A play by Eugene Ionesco, if long-term memory serves me. The so-called Theater of the Absurd, it must have been freshman year, and it was a whole new world of literature that rang true in my adolescent mind. I think it was the sequel to "Jack, or the submission," in which Jack takes his place onstage alongside a girl (Jill?) as their families press in from both sides, and others (stagehands?) gradually fill the stage with eggs. Those ideas occasionally resurface, reminding me of the value of a hodge-podge liberal arts education.
The scene at the rec center Thursday night, which sparked the title which led to the blog that lived in the house that Jack built, was a trip and a half. It was my first time at the rec center's home away from home for a year or two while the building on High Street - the real rec center next to the library - undergoes renovation. It will be a wonderful space when it's finished, and for now all the programs will take place in an older building , a former elementary and middle school in the middle of an aging neighborhood between Clintonville and Worthington, built in 1945.
An architectural walk down memory lane, the brick and block structure sits on one end of a small park lined with mature spruce and maple trees. Woodwork is dark, polished, beautiful. Floors are tile inlaid with letters of the alphabet and animal figures. Lots of glass bricks everywhere letting in light. It's definitely old school and a source of nostalgia, even for the neighborhood people who went to St. Michael's up the street. Rumor has it that it's destined for the wrecking ball, since population is shifting and schools are closing, and the city wants the space for parkland.
My classes ran their course in an unheated upper room, succeeding in what the first class of the quarter wants to achieve. To wit: get to know the new students enough to gauge the vocabulary that will register with them, find a pace that will be challenging but not intimidating, find out where they're coming from and what they're looking for. And if the stars align, get a workout, get a clue, learn something new.
I guess the stars aligned, because it was a highly satisfactory two and a half hours in the city that knows how to keep a secret. As the advanced students were winding down from a long, slow short-form, teenagers with flashlights were scurrying around the yard outside our windows searching for eggs among the trees and flowers, making noise and having fun under the watchful eyes of rec center staff and parents huddled in doorways and hallways, waiting patiently for closing time.
Good Friday came and went. I proofed pages and found correlations. Instead of going to a movie, I ended up staying late to respond to an e-mail by making a motel reservation for a small-town homecoming, family reunion, and memorial service beginning midsummer night in LaCrosse. Saturday I cleaned, baked bread, made soup.
Easter Sunday arrives, bittersweet. The bags under my eyes lift a little after I've had coffee and moved around. It's still cold outside, so the trees and flowers that started to open up last weekend are in a state of suspended animation, tulips drooping over looking at their shoes. I forget to bring a cut flower and trust that there will be extras.
The packed sanctuary is a mixed bag of rambunctious kids, parents who don't set boundaries, other kids afraid to look sideways, and parents with nothing but boundaries. I recoil just a bit from the cute story about bunnies seeking bunnies, and the country-rock arrangement of "Amazing Grace" isn't working for me, so I begin to feel like the perpetual first-time visitor judging everything about the service and deciding whether to ever come back to the Church of Existential Doubt.
Then I notice two young families two pews in front of me, parents whom I kind of know, and their beautiful kids whose hair and eyes and stature and manner echo or embody their parents' past, present, and future, like time-traveling while sitting still. Rev. Susan notes in passing that this is the 150th Easter Sunday service in this building. Her reading (Mark 16) tells a familiar story, but what I hear this time is the question, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?"
I start to plan a quick getaway, but the kids save the day by passing out flowers to each person in the congregation; a young lady in jeans, whose dad I know from committee meetings, hands me a long-stemmed carnation. Instead of bolting, I make my way to the hubbub of the back room for coffee and run into a friend from a drum circle. She wants to talk about a relationship she's dealing with after the fact, and I appreciate her willingness to connect on any level - musical, intellectual, platonic. She goes back for more coffee, and I stop at the social justice table to buy two bars of Fair-Trade Very Dark Chocolate, which will be, like the coffee and the carnation, kind of a sacrament tonight after quiche and sourdough and Chardonney.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Chuck
My uncle Chuck Anderson passed away a few days ago after a gradual decline during the last year or so. He was 89. I remember him as an easy-going guy with a great big laugh who loved music.
My Mom's only brother, his real name was Albert Benjamin (A.B.) Anderson, but everybody called him Chuck. The story goes that his Dad, my grandpa Al Anderson, used to exclaim "Shuck, by golly" to anything mildly surprising. They say it might rain. "Shuck, by golly." The store is out of sweet corn. "Shuck, by golly." Coolidge won the election. "Shuck, by golly." So his firstborn, rather than being 'Al Junior', became 'Chuck'.
Grandpa Albert ran a restaurant, Al's Lunch, in Spring Grove, Minnesota, and set up his brother Freddie in the grocery store down the street. After the war, when Chuck and Helen were both married and starting families, Al decided to retire. Chuck and my Dad, whom everyone called Dunc, took over the restaurant and renamed it the C&D. We used to go back to the C&D as kids, sit at the counter, and spin around on the stools.
Two of my three older sisters, like me, were born in Spring Grove. Shortly after I arrived, we moved out of the big brick duplex we shared with Chuck, Marion, and their two kids and moved to Rochester, where my Dad started out in the insurance business. When I was three, we moved across the river to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, and a few years later, Chuck and his family, now with three kids, moved to LaCrosse. He tuned pianos and Marion taught business courses at the high school. They lived on Coulee Drive, out by the bluffs, and we lived on Market Street, closer to downtown.
It's a little odd reconstructing such a long, textured narrative in just a few fragments of the story. What am I leaving out? Just about everything. How accurate are the pieces I remember? I don't know for sure. How badly does this crude account misrepresent a person's life? If you read this, please correct the mistakes or fill in the blanks.
Kris, Lee, and Russ were the cousins I knew the best growing up, and we were like stairsteps. Anna Banana was the firstborn of the tribe; Kris is the same age as Jeanie Beanie; Lee is a year younger than Jo Jo; Russ is three years younger than me; Rock was the trailer, coming along after we had moved away from our extended family roots and transplanted ourselves in Michigan.
Helen's family and Chuck's family belonged to different churches and different politics - we were Methodist, they were Lutheran, we were Nixon Republicans and they were Humphrey Democrats - but were ideologically more similar than not. Chuck sang in the church choir, and so did Helen. Chuck was affiliated with the big music store downtown, and Helen gave piano lessons. All the kids except me inherited some of that musical talent. Lee and Russ played in bands, and my sisters sang in choirs.
Music was important to Chuck. During the War he played in an Army band in Europe; picture Glenn Miller in uniform onstage in France or Italy - that kind of band. Every summer for as long as I can remember, Chuck and his bandmates would get together. He played string bass in a jazz group in LaCrosse, too, mostly guys his age playing clubs and festivals up and down the Mississippi Valley. Since kids weren't allowed to go to those places, I only remember seeing them once as a young adult. They were really good, very professional, pretty hot - in a Pete Fountain/Al Hirt kind of way - and as a rock and roller nonmusician, I was impressed. This was the real deal.
I'm looking forward to the memorial service in LaCrosse, touching base with my cousins and honoring my uncle. I know it will be painful, especially for my Mom, and I hope there is music involved.
