tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62151092977860911882024-02-20T01:58:36.510-08:00Letters to No OneAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.comBlogger81125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-68679164598369250152017-06-21T19:06:00.000-07:002017-06-21T19:06:00.556-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (79)<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Country was a round faced fluff bear of a man, mighty and full of farts. He came to me in the dead of night and said, "I'm sure glad you're white." It's what we all think, at first. People naturally come together in tribes, like with like, and the most obvious sieve is color. The chow hall is gradated, white up front, mixed, and black in the back farthest from the CO. This is not racism, it is just the way things happen when you don't try to force it. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Country was not an educated man, but he was wise in the ways of the world. He complained that all the people who sold drugs here were actually junkies, the prices were spiked because they really didn't want to let the product go. After he turned down a few tall pitches he swore off the game, unless the opportunity came for him to move product himself, but that wasn't something he looked for. He taught me how to make floss out of the plastic sleeve saltine crackers come in, and how to weave it into rope if I ever wanted to hang myself. He showed me how to make a cutting disk out of a peanut butter lid, and taught me a few ramen recipes that were new to me.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Country liked cars, four wheelers, women, and crystal. He had a good girl at home who was waiting for him, against all good sense, and he talked to her on the phone twice a day, or thrice. There was also an ex who emailed him photos of herself, mildly suggestive selfies. He said he wanted to hit it one good time before getting serious with the old lady. </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">As a cell partner, he was generous with his relative wealth. We both bought as much popcorn as we could and split a bag most nights. When he went to store he would blow everything he had in one go and we'd eat like MSG czars for a week or two, then fall back on my supply of ramen and pickles for a more conservative period until he had money again. He liked to play in a rowdy, brotherly way, grabbing nipples and showing his ass. Not at the same time. At his insistence I started exercising again, basic body weight stuff, and finally got over the nerve pain in my shoulders. His sister was in jail, then out of jail, and he complained that she was siphoning money from their mom he should have been getting. His sister was a bit of a junkie as well. Country wasn't, he was a cook, a producer when it suited him. And he almost couldn't help himself. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">When they took him out, it was over three gallons of wine in his property box. I was sorry to see him go, as he was the most comfortable celly I'd ever had, and it would have been a hell of a party.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Hearts and Stars</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">June 15 2017</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-54757992791669991252017-06-11T19:37:00.001-07:002017-06-11T19:39:24.746-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (78) <span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">So there were two envelopes from PEN yesterday. The PEN prison writing contest is something I've talked about before, a national contest open to anyone incarcerated within the last year. It has five categories; drama, fiction, poetry, and they split nonfiction into essay and memoir, which makes five. I submitted to four categories last September, there's about a nine or ten month turn around for these things. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Any who, first place for my drama submission, second place for my essay. I'm a bit bothered they snubbed my poetry, but I will take the two prizes happily. It's not the most prestigious contest, given the state of its applicants, what it does is pad my resume a little and give me the satisfaction of having won something. It isn't exactly vindication, it feels more as if the somewhat nebulous future me that I aspire to had some tiny piece of itself solidified. There is money as well, they will have to mail the check to my mother and then I will have to convince her to send it to me instead of putting it into the same purposeless though good intentioned account as went last years winnings. I like to pretend I'm self supporting. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I can only believe that there are fewer drama submissions than in the other categories. Last year that was the Dawson prize (fancy fourth) for me. Both years, my drama scene has been slap dash last minute stuff. I am more prideful of my poetry than any other medium, and yet it is the most difficult market to succeed in. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Naturally, I'm excited by all this. However, it seems that stoicism cuts both ways. The same filter that allows me to accept failure and mischance all unblinking partially numbs my response to positive turnaround. I waited to open the envelopes, afraid of yet more disappointment, preparing for it. There was something wonderful and fleeting in opening them and seeing that I had won. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I called my parents and my brothers, told Matthew to update my query letter. My life hasn't changed, I won't have the prize money for several months, and that won't be exactly life changing either. It is a step, a piece of a much larger game. There is always the next thing, the further submissions, hopes to be dashed. I am thinking about next year.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Also, a man was elected as the representative in Montana's only district who is both a young earth creationist and a bully who physically attacked a reporter shortly before he was elected. Thinking about that too.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Hearts and Stars</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Letters to No One</span></span>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-50510356517750123902017-05-19T10:37:00.002-07:002017-05-19T10:38:02.327-07:00William Myrl; Letters To No One (77)<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Dear No One,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">We had group today, I'm sure I've mentioned it before. If I haven't, its the only group of it's kind in Virginia, and it exists solely because of our workaholic psychiatrist. There's usually about ten of us in the group. We come together to gripe about medications, prison, and the decline of civility in the west. He leads the conversation by asking us questions, but there is no set plan or lesson. It is meant to be organic. He told us a story that had been shared with him in the early nineties, when he took his position at Augusta. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The institution had been through five or six psychiatrists in as many years. One doctor interviewed and told the warden that he couldn't work there unless he had a CO with him whenever he was with inmates. The warden said they couldn't do that, they didn't have people to spare,and for the doctor it was a deal breaker. The warden convinced him to take a tour of the facility anyway and they eventually came to the room we occupied for our group. It was different then, there had been a grating bisecting the room, with the smaller section storing things inmates weren't to touch, and an ophthalmologists chair. The doctor had asked to see the area, and told the warden that is where he wanted to take his appointments. The warden agreed.</span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The CO who had shared this story with our Psychiatrist said what followed was some of the worst behavior he had ever seen. They had cursed the doctor, threatened him, grabbed the grating and shaken it. He came three times, and they were looking for another practitioner.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Our psychiatrist said he knew the man this had happened to, that he had gone to an excellent school and that he was a smart doctor, that he cared, and had helped many people. But he left the prison with the conviction that he had been right all along, these prisoners were animals and he had been right to take precautions. He learned the wrong lesson.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Our psychiatrist stood and pointed to the bolts in the wall where the grating had once been.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I haven't been keeping up with you at all. I won't lie and say it's going to get better.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Hearts and Stars</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-52712363546833685892017-05-19T10:29:00.000-07:002017-05-19T10:32:25.934-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (76)<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Dear No One,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Several changes in security procedures coming up. We are in the process of making special visitation jumpsuits in the tailor shop. They zip in the back, and we will change into them before being able to go in. Other shops are busy making complete sets of whites, so when we have a visit we will be wearing a complete set of communal clothing. Socks, t shirt, and underwear all stamped red for visitation. This is intended to cut down on the illicit materials that are smuggled into this place. It will be a lot of bother for everyone, and slow down the visitation process, not sure what it will do for the smuggling industry. In addition, the vending machines in visitation will no longer sell chips, or anything without a clear bag, or any microwavable foods. </span></span>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The changes to mail policy are what inconveniences me. Everything we receive will be photocopied and shredded, the copies will be delivered to us. Cards, photos, no more. Nothing my family physically touches can be touched by me. I am almost religiously offended by this. It's as if they are attempting to combat the magical law of contagion. Moreover, they will limit individual correspondence to five pages or items per letter. They will copy up to three sheets, front and back, and the envelope itself counts as one page. They will make no effort to fit multiple small items onto one page, or to accommodate oversized paper. I'm glad I stopped sending home manuscripts as I wrote them, because getting back copies will soon require a laughable number of envelopes. This policy forces us to rely more on the Jpay email system, which will be great for their percentage. </span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">We'll get used to all this, and in a few years prisoners will come into the system accepting it as the status quo. Things go up and down, but it's a longstanding truism that when there is change, it is change for the worse.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">On the lighter side of the news, Washington and Lee is hosting a class for the third year. Very exciting, and for the third year, I have unable to get past the application process. Submit a one paragraph answer to the question, "why am I interested in taking this course", those selected write an essay, and the top ten essays can take the class. Cool program, but I've never gotten as far as being allowed to write an essay. My paragraph answer was completely revamped, I thought I'd learned from last years failure where I talked myself up too much. Apparently not. There are a lot of people who put in, but you have to be three years charge free to qualify, so really we're talking less than a hundred legitimate applicants. Twenty get to do essays, ten get to be in the class. </span></span> </span><br />
