I successfully winterized my website!

Website news:

Phew! My website http://deshtor.com has been successfully winterized and I really like the new design. People, please let‎ me know if you find any bugs.

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Letters to Phoenix – the Kindle edition – is out!

Letters to Phoenix – the Kindle edition – is out, as per requested by some of you.

The Julie Deshtor author website is up and running

I finally did it – my Julie Deshtor author website is up and running.  You can find it at http://deshtor.com as well we http://juliedeshtor.com.

Coming up next is the “Letters to Phoenix” Goodreads book giveaway, followed by a press release – and I will keep you updated on those as they come.

Also, I am working on releasing a Kindle version of “Letters to Phoenix”, and so it will soon be available in the ebook format.

I’ll keep everyone posted of all the updates.

What bothers me about modernity – Part 1

I have decided to start a new series of post regarding the things that bother me regarding the modern world. Any thoughts and comments are welcome.

Part 1

What bothers me about modernity is the dissipation of normal human social structures. Man is a social and family animal. Human initial (even prior to modern medicine) longevity has permitted for several generations to co-exist, passing on knowledge and traditions; blood and marriage bonds always have been the ce‎ment that held societies together. That interconnectedness is quickly fading, and we are getting a new species of man in the developed world, the solitary hunter type. Grandparents move to Florida or to a retirement home, the kids move out at 18 to another city, and a babysitter is responsible for nurturing of toddlers. Not one babysitter, but usually a quickly changing myriad of different ones. In our vastly overcrowded cities we often find ourselves completely alone, with no family to fall back on and no tradition to carry us forward. Grandparents cannot not pass their wisdom to the next generations, because they are in Florida! Lol. Old age is treated as an embarrassment, rather than a value. And that is just to begin with. The next topic would be overcrowding, but I will leave that for another time.

Letters to Phoenix

My new book “Letters to Phoenix” is out and available for purchase!

Two troubled teens.  A first love.  A forced separation, as he is placed into a therapeutic boarding school, and she is left to wait.  Years pass.  People come and go from their lives.  The boy and the girl change as they grow up.  But what will become of their love?

Letters to Phoenix

Mountain Echo

“The Execution of the Mountain Echo,” Vladimir Vysotsky: translation by Julie Deshtor:

Upon mountain slopes, which the daredevils consider their Mecca, their Mecca,
Where winds blow wild and jagged peaks puncture the sky, puncture the sky,
There once had resided a good-natured mountain (mountain) echo –
It used to respond to a cry, desperate human cry.

When loneliness swells in your throat and cuts off your air (your air),
And your lips let out a sigh that nobody can hear (that no one hears) –
This quiet plea for help the kind echo would pick (would pick up) with care,
Preserve, amplify and deliver it right to your peers.

Were they beast or men – high on poison and drunken on ale (on ale)?
They didn’t want anyone to hear them howl and brag (howl an brag),
And so they conspired to cripple the mountain (mountain) vale.
They tied up the echo and they silenced it with a gag.

It went on all night – the obscene bloody orgy of violence.
They stomped on the echo and yet no one heard a sound.
By morning a firing squad executed the echo in silence,
And boulders, like tears, rolled down the face of the mountain.
And boulders, like tears, rolled down the face of the mountain.
And boulders, like tears, rolled down the face of the mountain.

Copyright@Deshtor 2013

I am pacing…

I am pacing like a caged panther.

I am growling at the crowd.

White-hot, glowing, molten anger –

Let me go, let me go, let me out!

 

I will break free somehow, I swear,

of the present which makes no sense,

like the infamous whistling arrow

I will shoot for Eurasian grasslands.

 

Keep your progress and keep your science –

things that I do not understand;

here the sky is embossed with diamonds,

here the death mounds observe a silence

over endless expanse of land.

 

Here the Scyths and the Mongols mingle

their shadows and their blades;

here the wings of a passing eagle

brush the ghosts in their graves.

 

Here the soil is rich with slaughter,

here wild horses still roam,

here the Danube’s primeval water,

like the wraith of the Empire’s boarder,

still keeps Nomads apart from Rome.

 

Here wind drowns out the sound

of the hooves and the battle cries.

There are memories in this ground;

in my own Mongoloid eyes.

 

Leave me here and do not meddle –

I’m at home in the sea of grass.

Give a horse to me – keep the saddle –

just the horse, that is all I ask.

 

Copyright @ Julie Deshtor 2012