You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Pointing my cursor to the WordPress icon on my desktop, I once again read the rest of the slogan as “Get a free hug here.”
Hug? Not blog? Does anyone else ever misread it that way? Or am I the only one?
I have to admit, some days your comments and postings feel like hugs from afar.
Autumn typically stresses my allergies to a point that many years I’ve been knocked down for a week or two with “flu-like symptoms,” as one physician diagnosed it. (Not that he had any magic shots or pills to speed my recovery.) Some rounds have meant being unable to stay awake long or finding myself chilled to the bone, unable to warm up. Shortness of breath, dizziness, and loss of appetite are also common. Responsible work, please remember, is out of the question.
A routine of preventative medications in the past decade or so has allowed me to largely elude the malady, but this year I’ve been hit.
As illnesses go, this is quite tolerable, as long as I’m not trying to do much of anything. It simply means lying low and drinking liquids.
An upside does appear, though: for me, it’s the reading orgy that can accompany the recovery.
Do other writers (or readers, for that matter) feel obligated to tackle certain periodicals or books before getting to our guilty pleasures? Or is it just me?
Don’t get me wrong. For instance, nobody forced me to subscribe at a bargain-basement rate to the New York Review of Books, but after several appeals, I caved in – and then the issues began to pile up.
I hadn’t really followed this periodical since the early ’70s and was curious to see how much it was sticking to its earlier biases. (Yes, I’m using that term.) Happily, I’m finding a broader range of thought than I’d remembered. What has taken some readjustment involves the depth of the articles. Each one carries an assumption that we are somehow conversant in an esoteric topic that is apparently an earmark of intelligence or a solid education or … well, I dive in anyway, realizing I seldom know enough to challenge the author’s line of argument. It feels like being swept along in a tide.
This is also reminding me of a hierarchy of intellectual discourse in writing.
If the New York Review of Books is at one level, the New Yorker seems to sit a step lower, and the New York Times on a step below that. New York and Vanity Fair magazines, along with the Boston Globe, Washington Post, and a handful of other newspapers sit a step lower – and they’re all well above the median level today. As for the rest of us out in the sticks?
Admittedly, I felt a little pressure here. My wife repeated her request I pass the issues on “when you’re finished,” and that meant intact editions rather than my usual filet strategy that cuts a magazine apart, clips out articles of interest, and pitches the rest. (Saves space, for one thing, and puts pieces I want to address in appropriate files, for another. Plus, in the old days, we used to mail clippings of interest to each other – remember that, back before email?)
Well, back to that matter of keeping up, especially when we have our own local and regional issues to address, in addition to our individual specialized interests.
I got caught up with the backlog of New York Reviews and a few other magazines. And then it was on to a stack of books. Huzzah! Huzzah! Without getting into the list, let me just say what a pleasure it is to read a volume straight through, within a day or two, as God or at least the author intended – rather than having to do it by bits and pieces over long stretches of time. (Do I need to mention there are many books around our house still waiting for the final, uh, consummation? Not all mine, by a long shot.)
Well, I am feeling better now, thank you, and there’s a long list of home repair and garden projects to do before cold weather kicks in. Life really depends on maintaining a balance, doesn’t it? Or is there a better way?
Once upon a time, being Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States was an esteemed and quite powerful position.
For one thing, I never previously realized my hometown carried the name of the third speaker. Nor did I realize that Massachusetts had been the source of more of the officeholders, eight, than any other state. (In contrast, Virginia and Ohio provided the most presidents.)
I do remember finding family postcards of the Missouri mansion of Champ Clark, who was Speaker 1911-1919, and being told, in reverential tones, that one of my great-great-grandfathers had somehow been in charge of his affairs in this native state. Not that I’ve ever followed up to confirm the story. Maybe it was a cousin?
Curiously, though, despite all of its prestige, only one president – 0ur 11th – ever served as Speaker. That was James K. Polk, who led the House, 1835-39, before landing in the White House, 1845-49. In that election, he defeated another Speaker, Henry Clay. (For the record, Gerald Ford had been only Minority Leader before becoming president through Richard Nixon’s resignation.)
Looking back, though, the last reference to the position with any general air of full respect from both sides seems to invoke Tip O’Neill, 1977-87.
That’s three-plus decades ago.
For someone with the ambitions of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, these factors have to come into play as he considers Republican Party calls for him to run for the Speaker’s gavel. Even without the current toxic situation, it would add up to a dead end. Or, at best, a final step.
Let’s see how long reason holds out in the end.
