Disneyland Closes At 35

A Slice of Life

My high school English teacher once told me that a novel was supposed to be a "slice of life". I wasn't sure what she meant, but I remembered what she said.

I suppose any story is a "slice of life", if we mean by that statement that something is contained in the story that evidences, describes, defines or imitiates some larger aspect of life like hope, or grief, or courage . . . If this is true then a novel is much more than a "slice of life". It is a complete imitation or re-presentation of a life, or lives.

Plato had little faith in the ability of art in any form to re-present or imitate life accurately. Aristotle had more faith; still, he was very hard on the artist be they painter or poet. You can read about that in his "Poetics".  Or, if you don't have time for that you could just mull over my opinion.

Novels, if they are of any worth, capture lives like a photograph or wonderfully done painting. Think of your life as a novel. If the writer did a proper and complete rendering would you like what you saw in the end? I believe most of us would have to say , NO! We should have been so much better, more courageous, more disciplined, less envious and selfish.

We do not have to wait till the end of life to think about the novel it would make. We could just change it now.

Voice from the Cheap Seats

I was thinking today about all the people that I do not know. There must be literally millions of individuals that I do not know and will never know. There are hundreds that I do not know, but  know something about in the most superficial way. I know what I have heard or read about them. That's all.

Take Emmy Lou Harris. I have never met her and no doubt never will, yet she is one of the persons I wish I had known. Neil Young is another. I am certain I would not share his political views and there is not one shred of information that would entice me to feel that we might have something in common; still, I like his music, as I do that of Emmy Lou and Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot and others. It's just that I have no desire to meet Gordon or Bob but would like to meet Emmy Lou and Neil.

I have no idea what we might say to each other if we sat together on a transcontinental flight. I could comment about their music, tell them about the thousand times I have listened to Boulder to Birmingham or Four Strong Winds or Old Man. They have no doubt heard that more than a thousand times and would be singularly disinterested in hearing it again.

Or, I could just comment about the fact that we are all about the same age, grew up in the same times, and experienced many of the same things. I don't think any of us grew up rich. I think Emmy Lou and Neil are intelligent. That just comes across in their music and the few interviews I have seen over the years.

I have met and even spoken with quite a few famous people. I have spoken with a United States Senator, a President, although he wasn't president when I spoke with him, a Governor, and the former President of American Airlines to name a few. They all seemed like nice people, still; they were not all that impressive.

I am now writing the sequel to Disneyland Closes at 35. I have not as yet chosen a title. You can be sure of one thing. Emmy Lou and Neil are going to show up in the novel, even if in some very small way. I'd like to pretend that I knew them once.

Understanding Hobbes

I had a comment from Baldemar. Thanks, I appreciate your views, but do find some inconsistency in your logic. It is obviously your view that human beings are not the basically non altruistic individuals that Hobbes believed them to be. I would ask that you provide some documentation of your belief in the ay that Hobbes documented his belief. What is it in your experience that causes you to believe that humans will band together to help other human beings in any substantive manner, particularly in times of crisis. Quite the opposite is true, at least if one turns to the historical record.

It would also be interesting for you to provide any evidence of Hobbes' muddleheadedness. Most philosophers have found his thinking to be extremely logical and precise. Life in a state of nature is short, nasty and brutish, or so says Hobbes. In modern history he might point to the following:

In the last 40 years alone we have witnessed the carnage in the former Yugoslavia, in Somalia, in Rwanda, in the Sudan, in Darfur, in Cambodia and Laos and across the globe. Freedom from persecution of person or property is all that Hobbes hoped to gain from the Social Contract, not universal health insurance, a free college education, or the myriad  other things you seem to believe constitute what the Sovereign owes the nation.

