Read The Devil's Mode, an unusual book of short stories - and one novella called "Hun" that takes us inside the tent and mind of the dreaded Attila (which means "little brother," being the diminutive of Atta, hmm) - that could only come from the slightly crazed pen of Anthony Burgess. Read it now. If you dare.
Travel with Edward Burbage, Will Shakspere, and other players to the Spanish court in the years, post-Armada, when rough and ready Englishmen were not terribly popular in Spain. See them scorned for their crude table manners and ignorance of literature. Observe the venerable Cervantes reluctantly receiving them, only to have them eat with the wrong fork and say things like, "Novel, what's a novel?"
Then read The Pianoplayers, a singularly intoxicating and sobering novel about a young girl and her musician father surviving by their wits in the hurly-burly streets of early-twentieth-century England. "She was a working girl, Northern England way, now she's hit the big time..." The characters are well-wrought, the dialog is saucy and sharp, and the narrator is one smart young lady. [Side note: the author is a leg man.]
Monday, July 31, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
spatio-temporal disconnect on the astral plane
Last night I had a dream,
You were in it, and I was in it with you.
Everyone I know and everyone you know was in my dream.
Started out in a barnyard with the sun down,
Everyone was laughing, and you were lying on the ground,
You said honey can you tell me what your name is,
Honey can you tell me what your name is,
I said you know what my name is.
- Randy Newman, "In My Dream"
I'm in Ann Arbor, visiting old friends at someone's house I guess, people I've seen maybe twice in the 30 years since we were all at the University of Michigan. Three of us - Dave and Mark and I - are making arrangements to meet at a restaurant, some campus hangout we're all familiar with, but we're all going separately for logistical reasons - driving, walking, timing, parking, whatever. I start out walking, knowing how to get there, but halfway there, the streets and buildings morphed into something else that looked different from what I remembered. Crossing a particular street, (State Street or South University?), I came to a divided stairway that was new (or new to me), so I just kept walking forward and to the left, along with the crowd of pedestrians, mostly younger. It was kind of like a subway entrance in New York, with steel handrails and lots of people hurrying to get where they're going, but they know their way, while I'm not in such a hurry but don't know the way. Finally I get to the restaurant - at least I think it's the right one - but it looks like a different place, maybe just dramatically remodeled - and looks strange, unfamiliar, disturbingly new. Did I go to the wrong place? Did I go to the right place, but it has changed? Where are Dave and Mark? I find a seat and decide to wait.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Chicks Rock!
I had never been to a concert at the Schottenstein Center before. Hell, I had never been to a ballgame there either, delinquent alumnus that I am. And I'm not a fan of the Dixie Chicks, so I didn't know what to expect from their concert in the big arena.
It was, like the Grand Canyon is rumored to be, quite large.
Here's the back-story: Gven Golly's longtime student Tom showed up in class Sunday morning bearing gifts - two tickets to the concert he couldn't go to. Gven and her sisters (not to mention her friends, her sisters' friends, and her friends' sisters, etc.) have been fans of the Chicks since long before the notorious Bush statement, so she gladly accepted the tickets. I figured what the heck, so we had a date.
We walked the length of the big parking lot, past other big athletic-complex buildings, to the big arena and got a good look at the big, girly crowd. We found our seats (on the Huntington Level, whatever that means, never mind, I know what it means, it's a corporate university) and settled in with a salty pretzel and a Coke.
The crowd was raucous - in a middle-class, midwestern, girly way - but what do I know (I'll tell you) not much. The acoustics were bad, and the video was worse. Note to engineer: when the fiddle player has a solo, don't project an image of the banjo player watching her; when the banjo player has a solo, don't show the singer complaining to the sound man. That said...
They rocked the place. Tell you what, that Natalie Maines can sing. Leather dress and all, the girl looks tough, commands the stage, and uses her big voice to full effect without over-playing her hand. The banjo player, Emily Robison, with the long dark hair and the long legs, played well and contributed harmony vocals and a smiling, chiseled face to complement Maines' impish scowl. The fiddler, Marty McGuire, holds up her end too, with fine instrumentals and a pretty smiling face on her end of the stage. They make a fine bluegrass trio and thankfully have not devolved into "Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks." At least not yet. With the 8-piece band, driven by a little too much drums and bass, they hold their own as a country-rock act. But what do I know (I'll tell you) not much.