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">It is truly frustrating to me that I am not in the eightieth percentile or above in this process. I've not been graded this low in my life. I am technically an award-winning author (The award was fifty dollars, but I'm counting it.), and I'm not good enough for the Augusta Department of Corrections educational screenings dream team. After last time, my expectations were tempered, so I am not as angry as I was. It would be nice to be in a class, to have an actual teacher, talk to actual students, it would be a very non-prison experience. I'm disappointed that it seems like I'm never going to be a part of it, and its hard to swallow knowing that I simply care more about it than the people who are accepted. This is not a general statement, I personally know many of the people who were able to participate in the previous classes. I don't care a lot about a lot of things, most of what goes on in here falls below my register for emotional affect. Prison drama is not important. This would have been something different, so it meant something. With ten fresh slots, I thought, surely, I would be able to fill one. That's what happens when you have hope, William.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Hearts and Stars</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Letters to No One</span></span></span>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-46614433315401422712017-05-19T10:15:00.000-07:002017-05-19T10:15:15.093-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (75)<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Dear No One,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">There were three students at group today, and I remembered their names by associating them with famous persons. Someone told the doctor he looked like Stephen King, which he doesn't, particularly. He asked us about King's popularity, and we listed off titles. Other popular authors were mentioned. The doctor said he wondered if there was anywhere the entire population could fit in a ring. Maybe on the rec yard, certainly nowhere inside. He asked how many people would raise there hands if everyone was in a circle somewhere and told to if the bible was their favorite book. In the group, hands immediately went up. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">We talked a bit about kairos, a christian group that holds regular "reunions", popular because they bring cookies. They used to hand out cookies to the entire compound, but offenders ruined it by trying to steal huge bags for themselves. This is why we can't have nice things.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">There is a fellow, Bucky, who was brought up. Apparently, he is known for his exploits as a devout crazy person. He went to a group of Muslims on the rec yard and tried to teach them about the bible. He drank diluted cleaner, making himself sick, as an effort at internal ablution. The doctor was concerned, as he had never met this offender, but no one knew his last name, or was willing to offer it.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Landstander and Waddle wanted to know why so many crazy people have religious delusions. The doctor asks if anyone has experienced manic symptoms relating to religion, and I start thinking about Alethianism, which I made up while I was in segregation. Bopedi raised his hand and explained that he had become hyper religious before. The conversation drifted again for a while, until the doctor brought it back to Bopedi, who talked about other manic symptoms like hyper sexuality. Tattoo gave an example of Bucky getting on the top bunk in his cell and masturbating with the sheet over his head while his celly was on the bunk below. At least he used the sheet, I said. I continued to think about Alethianism, half following the shifts in the topic train, until Anna Nicole Smith (one of the students) asked Bopedi a question. What is it like to come down from a manic episode? </span></span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Bopedi said it was disappointing, to see that you weren't really everything you thought you had been. He mentioned his art, and how hard it made it to work without that light. The light was gone. I made an observation at the end that it felt like the light was always there, maybe behind my head, or behind a locked door. I knew it was there but I couldn't reach it. You carry it with you.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Hearts and Stars</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Letters to No One</span></span>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-23122404403611338092017-03-05T14:25:00.002-08:002017-03-05T14:25:51.953-08:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (74)<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Dear No One,</span><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">It has been an odd week. Annual inventory came up in the plant, so I only had to work one day out of four. When we go back they are going to begin a massive jumpsuit order as the state begins insisting that inmates not be allowed to wear their own clothes to visit. These jumpsuits are special, they will all have a zipper in the back so that a CO has to tuck us into them.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Better news, the art contest came and went. There was a black history month production in the gym, and the submissions were displayed on tables opposite the stage. I watched the performance on its final afternoon. There was a guest speaker from wherever, and he took questions from people who had heard him the previous day. Some of the questions were as long as his answers, maundering hither and thither before coming to an incoherent conclusion. The speaker seemed knowledgeable, and I was impressed by one of his answers. Someone asked him what they should try to study, apart from basic reading and math, to be able to take back with them into society. He said microfinance. Our drawings had been up and down several times, but the final day thirty judges traipsed by to pick winners. The rec supervisor had all the administrative/paperwork people in the building do the judging, along with some COs who were in the area. I won the animals category, as one of two entries. The other guy had made a spider out of toilet paper and his own hair, which was neat, but it looked pretty meager beneath my life sized pair of foxes. I was offended that nine out of thirty voted for him. Cretans.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The DND game has come to an end. After six or more months of running it, I'm ready for a break. The personalities involved could be fascinating, also exhausting, or contentious. Dick was much better after he started taking medication. He was less likely to accuse people of harboring ill feelings toward him, less likely to interpret their actions with a negative screen. One of our players was transferred, and we replaced him with a middle aged man whose enthusiasm was unreliable. Sometimes he had a headache, or was too tired. Then there was Mao. Pretty sure he's on the autistic spectrum somewhere. Doesn't read people well, or if he can, doesn't react to them as if he does. Has a very strict pooping schedule, and regularly finds himself in conflict with others because of "misunderstandings", where he hears what others don't say or says what others don't hear. His turns would routinely take ten to fifteen minutes during combat, and involve a lot of book research. If you tell him not to do something, he will do it more, no exceptions.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Art contest update, I will probably get a six pack of mountain dew. Which is huge. There would have been many more entrants to all categories if a prize had been advertised other than a free picture ticket. Slipped in there.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Marina and the Diamonds is fantastic, FYI. She sings the music of my wierdass heart.</span><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Hearts and Stars,</span><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Letters to No One</span></span>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-70071467675405265462017-03-05T14:19:00.004-08:002017-03-05T14:22:41.625-08:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (73)<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; width: 100%px;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="normal" colspan="2" style="width: 699px;"><span id="lblLetter"><span style="font-size: large;">Dear No One,<br /><br />I heard about it at breakfast the morning after, Balerider had been vanquished. It was someone from another pod who gave me the news, the arrest had passed entirely beneath my notice. There was an almost festival air in the plant that morning, it was all anyone could talk about, a delicious end to the drama. Jokes were made ad nauseum. </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">Words like shoot, pull, member, weapon, and admire all were twisted into Balerider puns.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Pow pow pow," the inventory clerk would say. </span><span style="font-size: large;">"Pow pow pow."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">He shot from the hip. Fastest gun in the west. Balerider asked me if I could stand and talk to him while he's in the shower. He signed his grievance in white ink. He said she locked in, right?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />No one was particularly incredulous. Balerider had that wierdness about him, an intensity that could make people uncomfortable, especially women. He went out of his way to talk to female officers, nurses, administrators. Stories emerged that he had been caught before. They were believed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />"I'm almost finished."<br />"That's what Balerider said."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />It went on and on, happily ever after. The inmate advisor let slip that Balerider had refused a plea bargain for ten days in seg. He was officially taken off of the list at work. Once payroll went by, he would have to start over from .55 cents even if he was hired again. After about a week the talk petered out. (As had Balerider.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />On day nine, he was released from segregation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />People were friends with him again. I saw him in the pill line after work, he was walking up and down, telling the tale of his woes. He had a five year out of date copy of the shop rules in his shirt, and he would whip it out (heh) for anyone who showed even the most politely cursory interest in what had happened to him. The Balerider version of events went as follows.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Captain A convinced Officer B to falsely accuse him of infraction C. Captain A did this out of retaliation for a grievance Balerider had filed against him four years earlier. The major dropped the charge, and there would be an investigation into the matter. Every big hat he could name had assured him he would be able to go to work on Monday. One of our supervisors walked by on her way out of the compound.<br />"Hey! Hey! Can I come to work on Monday?"<br />"No."<br />"Why not?"<br />"You were terminated."<br />He insisted, moments thereafter, that the hearings officer had told her he was supposed to be back at work. Apart from the hearings officer having nothing to do with VCE hiring and firing, she had walked by without taking part in the conversation. But even to those who had witnessed the conversation, he would insist the hearings officer had taken part and advocated for him, despite the fact that it simply had not happened.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />He yelled at another supervisor as he went by, but this one ignored him.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />As far as anyone could piece together, the charge against Balerider could not go to a hearing because the original paper had been "lost" in a room with two lieutenants. The major was somewhat vexed, not about a conspiracy against Balerider, bit because of one in his favor. This happens sometimes, that when an inmate proves particularly useful to security, things slide by. There was a case recently when a yard worker was caught with a knife and kept his job.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />On Monday morning the phone calls started. Balerider bullied the booth officer into calling the shop more than once on his behalf. Balerider was informed that he would be given an unauthorized area charge if he attempted to come into work. All day, the joke became, "Balerider's on the phone!" He moved up the ladder, a sergeant, then a lieutenant called on his behalf. If there had ever been a question whether Balerider had some kind of unusual leverage with security, there was none now. