tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53901990415212560862024-03-13T23:56:56.174-07:00The Teacher's ViewNotes On Books, Culture, and the Life of the MindPaul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.comBlogger579125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-65791164288855418502022-01-07T13:34:00.000-08:002022-01-07T13:34:33.081-08:00H Is For Hawk<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgrVOLcKWj550IRva5gAeB6p3uTFV_sc-ATrDuA21Dq27R-1x8Apyb7Z3RJmGCw37iSmFlkI8f3_rIqv4zwOGnkWFNx6jiLBujLrylOKmNcyI4y2xFy7IwVY7STaE8EaEfUllbLDS4f4akZUg--9b3_nCtNDp5ULkOH1RqSkmyWC9FgH6xdrF_lCrzH9Q=s1642" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1642" data-original-width="1076" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgrVOLcKWj550IRva5gAeB6p3uTFV_sc-ATrDuA21Dq27R-1x8Apyb7Z3RJmGCw37iSmFlkI8f3_rIqv4zwOGnkWFNx6jiLBujLrylOKmNcyI4y2xFy7IwVY7STaE8EaEfUllbLDS4f4akZUg--9b3_nCtNDp5ULkOH1RqSkmyWC9FgH6xdrF_lCrzH9Q=w263-h400" width="263" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">In these days of
climate change and wholesale destruction of nature, we hang all hopes for the
future on nature’s resilience. That
resilience is the theme underlying Helen Macdonald’s memoir <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/H-Hawk-Helen-Macdonald/dp/0802124739/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1641591084&sr=1-1"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">H Is For Hawk</span></a></i> (Grove Press, 2014). Hers is a triangulated story shifting from
her father’s death to the life of Arthurian legend writer T.H. White to
Macdonald’s training of Mabel the goshawk, the medium-large raptor <i>Accipiter gentilis</i> of the title. If these seem like strange bedfellows,
Macdonald makes these transitions smoothly and by the end of the book, weaves a
story of personal redemption and self-discovery that is both wise and profound.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">T. H. White also wrote
a book about raising and training a goshawk, and Macdonald turns to the
celebrated author’s book as a guide for her own journey with Mabel. He was not as prepared as Macdonald, and
therefore his account is more fraught with difficulty and disappointment. Yet he is a touchstone for Macdonald, a
connection to an experience with an animal who has as much to teach her trainer
as her trainer has to understand this predatory bird. With a goshawk, however, there is no taming her
nature; Macdonald, with great difficulty, simply trains the bird to follow her
own instincts as a hunter of prey, and human and hawk learn to work as a unit on
the hunt.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Macdonald’s father was
a photojournalist who died in 2007. She
recounts his passing while on the job, and how she had to go with family
members to pick up his belongings and find his car, which had been towed away
when he did not return to pick it up while covering his final story. Macdonald was very close to him, and the loss
is almost overwhelming. Part of her own
training is to learn to live with loss and grief. She recounts how her father taught her
patience as the most important virtue.
He tells her that one must be willing to stay still and wait for her
moment, much like a piece of reindeer moss can survive “just about anything the
world throws at it” and remain resilient.
It is ironic that she finds herself staring at the moss when her mother
informs her of her father’s passing.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">The life of an
Astringer—a solitary trainer of goshawks and sparrowhawks—is a lonely one, and
Macdonald describes her daily life and routines with Mabel in poetic and deeply
harmonic language. The setting of the
book is the Brecklands, a place known as the broken lands, and the area lives
up to its name. She clings to the words
of Marianne Moore: “The cure for
loneliness is solitude.” She tells us
she has learned to hold tight and survive, much like the security of the
jesses, leather straps that bind the hawk to the Astringer. Her twin brother did not survive the
difficult birth that brought Macdonald into the world.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgkr8KpxkT1D59hgu9AhTS8aLXI33Ac3ALFH8ed8ZepMWgCbUih6BmmUOAXZXWWL8zaK2V3O5qyZ4pROYUY3wloE_TWAnZ8nwJNwiF42f78nF8gxCvwuLeCrpAj_sbDyWZ3ABhoX7rLb8w6RSDgbSobneLPtsLTiR7Zc_QGJxhG1nw0JyzoNV502_IgSQ=s1800" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgkr8KpxkT1D59hgu9AhTS8aLXI33Ac3ALFH8ed8ZepMWgCbUih6BmmUOAXZXWWL8zaK2V3O5qyZ4pROYUY3wloE_TWAnZ8nwJNwiF42f78nF8gxCvwuLeCrpAj_sbDyWZ3ABhoX7rLb8w6RSDgbSobneLPtsLTiR7Zc_QGJxhG1nw0JyzoNV502_IgSQ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">Macdonald is so good at
distilling the wisdom she absorbs from training Mabel. She tells us there are two things she has
learned about training hawks: the
Astringer must learn to become invisible, and the way to a hawk’s heart is
through positive reinforcement with food.
Hawks are not social animals like dogs or horses. They are predators, and their predatory
nature is bred in their bones. She
equates training goshawks with “white-knuckle jobs” as described by her
father. These are dangerous journalism
assignments. Her father’s defense
against the fear is to “look through the viewfinder” and stop being
involved. Instead, become the
witness. “All that exists is a square of
finely ground glass and the world seen through it,” he tells her. His advice in stressful, dangerous situations
is to be mindful of “exposure and depth of field and getting the shot you hope
for.” Macdonald sees her father’s work
in each photograph as “a record, a testament, a bulwark against forgetting,
against nothingness, against death.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjG2l0cZFuO_8Ivy4oidJTwuzxyClHnLnInNiTNvJazwWLvZPGIAJuUxlUvka-dXuhNXRAVDPaq0IEkggvuZao7AxOu4_n5waGd7e-ET9DGo5tsJcLw8fkct6FaFTusg4HJpv6ut65vEcSkfnAhb97NmTYRtHWb_YZNlpcZ3fnz9VIfvOBOwSLbVki8Kg=s640" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="425" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjG2l0cZFuO_8Ivy4oidJTwuzxyClHnLnInNiTNvJazwWLvZPGIAJuUxlUvka-dXuhNXRAVDPaq0IEkggvuZao7AxOu4_n5waGd7e-ET9DGo5tsJcLw8fkct6FaFTusg4HJpv6ut65vEcSkfnAhb97NmTYRtHWb_YZNlpcZ3fnz9VIfvOBOwSLbVki8Kg=w266-h400" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henri Cartier-Bresson</td></tr></tbody></table>Rooted in her father’s
philosophy is one that Macdonald also discovers in nature when training
Mabel. The world is forever; we are only
a blink in its course. Macdonald
references Henri Cartier-Bresson, the great French street photographer, and his
photographs of a <i>decisive moment</i>. A good photograph means being open to all
life offers and in an intuitive moment, click the shutter to capture. If one misses the moment, it is gone forever. Our lesson is to live in that moment—no past,
no future, only the here and now.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p>
</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Throughout the book,
Macdonald’s writing is poetic and beautiful.
She writes: “There is a time in
life when you expect the world to be always full of new things. And then comes a day when you realize that is
not how it will be at all. You see that
life will become a thing made of holes.
Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no
longer. And you realize, too, that you
have to grow around and between the gaps, though you can put your hand out to
where things were and feel that tense, shining dullness of the space where the
memories are.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p> </o:p>She also does not
neglect the mythological elements of hawks and falcons, one that has played out
over millennia: in ancient shamanic
traditions in Eurasian cultures, “hawks and falcons were seen as messengers
between this world and the next.” Mabel comes
into Helen Macdonald’s life right at a time of need, and in working with this intense
and intelligent animal, she finds peace and purpose in her life. She illuminates a culture that most of us
never experience: training a fierce and
intense goshawk to hunt with her human counterpart. In the end, Macdonald comes to understand the
overwhelming grief and loss inherent in this life. Her story is extraordinary and extraordinarily
beautiful.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-87981616271760190152022-01-02T12:07:00.001-08:002022-01-02T17:00:51.435-08:00January Reading: Humble Pi<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZRnRIb8vfSa5zUBgMD6I34pTTAqwyLGRtV7em9zJQ2ILzVVvB7WR28cevgjIN0l7jP9DGCDdgsMGcmki1EHfxQkADNoI88_kO6b6dn55n404XTReylVaq4X2bGKCZkg3dIw8VXaBL-U8LgSOPR63KlHIQR9fiNoK_oa54uyCXfATJeS_7Lrv8j95oFA=s1642" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1642" data-original-width="1089" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZRnRIb8vfSa5zUBgMD6I34pTTAqwyLGRtV7em9zJQ2ILzVVvB7WR28cevgjIN0l7jP9DGCDdgsMGcmki1EHfxQkADNoI88_kO6b6dn55n404XTReylVaq4X2bGKCZkg3dIw8VXaBL-U8LgSOPR63KlHIQR9fiNoK_oa54uyCXfATJeS_7Lrv8j95oFA=w265-h400" width="265" /></a></div><p><br /></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-50513612000382900412022-01-01T18:22:00.003-08:002022-01-01T18:22:27.197-08:00December Reading<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTEUgnIwZlitVA7ju7nN_GMpE_qFLaDEOaIyVW8V_z2Ql1c0Lr8XgrUWcdXs0k19z7OPZh5PB39h5snguGs9UJctIG_Agf5ZP21aB4psXO8sfsmo4MIvjSd_OnLd1IrSSk-EdcXRmBZ71JBie1z0LyCIV8DK-CN9cyIe-7VkEEFMi23QWa_NZ8ddvs4Q=s2017" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1261" data-original-width="2017" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTEUgnIwZlitVA7ju7nN_GMpE_qFLaDEOaIyVW8V_z2Ql1c0Lr8XgrUWcdXs0k19z7OPZh5PB39h5snguGs9UJctIG_Agf5ZP21aB4psXO8sfsmo4MIvjSd_OnLd1IrSSk-EdcXRmBZ71JBie1z0LyCIV8DK-CN9cyIe-7VkEEFMi23QWa_NZ8ddvs4Q=w400-h250" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjAkO5oAoyK1yfthhCoAlqGUzO8xJCfJHcY3ObLxPAedL9HZOrayDhpCNaih5RbbSZFjVLHBPL0yaF3N1BtLgyvGbEAP7tuJpWweY2vfluTxY0BXpnUan8Wv02fl9uMEMyTUj5RepJ8JBbTTsVjR9hBpRjHwQUoSN4XiILI9ysnnwrE9Ig2Y40LPV1uAw=s3024" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjAkO5oAoyK1yfthhCoAlqGUzO8xJCfJHcY3ObLxPAedL9HZOrayDhpCNaih5RbbSZFjVLHBPL0yaF3N1BtLgyvGbEAP7tuJpWweY2vfluTxY0BXpnUan8Wv02fl9uMEMyTUj5RepJ8JBbTTsVjR9hBpRjHwQUoSN4XiILI9ysnnwrE9Ig2Y40LPV1uAw=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-71430161350380244932021-12-04T09:57:00.000-08:002021-12-04T09:57:24.022-08:00Difficult Light<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JIzWW8BRUfs/YaurX2RQdNI/AAAAAAAADnk/Z9NmU4j2H4EOJEHSO2Tf2GH0yjAdzmd3wCNcBGAsYHQ/s1024/DifficultLight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="901" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JIzWW8BRUfs/YaurX2RQdNI/AAAAAAAADnk/Z9NmU4j2H4EOJEHSO2Tf2GH0yjAdzmd3wCNcBGAsYHQ/w353-h400/DifficultLight.jpg" width="353" /></a></div><br /><p>One cannot discuss
Tomas Gonzalez’s work without invoking the name of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Gonzalez’s novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Light-Tomas-Gonzalez/dp/1939810604/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1638640530&sr=8-1"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Difficult Light</i> </span></a>(Archipelago Books, 2020), the influence is evident
in his narrator, David, an aging artist and writer who has suffered a lifetime
of tragedy and now lives out his days in central Colombia. He reflects on the
ghosts that haunt him and the inescapable certainty that in blindness, his best
work as an artist is behind him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can
no longer paint due to macular degeneration and has turned to slow and
painstaking writing with his fountain pen and magnifying glass, leaving pages
of his life for his housekeeper to organize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This spare and beautifully written novel is full of requiem and solitude
and loss.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">In the period of middle-age
from which the central storyline is told, David and his wife Sara face a
tragedy all parents fear: the impending death of their son, Jacobo, a young man
suffering greatly from the horrific pain of an accident that has left him
paralyzed. He and his brother, Pablo,
embark on a final journey from New York to Oregon, where Jacobo has decided to
commit assisted suicide. David and Sara
wait by the phone, a hopeless and helpless vigil because they cannot accompany
their sons due to the legal ramifications of what is to come; however, they
support his wish to escape the unrelenting agony of his daily life.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">These scenes are
intercut with David as an old, nearly blind man living in Colombia without
Sara, who has died. He walks in solitude
through the gardens and orchards she tended, a silent memory of the scope and
shape of his life, his family, his work.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">In his private
reflections, David finds unbearable truths.
“It’s a cruel cliché,” Gonzalez writes, that “the last thing you lose is
hope.” Pain is a constant and
unrelenting companion, embodied in the physical suffering of Jacobo and the
spiritual suffering of his father.
Gonzalez fills his novel with the quiet sorrow of his characters. Their moments of relief are all too
fleeting: massages help free Jacobo for
brief periods so he can find sleep; the substance of David’s memories of Sara and
their love bring some comfort to his bereaved state.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Gonzalez lingers on a
quiet meditation of summer and light, something that is slipping away from his
narrator. David reflects that “it was summer and the days were long. In summer at a certain point you have the
illusion that the days last forever. I
didn’t want night to come, because then I’d have to acknowledge that time was
passing; that life was passing over us, crushing us with its wheels and gears.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">He has the epiphany
that “Affliction is not motionless; it is fluid and unstable, and its flames,
which are not orange and red but blue, and sometimes a horrible pale green,
torment you sometimes on one side of the body and sometimes the other,
sometimes forcefully gripping your whole body until you find yourself silently
screaming like that Munch painting where a person is wailing on a bridge.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">This is the torturous physical
pain of Jacobo and the psychic pain of his father, and neither can be ameliorated
in this life. They must be accepted as
the human condition—our lives are both torment and triumph over the
torment. Jacobo describes his pain as someone
“punching him endlessly in the stomach” or “crushing his toes in a vise.” These are pains from regions where the nerves
have been severed, yet the pain persists.
