Eagle Nest, New Mexico, 2012. “People like to drive because driving is actually and symbolically an almost perfect mechanism for escape…there is probably no human being who does not have troubles, real or imagined, from which he at times feels the need to flee.” George R. Stewart.

PHB

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Brooklin, Maine, United States
We own a 1976 GMC Sierra Grande 15 in Maine, and an '86 Chevrolet Custom Deluxe 10 in West Texas. Also a pair of '97 Volvo 850 wagons. Average age of the fleet is 24 years--we're recyclers. I've published a book of stories NIGHT DRIVING (1987), and 2 novels: THE LAW OF DREAMS (2006), and THE O'BRIENS, which came out in the US (Pantheon) and Canada (House of Anansi) in 2012. A book of stories TRAVELING LIGHT comes out in 2013. More of my book stuff at www.peterbehrens.org I'm a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for 2012-13.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Spiritual Vehicles, and Clark Blaise

                                                                                     4/11/12   Bridgeton, Maine


That means there's no Bondo underneath that paint job, right?

This from Clark Blaiseauthor of (most recently) The Meagre Tarmac:
"Those ancient Homeric names were very common in Québec in the 1870-1910, if my family is any example.  (As were slave-names in the States, ending perhaps with Cassius Clay).  Pepere was an Achille, and among my baby aunts and uncles were an Ovide, Athenee, Eurydice, Homere, etc. but there wasn't a single Jean-Pierre or Marc-Andre among them."--C.B.


And from Brian Bartlett: "Among my ancestors from the 1700s and 1800s in New Brunswick and Maine/Massachusetts, names included Moses, Jesse, Amos, Alpheus, Adeth, Seth, Benjamin, Joshua, Samuel, Malthiah, Elisha, Nathan, Peleg, Bathsheba, Zadock & -- not Biblical but decidedly Protestant -- Luther...but I can't find a single Homeric name. Makes me wonder if the Homeric names were adopted by Quebecois Catholics but not by English Protestants. "---B.B. 

p.s. PB talks about The O'Briens  on youtube.

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