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">His argument stemmed from a line in the shop rules that says "an offender in segregation more than fifteen days may be terminated", it is taken out of context, and he used it to mean that since he had not been in segregation fifteen days, he could not be fired. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What was strange about this delusion was not that he espoused it but that he had so many COs agreeing with him. The building manager in seg had terminated him, completely within his purview, and the plant managers had been happy enough to go along with it. Balerider hadn't burnt any bridges, he'd set the sea on fire.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Outside my door one afternoon, I heard him describing how he was going to "take them to court", and how the managers pay was going to be garnished until Balerider had his back -pay for the days and hours he'd lost since he was taken off the cutting table, and Balerider was going to work there for three weeks then tell them all to go fuck themselves.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />His requests and complaints have been filed. All the bighats know who he is. He's got the plant people "dead to rights three ways to Sunday." The general consensus is that Balerider is going to cause so much fuss the facility is going to transfer him just to be rid of the noise. It happened once before, the last time Balerider was fired from the plant, half a dozen years ago.<br /><br />Hearts and Stars,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Letters to no No One</span></td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-47951740614197925352017-03-05T14:02:00.001-08:002017-03-05T14:02:25.923-08:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (72)<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Dear No One,</span><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The ballad of Balerider begins with a murder, for that is what brought him into this world. As the life of a man must begin with a birth, the life of an inmate generally begins with a death, whether it be the death of a person or a dream. My first sight of him was on the cutting table. He worked fast, and steadily, always willing to put forward the extra effort necessary to push production. He was working for eighty cents an hour, top pay in the plant, and he was proud of his position.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">He was a man of pride, pride in his work, in his opinions, in his bearing, and he would not take easily to any sign that he was to be made less, or treated unfairly.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">He and the other cutters often clashed, in particular with one he knew as Fatass, among other more cutting epithets. He and Fatass got into a grand row one day, and Balerider was put in another department to work. This riled him, oh it riled, for it was Fatass who had been causing problems, not he, Fatass and the other cutter. Why was he being punished? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">There was no pay cut, but there was a cut in status, and sometimes the line workers were sent in early when there was no work, while the cutters were always allowed to stay. Balerider pled his case to the supervisors, and the plant managers, and derided their decisions and dishonesty to any who would listen. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">He was Briar rabbit, he would say, he felt like Briar rabbit, because the manager was a bear in the woods that wiped his ass with Briar rabbit. That's what happened in the Briar rabbit stories, I gather.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Pleading turned to veiled threats, and then less veiled. He was going to put this on paper, going to ride the grievance chain all the way to the top if they did not right their wrong. The other workers grumbled about him, because he regularly tried to upend the status quo, causing strife wherever he worked on the line. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">He was moved to another section, a vantage that allowed him to watch the cutters while he worked. He reported on their every weakness and mistake, real and imagined. When this did not bring about the change he desired, he tried to have Fatass fired by organizing a sting operation.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The cutters had a stinger (wire and metal device used to heat water) for coffee. Balerider reported its existence to security, and security watched the camera the following morning to see who was using it, then they called the shop manager to make sure he was fired. Fatass wasn't caught, it was the other cutter, whom Balerider had worked closely with for years. A position was open on the cutting table, and they had me assist until a permanent replacement could be found. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Balerider fumed.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">He was moved back to the other production line, where he didn't have a view of the cutting table. His rants focused around the favoritism that was being shown Fatass, who had committed offenses far greater than his own without repayment. Fatass had some kind of hold over the manager, some kind of relationship with him. It was the only explanation.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Months passed, and Balerider turned his sights higher. He began insisting on a meeting with the regional manager, and as she visited the plant on accession, he eventually had it. Balerider assured everyone that she had seen his point and was on his side. The sole result of the meeting was a new memo stating no paperwork of any kind could be brought into the shop. Balerider had been in the habit of carrying a file folder with him everyday, and he'd produced a handful of irrelevant paperwork during his meeting with the regional manager. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">He saw the memo as being a retaliation from the supervisors, despite having come from the regional manager herself. He claimed he could not be stopped from carrying his paperwork, because he was the ORC, inmate representative of his pod. To illustrate the fatedness of his coming victory, he name-dropped administrators. They were all on his side, and Tue supervisors would soon see the consequences of violating his rights. He was going to demand back pay for the days he had been forced to leave early and the cutting table remained behind.</span></span><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The next memo to be posted stated that any offender leaving the plant without a pass needed to sign a form stating they had done so of their own free will.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Balerider kept coming to me for the date and time that Fatass and the manager had been in an argument before they'd taken him off the cutting table. He said the major was going to go back on the cameras and see Balerider had been no part of the disagreement, and the order that had been miscut that day. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">How any of this would help him was beyond me. I mostly nodded, not giving him a real answer, I didn't have the information he wanted, and I wasn't going to risk my own position finding it for him. His insistence was becoming obnoxious, but it was taken out of my hands when Balerider went to jail (segregation) for gunning. Semi-public masturbation. It was the perfect end to a perfect story, or so it seemed.</span><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">More later.</span><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Hearts and Stars</span><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span><br style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Letters to No One</span></span>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-62021341659765861082017-03-05T13:46:00.002-08:002017-03-05T13:47:30.239-08:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (71)<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" style="width: 100%px;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="normal" colspan="2" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; width: 699px;"><span id="lblLetter"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,<br /><br />My roommate moved out, he was on the list for a single bed apartment and one finally became vacant. There was an age when all the prisons in Virginia were single bunk cells. That's how this one was built. Economics changed the picture, along with a swiftly growing population, and legislation that ended parole. So my celly moved, and for one and a half glorious days I had my own solitude.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: font-size: large;"><br />During this time, people who I rarely spoke to, or knew only peripherally, came to counsel me. I was warned by four different individuals that someone who had been moved out of the pod was trying to come back. He was like a boogey man, his name called up images of glowering ghosts and rattling torment. They were terrified that he would return, and they wanted me to be terrified. Drama consumes us, and gossip, it is our sacrament and bread. There was never any chance of the boogeyman returning.</span><br />
<span style="color: font-size: large;"><br />Coming home from work on the first day, a man met me at the door and suggested his openness to our being cellies. When there is an opening, it's not so difficult to have the unit manager switch someone around, as long as you catch him in the right moment. I agreed to the match, and he said he would try to catch the unit manager while I was at the tailor shop the next day.<br /></span><br />
<span style="color: font-size: large;">The unit manager was not at work the next day, and my new celly arrived at around eight o'clock that night.</span><br />
<span style="color: font-size: large;"><br />His name is Country, and he's in his thirties. He has a child, a lot of tangled relationships with women, and a supportive family. His sister is also in jail. He laughs like "Heuh heuh heuh" in a deeper than normal voice, and one of the first things he said to me was, "man, I'm glad your white." He's a fantastic bunkie. He has money, and he spends a lot of his time in the pod and outside. He transfered here, and he already knows more people than I do.<br />An empty cell is something special. We spend all of our days surrounded by voices and human shapes. Behind the door, the sounds still enter, the faces slip by, a small man with an afro irons other offenders pants on a board bolted to the wall. It is impossible to escape the humanity.</span><br />
<span style="color: font-size: large;"><br />In an empty cell, when the pod is asleep, it's almost like being alone.</span><br />
<span style="color: font-size: large;"><br />Country saw the copy of "Six Easy Pieces" I'm reading, read the word "physics" on the cover, and asked if it was about psychic stuff. When I said no, he asked if it was about reading body language. Country has done a lot of drugs. I'm genuinely glad to have him in the cell.</span><br />
