She knows I love white chocolate. And it does remind us of the pet rabbits who’ve graced our home and often nibbled away at it.
Tag: Traditions
Some things ‘Quaking Dover’ has in common with my novels
Not that I really noticed the parallels until now.
- Counterculture is central, leading to an awareness of an underground community or at least kindred spirits.
- Both have meant learning to write differently than my neutral third-person journalism. Emotion, for instance, over fact, is the rule in the fiction. And the history opened a similar vein as creative nonfiction.
- The role of a narrator in both. In the history, that meant developing the gently laughing curmudgeon as he pored over historical data. In four of the hippie novels, it was the snarky daughter reviewing her late daddy’s hippie experiences.
- Both veins are self-published, falling under the shadow of being “not commercially viable” by publishing houses. That places an additional burden on the author.
- Marketing is a huge challenge. Apart from Subway Visions, none of my stories take place in a big city or address a big audience. How many hippie novels can you name, anyway. As for Quakers?
- Spirituality and religion run through all of them. In the novels, it’s often yoga, though Hometown News runs up against a puzzling array of churches. In Quaking Dover, though, it’s often the clash between the upstart Friends and what I first saw as rigid Puritans before both traditions begin to, uh, mellow.
- There’s a strong sense of place, even if these locations are far from the mass-media spotlight.
- I go for the big picture. I really would like to have a simple book – something, as Steven King advises, having only one big idea – but that’s not how my mind works.
- They’ve all undergone deep revision. Much of the fiction actually got new titles and new characters after their original publication.
- They were all labors of love.
And festive music rolls on
Construction by Rachel A. Wllliams.
Sleigh bells passed down
These belonged to the wonder horse Prince, who appears in my genealogical blog Orphan George. As a figure in our family, he was owned by my grandfather, who picked him up from two older brothers in succession. And now they’re going on to my daughters. Bet they cost a pretty penny, back in the day.
Missing my ‘tinis …
We’re well into the annual Nativity Fast now, and that means going without alcohol.
I’m not bound by Greek Orthodox discipline, even though one year we did try to follow the Advent diet, which is largely vegan. It will be a while before we do that again, admirable as it is.
For me, the big challenge is in admitting just how much I enjoy martinis. Very dry, gin, with an olive. Some fellow Quakers would definitely look askance at me on that count, though I did have a good Friend who was a definite exception.
Alas, he passed over before I ever got to sample one of his legendary concoctions.
Growing up in a teetotaling household does throw a curve on my outlook. I’m repressed enough as a result, even after hippie liberation. But then came the yoga, which frowned on both meat and alcohol even before any tipsiness.
More recently, here on Moose Island, I’ve found myself indulging come late morning rather than closer to bedtime. OK, I’m usually up and working on the keyboard before sunrise, too, so there are some adjustments in the daily schedule, especially when I get an afternoon nap in.
So, to keep me in control of my imbibing, rather than the other way around, I haven’t touched a drop since November 16, apart from a glass of Cotes du Rhone on Thanksgiving, a nod to the Orthodox relaxations on designated feast days.
Drinking is, after all, something that can become habitual, and there are good reasons to break certain habits or to strengthen one’s self-discipline.
But still, I am counting those days till Christmas.
Cheers!
In all of the holiday festivities
In the colonial era, neither the Congregationalists/Puritans at First Parish nor the Quakers/Friends observed Christmas.
So much for singing festive carols or decorating a tree.
The Friends didn’t sing at all, actually, unless it was somehow spontaneous.
At First Parish, meanwhile, a bass viol was introduced in the 1700s to accompany the hymns.
That gave way in 1829 to an organ built by Bostonian William M. Goodrich. In 1878, the instrument was rebuilt and repositioned by Hutchings-Plaisted of Boston, with alterations in subsequent years.
In 1995, a thoroughly revised instrument was unveiled, the work of Biddeford, Maine, Faucher Organ company. A hybrid of the original pipes and of newer electronic and computer elements, it’s a monster machine capable of rattling the house and shaking the bottoms of your feet.
I am glad we simple Quakers don’t have to pay for its routine maintenance, though I am grateful for those who do.
Not bad for holiday festivities, including accompanying a community-wide Messiah sing.
It’s not the only option in town, either. For some, those carols have to wait till the end of Advent, when the Twelve Days begin.
And, for the record, the Greek Orthodox start celebrating Christmas 12 days later.
Back to the precarious nature of scalloping
The crews are out in our deep cold and often nasty winter weather, not just fishing but also shucking before landing their haul. Most of them head out before sunrise, as I hear from my home.
Are they crazy, as some of them contend, or just dumb, as others jest? Even both? It’s more than honest work, no question.
In our zone, boats are limited to a crew of three and a maximum harvest of two buckets of shucked scallops a day. That’s ten gallons, or nine to ten pounds total. Doesn’t look like much for a day’s haul, especially when you factor in paying for their labor, the boat, gear, fuel, insurance, and the fact it’s seasonal and very cold work, even before the regulations that hold draggers to three days a week. Try making a living on a three-day, limited season, income. Good luck!
Officially, ours is a 50-day run spread over four months, but in reality, an earlier cutoff kicks in on short notice to preserve the stock from depletion. In effect, “It’s over, guys,” arrives in the captain’s email, post haste. Last year, that eliminated 17 fishing days, a third of the season. More than an entire month, actually. By dumb luck, my daughter and I were at the docks just in time to stock up a gallon in our freezers.
At least we’re not managing a restaurant.
As this season? We’re holding our proverbial breath. My, those morsels do taste unbelievable.
(Divers have a different schedule, even more limited.)
Think of that when you wonder about the seemingly high price of heavenly shellfish.
Five stars, standing ovations
Too much easy praise? All too common?
What do you do for something that’s REALLY out of this world?
Where’s the base line of excellence?
I’m staying pat in my seat.
Opera fans have their memories, but few are like this
Thinking about arts performance scheduling and audiences has had me recalling some of the first operas I attended.
They were at the Cincinnati Zoo, at the corner of Erkenbrecher and Vine.
Don’t laugh. The performances were top-flight. The Cincinnati Summer Opera, as it was commonly known, was informally considered the summer home of New York’s Met, and it provided seasonal employment for members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
The company had an impressive pavilion on the grounds, and visiting the animals before watching the singers was part of the experience, if you allowed yourself time. I especially remember being amused by the monkey island antics at intermission. And many of the singers, so I’ve read, humorously came to think of themselves as a special kind of animal.
Especially notable was the first time you heard a roving peacock screech. It sounded like somebody was being murdered and could happen at any time during a performance. Veteran singers used to wait to see if newbies could maintain their composure when the cry rang through the theater. In the opera world, this was an inside joke and a rite of passage, at least for those who passed the test.
I’ve been trying to remember how long the season ran, but there were usually four performances a week – one production on Thursday and Saturday, and another on Friday and Sunday, if I have it right. In the late ‘60s, that spanned six to eight weeks, best as I can recall.
Think of that – 12 to 16 different productions each year. Only a few big houses in the world surpass that.
But at its height, there were 18 different offerings over 61 performances in a ten-week season. Where did that many operagoers come from out in Ohio and neighboring Kentucky and Indiana?
The tradition originated in 1920, making the Cincinnati Opera Association the second-oldest opera company in the U.S., and continued until moving into the renovated and air-conditioned Music Hall in 1972, where the season still happens each summer, though on a much different scale.
You seldom know what you’ll find in an old barn
Well, it is the premise of this blog. For the record, a lot of our junk was stored under this floor, though this barn in York, Maine, was never ours.
Jnana's Red Barn 