Tag: Musings

AN ALL-STAR CAST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When I was working with the newspaper syndicate, I got to meet a lot of impressive talent. (That’s how we referred to them, too, as “the talent.”)

The other day I was thinking of a few of them – Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm), Jeff MacNally (Shoe), Dick Locher (Dick Tracy), Doug Marlette (Kudzu) – all of them excellent editorial page cartoonists as well – plus Joe Martin (Mr. Boffo) and Kevin Pope.

For the most part, they were a serious lot. I remember one’s reverential mention of another, “He’s the only cartoonist who makes me laugh out loud” – only to hear, months later, the comment returned without prompting. Like, admiring like, with a twist.

I remember, too, one looking at the work of another and commenting, “This is really funny” – without breaking into the slightest evidence of even a smile.

As I said, a serious lot.

What I also found was that their work was much funnier than what turned up among the others who were more boisterous and comical in person.

~*~

MacNally and Locher were both employed by the Chicago Tribune and enjoyed a warm rapport. MacNally’s studio wrapped around the elevator shaft on the 35th floor of newspaper’s iconic tower and had large windows peering out across the city and into the infinite blue of Lake Michigan as it blended into the sky. How he could ever work in such a suite was beyond me. (The top floor, just above his, was filled with electronic gear. Microwaves and the like.)

Locher’s studio was one floor down, with small diamond windows and a rather Gothic feel. I joked that it was like dwelling in a gargoyle, and he agreed.

As we sat in that space, a coworker noticed two framed certificates and remarked, “That’s all a Pulitzer is? A piece of paper?”

And without missing a beat, MacNally, who had just won his third, chortled. “Yup,” he said quietly. “That’s about it.”

MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE PEOPLE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

G.I. Gurdjieff’s classic Meetings With Remarkable Men begins to look all too bland when I compare his subjects with people I’ve known over the years. Or even when I gaze around the room assembled for Quaker worship on Sunday morning. Admittedly, his travels are remarkable, especially for the time.

But without going into the details, let me say I’ve been blessed. Both men and women, all so remarkable in their compassionate presence.

~*~

Now, whatever happened to that Gurdjieff circle back in Binghamton? The couple who had the ring of benches around one room of their apartment for their own meetings? Back before I found yogis and Quakers and Mennonites and …

A CONSERVATIVES’ PARADOX

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Let me admit to being perplexed by those deep-pocket conservatives who bankroll candidates who squeeze public services in communities throughout the state but, for themselves, choose to live in the most liberal districts – the ones with the highest taxes and top-flight public services. The ones with effete artsy prominence. All the stuff their lackeys publicly deride.

I wish they’d instead practice what they preach. Enjoy the misery they engender or deem fitting for the common folk – beginning with schools, libraries, parks, and health services. The things that make a place civilized and pleasant for all.

Yes, let them practice what they preach. Stay in the stingiest, most self-centered enclaves. Or be exposed and shamed for their duplicity.

A FEW REFLECTIONS ON JURY DUTY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I discovered at the time … coming off two days of jury duty. More emotionally demanding and exhausting than I would have suspected.

Also, more Quaker dimensions, beginning with my use of affirmation, rather than swearing to an oath, as well as listening intently to the quiet minority.

Getting other jury members to open up personal sides was worth it. A heating-and-cooling guy from a far corner of the county was a real hoot: 61, a scarf that made me think he was gay … turned out to be a biker married 31 years. Also thought he’d be the one pushing for not-guilty findings; instead, he was the last one to back off the second conviction and probably swayed the holdouts to go for the conviction on the first.

At lunch: “Maybe I should go over and visit some of my buddies across the street.” The retirement home? “No, they’re too young for that. The House of Corrections.” Mostly failure to meet child support payments. “How are they supposed to pay up if they’re incarcerated?” Good point.

If you’re called, remember. You won’t know what to expect.

HANGING TIGHT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

When I think of essential tools, I’ve already mentioned the wheelbarrow and loppers. We could add the Cuisinart in the kitchen. Well, you get the picture.

But let’s not overlook the hammock.

She protested when she unwrapped the hammock we’d landed for her birthday.

Still, it went to the Smoking Garden, set parallel to the barn. And her resistance wore down, bit by bit, till one afternoon she fell asleep in it. She never, I should add, takes a nap. Ahem.