In this life, pain is inescapable.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">In this quiet, elegiac
reverie, while waiting for the inevitable death, we get to the heart of the
human condition: to live in the realm of
sorrow and suffering. Indeed, life is
suffering, but it is in his memories of making love to Sara that David finds redemption. We love each other physically, spiritually, and
in the end, that love will bring us home.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Jim Morrison of the
Doors gave us the lyric, “No one here gets out alive.” Tomas Gonzalez begins his novel with William
Blake’s words: “If the doors of
perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite,” from which the Doors took their
name. Both have purchase in this
discussion of <i>Difficult Light:</i> if we are creatures fated to move from
existence to oblivion, we must reckon with the clarity that only comes at the
end of our journey. It is only in
retrospection and reflection that we understand how and why we’ve lived.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-23559372920445175292021-11-26T13:50:00.002-08:002021-11-26T13:50:18.642-08:00Thanks-Giving<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GYm4QubLPRA/YaFWItGleHI/AAAAAAAADl0/dLLCu8hZ6Zo1-WJN6rJwokfF8j2b09_XwCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/Trees.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="800" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GYm4QubLPRA/YaFWItGleHI/AAAAAAAADl0/dLLCu8hZ6Zo1-WJN6rJwokfF8j2b09_XwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/Trees.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;">In our lives, we are
all the keepers of stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
narratives tell us where we came from and who we are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also hint, for the young, at who we will
become.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Yesterday, we gathered
with family for Thanksgiving. We told
stories, some old and often repeated down through the years, and some new and
tinged with sepia sadness at those no longer present, who live on only in our
memories. They are our recent losses,
those of blessed memory. Of course, we
were also creating stories in present tense, right then and there: my grand-niece’s first Thanksgiving. Stories multiply and branch out from other
stories to become trees reaching down to the past and up to the future.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">As I watched people, I
could read them as stories. Or, at the
very least, I could imagine them as characters in a larger fabric of our
existence: a crazy quilt of many colors,
a host of fall-colored autumnal trees, strong and true.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Then, last night, I dreamed
I told too many stories. I had revealed
too much, giving away secrets <i>and </i>the
keys to the kingdom. I awoke before the
consequences of my storytelling were known.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">But to reach maximum
velocity, a story must put someone at risk:
the characters, the narrator, the storyteller. Conflict and jeopardy rule the day in a good
story. They are the building blocks, the
central core of any narrative, in truth or imagination. Therefore, a storyteller must be brave. We cannot tremble in darkness, nor should we
shun the light. Stand tall and simply
tell it straight and true. Relish the
recitation; revel in its revealing detail.
The story <i>is</i> us. And the keeper of stories is a trust sacred to
this world. For the storytellers and the
stories, we give thanks.</p></div>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-87873935722738842932021-11-19T18:02:00.000-08:002021-11-19T18:02:05.314-08:00Dear Memory<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GKkarTYy7Pw/YZhWLTVdaoI/AAAAAAAADls/g7v-hOc3vuAFoy2GiKkMpJKYL05tI9INwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1879/Chang.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1879" data-original-width="1419" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GKkarTYy7Pw/YZhWLTVdaoI/AAAAAAAADls/g7v-hOc3vuAFoy2GiKkMpJKYL05tI9INwCLcBGAsYHQ/w303-h400/Chang.jpg" width="303" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;">In this haunting and
luminous work, Victoria Chang gives us a series of epistles and found collages
to address the melancholic remembrances of things past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Memory-Letters-Writing-Silence/dp/1571313923/ref=sr_1_1?crid=39BIORXM85ZJX&keywords=dear+memory+victoria+chang&qid=1637373560&sprefix=dear+memory%2Caps%2C232&sr=8-1"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Dear
Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and
Grief</span> </a></i>(Milkweed Editions, 2021) is an elegy and lament for the dead and
gone: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>her ancestors, her teachers, and
friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She quotes poet Mary Jo
Bang:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What is an elegy but the attempt
/ To rebreathe life / Into what the gone once was…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book is filled with light and shadow, the
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pneuma</i> of humanity and the human
condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More poetry than prose, the
book is a connotative <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tour de force</i>
of what it means to be alive and to live with the breath of memory and regret.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Chang is a poet, a teacher,
and program chair in the Creative Writing Department at Antioch
University. She believes in writing that
puts language at risk, allowing words to build into something beyond the
self. She asks: “Can I be the hawk and the storm that tries
to murder the hawk?” The question is fraught
with danger. She confronts and sifts
through memory and goes directly to how our lives often play out in the blood,
the DNA of who we are, and what we do with our brief time in this human
epoch. She documents the sorrow and
grace of her existence, both visually and in words. “Perhaps something never happened if no one
remembers it,” she writes. “Perhaps
there’s no truth. Just memory and words.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Coupled with her words
are these haunting collages, many composed of documents and paper fragments of
her past. She writes dialogue with her
mother directly in the spaces on each picture as if conducting an
interview. Other collages are family
photographs, some with faces etched out as if demonstrating how they dwell in
the shadows of her history.
Collectively, the collages tell the parallel story; they weave into and
out of the word-epistles. The letters
and the collages are rare jewels. They
both enhance and magnify the threads that bind the story together from word to
image. Her poet’s sense of the spare and
lyrical is ever-present in the art and the words.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Often, Chang’s
language stuns us with its beauty and insight.
“Maybe our desire for the past grows after the decay of our present, she
writes. “When the present is more than
we can hold, it turns into history. And
the future turns into water. The water
between your countries.” It is this
water that her family journeyed over to find their destiny. Chang feels her place in America, but the
book she creates also pays homage to those who made that journey and who, in
turn, made her a unique part of a new nation, a new home. This is an immigrant story, and Chang pays
artful attention to this most American of ideas. She wonders if memory is different for
immigrants, “for people who leave so much behind. Memory isn’t something that blooms but
something that bleeds internally, something to be stopped. Memory hides because it isn’t useful.” It is clearly the calling of the poet-artist
to bring the memory forward, to shine light, muted or harsh, to illuminate the
darkness of experience, of grief, of sorrow, of regret.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">There are gaps in her
family history that she does not fully understand and wants to explore. Memories, dreams, reflections, all kaleidoscope
together in the form of questions she did not ask at the time, or did not find
the answers to later. “The things that
didn’t matter at the time are often the most urgent questions after someone has
died,” she writes.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">She devotes much to a
discussion of silence and grief. What is
not said speaks volumes. It is silence
that cannot be undone, and in that way, Chang tells us, it is like death. The story ends when no one remembers the
words, the people in the photographs, the significance of things. But the dead are wise. They know things. “By the time we die,” Chang writes, “we know
everything we need to know.” Those of us
left behind must wonder what the dead have taken with them. It is up to the living to remember the
strands of the story and continue it.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Chang circles back to
writing at the end. She recognizes that
dragging a “not-yet-ready memory” into the light is often painful. It is difficult and lacerating. “More and more,” she writes, “I think writing
is not a choice but an act of patience.
An act of listening to silence, into silence.” It is in silence that, paradoxically, we hear
voices. In silence, we communicate with
the dead, with our own souls, and where the world is still enough to hear our
own breath rushing in and out of our lives.
It takes bravery and courage to listen to the silences and become
aware. Victoria Chang models such
heroism for us, and the result is a shimmering and beautiful book.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><br /></p><p></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-44265927998246108702021-11-16T10:20:00.002-08:002021-11-17T09:34:32.904-08:00Anvils, Mallets & Dynamite<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RKF99SFoJt4/YZP1Rlf7XOI/AAAAAAAADlk/qaOs-Xpu5jYcMlX2fseL6gFCeR2IA4ETgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1841/Bugs.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1841" data-original-width="1209" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RKF99SFoJt4/YZP1Rlf7XOI/AAAAAAAADlk/qaOs-Xpu5jYcMlX2fseL6gFCeR2IA4ETgCLcBGAsYHQ/w263-h400/Bugs.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>Jaime Weinman, in his
book <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Anvils-Mallets-Dynamite-Unauthorized-Biography/dp/1989555462/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2SE61TCTMP5VM&keywords=anvils+mallets+dynamite&qid=1637086634&s=books&sprefix=anvils%2Caps%2C211&sr=1-1"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Anvils, Mallets & Dynamite: The Unauthorized Biography of Looney Tunes</span></a></i>
(Sutherland House, 2021) takes a deep dive into the legendary and wildly
popular Warner Brothers cartoons created between 1930 and 1963 featuring Bugs
Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester and Tweety, and the irrepressible Foghorn Leghorn
among a host of others. The cartoons were
created to be the <i>hors d’oeuvre </i>to
the main course of whatever Warner Brothers picture was scheduled at the local
movie theater, but most of us of a certain age remember Bugs and company from
Saturday mornings on one of the big three networks back in the day.<p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">I have some specific
memories of these beloved cartoons.
While my mother slept in, I would take some money from her purse and
bike to the local Alta Dena bakery for a dozen chocolate and a dozen powdered
donuts. While my siblings and I munched
away, we watched the Road Runner continually outwit Wile E. Coyote, leaving
him smashed, bashed, and broken. We
watched while Bugs dressed as a woman to seduce the rather thick Elmer Fudd and
send him off to hunt Daffy instead of Bugs, thoroughly convinced it was duck
season instead of “wabbit” season. No
Beanie and Cecil for me, and Scooby Doo’s stoner act got old quickly. Bugs Bunny, the trickster extraordinaire,
never seemed tired. Considering we were
watching cartoons created in the 1940s and 1950s, our interest never waned even
as we watched from the far future of the late 1960s and 70s.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><i>Looney Tunes</i> could be violent, and the popular characters rarely
faced consequences for their actions, but we loved them. Weinman theorizes that kids did not always
connect with <i>Looney Tunes</i> characters
“because we know that nothing has consequences for them, and they seem to know
it too.” I admired Bugs’ facility with
words, his ability to con Porky or Elmer or Daffy, and always come out on
top. Rarely is he flustered or thrown
off his game. Weinman believes the
cartoons adopted an “anything for a laugh” philosophy, which “isn’t what we
expect of first-rate art.” Is a cartoon
first-rate art? Arguably, yes!</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Weinman goes on to
write that “To celebrate the greatness of works of art, you have to acknowledge
their limitations, the sides of the world that they don’t or can’t see. <i>Looney
Tunes</i> cartoons leave out a lot of human experience, and speak to only one
kind of mood. But what we ask of art is
not that it tell us everything, but that it tell us <i>something</i>, that it have a style and a viewpoint that makes sense to
us. Every good <i>Looney Tunes</i> cartoon has that.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">The book offers a deep
and well-researched history of the cartoons, along with how characters were
perceived by the public, which ones became popular, and which ones were
eventually phased out. There were also several
instances in their long history that characters were subtly, or even
dramatically altered when different animation teams and producers took
over. Many of the most successful
characters had speech impediments exploited for humor, something in our more
careful age would not fly. But these
“vocal quirks” endeared them to audiences over generations. It is also interesting to note which
characters the studio thought would be the breakout stars. For instance, they placed their faith in
Daffy Duck as the definitive <i>Looney Tunes</i>
cartoon character. Of course, Bugs Bunny
changed that. The cartoons also attacked
common themes in the culture, like hunting as a sign of manliness. Porky Pig destroyed that fanciful notion, as did
Elmer Fudd in his hunting cap, chasing both Bugs and Daffy with disastrous
results. However, Weinman points out
that what makes <i>Looney Tunes</i> great is
the ability of the writers and artists “to portray the maximum amount of comedy
violence while still being charming, fun, family entertainment.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Of course, the
cartoons were produced during some of the most fraught times in the twentieth
century, and they often reflected those crises specifically or
tangentially. When the cartoons were
combined into packages and sold into syndication, several were removed for
their overt racism. They were singled
out for their racist stereotypes and black-face gags, wholly inappropriate today
and in the late 1960s and 1970s when they were a major block of Saturday morning
programming for kids.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">So what happened to
Bugs and the gang? Well, the syndication
packages were divided and reassembled and then redivided again. Many are available on YouTube. Check your local listings, as the saying
goes. The characters did return to
prominence in the Space Jam movies, the most successful project for <i>Looney Tunes</i> since the original Warner
Brothers cartoon studio shut down.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">If you are a fan of
the cartoons, Jaime Weinman’s book is a must-have. For the casual cartoon connoisseur, or
someone who remembers the taste of chocolate and powdered donuts on a Saturday
morning along with the telescoping concentric circles receding into the
distance with “That’s all Folks!” that marked the end of each cartoon, this is
an insightful and interesting book, as much about childhood and memory as
American culture and a rabbit, who despite the odds, always came out on top,
the trickster heading off into the sunset, on top of the world.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p> </o:p></p><br />Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-57622830852190809012021-11-07T19:07:00.002-08:002021-11-07T19:07:39.388-08:00Burning Boy<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P_UCWoecP9E/YYiTSf3v2sI/AAAAAAAADlU/BfShOy_sgpUxgGL327NEmxOYt0CPL6s1QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1898/Stephen%2BCrane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1898" data-original-width="1257" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P_UCWoecP9E/YYiTSf3v2sI/AAAAAAAADlU/BfShOy_sgpUxgGL327NEmxOYt0CPL6s1QCLcBGAsYHQ/w265-h400/Stephen%2BCrane.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>What makes American
writer Stephen Crane unique, according to Paul Auster, author of <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Burning-Boy-Life-Stephen-Crane/dp/1250235839/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2UIZZEBBQJFYK&keywords=burning+boy+paul+auster&qid=1636340670&qsid=139-2207920-2962866&s=books&sprefix=burning+boy%2Caps%2C216&sr=1-1&sres=1250235839%2CB01IA6FM76%2C0674049535%2CB08WLW4G6F%2CB000TO0TB2%2C1684427304%2C2330155433%2CB0877DGC68&srpt=ABIS_BOOK"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane</span></a> </i>(Henry Holt and Company, 2021),
is the cinematic nature of his art. It
is “as if each sentence were a small work in itself, a separate photograph or
drawing to be contemplated for a moment before the next one replaces it.” This is “what one might call a cinematic
style before the language of movies had been invented.” This is not a style found just in Crane’s
masterpiece, <i>The Red Badge of Courage</i>;
his cinematic style can be found throughout his work.<p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Auster attributes this
to the way Crane saw his world. “Every
sound triggered off a color in his mind,” he writes, and he found it strange
that others did not have a similar reaction.
