WineSnark Gets Physical.
New Book Features WineSnark Memoir
I’m holding a book in my hands and I love the feel of it. My friend Robin Robinson, author of The Complete Whiskey Course: A Comprehensive Tasting School in Ten Classes¹ explained, “There’s something special about the tactile pleasure of holding your thoughts in your hands.” Conscious ideas and experiences suddenly have paper and ink to smell, an evocative cover to see, and rustling pages to hear. But it’s the weight in my hands that makes me realize that when it comes to the five senses, nothing gets my heart thumping like the sense of touch. I can’t help myself, I’m a tactile kind of guy (no, no – not tactful – you regular readers know me better than that). What I mean is that when it comes to pure joy, no other sense has been more universally incorporated into my experiences than the sense of touch.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t love to smell and taste and these senses are certainly important to a bacchanalian hedonist who needs them to make a living. Many people would argue that the sense of sight is the most crucial and even though they’re probably right, I don’t think my golf game would be any worse without it. The fact is, I love my vision so much that I often celebrate by drinking until I see two of everything. Hearing comes in handy but I now realize that when it comes to hearing, young people have more than they need and old people need more than they have. That means I’m just a birthday shy of asking for a matching pair of hearing aids.
So when it comes right down to the spine-tingling, body-slam thrill of perception, it’s the cool side of the pillow, swimming in crystalline quarries, and goosebumps in the night that I live for. I’m talking about the comforting familiarity of ancient armchairs, scratching a dog between its ears, and the tingling electricity of flesh on flesh. I also find the tactile joy of touch in the wines I drink. When the time comes, my tombstone should read, “Deliver unto my palate the sweet, the sour and the savory, but forgeteth not the unctuous viscosity of aged Sauternes, the zesty bite of Sancerre, and the silky embrace of mature Bordeaux!”
Kurt Vonnegut wrote,
“… the feel and appearance of a book when combined with a literate person in a straight chair can create a spiritual condition of priceless depth and meaning. This form of meditation… may be the greatest treasure at the core of our civilization … Don’t give up on books. They feel so good – their friendly heft. The sweet reluctance of their pages when you turn them with your sensitive fingertips. A large part of our brains is devoted to deciding what our hands are touching is good or bad for us. Any brain worth a nickel knows books are good for us.”²
Okay, so maybe Kurt wouldn’t have felt that way if he was around to read WineSnark, but just the same, if you, like me, love the feeling of holding a book in your hands, I’m happy to announce that Living Spring Publishers has chosen one of my articles for the fourth installment of Stories Through The Ages Baby Boomers Plus 2020. The book is a collection of seventeen stories by authors who were born in 1964 or earlier. You know, people who prefer their wine and their Depends to be dry.
The chosen article is a personal memoir that I penned while taking a break from wine writing, but posted here on WineSnark nonetheless. Living Springs described it as;
“… a must-read story about the tumultuous events that abruptly thrust Don Carter into the international spotlight and an adventure of a lifetime. When a long-forgotten college photography assignment is suddenly linked to a presidential assassination attempt, the Secret Service, FBI and US Assistant District Attorney abruptly show up at the author’s door. Don’t miss this gripping, page-turning mystery about events that every baby-boomer will remember. Don won second prize with his story.”
Stories Through The Ages Baby Boomers Plus 2020 is available at Amazon by clicking here, or at Barnes & Noble by clicking here.
This isn’t my first memoir that you can read without a mouse. Tulip Tree Publishing’s 
Stories That Need To Be Told 2018 included a story about waking up in an Arizona mine shaft two weeks after skipping out on my high school graduation. I was 2,400 miles from home, exhausted, broke and starving. And if that weren’t bad enough, I had a Barry Manilow song stuck in my head. You can find that tale here or on Amazon at Amazon.com/Stories That Need To Be Told.
¹Robin Robinson’s The Complete Whiskey Course is available at Amazon by clicking here
² Vonnegut, K and McConnell, S (2019) Pity the Reader On Writing With Style, 152.