<span style="color: font-size: large;"><br />The bottom bunk is mine at last.<br /><br />Hearts and Stars<br /><br /><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" target="_blank">William Myrl</a><br />Letters to No One</span></td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-58632386073240845072017-01-27T14:57:00.003-08:002017-01-27T14:57:49.411-08:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (70)<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; width: 100%px;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="normal" colspan="2" style="width: 699px;"><span id="lblLetter"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><b>"It's the feeling that compels us to reach out for others even as we curl away from the others around us."</b><br /><br />Dear No One,<br /><br />There was ice cream today, meat burgers. These things are donated on occasion. It's an awful lot of build up for what is essentially a kid's meal, as we all gossiped about it for a week and a half before the actual lunch, expectations rose beyond reason. Ice cream is one of my favorite things, basically a drug of choice. <br /><br />The boulevard was packed with officers out to catch the double backers, beat the deucers, tray thieves. They hand out 111's, stealing charges, if they catch us going through the line more than once, and today they were serious. Potential hazards; loss of phone use, rec, commissary, or a twelve dollar fine. The fine seems much harsher if you're paid thirty five cents an hour. It's hard to guess how many extras were served. <br /><br />As we eat lunch in the Apparel Plant (way less fancy than it sounds), I didn't have an opportunity to test their hamburgler alarm system. It's embarrassing to think about how much we and how eagerly we fixate on and anticipate this sort of meal. In actuality it is less and less exciting than a stop at Wendy's. I remember Wendy's.<br /><br />Writing these letters, I try to avoid repeating myself, the danger of a diary is falling into the habit of recording mundane cycles of thought and feeling. But feeling, when straying from the humming average of a psychologists ten point scale, is often at the forefront of my mind when I want to write. <br /><br />This kind of feeling isn't good for stories, isn't helpful for detailed argument. It's the feeling that compels us to reach out for others even as we curl away from the others around us. The feeling of being wrapped in a soft and permeable malaise, an unhappy fog. I don't know what to say.<br /><br />Wait a day.<br /><br />Whenever I have a dull period, it is almost invariably followed by an upswing. Today, folding the same canary jumpsuits I was folding yesterday, I had to tamp down on my smiles. My internal dialogue was too amusing. <br /><br />There are other factors. Thursday is the end of my work week, and I had just counted two boxes of band-aids. Inane tasks put me in a good mood. (199 adhesive medical strips, they shorted us one.) <br /><br />Perhaps more salient, we had our group today. It wasn't as negative as last weeks gathering, where patients complained about medical mistreatment, and being locked in seg when they tried too hard to get someone to listen to them. Some droned on, some always do. <br /><br />There were three students there, one with a strange name, indeterminate ethnicity, huge eyes and pouty lips. I happen to hate that descriptor, but pouty is exactly what they were. Some cliches are there for a reason. Most of the session for me was an exercise in staring at her without being overtly creepy. I don't generally feel compelled to contribute to the conversation unless it falters.<br /><br />I've got a new j-pop fixation: Passepied. I've only got three tracks of theirs but each is excellent. Then there's Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Still insane.<br /><br />Tonight will be my Pathfinder game. We had to change the schedule because we lost a player. He went to segregation chasing his lover, we'll get into that another time. The new guy won't stay awake after nine in the evening. Continuing to play Friday and Saturday late night rec periods will be impossible One happy consequence, I can catch the second half of this Crazy Ex Girlfriend season. The gaming gang consists of Dick, who has an accurate name, Mao, who is impossible to reason with, and Darn, who is the soft pudding with which I shall mix them together.<br /><br />Yours,<br /><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a><br />Letters to No One</span></span></td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-62828692658952252002017-01-07T18:27:00.001-08:002017-01-07T18:27:33.548-08:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (69)<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One, </span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">There is a conversation that keeps rewinding, actually, there are a number of them, but one bothers me more than the others. When talking about themselves, about living in prison, offenders often use the word alert. They say you have to be alert, you have to remember where you are, because anything could happen at any time. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"> No. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">These people do not understand what alert means. Alertness is a state of heightened awareness, which it is not possible to maintain indefinitely without inviting serious physical and mental health concerns. Purse likes to talk about how alert he is, both in group and in the pod, its one of the speeches he keeps tucked in his back pocket along with his address book.
An example he uses is not going to sleep with your cell door open, because someone could enter and do you harm while you were helpless. This behaviour is not a sign of alertness, it's a sign of not being an idiot. When the people who work in the prison leave home in the morning, they don't leave their doors open either. They don't leave the doors to their houses open in the middle of night while asleep, just as college students don't leave the door to their dorm rooms open onto the hall, because they are not idiots.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">There are very few offenders that, when pressed, will say they are not alert, do not keep alert. So what do they mean? Purse might say it means being aware of the people around you, aware that you're dealing with criminals. Again, the technical name for being aware of the people around you is called consciousness, or not being an idiot, you don't get kudos for being awake. There is more violence per capita in the prison systems than in the nation at large, but we happen to occupy a very relaxed section of that system. Inmates won't always honor their debts or their promises, but that's also true of humans in general. If to be alert means to remember that you are surrounded by criminals, because they might try to cheat or otherwise take advantage of you, it would do just as well to remember that we are surrounded by humans, who do much the same thing. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">The "alert" comments are a pet peeve, possibly because they remind me of someone describing how self aware they are, or how perceptive. How would they know? The individuals I interact with who are clearly sub par people readers believe themselves monuments to perspicacity. Remember the above average effect? Nearly ninety percent of drivers will aver to being above average navigators of the roads. Those same respondents would call themselves "alert." If anyone can do it, than anyone can think they're good at it. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">I told the students I was not alert. I live here. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Hearts and stars, </span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">William Myrl </span></a><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Letters to No One</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-55746663228163637192016-09-18T09:49:00.002-07:002016-10-09T15:11:15.545-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (68)<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I didn't finish the Republic, and I can't imagine a reason why I would. People shouldn't read Plato, they just shouldn't, except as an example of how not to argue. He isn't necessary for that though, you could get into politics and listen to the same contortionist rhetoric today that was invented long before Rome started being interesting. I made an effort because a student asked me to, but I can only go so far. I was starting to feel the same kind of upset I get from reading young earth creationism propaganda material. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">We lost someone else at the shop, they were making an unauthorized clothing repair. The strange bit is that he wasn't caught in the act, but trying to carry it out. They occasionally select a few of us to be strip searched before we can leave. Its perfunctory. Two COs have to be present while you are stripped, so whoever isn't first is left outside the little room with no one watching. He could have disposed of the garment, or even just set it aside, without issue. Instead, he waited with it in his clothes, waited for his turn. I imagine he was panicking, and not thinking. There's a trashcan within a pace of where he must have been standing. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">So I'm sitting here listening to a band called Cream n' Chrome, of all things, and waiting for the Americas Got Talent finale. More importantly, Mr Robot is on tonight. You should give it a try. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I read Darkness Visible, by William Styron, another book recommended to me in the context of an interview. It's brief, pretty, and dramatic. One can take it as a happy omen that his swollen descriptions of depression seemed far away to me, he repeats, as I often have, that there is an insurmountable incommunicability to the illness. He was a famous literary presence, and an alcoholic who quit late in life. Defeating his addiction probably helped bring about the episode that nearly defeated him, and taking the wrong medication to help him sleep. He talked about depression being a humdrum and inadequate term for the disease, and I am inclined to agree. But any word is prone to misunderstanding, and increasing misuse over time. I still would rather they hadn't changed "manic depression" to "bipolar". Much of the stigma he and others faced, has been meliorated.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"> It's 2016, and Demi Levato, one of Disney's pop princesses, appears in public health messages about living with bipolar disorder. Famous persons still commit suicide, Styron lists a number, but their struggles are openly acknowledged by the media instead of hidden. Part of that is interest mongering, but I believe it can also serve a purpose. Robin Williams' illness wasn't broadcast during his life or in his career. Perhaps it should have been. An unacknowledged disorder can be the most dangerous kind.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Styron, I think, did eventually kill himself, a sad end to a mixed story. He was eighty years into the game.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Yours,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-39805347032927162832016-09-08T14:25:00.000-07:002016-12-23T11:58:12.954-08:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (67) - Kneading Plato part III<span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Phaedo is the dialogue that covers the death of Socrates, his last words with friends, nattering away until they reach the hour appointed for him to drink poison. His closeness to death makes the afterlife an excellent topic for their discussion.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=""><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">According to Socrates, the philosopher must always be in pursuit of death and dying, because he abstains from worldly things, and seeks the pure essence of concepts and truth. Physical pleasures are to be despised, because to have pure knowledge of anything we must have quit of the body. There are echoes of eastern philosophies in Plato's writings, and I wonder how familiar he was with them, and whether they were plagiarized.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=""><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">If the body and the world are corrupt, and there is such a thing as a soul, then why not commit suicide? Socrates has an answer for this (he has an answer for everything), and it is that we are the property of the gods, and therefore have no right to self destruct. This is a very strange position for him to take, given his own proximity to suicide, but like all of Socrates other hypocrisies, this issue not addressed. In the dialogues, nothing Socrates says is ever criticized in earnest, because he is the mouthpiece of the author, and the author is the only person in the room.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">How do we know that there is such a thing as a soul, and that it persists after death? That is solved quite handily with the baseless asseveration that opposites always create each other, and that as death is the opposite of life, death must create life, and visa versa. So there must be a soul that exists before the body- I honestly don't know how that connection is made. Someone asked me whether I wasn't enjoying Plato because it was difficult to understand. Let us be clear, Plato's dialogues are not difficult to understand. In order for it to be difficult to understand a thing it must be at least possible to understand it. Unalloyed nonsense is not difficult to understand, it is just nonsense.