I’d say a hammock is an important garden tool, or thinking tool, even if it has no handles. You can work out a lot of problems there.

At the moment, it’s in pieces, stored in the top of the barn. Like so much else, waiting for warming and thawing.

WE’LL NAME IT AFTER HER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Certain select artists seem to elicit a universal reaction from the public. It’s meant as a compliment, except that it somehow short-circuits itself. For example, a certain select actress is so good at getting into the character she’s portraying – and getting so far away from the way we know she normally looks or speaks – that audience members find themselves saying, “I can’t believe that’s Meryl Streep!”

We can name others, of course. Dustin Hoffman has long earned similar kudos.

Of course, it is intended as the ultimate accolade for a theatrical professional to be so incredibly flexible and insightful, in contrast to the TV or movie star who plays only himself. Think of John Wayne, for instance, who was always John Wayne, no matter the name he was given in the latest round.

The dilemma, of course, is that Meryl and Dustin are still being viewed through two separate perspectives that keep them from being completely merged into the character. We begin viewing their impeccable technique, then, at the cost of being thoroughly enmeshed in the story that’s unfolding. In effect, we become aware of being voyeurs.

I suspect something similar can occur in any of the arts. Classical music, for instance, is too frequently measured on the technical brilliance of a soloist or ensemble at the expense of the emotional and intellectual content of the work being performed. Add your own names for visual arts, literature, pop music, dance, and so on.

For now, we’ll simply call it the Meryl Streep Syndrome.

And, oh my, how really good she is at it.

Care to name others worthy of consideration?

A PHOTOS FOOTNOTE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Playing with my entry-level Kodak digital camera, I’ll have to admit, has been a lot of fun. And I hope you’ve been enjoying the results I keep posting here at the Barn.

But I’d never consider myself a photographer, especially after working with some of the best in the news business. After watching them cope with so many of the nuances of light- and shutter-speed adjustments in the days of negatives and film-processing, I can’t shake the awareness that this digital stuff is just too easy. (Well, I’ve written about feeling the same way about desktop publishing in comparison to the old Linotype craftsmanship back I started my journalism career.)

Yes, the real photographers today are still meticulous about getting everything right. They use tripods, slow-speed exposure, lens adjustments for depth and focus, and so much more. Whether to Photoshop an image later is a whole other discussion.

Maybe it’s in homage to their high standards that I’ve chosen (with rare exceptions) to compose or crop my pictures in the camera itself, using only the 5x zoom. Yes, sometimes the camera “sees” quite differently than I do at the time – color and light, especially, but I’ve chosen to stick with that rather than trying to “correct” it later. Art and crafts, after all, function best within limitations. Yes, too, my work is taken “on the fly,” rather than waiting hours for perfect conditions, the way a real photographer would do.

The bottom line? I’m getting fond of the funky results, even if some of the work of my former colleagues is so incredibly exquisite it often brings tears to my eyes. Never, ever, forget the gap between what they’re doing and what the rest of us are attempting with our cellphones and cameras these days.

~*~

Now, for an update: Our latest round of Christmas gifts brought me a new camera, a huge improvement, I must add, and one my elder daughter, in giving it a test run, almost didn’t return. I’ll admit, the Olympus is a lot of fun, even as I’m just starting to play with it.

But I must also confess, it still doesn’t change my perspective on the Real Photographers and the rest of us. Humility, then, in the face of brilliance.

ROADSIDE RECIPE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Originally it was three lines, but this is what I read:

Now hiring fried clam strips chicken tenders.

(Well, I always wondered about their scallops. But now we know who tenders those chickens. Or is it strips those clams?)

Yes, this definitely puts chicken tenders in a new category.

TRAIL MARKERS AND FIELD GUIDE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

As I noted at the time …

It remains work, except for that sense, in the practice of the art, of being alive. Aware. Totally there, at times. A balance, between inspiration breath within and exhalation the atmosphere without.

Yes, it would be wonderful if we were all so spiritually deep that pure worship and our daily work of gardening and cutting firewood would be sufficient. But from experience, we can see that too often what resulted from enforced exclusion of color and imagination from our lives leads, over time, to extinguishing personality our gifts, as a group, are diminished and rather than loving delight, a bitter boredom sets in bringing with it, the backbiting profits of Satan. Which brings us full circle!

