Persephone Abbott

Posts tagged “Routine Apparitions”

Washington to California – 2026

Posted on September 10, 2026

Driving down from Oregon, I fiddled with the radio station as I navigated the hybrid rental car around Mount Shasta. “Goddamn-Northern-California,” I thought, listening to a tedious reggae rift. Rasta Shasta, the only station clearly available while twisting and turning south bound, up and down the side of the mountain. Late August, not much snow capped the peak.  A half an hour later I was able to tune into “the hits that you never knew you missed.” “Effing baby boomers,” I thought. That was it for the next hundred miles: reggae trailing & wailing or the surprise of hearing Captain & Tenille.   “Donate your vehicle to us, it’s simple, one step and you, too, can support the station,” the announcement came over the waves…

Just a Little Ray Charles & Coltrane ‘Cuz You Know…..

Posted on August 8, 2026

I must admit I have been having a lot of fun with the audio book of Routine Apparitions. It’s almost a guilty pleasure, but I have been getting positive feedback as well as new subscribers on Substack, so I might has well own it. Playing with the themes of Routine Apparitions on X (my deceased father has an account where I enact the role of the ghost writer for the Ghost Writer), I wrote the following imaginary dialogue: For the audio book theme I felt I needed a soundtrack to energize the podcast so I asked my dear friend, musician Victoria Theodore, if she could help me out. She immediately agreed and asked me for inspirational sources. I had already thought of two musicans…

About Back to Nature

Posted on February 7, 2026

Intending to get that next Substack post up online yet unable to get to the task for weeks, I finally went to my bookcase and found my copy of Harum Scarum. I had already decided in advance that I would defintely not post the final short story from my father’s book. Keith Abbott’s Harum Scarum is made up of six stories and all of them are autobiographical. “You’re lucky,” a friend said to me. “You have material about your father. I wish I could learn more about my father.” Well, the materials are not only about my father. In the last story, “Back to Nature,” I am in the picture and so is my mother. Harum Scarum was published by Coffee House Press in…

Routine Apparitions: a fictional novel in blog form

Posted on December 25, 2024

Routine Apparitions (a fictional work and an online novel in blog form that is free of charge): Keith Abbott’s important notebooks and manuscripts have gone missing. But so is Keith because he died years ago. This doesn’t stop the ghost of the Soto Zen monk from wandering around Longmont Colorado looking for his stuff while busy solving crimes with his zany buddies. Of course he has the help of three teenage rebels. Meanwhile the city is in the grips of formidable conspiracy theory and oddball religious zealots, a few in the shape of Tirzah Pyrestone, Gator Matcha, El-Don Mast, Teary Filisteinsdatter Mast, Rabbi Dianne T. Lakein and so many more! Drawing on Rhino Ritz, An American Mystery Novel by Keith Abbott, of course the…