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The soul is immortal because it is invisible, and all of the invisible realm is immortal. The soul is a harmony, and a harmony can allow no disharmony within itself. The soul is immortal, and immortality cannot suffer death, therefore the soul can never die. He goes on and on, this Socrates, before he finally kills himself with hemlock (because the opinions of the many don't matter, unless they sentence you to death, in which case they become the law, and you cannot break the law without destroying society and being hated by all men who love good, which makes suicide okay).</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Plato's arguments tend to revolve around the realm of pure concepts, where words and ideas have an unchanging existence outside of and above the petty material world. He defines a word, like good or immortal, in a given way, and then says that we must behave in accordance with these words, reality must adhere to these words and to their perfect natures, or else we are not lovers of knowledge and true philosophers. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Mystical claptrap is as old as mankind, and he is quite accomplished in the field of pretending to be wise. The more that I read, the more bored I become, and the more confounded. How can a literate person be exposed to Plato, read his whole body of work even, and conclude that it is something worth doing, that it is something worth recommending to others? His characters debate back and forth, bandying jabberwocks, like the emperor's attendants discussing the fineness and variety of his invisible (and therefore immortal) panoply. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I'm not trying to be mean, I don't think Socrates and his creator are valuable or interesting enough to attack. They are ancient peoples, plagued with all the ignorance of the ancients, and they serve well as intellectual curiosities. Why do we hold them up as anything more than that? What kind of mental gymnastics must we undertake to read this collection of weird assertions and perceive them as profound?</span><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">yours,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl </a></span><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Letters to No One</span></span>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-73395177266886063092016-09-08T14:18:00.002-07:002016-12-23T11:59:44.782-08:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (66) - Kneading Plato part II<span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">After the Apology comes Crito. </span></span><br />
<span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">This is a dialogue between Socrates and his friend Crito who has come to persuade him to escape prison and evade his sentence of death. Socrates refuses, and they argue back and forth, but like nearly all of the characters in these dialogues, Crito uses most of his lines to agree wholeheartedly with whatever Socrates happens to be saying. Contrary ideas are abandoned as soon as they are proposed, as if they had an understanding with the great philosopher all along and merely wished to hear him put their own beliefs into words for them.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Crito begins by telling Socrates that he cannot possibly allow him to die in prison, because then all men will think badly of him for not trying to help his famous friend. This is, like much of what you will read in the dialogues, not a thing that any actual person would say, except as a joke. Socrates' response is that the opinions of the many are not to be regarded, only the judgments of the good. Not a bad piece of advice, with the understanding that Socrates himself doesn't regard the opinions of anyone but himself. Why is it that the fact that Socrates can't lose an argument is taken as a sign of his intelligence, rather than his obstinance?</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">In any case, the philosopher cannot allow anyone to help him escape his sentence, because doing so would violate the law, and he cannot violate any laws, because to violate a law is to violate the social contract that allows men to live together in society. If he did betray himself by leaving, it would also be a betrayal of his family, who would have to live without him or go with him and therefore be deprived of Athens, the only city in the world worth living in. In exile, any government would see him as the treasonous enemy that he was for having broken the laws of another country.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">There is nothing about his position that is not ridiculous, so I will talk about something more interesting. The Socratic method, the method by which he reaches his many risible conclusions, is in need of analysis.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Socrates asks people to set their own terms, to define an idea related to what they are talking about, and then picks at that definition until his opponent is forced to agree that his original statement leads to absurd conclusions, or it supports Socrates position. It works because his opponents are all fictional straw men, and because language is ambiguous, and he exploits that ambiguity. He defines a good life as one in which no wrong is done, defines escaping prison as wrong, and finds escaping prison to be therefore impossible if he is to live a good life. All the while, Crito says whatever Socrates would want him to say, nodding or shaking his head as appropriate for a puppet. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Human beings are not internally coherent. What this means is that our beliefs would not all agree with each other, if they were laid out all at once. Most of the time, when we are asked what we believe about a given issue, we fabricate our beliefs on the spot, rather than storing those beliefs in a memory bank that checks behind itself. It's more efficient, and it allows us to hold multiple conflicting beliefs at any given moment. </span></span><br />
<span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The statements we make about our beliefs are not iron clad, they do not stand alone against scrutiny, but require caveats and codas to support them. When we have a conversation, it is difficult, impossible, to hold everything that is said perfectly in mind, topics bounce about, statements are amended or forgotten, and no one changes heart on any subject they feel strongly about. </span><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">You can try the Socratic method on anyone you care to; if you keep asking questions they will eventually contradict themselves. This does not make you, or Socrates, clever, it's simply a fact that humans are not good logical calculators, and we have limited RAM.</span><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Socrates argues from the general (but is not life, but a good life, to be chiefly valued?) to the specific (if I disobeyed the law I would not have a life to be chiefly valued) in a convoluted and contrived fashion, and he is only capable of doing so because Plato is the one writing the story. A tenth grade seminar student would be able to cut him short. </span></span><br />
<span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style=""><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;">You may accuse me of reading Plato with an eye jaded by concepts modern students take for granted. Plato didn't have our advantages. Of course he didn't, and that's exactly why we shouldn't take him seriously. Be aware of him, mention him in a history course, fine- but stop buying into the conceit that he was prophesied to be wise. Perhaps he was wise then, and it was a sadder age. We do not live in that age any longer, and what was impressive then is not impressive now.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Plato decides that he must kill himself because he believes killing himself makes him the better man, the best of men. He refuses to live in a world where he is not right, where he cannot live by exactly his terms. I'm sure there are people who think this is nobility. I think that it is cowardice.</span><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Yours,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Letters to No One</span></span><br style=" font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-11361961723285964322016-09-06T19:00:00.000-07:002016-09-06T19:13:58.854-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (65) - Kneading Plato, part I<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">One of the medical students suggested reading Plato. He told me he would bring Plato's anthologies with him onto a desert island. I wanted to know what he saw in it, so I checked out a collection from the library.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Classics can be difficult reading, translations, archaic language, unfamiliar names and references to bygone idioms all contribute to that difficulty. Ancient philosophy is actually smoother going than its modern counterpart, as there isn't a logic equation in sight. Plato's arguments can be convoluted, but they can be parsed with a little patience. There is a mystique about his work, a near sanctity, that prevents people from examining his words as they would if he were not Plato.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The pretension of wisdom is a pet peeve of mine. My apologies, No One, for what is to follow.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><i>The Trial of Socrates</i></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">We had to read it in high school, and it's the most famous of Plato's works. It's also one of the most readable. A fine place to begin.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Socrates defends himself against a number of charges, but not before he seeks to prove to the audience that he is smarter than any of them. The oracle at Delphi prophesied that he would be the wisest man in the world. He came to believe that it was true, he says, because he went to all sorts of men (not women, of course) who were said to be wise and discovered that they all possessed the same flaw. They had opinions on matters they were not qualified to have opinions on. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Socrates, on the contrary, knew that he knew nothing, and was therefore the wisest of men. Take a moment here. Socrates is chastising others, calling their reputations into question, as well as crowning himself wisest, because other people he happens to come upon in the city he won't leave have opinions about matters they are not qualified to have opinions on. This from a man who opines at every opportunity, on every subject, who believes himself to have the finest insight into every art and puzzle, and always insists on the last word. He surrounds himself with sycophants, and rambles on about his humble nature, being but the gadfly of Athens, but betrays himself with his actions. He is humble, yes, and knows the limits of his knowledge, and yet he will not bow his head to any assembly, or admit to any possibility of his own ignorance. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Those of you who have read the Apology, as well as Plato's other popular fictions, may scour them as you will for lines that disprove my assertions. You will find them, and thereby prove my point; Socrates is a hypocrite. He says all manner of humble things, he is kind and generous with his words, and all of that is belied by his actual actions and beliefs. I cannot emphasize enough, Socrates calls himself the wisest man in the world because only he knows that he knows nothing. Taken out of context, its a very pithy statement. What it actually means is less dramatic or striking, a wise person is aware of the limits of their own knowledge. Even a casual reading of the dialogues should be enough to convince you that Socrates is not that wise person.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The Apology is Socrates' defense against trumped up non crimes that you could apparently be put to death for in ancient Rome. Atheism and corrupting the youth of Athens stood out to me.