Yet it was the crowd that really rocked. Bad sound, unintelligible lyrics, random visuals, and all, those people loved what they heard, and they showed it. It must have been cool for the musicians to hear 10,000 women singing "Wide Open Spaces" back at them.
It was, like the Grand Canyon is rumored to be, quite large.
Here's the back-story: Gven Golly's longtime student Tom showed up in class Sunday morning bearing gifts - two tickets to the concert he couldn't go to. Gven and her sisters (not to mention her friends, her sisters' friends, and her friends' sisters, etc.) have been fans of the Chicks since long before the notorious Bush statement, so she gladly accepted the tickets. I figured what the heck, so we had a date.
We walked the length of the big parking lot, past other big athletic-complex buildings, to the big arena and got a good look at the big, girly crowd. We found our seats (on the Huntington Level, whatever that means, never mind, I know what it means, it's a corporate university) and settled in with a salty pretzel and a Coke.
The crowd was raucous - in a middle-class, midwestern, girly way - but what do I know (I'll tell you) not much. The acoustics were bad, and the video was worse. Note to engineer: when the fiddle player has a solo, don't project an image of the banjo player watching her; when the banjo player has a solo, don't show the singer complaining to the sound man. That said...
They rocked the place. Tell you what, that Natalie Maines can sing. Leather dress and all, the girl looks tough, commands the stage, and uses her big voice to full effect without over-playing her hand. The banjo player, Emily Robison, with the long dark hair and the long legs, played well and contributed harmony vocals and a smiling, chiseled face to complement Maines' impish scowl. The fiddler, Marty McGuire, holds up her end too, with fine instrumentals and a pretty smiling face on her end of the stage. They make a fine bluegrass trio and thankfully have not devolved into "Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks." At least not yet. With the 8-piece band, driven by a little too much drums and bass, they hold their own as a country-rock act. But what do I know (I'll tell you) not much.
Yet it was the crowd that really rocked. Bad sound, unintelligible lyrics, random visuals, and all, those people loved what they heard, and they showed it. It must have been cool for the musicians to hear 10,000 women singing "Wide Open Spaces" back at them.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
memory kite
A very peculiar dream crystalized in my consciousness last night, so let me try to gather the threads of memory and put it into words. My friend Bob says externalizing it brings understanding. We'll see about that.
My co-worker Flipper is putting together a large structure made of paper and string that looks like a giant kite. Or a kind of flat, car-shaped collage made up of newspaper clippings, book pages, and other memorabilia stitched together on a wood frame. I am drawn to it and curious about its purpose and design. Flipper explains that by carefully placing each sheet of paper and attaching it with thread, she can connect past events with the present situation so that both make sense. I'm impressed and even more drawn to the construction. If this is true, the past is not lost and the present is not without context and structure. I look closer to see how the individual pieces are attached, and I see that the whole work is not flat but also has thickness, depth, three-dimensionality. But will it fly?
Whoa. Doctor.
My co-worker Flipper is putting together a large structure made of paper and string that looks like a giant kite. Or a kind of flat, car-shaped collage made up of newspaper clippings, book pages, and other memorabilia stitched together on a wood frame. I am drawn to it and curious about its purpose and design. Flipper explains that by carefully placing each sheet of paper and attaching it with thread, she can connect past events with the present situation so that both make sense. I'm impressed and even more drawn to the construction. If this is true, the past is not lost and the present is not without context and structure. I look closer to see how the individual pieces are attached, and I see that the whole work is not flat but also has thickness, depth, three-dimensionality. But will it fly?
Whoa. Doctor.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Hostas Riot!
Run for your lives! They're out of control. They are running amok. They're taking over the yard. Beware, those who dare to enter by the back gate. The hostas are in bloom and nothing can stop them.
I kid you not. Some of them are 4-5 feet tall and reaching across the brick walkway. Those cute little asparagus-like shoots are now wide open and bright purple. Later in the season, when their midsummer frenzy has passed and it is safe once again to venture into the northeast corner of the yard, measures will be taken to thin the herd. I have a nice spot picked out for a dozen emigrant hostas, a weedy patch of lawn in front of some pine trees, where I think they will thrive. For now, it is advisable to remain calm, stand back, and behold the power of the hostas.
It must be a sign of high summer. The heat, the humidity, the hazy sky, the scattered thunderstorms. The neighbor to the south mowing the lawn at 8 in the morning, the neighbor to the north playing cornhole til 10 at night. Daylilies dancing at all hours, coneflowers congregating along the back fence, wildflowers running - wild!