Only weeks ago, I wrote on the longstanding seams in the Republican Party and wondered about their coming apart. (Here’s what I posted.)
Since then, in the dizzying developments in the party’s inability to name a new Speaker of the House of Representatives, along with the mystifying field for the presidency itself, it’s now possible to ask whether those seams have become tectonic plates – the kind that are about to erupt as a very destructive political party earthquake rather than simply ripping apart.
The so-called Freedom Caucus is being called the “kamikaze congress,” one that would rather see the Capitol blown up than do anything for the good of the country. The more moderate or more mainstream Republican congressmen, meanwhile, are awakening to the fact that their party can’t govern in its current state – whether they align themselves as a Reality Caucus with a core of moderate Democrats is making for some fascinating discussion.
As a blogger without insider information, I can only watch all this from a distance. Keeping up with the news, much less digesting it and relaying any conclusions, is exhausting. So here we are, following a big drama. Who knows how many acts there will be or how much figurative blood will be shed. It’s that, or comedy, but I can’t see anyone here laughing anytime soon.
As I said at the time …
I largely distrust art about art. It’s not that I haven’t written poems about poetry, much less music or paintings. I think we all do, sometimes as a matter of reflecting on the practice we pursue as artists. Why do I write what I do, in this voice or style? Where do I fall in the stream’s current?
The danger is that such work can become incestuous. Artists of all stripes can easily perceive themselves as high priests of the mysterious or marvelous. We are inspired, or so we think. Or at least super-sexy. We have special visions and heightened awareness. We speak our own jargon. So what if the masses cannot understand if it heightens our niche? What sells is commercial, and we point to its cheap tricks, unless it’s feeding our wallets.
What happens, of course, is we speak more and more to each other, rather than the world we inhabit. We celebrate ourselves, rather than searching outward. We become artistes, caricatures who flock to cafés and late-night bars, rather than hard-working creators. Paris wasn’t Paris when it was the expats’ hot stomping ground. Their old photos look more than funky.
Consider, for a second, the opera. Let me argue that Butterfly, free of the artist halo, is a more fascinating and touching character than Tosca, the opera singer. Parsifal or Lohengrin, than Meistersinger. Orpheus moves me as a widower, rather than for the power of his music. The magic flute, fortunately, becomes a mere footnote in Mozart’s cosmic comedy.
That’s before we even get to the application of “poetry” to describe another art. A pianist whose playing is “poetic,” for example, or the “poetry” of a piece of architecture. Again, it becomes incestuous or self-celebratory and essentially meaningless. Do we mean pianism that’s introspective and not flashy? Then what about humorous poetry? Do we mean architecture that instills a sense of awe or one that’s lean and understated? And so on. Should we even ask which poet the critic had in mind?
This might also have something to do with the fact that I’ve spent most of my adult life as a journalist, rather than in a full-time literary profession. I don’t teach writing or literature. Even in religion, where I am actively engaged, it’s not in paid ministry – which can seem somehow tainted by the fact it’s a job or employment. They overlap, of course.
Despite that, I have written collections that remain homage. My unfinished Corridors arises in the experiences of visiting art museums over a lifetime, as well as making art: while individual pieces are named after various artists, I should point out there is rarely a direct connection between the two, other than the spirit of life. Likewise, the Partitas and Fugues cannot employ a direct correspondence between musical form and language – if anything, in acknowledging the wonder and joy such works stir within a listener, my poems only admit the chasm between pure music and an aspiration for a pure language, apart from literal meaning.
Now, out into the field beyond the field across the stream below the house, as it were.
Maintaining particular elements that set a faith community apart from the larger society as well as a desire to be like everyone else provokes a basic tension in religious history. In Quaker tradition, we see it especially in the Hicksite Separation and later, with the Gurneyites, as many Friends adopted pastoral worship and turned their meetinghouses into “churches,” sometimes complete with a bell. The problem that arises along the way is that other values, like the Peace Witness, can also be eroded on the road to a generic Protestant practice or New Age miasma. (Or, increasingly these days, both.)
It’s important that we remain aware of what are known as “distinctives” – in our stream of Quakerism, the unprogrammed worship, simple meetinghouses, and decision-making process are highly obvious. Once, our discipline of Plain dress and speech, our system of “guarded education” in Quaker parochial schools, and our avoidance of public entertainments would have also set us apart. Scholars look for distinctives when they examine a spectrum ranging from sect to denomination, where something like the presence of an American flag in the sanctuary can say much about how far the congregation buys into the values of the surrounding culture. (The Mennonite fellowship I participated in was viewed with some suspicion because we enjoyed going to Baltimore Orioles games – together, at that. Ahem.) Often, it’s seen as those scholars look to reasons one Amish group differs from another. The width of a man’s hat band, for instance, or even buttons. It’s the way the little things add up to strengthen more important matters. I’m not saying any of this is easy.
