Tag: Musings

Another round of Proust as a prompt

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I recently deleted a file full of personal questions.

Personally, most of them didn’t fit, and besides, now that I’m no longer submitting writing to quarterlies and reviews for publication, I have no need for my own contributor’s notes.

Still, I found these responses from working other sets of questions. I am curious how you’d answer.

  • CREATIVE WORK ENVIRONMENT: Solitary.
  • WHAT COLOR IS YOUR BEDROOM? Pure white with Japanese blue accents
  • OH HAPPY DAY: Sitting in the warm silence after Quaker meeting for worship has settled. Especially when the aches and pains stay away at this age.
  • Or a summer afternoon along our pocket beach of the North Atlantic.
  • Or dining together on our deck in warm weather or sitting beside a wood fire in winter.
  • SPACE JAM: Coming upon the wild rhododendrons in full bloom atop Roan High Knob in North Carolina after a wild of arduous backpacking on the Appalachian Trail as an awakening adolescent.
  • RECENT INSPIRATION: Choral singing.
  • DREAM SUBJECTS: Eagles, osprey, whales, time under sail on the water.
  • DREAM ASSIGNMENTS: The fine arts, spiritual community.
  • WHOLE NEW WORLDS: The many dimensions of life my college girlfriend introduced to me, the life-changing experiences of the ashram, living in the desert orchard in Washington state, New England with the amazing woman in my life.
  • FIRST BRUSH WITH FAME: Sessions with any of the cartoonists and columnists I served as a newspaper syndicate field representative, or was it …
  • WHAT WOULD YOU BE IF YOU WEREN’T A WRITER? Really retired. At this point, the question is better recast, “What would you have been?” – something I never could quite figure out.
  • WHAT COLOR AUTOMATICALLY LIFTS YOUR SPIRITS? Cobalt, indigo, or electric blue.
  • THANKFUL FOR: The three incredible divas in my life, even though they don’t sing, as well as Cobscook Friends Meeting.
  • FLOWERS: Daffodils, rhododendron, lilacs, sunflowers.
  • DESSERT: Crème brule or rich vanilla ice cream.
  • SNACK: Cashews, grilled cheese sandwiches, popcorn.
  • GADGET: A corkscrew, branch loppers, charcoal grill ignition tower.
  • CURRENT HOBBYHORSE: American Illuminist composers, as I term the Romantic-era masters.
  • Also, Quaker Light/Seed/Truth.
  • CLOTHING & DECOR STYLE: Yard sales, touch of Amish. Unpretentious and comfortable.
  • DOMINANT COLOR IN MY WARDROBE: Shades of gray.
  • PROFESSIONAL PEAK (SO FAR): Publication of  the novels.
  • MUSICAL THERAPY: A cappella part-singing
  • RECENT TRIPS: Cruising in the historic schooner Lewis R. French on Penobscot Bay.
  • FAVORITE MOMENT: Sliding into bed next to my wife.
  • MY CARD: The usual MC or Visa.
  • WORST GUILT TRIP: Ahem. (Things I’ve said, over the years.)
  • WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CRUSH? Both Lutherans, one a year older than me and now deceased.
  • WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST LOVE? Kay, after high school
  • WHAT’S YOUR MOST FEMININE QUALITY? Tears, on the rare occasions when they come.
  • WHAT WOMAN IS YOUR GUILTY FANTASY? Freckles.
  • IS THERE ANYTHING YOU MISS ABOUT BEING UNATTACHED? Well, there was discretionary income.
  • WITH SO MUCH COMPETITION, HOW DO YOU SIZE UP? I’ve largely moved solo, to my own beat, in out-of-the-mainstream circles.
