Tag: Culture

FAREWELL TO THE SWITCHBOARD

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

At the office, we had the farewell to the switchboard operator who’d been replaced by the new phone system – someone who had been there when I arrived two decades earlier.

Oh, the weird calls we’d get, the ones she usually screened yet some still managed to slip past her.

The woman from California, “Can you tell me what state New Hampshire’s in?” and I wanted to reply, “How the hell did you get this number?”

All of the ones wanting to know my opinion, as if it mattered.

Or the drunks or the individuals convinced of this conspiracy or that. Especially late at night.

As the publisher told one, “What do you think this is, a call-in radio show?”

Listen. We’ve got work to do, rather than yap. Piles and piles of work.

~*~

Oh, my, the telephones! They become a chorus of their own in my novel, Hometown News.

Hometown News

NEW ENGLAND CITIES AND TOWNS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 9 Comments

In New England, you live in either a town or a city. There are no townships or being “out in the county,” as I’d known elsewhere. And the counties are relatively insignificant, at least politically; they’re largely for a court system, jails, and record-keeping.

Part of my confusion when I first moved to this corner of the country was an assumption that “city” and “town” both meant “urban,” with some population density and a central retail and commercial district. But that’s not always the case. In fact, some seem to be entirely rural.

Additional confusion can be caused by looking at maps and seeing dots representing settlement and then assuming they’re towns. Gilmanton and Gilmanton Iron Works appear, for instance, but they’re both in the town of Gilmanton and are separated by miles of forest. The community of Groveton is in the town of Northumberland. The city of Laconia includes the enclaves of Weirs Beach and Lakeport. A city or town may have a number of distinct neighborhoods or villages, sometimes with separate post offices or Zip codes. And so on.

Our cities and towns are geographical spaces differentiated by their form of government. Cities are managed by a mayor and board of aldermen, while a town relies on a three-person board of selectmen. Population? Some of New Hampshire’s 13 cities are quite small, while a handful of its 221 towns rank among the largest localities. The form of government is a local choice.

Except for the towns that have opted for a ballot-based alternative known as SB 2, the residents of New Hampshire’s towns gather on the second Tuesday in March for Town Meeting Day, a celebrated exercise in democracy where everyone gets a say, at least if the moderator’s on top of his or her game. They’ll tackle the warrant articles – the agenda published in advance, including town and school budgets and bonding – and also elect new officials.

In a few towns, the entire event’s wrapped up in a half-hour, while others stretch on for hours or even demand additional sessions. The ones that get quite heated may explain why Town Meeting Day’s held in winter.

~*~

Winged Death 1To see more of the region’s unique character and calendar, click here.

EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IN ITS SEASON

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’ve contended that locale can be beautiful. But the reality is that many are stripped of the opportunity.

As my wife points out, a town where the railroad tracks run down the middle of the main street through town is, well, bound to be ugly.

Put another way, the presence of beauty or ugliness is a reflection of other values. Is there a degree of generosity and restfulness, for instance, or is it more stingy and pinched? There’s rarely any financial return in planting flowers, after all, and even trees take years to mature.

Still, even when I lived in some pretty gritty factory towns, small corners of beauty could be found, even if they were the exception rather than the rule. And Dover, where I am now, has undergone a renaissance from its days of boarded-up abandoned textiles mills downtown only decades ago.

To have a sense of beauty and grace proliferate, I’m sensing, is really a matter of religion – or at least heightened spirituality. Where would a community be, after all, without artists and skilled crafters who embody their holy visions?

EFFICIENCY, PERCHANCE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I noted after visiting the super-energy-efficient home of Fritz and his partner, Will:

The pilot light on their amazing AGA cooking stove heats the entire house through our northern New England winters, essentially, but doesn’t overheat it in the summer.

(But that wasn’t all.)