I can see the strawberries sending out runners, too, so I'll have to thin them and use the transplants to colonize the bed next door. The beans have climbed to the top of the tripod of poles, and their little white flowers are turning into little finger-sized green beans, yum. Something had been chewing on the bean leaves, and then I saw several pairs of Japanese beetles making out in the morning. Coitus interruptus, I flicked them off to save the bean plants. I reckon they will mate somewhere else. Tis the season.
Let the harvest begin: I picked the first batch of Hungarian peppers, enough to fill a frisbee.
I kid you not. Some of them are 4-5 feet tall and reaching across the brick walkway. Those cute little asparagus-like shoots are now wide open and bright purple. Later in the season, when their midsummer frenzy has passed and it is safe once again to venture into the northeast corner of the yard, measures will be taken to thin the herd. I have a nice spot picked out for a dozen emigrant hostas, a weedy patch of lawn in front of some pine trees, where I think they will thrive. For now, it is advisable to remain calm, stand back, and behold the power of the hostas.
It must be a sign of high summer. The heat, the humidity, the hazy sky, the scattered thunderstorms. The neighbor to the south mowing the lawn at 8 in the morning, the neighbor to the north playing cornhole til 10 at night. Daylilies dancing at all hours, coneflowers congregating along the back fence, wildflowers running - wild!
I can see the strawberries sending out runners, too, so I'll have to thin them and use the transplants to colonize the bed next door. The beans have climbed to the top of the tripod of poles, and their little white flowers are turning into little finger-sized green beans, yum. Something had been chewing on the bean leaves, and then I saw several pairs of Japanese beetles making out in the morning. Coitus interruptus, I flicked them off to save the bean plants. I reckon they will mate somewhere else. Tis the season.
Let the harvest begin: I picked the first batch of Hungarian peppers, enough to fill a frisbee.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Jaws of Life
The James McMurtry CD I've been listening to repeatedly - while unpacking, sorting, and shelving books in the office/workshop, as the finite hours of my finite life go by - has a bunch of well-crafted, reflective songs and one or two real knockouts. Is it a coincidence that the best songs grapple with ghosts of the past, missed opportunities, and flat-out mistakes? Sure.
The record is called "It had to happen," and maybe that's McMurtry's conclusion in coming to terms with years of lugging around his own personal baggage. And there's a lot to be said for accepting what can't be changed. I'm not so sure myself. In his own words, "I keep my distance the best I can, living out my time here in Never-neverland, I can't grow up, cause I'm too old now" (Peter Pan). That I can relate to - one of those great lines that even a competent writer can hang an entire song on. And he's more than competent.
Another line from another song (Stancliff's Lament) that gets me: "It's behind you, it's behind you, the worst was over long ago." Leafing through the refuse of my academic and occupational past and the textual evidence thereof, it's a relief to weed out the excess and recycle it, put the keepers away in a file drawer, lighter by about two-thirds, knowing I don't have to go through it again. But I have to ask: if the worst is over, is the best over too? (My good buddy Bob used to quote Dickens when we were helping each other survive graduate school: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.")
There's a perverse kind of pleasure in going through all those old class rosters, meeting minutes, grade sheets, syllabi, outlines, keeping the papers and tossing the notes. I strangely enjoy unpacking boxes of books and finding shelf space to put them in some kind of order. Zelda stopped by last night and asked what my system was: fiction here, nonfiction there, one shelf for art, one for education, one for sport, one for history, two for philosophy, a long row of smaller paperbacks, two shelves of children's books. There must be a librarian gene somewhere in this family. I won't alphabetize or catalog, but it is reassuring to look up and see like items together.
I guess this is where I take note that Gven and I have known each other for 30 years. The anniversary of our first meeting came and went two weeks ago; that's what the fireworks were all about the weekend of the Fourth. Do the math: we first laid eyes on each other the weekend of the bicentennial, and nothing has been the same since. One tends to look back - and forward - at times like this, and if one is a complete fool and a glutton for punishment, one tends to rethink some of the crucial decisions one has made and assess the damage.
We've had a great adventure that so far only gains texture and depth as it continues. The callow youth that ran into the bright-eyed redhead in Atlanta in 1976 has had time to mature since that fateful day - but decided against it. Some powerful forces were at work and still are, so like McMurtry's last and best song (Jaws of Life), "It makes no difference what you thought or who you are, you still get caught in the jaws of life."
