Here in Boston, we’re not quite locked down because of the coronavirus, but we are hunkered down by choice. Nobody’s going out. People are mostly working from home. We take walks, hoping we won’t run into anybody. We shy away from any kind of social contact. All in all, it’s pretty much the way an author lives all the time.

One good thing, for me at least, is that there’s time to do all the little things that are usually relegated to the back burner. I’ve corrected a few weaknesses in this website: had a long chat with my hosting service’s support staff, at the end of which they determined that they couldn’t help me and I’d have to fix the problem myself. I managed to do it. It only took me the better part of a week. But I now know what “Rest API” is.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I’m aware of its existence. I don’t really have any deep understanding of it. I know when it’s creating a problem and which button I need to press to deal with it.

When you come right down to it, my relationship with Rest API is magical. I don’t mean that I’m enchanted by it. I mean that, when it acts up, I say the code equivalent of “Abracadabra” and it slithers back into whatever hole it crawled out of.

I suspect the “Abracadabra” factor in modern life explains why fantasy has become such a popular genre. When I was a boy, I knew what electricity was, at least functionally. I knew what a carburetor did. I knew what a distributor cap did. Most gadgets were mechanical. You could open them up, look inside, and, if you paid attention, you could understand them. Now, you have to speak the doggone thing’s language.

You’ll notice I’ve installed a video widget at the top of the right-hand column. Now you don’t have to scroll down my posts to see me in my videos. My bearded mug will always be at the top of the column, staring at you, urging you to press the little arrow button to listen to me read from my assorted writings. I’ll be on every page. In the age of Abracadabra, technology has sealed off every avenue of escape.

I need to get back to work, making sure all my links work and doing other such things. Maybe, before the day ends, I’ll get back to writing my current work-in-progress, “The Molasses Man,” a short story. I don’t know exactly what it’s about yet, but the characters will tell me in time.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m working on two collections at the moment, one of nostalgic stories and the other of fantasies. The former will contain my previously published but currently unavailable story, “The Reincarnation of Lou Gehrig.” It should be out in early summer. As for the latter, I’ve decided to re-issue “The Richest Man in Babylon, Revisited,” as the headliner for a number of new stories. Look for it in late summer or early fall.

That’s it for now. Stay healthy, everyone.