Tag: Arts & Letters

ON TURNING SIXTY … FIVE!

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

The milestone demands some acknowledgement, or at least a hard assessment of my life to date. To be honest, when I graduated from college, I hardly expected to survive past my mid-thirties, and the way things were going, maybe I wasn’t far off the mark. On the other hand, I never anticipated the turns this journey has taken.

For one thing, I rarely thought of journalism as my lifetime career, but rather as a steppingstone to something else. While the field could be exciting at times, getting caught up in the management side of the business took a toll, and the more recent downward spiral of the professional publishing industry in general is downright frightening.

I had envisioned myself either returning to my hometown and writing for a newspaper that no longer exists, or else working in the heart of a large metropolis with its range of concerts, galleries, lectures, and theater, possibly after going back for a law degree. Of course, neither way opened, but the ashram route did. And I, who started adulthood somewhere between agnostic and logical positivist, was now on a spiritual pathway that would lead me to Quaker practice.

As I look back on my adult life, the only thing that has made sense has been this spiritual evolution. Each of the geographic moves, ostensibly in pursuit of a career, actually introduced the next step in an expanding faith and practice. Now my generation is having to move into places once filled by the “mighty old oaks” who came before us – the most troubling aspect being that we are, all these years later, still the younger members of Meeting or, for that matter, much of literature and the fine arts.

The craft of writing has itself has taken its own curious twists within this; while the poetry and fiction have often arisen in the discipline of keeping my skills sharp in the face of the daily grind, and thus have often veered toward the “experimental” side of literature, they’ve also served as a tool for investigating the unfolding experience – something quite different from trying to “create” a poem or story. Examining a situation honestly and directly, rather than trying to be ironic, cute, entertaining, or ideologically correct, is one of the consequences; on the other hand, you’re constantly measured against some standard of innovation. It ain’t easy, balancing the two.

Nevertheless, I’ll confess to a lot of remaining frustration. All of the unfinished work before me, for instance, or the difficulty in achieving successful book-length publication, despite having more than a thousand poems and short stories published in literary journals, at this point, on five continents. On a more personal level, I could look at all of the social skills to be fostered, to say nothing of a round of grandparenting, should that happen.

Even so, as I told my wife a few months back, I have nearly everything I’ve wanted, though it resembles none of what I imagined. The crux here is in being receptive and grateful, which proves surprisingly elusive when we’re in the middle of the usual swirl.

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This is something I wrote for myself at sixty. And here it is, with a few tweaks, five years later. Just as applicable.

LONG-DISTANCE MEMORIES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the email age, the personal letter has become a cultural artifact. Here’s what might be an example from someone or another wandering, perhaps in a private desert of Sinai.

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Greetings on this sunny but nippy Valentine’s Day! How much nicer it would be to still be abed, next to you, both of us pleasurably sated and, well, how do you like your coffee? (A local roaster makes a savory version it markets, tongue-in-cheek, as Charbucks – “You told us you like it dark.”) But now, does that mean I have to untie those silk scarves? Or go find those tiny keys again? (Dream on, old man!) Here I am, on the first full day of my fifty-first year (gads, even saying that feels a bit like coming over the first crest on the Cannonball wooden coaster at Canobie Lake!) trying to recover from another grueling double-shift Saturday at the office – the weekly 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. no-letup newspaper editor’s nightmare. So I decided to stay in from worship this morning to try to catch up on some personal affairs, including setting down that letter I’ve been composing in my head the past several weeks – and which, now that I’m at it, I can’t even begin! Which thread should we pursue first? (Fact? Or fiction?) Yikes!

Suppose we should start off by saying how much I’ve once again enjoyed all of your confessions of the journey of the emerging psyche. One of the remarkable things you are doing is giving voice to experiences in a rite of passage for a generation coming of age but who remain so incredibly tongue-tied.

One of the incomprehensible elements is the psychological pain so many teens and young adults in America carry – this, from a generation that has received more physical comforts and leisure than any other in history – food, education, fashionable clothing, shelter, cars of their own. You admit the “emotional demons, trying to survive in the face of my fragile nerves and emotions.” I wonder how that involves the essential nature of being a creative person, someone drawn to the arts, who craves a deeper experience and more fulfilling explanation of life than the material/materialistic surface can ever provide – and how much reflects a very serious and deep breakdown in American society itself, one in which the pursuit of individualism at all costs and the ever-accelerating accumulation of more and more wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands simply leaves fewer openings for most of us to come together as meaningful community. Positions that once allowed genuine opportunities for decision-making and personal expression – like the local bank president or newspaper publisher – are now just mid-level bureaucrats. And physicians and surgeons are just beginning to be sucked up in this process, thanks to HMOs or hospital conglomerates. (As one was recently quoted: “I used to be a physician. Now I’m just a health care provider.” Or as I sometimes say, not entirely in jest: “I used to be a newspaper editor. Now I’m a copy processor.”) The field – and life opportunities – have certainly changed since I set forth, and not for the better, I fear.