The record is called "It had to happen," and maybe that's McMurtry's conclusion in coming to terms with years of lugging around his own personal baggage. And there's a lot to be said for accepting what can't be changed. I'm not so sure myself. In his own words, "I keep my distance the best I can, living out my time here in Never-neverland, I can't grow up, cause I'm too old now" (Peter Pan). That I can relate to - one of those great lines that even a competent writer can hang an entire song on. And he's more than competent.
Another line from another song (Stancliff's Lament) that gets me: "It's behind you, it's behind you, the worst was over long ago." Leafing through the refuse of my academic and occupational past and the textual evidence thereof, it's a relief to weed out the excess and recycle it, put the keepers away in a file drawer, lighter by about two-thirds, knowing I don't have to go through it again. But I have to ask: if the worst is over, is the best over too? (My good buddy Bob used to quote Dickens when we were helping each other survive graduate school: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.")
There's a perverse kind of pleasure in going through all those old class rosters, meeting minutes, grade sheets, syllabi, outlines, keeping the papers and tossing the notes. I strangely enjoy unpacking boxes of books and finding shelf space to put them in some kind of order. Zelda stopped by last night and asked what my system was: fiction here, nonfiction there, one shelf for art, one for education, one for sport, one for history, two for philosophy, a long row of smaller paperbacks, two shelves of children's books. There must be a librarian gene somewhere in this family. I won't alphabetize or catalog, but it is reassuring to look up and see like items together.
I guess this is where I take note that Gven and I have known each other for 30 years. The anniversary of our first meeting came and went two weeks ago; that's what the fireworks were all about the weekend of the Fourth. Do the math: we first laid eyes on each other the weekend of the bicentennial, and nothing has been the same since. One tends to look back - and forward - at times like this, and if one is a complete fool and a glutton for punishment, one tends to rethink some of the crucial decisions one has made and assess the damage.
We've had a great adventure that so far only gains texture and depth as it continues. The callow youth that ran into the bright-eyed redhead in Atlanta in 1976 has had time to mature since that fateful day - but decided against it. Some powerful forces were at work and still are, so like McMurtry's last and best song (Jaws of Life), "It makes no difference what you thought or who you are, you still get caught in the jaws of life."
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Roadtrippy
More musings on the theme of moving from place to place on the planet by one means or another. I just checked my site meter, which could be lying or could truly show that someone in Rapid City, Rancho Cordova, Richmond Hill, Ansonia, Augsburg, Pretoria, Pomona, Portland, Petaling Jaya, Sofia, Skvde, San Diego, Brasilia, Buffalo, and the Bronx has recently visited this site. Those are all "real" places, physical locations in space as we know it, whereas this site is a place in a different sense, an electronic or virtual place, and where this line of thought is going I'm not too sure, except that it's neat to be able to go all those places without really, like going there.
Rhetorical pause.
Holy shit, I'm "in" Boston (on BostonPete.com) listening to a smooth jazz station that's playing a duet by Joe Cocker and Al Jarreau, whom I wouldn't have put together but it works, a couple of old dudes from different parts of the pop spectrum whose voices have morphed a bit over the years but are still doing what they do well, which is turn a song over and around and inside-out, in this case a song called "Lost and Found" about being in the wrong place at the right time, which fits the theme, doesn't it, so it wasn't a digression after all. I can't believe I'm listening to this stuff, and you know what, it isn't bad.
End of seemingly spontaneous segue. Beginning of saga.
The Return of Zelda
Part One: Intern Out
Last week my smart and hard-working daughter went to Georgia with her friend Zanna for a couple of family visits and some independent adventures. What is life for, but going away and coming back, being out on your own and then returning to re-establish contact. Her new car performed well; they got to see Aunt JoJo's new condo in Atlanta, hang out with cousin Bubba, and eat at an interesting Thai restaurant. Then they went to see Gven's mother in north Georgia and spend some quality time with the cousins. Lots of time to listen to Nanny's stories about this and that.
And the other thing.
Now she is back in central Swingstate, working away at her computer in her cube on the second floor of a big office building in America, learning about the use of images in the publishing business, art, history, geography.