  • YOU ALWAYS NEED MORE: Time. Or is that compassion?
  • EVERYONE COULD ALWAYS DO WITH LESS: Self-absorption.
  • WHY I DO WHAT I DO: To remember, to discover where I’ve been, to look closer at my experience of life, to map the trail of my life, especially when it reflects others.
  • BONA FIDES: BA in political science, Indiana University, working with Vincent Ostrom; extended residency in the Poconos Ashram, Swami Lakshmy-Devi’s hermitage; two published novels
  • GOLD-STAR EXCELLENCE: Eagle Scout in sixth-grade, yes siree
  • AMBITIONS: To develop a widespread readership; to rebuild the Society of Friends.
  • FAVORITE SPOTS: The Bold Coast of Downeast Maine, the sub-Alpine range of Mount Rainier, Music Hall in Cincinnati.
  • WOULD LOVE TO HAVE DINNER WITH: My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Hodgson, to confirm the pirate attack in crossing to America and learn the details, including the names of his parents and siblings and his relationship with Moses Harland, whom I presume to be his uncle.
  • YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY: True friends.
  • ONE DAY I HAD HOPED TO: Be influential and famous.
  • FAVORITE DISCOVERY: The early Quaker understanding and practice of Light/Seed/Truth.
  • NECESSARY EXTRAVAGANCE: Owning an old house.
  • FAVORITE CHARITY: Dover Friends Meeting. Also, local arts organizations, public radio, American Friends Service Committee, Friends Committee on National Legislation.
  • CAR: An old Chevy Sonic, but my favorite was a very used canary-color BMW 1600 coupe.
  • COCKTAIL: very dry martini (Bombay sapphire, with olives).
  • CREATIVE WORK ENVIRONMENT: solitary at the keyboard beside the north window, with or without classical music.
  • PROFESSIONAL PEAK (AS A JOURNALIST): East Coast field representative for Tribune Media Services newspaper syndicate
  • MOST UNUSUAL GIFT: A slice of rubber Swiss cheese in the mail; blown-glass Galileo weather globes; a bottle of dishwashing detergent and two towels as a wedding present.
  • MOST INTERESTING SOUVENIR: Cow skull and elk vertebrae from the Yakima Valley.
  • WHAT IS YOUR MOST MASCULINE QUALITY? Snoring. Aversion to shopping. Fire-building skills. Sense of direction. Love of the wild outdoors. Immersion in single projects from start to finish. Closing doors, turning off lights. Trapping and transporting squirrels. A readiness to catch bugs and crush them with my fingers.
  • WHAT’S THE ONE THING IN YOUR MEDICINE CABINET YOU WOULDN’T WANT OTHERS TO KNOW ABOUT? All the bottles that have long passed their expiration date.
  • WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT PROJECT? All of this blogging. And cleaning up some earlier collections.
  • BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT: When diagramming sentences began to make sense. Enrolling in my first course with Vincent Ostrom. Taking up yoga. Moving to Yakima. Moving to Baltimore. Undergoing psychotherapy. Moving to New England.
  • THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: Returning to the ashram, when Swami demanded. Dropping my partner before the wedding or in Yakima. Going to work at the Detroit Free Press. Admitting there was no future with the cellist and thus moving directly to New England, rather than Baltimore. Plainness, along the lines of dairy farming in the valley.

