Tag: Musings

Along more than artistic lines

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Canadian Opera’s Marriage of Figaro at the Capitol [theater in Yakima]: well done yet I’m perplexed by what makes a performance exciting and vital rather than merely competently technical …

I’m sure I enjoyed it all the same. It is one of my favorite operas.

~*~

By the way, in reviewing my journals, I see there were more musical performances in my life during those years than I’ve recalled.

 

It has to be the story you’re drawn to

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

If you’re dreaming of writing a book, here’s some perspective.

  1. “Write what should not be forgotten.” — Isabel Allende
  2. “The story must strike a nerve in me. My heart should start pounding when I hear the first line in my head. I start trembling at the risk.” — Susan Sontag
  3. “Run your own race. Don’t worry about how fast someone else writes, how much another author makes, how many followers another author has. Write what makes you excited, and the enthusiasm will come through on the page.” — Christina Lauren
  4. “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” — Stephen King
  5. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” — Toni Morrison
  6. “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” — Madeleine L’Engle
  7. “I always write in the morning. I was pleased to hear lately that Rousseau, too, after he got up in the morning, went for a short walk and sat down to work. In the morning one’s head is particularly fresh. The best thoughts most often come in the morning after waking while still in bed or during the walk.” — Leo Tolstoy
  8. “The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.” — Gustave Flaubert
  9. “You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.” — William S. Burroughs
  10. “I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English — it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep.” — Mark Twain

Some of them seem to think it has to be book-length. Short and sweet can be compelling, too.

 

Mention ‘The County’ in Maine, and everyone knows what you mean

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The Pine Tree State has 16 counties, but only one is recognized as The County, a place also known as “the crown of Maine” or even the most northeastern point of the USA.

It’s Aroostook County, set right along the border with Quebec and New Brunswick, Canada, with a population of 67,000 people and who knows how many moose.

It’s also the largest county by landmass east of the Mississippi, though

St. Louis County, Minnesota, is larger though much of it is waters of Lake Superior. With more than 6,800 square miles, Aroostook is larger than the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.

Now, for ten more considerations.

  1. It’s famed for potatoes, which are being harvested about now. In the 1940s Maine topped the nation in potato production but by 1994 had fallen to the eighth-place in production and the seventh in the number of acres devoted to potato cultivation in the United States. In 2024, Maine grew 54,000 acres of potatoes (behind Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Colorado, and Michigan) and nearly 90 percent of that was in Aroostook County. Potatoes are still far and away the state’s largest (legal) crop.
  2. When the county was created in 1839, border conflicts with Canada threatened to erupt into the “Aroostook War,” explaining the town names of Fort Kent and Fort Fairfield.
  3. It’s hard to spell, but not nearly as much as the Wolastokwey (or Maliseet) language that originated it. It means “beautiful river” and refers to the St. John River. The Maliseet, still present in the county, are affiliated with the Wabanaki Alliance that includes the Mi’kmaq, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy tribes.
  4. The county was a stop on the Underground Railroad carrying fugitive slaves to freedom in Canada. The secret network carried freedom seekers from ports around Bangor to wilderness waterways, where Natives canoed them to havens like the Quaker community in Fort Fairfield, one of the last safe places before reaching Canada.
  5. During the Cold War, Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, vital because of its location close to Europe, had a major impact on the county’s economy. Its closure in 1994 is still deeply felt.
  6. The county is becoming a major producer of wind power.
  7. Many people in the northern part of the county speak both English and Acadian French (which is different from Quebecois).
  8. As the agricultural activity changes, Amish are moving in and establishing communities. Somehow, the county does feel a lot like Pennsylvania to me, so it seems fitting to see horse-drawn carriages (they don’t call them buggies) on the roads, dark blue and green laundry on the lines outside plain farmhouses, and lively one-room schoolhouses as you drive through.
  9. Much of the county is forest, including a significant moose population. Drivers, beware.
  10. A stretch along U.S. 1 presents the measured-to-scale solar system. Created with high school and college students plus adult volunteers, it really is mind-boggling. The results can be viewed in the October 2023 archives of this blog, should you wish to explore more.

 

With yellow bursting in the grass

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

“Those yellow flowers, what do you call them? They are so beautiful.”

“We call them weeds.”

The Frenchman cannot understand our reaction to dandelions.

Still, a sparrow carefully picks at the puffs bit by bit for breakfast.

A jerk here, tug there, then swallowing. And flies away.

~*~

Summer Full Out:

Kat smoking her new pipe

~*~

Nosmo:

Our four-legged asshole
an input-output equation
hops on our bed
tears at the carpet
leaps nearly three feet at eleven weeks
stinks terribly
goes after moths
when we call, he comes
“He’s really a dog”
“He’s really a pest”

 

Bodies of water attract us, naturally

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Walking along rivers, lakes, and ocean shores seems to have healing powers for the soul. Just consider.

  1. “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” — Loren Eiseley
  2. “Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people. They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort. We are a nation rich in rivers.” — Charles Kuralt
  3. “To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.” — Barry Lopez
  4. “The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.” — Zhuangzi
  5. “Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” — Herman Hesse
  6. “I’m an old-fashioned guy… I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake or something.” — Johnny Depp
  7. “When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
  8. “There’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” — Sarah Kay
  9. “Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.” — Zora Neale Hurston
  10. “Despite the ferocity of the current, a river is always moving but it’s always in the same place. And much like a river, while we should surge forward with great ferocity, our principles should never move.” — Craig D. Lounsbrough

 

Bear-hunting in mythology, not so far back

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The Hunter is typically a male, an image of strength and tribe. In this case, Truckers.