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">To paraphrase his defense against the charge of atheism: </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">"I can't possibly be an atheist, I talk about the gods all the time."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Genius.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">His defense against the charge of corruption-"I can't possibly be corrupting the youth of Athens, because if my accusers were good people, they would have stopped me from corrupting the youth already, and they say they are good people, but they haven't stopped me; therefore, I am not corrupting the youth."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Absolutely no foolin', that is his argument. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Also, he says, "If I had been corrupting the youth all this time, the youth I corrupted a generation ago would be here to accuse me now, but they are not, and therefore I am not corrupting the youth."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">That's how corruption works in my book.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Socrates takes many pages to say these simple things, but they are what he says.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">What shocked me the most about the Apology was how chummy Socrates appears to be with death. He acknowledges only two possibilities following the end of life, an eternal rest, or a Dumbeldorian "next great adventure." This implies a failure of the imagination at the very least. I won't dwell on this subject here, as Crito and Phaedo address it more fully, as well as the arrogance that causes him to choose death over life. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">My point, if I have one, is that nothing Socrates argues is exceptionally insightful. He philosophizes at an advanced high school level. Teenagers do better on internet message boards.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">If Socrates is noteworthy because of the age in which he wrote, because of his antiquity, then wonderful, but let's not pretend the words themselves are more sagacious because they were a temporal anomaly. No one watches black and white televisions because they were amazing for their time.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Yours, </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span></span>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-37412070095513711252016-08-29T16:49:00.001-07:002016-08-29T17:09:09.518-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (64)<span style= "font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style= "color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style= "color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><span style= "font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">They are giving me Effexor now, mild side effects include a general feeling of wonkiness whenever I yawn. It doesn't matter to me what brand of pill I take, I'm just glad they're free. Psychotropics are the only kind of medication they don't make you pay for. There is a copay for everything else, life threatening to merely inconveniencing conditions, chronic or acute. Lobbying comes to the rescue once again, otherwise I would be liable for all my mental health bills and forever accruing an unbridgeable debt, or else not recieving treatment. American prisons are well behind other first world countries in their humanitarian efforts, but they're quite good historically, I mean, compared to Alcatraz or the Bastille.</span></span><br />
<span style= "color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><span font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Some people are still getting welbutrin, and the market is going wild. One stamp per hundred milligrams was once the going rate. Now, a two hundred milli pill can demand a five stamp tag. Madness. The sad fact is that prisoners can and will abuse any kind of medication you give them. The new stuff, Effexor, is just as abusable, for a different high. The moral question becomes whether preventing that abuse is worth refusing to treat those people who can be helped by the drugs being targeted. There are plenty of antidepressants on the market, but how many are there that can't be snorted or chewed for a briefly altered state? I'm not a junkie, so I don't see the appeal in snorting welbutrin or chewing up a tablet that makes me want to vomit, but there are quite a lot of people who feel differently.</span></span><br />
<span style= "color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><span font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Been working on my submissions for PEN prison writing, tidied up the drama scene today. I hope my other submission are more to their tastes this year, and I wish it wasn't going to be eight months before I hear whether I get another prize. Trying to be strategic about these things, my fantasy novels haven't really taken off (<a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/625513" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mythopoeia and the Riven Shield</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Summer-Mystic-Seasons-Book-ebook/dp/B01IRV6M3M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469229544&sr=8-1&keywords=dragon%27s+summer+william+myrl#nav-subnav" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dragon's Summer</a>), so I'm containing myself to being a prison guy talking about prison stuff for a while. </span><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><span style= "font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I've signed up for another penpal site. The first one, prisonpenpals.com, won me nothing but advertisements from other businesses looking to bilk me. The new site, <a href="http://www.writeaprisoner.com/Template.aspx?i=z-1421308" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">writesaprisoner.com</a>, has a reasonable search function, and the guy who introduced me to it has gotten a few good hits. "Struck", is the term my people (the incarcerated) apply to those who the ads work for. As in "he struck, X number of interesting people are now corresponding with him." I make things boring.</span><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><span style= font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Don't be jealous, No One, I'm perfectly happy with our relationship, I just want to also write someone who writes back.</span><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><span style= "font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Yours,</span></span><br />
<span style= "color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Letters to No One</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-73274260066361491552016-08-29T16:41:00.000-07:002016-08-29T17:14:13.738-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (63)<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Work was weird today. I spent most of it daydreaming, which is normal, but we also did an SOV. This is when the guys pick an item code and I get to time all the processes for the actual tailoring. We did a non insulated officer coverall, very involved by the standard of our work area, a lot of operations. Normally, SOVs are done without any timings, we just fiddle with the numbers from the previous paperwork. However, none of these coveralls had been done before, so I had the pleasure of watching two pair being made. Clerkin' it up.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Funny story, the asatru people and the white folks gang don't always get along, and their respective leaders got into a lil fisticuffs not long ago. When I say white folks gang, mind you, I mean these fellas who aren't technically affiliated with any official chapter of the white folks gang but who pretend that they are anyway. So they fought in the cell and one side was embarrassed. A member of the embarrassed side went and talked to a lieutenant (of the prison, not the faux gang) about what had happened. The two leaders got a call into the principals office, and were told they wouldn't have to go to detention if they kept the peace between their respective groups. Also, they were told the third guy was not to be touched, and if he was, they would pay for it. So that's why it's believed the third guy tattled on his own imaginary family. Awkward. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">A week or three passes, and the third guy is missing from the shop. He hit someone in the head with a lock; we can buy them to secure our property boxes. They're not really hefty, but they're hard, and they can crack a skull. So some other guy gets a trip to the hospital, and the third guy is shipped off the compound. The place quiets down again, not that it was ever deafening, and a thing that didn't have to be a thing fades into the past.This isn't a violent prison, as these things go, but it has its moments.</span></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Yours,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Letters to No One</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-61037867051364587312016-08-09T15:39:00.000-07:002016-08-09T15:39:02.953-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (62)<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One, </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Let me tell you of Quixote, he of the cleft chin and heavy brows. Dark with spanish blood, attenuated by cynicism, he holds court in the chow hall like a deaf sophist, having ears only for his own philosophy. Our first meeting was in passing, someone pointed me out to him as being of a character rich with words. He proceeded to test me in the entryway, asking me to define "puissant" and "bedight". Afterwards, I referred to him as "old fantasy novels guy" for several weeks instead of learning his name, because only in such novels are those words found. As it happens, his philology is greater than mine, extending into obscure medical terminology, where I am weak. At the time, however, flush with victory, I did not know this.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">We began talking on the rec yard, arguing over religion until the horn would sound. It was enjoyable, though quickly did it become apparent that there were some things about which he could not reason effectively. Everyone I spoke to about him insisted he was a sociopath, but I disagreed. Its too easy to label people that way, there was something wrong with the way Quixote interacted with other humans, that does not a sociopath make. The realm of disorders is rich with variety, and Quixote was proud owner of more than a few. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Never in the same pod, our interactions were generally brief. In the chow hall, his conversation was an endless font of bad puns and unasked for anecdotes, he could fill any gap in any discourse with the ease of lunacy. After a time, the direction of his intentions and plots, which were multifarious and many, crystallized into an emotional seduction of a woman he should not have been pursuing. Social boundaries and the perception of risk not being his greatest powers, he wrote her love letters, thinly concealed. Much to my amazement and the amazement of everyone who knew him, nothing went terribly wrong for quite a while. His unprofessional though admittedly nonphysical relationship with this woman, whom he referred to as "M'lady" in all our talks, became apparent to other inmates and some COs. We knew that it would come to this. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Quixote has been in segregation now for over a month, "under investigation". He hasn't received any charges, but he may be transferred off of the compound anyway. He recently wrote a request to the tailor shop complaining that the scrubs in "jail" were not designed to fit "proportional HUMAN BEINGS" but rather someone who "had been "stretched upon some medieval torture device". It was addressed to the "great and mighty tailor shop" and his occupation was listed as "freedom fighter". He signed it "oleogyniphiliacly yours".</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I hope that I see him again.