My Mom's only brother, his real name was Albert Benjamin (A.B.) Anderson, but everybody called him Chuck. The story goes that his Dad, my grandpa Al Anderson, used to exclaim "Shuck, by golly" to anything mildly surprising. They say it might rain. "Shuck, by golly." The store is out of sweet corn. "Shuck, by golly." Coolidge won the election. "Shuck, by golly." So his firstborn, rather than being 'Al Junior', became 'Chuck'.
Grandpa Albert ran a restaurant, Al's Lunch, in Spring Grove, Minnesota, and set up his brother Freddie in the grocery store down the street. After the war, when Chuck and Helen were both married and starting families, Al decided to retire. Chuck and my Dad, whom everyone called Dunc, took over the restaurant and renamed it the C&D. We used to go back to the C&D as kids, sit at the counter, and spin around on the stools.
Two of my three older sisters, like me, were born in Spring Grove. Shortly after I arrived, we moved out of the big brick duplex we shared with Chuck, Marion, and their two kids and moved to Rochester, where my Dad started out in the insurance business. When I was three, we moved across the river to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, and a few years later, Chuck and his family, now with three kids, moved to LaCrosse. He tuned pianos and Marion taught business courses at the high school. They lived on Coulee Drive, out by the bluffs, and we lived on Market Street, closer to downtown.
It's a little odd reconstructing such a long, textured narrative in just a few fragments of the story. What am I leaving out? Just about everything. How accurate are the pieces I remember? I don't know for sure. How badly does this crude account misrepresent a person's life? If you read this, please correct the mistakes or fill in the blanks.
Kris, Lee, and Russ were the cousins I knew the best growing up, and we were like stairsteps. Anna Banana was the firstborn of the tribe; Kris is the same age as Jeanie Beanie; Lee is a year younger than Jo Jo; Russ is three years younger than me; Rock was the trailer, coming along after we had moved away from our extended family roots and transplanted ourselves in Michigan.
Helen's family and Chuck's family belonged to different churches and different politics - we were Methodist, they were Lutheran, we were Nixon Republicans and they were Humphrey Democrats - but were ideologically more similar than not. Chuck sang in the church choir, and so did Helen. Chuck was affiliated with the big music store downtown, and Helen gave piano lessons. All the kids except me inherited some of that musical talent. Lee and Russ played in bands, and my sisters sang in choirs.
Music was important to Chuck. During the War he played in an Army band in Europe; picture Glenn Miller in uniform onstage in France or Italy - that kind of band. Every summer for as long as I can remember, Chuck and his bandmates would get together. He played string bass in a jazz group in LaCrosse, too, mostly guys his age playing clubs and festivals up and down the Mississippi Valley. Since kids weren't allowed to go to those places, I only remember seeing them once as a young adult. They were really good, very professional, pretty hot - in a Pete Fountain/Al Hirt kind of way - and as a rock and roller nonmusician, I was impressed. This was the real deal.
I'm looking forward to the memorial service in LaCrosse, touching base with my cousins and honoring my uncle. I know it will be painful, especially for my Mom, and I hope there is music involved.
Friday, March 30, 2007
This just in: Earth is hollow
Maybe I'm the last last one to know. This has probably been common knowledge among the cognosenti for ages, and I'm just now getting the word. Oh well. All this time I've been accepting the old myth of tectonic plates, Earth's crust resting on a mantle, a layer of molten rock, and within that a core. You've seen the cross-sectional diagram, which someday will go the way of Ptolemy's dome of the heavens arrayed neatly around terra firma, all nice and geocentric.
I don't know where Max Fyfield gets his information, but I like the depiction of the planet. It resembles an early developmental stage of a multicellular organism, beginning to develop an endoplasm, mesoplasm, and ectoplasm with the appropriate orifices connecting its inside with its outside. I also appreciate the disclaimer: "Inner Earth to be re-drawn by someone who has been there! Thank you..."
Why weren't we told these facts in geography class! What are "they" trying to hide from us? Which episode of The Twilight Zone did I miss? If anyone has answers to these or the many other questions raised by The Hollow Earth, please disclose them now, before the next saucer to Venus leaves Agharta, land of advanced races.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
spring, sprang, sprung
It's somatic.
Sure, the weather change is huge, and this week we seem to have turned a corner in the conditions outside. No need to wear a jacket when walking the dog, turn down the thermostat, no need for extra covers in bed. I could hear water percolating into the ground in the back yard last night. It felt like the right time to ride the bike to work this morning. No problem, until I got to the mile-long hill on County Line Road going west against the wind, for which my heart and lungs were not prepared.
I made it, of course, by crawling up the hill in low gear, not to push the envelope too much, and now I'm lamenting my aerobic condition. It's lamentable. Solid Stan reassures me that I'll be fine after a couple more bike rides, easy for him to say. And he's right, of course. I'll make an effort to ride more regularly to get the systems - cardiovascular, neuromuscular, psychoskeletal - in better working order.
I also found it hard to get down to work right away. Like the archaic definition of exercise, riding stirred up something that doesn't want to examine spreadsheets, check items in lists, cut and paste bookmaps. Something that would rather listen to rock and roll, look at trees, take a walk on the wild side. Then, geek that I am, I had to look at Merriam-Webster's word of the day and find the quote from Henry IV:
"...your health; the which, if you give o'er to stormy passion, must perforce decay."
They say it's going to rain later today, another reason not to ride a bike to work on impulse.
It did rain, two or three times in fact, waves of a storm system sweeping across central Swingstate to soak the ground and swell the streams and send flood warnings to several counties. Then it stopped and I rode the bike home just before dark, no problem, mostly downhill and not directly against the wind. Denouement, anticlimax.
Then the weekend, and the genie is definitely out of the bottle. There are tree branches to trim and the first generation of weeds to pull, general clean-up chores in the yard. Since nothing is ever simple, the former involved taking down an electrical wire strung from the house to the garage, giving rise to ideas (uh-oh!) to reconfigure the wiring around a pergola on the patio. Are we getting grandiose yet?
Watch basketball, be disappointed in Kansas and North Carolina but reassured that the Buckeyes are for real. Watch "Spiderman 2" and hatch a plan to string ropes across treetops, hang a swing from a stout limb, use gravity and tenacity to simulate flight. Okay, I guess we're getting grandiose now. But a swing would be nice.
And a new rear wheel for the bike wouldn't hurt either. The old one hasn't been truly round for aeons, and I think it would make a difference. One or two bike rides later, and Stan was right, I can already feel the difference in my legs and back muscles, a little more taut, like a spring.
Sure, the weather change is huge, and this week we seem to have turned a corner in the conditions outside. No need to wear a jacket when walking the dog, turn down the thermostat, no need for extra covers in bed. I could hear water percolating into the ground in the back yard last night. It felt like the right time to ride the bike to work this morning. No problem, until I got to the mile-long hill on County Line Road going west against the wind, for which my heart and lungs were not prepared.
I made it, of course, by crawling up the hill in low gear, not to push the envelope too much, and now I'm lamenting my aerobic condition. It's lamentable. Solid Stan reassures me that I'll be fine after a couple more bike rides, easy for him to say. And he's right, of course. I'll make an effort to ride more regularly to get the systems - cardiovascular, neuromuscular, psychoskeletal - in better working order.
