One checkpoint where we lucked out

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

A miraculous thing for us was that the roofing shingles, which had prompted our big renovation project, had held on for the four years between the insurance company’s alarm after our purchase and the actual replacement. Not so for many other shingles around us, even those that had been replaced during those years.

My initial impression, looking at the real estate market when we started considering this move, had been that we could fit into something cheap and make do. But things were shifting.

Most homes we saw for sale had problems, either for my coconspirators or me. Many of the remodelings were utterly puzzling. Others really needed to be redone.

I wasn’t the one who zeroed in on Eastport, but now I cannot imagine anywhere else I’d want to be at this stage in my life. Maybe it’s like Swami when she came to the Poconos and felt the vibes.

The ideal of moving to an island in Maine is almost a cliché. Even a Downeast shore, or a bit to our west, like the Wyeth clan. But we did need to downsize.

At one point, my dream had been to live on a mountain lake. The ocean never even entered into the picture.

Yet here we are, surrounded by interesting people, too.

Where is today’s local communication and shared identity?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Unlike many localities, Eastport has a fine newspaper, one that appears twice each month. It covers much of Washington County in Maine and Charlotte County in neighboring New Brunswick, Canada.

You get a good sense of the place from its pages. I can’t say that for many of the newspapers I’ve seen across the country, even when they were big moneymakers.

Living in out-of-the-spotlight localities, I’ve been sensitive to the nuances of each landscape and the people who inhabit there, not that I’ve often found them reflected in mass media outlets.

It’s not just newspapers or, for the most part, TV, though Northern Exposure did create the sense of one, especially with Chris Stevens as the disc jockey on KBHR radio.

I do sense that the lessening of local identity reflects the loss of local economic power centers, largely through corporate buyouts. The pharmacist no longer owns the drug store, nor does the local bank have its own president. The newspaper is part of a chain, as are most hospitals these days. The list goes on.

As I’ve explained, for many years, despite the arcane business structure in which advertising rather than sales of copies provided the bulk of the income, hometown newspapers were cash cows for their owners – who, in turn, paid their reporters and editors minimal wages.

The resulting management practices – reflecting those of surrounding corporate retailers and manufacturers – have put news coverage at risk, endangering both the communities and democracy itself. How will they, like the reporters and editors, survive?

Oh, yes, the big box stores – especially Walmart – rarely bought advertising space in the local paper, even while they squeezed the smaller retailers out of business. I remember one year when an economic downturn put five of our ten largest advertisers out of business.

~*~

Social media posts by amateurs may fill some of the gap, but there’s no substitute for fact-checking and other accuracy. Reporting and writing take time and devotion, not a given when you have a real job and family vying for attention.

And if you’re out there solo, who’s going to back you up when the topic at hand gets nasty? As it does, when corruption seeps in.

Anybody else feeling crushed?

From a Scroll of Improvisation

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The premise: So much of my writing has resulted from distillation, revision, compression, and concision, often as a matter of collage or thesis/antithesis/ synthesis opposition and release.

The pieces of this scroll, in contrast, are envisioned as longer, free-flowing outbursts without structure or topic, a matter of simply letting the writing stream where and how it will. Perhaps my Dialogues are my closest antecedent, although I could throw in Ned Rorem’s journals or John Cage’s diary or Keith Jarrett’s solo improv concerts. I like the story about one of those performances, where Jarrett came out and sat for some time, unable to begin. As the audience grew restless, someone called out to the stage, “D sharp!” or some such; the pianist turned, said “Thank you,” and began.

While I anticipate these to emerge as prose, their spirit should be poetry. Whatever the key or time signature.

~*~

To start slowly, or even slow, with a single note. Not even a chord. A word or two, cryptically without context. Sit in place, melting.

Where was I, then? Or you?

De Tocqueville set out to define America, that is the United States, as some overriding commonalities. What conceit, though I suppose we might do the same regarding Europeans, as if Italians and Danes resemble each other in many ways. Yes, I boldly spent a week on the Olympic Peninsula followed by a couple of years digesting the place and its peoples. More recently, the decades of investigating New England have proved more elusive. Even my native Midwest is far more varied and nuanced than I would have suspected. Explore the world? My focus becomes more and more this place I inhabit along the Cocheco.