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Yours,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl </a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Letters to No One 62</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-62207865268835689182016-08-09T15:33:00.002-07:002016-08-09T15:33:29.808-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (61)<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Totemo tired, don't want to sleep. I have the complete rules of magic the gathering, its two hundred pages fit into twenty five pieces of paper thanks to my genius family. Its amazing how precise it is, legislative in its verbosity, I enjoy that sort of thing. There are still disputes, because of hearsay and card text hermenuetics, but it makes me feel good to have it. I want to make my own card game one day, built top down, so that it doesn't end up being so unwieldy. The mechanics of games are often more interesting to me than the act of playing them.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">At work, I have been cutting up pants. Today, there was a blue bin full. There isn't a way to convert that into a standard unit of measurement, it ended up being six or seven trash bags of shredded clothing. Little me and my scissors, ruining what the shop has made. That's the end of the assembly line, a young man disposing of the product. Because of the logistics of cutting large numbers of patterns, the production line ends up with extra panels almost every day. Rather than counting, they make everything that's laid on the rack. When the pants, jumpers, what have you, reach the shipping table, the extras are separated out and brought to the clerks. We put them in drawers, they have built up for years. The idea being that the extras can be added to future orders, and thus not wasted. In practice, they sit in the drawers so long that we stop using the fabrics they were made from. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Lately, we've been cleaning house, and it falls to the Jr clerk to do the grunt work. The scissors have chafed a bit of skin off of my fingers, so I started wearing a glove to give my hand some padding. We took advantage of the plant manager being out this week, he approves of cleaning out the attic, but he doesn't have the heart to see all those worthless scrubs destroyed. He will pick out sets for us to put back into storage if given the chance. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The clothing, and the labor necessary to manufacture it, are both basically worthless. So this isn't as crazy as it seems. The plant isn't supposed to hold onto that many officer pants anyway, pretend security risk. There was a farrago some years back revolving around a couple of missing zippers. Now they all have to be signed for at evey step along the line. We have more bureaucracy than you'd think, just not in the matter of keeping track of extras.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I'm on a new drug, they took away welbutrin because too many people were abusing it. I'm not sure what I'm talking, the psychiatrist told me, but that kind of detail doesnt stick easily. Knowog the name doesn't change what I'm taking. I'm having my first ever psychotropic side effects. This morning, about an hour after taking it, I started experiencing queasiness, which persisted periodically throughout the day. Yawned a lot, and felt weird. Not good weird. Its only day one, so I'm going go give it a couple of weeks to see if symptoms persist or worsen. Hopefully, they will subside as my body adjusts to the new chemical intake. Its an antidepressant, Effexor? I don't know, the lithium has never given me any issues, I was due.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Yours,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">William Myrl</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Letters to No One 61</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-20864808035731346812016-08-09T15:28:00.001-07:002016-08-09T15:28:59.779-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (60)<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">6/22/16</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Once again, listening to Utada Hikaru, I dither over what to tell you. Two people were fired this week from the shop. A captain rushed into our place of work all in a tizzy because the cameras had caught someone making grey shorts. It's what they worry about these days, contraband shorts being worn on the yard. This isn't just a shop issue, but a matter of significance to security. Correctional officers, by and large, are hella bored. Commissary sells a pair of gym shorts for sixteen dollars, I'm not certain what a pair of homemade twills goes for, less than that. The man caught wasn't making anything, he was fixing his own shorts, or modifying them to have pockets, something. He was fired anyway, attracting the ire of security being his greatest sin. The next day, someone else was dismissed for having made himself a wallet for his address book. It was well over a year old, and he'd carried it about in his back pocket since its inception. Now though, in the midst of such great happenings, its sinister nature was revealed to them.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I don't mind my job, but every day I am reminded that I'm wasting my time. I like making my own money (sixty two cents an hour) and having ramen noodles and ramen noodle accouterments in my box, calling home more, buying music more, little luxuries though they may be. The waste is in what I don't do. It isn't really the time, there are vanishingly few people who actually don't have enough time to do the things they want to or should want to do. The commodity far more valuable than hours (which are empty by themselves) is the willpower to do something useful with them. That willpower is finite, and though it regenerates, one often finds that it has regenerated only enough to press on through another day of mundane drudgery. (Ego Depletion, in psychology) So my writing suffers, and I eat more trash food, and I exercise less. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Communication is easier to pay for, and so are grey gym shorts. Its mostly nonsensical social pressures that keep me employed. I don't want to go through the process of quitting. Books go unwritten so that I don't have to feel awkward, and so I can enjoy the privileges already enumerated on the balance of my sixty dollar paycheck. Future discounting is the phrase for when you do something easy now because the future benefits of doing the not easy thing feel so insubstantial. </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I watch myself behaving like an NPC every day. Wish there was something I could do about it. It isn't as if this is just a me problem. Everybody's an NPC sometimes, or most of them. Recognizing you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Yours,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Letters to No One 60</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-59336025048051070092016-08-09T15:24:00.002-07:002016-08-09T15:24:16.848-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (59)<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I used to think I was good at chess. In jail, I would play often, and I was always one of the better matches. The last pod I occupied had a lot of beginners, and playing against them inappropriately magnified my confidence. You might have found me skimming a book or drawing while I played, taking a moment to glance at the board and making my move, usually winning. Again, it wasn't a measure of my own facility with the game that this was a common outcome, but a reflection of my constrained environment. A larger pool of players would have rectified any misunderstanding as to my prowess, as it has now. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Writing in prison puts me in a similar position. Naturally, it is my belief that an immense potential germinates in me, and my exposure to others with a penchant for wordplay reinforces this belief. It cannot escape my notice, however, that my confreres in delinquency are, by and large, ungifted in the realm of the talent I most prize.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">It is difficult to judge ones own writing, fiction in particular, because our work is to our own taste. I am my first and last reader, and I don't send a thing away until it is essentially done. The feedback I receive from family, mostly my mother, is after the fact.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">PEN has a mentoring program where they set you up with a grad student to correspond with a few times and improve your writing thereby. I can but imagine the classroom somewhere, the students asked to sign up to play editor to a prisoner as a part of their grade. I suppose it isn't much different than the students signing up to sit in and ask questions during our sessions with the institutional psychiatrist. A letter arrived yesterday informing me that there would be a total of four exchanges, including the introductions, at which point the mentoring will be concluded.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">I had no idea this program existed when I entered the PEN prison writing contest, and I am any number of units of excitement more enthused about this aspect of my minor victory than about the check for fifty dollars wending its way toward my mother. I have some material to send my prospective mentor set aside already, it will be the first instance of an outside and professionally qualified response to my crap, and I look forward to it.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Chess is a game that takes years and thousands of hours to master, I simply haven't put in the requisite labor to be good. Writing is like that, except that I feel closer to having paid my dues.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Yours,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a> (Smitherman)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Letters to No One 59</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-34922661617997666042016-08-09T15:19:00.002-07:002016-08-09T15:19:52.331-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (58)<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">We used to put our signs on chairs. There weren't enough for everyone, there are never enough, wherever you go. Tan plastic success, if you lived in green and white for long you could lay claim to one. They all had marks on the back, some names, and some drawings. I opened up an ink pen and painted my sigil on the back of one once my number came around. It was a weird non system, and "my" chair was taken by a CO to be put in another pod shortly after I had baptized it. </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">We didn't have music then. For a while, we could get VH1 on the television in the pod and they would do countdowns in the morning. The masses would gather, listening. People complained about the noise keeping them awake (music, after breakfast) and it was taken away. This is why we can't have nice things. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">There was a silent stretch after that. When they opened the new budding, still green and white, and shipped us over, I managed to make AGT and American Idol a regular event for a while. Awful television, but it was what we had. The main contenders on the opposing team were the guys who needed to have the E channel on at all hours of the day, praying for the chances it afforded to view Kardashians in bikinis. Also the "sports rule" guy. Its a given in many places that sporting events trump all other forms of television, because as I understand it, men are imbeciles. It was the E channel that gave me my first exposure to Firework. They premiered the music video and I nearly had a white out. If you don't like Katy Perry, you don't like life. This was also the year that Jackie Evancho was on AGT, and had the number one slot stolen from her by some crooner no one has heard of since. She does some badass PBS specials now.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">We still have those chairs, different places, different faces, chairs are forever. No one marks on them here, however. It was a ridiculous custom that required a slightly more docile, and a smaller population. There was a pair of older gentlemen that used to sit behind he table closest to the wall, the back of the day room. They had bushy beards, bug hair, they'd known each other many years. Every day they waited, watching, for what I know not. It was their post, their eye both on the television and the neighborhood. Here, the old men are mostly gone from their rocking swings. They have televisions in their cells now.