Sounds could be colors, but he also found color in emotions and “various
shades of thought. These responses were
felt deep within and absorbed into Crane’s body, which was the site of a
constant inrush of raw sensation, and not only can traces of these collisions
between the outside and the inside be found all over his work, it seems
perfectly plausible that a man with such a finely tuned nervous system should
have been known for his darting, restless, inconstant personality.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Crane left behind no
journals or notebooks to let us know what he was thinking and feeling when he
wrote and lived. Everything comes down
to his writing—his journalism, novels, and most especially, his short fiction,
albeit it an original story or a retelling of his life experiences. So Auster relies on the letters, journals,
recollections and unpublished memoirs of others to fill in the considerable gaps
in Crane’s life. He also devotes a
sizable portion of the real estate in this comprehensive and exhaustively
researched book to lit-crit analysis and evaluation of the writer’s oeuvre. His audience is “the invisible army of
so-called general readers, that is, people who are not academics or writers
themselves, the same people who still take pleasure in reading old standbys
such as Melville and Whitman…” His
concern is that Crane is no longer read by anyone anymore. Crane has a place in the American canon, and
although he is best known for <i>The Red
Badge of Courage </i>and <i>Maggie: A Girl of the Streets</i>, Auster discusses
the full range of Crane’s work, including his startlingly dark and beautiful poetry.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Crane also died young
of tuberculosis and other ailments that robbed him of life at the age of
28. “When an artist dies at such a young
age,” Auster writes, “it is impossible not to wonder what kind of work that
artist would have done later in life.” Auster
convinces the reader that Crane packed a full life into his years, but they
were not always pleasant. He battled constant
financial jeopardy, and he wrote much of his work in a frantic effort to stave
off the bill collectors and debts he accumulated.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Stephen Crane was born
into a large family of fourteen brothers and sisters. His hallmark traits were stubbornness and
absolute truthfulness. He did not take
to college and found “Humanity was a much more interesting study.” He read voraciously on his own and worked as a
journalist to get more experience in the world and to practice his craft. Auster sums up his style this way: “Crane’s obsessions and stylistic
trademarks: an abundant use of color
imagery to express both emotional states and sensory experiences, a gift for unexpected
metaphors and jolting similes, an animistic view of the natural world (the
trees, stones, and plants in the woods are alive), a dispassionate approach to
character that posits the isolation of the individual in the face of an
indifferent universe, and a close scrutiny of the metaphysics of fear, the same
fear that runs through every paragraph of <i>The
Red Badge of Courage</i>…” He did his
best work when “he was afraid, trembling in his bones and scarcely aware of
what he was doing—or why he was doing it.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">When writing a
biography, one can become an apologist for the subject’s bad behavior. Auster does a little of this with Crane. He claims that Crane did not “hate people who
were not like himself. He simply did not
understand them, and rather than make the effort to penetrate their thinking or
attempt to see the world through their eyes, he stood back and watched, either
with indifference (immigrants) or fascination (Indians) but nearly always with
a sense that the person he was looking at was alien to him, an inscrutable
Other.” One would expect Crane to
observe and report, the twin responsibilities of a journalist. He was also a product of his time.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Crane was a man with a
strong creed to which he swore absolute fidelity: “we are the most successful in art when we
approach the nearest to nature and truth.”
Auster does an excellent job of getting to Crane’s “nature and truth,”
even if the windows into the interior were limited to the work and his
letters. He recognizes Crane’s obsession
with death and dying. He offers up the
central events of Crane’s life, especially when he nearly drowned off the coast
of Florida, an experience that became the basis for his short story, “The Open
Boat.” We learn of his consorting with
prostitutes and his battles to be with his companion, Cora. He walks us through the final days as the
writer slipped away, giving us his most poignant last words: “I leave here gentle, seeking to do good,
firm, resolute, impregnable.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Paul Auster
demonstrates the value and necessity of Stephen Crane’s work. His writer’s philosophy to “strip it to the
bone…” and “say as much as you can by saying as little as you can,” resonates
today. However, Auster also reflects on
Crane’s larger importance to our culture as he writes the last sentences of
this book in the early days of 2020: “[Crane’s] books are being forgotten
again. It is a dark time for America, a
dark time everywhere, and with so much happening to erode our certainties about
who we are and where we are going next, perhaps the moment has come to dig the
burning boy out of his grave and start remembering him again. The prose still crackles, the eye still cuts,
the work still stings. Does any of this
matter to us anymore? If it does, and one
can only hope it does, attention must be paid.”</p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-15328787915230582021-10-19T11:59:00.004-07:002021-10-19T12:07:50.422-07:00Land of Childhood<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-34R5T6Zymvs/YW8Udz21MEI/AAAAAAAADlM/gRCrJ66uX5YVjCJD_Ri8v2LqIUrS2PjlQCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/Claudia%2BLars.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-34R5T6Zymvs/YW8Udz21MEI/AAAAAAAADlM/gRCrJ66uX5YVjCJD_Ri8v2LqIUrS2PjlQCLcBGAsYHQ/w266-h400/Claudia%2BLars.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">Claudia Lars, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/059527353X?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details"><i><span style="color: #0b5394;">Land of Childhood</span></i></a><i> </i>(iUniverse, 2003),
has constructed a memoir that evokes all the nostalgia, poignancy, and sheer
joy of being a child in her native El Salvador.
It is a warm and beautiful place, a sensual feast for the reader. Lars is one of the greatest writers to come
out of Central America, and this book, along with her fourteen books of poetry,
has been enjoyed by generations. For
English language readers, this book, translated by her granddaughter, conveys
all the richness and beauty of the land along with a plethora of memorable
characters who enrich the story with their presence. Each one teaches the young Lars (real name,
Margarita del Carmen Brannon Vega) about life and its truths. This edition also includes a helpful
glossary.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">The book is
constructed in vignettes, scenes of daily life in the small villages in the
Salvadoran countryside. Lars is a child
of an Irish father and a Salvadoran mother, and her history is steeped in
story. Each vignette expands the
narrative until the cataclysmic finale and the end of her childhood.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">She opens the book
with a meditation on the old family house, the strength of its foundations, its
“comfortable simplicity.” Guests come
and go in addition to family members who have various roles to play in
governing the land. Her first character
is her grandfather, a “primitive being” in his simple life. His Indian blood makes him sensitive to those
who have less, and he often opens his doors to wandering tribes looking for
shelter. From these guests, Lars learns
a lot about life. It is a peaceful,
bucolic existence, with time for beauty and observation.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">In juxtaposition to
the slower-paced life of the old house is the smoking volcano, the rumblings, the
lava-spewing in the distance. It is a
reminder that at the horizon, something is always bubbling and oozing and
threatening. The world is always
changing. For children, though, this is
the land of adventures, where every day is summer, and fruits and traditional
dishes are plentiful. Lars learns the
medicinal properties of plants and herbs.
She watches her aunts cook and clean and keep the old house going. She studies her grandparents, the Indian
grandfather with the more refined Spanish grandmother, a sort of yin and yang.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Her father is Patrick,
an Irishman born in America. He is
restless and was a rebellious child, growing into adulthood sailing around the
world on cargo ships. He fell in love
with tropical America, first in Panama, where he was given the title of
“bachelor of the street,” and then in El Salvador.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">This is a book about
how children used to occupy themselves without screens and devices. Lars has ample time in her young life for
wonder and investigation. She and her
playmates find ways to entertain themselves.
She loves books but she also loves nature and beauty. There are mysteries in her life, questions
that will not result in clear answers, but the magic of the moment is
appreciated for its own value. She
recounts dozens of stories, like the one where her sister gets her head stuck
in a metal, helmet-like soup tureen while they are playing soldiers. It is a moment of panic, but the episode
offers its own logic and lesson. Since
Lars had a hand in the mischief, she sustains a spanking by her grandfather (how
would that go over today?), but her sister comes into her room late that night
to offer a bouquet of flowers. “I didn’t
want Grandfather to punish you,” she says.
Lars struggles with her pride.
She puts on a brave front and says the punishment did not hurt her. “Maruca placed her cheek against my lips,
silencing my words and, after gently stroking my hair, quietly said
good-night.” No one spoke about the
incident in the morning.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Lars does not spare
the darker nature of childhood, the bullying, the unfairness of things. But these are the stumbling blocks on the
path to wisdom. Children must experience
the dangers, the near-misses of childhood.
That is the only way to grow up and become an adult. But this is an idyllic childhood, and the
events as described lead to a resounding and frightening conclusion that takes
her into adulthood.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Her final vignette is
for her mother, a discussion with the dead.
“I want to tell you—my beloved dead mother—words I dared not speak
before, but that vibrated in the depths of my secrets like little bubbles of
love. I regret not saying them sooner…Nonetheless,
I know that silence, that guardian of dreams and songs, was never a cause for
misunderstandings between us.” Her
mother was the tranquil, flexible sounding board for Lars’ more stormy,
childish explosions. She lauds her
mother’s patience, and has come to believe that her mother embodied the “land
of my first joys.” Those joys are evident
on every page of this memoir. It is a
gorgeous, heartfelt book by a great, underappreciated writer from a small
country with big dreams. It is time to
share this book with the world and make it required reading everywhere.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-39884197942491859772021-10-16T15:39:00.000-07:002021-10-16T15:39:05.470-07:00The Snake Pit<p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GS0x9ZhUl-0/YWtS_kgqAuI/AAAAAAAADk4/3wNIYF7yT005cmYUd4VPnYzWkZZg0jEowCLcBGAsYHQ/s1590/Ward%2BBook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1590" data-original-width="1001" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GS0x9ZhUl-0/YWtS_kgqAuI/AAAAAAAADk4/3wNIYF7yT005cmYUd4VPnYzWkZZg0jEowCLcBGAsYHQ/w251-h400/Ward%2BBook.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>Mary Jane Ward began a
movement in America to examine mental health facilities’ far from adequate
care. Her novel, <i><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.loa.org/books/655-the-snake-pit-paperback"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Snake Pit</span> </a></span></i>(The Library of America, 2021), did for those
imprisoned in these facilities what Upton Sinclair’s book, <i>The Jungle</i>, did for the meat-packing industry. Her work influenced generations of writers
who came after, including two who wrote the most famous novels of mental
illness, Sylvia Plath’s, <i>The Bell Jar</i>,
and Ken Kesey’s <i>One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest.</i> In its newest
incarnation, the 75<sup>th</sup> anniversary edition published by The Library
of America with an afterword by Larry Lockridge, readers once again have the
chance to immerse themselves in the frightening world of this autobiographical
novel complete with a Reader’s Guide and documents from the notable film
version of the book in 1948 starring Olivia de Havilland.<o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Virginia is the
central figure and narrator of the novel.
Other characters are shadowy ghosts on the stage of multiple wards. Each is distinct in behavior and attributes,
but they are not fully developed characters.
They flit in the shadows. Their
indistinctness is a hallmark of Virginia’s view, one clouded by shock therapy
and drug-induced lethargy. Larry
Lockridge writes in the afterword that “In someone for whom the center doesn’t
hold, other people…are insubstantial and disappearing.” Even Robert, Virginia’s long-suffering
husband is “shadowy.” In consultation
with the doctors, he is Virginia’s advocate, but we get only fragments of his
life outside of the institution. What is
he up to? Is he her advocate, or is he
colluding with the doctors?</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">The book shifts the
narrative with Virginia sometimes speaking in first person, sometimes in second
or third person, often within a single paragraph. Her mental state is constantly in flux, and
her illness makes her an unreliable narrator.
Occasionally, she confuses her thoughts with her vocalization—is she
speaking aloud or just thinking in her head?
The interior monologue might have been voiced or not; her shattering
realizations about her condition may be limiting her speech or allowing her to
speak all too candidly. She is locked in
the confusion of mental suffering, merging back and forth from clear light and a
shadowy netherworld. For the first fifty
pages of the novel, she is unsure where she is:
a hospital, a school? Only in a
moment of clarity does she realize she is in a ward of “women who were insane
and she was one of them.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">In this place, the
patients wear the soiled rejected clothing of previous patients. Virginia’s coat has a stain that appears to
be vomit. She asks for her things, her clothes,
her glasses, but she is repeatedly denied.
When she is given her glasses, it is a reward she is told she has
earned. The patients have few rights,
few privileges, no privacy, and little comfort.
They are treated like animals by the staff; the good nurse is an
exception, never the rule. Every
evening, patients are forced to drink paraldehyde, a hypnotic with a strong
odor that lingers in their pores and permeates the wards. Each patient is assigned a job. Virginia must mop the floor but continually
confuses the wet, dirty mop with the clean, dry one. She is too addled by her illness and treatment
to remember which is which. The patients
must line up to use the toilet booths.
These are wooden closets with no toilet seats, toilet paper that must be
requested from a nurse, and no privacy.
Virginia is literally afraid of falling in. Time becomes fragmented in this surreal
environment, and she is no longer sure when she arrived at Juniper Hill. Often these gaps in memory are the result of electro-shock
therapy.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Virginia empathizes
with her fellow inmates in their shared plight, even as they take cigarettes
and food from her. She progresses from
one ward to another, eventually landing in Ward One. Is this the last stage before she is set
free? She is moved yet again to another
ward. Nothing is clear except that she
is a prisoner.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">One patient Virginia
connects with is Gloria, a friend and companion. But in the shifting of patients between
wards, she loses track of Gloria until towards the end of the novel when she
encounters her on the hospital grounds. She is changed, a gruesome shadow of
the person she was.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">In treatments and
daily existence, the patients hope the nightmare will soon be over. But the suffering feels endless, a prison of
one’s worst fears. Virginia comes to
believe that “You could say anything here so long as you did not say the
truth.” The patients try to act and say
what they think their custodians want to hear just to be set free. Their efforts fail.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">What has caused
Virginia’s breakdown that leads to her incarceration? The answers come in fragments of Virginia’s
shattered psyche. A fiancé who died,
Robert’s best friend: did her substitute
marriage to Robert lead to her downfall?
Was the death of Gordon Timberlake the cause of the psychic
implosion? Her treatment fails to get to
the bottom of the situation. Virginia must
try to heal herself.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Ward has some
beautiful writing in all of this darkness.
One night finds Virginia gazing at the night sky. “And the stars had been shining for the first
time since last February. You can go
along for weeks maybe months without thinking about the stars,” she says. “They are there, on clear nights, and you can
look at them and say there is the Big Dipper.
