Tag: Culture

DWELLING WITH A GHOST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

New Englanders – at least those living in old houses – will occasionally speak of ghosts, and their stories can be compelling, no matter how skeptical the listener.

Of course, the specifics can differ. A dark apparition moving silently through dark hallways – or, in other modes, clumping loudly up and down the staircase. Leave empty junk food wrappers and soda cans and bottles on the counters and coffee table and even in the unmade sheets. Laugh eerily at midnight. Slide in front of you at the bathroom door, close it, lock it.

Drain the wi-fi bandwidth.

Expect steak and lobster and cheese while ignoring lettuce or eggs or peas.

But have you ever heard of a trail of stench that follows its movement? Oh, that detail is so telling. The fear of taking a shower, as well – the soap and washcloth remaining untouched.

They speak of the chill you feel, more than the dense smoky cloud. Or the echoing conversation as it’s twisted with a chortle and thrown back.

One version, in fact, has every intimate conversation accompanied by a Hollywood laugh track. And that, I’ll contend, is the most annoying.

MORE THAN THE BAKLAVA

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

When I moved to Baltimore, I was surprised to find all of the local pizza parlors were owned by Greeks. Not Italians?

Well, it took time before I discovered the alternatives, beginning in the city’s Little Italy.

But that occurred about the same time I was told most diners were owned by Greeks, too. And I’ve come to love diners, even though I’d been introduced to the real thing way back right after college. They just weren’t fashionable then.

Well, somewhere in-between there had been the Dairy Queen owned by a Greek-American who, though a big error by the Bank of France, wound up instantly nearly seven-figures rich – and took flight to his homeland before the error was discovered. It was a big news story where I was for the next month, before he repented and returned.

So more recently, I ordered a pizza from a local parlor. Wanted to support a young friend who works there. When I picked up the box, there was no gaudy image of a fat smiling chef on the top of the steaming box – a good sign, in my book. And then I noticed the design was mostly white with blue trim, adhering to the national Greek colors. Along with a border of … the signature Greek key pattern. OK, I thought. I get it. Even before I noticed the words gyros and pizza in a little house, side by side.

That does it. I’m definitely going back for a gyro.

And, for the record, the box is distributed from our favorite Italian grocery in Portland, Maine. Has me wondering about the rest of the story.

TRIANGULATIONS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time …

So you’re moving out – congratulations! For one thing, it puts you on much firmer ground when you do commit to a live-in relationship – rather than jumping from your parents’ care into the care of another. Yes, your parents are much more liberal than mine were, but I too was forced to spend my first year-and-a-half of college at a local commuter school (fortunately, it had an excellent English department) and to live at home – something that deeply stunted my emotional growth. Getting away to Bloomington was a lifesaver, even if I wound up in political science and urban studies instead.

Well, I have another reading coming up Tuesday, same venue. This time, plan to read one poem – a longpoem in thirty-seven sections. Should take just under an hour. A piece that was nearly published by a highly regarded press twenty years ago – and was withdrawn because of deep cutbacks in federal funding for the arts. When I began to submit sections to journals a couple of years back, acceptances quickly followed. Now, to get the full piece out!

So here I am, wishing you could be with me in that smoke-filled room – have you on as the next reader, in fact, unless I gallantly step aside to let you wow them with an extended reading of your own. Or, more intriguing yet, share the stage, alternating pieces. Yes, I like that!

Oh, yes, you start to apologize about talking so much about him and that love poison. But I wonder, unless we are blessed enough to have a fulfilling life with our initial childhood sweetheart, whether a great deal about any current affair is actually an attempt to work out the failings of the previous hot fling. For one thing, we really do become attuned to the other person’s touch, timing, interests, movement – everything that makes him or her distinct. Nicolas Mosley, an English novelist, has argued that every coupling is actually a triangle – or more accurately, two triangles, with each partner having a side affair, a past, a demanding career, or whatever attached here. I’d agree.

