HIGH-TECH CONSTRUCTION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Everything that’s transpired in the 28 years since I first drafted my novel Hometown News has made me feel prophetic.

Now, of course, you have an opportunity to judge for yourself. I just wish it hadn’t taken this many years to become public.

One thing I’d like to point out involves the initial experiment I used in constructing the novel. Quite simply, I wondered if I could build a computer-generated story – no matter how distasteful the premise itself strikes me in my self-identity as a neo-Luddite and fussy literary type. Maybe it was just some of the vestige of the scientist wannabe in me?

So I created a master day-in-the-life chapter, made multiple copies to repeat throughout the story, and included up to 120 variables for search-and-replace functions. And away I went, allowing the S&R efforts to produce their own pace and variations. Not that it quite worked as I’d hoped. I found myself going back over those pages and adding new layers, softening some of the edges, adding shadows and highlights. As they say in the visuals arts, it’s quite “painterly.”

Be that as it may, one thing I’ve observed over the years is how little we typically know of many of our coworkers. There might be a favorite phrase they repeat or a piece of clothing or a distinctive quirk. And that’s it, sometimes year after year. So that part was agreeable to the S&R structuring.

As a technique, though, I’m afraid to report – or maybe more relieved – that the S&R by itself was insufficient. It did provide the core “bones” for the novel, but I did have to paint over much of it to make it more pliant and, well, human.

All the same, I’m feeling vindicated. Maybe it’s a high tech revenge for what high tech is wreaking on the workplace and surrounding community.

To check out my Smashwords ebook story, go to Hometown News.

Hometown News

AN IDEA NOTED EARLY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Not long ago, I came across this note to myself:

“Story idea: paragraph or two, repeated … one or two words changed each time, till the end provides an entirely new view.”

It’s old, probably from the mid-’70s, and yet has become the basis of several series of my poems from the last decade.

In a way, it’s also the basis of my novel Hometown News, although the repeated sections and their variations are much longer than single paragraphs.

Works for me. Wonder what else I’ll turn up.

~*~

To learn more about my novels and poems, go to my page at Smashwords.com.

GREETINGS FROM THE PAST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Back when I was living in the townhouse apartments “on the hill,” the preschool tot next door was learning he could manipulate me presumably, any grown up into waving to him. All he has to do is wave first.

At first, he was pretty shy, wondering whether he should wave at all when I wiggled my hand or arm in his direction before driving off to the office or the grocery. In time he became more intrigued, hovering at their open front door or staying close to his mother if she were sitting at their stoop.

And then he became bolder. One morning, he parted their upstairs blinds and cried out from the window to me, just so I could see his smile and wave.

The next day, he told me as he rode his bike around the parking lot, “I runned into your car.”

“Oh, where’d you hit it,” I replied, not the least worried, not with all the rust spots that are appearing simultaneously on my well worn vehicle.

“On the tire!” he piped up as I performed a mock inspection.

And finally, he came charging out the door just as I was about to drive off, grinning and hailing me in huge motions. “Welcome!” he cried out. “Welcome to Walmart!”

“Well, say `hi’ to Sam for me!” I chuckled.

His father, a few steps behind, shrugged as they set off on their errands.

RIVERSING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments
RiverSing was accompanied by large butterflies and other imaginative creations from Moonship Productions and the Puppeteers Cooperative. Here's one by daylight.
RiverSing is accompanied by large butterflies and other imaginative creations from Moonship Productions and the Puppeteers Cooperative. Here’s one by daylight.
And if you've ever wanted to converse with a butterfly, here's your chance.
And if you’ve ever wanted to converse with a butterfly, here’s your chance.
Once the sun goes down, the butterflies take on a new look as they swirl at the margin of the audience.
Once the sun goes down, the butterflies take on a new look as they swirl at the margin of the audience.

Best known for its 16 packed shows in Harvard’s Sanders Theatre each Christmas, Boston’s Revels organization also presents many other activities of community-enhancing music, theater, dance, and storytelling for family audiences through the year.

Each autumn, for instance, it welcomes the equinox with a free Sunday evening concert along the Charles River in Cambridge, which takes place tonight with activities beginning at 5 p.m. in Winthrop Park at Harvard Square. A police-escorted street procession leads down to the riverside, where thousands settle in for a two-hour high-energy performance.

The marvelous Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band played a lively set in Winthrop Park before escorting a large procession to the Charles River. I'll refrain from telling stories about the trombonist on the right, who I've known long before he even knew about trombones.
The marvelous Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band plays a lively set in Winthrop Park before it escorts a large procession to the Charles River. I’ll refrain from telling stories about the trombonist on the right, whom I’ve known long before he even knew about trombones.

Last year’s concert featured Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame, and I was part of the chorus of 120 behind him. It was a blast.