I also found it hard to get down to work right away. Like the archaic definition of exercise, riding stirred up something that doesn't want to examine spreadsheets, check items in lists, cut and paste bookmaps. Something that would rather listen to rock and roll, look at trees, take a walk on the wild side. Then, geek that I am, I had to look at Merriam-Webster's word of the day and find the quote from Henry IV:
"...your health; the which, if you give o'er to stormy passion, must perforce decay."
They say it's going to rain later today, another reason not to ride a bike to work on impulse.
It did rain, two or three times in fact, waves of a storm system sweeping across central Swingstate to soak the ground and swell the streams and send flood warnings to several counties. Then it stopped and I rode the bike home just before dark, no problem, mostly downhill and not directly against the wind. Denouement, anticlimax.
Then the weekend, and the genie is definitely out of the bottle. There are tree branches to trim and the first generation of weeds to pull, general clean-up chores in the yard. Since nothing is ever simple, the former involved taking down an electrical wire strung from the house to the garage, giving rise to ideas (uh-oh!) to reconfigure the wiring around a pergola on the patio. Are we getting grandiose yet?
Watch basketball, be disappointed in Kansas and North Carolina but reassured that the Buckeyes are for real. Watch "Spiderman 2" and hatch a plan to string ropes across treetops, hang a swing from a stout limb, use gravity and tenacity to simulate flight. Okay, I guess we're getting grandiose now. But a swing would be nice.
And a new rear wheel for the bike wouldn't hurt either. The old one hasn't been truly round for aeons, and I think it would make a difference. One or two bike rides later, and Stan was right, I can already feel the difference in my legs and back muscles, a little more taut, like a spring.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
with a little help from my friends
If I don't write this, that song will never stop running through my mind. The Joe Cocker version, a slow-wringing torch-song with three backup singers, not the bouncy little ditty by the mop-tops. The good news is that I got through an entire Tuesday this week without a flat tire. [Chorus: Week's not over.] The bad news is that I'm reduced to that kind of good news. But the point is the manner in which the preceding Tuesday left me relatively unscathed, though chastened by the consequences of my own inaction. I'm lucky enough to brush misfortune, escape disaster, and carry on. I'm superstitious enough to take it all as symbolic of some larger truth.
I exit the building after a productive day mapping books and proofing pages and make it to my six o'clock class at the rec center. It's the last scheduled class of winter quarter. The one dedicated student who shows up is highly attentive and clearly getting the hang of Basic Movement until 6:45, when he develops a sore hip that forces him to stop and call it a day. Misfortune turns to advantage, as this frees the editor/teacher to depart the rec center in time to get up Old State Road to the old meeting house in Lewis Center for a seven o'clock committee meeting.
The committee meets the third Tuesday of every month, except when snowstorms cause a cancellation, and all four of us are fully present. We do our usual check-in ritual, and on this occasion it seems especially useful for all of us to say a few words about what else, besides committee business, is happening in life as we know it. We have an agenda, we moved through it without forcing the issue, digress when necessary to illustrate a point, and accomplish quite a bit in an hour and a half. I like these people, who are rather unlike me in many ways, and we seem to play well together.
As I'm driving out of the gravel parking lot, something is pulling-dragging-thumping, and on the pavement of Franklin Street I can tell I have a flat tire. This time it's the left-front. Last Tuesday it was the right-front, but that one was before the rec center class, so my luck is improving; this time I made it to both meetings before the breakdown of long-neglected tires. I'll just have to call the tow-truck and do that whole thing again.
But no, John stops to see what's the matter. Not just to ask but to offer the use of a can of Fix-a-Flat he has stashed in his trunk. He methodically walks me through the directions printed on the aerosol can and hooks it up to the tire, which quickly inflates enough to get me moving down route 23 toward Discount Tire on route 750. There's a glitch in the switch for the warning flasher, but I move it up and down a couple of time, and due to another miracle it starts working.
Discount Tire is closed, and the Tuffy Muffler shop next door, with a few tires displayed on a rack, is about to close. The proprietor doesn't have my size in stock, and he says I can get a better deal from the guys next door, whom he trusts. I take his card with their number and appreciate the help but choose to continue on down to A&A Tires on route 3, where they fixed me up last week.
It's interesting what you see going 25 on Polaris Blvd. at night that you don't see going 50. I decide to turn down lesser-traveled Old State, then Lazelle, then Sancus, then Park, Cleveland, Schrock, Cooper, and finally route 3, making a strangely slow zig-zagging mythic night journey on my hobbled steed. I park it in front of A&A Tires and make a couple calls.
My voice-mail messages to Gven and Zelda go unheard for the time being, so I take up Burb on his week-old offer to be the go-to guy in case of tire trouble. It's ten o'clock on a weeknight, for goodness sakes, he has a family to take care of, and I'm standing in a parking lot asking for a ride home. If you know Burb, you know he said, "No problem," put on jeans over his jammies, and came to the rescue. In a few minutes, he was there in his little red car, and I was quickly transported to my own warm house.
The next morning, it was a simple matter for Zelda to drop me off at A&A Tires on her way to work at the bookstore. It was snowing, adding a touch of drama to the logistics of everyone - Zelda, me, the tire guy, his helper - getting from point A to point B. Let's just say I had ample time checking out the titles in the all-night video store next door while waiting for the tire guy to arrive and throw a new P225/70R14 on the left-front rim, and while you're at it let's do the left-rear too.
Now, with the passage of time, it all blurs together. The first flat coincided with my eye exam the following day; the second flat and support-group rescue coincided with the new lenses being fitted to the old frames. What's that scene from Gatsby featuring a sign for an optometrist? The third week, anticipating a harsh third strike, I went back and replaced the fourth tire. Same surly tire guy, different helper at A&A, still a good deal for the money.
I exit the building after a productive day mapping books and proofing pages and make it to my six o'clock class at the rec center. It's the last scheduled class of winter quarter. The one dedicated student who shows up is highly attentive and clearly getting the hang of Basic Movement until 6:45, when he develops a sore hip that forces him to stop and call it a day. Misfortune turns to advantage, as this frees the editor/teacher to depart the rec center in time to get up Old State Road to the old meeting house in Lewis Center for a seven o'clock committee meeting.
The committee meets the third Tuesday of every month, except when snowstorms cause a cancellation, and all four of us are fully present. We do our usual check-in ritual, and on this occasion it seems especially useful for all of us to say a few words about what else, besides committee business, is happening in life as we know it. We have an agenda, we moved through it without forcing the issue, digress when necessary to illustrate a point, and accomplish quite a bit in an hour and a half. I like these people, who are rather unlike me in many ways, and we seem to play well together.
As I'm driving out of the gravel parking lot, something is pulling-dragging-thumping, and on the pavement of Franklin Street I can tell I have a flat tire. This time it's the left-front. Last Tuesday it was the right-front, but that one was before the rec center class, so my luck is improving; this time I made it to both meetings before the breakdown of long-neglected tires. I'll just have to call the tow-truck and do that whole thing again.
But no, John stops to see what's the matter. Not just to ask but to offer the use of a can of Fix-a-Flat he has stashed in his trunk. He methodically walks me through the directions printed on the aerosol can and hooks it up to the tire, which quickly inflates enough to get me moving down route 23 toward Discount Tire on route 750. There's a glitch in the switch for the warning flasher, but I move it up and down a couple of time, and due to another miracle it starts working.
