m really talking about specifics though.  I am not going to have the leisure of long break periods with access to the Internet with which to further my writing on these pages.

As with everything, this could be bad, or this could be good.  I won’t be able to sit down and fict.  (fict is a new word that I just made up.  the act of writing fiction and a slapdash way  that does not deserve the keystrokes that make up “write fiction”) Sadly I wasn’t really doing that anyway.  So, I hope that I can develop a habit of writing at home. 

Stay tuned.  And if I begin to slow an encouraging word might be more effective than you’d think. 

Thanks for your kind attention

LSO

I’m not as young as I used to be.  As obvious as that is, I feel it today.  I think there are several things that have conspired to put me in this mood. 

Football: Look, as an American male I am duty bound to love this game and I do.  I used to play in the halcyon days of high-school.  It is obvious now that I don’t anymore.  Also I went “oh-for” in my fantasy leagues.  I got to watch my beloved Cowboys, who I have suffered with since Stabauch and Golden Richards, loose to the Giants.  The pain of it.  And I went OH-FOR in fantasy football.

It seemed I had a good plan for this week.  I was favored in every game.  But the fates were cruel and I suffered from under-performance by far too many of my key players.  Under-performance, oh-for, pain, loss. . .

Literature: I am reading an interesting book, The Broken Kings.  It is the pre-story of Merlin mixed in with Jason and the Argo.  I’m about halfway through and Holdstock makes a point in character about Jason.  Jason is a greedy jealous rash horrible man who is trying to make his mark.  Merlin on the other-hand is more like me, he is cautious, careful, over-thinks.  My point is (and what I got from Holdstock) is that Jason makes his mark because he is obsessed with doing so.  I think later on in the book we will see how or when or why Merlin is finally driven to the sort of obsession that makes a mark.

Life: I’ve made no marks.  I think this (doing this blog thing) is very much a desperate attempt to make a mark.  And since I desire, and am selfish, and have had a bad week of fantasy football, and realize that I can not make a mark on the field if I ever could, didn’t.  I am feeling pressure to make a mark, to do.  I have a deep desire bordering on the obsessive to HAVE DONE.  It is not the writing it is the have written.  Horrible grammar but perhaps you take my meaning.

Therefore, needing to, I will begin the desperate attempt to complete a novel here on these pages.  I fully realize that this will make me no money as I’ve heard publication on the web is death, but frankly I’m not sure I’m that good.  I need to make a mark and improve.  Why hold back?

No reason I can think of now.  Tonight then, I will think about what to do about running backs in all my leagues, I will think about who to start at receiver and in one case quarterback, and I will decide what story will give voice to my obsession to have written.

LSO

I’m going to begin to talk about the Celtic legends and lore that I want to be part of my fantasy world. For those not familiar with Celtic legends let me tell you, I know pretty much everything there is to know about the topic (errr, but to those who do know, ummm, uhh, let’s just say I’m putting it out there from memory.)
Because this is such a horribly quick and ill thought out post I will be forced to follow up, refine, and probably retract much of it. Still… …here goes.
I am an Irishman, of that there is no doubt. In fact, my sister having done a little comparative genealogical work (thanks Debbie), I know that I am descended from kings. Notably I am descended from one king in particular who seems, mitochondrially anyhow, to have a lot of descendants. Common to both my father and my mother is one notable person from out of the Celtic past. The O’Neills and the McNeils both spring from the same ancestor, Niall Noigillach. Niall, I’ve been told, means champion, and Noigillach means “of the nine hostages”.
Perhaps the bye name harks back to a king who conquered the nine sub-kings, leaders of minor tuaths around him, but some say Niall, counted as a high king, Ard Rig of all Ireland, came by the name for taking hostages as assurance of support from the 5 parts of Ireland, and four others elsewhere, like France. Intriguing and I’ll have to look into that.
Another legend about this fellow, Niall, is that it was he who captured Patrick and brought him to Ireland the first time as a slave. Indeed, some legends have it that it was Niall’s son Loeigre (sp?) who met Patrick on his return and through a Samhain’s day miracle began the island nation’s conversion to Christianity. Again, this requires study, so I’m putting it out there and checking and confirming later.
Niall is also very notable for the impact he had on the leadership of Ireland. Legend has it that Niall was promised the kingship for generations and the Ui Niall dynasty, or perhaps dynasties is a better way to put it, dominated the high kingship ever after. Often it seems one son of Niall got it by wacking off the head of another, but it traded back and forth until Brian Boru broke the string.
Lest I perpetuate a misconception that I do not hold, let me just say that the true genesis of the Niall clans, the various Ui Niall dynasties, was a later descendant, Niall Glundubh (that is Niall Black Knee) . In fact, Niall Nine Hostages is supposed to be, or is claimed by other clans as a progenitor. I’ll look up some of that stuff too.
It is a rich topic, no doubt, these moldy legends of kings and kingdoms or rather Righs and Tuaths, I have not even mentioned Conn of the Hundred Battles, or Saint Columkill (I think I’m murdering the name) or Tigernmas, or even Niall’s father Eochaid Mugmedon, who seems a fine fellow until you learn that his bye name means something approaching “the enslaver” or something like that. (I like to call him grandpa.)
I think I’ve successfully created something NEW, not good, but perhaps further days will see more care and concentration of effort. For now I give you NEW.
LSO

