The only appreciation my father ever voiced for The Catcher in the Rye, was Holden's protection for his sister. He said he liked how Holden turned every "fuck you" he saw written on walls into "Book you". This never happened in Salinger's novel, instead Holden smudged the writing from the wall.

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I finished A Catcher in the Rye for the seventh time. This book never fails to uplift me (well, maybe no thte first couple times around). Such artistic expression, such style and grace, what a message... "Be true to yourself." It really is too bad that almost nobody is authentic. When we first start lying to ourselves, it seems so innocent and harmless, but before we know it our lies become our lives and that lack of honesty no longer takes the form of a defense mechanism but rather a code of conduct. Live the lie and do everything you can to ensure that others don't recognize you for what you are-- an absolute fraud. Some people lie to themselves about their career, others about their sex lives, family values, moral ground or any other faculty they may lack. If they only knew how carefree an honest life can be...

Unfortunately I never will either...

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You attract more flies with shit than you do with piss

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Learning networks... You feed them conditions and they supply outcomes. Some results are acceptable others are not. After a sufficient amouth of samples, each fed through the network, reverse propagation occurs to adjust the weights of the nodes based upon the acceptable results. The pattern of wieghts forms a model of the concept being represented and measured by the sample. This model could be the guide for reproducing a similar concept (similar to the sample). Could this be used to create an algorithm for perpetual originality? This could be used to find order amongst seeming chaos. You could use the learning networks to test if an algorithm produces perpetual originality. Have the algorithm produce a sample of output, run the sample through a learning network and the network shouldn't be able to find a trend since all the items in the sample are unique.

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Non Deterministic Polynomial. Any abstract algorithm that yields an absolute result would be a theory of everything, a schematic of god's mind, the blueprints of perpetual motion, the solution to all the world's problems, a weapon to destroy the universe and the secret to life.

One of my first trips with Missy was the time her roommate's boyfriend had a birthday party in Manooka. His house was large and luxurious yet sparcely furnished. Despite the hickliness of his family they were awarded with the American Dream. His father was in construction in an area that was growing houses in droves. It was never a better time to wield a hammer to nail.

Missy and I were invited to the party as were the other locals and the birthday boy, Scott's, friends. There was a stark contrast between the country folk and the college kids. They were busy wreaking havoc in a frenzy while we were being entertained by their antics. Scott must have been nervous from the interation of the two groups since he was fidgety and easily distracted during conversations.

Contrary to his fears the two groups got along well for a while. I helped the hicks break a tree down using man power alone and burn it in a bon fire. After gaining recognition with my idea to break large branches using the fork in the trunk, the level of inclusion was increased for the college folk. Some took a shine to me for my rustic brilliance, but that didn't ease the fears of Scott.

He became rather embarassed when one of his friends began wrestling his father, who was content on the sidelines of the brewing chaos. The father was in his 50's but put up a great struggle. He grimaced and grunted in pain while the boy about 30 years his junior twisted and contorted his body in ways that should only be done by gymnasts. The young wrestler didn't heed the protests of the mother and Scott was forced to break up the hold personally.

Not long after, all the elderly relatives and friends (those over 30) left, possibly from fear. This absence allowed the hicks to bust out their cocaine. In spite of, or due to, his shame, Scott joined the others in taking a hit upon his parent's long marble kitchen counter top. Temperatures flared and several spats almost broke out, but Missy refused to leave the party at the behest of her roommate who was frantically trying to continue the fraud that things were going well.

The college kids retreated to the safety of the house while the hicks brought the outdoors closer to hell. Scott came in and with his coked up confidence challenged me to pool. I was drunk and accepted the challenge despite the risks. I beat him three times in a row, with each successive game more a blowout than the last. He was upset and broke his pool cue. Before he could attempt to start a fight with me his girlfriend stole him away.

We ended up sleeping there. Missy and I shared the floor together in an empty room. I woke up the next morning with a hang over and an enormous desire to leave and never return.

Quotes from J.D. Salinger

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The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

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You're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior... Many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now.

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I'm not trying to tell you that only educated and scholary men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so. But I do say that educated and scholary men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with-- which, unfortunately, is rarely the case-- tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And-- most important-- nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker.

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The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them.

It's amazing what some people consider entertaining. I knew a guy that would bet on dog races and not the ones at the track. He had three dogs, all muts. One was half schnauzer-half beagle, another was half pointer-half lab and the last was half chihuawa-half shitzu. The little dog would never race, but instead would bark continuously as the other dogs raced. The two bigger dogs were the sources of entertainment. He would have people over to his basement frequently on the weekends. During those drunken nights he would call the dogs over and then blare his referee whistle. The dogs would twirl like mad at the first sound. Everyone in the room would crack up and make bets on which dog would stop first. Often the losing dog would spin into a piece of furniture or the wall. Their heads would smack hard, but they would just shake it off and get back to spinning. Besides a loss from interference the two dogs were pretty much equals. If the race lasted too long the owner would blow his whistle again and they'd stop. The crowd would quiet down and once again we'd hear that little dog yapping under a couch.