Here we are, with Noel Paul Stookey beside conductor, arranger, and master of ceremonies George Emlen in the white tie-and-tails.
Here we are, with Noel Paul Stookey beside conductor, arranger, and master of ceremonies George Emlen in the white tie-and-tails.
After the show, this puppet quickly filled with children.
After the show, this puppet quickly filled with children.

The stage also provided some great views of the sunset and audience, which was ringed by glowing butterflies. It was a magical experience.

My wife took these photos with her phone. For some showing my face in the choir, though, go to the Revels site.

If you’re in New England, consider showing up tonight. The more, in this case, the merrier.

A TINY DETAIL

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

We’d get the phone call. “You promised a story.” We knew we’d been very careful not to do that. Instead, it was, “I’ll look into that” or “I’ll pass that along to the appropriate editor for a decision.”

My favorite was the caller who claimed to be good friends with the publisher, who had promised the coverage. Followed by our response, “You know she died twelve years ago?” And their embarrassed silence.

Of course, it’s not just stories.

People read into the most carefully crafted texts and then respond to only the parts they want to hear while tuning out the rest. Or they just plain tune out. It’s called the theory of cognitive dissonance. If they think you’re agreeing with them, they’ll bend the message their way. If they think you’re critical, they’ll shove you out altogether.

Often, all tripping over a tiny detail or two.

~*~

Oh, how I came to hate the telephone when I worked in the newsroom! If you want further proof, just go to my novel Hometown News.

Hometown News

 

 

GEORGE AND MERTIE’S PLACE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time …

You asked about my handle, Jnana. In essence, it’s Sanskrit for the spiritual “path of the intellect,” but that knowledge comes into fullness only when it finds harmony with the other forms of devotion – passion and compassion, physical labor, humility, charity, and so on. “Theoretical knowledge” misses the mark; rather, the name was given to me, in the ashram, only when I came to appreciate all the other spiritual gifts people have. Eliade calls it “the knowledge of ultimate realities” as well as “philosophy.” Perhaps “discernment” would be its equivalent in Christian practice. Whatever, I do tend to dwell in the mind and to dance in a field of ideas; I become grateful for those around me who help ground me in everyday applications.

Here it is, two months after hearing of your decision to shutter the place. (Hmm, was it a rooming house, bed-and-breakfast, or mountain inn? – so many possibilities!) Six years is a respectable run and for that, our gratitude and respect.

I once heard that before Caterpillar was launched, its editors had resolved that a journal has only three years of fresh insights to offer, and so they limited its life span to that – truncated, in my opinion, though I have my own theory of being in the public eye, which I first saw when I was pushing new comic strips and text features to newspaper editors: I see the “talent” as having a 10-year creative span – two years for readers to catch on to a new regular feature, and roughly five for a feature to start to take off in popularity; meanwhile, the artist/writer is using up the conceptual reservoir, so at five years the project is going into decline. You can tally your own list of television, radio, newspaper, or magazine projects that continued long after they had gone stale. (Of course, sometimes an individual will catch a second wind, but that’s another story.)

A year-and-a-half ago I stepped down as clerk of Dover Quarterly Meeting after a six-year term. That meant I had been presiding officer of a fellowship that met four times a year, gathering most of the local Quaker congregations in New Hampshire. (New England Yearly Meeting is the parent body, obviously named.) I was really happy to discover in the Book of Faith and Practice that limit to the length of service in any one post! It was long enough – I had initiated all I could.

More recently, I had hoped to be sending off some new material for you to consider. After a number of upheavals, of a positive sort detailed below, I’m back at writing again – got tied up, though, in some heavy-duty theological drafts rather than “creative” stuff. Things like why “Christ” equals Logos or Light more than Jesus, or why God wanted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit and why their expulsion from the Garden was not the cause of Original Sin, contrary to Augustine’s teaching. Who knows what those whackos in your neck of the woods would make of all that.

Your observation about the lack of time really hits home. It’s a disease or unease of today’s America – something that has received a lot of consideration in our Friends Meeting when we look at what we’d like to accomplish as a faith community, and then what we feel we can volunteer. Or when I debate whether to accept some OT shifts, which would help with all the bills, but decide instead to decline.

And your plans to move hit home, too. Guess the best place to catch up is just to cannibalize from the long-draft of my annual Yule letter from this past winter. Maybe some will resonate. If it doesn’t, skip!

FLATBED

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Returning to my native corner of Ohio, I’m astonished by its flatness; what had seemed to be large hills or significant valleys now appear embarrassingly horizontal.

On the other hand, as I’ve uncovered my ancestral roots in that land, I’m finding a lost and untold richness in what was essentially a Pennsylvania Dutch heritage continuing in western Ohio. Feel free to take a look at my findings at the Orphan George Chronicles.

MAYBE WE’RE ALL TEACHERS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

We’re well into the back-to-school swirl. Considering how many Friends teach for a living, it’s a wonder we don’t talk more about what Quakers used to call Sound Doctrine.

