You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
I cringe when I hear someone extolling poets – or anyone else in a given field, say professional athletes – as a somehow superior species.
Even outstanding individuals need to be tempered as imperfect humans rather than extolled as gods.
Not that we shouldn’t keep striving toward excellence.
How do we take pride in our own accomplishments while staying humbly grounded?
Doctoral hopefuls in English literature are often cautioned against selecting their favorite author as their dissertation subjects. So I’ve heard. Seems they’re quite likely to wind up hating everything about the person by the time their deep-dive project wraps up.
Wonder if that will happen with me and my Quaker history project before I’m done presenting it one way or another.
Not that I’d want to be addressed “Doctor.”
One of the subtle changes in the world of high culture in my lifetime has been the widespread acceptance of women as both conductors and classical composers.
Long seen as a bastion of Dead White Males, almost exclusively Europeans, the musical bias was deeply engrained. Few of the world’s leading orchestras even had women in their ranks, much less on their programs or as regular guest soloists. That snobbery, by the way, also excluded American conductors and composers, and people of color in general, across the board in the Old World and the New.
When the gender line began to bend, the first women composers to gain significant attention, as far as I remember, were Felix Mendelsohn’s sister, Fanny, and Robert Schumann’s wife, Clara.
More recently, Amy Cheney Beach has come to the fore. New Hampshire-born and then proper Boston society, she was largely self-taught, a piano virtuoso whose hefty piano concerto and symphony are both personal favorites. Her keyboard works have justifiably gained advocates, and a comprehensive retrospective at the University of New Hampshire marking the 150th anniversary of her birth was a revelation. Some of her gorgeous chamber works, moving into a more Impressionistic vein, actually moved me to tears listening in live performance.
Today, talented women composers are showing up everywhere, even winning major prizes like the Pulitzer. Quite simply, it’s hard to keep up.
~*~
Similar advances are being seen on the podium, led by Americans.
Pioneered in the ‘60s and beyond by Sarah Caldwell at her Opera Company of Boston and Margaret Hillis at the Chicago Symphony Chorus, early conductors of note also included Judith Somogi with opera and orchestral roles across the U.S. and then Europe, Eve Queller at her Opera Orchestra of New York, and Fiora Contino, who I remember from opera productions at Indiana University.
Later, as innovative major symphony music directors, we’ve been blessed with Joanne Faletta at the resurrected Buffalo Philharmonic and Marin Alsop in Baltimore.
It’s all opened the doors for a slew of younger conductors who are moving up the ranks and in the running for major positions like heading the Los Angeles Philharmonic, now that Gustavo Dudamel will be moving on to Gotham.
Looking at the 18 conductors being heard on live Metropolitan Opera broadcasts this season, I see four are women, one twice, something that would have been unimaginable at such a conservative institution only a decade ago.
Do note the trend, then. Anyone else find it exciting?
I suspect that for artists the biggest point of painting and drawing anything in this locale becomes an exercise in observing the amazing natural phenomena.
That, too, becomes the reason for many others to purchase the resulting efforts and take them home as something much more than a souvenir.
The rest of the family keeps trying to get me to spend more time at the digital big screen they put in our parlor. Not that it’s anywhere near the Black Wall of Death I’ve seen elsewhere in our midst. Admittedly, winter can be a long emotional struggle in this remote fishing village, and for much of it, I’ve been alone in our toehold here. Even as a writer’s retreat, those depths can be a challenge.
As an additional aside, let me admit I’ve always been more of a “radio guy” rather than TV, one skewered toward classical, opera, jazz, and folk music at the more esoteric edge of the dial.
Now, as I must confess, their push has led to some binge viewing, as if I even knew the term previously. Being able to stream programming does make a huge difference in the selections. Maybe this is what I get in a remarriage that has made everything (and kept everyone) younger except me.
And yet, I hate to confess, much of what I’ve viewed has even been extraordinarily fine writing, acting, and production.
The latest round they’ve introduced me to, though, might be considered slumming. It’s the so-called reality show Project Runway in its several incarnations.
The appeal is puzzling. I’m anything but a fashionable guy, despite my personal flair. And I’m definitely counter-consumerism, even in the face of the TV series’ shameless appendage to the clothing industry and the lingering impact of “brand placement”.