There are a lot of people who are interested in the Celts and all things Celtic. I certainly count myself as one of those. Some others especially those among the academics find the idea of a Celtic people as ridiculous or probably more to the point they think of people who believe that there is such and want to know more about such a heritage as unsophisticated rabble.

Perhaps that makes me a rabble-rouser. I don’t really see a problem with a popular cultural celticness. Perhaps that is one of the problems that academics have with us enjoying the past without the educational background, we fall prey to the geewizzification of the Celts. Though it is strange that they would have a problem with it, as they don’t believe in Celts at all.

I feel like their objections are a bit foolish. Of course the indo-european people we are talking about didn’t think of themselves as “Celts.” But looking back it seems to me that there was an aesthetic, a way of life, and a people group that it is valid to call by a name, Celts, Gauls, whatever.

Obviously we have to look back in time to see Celts. I’m Irish, or rather Irish-American, from the home of the insular Celts, but it is only in hindsight that we see the ornaments that they wore and the life that they lived had parallels on the continent.

I think my own experience bears on this. I was born in Spokane Washington. I really didn’t think of myself as Celtic, or my background as Irish until long after my formative years. The truth is I was Western if anything. My grandfather admired cowboys. My parents were just plain American. We as a family had no tradition that owed itself to Ireland or any nation but the USA and then we moved to Canada where I learned hockey. (Well, imagine my surprise long after when I poked around the roots of it and found Scot’s Shinty, and Irish Hurling, and what does Lacrosse owe its similarity to? All interesting explorations beyond the bounds of this post.)

And then we moved to North Dakota where I first encountered a culture that owed itself to a nation of origin. I graduated high-school in a Norwegian community. UffDa! Still it was in North Dakota that I got the first inkling of what might truly run in my blood despite all the cultural overlays I experienced growing up. I knew persecution, I was stubborn. Try being a Cowboy fan in Viking’s land…  …among actual Vikings. Interesting, no? An unaccountable aversion to Vikings.

Strangest of all was my first encounter with bagpipes. Our high school only had 35 people in my graduating class, but it had a radio station owing to the enterprise and many talents of our industrial engineering/shop teacher. On a “Wings Greatest Hits” album was the track “Mull of Kintyre.” The haunting skirl of the pipes spoke to me, it brought tears, and I played that song every day after that. Fortunately nobody listened or I’m sure there would have been culturally oriented complaints.

And that was it. I graduated, my family moved to Montana, and to Oregon. I didn’t subscribe to any bagpiping magazines or even buy the album. So much for my blood.

So the bagpipes blindsided me not so long after that. I was going to Community College in Oregon after the army and what should I hear but pipes on the wind. I wasn’t looking for the highland games, the highland games found me. I found a necktie with my maternal grandmothers tartan on it and off we went.

And off we go. I didn’t know I was a Celt. Nobody told me so. But I ran into it and it called to me, like the song in the radio studio unheeded, and then that day when pipes on the wind carried me away.

So, let stuffy academics scoff, I believe in Celts. I feel I am one.

LSO