You may, if you are not in a hurry, hunt for the Pleiades; but you do
not think much about the stars. They are
always there.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Virginia was a
published novelist before her hospitalization, but when she is finally allowed
pen, paper, and a typewriter, she can only imitate others: Hemingway and O. Henry. She has lost her own words in a kind of
internal aphasia. She ponders the edge
of the abyss upon which she stands, asking, “was there a time when you saw, as
if at the end of a dark hallway, the light of the outside, a time when you knew
you hung at a balance and that such a little push, one way or another, would
determine your life?”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Mary Jane Ward’s
summation of the plight of the mentally ill is so precise, so spot on. They are excluded from a world “in which
sanity was taken for granted. In the
world outside, people longed desperately to be millionaires, movie actors, club
presidents and even…novelists.” Virginia
was somebody once, and she can only hope to return to that life again. For now, though, she is trapped in the snake
pit. Ward includes the source for her
title: “Long ago they lowered insane
persons into snake pits; they thought that an experience that might drive a
sane person out of his wits might send an insane person back into sanity.” Virginia has been thrown into such a pit of
vipers, but the shock is her discovery that she could get well.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">In such bleak
darkness, hope.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-12728498874879225042021-10-06T10:52:00.004-07:002021-10-06T10:55:13.369-07:00Time<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ojvqa0gf-8g/YV3d1wq4-mI/AAAAAAAADj0/PdCYEpVjejQ36jitrYNeSvMvIL4LMzjvgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/dreamstime.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ojvqa0gf-8g/YV3d1wq4-mI/AAAAAAAADj0/PdCYEpVjejQ36jitrYNeSvMvIL4LMzjvgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/dreamstime.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art courtesy of Dreamstimes</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Wonder is the source of our desire for knowledge.” </i>Aristotle</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Time is passing. We know this.
We feel it in our bones. We hear
it in the work of great artists like Shakespeare. Whenever <a href="https://plmartinwrite.blogspot.com/2017/09/time-unmanageable.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">I give a workshop</span></a> on time
management, the room, virtual or physical, is packed to the rafters. Students want to know—how does one manage
time? How does one fit all of life into
a twenty-four-hour day?</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The bottom line: we don’t manage time; we manage
ourselves. As Carlo Rovelli and<a href="https://plmartinwrite.blogspot.com/2020/09/in-praise-of-wasting-time-by-alan.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"> Alan Lightman</span></a> tell us in recent books, time is not constant and is not what it
seems. Time is part of “that vast
nocturnal and star-studded ocean of all that we don’t know,” according to
Rovelli.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q0rly-tOxHA/YV3eOInaiOI/AAAAAAAADj8/4_m_b-ht_jgQiXBoOyOORIMVYlsZI4Y7ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Rovelli.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1337" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q0rly-tOxHA/YV3eOInaiOI/AAAAAAAADj8/4_m_b-ht_jgQiXBoOyOORIMVYlsZI4Y7ACLcBGAsYHQ/w261-h400/Rovelli.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">In his book, <i>The Order of Time</i> (Riverhead Books,
2018), Rovelli presents the theoretical physics of time and the universe. He is the head of the Quantum Gravity group
at the Centre de Physique Theorique of Aix-Marseille University. He begins his book with a simple fact: time passes faster in the mountains than at
sea level. When the Apollo astronauts
returned to Earth, they were older than the colleagues they left behind. This difference might be measured in
nanoseconds, but it is there nonetheless.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">We do not need to go
back to the past to find accelerated aging among astronauts. A recent study utilizing Scott and Mark
Kelly, twin brothers who are also astronauts, revealed that after a year in
space, Scott was older than his Earth-bound sibling. However, after the mission, he quickly
reverted back to match Mark. It took
eight months.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Rovelli makes a key
point that time bends with gravity or lack thereof. The closer one gets to Earth, all processes,
including aging, are slower. If one were
to travel to the edge of a black hole, the apotheosis of gravitational pull,
time would appear to stand still. Large
masses, like planets, slow down time in their vicinity. This leads to Rovelli’s next point: planets far away have their own time. However, it is more than just gravity. Light travels to us at 186,000 miles per
second. If we were to look across the
galaxy at a planet four-light years away from us, what we see through the lens
of the telescope would be what happened four years ago. The way time behaves on that planet would add
an additional wrinkle to the scenario.
And this is not just a phenomenon of space; even across the room, we see
the person waving at us nanoseconds after the wave because it takes time for
the light to reach our eye and the messages to be sent to the brain, and only
then is there recognition, and we wave back.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">In pop culture, <i>Star Trek,</i> in all its iterations, is
where most people encounter the narrative concept of time travel. The original series began with the voice of
Captain Kirk defining the ship’s mission:
five years to explore the galaxy.
But on a five-year journey to the stars, that means five Earth
years. On other planets in other
systems, time might be faster or slower.
So an interstellar traveler might return after five years but be 100
years older or five minutes older. We
exist in our own bubble of time corresponding to Earth time. The rest of the universe moves to its own
dance party. The conclusion is
clear: time is not a constant and not a
reliable measure across the galaxy. The
whole question of when, meaning time, is more about where, as in location. Location and gravity determine time.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Aristotle was the
first to ask about the nature of time.
His conclusion was that time is the measurement of change and things
change constantly. Rovelli draws the
line between Aristotle’s work and Sir Isaac Newton, who believed time was an
entity that runs even when nothing happens.
In the end, what we know is that time is not definitive. In fact, past, present and future are not
clearly delineated in the equations of the universe. Rovelli brings his thesis home like
this: “the entire evolution of science
would suggest that the best grammar for thinking about the world is that of
change, not permanence. Not of being,
but of becoming.” And all of it seems to
be moving toward entropy. Clean laundry
starts becoming soiled the minute it leaves the dryer. A clean house will become dusty again. It is the law of the universe. Rovelli says Einstein questioned the concept
of past, present and future. Those
designations might only be a persistent illusion.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">To read Rovelli is to
be both reassured that there is an order to the universe, and to be greatly
disturbed at the immense size and complexity that eludes total understanding. Late in the book, he quotes Hugo von
Hofmannsthal: “Everything slips through
our fingers. All that we seek to hold on
to dissolves. Everything vanishes, like
mists and dreams…”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p>
</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lnCjR7VWgEU/YV3etZ3-y-I/AAAAAAAADkE/qEooCzVhpRsl1M0eD5LcL_XAgi0tbkVKwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1636/probable-impossibilities-1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1636" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lnCjR7VWgEU/YV3etZ3-y-I/AAAAAAAADkE/qEooCzVhpRsl1M0eD5LcL_XAgi0tbkVKwCLcBGAsYHQ/w294-h400/probable-impossibilities-1.jpg" width="294" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><a href="https://plmartinwrite.blogspot.com/2007/09/einsteins-dreams.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Alan Lightman</span></a> is an
American physicist who is both a scientist and a brilliant writer. His book, <i>Probably
Impossibilities </i>(Pantheon Books, 2021), dovetails nicely with Rovelli’s
work. He subscribes to the idea that the
universe is moving toward entropy, and he discusses time’s arrow, the “forward
direction of time is determined by the movement of order to disorder.” However, Lightman leaves room for the
metaphysical in his study of the cosmos.
He brings to the table the story of his own out-of-body experience where
life is “a brief flicker in the vast chasm of time.” He goes on to write that, “My fleeting
sensation included infinite space.
Without body or mind, I was somehow floating in the gargantuan stretch
of space, far beyond the solar system and even the galaxy, space stretched on
and on.” He sees in this fever dream
himself as a “tiny speck, insignificant,” a sensation that is both “liberating
and terrifying” for him.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Lightman emphasizes
that we are all composed of atoms. Our
minds are collections of atoms “fated to disassemble and dissolve” at the end
of our days. Yet after we are gone, we
remain. Our atomic components continue
on to mix with other atoms and form new life, new structures, always renewing and
rejuvenating the universe. However, our
consciousness ends. Because of that, he
has chosen to live in such a way “as to maximize my pleasure and minimize my
pain.” Science becomes life philosophy,
and that the value of Lightman’s work in this book. It is not just science, but a humanist
view. He breaks this down into two schools
of thought: the Mechanists who believe that we are made up of processes subject
to the laws of chemistry, physics and biology; and Vitalists who recognize a
special quality of life, a spiritual force beyond analysis or explanation. This, then, is the soul, or <i>pneuma</i>, as the Greeks named it, meaning
“breath” or “wind.” It is for the
combination of science and spirit that <a href="https://plmartinwrite.blogspot.com/2014/06/lightman-explains-multiverse.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">I seek out Lightman</span></a>. His work is transcendent and deeply moving for
his humanity. I am comforted by the fact
that everyone who has ever lived still remains present at an atomic level. We are part of everything there is, and in a
sense, our atoms are immortal even if our consciousness is not.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">This does not stop
Lightman from questioning where the dead are now. This explanation of atoms free-floating
through space-time does not assuage his sorrow and longing for those he has
lost. On many days and on many roads, he
finds it hard to fathom that they no longer exist and he can no longer
communicate with them. Life is a dream,
really, and Lightman cites no less an authority than Emerson: “Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no
end to the illusion.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">This is the dilemma of
conscious beings: we must witness and
reflect on the spectacle of existence, even as our own light fades and consciousness
dissolves. This is human truth, but
Lightman does not neglect his science.
If space goes on and on to infinity, he posits, there should be an
infinite number of copies of us out there.
“Because even a situation of minuscule probability,” he writes, “like
the creation of a particular individual’s exact arrangement of atoms—when
multiplied by an infinite number of trials, repeats itself an infinite number
of times.”</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Alan Lightman is a
scientist, a physicist, and man who deals daily with star dust and the laws of
thermodynamics. Yet, he is also a man,
lying in a hammock, pondering the stars.
Every book he writes is a winner, and this one is no exception. Following up on his book, <i>Searching For Stars on an Island in Maine </i>(Vintage,
2019), <i>Probably Impossibilities</i> again
explores the plight of a human being in the universe. Along with Carlo Rovelli, the two books give
us the science and the humanity, and we are richer for the journey.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></p><p></p><br /></div>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-85165349857247051462021-10-01T20:53:00.000-07:002021-10-01T20:53:20.212-07:00A Friday Night Return<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KuoQS0FSwJs/YVfV-tfu-6I/AAAAAAAADjs/d4f0Te2hh68VTqtPPJ2aKtSHi6O9CI3tQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/Friday%2BNight%2BFootball.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1000" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KuoQS0FSwJs/YVfV-tfu-6I/AAAAAAAADjs/d4f0Te2hh68VTqtPPJ2aKtSHi6O9CI3tQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h240/Friday%2BNight%2BFootball.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">AP Photo / Bloomsburg Press Enterprise, Jimmy May</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Years ago, there were Friday
night football games, the marching band, cheerleaders, the smoke from
hamburgers grilling out back of the snack bar, and that was the end to another
busy week in the fall of the year. Now,
I hear echoes through the trees of the marching band and the roar of the crowd at
my old high school just a few blocks away from my apartment. High school football and smoke in the
air: nothing changes but everything.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Notes on books, culture, and
the life of the mind,” reads my blog tagline.
Well, I’ve been overwhelmed by all the life lessons lately, frantically
scribbling away in journals and notebooks but not for publication. What is this life? What will happen next? I could only ask my notebooks. I wanted answers, and until I found them, I
did not feel I had the courage to speak.
I had forgotten the prime directive of my own teaching philosophy: the questions are more important than the
answers. The answers will always exist,
but if one does not ask the right questions, the answers will never be found.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The last few years have been a
crisis of faith for everyone. Most of us
were left to ponder: where are we
going? Is the spirit of America
dead? What if we discover that the
spirit <i>has always been dead</i>, that
“all men are created equal” are just pretty words? Maybe there is no equality and no justice, no
liberty and no allowance for freedom.
Or, that we are slaves to our fears, our prejudices, our narcissism. To the immigrant yearning for a better life
we offer only the whip or the gun. We
sow the seeds of violence and celebrate the bloody harvest. We are unwilling to reach out a hand to those
in despair. That is what we have become,
a nation armed to the teeth against the Other.
A people too selfish and narcissistic to see we are all dreamers; we are
all here in search of a better life.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We should be striving for a more
perfect union. Perfection may be
unattainable, but like most sentences, in that one, the verb is the heart of
the matter: <i>striving</i>. To paraphrase
King, we may not get there in our lifetimes.
We may never get there, but we continue striving. <i>Always</i>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen
rain,” goes the lament. Depression is
the black dog that follows us home and threatens never to leave. Anxiety wakes us in the middle of the night
and disturbs our vague and restless dreams.
“I grow old…I grow old.” We do
and we are. We are old before our
time. “Would it have been worth it after
all, would it have been worthwhile, after the sunsets and the dooryards and the
sprinkled streets, after the novels; after the tea cups, after the skirts that
trail along the floor—and this, and so much more?”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">America is a colder place: 700,000 of us are gone from this autumnal
world. Where do we go from here? The only answer, the best answer I have, is onward,
while the ghosts flow in and around each of us and fall behind. We try to carry some essence of them with us
but it is like trying to transport the ocean to the desert with only our cupped
hands. It is too much to carry. It is a futile enterprise on the way down to
our own dusty deaths.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Yet, there is hope. There is life and there is what remains. We are more resilient than we know.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the dawn of the new year, my
grand-niece was born. Charlotte Ileana,
named for that patron saint of English literature, Charlotte Bronte. I have watched Charlie discover her
world. In her face, I see my niece, her
husband, his family, and my lost father-in-law.
She has not dared to eat a peach, as Eliot writes in his poem, but she
did try mango the other night with hilarious results. Mango and the world are her frontiers in
these early days of her life.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So it is time to pick up that
thread that connects us. The thread
always seems ready to snap. Our humanity
is always in danger of fading away. But
this is life and this is us, and we are striving to bring about that most
American of dreams: a more perfect
union. That is the only struggle that
matters now.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is a time for wonder: “Do I dare disturb the universe?” We have no choice because we are alive and
among the living.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As for the blog, look for more notes
on books, culture, and the life of the mind.