Revisiting these exercises, I’m struck by how many other desires not included here have been fulfilled or are no longer applicable. Consider CAN’T WRITE WITHOUT: caffeine. Today my mug’s filled with decaf, per doctor’s orders. Caffeine counteracts one of my meds.

He said, she said

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

He would have said alert but she’d counter twitchy
He would have said observant but she’d counter oblivious

He would have said free-thinking but she’d counter too serious
He would have said independent but she’d counter aloof

He would have said sensitive but she’d counter nervous
He would have said inquisitive but she’d say he rarely asks questions

He would have said accepting but she’d counter indecisive
He would have said nurturing but she’d counter cold

He would have said serious but she’d counter silent
He would have said playful but she’d counter negative

He would have said witty but she’d counter legalistic

He would have said intelligent but she’d counter uptight

He would have said slightly bent but she’d counter insecure
He would have said self-sufficient but she’d counter evasive

He would have said caring but she’d counter mean
He would have said spiritual but she’d ask how that makes him a better person

He would have said spirited but she’d counter lazy
He would have said somewhat reserved but she’d counter socially deficient

He would have said somewhat shy but she’d counter loner
He would have said elitist in quest of excellence and quality but she’d counter self-centered

He would have said egalitarian in opportunity and expectation but she’d counter workaholic
He would have said outdoorsy but she’d counter escapist

He would have said rainbow chaser but she’d counter impractical
He would have said aging but she’d agree

He would have said youthful but she’d counter bald
He would have said honest, direct but she’d counter defensive

He would have said exploring but she’d counter unemotional
He would have said hedonist but she’d counter lazy

He would have said ascetic but she’d counter dull
He would have said a bit gallant but she’d counter straight-laced

He would have said organized but she’d notice he rarely dusts furniture
He would have said self-starter but she’d counter with a list of projects

He would have said visionary but she’d counter icy
He would have said original but she’d counter quirky

He would have said inventive but she’d counter weird
He would have said creative but she’d counter unrealistic

He would have said hopeful but she’d counter inexpressive
He would have said responsive but she’d counter boring

He would have said kind, gentle but she’d counter too serious
He would have said frugal but she’d counter tight-fisted or fiscally irresponsible

He would have said financially marginal
but she would have countered too willing to pay full price

Now, for her side of the dialogue?

Aspiring novelists, good luck

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This is the month many aspiring writers sit down and try to complete a draft of a novel before December sets in. For perspective, here are ten points as inspiration

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.” ― Dorothy Parker

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.” – Elmore Leonard

“Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.” – Meg Rosoff

“I just give myself permission to suck. I delete about 90 percent of my first drafts, so it doesn’t really matter much if on a particular day I write beautiful and brilliant prose that will stick in the minds of my readers forever, because there’s a 90 percent chance I’m just going to delete whatever I write anyway. I find this hugely liberating.” – John Green

“Anyone who says writing is easy isn’t doing it right.” – Amy Joy

“You fail only if you stop writing.” – Ray Bradbury

“Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” – Annie Dillard

“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” – Isaac Asimov

“I taught my brother everything he needs to know about writing.” – Stan Asimov

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” – Frank Herbert

Show some sympathy for those poor, lowly paid beleaguered clerks

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

They’re probably not to blame. Look, they’re usually struggling figures who all too often have to face self-entitled a-holes at the checkout counter or their equally crushed managers overhead. Here are a few things they’d love to tell you or maybe the offender before you or even their bosses.

Yes, here’s what they’d really love to say.

  1. “Let’s trade places. I’ll be the rude one, and you try to stay patient.”
  2. “If only our coffee was as strong as your attitude!”
  3. “Your tone is getting a price tag.”
  4. “Customers like you really test our ‘service with a smile’ policy.”
  5. “Your points would be more valid if they were less veiled in rudeness.”
  6. “We’re here to serve, not to be served attitude.”
  7. “Your words are as sweet as a lemon. Sarcasm intended.”
  8. “We promise fast service, not a tolerance for fast insults.”
  9. “You’ve mistaken my patience for a dumping ground.”
  10. “Have a nice day, somewhere else.”

While we’re at it, let’s go for a second round.

  1. “I appreciate your perspective, but rudeness is an extra charge we didn’t agree upon.”
  2. “Your impatience is understandable. Is it as urgent as your need for a manners refresher?”
  3. “Don’t worry, we charge by the item, not by the attitude.”
  4. “The ‘customer is always right’ policy doesn’t cover personal attacks. Please read the fine print.”
  5. “Did you mistake this conversation for an auction? Because you’re really bidding high on rudeness.”
  6. “We provide services, not psychic readings. Kindly state your problem, not your tantrum.”
  7. “Our products come with a warranty, but our tolerance for rudeness does not.”
  8. “Patience is a virtue, but it seems your cart is empty.”
  9. “The complaint box is for suggestions, not character assassinations.”
  10. “In our store, ‘sale’ applies to items, not civility.”

Or even a third.