Discount Tire is closed, and the Tuffy Muffler shop next door, with a few tires displayed on a rack, is about to close. The proprietor doesn't have my size in stock, and he says I can get a better deal from the guys next door, whom he trusts. I take his card with their number and appreciate the help but choose to continue on down to A&A Tires on route 3, where they fixed me up last week.
It's interesting what you see going 25 on Polaris Blvd. at night that you don't see going 50. I decide to turn down lesser-traveled Old State, then Lazelle, then Sancus, then Park, Cleveland, Schrock, Cooper, and finally route 3, making a strangely slow zig-zagging mythic night journey on my hobbled steed. I park it in front of A&A Tires and make a couple calls.
My voice-mail messages to Gven and Zelda go unheard for the time being, so I take up Burb on his week-old offer to be the go-to guy in case of tire trouble. It's ten o'clock on a weeknight, for goodness sakes, he has a family to take care of, and I'm standing in a parking lot asking for a ride home. If you know Burb, you know he said, "No problem," put on jeans over his jammies, and came to the rescue. In a few minutes, he was there in his little red car, and I was quickly transported to my own warm house.
The next morning, it was a simple matter for Zelda to drop me off at A&A Tires on her way to work at the bookstore. It was snowing, adding a touch of drama to the logistics of everyone - Zelda, me, the tire guy, his helper - getting from point A to point B. Let's just say I had ample time checking out the titles in the all-night video store next door while waiting for the tire guy to arrive and throw a new P225/70R14 on the left-front rim, and while you're at it let's do the left-rear too.
Now, with the passage of time, it all blurs together. The first flat coincided with my eye exam the following day; the second flat and support-group rescue coincided with the new lenses being fitted to the old frames. What's that scene from Gatsby featuring a sign for an optometrist? The third week, anticipating a harsh third strike, I went back and replaced the fourth tire. Same surly tire guy, different helper at A&A, still a good deal for the money.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
stream of consciousness/arrested development
A thought-provoking tour of the sunday dispatch reveals, once again, that the most valuable information in the newspaper can be found in the comics. "Tina's Groove" explains through sophisticated neuromuscular analysis how high heels lower a woman's IQ. "Doonesbury" traces the relative life trajectories of a female undergraduate named Cricket (law school, marriage, birth of a child) and a male undergraduate named Zipper (thinking of majoring in physics but still undeclared). "Dilbert" outlines the organizational imperatives of goal-setting, goal-writing, goal-reporting, and goal-ignoring. "Hi and Lois" reveal the key to making difficult decisions through monitoring somatic response, i.e., ask out the girl who makes you blush the most. And what am I doing even reading "Hi and Lois"?
Yet another charlatan is getting a lifetime's worth of free advertising for their self-fulfilling, self-promoting book of prophecy, ostentaciously titled The Secret. Apparently the big secret is getting whatever you wish for by convincing yourself that you can and should get whatever you wish for. Hey, it worked for one "network-marketing professional" in Zanesville, why shouldn't it work for everyone? It's working for the author, isn't it?
Fortunately, the somewhat more grounded Joe Blundo's column is right nextdoor, and Joe says the best investment strategy this week is to ignore the stock market and watch basketball. I'm with Joe. In other breaking news, real estate prices are higher per square foot in popular neighborhoods!
In the always deeply probing 'Insight' section, there is more edifying discourse on the proper role and function of the stack of newsprint used to wrap fish and line the compost bucket. A number of readers are demanding that the editor return or destroy the public school directories - which parents chose to be listed in - that the newspaper uses to check facts. In the 'Letters' column, one reader objects to the inclusion of a photo of "ultimate fighting" competitors, and another objects to the negative language used to describe the sport of "ultimate fighting." Both want editors to publish exactly what they want to see, nothing more and nothing less, shielding their delicate sensibilities from anything offending or disagreeable. The concept of 'turn the page', like the parallel concept of 'change the damn channel' has yet to occur to these conscientious citizens who are vigilant in protecting you and me from harmful information, much like the protectors of school children who seek to ban information on certain (you know what kind) subjects. The assumption being that 'good' journalism, like 'good' education, is that which reveals less and conceals more.
After going off on the Sunday paper, I decided to do something constructive, started a batch of sourdough bread, and watched some basketball on TV. After careful analysis based on a lifetime of close observation and about 40 years of serious study, I concluded that the Buckeyes beat the Badgers because they have better athletes. Wisconsin relies on three or four guys to carry them, while Ohio State can run six or seven in and out without losing a step, although it's the big guy, who blocks shots, and the little guy, who passes the ball, who make them go.
While it was still light outside, I grabbed a hacksaw and tore through a leftover piece of sheetmetal roofing, cutting large sections down to the size of the remaining uncovered part of my patchwork shed. Because I don't have the proper tools and I'm too stingy to go out a buy the proper tools, I used a combination of elbow grease and pure improvisation. After scrounging up just enough roofing nails (salvaged), I nailed down most of the remaining pieces over most of the remaining plywood, hitting only one finger with the hammer and ripping only one piece of skin in the process.
Yet another charlatan is getting a lifetime's worth of free advertising for their self-fulfilling, self-promoting book of prophecy, ostentaciously titled The Secret. Apparently the big secret is getting whatever you wish for by convincing yourself that you can and should get whatever you wish for. Hey, it worked for one "network-marketing professional" in Zanesville, why shouldn't it work for everyone? It's working for the author, isn't it?
Fortunately, the somewhat more grounded Joe Blundo's column is right nextdoor, and Joe says the best investment strategy this week is to ignore the stock market and watch basketball. I'm with Joe. In other breaking news, real estate prices are higher per square foot in popular neighborhoods!
In the always deeply probing 'Insight' section, there is more edifying discourse on the proper role and function of the stack of newsprint used to wrap fish and line the compost bucket. A number of readers are demanding that the editor return or destroy the public school directories - which parents chose to be listed in - that the newspaper uses to check facts. In the 'Letters' column, one reader objects to the inclusion of a photo of "ultimate fighting" competitors, and another objects to the negative language used to describe the sport of "ultimate fighting." Both want editors to publish exactly what they want to see, nothing more and nothing less, shielding their delicate sensibilities from anything offending or disagreeable. The concept of 'turn the page', like the parallel concept of 'change the damn channel' has yet to occur to these conscientious citizens who are vigilant in protecting you and me from harmful information, much like the protectors of school children who seek to ban information on certain (you know what kind) subjects. The assumption being that 'good' journalism, like 'good' education, is that which reveals less and conceals more.
After going off on the Sunday paper, I decided to do something constructive, started a batch of sourdough bread, and watched some basketball on TV. After careful analysis based on a lifetime of close observation and about 40 years of serious study, I concluded that the Buckeyes beat the Badgers because they have better athletes. Wisconsin relies on three or four guys to carry them, while Ohio State can run six or seven in and out without losing a step, although it's the big guy, who blocks shots, and the little guy, who passes the ball, who make them go.
