Category: Tendrils

Consider the Theotokos in the Nativity events

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to the mother of Jesus, Eastern Orthodox Christianity has developed a perspective that differs in subtle ways from the Roman Catholic and Protestant streams. Much of the teaching is not found in the standard Bible but does round out a broader understanding.

Here are ten points from the Orthodox tradition without getting to some very fine hair-splitting.

  1. She is called the Theotokos, Greek for “God-bearer” or “God-birther.”
  2. In her full title, she is referenced as the “all holy, immaculate, most glorified and blessed Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.”
  3. Elsewhere in the liturgy, she is called the Mother of God, though the theology does but put some limits on that, as in “Mother of the Incarnate God.”
  4. She was the only child of an elderly couple, Saints Joachim and Anna, mentioned in the New Testament apocrypha Gospel of James. Their childlessness was a cause of shame, as the drama goes, until their big surprise. Their festival day is July 26.
  5. The Orthodox celebrate her nativity on September 8. Fittingly, that’s a week after the beginning of the Orthodox liturgical calendar year.
  6. Her presentation into the temple is celebrated on November 21. According to tradition, she was taken at age 3 and left there, consecrated to its service, where she remained until age 12 in preparation for her celestial role. The feast day comes about a week after the beginning of the 40-day Nativity fast, the Orthodox parallel to what Western-Christianity observes as Advent.
  7. The annunciation, where Archangel Gabriel appeared with glad tidings to inform her of her surprise pregnancy, is celebrated on March 25, nine months ahead of Christmas.
  8. On her death, or Dormition (Falling Asleep), she is believed to have been ascended into heaven. The event is celebrated on August 15. In support of the argument, the faithful are reminded that no bones remained behind. Thank “doubting” Thomas for that, when he arrived late for the occasion. Had there been any bones, they no doubt would have been highly regarded wonder-working relics preserved in a famous church or monastery.
  9. Her icon is displayed on the iconostasis that separates the sanctuary (altar) from the nave in an Orthodox house of worship. She stands holding the child Christ on one side of the Royal Door, through which only the priests may pass, while Jesus is depicted at the other.
  10. She is also referred to as Queen of Heaven and Mother of the Church.

 

Gertrude Stein could quick to the cut 

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

She does show up in my sets of art gallery poems, accompanied by Norman Rockwell, for good reason, if only a fictional role.

Here are ten things she really said.

  1. “We are always the same age inside.”
  2. “Why should a sequence of words be anything but a pleasure?”
  3. “It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much, doing nothing, really doing nothing.”
  4. “The thing that differentiates man from animals is money.”
  5. “A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.”
  6. “Literature – creative literature – unconcerned with sex, is inconceivable.”
  7. “I always say that you cannot tell what a picture really is or what an object really is until you dust it every day and you cannot tell what a book is until you type it or proof-read it. It then does something to you that only reading it never can do.”
  8. “It is always a mistake to be plain-spoken.”
  9. “Money is always there but the pockets change.”
  10. “America is my country, and Paris is my home town.”

For the art gallery poems, go to my blog Thistle Finch editions.

 

In case you need encouragement on that novel

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Yes, for those of you writers who should be well past the halfway point of your new novel draft by this time this month. As well as any others, working at whatever.

  1. “I think all writing is a disease. You can’t stop it.” – William Carlos Williams, M.D.
  2. “Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.” – Gore Vidal
  3. “A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” – Eugene Ionesco
  4. “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anais Nin
  5. “The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.” – Zadie Smith
  6. “The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis.” – William Styron
  7. “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” – Robin Williams
  8. “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” – Philip Pullman
  9. “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” – Aldous Huxley
  10. “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” – Albert Camus

 

The dope on soap

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Yes, one more thing we take for granted. Or, as I used to think, “granite.”

So here a ten things to consider.

  1. Soap goes way back in antiquity, starting with the boiling of fats with ashes and water, though the Latin word for it originates with “clay.”
  2. It’s been a mark of civilized people and sometimes the upper classes, from Babylon and Rome on.
  3. Over the years, olive, palm, and vegetable oils gave rise to other varieties, including Castille soap.
  4. Today, soap comes either in solid form, liquid, or powdered form, based on their use of sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. Liquid is considered easiest to use.
  5. Bar soaps have a lower environmental impact, according to one study.
  6. It’s sold in a number of specialty applications, including hand, face, shaving, body, dish, laundry, or floor-cleaning applications. Don’t overlook antibacterial, either, although it carries some long-term health concerns. Or the wide range of scents that can be infused.
  7. Ivory, first marketed in 1879, was the first soap that floated. Yeah, and it was 99 and 44/100s percent pure, according to the company’s claims.
  8. Modern synthetics, appearing around 1940 with Tide, also prevented the growth of germs.
  9. Soap can also be used to ease zippers or lubricate squeaky hinges, threading needles, and screws.
  10. The bubbles are incredibly thin and sometimes so much fun. Or even romantic, in a deep bathtub.