Who do we contract with? We can start by not renewing contracts we have made with our local, state and national representatives by removing them from office. It might be in order for the Sovereign to ensure the criminal prosecution of corporations that have robbed and stolen the pensions of millions of Americans. The Sovereign is responsible to safeguard our property and person. The French and American revolutions were based on the principle that civil disobedience is called for when the Sovereign fails to keep the contract.

I am certainly not calling for revolution, rebellion or civil disobedience. If you read my last post the only substantive claim made was that I hear a number of individuals who are not happy with the current state of the social contract and would like to see the document revisited. I never made 90% of the claims your that your post employs.

Thanks for your post. Look forward to hearing from you again.

Thomas Hobbes Rolls Over in his Grave

The novels, short stories and essays that I write all have to do with the human condition, with human nature, and attempt to analyze and explicate all that it means to be human. I spent 8 years in the Army, 30 more as a Criminal Justice Administrator, and now 9 years as an adjunct professor of philosophy at various colleges.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes was also a student of human nature. He pictured a time in the long ago past of human kind in which every human had a right to anything that could be begged, borrowed, or stolen. He said that to live in such a State of Nature was to live a life that was short, nasty and brutish. Hobbes believed that human beings are by nature selfish and self interested, and that as such they came to realize that it was in their own interest to cooperate with others in order to have peace and security. In short, people decided to contract with one another in order to secure this peace and security; however, Hobbes knew that some would not honor the contract.

The contract would have to be enforced by some form of Sovereign, be it a King, Queen, Aristocracy or Legislative body. So long, Hobbes said, as the Sovereign provided an atmosphere of peace and security the Sovereign must be obeyed. When and if the time came that peace and security were no longer being provided civil disobedience, even rebellion and revolution, was in order.We see much of Hobbes in justification of the American Revolution and ensuing Constitution ( or contract).

I did not sign the social contract under which I have lived all my life, but I did spend many years working for the sovereign to enforce that contract, both in the military and in government. None of us actually signed the social contract, other than by not breaking the rules of the contract.

It seems to me that in this time of economic turmoil, corporate greed and imcompetence, disappearing jobs and pensions, and rampant government regulatory failure, that I am beginning to hear many voices which in reality are calling for a new contract. Has our Sovereign failed? Is there peace and security? How are we now to define what it means to be at peace and secure? It seems to me that we are neither at this point. We are everywhere at war and no one is secure.

Why I wrote this novel

I wrote this novel to illustrate and portray the lives of 2 young men and 2 young women during the period of the close of World War II, through the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the chaos of the great social movements of the 1960's. I intend to write a sequel to this novel that will take the reader up to the present time, which is itself one of the most tumultuous times in U.S. History. How are we to respond to these times?

During the 1950's and early 60's the tax burden on Americans was less than 10%. You all know what it is now. The choice made by Jack Steele in Disneyland was to adhere to the Social Contract. The choice made by Sunny Buck was to resist the Social Contract, to rebel, to be civilly disobedient. We are once again faced by the same problem. I, as a member of the middle class, am deeply opposed to the financial bailouts that have recently occurred. As a 30 year criminal justice professional I am apalled that a large number of CEO's and CFO's have not been prosecuted for their greed and misdeeds.

I hope to follow the lives of Jack Steele and Sunny Buck Matthews from the conclusion of Disneyland to 2009 in order to illustrate American life from the 1980's to date. Read Disneyland - Stay tuned.

Disneyland Closes At 35: Kindle Edition Released

Disneyland Closes At 35, Kindle Edition, the latest novel from Jim Mills was released for the Amazon Kindle on December 4, 2008. This is the first time that Perkerson Park Press has released an electronic version of an A-List novel prior to the book's print release and is a testament to the increasing popularity of the Kindle eBook platform and the sophistication of the device's installed base.

The long awaited book will be available in hardback and paperback editions at Amazon and other booksellers beginning January 15, 2009. 

Congratulations to Jim and to the thousands of Kindle users whom we know will appreciate this book in time for the Christmas season.

Posted By: Perkerson Park Press