While it was still light outside, I grabbed a hacksaw and tore through a leftover piece of sheetmetal roofing, cutting large sections down to the size of the remaining uncovered part of my patchwork shed. Because I don't have the proper tools and I'm too stingy to go out a buy the proper tools, I used a combination of elbow grease and pure improvisation. After scrounging up just enough roofing nails (salvaged), I nailed down most of the remaining pieces over most of the remaining plywood, hitting only one finger with the hammer and ripping only one piece of skin in the process.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
hoops
It really is a form of madness. For the third weekend in a row, I sat and watched parts of multiple ballgames on the tube. In my precious discretionary time, I chose to be a passive recipient of the medium cool, mass marketed entertainment product that makes mega millions for some big fat guys in suits every year at this time.
It's March in mainstream America, and I can't help myself. I have to watch. It's like a train wreck, you see it coming and you know it will be an ugly, painful, gut-wrenching, awful mess, but you can't not watch. As team after team falls to a higher seed, or worse yet is knocked off by an upstart lurking somewhere in the brackets, every day half of them pack up and go home. The horror!
The horror of Podunk State in their garish green and orange uniforms losing 111-46 in the first round to North Carolina in jerseys the color of the sky. The horror of six Southeastern Conference teams making it into the Sweet Sixteen and pounding on the two Big Ten teams still alive. The horror of listening to Billy Packer pontificate day after day about the bad calls, bad substitutions, and bad decision making by 18-year-olds. Note to the network announcers: Please shut up! I'm trying to watch the game.
It's March in mainstream America, and I can't help myself. I have to watch. It's like a train wreck, you see it coming and you know it will be an ugly, painful, gut-wrenching, awful mess, but you can't not watch. As team after team falls to a higher seed, or worse yet is knocked off by an upstart lurking somewhere in the brackets, every day half of them pack up and go home. The horror!
The horror of Podunk State in their garish green and orange uniforms losing 111-46 in the first round to North Carolina in jerseys the color of the sky. The horror of six Southeastern Conference teams making it into the Sweet Sixteen and pounding on the two Big Ten teams still alive. The horror of listening to Billy Packer pontificate day after day about the bad calls, bad substitutions, and bad decision making by 18-year-olds. Note to the network announcers: Please shut up! I'm trying to watch the game.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Rolling
bad news: My right-front tire was flat when I left the office on Tuesday. I had known for a year or more that it was worn, but I put it off, and that's what happens.
good news: The truck was in the parking lot at work and not out on the road in some isolated place. It went flat while standing still and not going 70 in traffic.
bad news: The spare was flat, too. I had thought about replacing the worn right-front with the spare but didn't act on that intention, so I was unaware of its condition. I call the rec center and cancel my six o'clock class.
good news: Shamrock Towing can be there within an hour, and I call a tire store that's still open and might be able to fix me up tonight.
bad news: The tow truck can't get in the front gate because the security guard wants clearance of some kind.
good news: The tow truck got there in half an hour, and once in the gate, the driver was a decent guy. He knew the place where I wanted it towed, and on the way we talked about the price of living in Franklin County (higher) and Pickaway County where he lives (lower), how he doesn't mind the 40-minute commute in his beloved Honda, which has 300,000 miles on it.
bad news: The tire guy is done for the day and just about to drive off when we pull in. I give him the key to the truck, which I leave in the lot, and he says he'll have it done by 9:30 in the morning. We'll see about that.
good news: Zelda answers her phone and is getting in the car to come pick me up. I'm lucky the tire guy was still at his shop so we could make the arrangements, and I'm not surprised he couldn't get to it immediately. Zelda makes pasta, and I heat up some split pea soup, light a fire in the stove, and read a particularly poignant chapter of Dave Eggers' book in which he and his little brother make the transition from Waveland Avenue to a new living situation in California, go to the beach, throw the frisbee, hang out. I worked out a little and slept well.
bad news: Next morning Zelda drops me off at 8:30 on her way to work, and I fear I'm making her late. No sign of the tire guy, so I wait.
good news: 3C Food Shop is open, so I don't have to wait out in the cold, and the 24-hour video store next door is an even better place to spend the time waiting for the tire guy. The clerk at the counter, a dark, handsome woman with just a wisp of gray hair who resembles an actress on "Seventh Heaven," eyes me suspiciously at first because she's seen all kinds, but she doesn't have a problem with me looking around while I wait. I scan the shelves to see what their selection is like, and it's better than I expected, a wide variety of action, classic, current, mystery, comedy, soft porn, games, and "cult" DVDs.
bad news: The tire guy doesn't get there until 9:35 because it's snowing and he lives way north and his two employees aren't coming in at all, and he says nobody wants to work.
good news: Once he's off the phone with his amigo, he gets right on it, and I'm on the road in time for a cup of coffee before my eye exam.
bad news: I can't find the freaking optical office in the vast mall, although I walk past three other vision emporiums while absorbing the surrealistic morning sights and sounds of mall walkers, mothers with children, and upscale retail workers opening up for business in a grotesque display of conspicuous consumption that is Sprawlville, USA, where Amerika shops.
good news: It only takes a few minutes to fill out the form, and Dr. Stein remembers me from other eye exams years ago at City Center, which is now dying a slow and painful commercial death. He is deft and thorough and finds no unexpected problems, although my far-sightedness has increased.
bad news: The only new frames I like will cost a hundred dollars extra; lineless trifocals will cost seventy dollars extra; I'll settle for new lenses in my trusty old frames.
good news: The vision coverage in my health plan pays for it. I escape the mall experience unscathed and make it to work a little before noon.
good news: The truck was in the parking lot at work and not out on the road in some isolated place. It went flat while standing still and not going 70 in traffic.
bad news: The spare was flat, too. I had thought about replacing the worn right-front with the spare but didn't act on that intention, so I was unaware of its condition. I call the rec center and cancel my six o'clock class.
good news: Shamrock Towing can be there within an hour, and I call a tire store that's still open and might be able to fix me up tonight.
bad news: The tow truck can't get in the front gate because the security guard wants clearance of some kind.
good news: The tow truck got there in half an hour, and once in the gate, the driver was a decent guy. He knew the place where I wanted it towed, and on the way we talked about the price of living in Franklin County (higher) and Pickaway County where he lives (lower), how he doesn't mind the 40-minute commute in his beloved Honda, which has 300,000 miles on it.
bad news: The tire guy is done for the day and just about to drive off when we pull in. I give him the key to the truck, which I leave in the lot, and he says he'll have it done by 9:30 in the morning. We'll see about that.
good news: Zelda answers her phone and is getting in the car to come pick me up. I'm lucky the tire guy was still at his shop so we could make the arrangements, and I'm not surprised he couldn't get to it immediately. Zelda makes pasta, and I heat up some split pea soup, light a fire in the stove, and read a particularly poignant chapter of Dave Eggers' book in which he and his little brother make the transition from Waveland Avenue to a new living situation in California, go to the beach, throw the frisbee, hang out. I worked out a little and slept well.
bad news: Next morning Zelda drops me off at 8:30 on her way to work, and I fear I'm making her late. No sign of the tire guy, so I wait.
good news: 3C Food Shop is open, so I don't have to wait out in the cold, and the 24-hour video store next door is an even better place to spend the time waiting for the tire guy. The clerk at the counter, a dark, handsome woman with just a wisp of gray hair who resembles an actress on "Seventh Heaven," eyes me suspiciously at first because she's seen all kinds, but she doesn't have a problem with me looking around while I wait. I scan the shelves to see what their selection is like, and it's better than I expected, a wide variety of action, classic, current, mystery, comedy, soft porn, games, and "cult" DVDs.