Maybe that’s what I’ll be giving everyone this Christmas.

Aspiring novelists, good luck

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This is the month many aspiring writers sit down and try to complete a draft of a novel before December sets in. For perspective, here are ten points as inspiration

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.” ― Dorothy Parker

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.” – Elmore Leonard

“Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.” – Meg Rosoff

“I just give myself permission to suck. I delete about 90 percent of my first drafts, so it doesn’t really matter much if on a particular day I write beautiful and brilliant prose that will stick in the minds of my readers forever, because there’s a 90 percent chance I’m just going to delete whatever I write anyway. I find this hugely liberating.” – John Green

“Anyone who says writing is easy isn’t doing it right.” – Amy Joy

“You fail only if you stop writing.” – Ray Bradbury

“Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” – Annie Dillard

“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” – Isaac Asimov

“I taught my brother everything he needs to know about writing.” – Stan Asimov

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” – Frank Herbert

Show some sympathy for those poor, lowly paid beleaguered clerks

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

They’re probably not to blame. Look, they’re usually struggling figures who all too often have to face self-entitled a-holes at the checkout counter or their equally crushed managers overhead. Here are a few things they’d love to tell you or maybe the offender before you or even their bosses.

Yes, here’s what they’d really love to say.

  1. “Let’s trade places. I’ll be the rude one, and you try to stay patient.”
  2. “If only our coffee was as strong as your attitude!”
  3. “Your tone is getting a price tag.”
  4. “Customers like you really test our ‘service with a smile’ policy.”
  5. “Your points would be more valid if they were less veiled in rudeness.”
  6. “We’re here to serve, not to be served attitude.”
  7. “Your words are as sweet as a lemon. Sarcasm intended.”
  8. “We promise fast service, not a tolerance for fast insults.”
  9. “You’ve mistaken my patience for a dumping ground.”
  10. “Have a nice day, somewhere else.”

While we’re at it, let’s go for a second round.

  1. “I appreciate your perspective, but rudeness is an extra charge we didn’t agree upon.”
  2. “Your impatience is understandable. Is it as urgent as your need for a manners refresher?”
  3. “Don’t worry, we charge by the item, not by the attitude.”
  4. “The ‘customer is always right’ policy doesn’t cover personal attacks. Please read the fine print.”
  5. “Did you mistake this conversation for an auction? Because you’re really bidding high on rudeness.”
  6. “We provide services, not psychic readings. Kindly state your problem, not your tantrum.”
  7. “Our products come with a warranty, but our tolerance for rudeness does not.”
  8. “Patience is a virtue, but it seems your cart is empty.”
  9. “The complaint box is for suggestions, not character assassinations.”
  10. “In our store, ‘sale’ applies to items, not civility.”

Or even a third.

  1. “We value customer feedback, but your rudeness is more of a monologue than a dialogue.”
  2. “Our goal is customer satisfaction, not ego inflation.”
  3. “Let me put you back into the waiting line.” However many hours that means.
  4. “Our service may be fast, but ‘instant respect’ isn’t on our menu.”
  5. “Our prices are competitive, but our patience isn’t limitless.”
  6. “We accept all major credit cards, but we don’t accept rudeness.”
  7. “This is a business, not a battlefield. Let’s keep the conversation civil.”
  8. “This is a store, not a stage. Kindly lower the drama.”
  9. Merry Christmas to you, too. And a *** New Year.
  10. Expletives deleted.

To see where you live, just listen to an artist

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I very much feel the vibrations of particular places, to the point that they become unacknowledged characters in my fiction and poetry. I know I’m not alone, even among writers.

Visual artists are also engaged in observing closely and progressing beyond, if they may. Some are not shy about acknowledging their insights, either.

For a few examples, let’s start by turning to Jamie Wyeth’s commenting about Mohegan Island and then venture from there.