The falling water, splaying on rock below. The mills. My own small tract, now covered with new snow. Birds at the feeder. Skittering.

What do I know of anything? Of anyone? Just who am I, and how did I ever arrive here, with this woman and her daughters? All these squirrels and buried black walnuts.

Each shell, a note. Each snowflake, another. Cry out, unheard against the wind.

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.

 

So many threads have led to here

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This pause in our renovations seems like an ideal time to reflect on the ways this project builds on much earlier dreams and becomes, perhaps by default, their culmination.

My junior high art teacher instilled in me a love of 20th century contemporary architecture as well as Japanese and Scandinavian art and culture. That dovetailed into Shaker traditions that had once existed just down the street from us and a county or two south as well. Plainness, exemplified by Quaker, Mennonite, and Brethren history is in my blood and bones, as I’ve learned digging into genealogy.

Add to that an appreciation for William Morris’ arts and crafts movement, which infused the bungalow I eventually owned in the Rust Belt, and my exposure to historic New England styles, including Queen Ann.

And then a sense of neighborhood, too.

Had you asked me at the outset where I wanted to live, I would have responded central city, perhaps in a high rise, or out in the wilderness, perhaps beside a mountain lake or stream. What was clear that suburban was nowhere in my preference.

So here I am in a historic sea captain’s home a block from the Atlantic yet at the edge of a funky downtown and arts scene and – utterly amazing, to me – within minutes of forest, lakes, and streams.

When I sit in our second-floor rooms, the heart of our renovation project, I have moments of feeling the best of both worlds. In following the new roofline for our ceilings, we’ve avoided creating boxes as the rooms. One criticism of so much architecture objects to “boxes with holes cut in them.” Rather than boxiness, sometimes I’m reminded of the contours within a ship’s hull or a sail overhead.

This time of year, I’m reminded, too, of the flurry of work just before the previous two Christmas celebrations. It got chaotic, up to six tradesmen at one time. We were tripping over ourselves as the rest of the family started showing up.

Throughout it all, we had the ongoing Viking Lumber deliveries, mostly with Tim driving. And our wonder at having the right contractor after all of the delays.

So here we are with the continuing surprise of the historical significance of the house, not just that it was 80 years older than it had been claimed, but that it had been so central to what has evolved here.

As our mason once asked, “How much is enough?”

For now, let’s leave it at that.

Yes, follow the money

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Here, should you be curious, is the conclusion of my working paper about the future of publishing as seen about 50 years ago.

~*~

As I wrote at the time:

Another aspect is that many publishers have turned toward the textbook market, which is basically a monopolistic. As a result, textbooks are generally high-priced, & in hard-cover, which increases the cost.

It is cheaper for many libraries to buy the soft cover edition (if it is sewn & not glued) & to have their own binding put on than to purchase the over-priced, & profitable, hard-backed version. hard published guarantee a market of say 2,000 over two or three for the university (or

This takes us back to the early days of publishing (ie, pre-Industrial Revolution) when readers would buy their book in paperback & have their own, often elaborate, bindings secured at their own expense & taste.

Books in the mid-1700s in England were often published by individual bookstores & sold exclusively at there. Of course, this was a period in which the realm of lettered men numbered only a few thousand in the country. Have we returned to this kind of situation, in our own unique way?

Book clubs: eliminate the middle men: find an audience.

Distribution again. Is there sufficient range of former students & others so aligned that we could years for the students of these students? We could distribute informally, at a lower cost: we could have an official cost, with a built-in mark-up, bookstores. (IU charges Workshop an additional 50 cents for special ordering a book: we could do it cheaper.)

~*~

Storage & secretarial: additional infrastructure costs.

[There was nothing more here.]

