Tag: Inspiration

DEAREST MADAMOISELLE, LOVELY AND EVER CHARMING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time: Hey! Somewhere along the line, the Postal Service lost a letter, it seems. At any rate, I’ve been wondering about you, how you’re doing, whether you decided to run off to New Mexico or Arizona and start having babies one-two-three or whatever. Even whether I’d said something that offended terribly. (So much for self-esteem, right?)

At least, thanks to the wonders of Computer Era (or, too often, Computer Error) I be able (that, I’m told, reflects Chicago schooling regarding the conjugation of the verb to be) to resurrect my last letter to you. Is this the one you responded to, meaning I never got your last letter? Or did you not get this one? And the poems in the new Indigo, um,  are they the two you didn’t know you had or, surprise, are they the ones I sent in July? Mysteries, mysteries!

At any rate, I’m anxiously awaiting the new issue – and all the news – and maybe even the missing letter!

On this end, to update from what’s there: Am still waiting for the chapbook … the usual unexpected delays and complications; in this case, a near-fatal blood clot suffered by the editor’s wife.

As you can see, I’m in the midst of a major computer conversion – from a fourteen-year-old XPC II system and nearly 300 five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disks (Word Perfect 4.1) to a 6.4-gigabyte Pentium II Windows 98 Word 97 unit with both HP scanner and inkjet printer. It’s taking much longer than I anticipated; am still not on-line (one step at a time!) It’s like household he-man repairs and remodeling: everything takes three times longer than you believe it will, should, or can. Just ask your Italian father: if he’s anything like my ex-father-in-law, the one I miss greatly, these jobs are just that. (One of Sam’s great lessons to me, by the way: be sure to leave something undone for tomorrow!)

So I built, from kits, a new credenza and hutch, plus a “utilities cart,” projects that proved the timing theory: the credenza that took the salesman two hours to assemble took me six or eight, in part because the instructions are written in three languages but proficient, from what I could determine, in none. Ditto for the printed illustrations. Then, when the electronic goodies came, there were all the boxes to unpack and the new wiring to figure out (and whatever you need for the big rebates seems to get lost with the trash). Guess I’ll never purchase again where there’s a rebate involved! Just give me the discount, now! To say nothing of the software to install, nearly wrecking my Windows 98 in the process. (A Sunday morning phone call to Hewlett Packard nearly averted that!) At least much of the software installation is so much easier than it was a decade ago! My computer guru, the one I’ve “hired” for a bottle of Jim Beam or Jack Daniels, has been a big help, dropping on me a stack of magazines that could be used instead as the coffee table; his real challenge is in rigging the system that will allow me to convert and transfer a dozen or so novels and tons of other writings from the old system to the new. All this must seem foreign to you, who appear so much at ease with stylish desktop publishing! (So when did you first delve into cyberland – and desktop and all of the great touches you display?)

Hmm, that’s interesting, the date on the page break and all. One more thing to figure out, eventually – modifying these damn templates to my own style! (Spent a couple of hours a few weeks ago trying to do that, only to finally learn I couldn’t do it – see now there are other ways to go about it, thanks to a $40 book that tells me what Microsoft’s can’t.)

Did get away for a week in a small cabin in the Maine woods – no heat and no glass in the windows, but there was a fireplace as well as sliding shutters across the screened windows: good thing, too, with the nights getting down to freezing! Snuggled in with a stack of novels to read, learned to canoe solo on the five-mile-long lake and winding river, and even drafted some decent poetry.

*   *   *

How long ago all that seems! Well, it does come from a few years before I acquired the barn and everything that’s gone with it … including a great wife and family. Which makes it ancient history, indeed, even without the computer updates.

ANOTHER PROMISCUOUS READER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

I had thought the phrase “promiscuous reader” originated with Virginia Woolf to describe someone who reads widely and passionately – even the sides of breakfast cereal boxes – but now fail to find it. (So much for relying on memory.) Instead, she left us The Common Reader, itself drawing on Dr. Samuel Johnson’s phrase in his “Life of Gray,” where he bellows, “I rejoice to concur with the common reader; for by the common sense of readers, uncorrupted by literary prejudices, after all the refinements of subtlety and the dogmatism of learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical honors.” Woolf, of course, takes Johnson to task as she peruses her own wide range of literature, while Johnson, in that cruel twist of fate, exists almost exclusively in the realm of university English literature departments.