  1. “We value customer feedback, but your rudeness is more of a monologue than a dialogue.”
  2. “Our goal is customer satisfaction, not ego inflation.”
  3. “Let me put you back into the waiting line.” However many hours that means.
  4. “Our service may be fast, but ‘instant respect’ isn’t on our menu.”
  5. “Our prices are competitive, but our patience isn’t limitless.”
  6. “We accept all major credit cards, but we don’t accept rudeness.”
  7. “This is a business, not a battlefield. Let’s keep the conversation civil.”
  8. “This is a store, not a stage. Kindly lower the drama.”
  9. Merry Christmas to you, too. And a *** New Year.
  10. Expletives deleted.

To see where you live, just listen to an artist

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I very much feel the vibrations of particular places, to the point that they become unacknowledged characters in my fiction and poetry. I know I’m not alone, even among writers.

Visual artists are also engaged in observing closely and progressing beyond, if they may. Some are not shy about acknowledging their insights, either.

For a few examples, let’s start by turning to Jamie Wyeth’s commenting about Mohegan Island and then venture from there.

  1. “You look at most paintings of gulls and they look like doves. If you really look at a gull, it is a beautiful bird, but it is a scavenger. It’s a mean, tough bird. To me they’re the sea more than anything else. The eye of a gull, you could paint a million seascapes and you don’t get the same sense of those eyes looking at you. They’re reptilian really.” Where I live, gulls are inescapable, even when you’d rather they weren’t.
  2. As for living surrounded by water: “Houses on the island are of as much interest as the people. They’re hanging on as tenuously as the people are. Unlike buildings in Pennsylvania which almost grow out of the earth, I always feel that if a big wind comes, everything would be just swept away.” I’ve already posted on this, looking at the town’s gable-style Capes. No wonder I tremble under a heavy wind, as I did in March so long ago in Ohio!
  3. “The danger with Maine is that it is so anecdotal and emblematic in terms of pretty houses, pretty lobster traps — ‘quaint’ things. Maine is not that way. Maine has a lot of edge, a lot of angst.”
  4. On blue sea glass: “Maine people must have drunk an inordinate amount of Milk of Magnesia.” I don’t think we need to go there.
  5. Taos Pueblo/Dine illustrator and designer Margeaux Abeyta also delivers some specifics: “I can’t count the times my father and I would take the long drive from Santa Fe to Gallup just for mutton sandwiches. … Every now and then we’d come across a perfect sky – a deep cobalt blue with rays of cerulean and clouds growing ever toward us as we drove under their long-cast shadows. They moved with one another in an effort to graze the land. Months later, I would recall our drive, lined on the canvas walls of his messy studio. He had documented that very day, an immortalized memory. Looking at across the room at half-finished canvases filled with underbrush of color, I saw the manifestations of a life lived. In this way, it became his own, his way to have a discourse with the world. Tracing back each part of himself, conversations and feelings embedded into each stroke, his very world as he dreamed it.” I must admit getting goosebumps just transcribing that rich passage. But she has more:
  6. “When my grandmother would take me chokecherry picking deep in the shaded paths, we would lift the bottoms of our blouses to hold the berries, staining the cotton with maroon impressions. While hauling home our treasures, she told stories of her own childhood. When she and her friends would walk the same trails only to be met by an old brown bear, quickly they ran, as gems of red fell from their hands, rolling down the hill behind them. I would look back into that shaded path where berries grew and feel the immense power of this strange world. Falling back beside my grandmother, I knew I was safe in this place she called home.” I am awed by how much deep memories of color inflect emotions here. The red could as easily be blood.
  7. Now for Alex Katz on his work done in New York City and Maine: “My paintings take all kinds of light. I’ve done a lot of night paintings, and twilight, and morning paintings. I think when people paint the same light all the time, it gets a little monotonous.” Do you ever think about the light where you live? Or the ways it inflects the colors your life?
  8. British painter Clare Thatcher returns to that connection of color to emotion: “I select a palette I have felt when at the location. My line drawings in charcoal or pencil suggest color to me. I aim to capture the mood and sensation that transports me back there.” What are the colors of where you’re living?
  9. For a bit of historical dimension, we have French master of the au plein Jean-Baptist Camille Corot: “I am struck upon seeing a certain place. While I strive for conscientious imitation, I yet never for an instant lose the emotion that has taken hold of me.” That points us back to the vibe.
  10. Nick Bantock, meanwhile, looks at another kind of color: “Art is like therapy; what comes up is what comes up. It may be dark, but that’s what comes up. You may want to keep some of it in a drawer … but never judge it.