  1. “You look at most paintings of gulls and they look like doves. If you really look at a gull, it is a beautiful bird, but it is a scavenger. It’s a mean, tough bird. To me they’re the sea more than anything else. The eye of a gull, you could paint a million seascapes and you don’t get the same sense of those eyes looking at you. They’re reptilian really.” Where I live, gulls are inescapable, even when you’d rather they weren’t.
  2. As for living surrounded by water: “Houses on the island are of as much interest as the people. They’re hanging on as tenuously as the people are. Unlike buildings in Pennsylvania which almost grow out of the earth, I always feel that if a big wind comes, everything would be just swept away.” I’ve already posted on this, looking at the town’s gable-style Capes. No wonder I tremble under a heavy wind, as I did in March so long ago in Ohio!
  3. “The danger with Maine is that it is so anecdotal and emblematic in terms of pretty houses, pretty lobster traps — ‘quaint’ things. Maine is not that way. Maine has a lot of edge, a lot of angst.”
  4. On blue sea glass: “Maine people must have drunk an inordinate amount of Milk of Magnesia.” I don’t think we need to go there.
  5. Taos Pueblo/Dine illustrator and designer Margeaux Abeyta also delivers some specifics: “I can’t count the times my father and I would take the long drive from Santa Fe to Gallup just for mutton sandwiches. … Every now and then we’d come across a perfect sky – a deep cobalt blue with rays of cerulean and clouds growing ever toward us as we drove under their long-cast shadows. They moved with one another in an effort to graze the land. Months later, I would recall our drive, lined on the canvas walls of his messy studio. He had documented that very day, an immortalized memory. Looking at across the room at half-finished canvases filled with underbrush of color, I saw the manifestations of a life lived. In this way, it became his own, his way to have a discourse with the world. Tracing back each part of himself, conversations and feelings embedded into each stroke, his very world as he dreamed it.” I must admit getting goosebumps just transcribing that rich passage. But she has more:
  6. “When my grandmother would take me chokecherry picking deep in the shaded paths, we would lift the bottoms of our blouses to hold the berries, staining the cotton with maroon impressions. While hauling home our treasures, she told stories of her own childhood. When she and her friends would walk the same trails only to be met by an old brown bear, quickly they ran, as gems of red fell from their hands, rolling down the hill behind them. I would look back into that shaded path where berries grew and feel the immense power of this strange world. Falling back beside my grandmother, I knew I was safe in this place she called home.” I am awed by how much deep memories of color inflect emotions here. The red could as easily be blood.
  7. Now for Alex Katz on his work done in New York City and Maine: “My paintings take all kinds of light. I’ve done a lot of night paintings, and twilight, and morning paintings. I think when people paint the same light all the time, it gets a little monotonous.” Do you ever think about the light where you live? Or the ways it inflects the colors your life?
  8. British painter Clare Thatcher returns to that connection of color to emotion: “I select a palette I have felt when at the location. My line drawings in charcoal or pencil suggest color to me. I aim to capture the mood and sensation that transports me back there.” What are the colors of where you’re living?
  9. For a bit of historical dimension, we have French master of the au plein Jean-Baptist Camille Corot: “I am struck upon seeing a certain place. While I strive for conscientious imitation, I yet never for an instant lose the emotion that has taken hold of me.” That points us back to the vibe.
  10. Nick Bantock, meanwhile, looks at another kind of color: “Art is like therapy; what comes up is what comes up. It may be dark, but that’s what comes up. You may want to keep some of it in a drawer … but never judge it.

Well, I am trying to think of what would have been representative of my native Ohio or neighboring Indiana as well as what would have emotionally internalized as a result. I’ve been much more aware in my moves since, as a poet and as a novelist.

As Aristotle said, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” And also, Edward Hopper’s, “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” Or, for me, to write.

Popcorn goes way back in antiquity

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Last year I presented a Double Tendrils about the popular and seemingly ubiquitous snack of popcorn. Quite simply, it’s not just for watching movies. And around this time of year, we start eating more. Not only that, but it turns out to be a uniquely American contribution to the world’s cuisine.

The topic simply overflowed so much that we didn’t have room for tidbits about its deep history.

So here goes with ten related factoids that pop up on that front.

  1. Try to think of a more purely American food than popcorn. Whether salted or buttered at a movie theatre, or as kettle corn at a county fair or a caramel popcorn ball come the holidays, we hoover it up, even when we’re not watching movies, OK?
  2. Look, archeologists have found traces of popcorn in 1,000-year-old Peruvian tombs. But it goes back way even earlier.
  3. The first use of wild and then cultivated corn points for now to the Bat Cave of west central New Mexico in 1948. Ranging from smaller than a penny to about two inches, those ears are about 5,600 years old, older than Adam and Eve, for anyone counting.
  4. In tombs on the east coast of Peru, researchers have found grains of popcorn perhaps 1,000 years old. These grains have been so well-preserved that they will still pop.
  5. Popcorn was integral to early 16th century Aztec ceremonies. As Bernardino de Sahagun observed, “And also a number of young women danced, having so vowed, a popcorn dance. As thick as tassels of maize were their popcorn garlands. And these they placed upon (the girls’) heads.” In 1519, Cortes got his first sight of popcorn when he invaded Mexico and came into contact with the Aztecs. Popcorn was an important food for the Aztec natives, who also used popcorn as decoration for ceremonial headdresses, necklaces and ornaments on statues of their gods, including Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility.
  6. An early Spanish account of a ceremony honoring the Aztec gods who watched over fishermen reads: “They scattered before him parched corn, called momochitl, a kind of corn which bursts when parched and discloses its contents and makes itself look like a very white flower; they said these were hailstones given to the god of water.”
  7. Writing of Peruvian natives in 1650, the Spaniard Cobo said, “They toast a certain kind of corn until it bursts. They call it pisancalla, and they use it as a confection.”
  8. Kernels of popcorn found in burial grounds in the coastal deserts of north Chile were so well preserved they would still pop even though they were 1,000 years old. Likewise, in southwestern Utah, a 1,000-year-old popped kernel of popcorn was found in a dry cave inhabited by predecessors of the Pueblos.
  9. Indigenous Iroquois people in North America were documented popping corn kernels in heated pottery jars near the Great Lakes region in the 1600s.
  10. The first patent for a microwave popcorn bag was issued to General Mills in 1981, and home popcorn consumption increased by tens of thousands of pounds in the years following.