So pains, yes.

Wish you were here.

30

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Sometimes it’s hard to believe how much has changed since I entered the field of journalism four-and-a-half decades ago. Even as a high school student editor, I was engaged in a craft that was pretty much as it had been for the previous eight decades, in the long shadow of the introduction of the Linotype machine. We could see ourselves rooted in an even longer tradition of newspapering arising in the handset type era before that. Think of the New York Times dispatches during the Civil War. Printing was still mostly by letterpress, even though the newer offset method with its superior reproduction of photographs was making inroads. Every other week, I would trot down to our printer’s with our latest round of stories and pictures, get correction proofs a few days later, and then release the edition for publication.

We were quite limited in the typefaces available to us. I wanted what was then an elegant new typeface that our shop didn’t own — Times New Roman. Hard to believe how ubiquitous it’s become, or how much further we’ve come as well. But he did have Caslon, which became one of my favorites — in part because of its use in the Sunday editions of the New York Herald Tribune. And Bodoni, in part because of its indestructible nature, was the standard headline choice; try finding it on your computer selections these days. Photos were another matter altogether, as were student photographers. Polaroid shots were a radical leap into the future, and usually far more reliable. Polaroid?

Writers, of course, used typewriters. Not just reporters, but almost everyone except for the select few writers who could still write in longhand and have a secretary or typist service transcribe the results. Secretaries? Typewriters? Typists? And what often astonished me was how antiquated the typewriters in most newsrooms were — clunky old uprights, unlike the elegant (and electric) IBM Selectrics I’d see while passing the local jeweler’s, where they were rarely used. (Unlike those of us who were writing for a living.) The Selectrics, I might add, came into newsrooms later, only with the advent of text scanners, which was a huge setback for the written word. But that’s another rant.

Typewriters introduced their own traditions, especially on deadline. Reporters would finish the first page of a story with the line, MORE, and then begin their next page with a slug line for the story, say CITY HALL, followed by the notation, TAKE ONE or ADD ONE, and then continue. This would go on for however many sheets of paper were needed until the story was finished. And then the reporter would add the line: 30. Perhaps as — 30 — or #30#. But always thirty.

And that’s even without mentioning the carbon copies. (The what?)

We can argue where that tradition began, but it was universal in the trade. If the reporter was working on a breaking story, the first page could be sent to the copy desk, be edited, and even sent to the composing room while the rest of the story was being drafted. A headline could be written and set in type, for that matter. Minutes counted. The first part of story could even be set in hot lead type while the reporter was working toward the ending.

Editors, meanwhile, would be writing headlines using an elaborate tradition of their own. These were all valued skills. And the result mattered.

Sometimes, I can almost smell the newsroom where I became a professional, thanks to Glenn Thompson. Or his advice about keeping a journal. Or some of the others since. Still, it’s hard to believe how far I’ve come over the years.

These days, a news story comes as a single take. A computer file you scroll through. We paginate on a large computer screen, designing a page for publication. All of the highly skilled typesetters, compositors, engravers, proofreaders, and more I admired — and who provided me a safety net — are long gone. Am I getting misty?

There’s an additional reason. When it’s come to my professional career in journalism, the time has come to write:

30

WILL THE REAL ME PLEASE BRAND UP

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Branding, we’re told, is everything. It’s not just marketing, or even just a product. It’s the whole lineup. A slogan for differentiating one Big Box Store or high-end boutique from another (including everything inside). Even academia wants a label as a way to file a writer or artist away for easy reference, however awkwardly into one slot or another. It’s ultimately a word game, with or without an actual referent. But what if you’re a misfit, as many truly are?

In literature, the labeling relates better to those who stay within a genre or stick to a manifesto or particular technique or remain in a specific locale – an Oklahoma gothic mystery crime writer, for example – than to my favorites, especially those whose work ranges over many subjects and forms and continually grows. Likewise, I’m bewildered by how often the labels applied to them are downright erroneous, if not simply glib. Or matches one part of their output while ignoring all the rest.

This turns up repeatedly when I attempt replies for those who wish to pigeonhole me. I do what I do. The writing goes where it goes, and the revisions follow. I try to be faithful. So far, I’ve been a part-timer and non-commercial. Neither by choice, but both by fidelity. My opportunities for literary writing (in contrast to the daily journalism that’s paid the bills) have never been that easy or as sustained as I’d wish. I’ve envied those who set out knowing the direction they would pursue for a lifetime, those whose work presents a continuous focus and tone. Especially those who mature as they progress, rather than repeating a facile formula.