A friend shared more tales of Iceland. Another friend just put his daughter on a plane for Tomsk (not far from Omsk) for the summer, and is on his way to New York for his son's wedding. Another friend from the same circle just sent his new e-mail and postal addresses from his new home north of Seattle. A co-worker is making arrangements to go to her niece's opening at a gallery in Chicago. Another co-worker is leaving in a week to move to New York to go to school. Another co-worker is leaving in a month to move to Boston to go to school. Another just got back from Italy, and another is in Arizona at this moment.
Not that any of this is unusual. It's summer, and people go places.
Rhetorical pause.
Holy shit, I'm "in" Boston (on BostonPete.com) listening to a smooth jazz station that's playing a duet by Joe Cocker and Al Jarreau, whom I wouldn't have put together but it works, a couple of old dudes from different parts of the pop spectrum whose voices have morphed a bit over the years but are still doing what they do well, which is turn a song over and around and inside-out, in this case a song called "Lost and Found" about being in the wrong place at the right time, which fits the theme, doesn't it, so it wasn't a digression after all. I can't believe I'm listening to this stuff, and you know what, it isn't bad.
End of seemingly spontaneous segue. Beginning of saga.
The Return of Zelda
Part One: Intern Out
Last week my smart and hard-working daughter went to Georgia with her friend Zanna for a couple of family visits and some independent adventures. What is life for, but going away and coming back, being out on your own and then returning to re-establish contact. Her new car performed well; they got to see Aunt JoJo's new condo in Atlanta, hang out with cousin Bubba, and eat at an interesting Thai restaurant. Then they went to see Gven's mother in north Georgia and spend some quality time with the cousins. Lots of time to listen to Nanny's stories about this and that.
And the other thing.
Now she is back in central Swingstate, working away at her computer in her cube on the second floor of a big office building in America, learning about the use of images in the publishing business, art, history, geography.
A friend shared more tales of Iceland. Another friend just put his daughter on a plane for Tomsk (not far from Omsk) for the summer, and is on his way to New York for his son's wedding. Another friend from the same circle just sent his new e-mail and postal addresses from his new home north of Seattle. A co-worker is making arrangements to go to her niece's opening at a gallery in Chicago. Another co-worker is leaving in a week to move to New York to go to school. Another co-worker is leaving in a month to move to Boston to go to school. Another just got back from Italy, and another is in Arizona at this moment.
Not that any of this is unusual. It's summer, and people go places.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Travel is good for ya
But you knew that. As Zelda (I've decided to rename my daughter, and no, I'm not a hippie) and her friend Zanna make their way south on a midsummer road trip to Atlanta, I am reminded of the virtues, as well as the challenges and the pleasures, of travel. For evidence that travel inspires good writing, see a message MGL sends from NYC.
My friend LibraryMan was talking the other night about some people he met on his recent trip to Iceland. Never mind the endless hassles of airports and airlines, never mind the delays, the missed connecting flights, the uncertainty of flying stand-by, and the general anxiety of getting from here to there, it's the journey, not the destination, right? Well, yeah! He arrived just in time to catch the tour bus going around the perimeter of the island with a really interesting group of folks from all over the world. But it was one British lady in particular, a 90-year-old traveling by herself, who made the greatest impression, walking proof of the adventurous spirit.
It must be in the air. A day or two later I was at the gravel pit picking up half a yard of limestone when I heard a story on the radio about some real estate developers in Iceland who had trouble getting clearance on some land because the neighbors didn't want to disturb the elves. The snarky NPR announcer in Chicago made it sound quaint and archaic, but I find it refreshing that there are places in the civilized world where the presence of other life forms is common knowledge. Take that, rationalists!
Meanwhile, I got an e-mail from my brother Rock with information about an upcoming family gathering in southern Indiana. He's suggesting the little town of New Harmony as a central meeting place between our far-flung siblings in Georgia, Iowa, and Michigan. New Harmony was originally a utopian community founded by Robert Owen and other freethinkers on the banks of the Wabash. I went ahead and reserved a room at The Old Rooming House on Church Street, a few blocks by foot or bicycle from some cool historical and architectural sites, gardens, a labyrinth, and a Roofless Church.
Hey, that was Zelda herself on the phone, calling from Forsythe County, Georgia (pronounced for-SYTHE, as in "Forsooth!"), where she is visiting her grandmother and cousins on her mother's side. Everybody's fine, everybody sends their love, and back atcha.