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I dropped Missy off at the train station this morning. We got there early so that we could grab a cup of coffee and talk a while before she left for school. We were sitting in my car, sipping a couple lattes, and watching the people running past us in a frenzy. Their eyes would be bulging if they weren't swollen near shut from exhaustion. The women's cheeks were often flushed and the men needed to shave, both had dishevelled hair.

The commuters were running through the rain to catch an express train headed for Chicago. Missy told me that another train would arrive five minutes later, but, since it wasn't an express it would arrive at the Chicago station fifteen minutes after the first. I watched them pack into the train cars-- there were no seats available.

Missy said that the people still racing to the platform were probably once the kids that would always miss the bus. She said and kissed me good-bye and left the car. I pulled out of the parking space and onto the street. Off in the distance, the second train was slowly gliding down the rails toward the station.

As the engine whirred past me about three blocks from where I dropped Missy off, I saw a man running on the sidewalk that bordered the tracks. He was watching the large steel wheels passing him by. He was carrying a brief case and wore an expensive looking overcoat-- I figured him a lawyer. The train was quickly at the station loading up with passengers, Missy among them, and the man still had a couple blocks to go. There was no way he would make it in the couple minutes before the train set back off down the tracks. But he kept on running. Hope is a wonderful part of the human spirit, but I think that it should be subject to general reason.

I drove straight to work after that and didn't think about those poor frenzied commuters again. That is until I picked up Missy. She was unloaded with a score of extremely drained men and women in conservative, yet frazzled business attire.

Missy got into the car and I kissed her hello. I asked her how the commute was and she said that she discovered that wet people smell no different that wet dogs. We passed a man who was highly upset about having a ticket on the windshield of his car. I saw him tear the ticket and throw it to the ground. It was only fitting.

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When asked who he would choose, if he had the pick of anyone in the world, to spend the rest of his life with, he replaied by asking if he could choose himself.
-JVS

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Writing Rule #1: Avoid being direct as much as possible. For every point describe the situation and the key items of the periphery and leave the interpretation up to the reader. If you describe it well enough the reader will be able to grasp the message being indirectly transmitted. By directly stating the points you risk sounding preachy and contrived. Write as though you are circling a point and then leave a meandering line to the next point, and so on... Remember that deliberation is deplorable! God speed my good man, age 25 is approaching.*

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It is the responsibility of the child not to take on the bad habits of the parent.

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My father has an annoying tendency to introduce chaos to every tabletop in the house. The coffee, kitchen, dining room and end tables are all frequent victims of his disorderly wrath. My mother spends a great deal of her time at home cleaning up the disarray left in his wake. He would chide her that he left those miscellaneous piles so that he could come back and organize them later. Over 20 years at the house and he has yet to organize any of many piles in his garage.

His primary means of creating a jumble in the home is what the siblings call the "nuts and bolts" method. He has about 20 or so peanutbutter jars, that have been cleansed and filled with nuts and bolts- he keeps them in the garage. Every so often, especially if my mother just finished making the house presentable, he develops an urge to find one particular nut or bolt of indeterminant size within his many jars. He is never precisely sure what it looks like but assures us that he'll know it when he sees it. He may not need the item for any particular reason-- most often he just wants to ensure that he still has it.

My mother will watch in pity as he brings the jars into the kitchen, lining them up in a neat row along the perimeter of his "work" area. Then once all the jars are present, he'll unscrew them one by one and dump the contents onto the tabletop. The falling nuts and bolts sound like the rapid firing of a machine gun until no more table space is uncovered. He would sift through the items from each jar and if the nut or bolt is not found he moves on to the next jar.

If the mess consumed the entire tabletop he would move to the diningroom, then to the coffee table and finally the end table. During dinner the nuts and bolts took priority and we would often use our laps as our personal tables. If we would bump the table accidentally spilling some valuable nut or bolt to the floor, he would condemn us and go about "reorganizing" his mess.

Once he would finally fing that elusive nut or bolt, he may put it to use in some nick-nack or other trivial trinket that would never be of use. Sometimes he wouldn't remember the reason for the search and he'd drop it back in the jar and go watch the news, Jeopardy or Jenny Jones, leaving the clean up to his wife an children.

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* I was 24 then. I promised myself that I'd have a novel written by 25. I'm almost 26 now, and no novel, just a collection of sprawling notes and ideas.