Looking back over my poetry and fiction from across the years – and, for that matter, across the continent – I’m struck by the ways so many of the pieces differ, at least outwardly. How varied the subject matter and approach. Here I keep intending the plainspoken, direct, clearly focused piece, and keep winding up with Mixmaster compounds and distillations. Maybe my mind’s rarely that unified; instead, a multitude of mental and emotional activities have kept occurring simultaneously and the most I could hope for is some convergence. Besides, so much of my writing has arisen in some opposition to my daily employment, with all of its own dulling repetition – my writing keeps veering toward the “experimental” fringe, if only in reaction to the daily grind of news stories and headlines. Or, in the past decade, obituaries. Through much of my adult life, I’ve felt torn and uprooted, from Ohio and Indiana to the East Coast and then Washington State and back again. To say nothing of my love life and social environment. The nature poems stand in contrast or discord with the police blotter love poems or, in turn, with my current home setting. That, before I even consider my fiction or the genealogy or Quaker expressions.

(Have I performed the daily journalism to pay the bills while I pursued my literary endeavors? Or had I pursued the literary work as a way of keeping my journalism skills sharpened? What started as one wound up the other, and then shifted back again.)

The writing, in turn, has been an attempt to bring some understanding to all the eruption I’ve experienced. The turns in the road, the setbacks, the advances. A quest for understanding and, if not clarity, some meaning or permanence. I tend my personal journal because I forget so much, and often record observations I will not comprehend until years later. Am baffled, because I have yet to define my mission with a label that sells. Write, then, to discover myself in this morass.

Still, I’m open to suggestions. If you can.

ONE PHONE CALL TOO MANY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Journalists learn the importance of covering all the bases they can before the deadline cutoff. You learn the risks of running a single-source story. Even when you’ve talked on record to several people, you’re urged to make one more phone call. Just to make sure.

Sometimes, that’s when the reporter tells an editor, “There’s no story.”

“What do you mean?”

It was simply a rumor. It didn’t happen at all. The problem was fixed long ago. The guy we were going to praise has a serious drinking problem. The person who called in the tip is a crook or simply dishonest. You get the picture.

As for what had seemed to be a hot story, there was just one phone call too many.

POLICE CALLS, 10 P.M.

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

“Have you read Crime and Punishment?” the guy at the next desk says on the phone. “I think you’ll like it.” A little later, I hear, “It’s by Dostoyevski.” Still later, he turns to the editor at an adjoining desk, “She’s into chick lit.” Meaning the small-town police dispatcher.

FOUR MEASURES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

There are many different definitions of what makes news, even among journalism professionals. These frameworks can lead to quite divergent ideas of what should or shouldn’t go into a given newspaper or newscast, much less out on the front page or at the top of the hour. The expectations can definitely shape the voice and tone that emerges.

The one standard I’ve come to rely on came to me via my mentor, Steve Kent, from his days in Albany, New York. There, a story was judged on four measures: whether it’s accurate, informative, entertaining, and useful.

Accuracy, of course, would include fairness. Informative would likewise include being new, something not widely yet known. Entertaining would often mean well written rather than amusing, at least for most serious events. And useful keeps the readership’s needs in mind.

Try it yourself, next time you’re opening the pages or tuning in to the newscast.

AN ANNUAL PRACTICE, A SPECIAL YEAR

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

I don’t know how far back it started, this custom of drafting an annual memo to myself reflecting on the previous year and outlining my ambitions for the next. The practice has somehow included a review of my journal entries covering the last 12 months, the writing of my Yule letter to family, friends, and colleagues, and the revision of my monthly to-do master lists for the coming year. (You know, the one that includes “renew driver’s license,” “call for firewood,” “schedule annual physical,” and other items that too easily fall through the cracks.) The memo’s continued, even after my wife and daughters fired me from the holiday letter itself, arguing they could make it more creative or at least more interesting. Alas, many of our correspondents have agreed. And, reluctantly, so do I, even while trying to hold it to a single page, if we can. Still, I think the annual review is spiritually healthy. We have a similar practice in Quaker circles called the State of Society Report or, as I prefer, the State of the Meeting Report, and it helps us record our strengths and weaknesses. Besides, I’ve never been convinced of the value of New Year’s resolutions, which usually seem to be recipes for failure. Much of my past decade has been an extended repetition of trying to balance home and family, the office, Quaker activities, literary efforts, some kind of physical exercise and personal care, and always coming up short.  With the to-do lists, that simply meant putting off some projects for another year or two. And then 2012 hit with a vengeance.