If I find a few answers in the smoke and fire of daily life, I’ll post
those too. <i>“Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the
sky…” </i>Onward!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><div><br /></div>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-86935655179192775572020-10-30T12:00:00.002-07:002020-10-30T12:00:56.800-07:00Be Brave<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D-Q8mmv_8k4" width="560"></iframe>
<p> </p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><u>Shores of Avalon</u></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>By Tina Malia</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Be brave my love</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The time has come</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>To cross the Tintagel Sea</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The fragrant air, the apple blossoms</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Have all been beckoning</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>And there we'll stand</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Looking out upon the world that we've known</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>All fear will be gone</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>When we reach the shores of Avalon.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>You'll be greeted there</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>By maidens fair</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>With eyes of the royal sea</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>In the garden they will braid your hair</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>With violets and rosemary</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>And there we'll stand</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Looking out upon the world that we've known</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>All fear will be gone</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>When we reach the shores of Avalon</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Feel the wind on your face</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>As we cross the stormy sea</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Close your eyes, don't look back</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>There's nothing left to see</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The other night you came to me</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Like an angel you appeared</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>And we climbed the endless sky</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>And held each other near</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>And there we'll stand</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Looking out upon the world that we've known</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>All fear will be gone</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>When we reach the shores of Avalon</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Be brave my love...</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">There are wars and the utter silences after. We know instinctively when things are at an end. This is the moment, the reckoning. These moments cleave the present and the future: it is and then it becomes something more and life moves on.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">So all fear goes. We take comfort in how many moments there have been as Earth loops endlessly around the sun.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Keep looking on. What's done is done and gone. Let it go; it was never ours to hold anyway. We are but travelers in this land, ghosts that pass through and beyond.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Mythology teaches us the mysteries of this life. These are the fundamental stories. What do we learn? Violence is our nature, and we must resist it; wars are inevitable; they are costly, and they rob us of our sons and daughters, and in the end, our humanity. Yet, without wars, we would have no heroes. We would lose our shot at taking up the flag of decency, of <i>humanitas</i>, which in the end, is the only flag that reigns supreme. To carry that flag out into the world is the only heroic act.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Somewhere in this world, people are being slaughtered. People are oppressed, brutalized, destroyed. For them, we stand. For them, we must be brave and confront the darkness.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">In our dreams, we rise. We live our stories. We must be brave to sing the journey through and give full throat to our valiant spirits. We sing of the mystical island of Avalon and the Wise King as we wait for the return. We stand, waiting, for the Kingdom of <i>Humanitas</i> to come.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-34902761121561378862020-10-28T12:44:00.004-07:002020-10-28T12:51:56.839-07:00Living With Fear and Uncertainty<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RJkQnoAQVPc/X5nHsaZBymI/AAAAAAAADeo/jlg9XfmT5GEct6ylXdfvgNzzi7f5jNhpgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/FearUncertainty1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RJkQnoAQVPc/X5nHsaZBymI/AAAAAAAADeo/jlg9XfmT5GEct6ylXdfvgNzzi7f5jNhpgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h320/FearUncertainty1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Knowledge is the knowing that we cannot know.”</i></b></p><b>
</b><p align="right" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none; text-align: right;"><b>Ralph Waldo Emerson<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">--</span>“Montaigne;
or, the Skeptic”</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Ralph Waldo Emerson
would have made a great Zen poet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
lived through the Civil War, a time when America’s future was anything but
certain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also survived the early
deaths of his father and his first wife.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">As a student, he
showed little promise and graduated near the bottom of his class at Harvard
Divinity School.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was described at the
time as “tubercular, restless, and already questioning the religion” he was
studying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was after his wife’s death
that he quit the ministry and pursued his life of the mind.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The rest, as they say,
is history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His collected writings run
to forty volumes, and he is considered the father of Transcendentalism and
American philosophy.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Sometimes, the
smartest thing to do is admit your own ignorance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Begin in humility to learn, to study, to be
open to the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Emerson can
attest, it is a beautiful life in all its sadness and joy.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XpjA1-dcfPE/X5nH50azZ1I/AAAAAAAADes/vXiCBUX-O7krCQL4pvijkVtPml-x7XqfwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/FearUncertainty2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1244" data-original-width="1600" height="311" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XpjA1-dcfPE/X5nH50azZ1I/AAAAAAAADes/vXiCBUX-O7krCQL4pvijkVtPml-x7XqfwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h311/FearUncertainty2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“When inspiration has become hidden, when we feel ready to give up,
this is the time when healing can be found in the tenderness of pain itself…A
warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next…But the
truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This not knowing is part of the adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is also what makes us afraid.”</i></b></p><b>
</b><p align="right" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none; text-align: right;"><b>Pema Chodron<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i>--</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://plmartinwrite.blogspot.com/2010/08/tigers-above-tigers-below.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Comfortable With Uncertainty</span></a> </i>(Shambhala, 2003)</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Chodron is a
rarity:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>an American Buddhist nun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She lives and teaches in the cold and beautiful
isolation of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Our journey in life is
always fraught with uncertainty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Push on
and persevere; since not knowing is our constant companion, let go of fear and
trepidation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in the midst of
uncertainty that the interesting stuff happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>See this period of change as an opportunity to grow and find
wisdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never fear the better you to
come.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-amUng1we24s/X5nIQKt-xoI/AAAAAAAADe4/jK8uAK_m-twEqwaSQCvl-D16tQBWds28QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/FearUncertainty3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-amUng1we24s/X5nIQKt-xoI/AAAAAAAADe4/jK8uAK_m-twEqwaSQCvl-D16tQBWds28QCLcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/FearUncertainty3.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></b></p><p><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“We fear many things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We fear
illness and death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We fear losing our
job or falling into poverty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We fear
change—a new career, a new home, a new marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We may fear being alone, or we may fear other
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then there is the fear of
not being accepted by others—by our families and friends, our colleagues and
neighbors, by society at large…fear is a tremendous and complicated power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is silent yet devastating, leading to
anxiety and ultimately, depression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
you are consumed by fear, your judgment is distorted; you become frozen by
doubt, unable to make the simplest decision.”</i>
</b></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none; text-align: right;"><b>Simon Jacobson<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i>--</i></span><a href="https://plmartinwrite.blogspot.com/2017/08/toward-meaningful-life.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toward a Meaningful Life:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Wisdom of the Rebbe Menachem Mendel
Schneerson</i></span></a> (Harper Perennial, 2004)</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Jacobson’s writing
comes from the wisdom of a revered figure, Rebbe Menachem Mendel
Schneerson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His work resonates far
beyond the constructs of Judaism.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Cast your fate to the
wind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let it go, let it fly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The engine of your intellect is fired by
imagination in the face of fear and uncertainty.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">There is a quote,
attributed to multiple thinkers and passed around social media and into at
least one film:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Things will be all right
in the end, and if they are not all right, it is not the end.”
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Embrace fear.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Embrace uncertainty.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Live large.
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<![endif]--></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-48459377050134385062020-10-26T16:01:00.002-07:002020-10-28T12:28:15.862-07:00Blindness by Jose Saramago<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fMnLYSCC5y8/X5dUFEWwaCI/AAAAAAAADec/2v6up8b5gsoLQOmYwFfYPao7qJ0zg78vwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1575/Saramago1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1575" data-original-width="1015" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fMnLYSCC5y8/X5dUFEWwaCI/AAAAAAAADec/2v6up8b5gsoLQOmYwFfYPao7qJ0zg78vwCLcBGAsYHQ/w258-h400/Saramago1.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i>“If you can see,
look.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you can look, observe.” </i></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align: right;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Book of Exhortations</i> as quoted by Jose Saramago
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i>“Blindness is also
this, to live in a world where all hope is gone.”</i></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: right;">Jose Saramago</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i>“Fortunately, as human
history has shown, it is not unusual for good to come of evil, less is said
about the evil that can come out of good, such are the contradictions of this
world of ours…”</i></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: right;">Jose Saramago</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">I just finished
reading Jose Saramago’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780156007757"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Blindness</span></a> </i>(Mariner
Books, 1995).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am tired of the
destruction-of-society-and-culture narratives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Real life is terrifying enough; human behavior is too violent in
reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fictional narratives can only
heighten the trepidation and fear we are now experiencing every day.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">In Saramago’s novel, a
pandemic of blindness grips the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
white haze comes on with devastating suddenness, and as the plague spreads, chaos
ensues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are no answers as to what
this is or why it is spreading so fast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
military funnels victims into an abandoned mental hospital in a vain attempt to
prevent the spread.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The soldiers guard them
from a distance and are not afraid to gun down the sightless as they approach
the fence to demand food and water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
imprisonment is a colossal failure, the virus spreads, even to the soldiers,
and the result is mass hysteria and human destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inside the hell of the mental hospital, the
patients brutalize each other—rapes, food hoarding, outright murder—and this
violence becomes commonplace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Excrement
accumulates in the halls and bathrooms; the people track it around the complex
on their feet and clothes until every person is shit-smeared and defiled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Human degradation is the rule, not the
exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, none of the
victims are fully aware of what they are subjected to because of their
blindness, but they are aware enough to know the dire jeopardy in which they
find themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only one character has
sight, the wife of a doctor, a former ophthalmologist no less, who claims to be
blind so she can stay with her husband in the asylum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is through her eyes that we see the
terrible conditions and dire circumstances within the various wings of the
hospital.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Saramago writes in blocks
of text without paragraphing of new ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The dialogue among the characters is linked together in single sentences
and paragraphs with only commas separating the speakers, resulting in long
passages of voices where it is sometimes uncertain who is speaking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No characters are given names.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, Saramago uses their occupations or
roles in the story:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“the doctor,” “the
girl with dark glasses,” “the doctor’s wife,” and “the boy with a squint.”
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The novel remains
sickening and haunting, but it is a strange horror story that hits all too
close to home right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exploring
fictional sociological disintegration is not something to delve into during
this time of real danger and crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some may enjoy this, and certainly, Jose Saramago does cut down to the
bone of human animalistic behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he
also fails to answer the fundamental question: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what are we to learn from this novel?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is certainly not escapist fare, and
philosophically, Saramago offers us the fragility of the human condition and
Man’s inhumanity to Man, but he spares us no words of comfort or resolution—there
is a sequel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780156032735"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Seeing</span></a> </i>(Harvest Books,
2007).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Characters are simply trapped in this
hellish landscape unable to regain their sight or equilibrium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a horrific world terrible in its scope
and devastation.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p>
<p><br /> </p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-4108926481494186162020-10-24T14:48:00.002-07:002020-10-24T14:48:40.222-07:00The World-Weary Eyes<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ILvdCeS6Z3Y/X5SerHDt7bI/AAAAAAAADeA/Gv4V-LSEyXIB0DYWMJvzU1DR93x27GA7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Sexton1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ILvdCeS6Z3Y/X5SerHDt7bI/AAAAAAAADeA/Gv4V-LSEyXIB0DYWMJvzU1DR93x27GA7wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/Sexton1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;">Here is another tragic
heroine of modern poetry, our Sappho, Anne Sexton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She died October 4, 1974, a suicide.</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">I think of the great
Peter Gabriel song, “Mercy Street,” based on her poem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a dreamscape of horror and melancholy.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Of what do we dream
today?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What follows across the
blue-black night sky?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Owls and peacocks,
and multi-lateral corruption of the soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The night whispers the future, a story, one more to tell.
</p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">* * * * *</p>This is the only thing
that matters, this pen scratching across the page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others have written about this across the
years, the fear, the danger, the loneliness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here, there is nothing new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
just the banality of evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why are we
surprised that the world is corrupt and dark?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The world mirrors the human soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We are the things we build.
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">We dream of the
goodness of human beings, but is that who we are?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are a selfish animal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we rise from this muck?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we climb out of the fetid hole?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will take a man and woman to bear
witness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will take bonding in action
to create a better world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then this good
virus has to spread; we must become infected with the divine spirit of Earth
and sky, tree and bird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must feel the
surge of the Earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Breathe.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">There is a life
mysticism, the coincidental confluence of divine light and air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look back into the persistence of
memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is the human story waiting
for us to pick up words like autumn leaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tell us, the world says; tell us again.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">We take nothing for
granted because evil is nothing if not resilient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are living through a reckoning of American
life; we are poised on the precipice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do
we fall into the abyss or experience a renaissance?
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">There is so much to
read, so much to experience, so many stories to tell. </p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">* * * * *<br /></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1YWAcPgys3s/X5SfPUgVdVI/AAAAAAAADeI/Qq4dD71Fxtg29TcT3_JmYQ1fw4PUKzxGwCLcBGAsYHQ/s615/Chekhov3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="615" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1YWAcPgys3s/X5SfPUgVdVI/AAAAAAAADeI/Qq4dD71Fxtg29TcT3_JmYQ1fw4PUKzxGwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/Chekhov3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;">Anton Chekhov stares
out from a photograph taken of him by his brother, slightly colorized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arresting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mesmerizing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Note the world-weary
eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is such an astute observer of
human life, human foibles, human misery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I cannot stop looking at those eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All the Russian 19<sup>th</sup> century novelists and playwrights offer
stories that cut to the bone.</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">What is it about the
19<sup>th</sup> century?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world
became aware of Man’s inhumanity, his propensity for violence, his bloody
intentions, his avarice, and deceit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is as if the sin of Eden finally came to its ultimate, evil fruition, and was
followed by the descent into bloody desecration in the great wars of mammoth
machines and bombs and waves of bloodshed in the 20<sup>th</sup> century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Welcome to hell on Earth.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">As a traveler, I would
like to make it a regular stop on the time-line railroad to see that 19<sup>th</sup>
century world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The morale of America
must have been at the same level, or lower, than it is now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world must have been in just as much
jeopardy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The human animal must have
been just as much of a threat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Man has always been a threat.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the 19<sup>th</sup> century, he was
redeemed, at least in part, by Emerson, Thoreau, the great poets and seers of
an age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need such an age again.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">History should be
taught that way:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>put on the virtual
reality goggles and walk the streets of America; see Yosemite Valley as the
Indigenous People did, before white men and industry tried to ransom it off
into development hell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walk the Civil
War battlefields then and now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Compare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never again.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">So much history takes
place in a single area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if we could
see it all at once, like some high-tech diorama.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Questions:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>why is America such a violent place, and where does this violence
originate?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>William Blake would argue
human violence and cruelty originate not in nature, but in the human brain.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The 19<sup>th</sup>
century feels like a watershed moment, a confluence of everything:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>philosophy, reason, religion, nature, human
endeavor, art, literature, and culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We cannot discount evil; human treachery is always with us.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GQd6Fn4tk9I/X5Sfg7KfweI/AAAAAAAADeQ/7A_C5YkUvQYKsPvJQiwhIzy_MVn2qSPvgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Chekhov2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1170" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GQd6Fn4tk9I/X5Sfg7KfweI/AAAAAAAADeQ/7A_C5YkUvQYKsPvJQiwhIzy_MVn2qSPvgCLcBGAsYHQ/w293-h400/Chekhov2.jpg" width="293" /></a></div>Chekhov’s eyes tell us
he knew this; he saw it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is what
makes him so compelling to read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He bore
witness to an age, and his stories live.