Now, if you decide to hop on that bus and head off to some escape, what can I do to lure you here? (Just phone ahead, to make sure I’m not seriously involved with a very jealous girlfriend by then.) As I was saying, how do you like your coffee? Ever gone contradancing or English country dancing? And you wouldn’t be the only person in this neck of the woods dressed in black and stainless steel or exhibiting striking jewelry piercings, unlike New Orleans. In fact, a number of years ago, Donald Hall once wrote that there’s something Gothic about New England. I was living in the desert of Washington State when I read that, and it intrigued. Even more so, now that I’m living here. But that’s another conversation.

Well, it’s my turn to be up way too late – and to write disjointed stuff. Hope it makes sense. Now, for me, off to engage in, hopefully, some sensual and sensational dreams of my own. Care to bet if you’re starring?

Keep sizzling!

~*~

Olympus 1For a free copy of the complete American Olympus, click here.

A QUESTION OF INTEGRITY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The New Hampshire Republican Party’s recent reiterations claiming the centrality of integrity have me looking at the party’s record of the past few decades in national elections.

Just where does integrity fit in the win-at-all-costs school of politics manifested by Karl Rove and his kind? And where has it been thrown overboard, especially?

Put another way, and not just with politics: Where do words and actions converge? And just where do they diverge?

Integrity, of course, demands convergence – of the head, hands, and heart, as well. Here’s hoping …

SNOBBERY, ALL THE SAME

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

To see the old meetinghouse at China, Maine, as it’s been turned into a Friends Camp arts studio (a messy one, at that) is a pointed symbol of the tensions many of us encounter as we attempt to live out our faith – and not just on the cultural front. (For the record, I am, after all, a published poet and novelist, a professional journalist, an avid contradancer, gallery-goer, foreign film buff, occasional violinist and harmony singer, and a lover of opera and classical music – all of which can raise eyebrows in various spiritual circles, and most of which would have been forbidden in traditional Quaker discipline – all this even before we turn to the struggles of the workplace, families, neighbors, or politics. Call me a snob, if you will.) The fact remains that the Society of Friends today is filled with many artists pursuing every imaginable medium. Dover Meeting is not alone in its range of talent.

A while back, I spoke of practice as something that’s ongoing and never finished, in contrast, say, to a performance or even a rehearsal. Practice as something done more for its own exploration and pursuit of a discipline than for any finished product. Practice as being part of a bigger encounter: the practice of prayer, practice of poetry, practicing musical scales, play practice, football practice, even medical practice. Something done with care, and if freedom follows in critical situations, as we often hear in interviews after a Patriots’ game, then all the better. Weeding and composting, I suppose, are part of the practice of gardening, apart from any harvest.

When I think about qualities that mark Quaker artists, I would tentatively suggest: placing the ongoing work ahead of themselves; “cool” rather than “hot”; a sense of experience and discovery rather than make-believe or escape; honesty rather than pretense; wonder rather than irony; humility rather than egotism or arrogance; candor rather than flamboyance; a preference for simplicity over complexity; directness rather than confusion; economy rather than extravagance; calmness rather than shrillness; curiosity and listening rather than dogma or bombast.

We might also turn the old Quaker views toward a critique of today’s cult of celebrities (almost universally entertainment/professional sports figures) and their exorbitant incomes – a situation that I believe accompanies a lessening of power within our communities. To that we could add the ways the arts are often used as a secular religion to sanctify public occasions. As for the Oscars?

But maybe that’s just another part of our unfolding spiritual awareness.

OH, THE SONG OF THE WEARY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

At our yearly meeting sessions each summer, one night features an all-ages coffee house organized by the teens. It’s a great release for the adults, who have been hunkered down in joint business agendas that often run three hours at a shot. Still, in a week filled with those plus organized discussions and workshops, committee reports and tables, social issues documentaries, casual conversations, and much more, the live amateur entertainment can be a bit much, no matter how excellent many of the acts are.

So it was for me one year when I decided to skip the event – perhaps even go to bed early for a switch.

As I wandered down a hallway, I came across a half-dozen or so Friends gathered around an upright piano and singing four-part music. Great! I jumped right in and was delighted when we turned to a Stephen Foster piece that’s also in the repertoire of my choir. We were just getting it down for ourselves when the announcement came: “You’re on in five!”