Maybe Will and a widower I know could wind up traveling to the Met performances together. The one’s already remarked how difficult it is, down and back in a single day. After all, each way takes longer than the opera performance itself. Even when it’s Wagner.

From what I’ve seen, they’d both have a lot to talk about during the long drive. If only there were an easy introduction.

YOU CAN’T LOSE IF YOU DON’T PLAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

One of the ways Quakers have stood apart from the larger society is in our opposition to gambling. Across America, though, the tension has grown in recent years, as governments (led by New Hampshire’s example) and Native American tribes have engaged in lotteries and casinos. Even causes we support commonly turn to raffles as fundraisers.

Still, we can witness to the fact that a lottery is an inefficient way to raise money for education or other socially valued causes. If you want something, you should be willing to pay for it directly, rather than expect someone else to foot the bill. As for gaming, the odds are vastly against winning, and I long found myself working far too hard to enjoy throwing hundreds of dollars down the drain. Even a weekly Megabucks ticket adds up. As one of my coworkers insisted, “Lotteries are a tax on stupidity.” He might have added, “a tax on despair,” as well, especially for lower- and middle-class families whose purchasing power keeps shrinking in the current economic climate. If anything, the glamour of gaming masks this reality. Maybe, just maybe, the hope goes, I’ll escape my condition. Friends have warned against the inclination to expect something for nothing or at someone else’s expense. I’m just as concerned about the quest for “fun” replacing a work ethic, or the way the entertainment media are shaping the everyday theology of the masses. Look closer, then, at the Foxwoods or Tri-State Lottery Commission commercials. Fantasy and reality diverge sharply.

Yes, it’s tempting. As in “temptation.” Even so, we believe in speaking Truth to Power. Need I say more?

PRACTICE AS A PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

As I said at the time:

Along the way, the “creative process” is a phrase I’ve come to detest. “Poetic” is another, especially when applied to another art. Whatever “creative” really means or as though the resulting work always occurs in a given sequence. Perhaps “artistic problem-solving” or “artistic exploration” comes closer, except that “artistic” still carries too much excess baggage.

“Process” sounds too much like ritual for my taste. Or a formula, “If you add L to M you’ll end up with an original poem.” Which sounds too much like a dogma or a creed to recite. Like a corridor through a shopping mall. Like a secret code to be disclosed, a joke to be retold in some variation.

For universities, “creative process” can even be seen as the teaching of mistrust and technique. “Absolute skepticism is one of the powers,” Richard Foster writes in Money, Sex & Power. “Absolute skepticism is so pervasive a belief in university life today that it must be considered a spiritual power hostile to an honest search for truth. The task of a university is to pursue truth – all truth – and yet precisely the reverse is happening today.” Creation, however, requires a foundation. Affirmation – a critical embrace of what remains holy. However we want to define that.

In the periodicals, the accepted pieces are typically of a certain length and idiom – that is, they are those lacking the obvious signs of amateurism; they’re idiomatically correct. But do they say anything meaningful, especially to the general reader, much less the populace? Do they speak to others’ conditions? I sense not: at least, seldom my own. (Leading to literary journals read by exclusively by other poets or short story writers, a particularly ticklish incest.)

Meanwhile, when I look at Japanese and Chinese art, the Zen/Chan work jumps out in its freshness from the well-schooled stream of traditional art. Thus, with poetry or musical performance that knows living silence: a whole higher dimension. Necessity for revolution here: transformation. Transfiguration. Transcendence. Transparency, too. On into unending depth.

When I first set forth, I believed to be truly creative, something had to spring out of nowhere – a bolt of lightning accompanying work thoroughly unlike anything before it. Similarly, my girlfriend at the time thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a language all our own?” One unlike anything before it. Slowly, however, I realized how difficult it is to understand what’s said and written in an existing language, with all of its nuances and roots waiting to be fathomed. The fact is, creative acts happen through building on existing tradition, evolving at the edges and frontiers. The artist or scientist or inventor or entrepreneur is indebted to all who have come earlier, and is responsible as well for those who will follow.