I believe we are expected to bring something back to the world from our solitude. Expected to be visionaries and priests. But not, as some would claim, shaman not unless we want to stake our life on the healing power of the individual work. Perhaps, as was recognized in Zen some time ago, when we start writing and singing and painting from this experience, the spiritual movement is already past its zenith. Nonetheless we also know the power of the Zen-suffused works of painting, poetry, pottery, architecture, tea ceremony, various martial arts.

Tantra: as means of going deeper. Concentration. Vibrations. Here the importance of the work of art is not the surface itself but what it triggers within the psyche of the viewer. That is, the canvas we Westerners revere is not so important mere surface of paint. The reverberation within the viewer is, ultimately, the point of value. (All that the viewer brings to the work, or the use of religious icons in the Eastern Orthodox traditions.)

Art as discipline. Self-discipline. Form. Submission/obedience. Never ending practice.

Stravinsky’s “limitations make art.” Heifitz’s love of movies yet no time to attend.

Solitude. Prophecy. Communion. Community. Vision. Hard labor.

Magnetic center point of growth.

Simplicity/direction versus art/artifice.

A separate life, our art? Or integrated?

Having something to say to express. Versus blue smoke and mirrors. Spiritual man has no need to be clever. Distrust of tricks. (Difference between craftsmanship and trickster?) Rather, to stand naked. Irony? Sarcasm? Or loving concern for the good of all? Celebration! Creation/creating. Versus discovery. Contrived versus organic. Maybe everything is different when played on a blue guitar. Not at all!

Exploring the Mystery. Connections. Links.

Here I am, writing (a) fiction about (b) sex and drugs and other aspects of searching. Also, (c) poetry from my pre-Christian experience. Some of my fellowship would argue that’s not where I should be. Some have been praying for me through this period. The kind of work that could get me read out of Meeting. Is this acceptable activity for a free Gospel minister? All I can do is explore the Truth as it’s been given to me.

How, then, turning outward into community or the world? To be candid, including the desire to get laid, the poet’s quest, the troubadour. Yet most of us, as “artists,” are out of touch with our communities. This is a manifold argument, too complex and heated to explore here, except to say.

Perhaps we really do need to be actively intertwined with our community to write well. Not necessarily a community of fellow artists, either. Rather, an intimate fellowship. Speak honestly, critically. Now look at the faces on the magazine covers or workshop brochures. How few look like people you’d like to meet! How much anger, hatred, envy, darkness brooding comes through. How little serenity, how little joy. (Would I want any of them for neighbors? Even the ones whose work I admire?)

Yet through the act of writing, I’m also more aware of qualities in other workers. Interesting. One measure of admiration is seeing something in someone’s work and recognizing a quality I wish I had but know I don’t. So I read that with gratitude and admiration rather than jealousy. Fellow workers in the fields.

Think of the spontaneous and to our “trained” ears, trite verse composed and uttered at Ohio Yearly Meeting, that when shared received an immediate reaction: “I would like to see that included in the published Minutes” and it was, because it expressed a communal feeling.

In the ancient Shah’s court, the poet stood at one end, and the jester, at the other. When one moved, performed, the other remained absolutely motionless: the unspoken balance.

BALDING IN THE BACKGROUND

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

As I said at the time …

And you think I’ve raised a lot of questions already? Just wait till I begin pondering my wife! I’d start there, if I thought I could make any sense of it without all of the previous history and experiences, good and not so good. Yes, she and I both believe it would have been much better if we’d met, say, 12 years earlier … We would have been younger and more flexible, in many ways, than we were when our lives enmeshed. Or did I mention there are many parts of this getting older I just don’t like, all in addition to balding? She’s a most remarkable woman, incredibly talented and frustrating, highly opinionated and conflicted, too. We’ll just have to see where this all goes, especially in the transitions we see coming ahead.

Enough! What I am simply trying to do here is look under or around the all-too-often light give-and-take you and I have enjoyed and known, this time to more clearly see and identify the “differences” you so early noted while I so blithely remained ignorant or in denial. Through everything, though, you remain very special, mysterious, and yes, magical, in my life.

After all of this, for the record, it’s not snowing here – yet. And I’m off to the office, again.

As one funeral director ended our call on a night when I was the obituary editor a few months ago, “Stay well” – or better yet, as I’d add, “Stay faithful to all you are and believe.”

Fondly and ever gratefully yours.