Once, while dining in Little Italy in Baltimore, I overheard a couple talking to the co-owner of a restaurant. They were telling him how, on a visit to New York, they kept hearing everyone speak about how his place was the best one back home. Finally, he interrupted, saying, “If you don’t believe you’re the best restaurant in Little Italy, you shouldn’t be here.” While some people detect a degree of arrogance in that, I sense a humility and an admiration of his competitors – a desire for excellence and an admiration for those touches that make each restaurant distinctive. Ways that encourage each other to do better, too.
I turn that to our own neighboring faith communities with an admiration for congregations that uphold their own meaningful distinctives. Each one, with the potential of enriching the others. We Friends need not add glittering icons or glorious pipe organs or triune water baptism to our service, but we can dialogue and even worship with those who have them – and maybe all come away with deeper amazement and resolve in our own daily practice.
Hey, it was only a month ago I was reveling in Greek dancing — admittedly, not as part of the Orthodox service but certainly as part of the community. Along with all of the food.
Last weekend, at our town’s annual Apple Harvest Day festival, as I passed the Democratic Party booth in the array along Central Avenue downtown, someone mentioned that Rick Santorum was in the crowd.
“I’m not sure I’d recognize him if I saw him,” I confessed. Not having a television does limit my awareness in some ways.
“Oh, you’d know him if you saw him. He’s taller than me,” my informant said.
As it turned out, I did catch glimpses of the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania moving through pedestrian jam. It was his blue sports coat and khaki pants, mostly, that said GOP hopeful – or possibly, staff. Still, he was talking to an aide, rather than shaking hands and greeting potential voters. Could it be? What would I say? Or ask, pointedly? Besides, we were being carried along in opposite directions.
Later in the afternoon, at a booth where I was volunteering, I was given a business card at the end of a pleasurable bit of small talk. The next day, reading the news, I learned that this was Santorum’s host for the event. Little did I know that over breakfast just downstream, the candidate had received an earful from two Planned Parenthood supporters.
Maybe he’d had enough for the day?
~*~
As I’ve mentioned, our telephone’s been ringing with presidential primary campaign pitches. Some of them are robo-calls we promptly ignore. Talk to us in person, or else!
And then there are the surveys, sometimes several a day. Some of them are legitimately neutral, but others, well … let’s just say it’s quickly obvious who’s paying the bill.
Sometimes it’s a bit amusing, like the one from a first-time questioner working for the Carson camp. She stumbled through her script but had our sympathy. It’s how you learn the process, after all.
But then there was one that started asking if we were “strongly likely,” “somewhat likely,” “somewhat not likely,” or “strongly not likely” to vote for Trump, Carson, Bush, Kasich … and then suddenly turned to questions solely about Bush. Wait a minute! You claimed to be an independent research firm! What about the dozen or so other hopefuls on the GOP ticket?
At least this one wasn’t turning to a pitch for donations.
~*~
Considering the number of phone calls we’re getting from so-called opinion research outfits, I am concerned about the validity of the results. If a few people are getting the equivalent of “voting early and often” in the opinion sampling, what’s to preclude toying with the results? Why not say something that spins the outrage or anxiety? Why not boost a marginal candidate? Why not jump on a hot-air balloon for a short ride? Or try to deflate it?
More to the point: the only result I truly care about takes place in the election booth. Why can’t we concentrate on the issues until then, rather than the artificial horse race? (Or, in this case, elephant race, for the most part?)
I’ve often joked (or was it boasted?) that we have the best stained glass windows in town. And not just at this time of year. Actually, there’s something basic in the Quaker practice of having clear windows, whether the view opens to the city jail next door or a busy highway or a placid burial ground – we’re not isolating ourselves from reality when we worship.