Often see those who start out are filled with an experience/awareness they want to share but cannot because of deficiencies in technique. By the time they master technique, they’ve lost the freshness. Yet I most admire those who have acquired technique the hard way: hands-on, original, primitive, perhaps without any of the accepted shortcuts.

~*~

The term I’ve come to love, by the way, is “practice.” The way a doctor or lawyer practices. Or even a football team or a choir. It’s never really done. It’s just a way of living.

WHEN LESS IS MORE: THE STRAVINSKY EDICT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

One of the dictums I keep returning to as I consider my own practice of art is composer Igor Stravinsky’s observation that limitations make art. Me, who does not write in formal verse structures, not because they’re too limiting, but because I find they typically dilute the language and its impact. In other words, some limitations strengthen one’s imagination and thinking; others lead straight into writer’s block.

Stravinsky’s limitations, I’m certain, are quite different from the blinders I see imposed in much of the so-called Christian art we see. Dogma of any kind simply inhibits our ability to perceive what’s at hand. (Dogma’s not just Christian; anybody want to address “political correctness,” Islamic fundamentalists, or rabid atheist?)

When it comes to working as an artist – and that includes any field, including comedy – I see a division between those who focus on invention versus those seeking discovery of what’s working within or around them — or even epiphany.

We’re talking about people, after all, wherever they are in their lives. Do they bring us escape or encounter? Either route imposes limitations.

For me, the practice of an art is a way of observing and discovering. It’s a laboratory, in essence. No wonder my literary writing often falls under the label of “experimental.”

I suppose many of the self-imposed limitations arise under the heading of style or method. But they’re deeply imbedded, all the same.

MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE PEOPLE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

G.I. Gurdjieff’s classic Meetings With Remarkable Men begins to look all too bland when I compare his subjects with people I’ve known over the years. Or even when I gaze around the room assembled for Quaker worship on Sunday morning. Admittedly, his travels are remarkable, especially for the time.

But without going into the details, let me say I’ve been blessed. Both men and women, all so remarkable in their compassionate presence.

~*~

Now, whatever happened to that Gurdjieff circle back in Binghamton? The couple who had the ring of benches around one room of their apartment for their own meetings? Back before I found yogis and Quakers and Mennonites and …

A CONSERVATIVES’ PARADOX

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Let me admit to being perplexed by those deep-pocket conservatives who bankroll candidates who squeeze public services in communities throughout the state but, for themselves, choose to live in the most liberal districts – the ones with the highest taxes and top-flight public services. The ones with effete artsy prominence. All the stuff their lackeys publicly deride.

I wish they’d instead practice what they preach. Enjoy the misery they engender or deem fitting for the common folk – beginning with schools, libraries, parks, and health services. The things that make a place civilized and pleasant for all.

Yes, let them practice what they preach. Stay in the stingiest, most self-centered enclaves. Or be exposed and shamed for their duplicity.

A FEW REFLECTIONS ON JURY DUTY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I discovered at the time … coming off two days of jury duty. More emotionally demanding and exhausting than I would have suspected.

Also, more Quaker dimensions, beginning with my use of affirmation, rather than swearing to an oath, as well as listening intently to the quiet minority.

Getting other jury members to open up personal sides was worth it. A heating-and-cooling guy from a far corner of the county was a real hoot: 61, a scarf that made me think he was gay … turned out to be a biker married 31 years. Also thought he’d be the one pushing for not-guilty findings; instead, he was the last one to back off the second conviction and probably swayed the holdouts to go for the conviction on the first.

At lunch: “Maybe I should go over and visit some of my buddies across the street.” The retirement home? “No, they’re too young for that. The House of Corrections.” Mostly failure to meet child support payments. “How are they supposed to pay up if they’re incarcerated?” Good point.

If you’re called, remember. You won’t know what to expect.