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Anne Sexton:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“In my
dream, / drilling into the marrow / of my entire bone, / my real dream, / I’m
walking up and down Beacon Hill / searching for a street sign— / namely MERCY
STREET. / Not there.”</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p>
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<![endif]--></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-59376312555176626822020-10-09T17:37:00.001-07:002020-10-09T17:37:32.149-07:00We Are All The Catcher In The Rye Now<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SNaD4YWE3vs/X4EA-yYn2zI/AAAAAAAADds/STmlB-K8GgQ8qIjZ8zn-4GXPilM8k236QCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/Catcher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="800" height="333" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SNaD4YWE3vs/X4EA-yYn2zI/AAAAAAAADds/STmlB-K8GgQ8qIjZ8zn-4GXPilM8k236QCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h333/Catcher.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in
this big field of rye and all. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thousands
of little kids, and nobody's around—nobody big, I mean—except me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy
cliff. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I have to do, I have to
catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they're running
and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and
catch them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That's all I do all day. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I
know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”</i><span style="mso-tab-count: 8;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 8;"> </span>Holden
Caufield<span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>from
J.D. Salinger's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Catcher In The Rye</i></b>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Are we telling a story
or are we careening downhill hellbent on sailing off a cliff?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is the death march to destruction a kind of
nihilistic event lacking coherence?
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">I really don’t know
anymore.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Stories have plots and
characters, heroes, and villains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our
current story has one, incoherent sociopath who defies all logic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is the villain without conscience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is the priest who worships himself and
chaos.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">His chief acolyte
bleeds from his eyes and has flies in his hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What a spectacle!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a great,
villainous sidekick to evil incarnate.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The plot, however,
makes no sense.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">These evil-doers don’t
measure up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are not smart enough to
be coherent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The garage-sale Mussolini
and his stuffed shirt fly-boy cannot even get on the same page.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Seduced by the dark
side?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That denotes consideration and
movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, they are a discordant cacophony
of emptiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They know no other dance
except the single-dimension <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">danse macabre</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They strut and preen and bluster through the
hall to peals of laughter and pungent ridicule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They have their impotent, flaccid henchmen, stiff-arming their
allegiance to their own hollow-king.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Sound and fury,
signifying nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are men without
a country; these are rebels without a cause trapped in their own befouled gene
pool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Separate them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Challenge them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They fall down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They cannot hold up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are afraid of their own shadows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They think strength in numbers will save
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A white hood will keep their
identities safe. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their masculinity needs
a prop: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a long gun or a big knife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like their leader, size is everything.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">History has seen these
self-serving crybabies before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It never
ends well for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are the waste
kings on the dump of a larger, better, and more worthy story, a tale of hope
and human achievement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are the
hollow-king’s hollow men.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Take your shiny boots
and unearned military medals and go home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Practice your salute and your cowardice from the safety of your secret
gardens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your time has come to get off
the stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your day, so short and
murderous, is done.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">We have lost so much—hundreds
of thousands of dead; millions infected; millions, going back through history,
enslaved, maltreated, brutalized, and killed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>American innocence is dead.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">But it is not too late
to seek a better world, Tennyson reminds us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“We are not now that strength which in old days / Mov’d earth and heaven,
that which we are, we are: / One equal temper of heroic hearts, / Made weak by
time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to
yield.”
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Let us gather in a
field of rye at the edge of a cliff, a silent army of the righteous, to profess
our faith in the future, to dream our dreams of love and redemption, and to
save ourselves from the fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We hold in
our hands a flock of white birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Release them to the promise of the sky to consort with the angels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Believe. </p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p>
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<![endif]--></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-46131543434919679172020-10-04T17:17:00.001-07:002020-10-04T17:17:31.180-07:00Talking To Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell<p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mpY7NyGQvoA/X3pfhThs3jI/AAAAAAAADdY/HtdT9dxG0skq8v5CZGmiVFy2zd6Lk63uACLcBGAsYHQ/s1616/Gladwell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1616" data-original-width="1069" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mpY7NyGQvoA/X3pfhThs3jI/AAAAAAAADdY/HtdT9dxG0skq8v5CZGmiVFy2zd6Lk63uACLcBGAsYHQ/w265-h400/Gladwell.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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last week reading Malcolm Gladwell’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/talking-to-strangers-what-we-should-know-about-the-people-we-don-t-know-9780316478526/9780316478526"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Talking
To Strangers: What We Should Know About The People We Don’t Know</span></a> </i>(Little,
Brown and Company, 2019).<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>His work draws heavily on facts and data
to come to his astute conclusions about human behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
</i>is insightful and engaging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He explores
coincidences, and he mines the connections that coalesce into sociological events
and their consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Prejudice and
incompetence go a long way toward explaining the social dysfunction in the
United States,” he writes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is an accurate
assessment in light of recent events.
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Throughout the book,
Gladwell follows a line of inquiry that can be best summed up: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>why do human beings behave the way they do,
especially in their interaction and communication?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He examines lying, specifically, “Why can’t
we tell when the stranger in front of us is lying to our face?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looks at specific cases, delving into
spies and dictators who create their reality and believe their own lies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fidel Castro and Cuban agents played the U.S.
diplomatic and espionage communities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The former Soviet Union did as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But, we also played them in return.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Agents became double agents; spies in the upper echelon of the CIA were
tasked with finding the identity of a highly placed mole in their midst, which
in many cases turned out to be the lead investigator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A spy in search of a spy who was, in fact,
that spy.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Hitler pulled the wool
over the eyes of diplomats all over Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He fooled many British aristocrats who advocated for appeasement, much
to the detriment and near collapse of their country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Brits assumed they had a personal
relationship with Hitler, and that he would honor that relationship by not
invading the rest of Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course,
he did precisely the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the
information these diplomats and spies gathered on Hitler did not tip them off
to his intent; instead, they turned a blind eye to his encroachment into other
countries until it was almost too late to save themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He concludes with a powerful statement:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We have…CIA officers who cannot make sense
of their spies, judges who cannot make sense of their defendants, and prime
ministers who cannot make sense of their adversaries.”
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">In this study of how
we read people, Gladwell says, one of our problems is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">default to truth</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite
blatant or subtle evidence, we assume the person we are dealing with is honest
and trustworthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is never a safe
assumption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of applying
scientific principles to our study of other human beings—gathering evidence and
evaluating behaviors until we reach a conclusion—we “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">start by believing</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stop</i> believing only when our doubts and
misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To discard objectivity is ludicrous and
dangerous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trust no one should be our
motto until they have earned our trust.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Gladwell examines a
multitude of cases to support his conclusions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He begins with Sandra Bland, a young Black woman whose arrest for a
minor traffic infraction in Texas explodes into a murder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He follows up with the Jerry Sandusky
molestation case, an analysis of the plot of an episode of the NBC sitcom, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Friends, </i>the Amanda Knox trial, the
Stanford rape case, and the interrogation and subsequent breaking of Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, one of the most senior Al Qaeda members who masterminded the
September 11<sup>th</sup> attacks and planned several more attacks around the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, in the conclusion, he
circles back to Sandra Bland to thoroughly analyze the transcription of how a
failure to communicate and deescalate the situation led to murder.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The attempt to
comprehend the Other misses the nuances, or in some cases, the outright message
the person sends in words and behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
person might say one thing, but behavior and speech reveal another intention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Transparency is key.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our facial expressions give us away and
reveal our attempts at manipulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People
often display mismatched behaviors—Amanda Knox displayed the characteristics of
guilt when she was not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bernie Madoff
exhibited confidence and steadiness with his clients while his pyramid scheme was
collapsing all around him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mismatching
is another way we fail to pick up on the message conveyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last third of the book, Gladwell devotes to
the brain and perception, and how our ability to pick up on specific cues can
be altered by alcohol, drugs, and preconceived beliefs.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Talking To Strangers</i> is an in-depth analysis of communication—verbal,
physical, behavioral—and how we often miss the cues and tics that indicate a
lie or deception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We give ourselves away
with our expressions, our language, and our movements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Malcolm Gladwell offers strong evidence that
nothing is as it seems, and coincidences and incongruences are not to be
ignored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They tell the story even when we
insist we are telling the truth.
</p><p></p><br /><p></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-10753002185265594042020-10-02T17:20:00.002-07:002020-10-02T17:20:29.225-07:00Existential Dread<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JBD4QpZ2DFg/X3fDIFs45sI/AAAAAAAADdE/Wy5qfOg254I6INxsC2EaXYVHNfs0gOEZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1203/TrumpVirus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1203" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JBD4QpZ2DFg/X3fDIFs45sI/AAAAAAAADdE/Wy5qfOg254I6INxsC2EaXYVHNfs0gOEZgCLcBGAsYHQ/w266-h400/TrumpVirus.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;">With the late night-early
morning announcement of the president’s COVID-19 status, we face many
questions.</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What other members of the
administration are positive and showing symptoms?</b>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">We hear that
individuals who traveled with the president are positive; others are negative,
including family members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also know,
as of this morning, that Joe Biden tested negative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The important word from now on is
transparency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know a number of people
are sick among the president’s advisors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That fact, in and of itself, is alarming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to know all the facts as we face uncertainty
about who is running the country.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is this Trump’s way of
getting out of the remaining debates after his poor performance last
Tuesday?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, is this a way for the
president to drop out of a race he knows he is losing?</b>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Anything is possible
when the administration is not forthcoming about the extent of this
crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But here is the thing:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trump has locked himself into a losing
strategy should the remaining debates take place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he comes out and observes the rules agreed
upon by both candidates, he looks soft and cowed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he comes out with another shrill,
hysterical performance where he allows no one to speak, the moderator or Joe
Biden, he will lose votes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His only way
out of this mess he created is to get out of the debates altogether.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">He is losing the race
according to most polls of likely voters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But I do not think he is ready to throw in the towel yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His ego won’t let him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His plan has been in place for a long time
now:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>call the results into question and
scream that the election was “rigged.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
wants to foment chaos and violence so he can argue he should remain in power to
control the uprisings that will ensue and to ensure his autocracy.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will he emerge after a short
period of time and say COVID-19 is not a threat and more of a hoax?</b>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">He has proclaimed this
from the start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might work to his
advantage to declare himself sick only to rise again after a few days, a sort
of “Jesus moment.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is, reportedly,
showing symptoms of the disease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he
is sick, and his condition worsens, that will disrupt his preferred
narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because he has been so
reckless with his rallies, and he rarely wears a mask in public, it would seem
true to the nature of the virus and its spread that he would eventually become
sick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Science, something the president
has held up for ridicule and scorn, is clear that this is a deadly disease
easily spread from human to human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Again, transparency is key, and if the administration is not
forthcoming, then we must rely on journalists to get the story and keep us
informed.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does the president’s illness
threaten our national security and our financial stability?</b>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Yes, and this is the
most immediate threat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A president who
is in quarantine or the hospital and showing symptoms of a disease that can be
fatal to patients in his demographic makes our country weak and vulnerable at
the moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is another reason for
transparency and a clear signal of who’s in charge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Constitution allows for a temporary
transfer of power, but Trump has to let go of the reins and allow Mike Pence to
assume his responsibilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
unclear if he is predisposed to do this.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The financial impact
is clear even in the early morning hours when this story broke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stock market futures declined almost
immediately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the economy, everything
is connected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this is handled
correctly, with clear leadership and factual accounting, that will keep
investors on an even keel, but Trump, even as he crows about his economic
prowess, has not been a failure with the resulting unemployment and
near-depression level decline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So as we
move through this crisis, we can only hope that the market settles down.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Could Trump use this to
postpone the election?</b>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The president has said
the election should be postponed until “people can vote safely.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no evidence that voting is dangerous
as long as we maintain social distancing and wear a mask.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Based on these previous comments, he wants to
postpone the election and stay in power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is something Rudy Giuliani tried to do as the mayor of New York after
9-11.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Constitutionally, he cannot
postpone the election, but that does not mean he won’t try.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Democracy is not a
point of perfection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is always a work
in progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living in a democratic
society requires diligence and constant vigilance to maintain the freedoms so
often taken for granted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are going
through a period of intense growth and consequential challenges while also
facing a referendum on the mistakes made in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is our American reckoning for atrocities
like slavery, violent racism, war, and destruction of our environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have elected a pathological liar who
obfuscates and assigns blame for his atrocious missteps and incompetence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is, by all measures, the worst president
in American history, and we are left on the very brink of the precipice.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p>
Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-67604929854663600852020-09-30T16:34:00.000-07:002020-09-30T16:34:16.938-07:00Poor Banished Children of Eve<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EN6JFMSETGM/X3UU0HAWnJI/AAAAAAAADc4/LUiRiayUi5Y7ky7fLvwIHll-Rds2DElrACLcBGAsYHQ/s800/Children.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EN6JFMSETGM/X3UU0HAWnJI/AAAAAAAADc4/LUiRiayUi5Y7ky7fLvwIHll-Rds2DElrACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h266/Children.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;">It is the dusky shadows
of an ancient September.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My grandmother
sits on the porch of her house, reciting the rosary in monotonous, sepia tones:</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our
hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To thee we cry, poor banished
children of Eve…”</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">I was often pulled
into this ritual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She would hand me one
of her spare strings of beads, and I would take my seat in the autumnal
twilight, sinking into the recitation, the circular rhythm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the span of my childhood, I went from not
understanding the words I breathed, to comprehending their significance, to
finding them anachronistic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, there
is a comfort in prayer, a reassuring spirit in following through:
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Glory be to the father, and to the son, and to the Holy Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever
shall be, world without end, Amen.”</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Except worlds do end,
and begin again.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">My grandmother is
gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The house is unrecognizable,
altered by another owner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I am
middle-aged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ritual remains lodged
in the shrouds of memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, it is once
again September.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In September, we use to
go to play at my grandmother’s house after school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That, too, is a strand of memory broken.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Our rituals have all
been broken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This only adds to our
feeling that the world has turned upside down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We do not leave our homes now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
avoid contact and protect ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
ritual is to rise in the morning, go to my desk, bring up a student’s face on
my screen, and work with her for an hour on her essay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, I will pull up another face to discuss
her struggles in her classes, the learning strategies and work-arounds that
will help her get back on track.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Despite all our
devices, our methods of communication allowing one person to see another in
pixels on a screen, we are lonely still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It feels as if the world is ending, but as my friend, <a href="https://william-michaelian.com/2020/09/26/wash-day/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">William Michaelian,
wrote recently</span></a>:</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> “The end of the world is
a strange and beautiful place. It keeps growing, and it keeps ending. And as it
ends, it gives birth to countless new beginnings.”</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">To do this, we may
have to let go of cherished rituals:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>family
dinners, baseball games, the rhythms and milestones of the workweek, the long
walk at twilight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must adapt and
change our colors, and recognize that we see the world differently now, and
there will be new rituals to embrace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“And as it ends, it gives birth to countless
new beginnings.”</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">I do not pray
anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mumbling words without the
strength of conviction is an exhausted ritual I can do without.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love silence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If she were still alive, I would gladly go
sit on my grandmother’s porch with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I would tell her how the world has changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She would tell me the torch has been passed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then she would say her prayers while I
take in the gloaming in silence, feeling the wind on my face.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">I have been dreaming
of her lately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, I should say, in the
dreams, she is dead as she is in real life, but I dream of her house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am there again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The house is empty, but the same as when I
last was there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am responsible for
repairing and renovating it, for keeping it preserved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are the gardens, the fruit trees, the
lawns, the two-story house itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
rise every morning at dawn to walk the property, a single house on three
connected lots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I water the vegetables
and flowers, mow the grass, prune the trees and shrubs in season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If there is something to repair, the
materials appear, and I can put it right again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are no other people in this dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am the sole survivor of some colossal ending.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is strange and discomforting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not leave the property, and a ten-foot
wooden fence protects the place from intruders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I can see only the sky above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nearby houses are shadowy and undefined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What kind of dream is this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Purgatory?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heaven?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When does solitude become loneliness?