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As I noted to myself at this time last year, 2012 was to be a time of transition. Even so, what’s unfolded was nothing like I’d mapped out. Rather than laying the foundation for a traditional plunge into retirement, I instead accepted the company’s abrupt buyout offer and quit full-time employment. This wasn’t retirement, per se, but it did liberate me from much of the escalating tension at the office while opening up more time for all those other efforts. And, as the horoscope predicted, 2012 turned out to be a year of unanticipated surprises. And yes, just before that, at the end of 2011, I leapt into a project that had been on the backburner for months – several projects, actually – beginning with the launch of this blog and extending into Quaker writings and presentations. Jnana’s Red Barn has allowed the release of much of my backlogged writing, especially on the creative non-fiction front, and led to the addition of three related blogs – As Light Is Sown, for lengthier Quaker theological work; Chicken Farmer I Still Love You, for lengthy down-to-earth chapters from book-length projects, beginning with the holistic money workbook; and the Orphan George Chronicles, for my genealogical research narratives. In essence, by the end of 2014, these will contain the equivalent of at least a dozen original books. And yes, it’s become far more time-consuming than I had envisioned.

The year began with the climax of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary and the buyout, which came about abruptly. February and March turned into a period of retreat, decompression, and release as I hunkered down without the required daily commuting. My wife was quite supportive while I indulged in a reading orgy, adapted her old laptop for my online connection (my PC on the third floor has no Internet connection), and resumed poetry submissions after a five-year hiatus. I engaged in a more balanced lifestyle and diet, with regular exercise and early-morning rising. Wednesday afternoons we walked to the Barley Pub for live jazz guitar and a microbrew. How civilized it all seemed, however briefly!

Purchasing an entry-level Kodak digital camera (seriously on sale) in April has allowed me to finally indulge in a pent-up passion for photography. After all of these years of being dependent on other photographers, I’m recording the ways I view the world in so much of its quirkiness. But by May, my goal of working one or two shifts a week as an on-call editor began escalating to three or the maximum four. The money’s helped, of course, but I found myself frustrated in my desire to establish a daily and weekly rhythm of living. Summer’s swirl included a delightful overnight trip to Rutland, Vermont, on a Groupon deal, soon followed by the week I led a five-day workshop at Friends General Conference at the University of Rhode Island and another week at New England Yearly Meeting of Friends at Bryant University, also in Rhode Island. In addition, a Christmas present finally kicked in – a season pass to an oceanfront town park in Kittery, Maine, and swimming sans lifeguard, tidepooling, basking, and photographing from its pristine shoreline. And that’s before we get to the rest of the household. The season also brought emotional closure on some lingering deep-history as I learned of the deaths of a close friend from the Baltimore years, an event more than a decade ago, at age 51; my two mentors from Indiana University, the husband-wife team of Vincent and Elinor Ostrom; a high school colleague in February; and more. Somehow, these culminated in the appearance in August of my first independently published chapbook, Harbor of Grace. The newly freed time prompted me to accept positions on Dover Friends Meeting’s Ministry and Worship committee and New England Yearly Meeting’s Ministry and Counsel committee, which I now see are going to require more attention than I’d anticipated. Still, they dovetail nicely. Autumn included a four-hour bout of Greek dancing followed, 2½ months later, by surgery. In between, we had a delightful visit with my landlords from the Yakima years, a brush with Hurricane Sandy, which was largely only stiff gusts here, and (finally!) the replacement of the roof on the kitchen and the barn. So I end the year still hoping the establish that rhythm and direction, but no doubt much closer to actually accomplishing it.

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Full retirement comes in February, and the pension conditions demand the end of any newspaper work on my part. Since I see this change as an opportunity to focus more fully on the Real Work (in Gary Snyder’s marvelous phrase), the matter of establishing a realistic system of time management is essential — I have no desire of simply drifting. I want to the newly opened 45 hours a week as being released just for more writing-revising/submissions/schmoozing but rather for time with my wife, house and garden projects, exercise and day trips, socializing, reading, meditation/prayer, Quaker work, and similar lines.

I had wondered about establishing “regular office hours,” but that pushes me back toward the writing-revising/submissions/schmoozing trap  I hope to control. What might make more sense is to slot in blocs of “project time” to be rotated as necessary among house, garden, travel and hiking, writing, reading, and related projects. Thus, I could piggyback two or three blocs, as needed, say for a day trip. And, as the year ends, that approach seems to be making great sense.

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And that’s how it goes. Perhaps this puts some of my earlier postings in perspective. Perhaps it will also encourage you to a similar personal reflection. Maybe I’ll even get around to attempting an alternative version, looking at things I did wrong or badly or failed to address at all. Hmm. Even so, what has surprised me is seeing how much actually happened in a year where I often felt put on hold. And that’s been a special blessing.