My friend LibraryMan was talking the other night about some people he met on his recent trip to Iceland. Never mind the endless hassles of airports and airlines, never mind the delays, the missed connecting flights, the uncertainty of flying stand-by, and the general anxiety of getting from here to there, it's the journey, not the destination, right? Well, yeah! He arrived just in time to catch the tour bus going around the perimeter of the island with a really interesting group of folks from all over the world. But it was one British lady in particular, a 90-year-old traveling by herself, who made the greatest impression, walking proof of the adventurous spirit.
It must be in the air. A day or two later I was at the gravel pit picking up half a yard of limestone when I heard a story on the radio about some real estate developers in Iceland who had trouble getting clearance on some land because the neighbors didn't want to disturb the elves. The snarky NPR announcer in Chicago made it sound quaint and archaic, but I find it refreshing that there are places in the civilized world where the presence of other life forms is common knowledge. Take that, rationalists!
Meanwhile, I got an e-mail from my brother Rock with information about an upcoming family gathering in southern Indiana. He's suggesting the little town of New Harmony as a central meeting place between our far-flung siblings in Georgia, Iowa, and Michigan. New Harmony was originally a utopian community founded by Robert Owen and other freethinkers on the banks of the Wabash. I went ahead and reserved a room at The Old Rooming House on Church Street, a few blocks by foot or bicycle from some cool historical and architectural sites, gardens, a labyrinth, and a Roofless Church.
Hey, that was Zelda herself on the phone, calling from Forsythe County, Georgia (pronounced for-SYTHE, as in "Forsooth!"), where she is visiting her grandmother and cousins on her mother's side. Everybody's fine, everybody sends their love, and back atcha.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Lifestyles of the loose and random
When did everything get this out of control?
Why does it bother me?
What am I going to do about it?
The long Fourth of July weekend provokes a bunch of conflicting reactions to life's persistent questions. One of those is the feeling that I'm struggling to stay afloat, treading water with no real prospect of actually swimming across the great water - or even getting to the edge of the pond - in which I'm such a little fish. The domestic economy and ecology of Om Shanty, our little niche in the larger world, is not the orderly place I would like it to be, and it irritates me.
The garden, as usual, is a great symbol of life and it's place in the universe. The warmer weather, coupled with abundant rain in central swingstate, has made everything grow faster. So while I celebrate the hosta and daylilies blooming, the tomatoes and beans vining upward, and the eggplants and peppers bearing fruit, I can't keep up with the weeds, which I define as any plant I don't want to be where it is.
I'm not god, just the referee in this game/match/microcosm. If I say the creeping charlie is out of bounds, that means it's out of bounds. It's a rule-bound game where I make, interpret, and apply the rules. The appeal process, which is out of my jurisdiction, involves natural selection, and there I'm just another player. I guess the long weekend gave me additional time to try to keep up, without making any discernible progress in the battle to bring order out of chaos.
Both of the major projects I had contemplated for this weekend - raising the level of the patio approaching the back door and erecting a bonafide wood shed - never got off the ground. I made a decision early-on to chip away at some other tasks instead of concentrating on starting and completing one big thing. The ongoing garden is one continuing diversion, of course, always worth some puttering and never finished, but I've found an even better way of killing major blocks of time: reorganizing and purging files.
I've kept some old files in boxes since our last move, and it's high time they found their way into a drawer where I can forget about them again. Our garage/workshop has been slowly evolving into an office/workshop with places for tools, shelves for books (soon to be liberated from their own boxes), and space for files that have been stuck away in folders and forgotten at the end of a job, degree program, conference, committee term, school year, workshop, fiscal year, or other life event.
There are tattered manila folders from classes at three different undergraduate and one graduate institution, several jobs at several schools, publishers, bakeries, and one-man landscaping outfits. There are papers I wrote, notes I scrawled, articles I photocopied for some unknown later use. There is correspondence from family, friends, and colleagues, newspaper and magazine clippings on art, sports, literature, language - the usual suspects - and children's artwork, report cards, fee statements, schedules, and other artifacts from three grade schools, two middle schools, two high schools, and two colleges. There are folders full of letters applying for jobs and others informing applicant that the position has been filled.
Weeding through the reams of paper is a trip down memory lane and a powerful reminder of where I've been individually and where we've been as a family. The thing that hit me in the face as I separated the wheat from the chaff, saving 30 percent of it and recycling 70 percent, is that I still care about most of what I collected and put out in those earlier stages of the game. I still believe the things I wrote in papers, articles, and essays in the later stages of undergrad education. Even my writing style hasn't changed fundamentally - whether that's a good thing or not - even though the narrative voice has dropped down an octave in the course of the narrative.