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">There is no one left
to perform the ritual, no mumbled prayers to Mary, the Mother of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not interested in continuing the nightly
prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am more interested in the
Orthodox Jew, swaying back and forth in prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am more interested in the Buddhist, in the lotus position, humming,
gone into another plane of existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
am interested in the Muslim, on his knees, facing Mecca, which may be a million
miles away on the other side of the globe, yet he is tethered to it by a strong
and indestructible fiber of the heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Finally, I am the one who spans the distance and lands somewhere between
agnostic and atheist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know the world
is a sacred place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know that divinity
lives in all things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I know that we
do not end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are transfigured at the
moment of death—we become light and air.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">So I am thinking of past
Septembers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We just observed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yom Kippur</i>, the Day of Atonement, a
moment we should all reflect upon, not just our friends in Judaism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world needs to recognize the pain and
suffering we cause each other, the way we are hell-bent on destroying who we
are and what we have built with our own hands as well as the pulsating Earth
beneath us.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">My grandmother, in an afterlife
of her own construction, is probably sitting on her porch in some other
unreachable dimension, mumbling her prayers and letting the beads slip over her
fingers, keeping count of decades and prayers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is her path now.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">I stay up late into
the warm fall night, remembering all of it, the way we live, the poor banished
children of Eve.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p>
Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-12799984039689220352020-09-28T12:17:00.001-07:002020-09-28T12:27:23.694-07:00Let's Save Vroman's Bookstore<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0P3_n9XVofA/X3I0FOluRTI/AAAAAAAADcU/dzBH_OojywkTDga-I-1OOhRWqZ3g9tHTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s512/Vromans3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="512" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0P3_n9XVofA/X3I0FOluRTI/AAAAAAAADcU/dzBH_OojywkTDga-I-1OOhRWqZ3g9tHTgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/Vromans3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"><a href="https://www.vromansbookstore.com/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena</span></a>, a cultural landmark in Los Angeles, is in trouble and needs
help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Founded 126 years ago, the
bookstore remains the largest and oldest bookstore in southern California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sales during the pandemic have dropped forty
percent, threatening the future of the enterprise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is the message sent out today to
customers:</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vroman’s has always had a truly special relationship with our
customers. Today, we are asking for your help.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">As you can imagine, the past few months have been the most difficult in
our company’s 126-year history. Virtually every retailer—large and small—has
struggled as never before. Our foot traffic and sales are improving, but still
down almost 40%, which will not keep us in business. If Vroman’s is to survive,
sales must increase significantly from now through the holidays.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We’re doing everything possible to provide the beautiful array of
holiday merchandise you love and our holiday shop will soon be in place. We’re
also working hard to expand our website and make more of our gift merchandise
available for online purchasing and curbside pickup.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You, our valued customers, will make the difference as to whether we
can continue in business. </i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In short, we’re asking our community to return to shopping at Vroman’s
– whether online with delivery or curbside pick-up, or in-person safely in our
stores.</i>
</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shop online with curbside pickup or call us to place an order</i>
</li><li><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return to shop in our stores with our new health and safety measures in
place, understanding that capacity must be limited to ensure social distancing</i></li><li>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shop in-store on weekday mornings, rather than busy weekends or
afternoons</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></li><li><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shop early before the December holiday crowds – the stores will be far
less crowded in October and November</i>
</li></ul><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We also need your help to get the word out. Please reach out to your
friends and contacts to share the following messages:</i>
</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vroman’s needs your support to stay in business</i>
</li><li><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Please shop now for books, gifts, and gift cards with Vroman’s and
encourage your friends and associates to do the same</i></li><li><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Download these shareables and help spread the word! Use the hashtag
#ShopVromans and post on your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts. Don't
forget to tag us! (Twitter: @vromans / Instagram: @vromansbookstore / Facebook:
@vromansbookstore) </i></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We first opened our doors in Pasadena in 1894, and we’re proud to play
an important role in our community—as a place of gathering, culture, jobs, and,
through our Vroman’s Gives Back program over the years have donated more than
$750,000 to local charities. Our customers and community are at the heart of
all we do. </i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">There is no way we can adequately express to you our great appreciation
for your loyalty and business. We are indebted to the many generations of
customers who have made our 126-year legacy possible and we want to be here for
you, for generations to come. </i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">As we do all we can to ensure safety and convenience, we can’t wait to
welcome you back. We truly appreciate your support during this critical time
and always.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tYSCo6jnG7o/X3I0dulYSvI/AAAAAAAADcc/0tP42YLqUNIPw53zJODup3t8zToJDNfowCLcBGAsYHQ/s453/Vromans1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="453" height="275" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tYSCo6jnG7o/X3I0dulYSvI/AAAAAAAADcc/0tP42YLqUNIPw53zJODup3t8zToJDNfowCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h275/Vromans1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;">For a history of this
great Los Angeles institution, here is an excerpt from their website:</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vroman’s Bookstore was founded in 1894 by Adam Clark Vroman. Born in
1856 in La Salle, Illinois, Mr. Vroman moved to Pasadena, California in the
late 1800s hoping the weather would improve his wife Esther’s health. Sadly,
Esther died two years later, and the brokenhearted Mr. Vroman sold his beloved
book collection to raise the capital to open a bookstore.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mr. Vroman loved books and loved giving back to his community. He helped
to rescue some of the old Franciscan missions from decay, helped establish the
Southwest Museum (now part of the Autry Museum), and he was a great supporter
of the Pasadena Public Library. There’s even a story of him loaning money to a
competitor, and helping him establish credit with vendors, so that the man
could start his own bookstore.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mr. Vroman was also a passionate photographer, specializing in scenes
of the American West and his portraits of Native Americans, notable for the
respect he showed the people. Ansel Adams called Mr. Vroman one of his
influences, and Mr. Vroman’s work hangs in both the Huntington and the
Southwest Museum.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When Mr. Vroman died in 1916, he left the bookstore to longtime
employees, one of whom was the great grandfather of the current owner.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vroman’s Bookstore holds an important place in Southern California’s
history. For many years, Vroman’s was the largest bookstore west of the Mississippi,
and it continues to be the oldest and largest independent bookstore in Southern
California. During World War II, Vroman’s donated and delivered books to
Japanese Americans interned at nearby camps, returning on several occasions
despite being fired upon by camp guards.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Through the years, it has continued to be an independently owned family
business, now consisting of two Vroman’s locations, two Vroman’s boutiques
located at LAX airport, and an ecommerce site. In 2009, Vroman’s bought another
beloved independent bookstore, Book Soup in West Hollywood, after its owner
died and the store was in danger of closing.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mr. Vroman's legacy of philanthropy continues into the present day.
Throughout the years, the store has supported a variety of causes and
institutions through food drives, holiday gift drives free hiv testing, bone
marrow donor match drives, pet adoption days, mentoring and support for local
girl scout troops, donations for charity raffles, school book fairs, and the
Vroman's Gives Back program. Vroman's Gives Back is a charitable program that
donates a portion of customers’ purchases to local nonprofits, including public
radio stations, arts centers, family services, and programs supporting
literacy, the homeless, and animal welfare. To date, Vroman's has donated over
$765,513.59 on behalf of our customers.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GRXSQF-SfyY/X3I0v5yoorI/AAAAAAAADck/nlen4AmhDqAdgIZaCXsLpZX1KF7KsvnSwCLcBGAsYHQ/s645/Vromans2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="645" height="334" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GRXSQF-SfyY/X3I0v5yoorI/AAAAAAAADck/nlen4AmhDqAdgIZaCXsLpZX1KF7KsvnSwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h334/Vromans2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vroman’s is also famous for its world class author signings and events.
The store hosts over 400 free community events a year including children’s
storytimes, trivia nights, craft classes, bake-offs, and special launch
parties, and has hosted such authors as President Bill Clinton, President Jimmy
Carter, Irving Stone, Upton Sinclair, Ray Bradbury, David Sedaris, Salman
Rushdie, Walter Mosely, Joan Didion, Barbara Walters, Anne Rice, Neil Gaiman,
and Justice Sonia Sotomayor.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In 2008, Vroman's was honored with the Publishers Weekly Bookseller of
the Year award. The annual award is chosen by a panel of industry
professionals, and honors the very best bookstores in the country. Criteria for
the award include clarity in mission and vision, expertise in buying for its
target markets, innovation, successful events, and business efficiency.
Vroman's has also been recognized throughout the years for our excellent
customer service, our extraordinary staff, our extensive book inventory, and
our wide range of gifts, ranging from stationery, cards, and fine writing instruments
to jewelry, handmade gifts, fair trade merchandise, candles, purses, scarves,
and much more!</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vroman’s is a Pasadena institution, a literary landmark, a community
center, and a wonderful tradition. We hope you visit us soon!</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></p>
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<![endif]--></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-7196274778970339102020-09-26T16:22:00.001-07:002020-09-26T16:22:43.181-07:00Nicotine<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d9L3fAe3Me4/X2_K2JFDgoI/AAAAAAAADcA/k7lWf5zqKywCh7z-0_pFYx-KrTPDkz3jQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/nicotine.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="1600" height="178" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d9L3fAe3Me4/X2_K2JFDgoI/AAAAAAAADcA/k7lWf5zqKywCh7z-0_pFYx-KrTPDkz3jQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h178/nicotine.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;"><a href="https://www.vromansbookstore.com/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Vroman’s Books</span></a> in
Pasadena, the oldest and largest independent bookstore in Los Angeles, hosted a
discussion last Thursday night of <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-nicotine-chronicles/9781617758584"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Nicotine Chronicles</i></span></a> (Akashic Books, 2020), edited by Lee Child and
featuring new work by <a href="https://plmartinwrite.blogspot.com/2020/09/sidewalking-by-david-l-ulin.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">David L. Ulin</span></a> and Joyce Carol Oates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All three writers were on hand for the
discussion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book is part of a
five-book set from Akashic Books on addictions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Titles include <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-cocaine-chronicles-9781617750298/9781617750298"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cocaine
Chronicles</i></span></a> (2011), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-speed-chronicles/9781617750281"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Speed Chronicles</span></a> </i>(2011), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-heroin-chronicles/9781617751066"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Heroin Chronicles</span></a> </i>(2013), and <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-marijuana-chronicles/9781617751639"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Marijuana Chronicles</i></span></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>(2013).</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">In his introduction to
the book, Child writes that nicotine can be found in potatoes, tomatoes,
peppers, and eggplant, but one would need to eat an enormous amount of produce
to reap the benefits of the drug.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
only delivery system that guarantees maximum bang for the buck is to inhale the
smoke from burning tobacco leaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do it
that way, and the drug is flowing through the highways and byways of the body in
ten seconds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nicotine improves fine
motor skills, attention span, cognitive abilities, long and short-term memory, lessens
depression, delays, or even prevents Alzheimer’s, and decreases the risk of
developing Parkinson’s.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Child said he moves
through his day in a cloud of marijuana and tobacco smoke and said Thursday
night that he could not function without them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For that reason, he wanted to edit this anthology. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The project excited him because he could draft
an all-star team of writers to contribute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>David L. Ulin, who has edited several anthologies, said he liked editing
anthologies because one did not have to come up with an entire book of original
material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a true group
project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joyce Carol Oates talked about researching
vaping and chose to write about the subculture of that controversial
activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has never inhaled a
cigarette and is a confirmed running and fast-walking addict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But she was fascinated by the subject
nonetheless.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">This series of five
books is all about addictions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alcohol,
drugs, gambling, sex, shopping, behaving recklessly—all are part of the human
condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Child made that clear
Thursday evening—“Marijuana is one of my necessary food groups,” he joked, and
he was seconded by Ulin, who said Child was a “man after my own heart.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For emphasis, Child stated that nicotine is
ferociously addictive, and for him, to get the benefits, he had to accept the
delivery system as part of the bargain.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Oates addressed her addiction
to running and fast-walking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her day would
not be complete without this exercise in her schedule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ulin is also a confirmed walker, usually in
the mornings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He bemoaned the recent
fires around Los Angeles and the poor air quality, which prevented him from
taking his morning stroll.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has felt
grumpy and out-of-sorts over the last few weeks as the fires raged out of
control and the air was filled with chunks of ash.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Ulin told a story of
going to a party when he and his wife first moved to Los Angeles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost immediately, they realized they were
not in the same “pay grade” as their fellow partiers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His wife, a so-called “social smoker,” went
to bum a cigarette from two women standing off by the pool smoking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she came back, Ulin noticed a look on
her face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he asked what was up, she
said the two women were Faye Dunaway and Jacqueline Bisset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Child added that he has met many famous
people when smoking, and he counts that as one of the perks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ulin went on to say that as a small child, he
thought four things made a boy into a man, as he observed from his father:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>shaving, driving, smoking, and reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is no longer a smoker, but his life
involves all of the other activities.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">As for Child, his lesser
vice includes coffee—in fact, he has two machines on his kitchen counter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without coffee, nicotine, and pot, he would
not be able to function.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This has always
been the case for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He started
writing when he was out-of-work and needed to put food on the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He took matters into his own hands, sat down,
and created the Jack Reacher series of novels, and from there, his career took
off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He attributes his success, in part,
to his vices, and to paraphrase those philosophers, the Doobie Brothers, what
were vices are now habits, deeply ingrained in how he works and moves through
the day.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The trio discussed
writing the stories in the collection, and the art of writing in general.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ulin says he often focuses on a single
scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He feels that is his métier,
although he mainly writes nonfiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Oates sees the short story as a single moment in time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They both hold up Hemingway as the model
short story writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes an entire
world can be illustrated in three pages; that is what Hemingway was good at,
and what all other short fiction writers aspire to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oates said she recently taught Hemingway’s
short story, “Indian Camp,” and thought it was the best of his short works.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">It was an interesting
and lively discussion, convenient because there was no traffic to fight to get
there on time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The event was recorded
and can be accessed in replay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ultimately, this series of books centers on the fact that we all have addictions
that get us through the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than
taking up smoking, one audience member suggested in the chat that maybe
nicotine would go well in brownies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Child
responded that he would weigh 400 pounds if that were possible.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Nicotine’s delivery
system is an unfortunate problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until
there is a quicker way to get it—an injection?—we will have to make do with
eating more vegetables instead of burning tobacco leaves, unless we throw
caution to the wind and give in to our addictions.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p>
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<![endif]--></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-62169795697293859552020-09-24T13:55:00.002-07:002020-09-24T16:24:19.720-07:00Fighting The Wind<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3Jqyz9XchBs/X20EV5T2cAI/AAAAAAAADb0/dsLMiOJKqY8xNhuesSft-xYRcBVc1Lk1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/boat.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="800" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3Jqyz9XchBs/X20EV5T2cAI/AAAAAAAADb0/dsLMiOJKqY8xNhuesSft-xYRcBVc1Lk1wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h265/boat.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;">I awoke from troubled
sleep thinking of Miniver Cheevy and Don Quixote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all of this “Make America Great Again”
nonsense, America seems fixated on a past that never existed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no perfect America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>America, and democracy, have always faced challenges