Not dogma, creed, doctrinaire, or even indoctrination, mind you. Doctrine, meaning teaching. The essentials for practicing our faith, just as certain skills are needed in mathematics or foreign language. Or, for that matter, for good cooking or carpentry or sewing.

It’s not just the children, either. Some messages arising in worship are basically teaching, and some are admittedly sounder than others, the latter including those that George Fox derided as mere “notions.” (Consider the Quaker who preached that Friends should not disturb the ground to obtain well water, until another spoke out during worship, “And Abraham digged a well,” citing Genesis 21:30 and apparently settling the matter.) Our own reading and inquiry, meanwhile, can be pretty much hit or miss. Who knows about other sources? Film, television, radio? And, as with all teaching, how strict should one be – and how flexible?

If we were passing a hat to collect slips of paper suggesting what should be included in our own “sound doctrine,” what would you write on yours? For that matter, how much would be a matter of content – and how much, process?

Sometime, perhaps, we’ll even have a session to hear our teachers talk a bit about their teaching – both content and method – and a continuing awareness of learning. Or maybe another, to consider all the ways we have learned from each other – and not just matters of faith, either. The progress of my compost bins, after all, is guided in part by eavesdropping on a few after-meeting conversations and their lessons of patience, humility, and renewal.

~*~

This has me wondering, as well, how we might extend a pursuit of “sound doctrine” into our secular circles. Economics, politics, education, even entertainment could all use a dose of what Friends used to call “close labor” – the effort of living with ever greater integrity. Any ideas?

 

CORKING THE STATE LIQUOR COMMISSION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

For all of it reputation as the “tax-free state” and “live free or die,” New Hampshire has some pretty convoluted ways of making ends meet. True, we have no sales tax and no income tax, but that simply means finding a lot of nickel-and-dime ways of raising public revenues, starting with a hefty property tax rate. (Renters, of course, get no break on their federal taxes there, either – as I said, convoluted.) And if you dine out, even for breakfast, there’s another big hit, eight percent or so, one of many others. Eventually, it all adds up.

New Hampshire also has a reputation as the go-to state for cheaper liquor, compared to the rest of the Northeast. For all of the official conservative rhetoric of free enterprise, the state clutches its monopoly on the sale of hard liquor, unlike, say, neighboring Massachusetts, with its liberal tradition of neighborhood mom-and-pop “package” stores.

The conflict I see comes in the fact the state is both the regulator of alcoholic beverage sales, ranging from bars to groceries and wine stores and home consumption, and also the distributor. That is, the same agency, the State Liquor Commission, is both the policeman and an active dealer in what it is policing. It’s a situation rife with the potential for favors, favoritism, and outright bribery or corruption. As the Founding Fathers were well aware, whoever polices the police should not be the police. You separate them – the classic separation of powers, each keeping jealous watch over the other.

Not so here in New Hampshire. When it comes to alcohol, the only line of defense might be the Legislature or the Governor and Executive Council as the counterbalance, but that’s not the way it should be, especially when we factor in the possibilities of hefty campaign donations. The enforcer and distributor should be under separate agencies – then, if conflict arises, they appeal to higher authority. As it is, they’re likely to squelch any complainer … or else.

In addition, when it comes to wine, all the supermarkets, grocers, and independent wine shops face a double whammy. They’re required to buy their wine from the state (through the one and only licensed warehouse dealer), even though the state also sells directly against them. In fact, it’s the same agency they must apply to for their very permit to do business in this field. And then the agency adds its own percentage to the product, even if it’s from a winery the state wouldn’t otherwise stock except for the retailers’ order. As I said, convoluted and rife for abuse.

I first noticed this when I found a certain label for sale much cheaper in Massachusetts. Seems the Bay State has one less layer of middleman in the process. So much for the “Taxachusetts” tag we Granite Staters so often brush on our southern neighbor. Tain’t always so.

More recently, I found an example of the state’s monopoly bully at work when a local supermarket was out of several of its more popular varieties. Could it be someone had said something that miffed somebody in the state agency that was supposed to deliver the product, which now was just sitting in the warehouse? Who do you complain to, after all? You can’t switch to a different supplier, either. Where’s the free market free enterprise in this case? The official line may have been that the state was in the midst of shifting from one licensed warehouse operator, which had held the contract for decades, to a new one. But, as the old contractor miffed, the situation “is just the latest example of many where the the commission has cut a special deal” with the new licensee.

For years, I received the weekly release of which bars, restaurants, and convenience stores or supermarkets had their liquor licenses suspended by the State Liquor Commission, usually for underage sales of beverages. Not once did I see a State Liquor Store in that list. Not that they weren’t as prone to violations. As I said, who polices the police?

Yes, New Hampshire gets the revenue. As long as I’m not forced to go to Maine or Massachusetts to get the wine I want, where it’s available, maybe even more cheaply.

Any future MBAs interested in doing a case study? This one could be a doozy.