Maybe the continuity of my written self from 30 years ago shouldn't surprise me, and it's reassuring in a way that I'm the same person I was. I didn't completely lose my way or turn away from what I was trying to do. Just as surprisingly, it wasn't depressing to look back at the documentary evidence of the many projects that didn't turn out as I thought they would. Nor did it make me all nostalgic for those times and places, when things were wonderful and I supposedly had my whole future in front of me.
It did, however, make my back hurt to sit in the office/workshop for hours at a time, so I took breaks to go outside and pull weeds. So the contest continues: which will run out first, the papers to be sorted and filed away or the plants to be pulled and transplanted? It's all foliage, and there's more where that came from.
Why does it bother me?
What am I going to do about it?
The long Fourth of July weekend provokes a bunch of conflicting reactions to life's persistent questions. One of those is the feeling that I'm struggling to stay afloat, treading water with no real prospect of actually swimming across the great water - or even getting to the edge of the pond - in which I'm such a little fish. The domestic economy and ecology of Om Shanty, our little niche in the larger world, is not the orderly place I would like it to be, and it irritates me.
The garden, as usual, is a great symbol of life and it's place in the universe. The warmer weather, coupled with abundant rain in central swingstate, has made everything grow faster. So while I celebrate the hosta and daylilies blooming, the tomatoes and beans vining upward, and the eggplants and peppers bearing fruit, I can't keep up with the weeds, which I define as any plant I don't want to be where it is.
I'm not god, just the referee in this game/match/microcosm. If I say the creeping charlie is out of bounds, that means it's out of bounds. It's a rule-bound game where I make, interpret, and apply the rules. The appeal process, which is out of my jurisdiction, involves natural selection, and there I'm just another player. I guess the long weekend gave me additional time to try to keep up, without making any discernible progress in the battle to bring order out of chaos.
Both of the major projects I had contemplated for this weekend - raising the level of the patio approaching the back door and erecting a bonafide wood shed - never got off the ground. I made a decision early-on to chip away at some other tasks instead of concentrating on starting and completing one big thing. The ongoing garden is one continuing diversion, of course, always worth some puttering and never finished, but I've found an even better way of killing major blocks of time: reorganizing and purging files.
I've kept some old files in boxes since our last move, and it's high time they found their way into a drawer where I can forget about them again. Our garage/workshop has been slowly evolving into an office/workshop with places for tools, shelves for books (soon to be liberated from their own boxes), and space for files that have been stuck away in folders and forgotten at the end of a job, degree program, conference, committee term, school year, workshop, fiscal year, or other life event.
There are tattered manila folders from classes at three different undergraduate and one graduate institution, several jobs at several schools, publishers, bakeries, and one-man landscaping outfits. There are papers I wrote, notes I scrawled, articles I photocopied for some unknown later use. There is correspondence from family, friends, and colleagues, newspaper and magazine clippings on art, sports, literature, language - the usual suspects - and children's artwork, report cards, fee statements, schedules, and other artifacts from three grade schools, two middle schools, two high schools, and two colleges. There are folders full of letters applying for jobs and others informing applicant that the position has been filled.
Weeding through the reams of paper is a trip down memory lane and a powerful reminder of where I've been individually and where we've been as a family. The thing that hit me in the face as I separated the wheat from the chaff, saving 30 percent of it and recycling 70 percent, is that I still care about most of what I collected and put out in those earlier stages of the game. I still believe the things I wrote in papers, articles, and essays in the later stages of undergrad education. Even my writing style hasn't changed fundamentally - whether that's a good thing or not - even though the narrative voice has dropped down an octave in the course of the narrative.
Maybe the continuity of my written self from 30 years ago shouldn't surprise me, and it's reassuring in a way that I'm the same person I was. I didn't completely lose my way or turn away from what I was trying to do. Just as surprisingly, it wasn't depressing to look back at the documentary evidence of the many projects that didn't turn out as I thought they would. Nor did it make me all nostalgic for those times and places, when things were wonderful and I supposedly had my whole future in front of me.
It did, however, make my back hurt to sit in the office/workshop for hours at a time, so I took breaks to go outside and pull weeds. So the contest continues: which will run out first, the papers to be sorted and filed away or the plants to be pulled and transplanted? It's all foliage, and there's more where that came from.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