and difficulties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes work to be
free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have, indeed, lost something
along the way, but no cheap slogan will heal our divisions now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No stuffed shirt, with a fake tan, and bird’s
nest hair will fix what is broken.</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">“Miniver Cheevy” is a
poem by Edward Arlington Robinson from his classic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Town Down The River.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
it, Cheevy spends all his time dreaming of the knights of old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He despairs his current situation, weeping he
was ever born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lives fully in this
dreamscape past, which only exists in his mind:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“When swords were bright and steeds were prancing,” as Robinson
characterizes it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He clings to the “vision
of the warrior bold,” even while he timidly approaches his real life, one far
less colorful and exciting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He does not
want to put the effort in to change; he just wants everything to be as it was,
but what it was consisted of a fantasy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A Neverland.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">He also traps himself
in thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He mulls over in his brain
the dearth of heroism, the “gold he sought,” and his misery without it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is the classic negative version of the man
of thought, a person who spends so much time dreaming that real life in the
present leaves him in the dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poem
ends with a taut summation:
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Miniver Cheevy, born too late, / Scratched his head and kept on thinking;</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> / Miniver coughed, and called it fate,</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> / And kept on drinking.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Don Quixote also
dreams of a past that never existed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
longs for chivalry and the knight hero who vanquishes his enemies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cervantes was genius enough to devise a new
genre in literature, the novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But his
true gift to the canon is Don Quixote himself, a classic character, so much a
part of literature and culture that his name has become a touchstone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quixote is a fool, a dreamer, an
anachronism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He refuses to see the world
as it is, and instead, constructs a world of fantasy and imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, everyone is familiar with the
classic phrase “tilting at windmills.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In Quixote’s mind, those windmills must be challenged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quixote’s idealism must be protected and
nurtured, even though it is misplaced in time and truth.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Don Quixote ends his
life with an epiphany—his magical world does not, could not, exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We learn that a life of make-believe is no
life at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This makes Cervantes’ work
not a comedy, but a tragedy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quixote is
both a sad figure, broken and disappointed by the end, and a painfully comic
figure, a misguided nincompoop exposed by his fallacies and the wit of his
sidekick, Sancho Panza.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The windmills
are unvanquished, as enemies often are in real life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must live with our disappointments, our
dreams, our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sturm und Drang</i> of daily
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The struggle continues.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Why was I dreaming of
these two characters from literature?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is easy to romanticize the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The
world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste
our powers,” another poet, William Wordsworth, wrote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We look around us and see the dark clouds on
the horizon, the coming eclipse at noon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We fear the shadowlands, the islands of our desperation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why can’t the world be the way we want
it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why are we so afflicted?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We see ourselves as the biblical figure of
Job, a righteous man tortured by Satan until he curses God for his
misfortune.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Miniver Cheevy, Job
rues the day he was born into this valley of tears.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Yet, this is
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good or bad, reality or dream, the
past is past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are here, now, and only
in this moment can we act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many people
refuse to believe any action in the moment can alter what is to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that is our fate as finite beings, to “rage
against the dying of the light.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
cannot “make America great again.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Historians will define the nature of epochs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We see the past as some perfect land, and we
cannot help ourselves but want to get back to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The past of our dreams does not correspond to
history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is irrelevant anyway
because it is gone.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">I do not want to be
Miniver Cheevy or Don Quixote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are
enough dragons and windmills to go around these days, and they are real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must fight in the moment for what is
sacred to us, what we want to happen in the now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If chivalry and honor return, it is because
we have made it so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we have the
future of our choosing, then we have acted in the present tense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is all we can do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To those who are like Job, no one ever said
this would be easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No life is free from
sorrow and angst.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">I do not want my life
to be caught in the web of the past, afraid to confront the present and what is
to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">From Edgar Lee Masters and <i>The Spoon River Anthology,</i></span> come the words
of his character, George Gray: </p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I have studied many times / The marble which was chiseled for me—</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> / A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> / In truth it pictures not my destination</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> / But my life…</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> / To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness, / But life without meaning is the torture</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> / Of restlessness and vague desire—</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> / It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.</i>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">This is truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only response to it is to act now.
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<![endif]--></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-78964096842819655242020-09-20T16:02:00.000-07:002020-09-20T16:02:28.815-07:00The Smallest Lights In The Universe by Sara Seager<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zoo_YGuv8dk/X2fec54Or_I/AAAAAAAADbo/1spgdBoiO2YeeBcU26Alf0hMQJPyJNhHACLcBGAsYHQ/s1690/Seager.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1690" data-original-width="1122" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zoo_YGuv8dk/X2fec54Or_I/AAAAAAAADbo/1spgdBoiO2YeeBcU26Alf0hMQJPyJNhHACLcBGAsYHQ/w265-h400/Seager.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Astronomers tell us
that every atom of our being originated with the celestial cataclysm of the Big
Bang.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And every element and fiber,
sentient or not, also has its origins there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We are a multiverse of chemistry and matter, a plethora of particles and
nuances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we look up to the heavens
on an end-of-summer night, we see ourselves reflected back in the light of the
stars.</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Sara Seager, in her
book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-smallest-lights-in-the-universe-a-memoir/9780525576259"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Smallest Lights in the
Universe:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Memoir</span></a> </i>(Crown, 2020),
has spent her career visualizing distant galaxies to find exoplanets, bodies that
orbit distant stars, not unlike our sun, and who mirror the planets in our own
solar system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There might be thousands
of billions,” she writes, all “circling our galaxy’s hundreds of billions of
stars.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hers is a study of light and
dark, combing through space to get a clear glimpse of one of these exoplanets
that might share some secret of what exists there at the very edge of what we
see through the lens of a telescope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
find this mirror earth would require us to see the “smallest lights in the
universe.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She searches for chemical
signatures of life—water, oxygen, and other elements, but life elsewhere may
not even incorporate the same elements as Earth.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Seager traces her life
from the moment she knew she wanted to be an explorer of the stars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On a camping trip as a child, she leaves her
tent one night to gaze at the sky above her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“My heart stopped,” she tells us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“All these years later, I can still remember the feeling in my
chest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a moonless night, and
there were so many stars—hundreds, perhaps thousands—over my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wondered how such beauty could exist, and I
wondered, too, why nobody had ever told me about it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She goes on to trace how in science, one
investigation leads to another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has
the epiphany that “scientists are explorers,” and she must follow her interests
up into the heavens.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">An important person in
her formative years is her father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
was a medical doctor who helped her focus on the things that matter, but she
learns that “where you are changes everything.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The first great tragic loss of her life is when he is diagnosed with
cancer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He tries to comfort her with
platitudes:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Death is a part of life…We
start to die the day we are born.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
the end, he supports her pursuit of her vocation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When the door of opportunity opens, you have
to go through it,” he tells her as she contemplates taking up a challenging
position at MIT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he approaches death,
he pulls her to his side to tell her, “You are the joy of my existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are the best thing that has ever happened
to me, and you have exceeded all expectations.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His loss profoundly affects Seager, and through her strong writing,
impacts the reader as well.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The second major loss
of her life is that of her husband, Mike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They meet and form a bond, one that helps her navigate her world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later in life, she realizes that she is on
the autism spectrum; in her days with Mike, she can be a bit standoffish and a
loner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He helps her socialize, and the
two often journey into the wilderness to hike and canoe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Together they have two sons, Max and Alex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their family is an even-numbered unit,
complete and whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mike takes care of
most of the home duties leaving Seager to pursue her career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, he, too, is diagnosed with cancer, and
as he fights the greatest battle of his life, Seager struggles to hold things
together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her sons are very young, and
she tries to shield them from the coming death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The boys see the toll the disease takes on their father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seager wants them to remember their father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She tells them that “memories are important,”
and “All things live until they are forgotten.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the end, Mike’s passing leaves them an odd-numbered family, a group
of three.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From studying her own grief
through the lens of life after Mike, she realizes that we do not lose the dead
all at once.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You lose them a thousand
times,” she writes, “in a thousand ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You say a thousand goodbyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
hold a thousand funerals.”
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The saddest moment in
the book and the most life-affirming is when she must let go of Mike’s memory
to start a life with a new man, someone she was not looking for, nor did she
think she would find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many ways, he
seems like a better match for her, or maybe it is just that she has been
changed by the confluence of elements in her life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is different, shifted, more light and sure
of her world.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">“I don’t think it’s an
accident that there’s a mirror at the heart of every large telescope,” she
writes at the end of the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If we
want to find another Earth, that means we want to find another us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We think we’re worth knowing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We want to be a light in somebody else’s
sky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so long as we keep looking for
each other, we will never be alone.”
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The strength of Sara
Seager’s writing is the way she takes us into her life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We gaze through the mirror lens to see the
poetry of the stars, and through the light, come to see ourselves.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;"> </p>
Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390199041521256086.post-82869546893489320072020-09-16T17:05:00.000-07:002020-09-16T17:05:32.240-07:00Stressors<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KgyKeJJliuU/X2Kngda5FSI/AAAAAAAADbY/rjrGAf9f75A12BaZzWIev5NLE_PSG9u5QCLcBGAsYHQ/s698/stress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="698" height="229" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KgyKeJJliuU/X2Kngda5FSI/AAAAAAAADbY/rjrGAf9f75A12BaZzWIev5NLE_PSG9u5QCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h229/stress.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="mso-pagination: none;">Out here in the smoke
and flames, the California State University system has announced they will be
online for the spring 2021 semester.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now
the wait begins to see what the University of California system and the private
colleges decide to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is
Covid-19, the raging fires, the civil unrest, the increasingly armed and
dangerous conflicts between citizen groups, and the abject, duplicitous
administration in Washington.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> the switch to remote learning:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is it any wonder students and teachers are
stressed?</p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">Across the country, parents,
students, and teachers are trying to figure all of this out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parents are trying to balance their new roles
as teachers’ aides while continuing to work from home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Teachers are dealing with their children at
home while attempting to teach others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Older
siblings, at the expense of their own learning and course work, take care of
younger brothers and sisters so parents can work at home or in person at a job
site.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This means that Zoom sessions
often have chaotic backgrounds and noise, with several people in the household
logged on to remote classrooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Bandwidth is precious and often limited, knocking students off in the
middle of a lesson or exam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Students
continually struggle for equipment, textbooks, resources, and a stable internet
connection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reported absenteeism is high
while some college students are withdrawing and taking a leave of absence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many cases, teachers must revise methods
and curricula on the fly, leading to even more confusion.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">The long-term
consequences of all of this are clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There will be lasting damage as Covid-19 continues to interrupt the
focused, intensive, sequential education of students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will these students return in a safer
time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will they have the financial
resources to wait out the virus and continue their education?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For students in their formative years of
elementary education, we are looking at the possibility of a generation of disenfranchised,
under-educated students who will go on to drain federal and state resources as
under-performing working adults, leading to unemployment, discontent, and
anger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a psychological impact
in addition to the physical impact on a student due to the virus and the
existential threats like fire and civil unrest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And when does civil unrest become a civil war?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We may need an answer to that question very
soon.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">We are especially
vulnerable to high unemployment for graduating college students, even with a
paradigm shift from traditional majors like English and philosophy to job-ready
majors like social work, nursing, and criminology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will attempt to enter the workforce
during a tighter economy and job market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Will graduates be able to find employment with pay equal to their
qualifications and college degrees?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will
they be financially secure enough to begin repaying their student loans?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recovery from the impact of this disease may
not happen quickly, even with a vaccine and people returning to some sense of a
normal life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Normal may be a relative
term in the post-Covid-19 world.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">There are far too many
unanswered questions regarding what will happen between now and November, or now
and January.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problems Americans face
will not be resolved immediately with a new president or a different party in
control of the House or Senate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To get
out of this mess, we will need new, strong, consistent leadership and
planning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will take a herculean
effort of ordinary people pulling together in a united front for the good of
the nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have been able to pull
that off only on very rare occasions in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does America have what it takes to pull itself
out of such a deep hole this time?
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">What we are in now is
survival mode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are trying to keep the
ship afloat, but the water is rising.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the last few days, it feels as if our survival mode is slipping slowly toward
anarchy.
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="mso-pagination: none;">With all of this, and
trying to educate and be educated, I ask again:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>is it any wonder teachers and students are stressed?
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<![endif]--></p>Paul L. Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16571449117336295156noreply@blogger.com0