But I do understand having to work against a deadline, with little or no time for correction. That’s the daily news biz where I made my career, for one thing. The idea of having to create quickly within limits and obstacles also resonates, even or more commonly on a low budget. Oh, yes, do look to newspaper newsrooms for that. Besides, as the series demonstrates, the reasons an editor or a reader or a fashion judge goes for a certain work or rejects it outright is another connection for me. For that reason, I do love the insights into a decision, even when I’m vocally objecting to the outcome.
Many facets of the Project Runway series deeply bother me, even offend. Much of the judging is blatantly biased and a strand of cruelty is engrained in the series, yet overall, what remains is addictive.
I think that the center of that is the fact that within the creative process, fashion creates something that is more concrete on video than say a poem, a dinner, or a string quartet.
As a male, I see that there’s far more to wear than long pants or shorts, or an oxford dress shirt versus a T-shirt. You know, a very limited range. As for neckties? I doubt most young men even know how to tie one today, something that was a requirement for employment in many careers in the past.
There are glimpses into the much wider range of decisions women face, but even that soon hits barriers, as we find in the the show’s focus on women’s wear, still largely in the realm of dresses.
As for the line between “fashion” and “costume” or just “clothes”? Or “youthful” and “juvenile”? If the labels were more definable, this could be educational.
Beyond that, some of the young designers become fascinating characters in their own right.
Fortunately, my binge viewing’s moving out a bit with “Shrinking,” “Community,” or the quirky, original, rough-edged, and hard-to-follow “Reservation Dogs,” which almost puts Oklahoma just one town over from us. Or some other series that should be back soon with more episodes.
Don’t I have better things to do in my “spare” time? Or, for that matter, others in my now scattered family?
Feedback for an author is a vital part of the equation. Reader responses and honest reviews are more than essential feedback, they’re affirmations that others care about the subject and labor. You’re no longer alone. And often, you learn things you might not come upon by mere research.
As I found one more time, to our mutual amusement, when presenting some Maine aspects of my Quaking Dover book as a local writer in town, one early Maine family that’s spelled Treworgy is pronounced TRU-wurjee.
More or less.
Well, it was originally Cornish, by way of Devonshire, and came up to this end of the state from being among the first settlers down at the other end, right across from Dover Point.
Beyond that, writing and reading are ultimately one-on-one, despite the anonymity of the reader, who may be deeply touched personally, all the same.
That’s why it’s so meaningful when you speak up.
Here’s a shoutout to our monthly open stage at the Eastport Arts Center at 6 tonight or, if the weather’s bad, the same time tomorrow.
It’s always a lot of fun, alternating live music and spoken word. I even tried a section from Quaking Dover last month, instead of poetry or fiction, and some found my reading emotionally moving. I did bill the genre as creative non-fiction rather than history. Well, there are no footnotes and I’ve focused on the overall story and people more than mere names and dates. The reaction has me looking at additional opportunities for presenting the work.
Here’s one band that showed up, and I’m hoping they’re back. They do look quintessentially Maine, and you can imagine their joyful sound.
The free event’s billed as “open mic” but I’ve long hated that spelling of “mike,” even if it’s become too widespread to counter.
Still, we had a fine turnout and went an hour longer than planned. I’d be really surprised if you wouldn’t be wowed by at least something. There’s so much talent around here.
As my new book came together in its revisions, I began to feel some parallels to John Baskin’s 1976 New Burlington: The Life and Death of an American Village, a non-fiction opus based on what was then the new field of oral history.
The village he examined was largely Methodist and Quaker, the latter having come en masse from South Carolina as their rejection of living in a slave-holding countryside. In fact, when they relocated as a Quaker Monthly Meeting, they carried their treasured minute book with them and continued their records in Ohio.
His book became something of a classic and was even excerpted as a popular series in the Dayton Daily News.
While relying heavily on quotations from his sources, he did knit the interviews together with some heavy interpretation on his part. And here I was, becoming an active narrator in the action in my own work.
My book, as it stands, is heavily influenced by what I’ve learned writing fiction, in addition to my lifetime career as a newspaper journalist. I view the result as a story.
More to the point, when Quaking Dover came out, one longtime friend asked me if it was another novel. I bristled, I think, “No! It’s a history! Non-fiction!” While also thinking, “Didn’t you read the description? What did you miss?”
~*~
I am trying to remember the first time I mentioned Baskin’s book, probably in a Quaker circle in another part of the state, and hearing the response, “It’s all fiction.”