~*~

To sell to students, we must keep the cost below 5 cents a page (or 2½  cents where pages are around 5 ½ by 8 inches .2 .5 cents) to beat many Xeroxes; in some places, the machines cost 10 cents.

But our recent experience in MAXing our newsletter at a cost that  rivals off-set presses makes me wonder if we beat pirating.

On the other hand, potential pirates must first be able to get their hands on the original material before it can be copied. Hence, some publishers may be planning to sell only library editions, in a fancy hardback, from which students & scholars will make their own copies at a lower cost. Maybe it takes us on to cheaper ways for publishing our own material, with the additional hope that a second photo-copying may be of such low quality that the user depending upon photocopy sustems will require two to four impressions a page, with careful glueing afterwards, to reconstruct the original in his own reproduction. This implies a non-photocopied original.

~*~

No labor union in this visual can guarantee a creator a decent return on his labor.

[And this was way before AI].

~*~

In drawing these diverse thoughts and problems together, it seems that the problems of distribution & the declining base of broad areas of literate concern go hand-in-hand. The rise of increasingly specialized audiences has failed to acknowledge the changing economics of publication & distribution, or the increasing difficulty of policing artistic property rights.

Linked with this has been an author’s work (Xerox, magnetic tape), which with it the paradox of filling specialized markets while undermining the very royalties that make it possible for most artists to work at all in these specialized endeavors. To reap the just rewards for his own labors, the artist is now required to seek means to reproduce & circulate his own work at lower cost than is possible for the pirates — a situation that I would assume, by definition, is impossible. However, there may be a can guarantee any artist a decent living, nor a thoughts together, it seems increasing ease of pirating carries few strategies left to the artist by which he can circumvent the pirates. These are a few areas of our concern.

~*~

What are the that artist/editors can form legal co-ops to ensure the protection of their own property rights?

What are the possibilities & realities that artists/editors can form legal coops to ensure the protection of their own legal property rights?

~*~

One solution to the royalties problem could be derived from the action taken by musicians to deal with the spread of recorded music, especially on the airwaves. (We must remember that through most of the thirties, the radio networks, at least, were required, by either competition or internal decree, to rely upon only live music; changes in the economics of radio, however, brought about an onslaught of use of music.) The musicians formed two unions — ASCAP, or the Association of Songwriters, Composers, Artists, and Performers, and a rival BMI, Broadcast Music Incorporated; collect a flat fee from every station in the plays any of their works. Since policing the airwaves or relying upon station logs to determine music has been played would be prohibitive & encourage stations to falsify their records, a station plays a flat percentage of its gross or a negotiated fee, I’m not exactly sure which — but it pays that amount covered by the organization or plays nothing but its records. The collected fee is then divvied among the members.

The musicians had earlier formed the Fund or Performers Trust Fund or some such organization to counter the original inroads of records the creation of live music throughout the country. The funds collected on recording sessions (beyond the performer’s royalty) go into a fund that is distributed across the country to support concerts in the parks & so on.

A similar fee could be imposed upon all photocopying machines in the country, based on the assumption that every machine will be used at least once to copy material that is covered by copyright. The amount of the fee could be based upon the amount of usage recorded by the machine (Xerox, for example, keeps tabs on this), or on the amount of special supplies like ink or paper purchased.)

The collected fee could then be distributed among special groupings to support, physical science, and fine arts/literary journals. Poetry & fiction, by way of explanation, already receive some support from the Coordinating Council of Little Magazines, backed by National Endowment for the Humanities funds.

Although there would be the obvious difficulties in determining who would get what, at least somebody would be getting some return on their labor & a source for encouraging the unknown writers, the unknown researchers, could be established.

The courts, in several recent decisions, have said in effect that the decision is up to the legislatures and not the courts. Pending Congressional legislation would allow libraries to make one obviously not alleviate the difficulties of selective piracy.

This is where my ramblings end now.

~*~

Or so I said a half-century ago.

~*~

My, if I only received minimum wage plus interest for all the hours I’ve put into literary writings since then, I’d be rich.

You can find my works in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. You can also ask your public library to obtain them.