I think, too, of a girlfriend’s reaction the first time she entered my apartment and saw the rows of peach lugs displaying my collected books along one wall: “Wow, you’ve read all these?” Well, mostly, I probably replied, silently realizing there would be some serious differences here. Looking back, I see how many more volumes had slipped away – in the divorce, to other lovers – or simply been borrowed and never returned. (The lugs, by the way, were inspired by a description in Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums – the orchard no longer used apple crates, but the wooden peach lugs were still available.)

On the other hand, you may be one of those who enters a home and immediately heads for the shelves to see what the host reads – or even plays on the CD or phonograph. As my ledger of readings demonstrates, the spines of the volumes can say a lot about a person. Besides, the paradox of books and magazines is that they dwell in our private experiences, yet also engage in a dialogue, often across decades or even centuries. Sometimes we even find others whose readings overlap and can speak together of our travels. At the moment, I’m beginning to feel like an open book.

All the same, here’s hoping you enjoy my shelves, such as they are. And thanks to those of you who have already weighed in.

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FROM ONCE UPON A TIME TO HAPPILY EVER AFTER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Continuing this month’s survey of Books Read, here are a few more entries:

  • Maria Tatar, ed.: The Annotated Brothers Grimm. As one who’s come to treasure the grittier sides of both Native American mythology and Biblical texts, I’ve long wondered about the earlier versions of the stories collected by the Grimm brothers and, as the notes to this volume also discuss, their French parallel Charles Perrault, especially with his Mother Goose. At last we’re getting glimpses into those unsanitized roots, in large part thanks to the work of Tatar and others. The introductory pages by her and A.S. Byatt make the volume worthwhile on their own, as they examine the fine line between folktales and mythology and recognize that these are really wonder tales, full of magic and harsh reality, a kaleidoscope of rapid presentation where fairies rarely have a role. The mentions of versions having Gretel as a trickster, Rampunzel as not realizing her weight gain is pregnancy, Little Red Riding Hood performing a seductive striptease, Snow White’s pricked finger blood as her menstruating or deflowering all add powerfully, as does the sense of polyphony in the overlapping voices. Although reading all of these close together can be a bit much, it does allow the patterns to emerge: sibling rivalries where the youngest and seemingly dumbest child is in reality blessed, and so on. As for the surrounding forest, where is it in the urban reality? The ghetto? The cellar under the apartment house? The subway?  Another volume I’ll be returning to frequently.
  • Philip Pullman: Fairy Tales From the Brothers Grimm. Reading Pullman second gives the astute reader a sense of what a translator can add or omit. As a famed writer himself, he admits to taking liberties at times, drawing on similar tales and the like. You can see the differences from the very outset, with “The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich,” which Tatar begins, “Once upon a time, when wishes still came true,” versus Pullman’s “In olden times, when wishing still worked …” His translation is often more direct and less tradition-bound, and often has a deft detail or insight that is simply brilliant.
  • Nicholson Baker: The Size of Thoughts, U and I, and A Box of Matches. Back in high school, hearing a teacher proclaim that all fiction is based on conflict, set a challenge for me: can a novel work without any essential conflict? Baker comes close here with his Box of Matches, set as daily reflections before sunrise one January, as he lights a fire in his fireplace (hence the matches) and drinks coffee — the closest he comes to conflict, in fact, may be the struggle of making coffee in the dark, a consequence of his decision to keep the lights off. Lovely meanderings through the minutia of daily living. U and I is his notorious paean to John Updike, full of deliberate misquotes that reflect the ways of time on the memory and wonderful confessions on the joys of reading and the trials of writing. (I’m happy to see I’m not the only writer who has a lifelong admiration for a great model, or at least an adult lifelong admiration.) The Size of Thoughts, meanwhile, is the perfect volume to end this month’s collection of readings. Each of its quite varied essays follows a topic through a wandering net based on thinking itself. Of special importance are his pieces on the loss of learning that occurred when university libraries junked their card catalogs and his 148-page investigation of the other meanings of “lumber” as they evolved in the antiquity of English poetry. As the second essay begins, “Each thought has a size, and most are about three feet tall, with the level of complexity of a lawnmower engine, or a cigarette lighter, or those tubes of toothpaste that, by mingling several hidden pastes and gels, create a pleasantly striped product.” If you’ve sensed something similar emerging through this month’s discussion, just remember, The Size of Thoughts mentions many, many fine books in passing. Just in case you’re ready to read more.