bad news: The tire guy doesn't get there until 9:35 because it's snowing and he lives way north and his two employees aren't coming in at all, and he says nobody wants to work.
good news: Once he's off the phone with his amigo, he gets right on it, and I'm on the road in time for a cup of coffee before my eye exam.
bad news: I can't find the freaking optical office in the vast mall, although I walk past three other vision emporiums while absorbing the surrealistic morning sights and sounds of mall walkers, mothers with children, and upscale retail workers opening up for business in a grotesque display of conspicuous consumption that is Sprawlville, USA, where Amerika shops.
good news: It only takes a few minutes to fill out the form, and Dr. Stein remembers me from other eye exams years ago at City Center, which is now dying a slow and painful commercial death. He is deft and thorough and finds no unexpected problems, although my far-sightedness has increased.
bad news: The only new frames I like will cost a hundred dollars extra; lineless trifocals will cost seventy dollars extra; I'll settle for new lenses in my trusty old frames.
good news: The vision coverage in my health plan pays for it. I escape the mall experience unscathed and make it to work a little before noon.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
free association saturday
Anyone can play (it's free) all it takes is some time (it's saturday) a cup of coffee (to aid association) and the morning paper.
In the 'Life' section (dontcha love the names of things? Oh, gee, this part of the newspaper is about Life!) is an article badly written by a professional reporter, who gets paid for this stuff, about a performance piece featuring music composed by Bill Frisell and some very old photos, wait a minute, eight coy paragraphs into the story there is an oblique reference that tells me, yes, the photos that inspired The Disfarmer Project were made by a guy named Mike Disfarmer. Five paragraphs later comes the earthshaking quote:
Oh wow, I can see that performance art is very deep and heavy. How can I tell? Because every paragraph is one sentence long.
Next to my desk is a quote from E.B. White: "An editor is someone who knows more about writing than writers do, but who has lost the terrible desire to write." I'm only about halfway there.
On page two, Dear Abby (not the real Dear Abby but one Jeanne Phillips, the pretend Dear Abby) informs a woman in Austin, Texas, whose neighbor sometimes walks out to get his mail in the nude, that
Or you could look away, you fascist busybody. And I could turn the page, where both of my favorites, 'Doonesbury' and 'Frank and Ernest', are quite good. Is this a bad sign when the best work in mainstream journalism is in the comics?
The weather has turned colder again, and it's even snowing, so i guess that nixes my plan to go for a bike ride and fix the roof of the shed. Instead it will be the kind of saturday to light a fire in the stove, bake bread and make black bean soup, a food-oriented saturday, as people used to say back when being "food-oriented" was like a neurotic condition that led to obesity, addictive relationships, and dysfunctional families.
Gven golly comes home from her saturday morning kaffee klatsch. I open the editorial page and point out a piece about an Australian artist with a Web site extolling a new drug called Havidol that promises relief from Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder. We have a laugh. All is not lost.
I chop some vegetables, fry them in a skillet, and mix them into the split pea soup I started last night, then I fry two eggs, toast some bread, and eat a nice normal breakfast with a second cup of coffee. Gven's friend GoKate wants to go see "Pan's Labyrinthe" tonight at Crosswoods, so we make a plan to go to the early show. Jessi told me about it some time ago, it sounds interesting, and I was happy to see it getting some attention on Oscar night, so here's my chance to see it.
Maybe i'll go to office and do some work. Or not. Maybe while cleaning the house i'll get inspired to begin a home-improvement project. Or not. Moving the end cabinet across the kitchen to sit like an island, then moving the stove to the space left by the cabinet, should really wait until we have a dishwasher to replace the stove. Everything is contingent on everything else, and i may have used up my spatial creativity last night anyway, rearranging the living room in a fit of domestic activity by essentially rotating the entire room counterclockwise, so we can now sit on the couch and watch TV across the width instead of the length of the room. To my astonishment, Gven did not freak out when she came home and saw it. I really think the feng-shui is better now.
Songs going through my head today from CDs heard last night: "When I grow up I wanna be an old woman" by Michelle Shocked; something from Modern Times by Bob Dylan, which is one of his best ever, okay it's no Highway 61 or Blond on Blond but still; something by Van Morrison about water.
Since we're going to the early movie, I won't have time to bake bread. I will have a bowl of soup, and it is delicious if a bit bland because for some reason I didn't put any hot peppers in it. I have to check the sourdough starter to see if it's bubbling (yes!) and a new batch of mead that is just starting to ferment in a half-gallon honey jar. Uh-oh, I'm getting all food-oriented again, danger danger.
But it's Saturday, or Satyr Day, or Saturn Day, so it's okay to indulge a little, and my calendar tells me it's a full moon tonight - and a lunar eclipse - which could only increase the sensual, Dionysian aspect of everything else that happens today.
And it's cleaning day, so out goes the paper and other recycling. In goes a load of laundry. After sweeping up a heaping combination of dust, ash, and cat hair, I watched parts of three basketball games on TV, read a little of Lynne Sharon Schwartz's nonfiction, which is not as compelling as her fiction, and brought in more firewood. Chagrined at my lethargy, I took a short nap in the wicker chair, folded the laundry, and did a short qigong form to revive.
For some reason, I wasn't in the mood for an early movie, but "Pan's Labyrinthe" was great. Despite abrupt editing shifts from a primeval underworld of nature spirits to the historical aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, it was completely believable. A young girl who loves to read is swept into turbulent events in this world and the other and, like all heroes, is forced to make choices with major consequences. Of course there are good guys and bad guys among the characters, making hard decisions whether to make a sacrifice, to question one's benefactor, to let imagination rule.
Outside the theater I've forgotten what day it is, and it's too cloudy and snowy to see the moon. We go home with hardly any discussion of the movie, and Gven asks me if I fixed the gate, which suddenly latches when you close it. I say no, Zelda must have done it, since she put the latch on in the first place. When Zelda comes home, reporting that the roads are icy and slick, she asks who fixed the gate. It wasn't me, I thought it was you. "We must have elves," she concludes.
In the 'Life' section (dontcha love the names of things? Oh, gee, this part of the newspaper is about Life!) is an article badly written by a professional reporter, who gets paid for this stuff, about a performance piece featuring music composed by Bill Frisell and some very old photos, wait a minute, eight coy paragraphs into the story there is an oblique reference that tells me, yes, the photos that inspired The Disfarmer Project were made by a guy named Mike Disfarmer. Five paragraphs later comes the earthshaking quote:
"When I first saw the photos, it was really moving," Frisell said.
Oh wow, I can see that performance art is very deep and heavy. How can I tell? Because every paragraph is one sentence long.
Next to my desk is a quote from E.B. White: "An editor is someone who knows more about writing than writers do, but who has lost the terrible desire to write." I'm only about halfway there.
On page two, Dear Abby (not the real Dear Abby but one Jeanne Phillips, the pretend Dear Abby) informs a woman in Austin, Texas, whose neighbor sometimes walks out to get his mail in the nude, that
The incidents of exposure you have seen aren't accidents. You would be doing your community a favor to photograph Flash in the act and forward the pictures to the police.
