Tag: Literature

TAKING A FALL IN AUTUMN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 8 Comments

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?

LIVING IN A TOWER OVERLOOKING THE ACTION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Somewhere along the way of drafting Big Inca Versus a New Pony Express Rider, I began imagining living in the top of a traditional textiles mill tower. Once I moved to New England, where the 19th century mills had proliferated, I soon discovered that the towers basically housed worker stairwells, even when topped with a big bell, elaborate clocks, or impressive weather vanes. Even so, my fantasy of dwelling with a view over the millyard and its surroundings kept growing.

This one even has a little deck attached, off to the right.
This one even has a little deck attached, off to the right.

You should realize I’m something of an ascetic – and I like open views, rather than curtains – so the idea of living in a small space such as that holds a romantic appeal. It’s rather like a forest lookout, actually – the kind Kerouac, Ginsberg, Snyder, Whalen, Welch, and other writers once occupied. Naturally, it’s not the kind of bedroom where you’d do elaborate entertaining, either. Anything would have to be intimate.

But what happens through the nights in the empty rooms below? To follow the developments, click here.

Inca 1

ABANDONED MILLWORKS AND REDEVELOPMENT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In many communities across the Northeast, the once neglected mills along the running waters have found new life as commercial real estate. Often, high-tech firms and other startups find them to be flexible incubators. Other times, floors are occupied by stylish residential condos or office suites.

The small city where I live proves that, three decades after the boarded up windows were once again open the light and the spaces within refurbished. The new tenants were the key to a revitalized downtown, especially.

Before relocating to New Hampshire, though, I envisioned something similar while drafting my novel, Big Inca Versus a New Pony Express Rider. Actually, I had no idea that was about the same time the mills were being restored one by one by developers like Joseph Sawtelle. Not that he was anything like Bill’s mysterious Boss.

Oh, how I love the mills – even before we get to the intrigue in my novel.

Inca 1

 

TRACING THE MILL RUNS ALONG THE RIVER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The seed was planted back when I lived along the Susquehanna River and was introduced to the trail that twisted through a wooded strip between the water and the freeway.

The site included a bridge now closed to vehicular traffic and a low dam that once diverted water to power cigar factories along the shore. The mill trace remained, filling with moody water after a heavy rainfall.

As I imagined the vanished mills as they might have been in their prime, Big Inca Versus a New Pony Express Rider began to take shape. The town where I lived, after all, was in economic decline and would have welcomed an infusion of investment.

That wasn’t a singular site, even along that particular river. As I would later observe, the opportunity was repeated throughout the Northeast – and many of the communities still had the old buildings, usually in boarded up condition.

As the intervening decades have demonstrated, I wasn’t completely off-mark.

Come along, then, and see where it leads. Just click here.

Inca 1

 

OF GALAXIES AND CRICKETS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time …

To what extent can we break free of prose narrative cloaked in verse form? (What the critic Paul Chowder calls “slow prose.”) Sing and shout! Chant! Evoke incantation! It’s always comforting to know of others who feel the same way! Keep it up! The night is friendly, indeed.

~*~

Sometimes, even the galaxy seems to drum along with the crickets.

REGARDING THE DLQ

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Jaya, in Promise, isn’t the only character in my fiction to address a concept I’ve dubbed the DLQ, or Dedicated Laborious Quest. But she does, I’ll argue, come closest to aspiring to an artistic expression for its encounters.

The DLQ, as I envision it, is the long-range discipline of spiritual pursuit, one that can be found in any number of variations in any number of religious, artistic, social activist, or even athletic lines of action. It’s a blending of heart and head, body and soul, awareness and discovery – the poet Gary Snyder refers to something similar as the Real Work, for instance, or maybe simply “daily practice” will touch on it as well.

One of Jaya’s concerns is a search for a fitting vehicle to embody the experience. Essays are too prosaic. Poetry? Sometimes. Drawings or paintings? To a degree. Maps of a kind? Getting closer, I’d hope.

Even so, I’ve wanted to leave the ultimate form she uses open to the imagination.

And then, more recently, I came across something that comes closest. An exhibition of Shaker art and artifacts at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockport, Maine, introduced me to what are called Gift Songs or Gift Drawings or Gift Paintings, which take their name from the faithful artist’s position as a medium receiving the song or design from a deceased member of the sect (that is, given) to be conveyed to another, living member of the sect (also, as given). To be appreciated, these must be seen in the original, full size, since much of the detail gets lost in reproduction. Sometimes the words are in a secret, private language and alphabet. Sometimes they blend. The lines flow, turn upside down, sideways. The works are sprinkled with artwork as well as words. Are they magical? Or simply mysterious?

Whichever, they spring from a tradition and discipline and practice to utter something deep in the heavenly desire and earthly community of a particular recipient.

I can tell you Jaya would have been most impressed. Definitely.

Promise~*~

To turn to my novel, click here.

 

ALONG WITH THOSE ARTISTS WE KNOW

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time …

For too long, there’s been a huge gap between the blockbuster superstars and the rest of the practitioners, many of them far more innovative or penetrating.

Paris for American ex-pat writers? Again, I smile. By the time you and I came along, the destination was Seattle or San Francisco or Greenwich Village. Or some mountainous terrain, for those of us who couldn’t afford anything better. (Or thought so.) And then Minneapolis and, of all places, San Antonio. As it turns out, New Hampshire has far more than its share of authors, probably because of its proximity to both Manhattan and Boston, in addition to its tax structure – so again, I’m in a decent spot.

Especially compared to many of the others.