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FROM POETRY WINNERS TO MIRACLES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Continuing this month’s survey of Books Read, here are a few more entries:

  • Poetry book competition winners, mostly. Mary Biddinger, Prairie Fever (Steel Toe); Chuck Carlisle, A Broken Escalator Still Isn’t the Stairs (Concrete Wolf); Mark Conway, Any Holy City (Silverfish); Becky Gould Gibson, Need-Fire (Bright Hill); Michelle Gillett, The Green Cottage (Ledge); Noah Eli Gordon, Acoustic Experience (Pavement Saw); Jason Irwin, Watering the Dead (Pavement Saw); Joshua Kryah, Glean (Nightboat); Rachael Lyon, The Normal Heart and How It Works (White Eagle Coffee Store); Dawn Lundy Martin, Discipline (Nightboat); Rusty Morrison, The True Keeps Calm Biding Its Story (Ahsanta); Heather Aimee O’Neill, Memory Future (Gold Line); Simon Ortiz, From Sand Creek (Arizona); Pitt Poetry Series, New and Selected 2012; Liz Robbins, Play Button (Cider Press Review); Jonathan Thirkield, The Waker’s Corridor (Louisiana State); Cider Press Review, Vol. 12; Slipstream, No. 31.  By and large, how dreadful – even meaningless or worse, false – I find these hermetic works of creative writing MFAs, often incestuously selected by associate professors of creative writing or literature. Far from finding anything I might wish I had written, I’m instead left grasping at straws for anything I might even admire – even a single line or stanza seems elusive. On top of it, the pervasive anti-Christian invective in many seems to amplify the shallowness of much of any thought running through these – often, there’s only a vague link to the title. And all of these similes!  Admittedly, many of these are gorgeously produced – their covers, especially. So what I’m keeping, this round: Need-Fire, with its impeccable scholarship of early Christianity in England and its lovely reconstruction of early English verse; Glean, with its lacy evocations. Ortiz remains in a class by himself.
  • Albert Goldbarth: Heaven and Earth. Wonderful collection (poems).
  • Poetry, December 2011-April 2012. Catching up! Some good work by Dan Beachy-Quick, Dick Allen, and Linda Kunhardt (December), varied responses to prayer and faith (“One Whole Voice,” February), Marina Tsvetaeva plus Kabbalah-influenced work (March).
  • American Poetry Review, March-April 2012. No keepers, apart from an essay on metaphor.
  • George Fox: Book of Miracles. A reconstruction of pastoral work by Fox, with extensive introduction looking at the expectation of miracles and providences at the time.
  • Evelyn Underhill: Abba. A close gloss on the Lord’s Prayer and its radical implications.

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FROM THICH NHAT HANH TO AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

Continuing this month’s survey of Books Read, here are a few more entries:

  • Thich Nhat Hanh: Buddha Mind, Buddha Body and Call Me by My True Name. The first, subtitled “Walking Toward Enlightenment,” lays out classic Buddhist teaching regarding human thought processes – something with interesting parallels to what I’m considering in the Quaker experience – as well as some good passages on seeds that may be applicable to my examination of the metaphor of The Seed. The collected poems, however, strike me as amateurish – first drafts, apparently all from single-day attempts – rather than deeply profound. Both volumes, all the same, treasured gifts.
  • Russell Banks: The Darling. A tale of a Weatherman member who goes underground and then flees to Africa, where she becomes the wife of a Liberian civil minister before getting caught up in the civil wars that bring the tyrant Charles Taylor to power. Masterful plotting, moving across past and present, and a range of meticulous reporting that includes not just politics and history but also ethnology and, especially, chimpanzee survival issues. Having read two Banks’ novels, now, I now move him to my list of favorites. But how many of his 22 or more volumes do I tackle?
  • Augustine of Hippo: City of God. Revisiting this political science course assignment, I am surprised how little I remember of his argument but am also impressed by my previous underlining and comments. Even so, a few of his points remained in my mind, especially the part about faith standing apart from rewards (even though Augustine eventually presses the heavenly rewards argument). His criticism of the pagans is solid and his argument that a society and government failing to uphold justice are no commonwealth at all – that is, are invalid. But he falls into the trap of predestination and despite his claims to the contrary, cannot support his claims we are free to do good. This time around, I see his extensive framing of a theology based on Original Sin of Eve as a faulty, and see no need for so many pages examining faithful and fallen angels, at least in terms of a polity. His statements about serving victorious forces, seeing their victory as God’s providence, and about just war are quite troublesome, while his descriptions of the City of God are logically thin – unsupported claims, essentially. Crucially for me is his error is linking the Word to Jesus alone: “the only begotten Word of God” – this, despite his close examination earlier of the schools of philosophy following from Pythagoras and Plato. I see this, ultimately, as a formulation of Catholic Orthodoxy far more than as any political blueprint.

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FROM SHAMANS AND NICE GUYS TO THE LEFT HAND OF GOD

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

With the annual Christmas shutdown, I thought my reading drive had also collapsed; seemed during the first two months of 2007 I wasn’t getting any traction, either. Only when I sat down to update the list did I realize I’d got up through quite a number here, and there may have been more. So to continuing this month’s survey of Books Read, here are a few more entries:

  • Jeremy Narby and Franics Huxley, eds: Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge. Anthology of selected excerpts of field observations of “magic men and women … with the power to summon spirits.” Ranges from hostile writings by missionaries to anthropologists who submit to healing sessions, and from Siberia to South America and Africa variations. Includes mention of the dark side of the practice, too.
  • Paul Coughlin: No More Christian Nice Guy. Argument for a masculinity that has boldness in the face of fear – one that confronts prevalent assumptions in society at large, protects the weak, and upholds Christian values in the home and the workplace.
  • Stephen L. Carter: Integrity. This legal scholar of ethics presses the case that integrity is more than simple honesty. Rather, it is a matter of actions based on deep reflection, which also demands listening to perspectives other than one’s own. The crux of integrity, he says, is the willing of good rather than the willing of evil.
  • Geri Doran: Resin (poems). “We rowed all night in the river of God, / singing kyrie, kyrie.”
  • Sascha Feinstein: Misterioso (poems). Pieces rooted in and flowing through jazz.
  • Toni Tost: Invisible Bride (prose poems). “My friends are wheels turning away from themselves.”
  • David R. Montgomery: King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon. A geologist examines the pressures on salmon, both in historic preservation efforts in Scotland, England, and continental Europe as well as those in New England, and in the Pacific Northwest today. Includes consideration of the dynamics of rivers and they ways various varieties of salmon have adapted to the specifics.
  • Michael Lerner: The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country From the Religious Right. A social activist rabbi argues that in removing religious values from public discourse, the left has left a vacuum for the political right to exploit. Rather than being value-free, the result has been value-less positions by the left – and the left is perceived as spineless and without beliefs. Lerner has some good insights on the American workplace and the tension people feel, blaming themselves for unhappiness in their employment while applying value systems that are diametrically opposed to their religious faith. Much of this volume is quite painful to read, addressing public issues in full candor and complicity.

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UNBOUND PAGES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 8 Comments

What comes to mind when someone mentions “sitting down to read a book”? I often think of winter days, maybe sitting beside a window that has African violets on its sill. Or long nights, perhaps with classical music or jazz in the room. Either way, the image fits January, and that may be what gave me the idea of devoting my postings here this month exclusively to a list of “books read” I’ve been compiling from 2005.

It’s a break in the rolling categories I’ve been presenting each month – those will resume at the beginning of February. Even so, as we ponder the range of books mentioned here, you could argue those categories continue all the same.