What?

My plans had just changed.

So there we were, all adults, lining up for the stage, marching up, finding our places in a semi-circle facing the audience, and being introduced by an enthusiastic high school senior. What was supposed to be “the Hard-Timers,” after the piece we were to sing, came out of her mouth as “the Old-Timers.” Instead of being offended, though, I was grateful it hadn’t come out “the Alzheimers.” Ahem.

If you’re not yet there, be warned: This getting older does have a lot of unanticipated turns. Don’t you forget it. And don’t forget to smile.

ADAPTING TO THE MODERN FAMILY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Finding adequate terms to define someone in a contemporary family relationship can be elusive.

I don’t mean the euphemistic police blotter application of “live-in girlfriend” to the mother of the suspect’s latest child or its transformation to “his fiancee” after the birth of their second or third.

What I’m thinking would fit situations like “my wife’s ex-father-in-law” when he’s still on very good terms, unlike his son, the ex. While still roundabout, calling him “my kids’ grandfather” turns into the most direct description, though it takes a few seconds to register.

Then there are the extensions. Consider the favorite sister-in-law of a favorite brother-in-law, when she’s part of the active scene you share. Have we ever had terms that fit there? Now try “my ex-brother-in-law’s ex-wife” before twisting it further into “ex-wife’s new husband.”

When families scatter across today’s continent or the world, keeping track of even first-cousins can be vaporous. That’s largely ancient history.

Genealogists have charts to assist in determining third-cousins from fourth- or fifth-, along with the “times removed.” Anyone ready to tackle something similar for today’s all-too-fluid familial connections?

GOLDEN DETOUR

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The land was often golden in the bright sunlight. Not green, but a permanent range of yellowish brown only flecked with green in a few weeks of spring passing.

Once I adjusted to its palette and air, I hoped we’d live there forever.

~*~

It’s the background for some of my novels and poetry now appearing at Thistle/Flinch editions. To read more, click here.

Mountain 1

WAKING UP, AT LAST, TO REALITY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Gee, it’s rather incredible to hear all the new voices finally recognizing that this Supreme Court, with its longest members and majority appointed by their side, is indeed running wild.

Activist? Where were they when the high bench, for the first time in history, crowned a president? Or later transformed our republic into a government by the super-rich, for the super-rich, and of the super-rich, as it has in Citizens United?

Utter silence.

But now, with a few recent flukes in its record, just listen to the outrage. If you’re trying to make sense of their decisions, good luck.

You can count me among the outraged, long ago – when our cries were ignored. When esteemed law school deans and professors warned of the top justices’ threats to our very legal system and its foundations. When we scratched our heads for any underlying sustained rudder in their course from one ruling to the next.

I’d crow now, except that the problem remains.

In its polarized atmosphere, the question keeps coming down to the swing vote — and it’s like watching a pinball machine. Which flipper will sway the course of action? The question everyone asks is who was the swing vote this time?

Who, even before Why.

With every ruling, we watch, often with horror. Will it be on the side of broad justice or instead on the side of big money? Will it be for the common American and justice for all? Or for something else, however vaguely defined?

My conclusion? What we’re seeing is not so much a matter of deciding case by case on its merits as it is an imposition of personalities from the bench. An opinion that includes “just ask a hippie” is hard to take seriously, no matter if you agree or disagree with the vote. America needs more judges of the people, for the people, and by the people throughout its ranks — more humanity and compassion rather than pompous circumstance. Not more political ideologues for the wealthy, as Republican senators have been doing in asserting privilege to obstruct presidential nominations. They even cloak themselves in anonymity in doing so without any grounds whatsoever.

When a Senate majority seeks a rubber-stamp to endorse one side only, perhaps an activist court is a foregone conclusion. And as long as we’re stuck with a Supreme Court lacking a stable center, we’ll have to wonder where the real authority is. The kind that endures rather than sways in the wind.

Maybe, in the new outcry, we in the public can come together. Wouldn’t that be something?