Citizens’ Band radio, take a totem, new name for self:

  • Wildcat
  • Canadian Redhead
  • Blue Marlin (a Chevy van)
  • Kentucky Kid
  • The Illinois Playboy
  • Bluebeard
  • Old Dutchman
  • Bumblebee

with a talking stick / in your hand, in the air / at the wheel of an 18 / yes, eighteen-wheeler

Sometimes talking four-wheeler, too:

“Four-wheeler, she’s clear”

that is, not a Bear

“Ya got ears”

“Keep an eyeball out for”

~*~

Time check
Road check

~*~

“At 205, Eight-O
westbound Bear flipping around”

~*~

“Green stamps” are dollar bills
(reflecting store promotion trading stamps
of the time)
hence, “on the green stamps”
means turnpike tolls
perhaps bridges, too

~*~

“Was you in Harrisburg Pee A last night?
I was a-talkin’ to you”

~*~

In Gilligan’s Island, meaning Ohio
during Governor Gilligan’s term

“The Bears got seventy-five dollars out of me,
lost you,” meaning fine paid

A rig is reported doing “a roly-poly,” that can’t be good.

The signoff of departing or divergent interchanges:

  • “Have a good trip”
    “Don’t feed no Bears”
    “Catch you all later”

Wonder where they all are now.

Here’s looking at glass

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

You know, we usually take it for granted.

Here are some thoughts. Or should I say reflections?

  1. Usually you look through it, unless it’s dirty. You know, a pane of glass.
  2. I don’t know about you, but I find washing windows to be a pain.
  3. It can also be something you drink from. Or a quantity. (“I’ll take a glass of milk, please.”)
  4. Or something to boost your vision. (“Now where are my glasses?”)
  5. It can have very sharp edges, sometimes used in tools or instruments.
  6. Traditionally, it’s made from silicon dioxide (SO2), a common constituent of sand and coming from quartz flakes. Because of the high temperatures required to work with pure silica, most glass is made with additives that lower the required heating levels and allow for different varieties of glass, soda-lime being the most common. Borosilicate gives Pyrex, and lead glass being the most brilliant and having a lower melting point.
  7. Contrary to a widespread thought, it is not a solid liquid but rather an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid, allowing it transparency. In addition, it’s chemically inert, which is why it’s so wonderful for bottles and jars.
  8. Fiberglass is stronger than many metals by weight, non-magnetic, non-conductive, can be molded into complex shapes, and is generally chemically inert. Its applications include aircraft, boats, automobiles, bathtubs and enclosures, hot tubs, swimming pools, septic tanks, water tanks, roofing, pipes, cladding, surfboards, and orthopedic casts. It could easily be a Tendrils of its own.
  9. Spun glass is probably best known as insulation, while its use as fiber-optics cable is touted as superior to traditional copper wiring.
  10. The oldest known glass objects are beads, perhaps originating as an accidental byproduct of metalworking or lead glazes for pottery.

Technological advances in glassmaking could furnish a Tendril on its own, but let’s not overlook the fact that one of the most recent gives us the tough glass that’s on the screen of the laptop or smart phone where you’re likely reading this.

 

Dreams of publishing poetry bigtime

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the Far East there is a vital, well-read proletariat literature – speaking for a people.

Here, we have intellectuals playing games. Along with populist idiots.

Still, how much of the Far West book scene I knew revolved around poetry-conscious, well-stocked bookstores that were also patrons to readings, broadsides, and small private volumes.

Suppose, now, a poetry journal allied with a bookstore where its authors’ books could be purchased …

This was pre-Internet, which has opened new opportunities, or before I knew of radical publisher and bookseller Giles Calvert and his Black Spread Eagle on Ludgate Hill near St. Paul Cathedral in London, the voice of many early Quaker tracts and volumes.

 

There was an old farmer who lived in Maine

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Actually, there are a lot of them. A recent Census of Agriculture found that of Maine’s 13,053 farmers, half are over the age of 57½. Not only that, but there are more farmers over 75 than under 35. Do we see a shortage coming soon?

Now, for ten more tidbits.

  1. Four-fifths of the farms are family owned-and-operated. Corporations account for less than a tenth, 677 farms, while another 474 are partnerships.
  2. A bit over two-fifths of the respondents said farming is their primary occupation. The majority of the farmers rely on other jobs or other income.
  3. Women farmers comprise 43 percent of the workforce, 5,638.
  4. As the Census observed, “Male producers had higher rates of involvement in land use and/or crop, livestock, and marketing decisions than female producers. Female producers were most involved in day-to-day, record keeping and financial management decisions.”
  5. USDA-certified organic farms = 412.
  6. Black farmers: 132 operating 2,238 acres.
  7. New and beginning producers = 4,681.
  8. Renewable energy-producing systems in use = 907 farms.
  9. The state leads the nation in wild blueberry production and ranks second for maple syrup, but potatoes lead the way as the largest crop. Other leading agricultural products potatoes, milk and other dairy products, chicken eggs, and floriculture.
  10. Of special interest to Washington County, where I live, was the Maine harvest of 24,735 acres of blueberries on 703 farms in 2022, an increase from 20,473 acres five years earlier.