Sitting on the clerk’s bench one morning one May, I found myself looking out at a Monet. Well, the spring green for three-quarters of the hour fit the tones he used, until it turned metallic in the last quarter-hour when the sunlight turned harsh. Most weeks after that, I tried to identify which painter the view brought to mind – a sequence of Corot, Diebenkorn, Mitchell, Twombly, Klimt, Pollack, even the Zen painting of six persimmons (ours, however, had about twice that amount of fruit), and maybe a bit of Chagall or Hopper. (What was I saying about our Meeting not being blue-collar? Here I am, expecting most Dover Friends to know most of these artists!) Occasionally, even a Kaufmann, as Dick and Jane’s heads appeared in the lower corner while they walked up the ramp to the door. Sometimes the dogwood tree presented a flat image; other times it had holes, opening to the depth behind it; eventually, come winter, it was only sketches in front of a more distant landscape, and etchings, rather than paintings, came to mind. Expecting the Monet to return the next May, it didn’t, for whatever combination of reasons, although there was one week when it was adorned with pale stars – its flowers.
Not that any of this is essentially profound, other than as a recognition of the play of light – just as we encounter various presentations of Light within the room and ourselves through the hour. But I do consider ways our perceptions and expressions differ from the earliest Friends who sat in the room. These artists, for one thing, came after them, except for the 12th century persimmons (and those were off in China, anyway); the now familiar language from science or psychology, too, to say nothing of sports jargon and even military expressions. Did those Friends ever have a bagpiper playing at the edge of the yard, or some equivalent to our sirens on the street or music from a neighboring church? How did they see the world, in ways that we don’t? Somehow, all kinds of differing eras come together when we, too, sit together. So just how do we see each other through all of these seasons and ages?
~*~
This piece originally appeared in Types and Shadows, the newsletter of the Fellowship of Quaker Artists.
In remarking about the failure of the presidential candidates to get out and do the ground-level face-to-face meet-and-greets that are the foundation of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, I’ve failed to notice a conspicuous change in this particular campaign. I live in a county seat, one of ten in New Hampshire, and usually by this point in the campaign, we’d have prominent campaign headquarters downtown.
Not this time.
No, it finally dawned on me. Nada!
(Well, since drafting this, we got a phone call saying Hillary just opened an office here, just not downtown. Still, something’s akimbo.)
In fact the Republicans, who ought to be the most active in staking out territory, had only eight offices across New Hampshire by mid-September – all in Manchester, the largest city, an hour away from where I live. Much more from the further reaches of the state.
Contrast that to the Democrats: eight offices for Hillary Clinton alone, at the time, four for Bernie Sanders, and two for Martin O’Malley. Fourteen in all. And Joe Biden’s still waiting in the wings.
The local office is where a candidate’s organization offers literature and answers questions to passers-by, does its phone-banking, encourages supporters to meet, plans canvassing and visibility events. It’s where each candidate gains visibility – and credibility – every time a driver or pedestrian comes past.
Maybe the Republicans think advertising will fill the gap. It won’t. Each region of my adopted state is different. I’ll leave it at that.
I’ve also mentioned the lack of living room meetings and am surprised to see the only ones listed on the Republican side are all in Scott Brown’s Rye home – that is, the former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. Hardly bread-and-butter invitations to the faithful, right?
One late October afternoon, after most of the foliage had fallen, Randy Kezar and I simultaneously looked up from our pathway and beheld a large red maple fully aflame in sunlight as we strolled through the burial ground behind our Quaker meetinghouse. It was the embodiment of the single detail that says everything, the flash of perfection; this individual tree expressed the season as much as all of the previous color change and shifting light we had savored in the previous weeks. “I suppose if we were Japanese, we’d sit down and write a haiku on the spot, in celebration,” he said. Later, I took up the challenge and came up with a few lines I hope come close:
Somehow each New England autumn
comes down to boughs in a graveyard
– a common of stone and bone –
But my provocation and observations kept ranging wider, invoking a calendar not just of the place across a year but also the epochs that fill what went from a boneyard and burial ground to a Victorian cemetery to the present, as well.
The poems that resulted have one foot in Portsmouth and Dover, New Hampshire, and another in Portsmouth and Newport, Rhode Island, where I quote from the 1664 will of Alice Shotten Cowland and some of the activities of her son-in-law, Robert Hodgson – sometimes spelled Hodson, as well as Hutchin. (I detail what is known of their lives in my genealogy blog, The Orphan George Chronicles.) She was part of the early dissent against Puritan authority, first with Samuel Gorton and then as one of the first Quakers in the New World. I love Robert’s memorial minute, which calls him “an ancient traveler in the Truth.” He arrived in America on the historic voyage of the tiny Woodhouse, causing turmoil in Manhattan and Long Island before heading on to Boston. As far as I can determine, he was no relation to my line, no matter how much many have tried to find the link.
~*~
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Jnana's Red Barn 