Huh? It seemed pretty solid to me, and the asides on Quakers were rather informative for a newcomer, as I still was then.
A decade or so later, visiting family back in Ohio, I ventured off to worship at the New Burlington Quaker church, which had rebuilt out by the highway after the village had been flooded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
At the close of the service, I was asked why I chose them rather than the more silent Friends in nearby Waynesville. Well, I had worshipped in that historic meetinghouse years earlier but, as I replied, I enjoyed visiting other branches of the Quaker world. And then I added, “Besides, I have the book.”
A moment of awkward silence struck the circle around me before the oldest person, a woman perhaps in her early 90s, softly pronounced, “It’s all fiction.” Obviously, they all knew what I meant by “the book.”
Oh? I was in no place to argue and accepted her verdict as literary criticism. In some ways, I took it as advice, not that anyone knew I, too, was a writer. Those of us in the news biz were already treading on thin ice in too many ways.
Still, as I retold the encounter to a reliable bud, he inhaled sharply and noted, “That’s strange. It’s the same thing Aunt Cecille said. Her words, ‘It’s all fiction.’”
Well, she did live in a town only a few miles up the road, one where the local Friends church had recently petered out. She, too, had Quaker roots and community creds.
~*~
As a journalist, I can relay one fine reporter’s observation that he knew he was on course with a controversial issue when he found both sides of the story were upset. Not that I want to go there. Still, I do know that we humans have a hard time accepting our own shortcomings and follies and that we view events through our own lenses.
I should add that Quakers, as a whole, write a lot. It’s a crowded field.
How crowded? The primary Quaker history journal takes this stand: if a book hasn’t been vetted by a peer review panel of historians, it’s taking a pass.
As they did on mine.
Last month we had our first indoor contradance this far east in Maine since the outbreak of Covid, and it was a blast.
I’ve posted before about the New England tradition from colonial times, which hippies then spread around the globe. Not that you have to identify as one to attend. Let’s just say free spirited?
A typical contradance is something for all ages and abilities, singles and couples alike – you do mix during the evening – and the live music is reason enough to come out for a substance-free environment. As we say, if you can walk, you can dance. Besides, a caller has us practice the figures, as they’re termed, before the music begins. It’s a great community-builder, for sure. A great way to meet neighbors of all kinds, or even a potential mate, if you’re unattached. It’s low-pressure, OK?
The whole point is to have fun, mistakes included. Just keep smiling. As I tell the newbies, we experienced dancers make just as many mistakes, mostly because we’re too busy talking.
Our dance last month had mostly beginner dancers, and they were delightful. I’m hoping and expecting to see them back Saturday night at the Eastport Arts Center, bringing a few friends in tow. Frankly, that’s how we all got addicted to this activity, word of mouth with an invite, or even being dragged, as I was, to show up.
Not that you need that much to enter the door.
Remember, just keep smiling.
As I drafted a recent post agonizing over the future of Boston Revels – and by implication, other performing arts organizations – I found myself pondering the origin of the reveling tradition itself. I kept mistyping “revel” as “rebel,’ only to learn that the two words share a common origin. Aha!
Surprise?
A online little research soon led to the Inns of the Court in England and Wales – places that were both a kind of law school and a professional association as well as lodging for members – and to their elaborate entertainments and wild parties that included a lord of misrule.
Suddenly, I was connecting to Thomas Morton and his Merrymount settlement in early New England, something I discuss in detail in my Quaking Dover book.
I’ve long been aware of an irony in the Boston Revels esteem, knowing how alien a Christmas or Midwinter celebration would have been to the city’s Puritan founders, even before getting to any riotous misrule. Now the plot thickened through an awareness of the way Morton was persecuted and his colony forcibly destroyed by Myles Standish at the helm of the New World neighbors.
Today’s family-friendly holiday Revels shows are greatly sanitized from their Medieval forerunners that would have been presented any time between Halloween and Groundhog’s Day – Morton’s big celebrations were for May Day, a seasonal stretch adding yet another pagan dimension.
Moreover, their ancient roots reveal ways English law was independent of the church, diverging the church courts that ruled in continental Europe. The Inns of the Court also nurtured Elizabethan theater and their revels are mentioned in Shakespeare.
Could they even be the source of a rebellious thread in our laws and courts? Or at least of what passes for drama and theatricality therein?
Jnana's Red Barn 