Well, I am trying to think of what would have been representative of my native Ohio or neighboring Indiana as well as what would have emotionally internalized as a result. I’ve been much more aware in my moves since, as a poet and as a novelist.

As Aristotle said, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” And also, Edward Hopper’s, “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” Or, for me, to write.

Culture – yes, the word

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When I was growing up, it meant something of a Mount Olympus quality.

Not some kind of norm but an aspiration – a better person and society in the end.

Back before the very culture clash between the two concepts.

Now we add to that the concept of supremacy, not just white but European. Or perhaps, grudgingly, Chinese.

The question remains: How do we encourage excellence?

And what do we name it?

A thought while assembling Tendrils

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Once upon a time, meaning not all that long ago, trying to track down ten more or less related facts impinging upon a particular topic would have required a very tedious amount of time in a library. Or may some more remote back office or agency, wherever.

Instead, thanks to the Internet, the list can be cobbled together within a few hours on a laptop.

It can seem like cheating or at least borderline plagiarism.

No guaranties on accuracy, either.

Popcorn goes way back in antiquity

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Last year I presented a Double Tendrils about the popular and seemingly ubiquitous snack of popcorn. Quite simply, it’s not just for watching movies. And around this time of year, we start eating more. Not only that, but it turns out to be a uniquely American contribution to the world’s cuisine.

The topic simply overflowed so much that we didn’t have room for tidbits about its deep history.

So here goes with ten related factoids that pop up on that front.

  1. Try to think of a more purely American food than popcorn. Whether salted or buttered at a movie theatre, or as kettle corn at a county fair or a caramel popcorn ball come the holidays, we hoover it up, even when we’re not watching movies, OK?
  2. Look, archeologists have found traces of popcorn in 1,000-year-old Peruvian tombs. But it goes back way even earlier.
  3. The first use of wild and then cultivated corn points for now to the Bat Cave of west central New Mexico in 1948. Ranging from smaller than a penny to about two inches, those ears are about 5,600 years old, older than Adam and Eve, for anyone counting.
  4. In tombs on the east coast of Peru, researchers have found grains of popcorn perhaps 1,000 years old. These grains have been so well-preserved that they will still pop.
  5. Popcorn was integral to early 16th century Aztec ceremonies. As Bernardino de Sahagun observed, “And also a number of young women danced, having so vowed, a popcorn dance. As thick as tassels of maize were their popcorn garlands. And these they placed upon (the girls’) heads.” In 1519, Cortes got his first sight of popcorn when he invaded Mexico and came into contact with the Aztecs. Popcorn was an important food for the Aztec natives, who also used popcorn as decoration for ceremonial headdresses, necklaces and ornaments on statues of their gods, including Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility.
  6. An early Spanish account of a ceremony honoring the Aztec gods who watched over fishermen reads: “They scattered before him parched corn, called momochitl, a kind of corn which bursts when parched and discloses its contents and makes itself look like a very white flower; they said these were hailstones given to the god of water.”
  7. Writing of Peruvian natives in 1650, the Spaniard Cobo said, “They toast a certain kind of corn until it bursts. They call it pisancalla, and they use it as a confection.”
  8. Kernels of popcorn found in burial grounds in the coastal deserts of north Chile were so well preserved they would still pop even though they were 1,000 years old. Likewise, in southwestern Utah, a 1,000-year-old popped kernel of popcorn was found in a dry cave inhabited by predecessors of the Pueblos.
  9. Indigenous Iroquois people in North America were documented popping corn kernels in heated pottery jars near the Great Lakes region in the 1600s.
  10. The first patent for a microwave popcorn bag was issued to General Mills in 1981, and home popcorn consumption increased by tens of thousands of pounds in the years following.