Glories and quirks of AM radio, back in the day

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

My kids don’t even know what it is. How shocking!

Let’s look at a few based on their call letters.

  1. WLW, Cincinnati, the Nation’s Station, with ten times the wattage than permitted today. It lighted a barn a mile away. Back in those days, it had its own staff musicians.
  2. WOR, New York, with comedians Bob and Ray as the drivetime crew and storyteller Jean Shepherd in the evening. They originated on WHDH in Boston.
  3. WSN, Nashville, home of the Grand Ol’ Opry.
  4. WWVA, Wheeling, West Virginia, Country Jamboree.
  5. WCKY, Cincinnati, with a very directional nighttime signal that plastered the South with its WCKY Jamboree country programming. It also made Reds baseball highly followed far into Dixie.
  6. WNOP, Radio Free Newport, an eclectic daytime jazz station broadcasting from Kentucky to the captive peoples across the Ohio River, or so they proclaimed.
  7. WAVI, the daytime big-band station in Dayton revolving around retired trumpeter BJ, who always signed off decrying the “arcane rules of the FCC in Washington that make us give way to a station in Philadelphia that can in no way serve the Greater Dayton area.”
  8. WJR, Detroit, with a full mix of original programming, including Adventures in Good Music with Karl Haas, the Redwings, and the Metropolitan Opera on Saturdays.
  9. WBZ, Boston, with its all-news format when I arrived in New England.
  10. If you’re of a certain age, you can add your own fond memories of a local station’s wild rock ‘n’ roll DJ or two who fed your adolescent rollercoaster with machine-gun delivery and often took requests in addition to a Top 40 countdown. Sometimes he even mentioned you by name. In my hometown, that was WING.

Would I even recognize Seattle now?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

In my novel Nearly Canaan, Joshua and Jaya settled into a place unlike anything they would have imagined. It was (and still is) desert, for one thing, where nearly everything has to be irrigated, for another. Quite simply, it’s a lot like Yakima, in the middle of Washington state.

But they did repeatedly visit the Queen City of the Pacific Northwest, over where the endless gray and its rains were. The enlightened residents had a propensity for dark German movies in some unique art film houses, and I doubt that I’d recognize the place if I ever go back. Remember, I left well before “Sleepless in Seattle” or Dr. Frasier Crane’s arrival from Boston, not that I’d been there, either.

That said, here are ten high points to consider.

  1. Unlike most American urban areas, there’s more poverty outside the city limits rather than within them. That probably reflects racial dynamics elsewhere or even gentrification conflicts in older cities.
  2. Seattle has some outstanding opera and symphony experiences. The Wagner’s Ring Cycle in summertime week-long festivals is legendary, even in English. The art museum, meanwhile, is third-rate despite the presence of visually intriguing local artists, at least when I was there.
  3. Yes, it can be gray for six months or more in stretches. Residents simply dodge the ongoing light rain. It can drive some people over the edge, though.
  4. When the clouds break, breathtaking views of the Olympic Range appear to the west and Mount Rainier to the east, the latter of which is technically within Seattle’s metropolitan statistical area covered by the U.S. census. Elk and bears are not enumerated.
  5. The city is the home of Starbucks coffee and the glorious Pike Street vendors’ market.
  6. That said, eat Dungeness crab early and often. It’s a delicacy found from San Francisco north to Alaska, and is at its best before shipping elsewhere.
  7. The U.S. military is a huge economic influence, even before Boeing executives fled for Chicago and the company’s reputation went into decline. Microsoft, meanwhile, keeps booming.
  8. If you visit, ride the ferries that many commuters ride daily. Puget Sound is a very active waterfront. You don’t even have to take your car if you simply want to ride out and back.
  9. I won’t even touch on the history of Grunge etc., but I will recommend wool Pendleton shirts. They’re the choice of the region’s loggers, who know wet “cotton kills.”
  10. I also recall the prevalence of mossy roofs and huge garden slugs.