Or you could look away, you fascist busybody. And I could turn the page, where both of my favorites, 'Doonesbury' and 'Frank and Ernest', are quite good. Is this a bad sign when the best work in mainstream journalism is in the comics?
The weather has turned colder again, and it's even snowing, so i guess that nixes my plan to go for a bike ride and fix the roof of the shed. Instead it will be the kind of saturday to light a fire in the stove, bake bread and make black bean soup, a food-oriented saturday, as people used to say back when being "food-oriented" was like a neurotic condition that led to obesity, addictive relationships, and dysfunctional families.
Gven golly comes home from her saturday morning kaffee klatsch. I open the editorial page and point out a piece about an Australian artist with a Web site extolling a new drug called Havidol that promises relief from Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder. We have a laugh. All is not lost.
I chop some vegetables, fry them in a skillet, and mix them into the split pea soup I started last night, then I fry two eggs, toast some bread, and eat a nice normal breakfast with a second cup of coffee. Gven's friend GoKate wants to go see "Pan's Labyrinthe" tonight at Crosswoods, so we make a plan to go to the early show. Jessi told me about it some time ago, it sounds interesting, and I was happy to see it getting some attention on Oscar night, so here's my chance to see it.
Maybe i'll go to office and do some work. Or not. Maybe while cleaning the house i'll get inspired to begin a home-improvement project. Or not. Moving the end cabinet across the kitchen to sit like an island, then moving the stove to the space left by the cabinet, should really wait until we have a dishwasher to replace the stove. Everything is contingent on everything else, and i may have used up my spatial creativity last night anyway, rearranging the living room in a fit of domestic activity by essentially rotating the entire room counterclockwise, so we can now sit on the couch and watch TV across the width instead of the length of the room. To my astonishment, Gven did not freak out when she came home and saw it. I really think the feng-shui is better now.
Songs going through my head today from CDs heard last night: "When I grow up I wanna be an old woman" by Michelle Shocked; something from Modern Times by Bob Dylan, which is one of his best ever, okay it's no Highway 61 or Blond on Blond but still; something by Van Morrison about water.
Since we're going to the early movie, I won't have time to bake bread. I will have a bowl of soup, and it is delicious if a bit bland because for some reason I didn't put any hot peppers in it. I have to check the sourdough starter to see if it's bubbling (yes!) and a new batch of mead that is just starting to ferment in a half-gallon honey jar. Uh-oh, I'm getting all food-oriented again, danger danger.
But it's Saturday, or Satyr Day, or Saturn Day, so it's okay to indulge a little, and my calendar tells me it's a full moon tonight - and a lunar eclipse - which could only increase the sensual, Dionysian aspect of everything else that happens today.
And it's cleaning day, so out goes the paper and other recycling. In goes a load of laundry. After sweeping up a heaping combination of dust, ash, and cat hair, I watched parts of three basketball games on TV, read a little of Lynne Sharon Schwartz's nonfiction, which is not as compelling as her fiction, and brought in more firewood. Chagrined at my lethargy, I took a short nap in the wicker chair, folded the laundry, and did a short qigong form to revive.
For some reason, I wasn't in the mood for an early movie, but "Pan's Labyrinthe" was great. Despite abrupt editing shifts from a primeval underworld of nature spirits to the historical aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, it was completely believable. A young girl who loves to read is swept into turbulent events in this world and the other and, like all heroes, is forced to make choices with major consequences. Of course there are good guys and bad guys among the characters, making hard decisions whether to make a sacrifice, to question one's benefactor, to let imagination rule.
Outside the theater I've forgotten what day it is, and it's too cloudy and snowy to see the moon. We go home with hardly any discussion of the movie, and Gven asks me if I fixed the gate, which suddenly latches when you close it. I say no, Zelda must have done it, since she put the latch on in the first place. When Zelda comes home, reporting that the roads are icy and slick, she asks who fixed the gate. It wasn't me, I thought it was you. "We must have elves," she concludes.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Poet as regular guy
Modest to a fault, short and wiry in a dark brown tweed jacket about a size too big, he looks more like a retired insurance executive from Nebraska than the poet laureate of the United States. Which, he is quick to point out, is not as big a deal as it might sound. The head of the Library of Congress makes the appointment after receiving suggestions from lots of people in the poetry world. The lucky writer gets a small stipend, not enough to live on, and gives a lot of readings to groups like the one last week at Venison University in central Swingstate.
His name is Ted Kooser, and chances are you haven't heard of him. Poets are not rock stars, and the anecdotal evidence flies out of him like quail flushed from a field. He's been sober for 20 years; he had a strict upbringing in small-town Nebraska; his people are from northeastern Iowa. He didn't fit the profile of academic literary circles in his younger days, and he still doesn't. He's more Sandburg than Eliot, more Frost than Pound, more Snyder than Ginsburg, and more Wallace Stevens or William Carlos Williams than any of them, because he made a living in the insurance business and wrote poems on the side. He's here in Ohio to celebrate the ordinary.
Let me set the stage. A lecture hall in the student center with a decent turnout of faculty, students, and my Wednesday night men's group, eight gray heads in the second row who piled in a van to navigate the freezing fog to Granville. The set-up man's set-up man is beaming from the podium, also in a dark brown tweed and a fast receding crew cut. Chair of the English Department? I bet he played point guard in prep school. The set-up man himself, a year or two younger and leaner, also sports a crew cut, but I'm judging the book by its cover. He goes on a bit about the ostentacious young poet he once was before encountering Kooser in the stacks and changing his tune. Now he's a tenured critic with a Guggenheim grant and a big black pickup truck.
I got a chance to talk with Kooser briefly at the reception afterward. He writes everything longhand with a fountain pen on an unlined artist's sketchpad. He only goes through four a year because he writes small so a lot of words fit on a page. He edits himself severely, cutting and cutting and revising, then transcribing what's left on a word processor to see how the lines look in print. He gestures with both hands to indicate even margins, doesn't like any long lines hanging out.
Kooser writes to be read and understood by people who are not necessarily schooled in verse. His secretary had the privilege of reading much of his work before anyone else; if she didn't get it, he knew he was missing the mark. He writes every day. He said his uncle was a champion at horseshoes, so young Ted asked him how he got so good. "You got to pitch a hundred shoes a day," he said.
His name is Ted Kooser, and chances are you haven't heard of him. Poets are not rock stars, and the anecdotal evidence flies out of him like quail flushed from a field. He's been sober for 20 years; he had a strict upbringing in small-town Nebraska; his people are from northeastern Iowa. He didn't fit the profile of academic literary circles in his younger days, and he still doesn't. He's more Sandburg than Eliot, more Frost than Pound, more Snyder than Ginsburg, and more Wallace Stevens or William Carlos Williams than any of them, because he made a living in the insurance business and wrote poems on the side. He's here in Ohio to celebrate the ordinary.
A Poetry Reading
Once you were young along a river, tree to tree,
with sleek black wings and red shoulders.
You sang for yourself but all of them listened to you.
Now you're an old blue heron with yellow eyes
and a gray neck tough as a snake.
You open your book on its spine, a split fish,
and pick over the difficult ribs,
turning your better eye down to the work
of eating your words as you go.