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Yours,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Letters to No One 58</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-29849248862806147122016-08-09T15:16:00.002-07:002016-08-09T15:16:14.639-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (57)<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Dear No One, </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The problem with life is the lack of a coherent narrative. When you try to tell a story about it, the ending is superficial, circumscription by fiat. Stuff happens, and keeps happening, forever. The tale of my incarceration, as I relate it to you in my disjointed fashion, has a beginning but no end. One day it will end, and that ending will have absolutely nothing to do with any of the thousands of stories mucking about in the middle. Telling a story, one trouble of many is defining its salience, what is important and what is not. In jail, nothing is important. I mean its important to talk about nothing, because nothing is what happens, a lot.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">When you're going to court, and there is a good bit of that for someone with charges in three jurisdictions, holding cells become a common experience. Some of them are small and empty, most are crowded and cramped. Hours are the usual price, though days sometimes drag by on concrete benches. You can look out and see an empty hallway, or a desk where felons like yourself can be processed. There may be a drunk tank nearby, or people being released. There is a hollow feeling, and everyone is tired. Thoughts circle, and people ask personal questions to distract themselves. It all bleeds into one mass now, whether I was alone or with others, like trying to remember every breakfast you've ever eaten. Sometimes I recited poetry in my head. The first I memorized was the Raven, my mom had to send it to me twice. They discarded the first copy because we weren't allowed to have things printed from a computer mailed to us. She had to hand write it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">I remember being so angry when the CO kept my mail the first time. I had been waiting for the poem, and they open it in front of you, then decide whether you can have it or not. You can't be angry about the big things, about being trapped, that wouldn't be healthy. Instead, we pin our hopes on trifles, stringing ourselves along from one kids meal to the next. Letters, meals, visits, television shows, new music or books; these things are buoys in dark water, and they begin to sink as soon as you take hold of them. So there is the next, and the next, until you reach land, or until you drown.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The library cart used to come around once a month, another buoy. It was never a specific day or time, and once a month was really once every four to six weeks. A library sat untouched behind plexiglass, we weren't allowed inside. They would have had to employ a librarian then.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Two books mattered that I remember. The first was a copy of Look Homeward Angel that I read to pieces, and the second was a small collection of Keats. Most of it has faded now, at my peak I memorized about two thirds of the thing - odes and sonnets mainly. This was something that couldn't be taken from me, even alone in a holding cell. Words repeated. I can recite the Raven backwards and out of order. I still do sometimes, standing in the pill line, five years gone from the jail where I learned it. The waiting doesn't stop, though the indignity of the tanks are thankfully removed, our lives are a series of waiting for things. It's the buoys again.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I've been too serious lately, I know. Next time, I'll tell you about how Spanky dressed as a baby, his sheet like a diaper, and took a shit in the middle of his cell while we all watched. Actually, that's pretty much the whole story. You couldn't look away.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Yours,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Letters to No One 57</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-91598633455479818342016-05-26T16:23:00.001-07:002016-05-26T16:23:05.833-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (56)<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Dear No One,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">When I was first arrested, and I awoke, on the first day of of the first leg of my incarceration, I drank orange juice. Then I searched the bunk I was assigned and found a pen. It felt like a big thing. I didn't have any paper, but I had napkins and bathroom tissue to spare. These originals are probably at the house somewhere, my mother could find them if pressed. In the three months I spent in North Carolina before extradition I wrote around four hundred pages of fiction. Sometimes I would count the words when a thing was done, obsessing over exactly how much I would have to write for it to qualify as a novel. My hand would cramp, I would get angry and pace. When the words wouldn't come I would get headaches staring at the page. The trick I learned then has proved reliable over the years. Lay down and cover your eyes, let your mind wander and relax. It is rare that I do this for half an hour without being rewarded. Its trying to force the story out that causes whatever fantasy generating mechanism I have in me to clog. It was a single cell, there were few distractions. The library cart was not tremendous, and the television in the pod was silent. My eyes weren't good enough to read the subtitles. I've told you about some of the people already, we played chess or talked about pseudo-legal sounding nonsense. Writing was what mattered, and every work felt like the one, the one that would change things, or somehow redeem me. I burned out a story as quickly as I could, and sent them home and bothered my family about doing something with them, already working on the next. This continued in the next jail, sometimes more or less. They got longer (finished story page counts in order as I remember them-149, 200, 186, 250(epic poem10k lines), 225, 275, 320(the Mystic Seasons books all averaged about 300) , 350 (M1: The Riven Shield) ,400+ (M2: The Theft of a Star, and current M series books)) and more coherent. Always, I continued thinking, this is going to be the one. You have to think that way, if you want to keep going, and if you feel you don't have another reason to keep being a person except for what you can make, if that is what gives you value and nothing else.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Being unusually goal oriented is one of the symptoms of a manic episode, and whether my own eccentric need to complete arbitrary tasks I assign myself is related to that or not, it is what kept me trying.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">One project bled into the next. When I talk to other would be writers I tell them that the first thousand pages is for practice. They probably think I'm exaggerating, really I'm only picking a number that sounds striking. I stopped feeling the compulsion to keep a writing calendar in 2015. I had been counting handwritten pages (a shade over 6000 of them), but there was no way for me to reliably measure emails by pages. Also, I no longer feel the same need to justify my continued existence via vegetable pulp product volume.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I don't write as much as I used to, but my work is more focused now. What the words are used for is more important than how many of them there are. </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">This week, something strange happened. Reed magazine does its annual print run, my essay included. It isn't a book deal, but its closer to one than I have been. Two nights ago I received a letter from PEN. Remember when I told you I didn't win anything? I was incorrect. They gave me the Dawson prize for my drama submission. I don't know what that means (who is Dawson? why does he have a prize?), and it doesn't matter. It was a small but resurrected dream.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">In my box there was an envelope labeled "when you win." In the envelope was a bag of gummy worms someone had given me out of their Christmas holiday package. Late that night, I lay in my bunk listening to Hikaru Utada, eating stale, stale worms out of a plastic tumbler, smiling.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Yours,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl</a></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215109297786091188.post-49262490395794322162016-05-26T16:21:00.003-07:002016-05-26T16:21:57.256-07:00William Myrl; Letters to No One (55)<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Dear No One,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I enjoy romantic comedies. USA showed one called That Awkward Moment recently, it had Zac Efron and others. The lead love interest wasn't an actress I'm familiar with. She was oddly lovely, or lovely odd. There are certain faces that are better for being quirked, slightly mismatched, and I'm a fool for overlarge eyes. Perfect faces are deserving of admiration, and imperfect faces of love. It was an unusual movie in that the protagonist, Mr. Efron, had no past. His deficiencies as a human being were never explained, though they were naturally overcome by the end of the film. Have you ever seen it? Do you know who that girl is? </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Bears (the girl I was with when I was a real person) used to have us watch romcoms together. You've Got Mail was a favorite. Ever notice how overplayed the publishing industry is in movies and books? It diverges strongly from occupational base rates, but who would writers write about if not people like themselves? </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">In jail, there is a solid block of the population that believes itself to be in relationships. These fellows are watching a movie all their own, and are all too dependent on what flickers across the screen. Some of them are married, it doesn't really matter. When a man and a woman vow to remain together forever, through better and through worse, they don't use their imaginations. Incarceration is an acid that dissolves all manner of bonds, even as it creates new ones. There are some relationships that endure, and they generally begin after incarceration, by mail, with a partner who knows what they're getting and what they're not. Proximity is the foundation of social interaction, its a simple if somewhat emasculating thought. Geography plays a greater role in networking than our own choices do, and prison is the heart of nowhere.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Bears and I, we're still friends, if distant ones. I've been under arrest for more than twice as long as we were together, and I don't have another reference point for relationships. The fact that I hear from her at all after so many years is amazing to me. It's not something I could have reasonably asked for, all that time ago.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">There are certain parts of oneself that have to learn to quiet themselves, if we are to avoid unrest. You learn to live without what may once have been considered necessary. It is not a temporary condition, as so many of us will never be anywhere but here. I will go home one day, and people of my good fortune have difficult imagining choosing to go on if we knew there was nothing but this. Humans don't really make a choice to live though, they just keep living, with or without hope.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Everyone is beautiful in movies involving Zac Efron, and I wish it were that way in life. The world is often uglier than the stories we tell about it, and its endings are slower too.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">yours,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.williammyrl.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">William Myrl </a>(Smitherman)</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11488173231870227477noreply@blogger.com0