Langdon Chronicles

By Robert Brady

For his entire life, Langdon has inhabited his own world according to his own logic, on his own terms. Consequently, whatever happens in his immediate environment makes perfect sense to him, however life-threatening it may appear to a casual observer. Langdon's beatific serenity remains, even in today's fast-collapsing frame of reference, an absolutely perfect strategic response to the turmoils of an everyday causal reality that is—unmistakably—clinically insane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Brady
• Release date: Dec 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463796511

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Langdon Chronicles

By Robert Brady

"Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2019 Robert Brady

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Excerpt From: Brady, Robert. LANGDON CHRONICLES iBooks. This material is protected by copyright.

PREFACE

Chronicles recounts the storied adventures and otherwise of a most curious character named Langdon, a fellow of arcane integrities who emerged into consciousness one day some 25 years ago, returning now and then ever since with his curious contemplations, esoteric observations, ethereal perspectives and hobgoblin insistences.

These brief stories were selected and arranged by Ken Rodgers, who also choreographed The Big Elsewhere, impressions of my experiences homesteading on a mountainside above Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture, just over the mountains from Kyoto, and my most recent book Build Your Own Dog.

The persona of Langdon, as here recounted from prebirth to afterlife, remains an appropriate mystery to me. I can only say that he embodies facets of countless people I’ve met, but stands signally apart from anyone I’ve ever known. Opinions and actions expressed herein are of course entirely those of Langdon himself, who as a literary character abjures all legal responsibility therefor, and asks that you read at your own risk.

—Robert Brady

LANGDON: AN INTRODUCTION

Langdon—that paradoxical paragon of serenity—is clearly in this world, yet not of it, in the old Biblical sense. Yet at the same time, as a fervent disbeliever, he’s indisputably of it, but quite frankly, also decidedly and deliberately out of it.

For his entire life, he has inhabited his own world according to his own logic, on his own terms. Consequently, whatever happens in his immediate environment makes perfect sense to him, in a way that’s reminiscent of scenes in Buster Keaton’s classic silent movies, in which the Great Stone Face is never visibly fazed—even in the slightest—by deconstructions of mere circumstance, however life-threatening they may appear to a casual observer. Langdon’s beatific serenity remains, even in today’s fast-collapsing frame of reference, an absolutely perfect strategic response to the turmoils of an everyday causal reality that is—unmistakably—clinically insane.

Robert Brady, a long-time expat in Japan, has been channeling the languid Langdon for decades now, as revealed in this almost random collection of unexpected anecdotes. Both Bob and Langdon exist as citizens of a wider, borderless world we also call the universe. On Bob’s deck overlooking placid Lake Biwa, they sip wine, relish occasional Cuban cigars, and meditate on great mysteries and truths. Historical imperatives, the trill of a cricket, the flaring of a distant supernova, the laughable antics of monkeys and politicians… Conversing at times in no more than the uplift of an eyebrow or a miniscule shoulder shrug, they routinely finish each other’s sentences. Sanity prevails.

—Ken Rodgers

CONTENTS

Preface

Langdon: An Introduction

Prelude

Langdon Makes a Career Choice

Langdon Buys Brown Shoes

Langdon In a Swirling Universe of Suspense that is Eloquent and Impassioned, Brilliant and All Too Real

Langdon Confronts the Enigma of Laundry

Langdon's Entire Grandfather

Langdon Transcends the Quotidian

Part 1: Preliminaries

Langdon is Not Yet

Langdon Holds On

Langdon and the Future of Then

Langdon in Young Love

Langdon, Death and Pumpkin Pie

Langdon Seeks the Weather

Langdon is Good

Langdon Hangs Ten

Langdon Pays Blues Dues

Langdon Tries to Take Hair Seriously

Langdon Prefers to Be Spinach

Part 2: Presentiments

Langdon, Reality Star

Langdon Points at Shiny New