(from Weather Central, 1994)
Let me set the stage. A lecture hall in the student center with a decent turnout of faculty, students, and my Wednesday night men's group, eight gray heads in the second row who piled in a van to navigate the freezing fog to Granville. The set-up man's set-up man is beaming from the podium, also in a dark brown tweed and a fast receding crew cut. Chair of the English Department? I bet he played point guard in prep school. The set-up man himself, a year or two younger and leaner, also sports a crew cut, but I'm judging the book by its cover. He goes on a bit about the ostentacious young poet he once was before encountering Kooser in the stacks and changing his tune. Now he's a tenured critic with a Guggenheim grant and a big black pickup truck.
I got a chance to talk with Kooser briefly at the reception afterward. He writes everything longhand with a fountain pen on an unlined artist's sketchpad. He only goes through four a year because he writes small so a lot of words fit on a page. He edits himself severely, cutting and cutting and revising, then transcribing what's left on a word processor to see how the lines look in print. He gestures with both hands to indicate even margins, doesn't like any long lines hanging out.
Kooser writes to be read and understood by people who are not necessarily schooled in verse. His secretary had the privilege of reading much of his work before anyone else; if she didn't get it, he knew he was missing the mark. He writes every day. He said his uncle was a champion at horseshoes, so young Ted asked him how he got so good. "You got to pitch a hundred shoes a day," he said.
Monday, February 19, 2007
sourdough
Jo Jo sent me a sourdough starter crock for my birthday. Nothing fancy, just a ceramic canister with a loose-fitting lid, just right for containing a live culture of wild yeast. We had a short conversation about fermented foods at Thanksgiving, and true to her resourceful and benevolent nature, my sister followed through by taking action on a good idea.
Then she followed-up with an e-mail of step-by-step instructions on how to get started. Having talked up the whole notion of Wild Fermentation in the first place, I couldn't very well do nothing, so I gave it a try.
The instructions sounded a little too easy, but the results seemed to follow as expected. All I had to do was mix equal amounts of flour and warm water and leave it in the crock for a few days. As long as the temperature is moderate, that is, not cold enough to stop microorganisms and hot enough to kill them, they would find their way to the wheaty medium. Every day I added a little more flour and warm water to feed the little beasts, and every day the culture in a crock had a bit more bubble bubble with no toil and trouble.
After a week it appeared to be ready, so I treated it just like a yeasted dough and let it rise in a warm place before shaping loaves. Well, that didn't work too well. The weather was very cold, so the woodstove in the den was very hot, and it might have killed the friendly yeast colony. Or the timing could have been wrong (too much? too little?), and incidentally I forgot to add salt (duh!), so the bread was inedible. I'm sure it made superlative compost.
So I tried again, this time adding a tiny bit of honey from a rooftop garden in New York. Following the same procedure, adding a little flour and water each day, by the next weekend the starter looked bubbly and ready. This time I let it sit longer next to a warm but not hot stove, and I remembered to add salt. The loaves came out dense but tasty - if you like sour. It's definitely sourdough.
A little bit of the starter is saved from each batch, so this culture of wild central swingstate yeast and wheat is still growing. This time I'm using white flour to see what difference it makes. I'm hoping for a little lighter texture. So far so good, as the familiar bubbles are appearing on top when I check it at night.
At this moment, as I write I am chewing a mouthful of sourdough bread topped with pepperjack cheese. Yum.
Then she followed-up with an e-mail of step-by-step instructions on how to get started. Having talked up the whole notion of Wild Fermentation in the first place, I couldn't very well do nothing, so I gave it a try.
The instructions sounded a little too easy, but the results seemed to follow as expected. All I had to do was mix equal amounts of flour and warm water and leave it in the crock for a few days. As long as the temperature is moderate, that is, not cold enough to stop microorganisms and hot enough to kill them, they would find their way to the wheaty medium. Every day I added a little more flour and warm water to feed the little beasts, and every day the culture in a crock had a bit more bubble bubble with no toil and trouble.
After a week it appeared to be ready, so I treated it just like a yeasted dough and let it rise in a warm place before shaping loaves. Well, that didn't work too well. The weather was very cold, so the woodstove in the den was very hot, and it might have killed the friendly yeast colony. Or the timing could have been wrong (too much? too little?), and incidentally I forgot to add salt (duh!), so the bread was inedible. I'm sure it made superlative compost.
So I tried again, this time adding a tiny bit of honey from a rooftop garden in New York. Following the same procedure, adding a little flour and water each day, by the next weekend the starter looked bubbly and ready. This time I let it sit longer next to a warm but not hot stove, and I remembered to add salt. The loaves came out dense but tasty - if you like sour. It's definitely sourdough.
A little bit of the starter is saved from each batch, so this culture of wild central swingstate yeast and wheat is still growing. This time I'm using white flour to see what difference it makes. I'm hoping for a little lighter texture. So far so good, as the familiar bubbles are appearing on top when I check it at night.
At this moment, as I write I am chewing a mouthful of sourdough bread topped with pepperjack cheese. Yum.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
'You and Me and Everyone We Know'
Should see this movie.
Miranda July wrote it, directed it, and plays a young woman who drives an ElderCab and is looking for something else. She finds a man with two young sons who recently separated from his wife. The man wears a quizzical expression most of the time and is perplexed by his situation and concerned with the safety of his beautiful boys. The boys, who are very fine actors in that way that children sometimes have of not appearing to be acting, interact mainly in chat rooms but generally curious about their new neighborhood and the world. They are alternately bedeviled and befriended by the precocious girl next door, who has a growing collection of small appliances in her hope chest, and a couple of teenage chicks who are also exploring new territory emboldened and supported by each other. Part of that territory is inhabited by a young shoe salesman who works with the boys' father, young men who also confide in each other.
See how everything connects with everything else? Loopy, you might say, with plot lines that circle back to other plot lines involving oddly infuriating and endearing characters in unexpected ways. They say things to each other that regular people (not movie characters) would never say - or maybe they would if they could.
July has a lot on her mind. She has crafted a modest film that many people will probably find precious or cute, but don't be numbed to what it offers. There are no big stars, no car crashes, no gun fights, no explosions, no apocalypse. Probably the best film I've seen this year.
Miranda July wrote it, directed it, and plays a young woman who drives an ElderCab and is looking for something else. She finds a man with two young sons who recently separated from his wife. The man wears a quizzical expression most of the time and is perplexed by his situation and concerned with the safety of his beautiful boys. The boys, who are very fine actors in that way that children sometimes have of not appearing to be acting, interact mainly in chat rooms but generally curious about their new neighborhood and the world. They are alternately bedeviled and befriended by the precocious girl next door, who has a growing collection of small appliances in her hope chest, and a couple of teenage chicks who are also exploring new territory emboldened and supported by each other. Part of that territory is inhabited by a young shoe salesman who works with the boys' father, young men who also confide in each other.
See how everything connects with everything else? Loopy, you might say, with plot lines that circle back to other plot lines involving oddly infuriating and endearing characters in unexpected ways. They say things to each other that regular people (not movie characters) would never say - or maybe they would if they could.
July has a lot on her mind. She has crafted a modest film that many people will probably find precious or cute, but don't be numbed to what it offers. There are no big stars, no car crashes, no gun fights, no explosions, no apocalypse. Probably the best film I've seen this year.
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