The project originated when my schedule at the newspaper was switched from a Wednesday-through-Saturday timetable (with a double-shift hammer pounding each week to a close) back to all-nights. At the time, on those evenings when the newsroom was fully staffed, a break would occur between the lockup of the first edition and the later ones – and this was a great time to read a chapter or two from a book-in-hand. (Alas, cutbacks soon took their toll.) For a change, I could nibble at those volumes I’d piled up “to read someday” – and decided to keep track of just what I tackled. This ledger was never intended for public consumption, but given the nature of the Red Barn – delving through boxes, baskets, and bins stashed in the loft – it seemed fitting to air these anyway, at last.

As I’ve noted previously, one of my laments in trying to maintain a literary writing discipline while being employed full-time was the lack of time to keep up with thoughtful reading. As you’ve no doubt heard, if you’re serious about writing, you have to be devoted to reading. Even so, what I found was that my extended reading often came in “orgies” based on vacations, recovery from surgery or illness, even airline travel. So here we are, surveying a few volumes and occasional magazines each day during the month.

I love having you weigh in with related works or arguing with my observations – reading is, after all, a passion we share.

THE NAYLER PRAYER FLAGS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

I’ve mentioned my love of Tibetan prayer flags, from long before they became so popular and easily purchased. One Christmas, though, I was given a kit for making my own, which left me wondering what to design. Early Quakers would have scoffed at the practice, mostly as vanity and superstition, but I do like the reminder to be more prayerful and attentive. So I turned to one of the early major voices of the movement, James Nayler, and began extracting a few words for each square.

Here’s what emerged:

To
ALL
HONEST
HEARTS

Stand still
in the Light
of Jesus.

Come to
SEE
the Life.

If the EYE
be single
NO
darkness.

One power
WORKS
in the
LIGHT.

Believe
and
WAIT.

HAVE
the
LIGHT
of
LIFE.

To
MAKE
MANIFEST

THIS
COVENANT
OF
LIGHT.

TRUTH
PEACE
RIGHTEOUSNESS

THE
FRUIT
YOU
BRING
FORTH

ONE
is the
POWER

Receive
the
LIGHT.

SHINE.

FOLLOW
the
LIGHT.

FOND MEMORIES OF FORE STREET

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My wife is a great cook. And so are the kids. This means that when we dine out, the meal often fails to live up to what we can have at home. The chain restaurants strike us as formulaic or bland. In many, there’s much that’s mostly show with little substance, or pretentious and pricy, or simply uninspired. It’s easy to feel we wasted our money.

On the other hand, we’ve also found some marvelous meals at bargain prices in humble places. including some that folks might describe as sketchy. At least until you take the first bite.  I could mention my favorite Vietnamese restaurants in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, for starters. Or my regular Greek restaurant in Watertown, Massachusetts. Or our favorite summer hangout for seafood and live oldies in York, Maine. Or dim sum in Boston’s Chinatown. Or Latin American highlighting different countries on different days in Dayton, Ohio.

Of course, when we find a truly authoritative operation – one that sets standards for presentation, skill, creativity, and downright pleasure – we treasure the experience. Our favorite is run by two women in South Berwick, Maine. Whenever we’re ready to spring for a great celebration, that’s our first choice and we’re always delighted.

Once my wife and I got away for a weekend stay in Portland, Maine, and the centerpiece of the trip was a dinner at the famed Fore Street Restaurant, which is set in a kind of William Morris former foundry a couple of blocks from the harbor. She can tell you every glowing detail of our meal, including the local sourcing of ingredients. The wait staff was attentive without being overwhelming or stuffy. And most impressive, a sauvignon blanc was suggested to pair with that evening’s selections – and management priced it close to retail, rather than charging the industry standard of three or four times that figure. It was incredible – the word “stony” fits perfectly – and we’ve never found another that approaches this bottle, not even from the same South African winery.

Well, Fore Street was named No. 16 in Gourmet magazine’s list of top 50 restaurants in the U.S. in 2002.

More recently, I’m so glad one of our regular mechanics and his wife were impressed with their big celebration dinner there a few months ago. And we’re so happy to hear the tradition continues.