Today, I went into the attic to look for someone else\u2019s inspiration.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, a sales rep from our pest service (not the guy that actually sprays, who\u2019d arrived minutes earlier, but the guy that sells, who happens to look just like the guy that sprays) inspected our attic for critters.\u00a0 <\/span>The purpose of his visit, he said, \u201cSee if there\u2019s anything we\u2019re missing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOk, sure,\u201d I said, suddenly concerned that raccoons had quietly set up shop, living it up in our attic without us knowing.<\/p>\n The next five minutes of fear went unrealized.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cYour house looks great,\u201d the sales rep said, \u201cBut I might suggest more insulation, save you some money, it\u2019s specially treated with insecticide.\u201d<\/p>\n I went up looking for one particular book in a box of books.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t like having my books in boxes in the attic, but my bookshelves are overflowing.\u00a0 <\/span>I reluctantly boxed about fifty or eighty a couple years ago and remembered one of the boxed genres, science-fiction, really old sci-fi I hadn\u2019t read in thirty years.\u00a0 <\/span>I was looking for a story by Harlan Ellison, Shatterday.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been paying attention to blogs lately – their themes, format, and content and one in particular, Neil Gaiman\u2019s, a British science fiction and fantasy novelist, wrote in his blog about Harlan Ellison and a story, Shatterday, that inspired and convinced him he could write for a living.<\/p>\n I thought maybe years ago I\u2019d read the story.\u00a0 <\/span>(And I wondered, how could I have read this and not been inspired too?)\u00a0 <\/span>No Shatterday, but I found a collection of Harlan Ellison short stories called Alone Against Tomorrow.\u00a0 <\/span>The introduction, written by Ellison in 1970, states the theme unifying the collection: alienation.<\/p>\n Ellison writes, \u201cThe explanation for racial strife, random violence, mass madness, the rape of our planet.\u00a0 <\/span>Man feels cut off.\u00a0 <\/span>He feels denied.\u00a0 <\/span>He feels alone.\u00a0 <\/span>He is alienated.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Ellison quotes Oscar Wilde: \u201cTo reject one\u2019s own experiences is to arrest one\u2019s own development.\u00a0 <\/span>To deny one\u2019s own experience is to put a lie into the lips of one\u2019s own life.\u00a0 <\/span>It is no less than a denial of the Soul.\u201d<\/p>\n In Aerosmith\u2019s song, Toys in the Attic, Steven Tyler seems to sing about alienation:<\/p>\n Leaving the things that are real behind<\/em><\/p>\n Leaving the things that you love from mind<\/em><\/p>\n All of the things that you learned from fears<\/em><\/p>\n Nothing is left for the years<\/em><\/p>\n Voices scream<\/em><\/p>\n Nothing\u2019s seen<\/em><\/p>\n Real\u2019s a dream<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The first story in Ellison\u2019s collection, Alone Against Tomorrow is titled, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream<\/i>.<\/p>\n Maybe a blog is like a scream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today, I went into the attic to look for someone else\u2019s inspiration. Yesterday, a sales rep from our pest service (not the guy that actually sprays, who\u2019d arrived minutes earlier, but the guy that sells, who happens to look just like the guy that sprays) inspected our attic for critters.\u00a0 The purpose of his visit, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":183,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}