Books | dual personalities

What’s playing at the Roxy?*

by chuckofish

Oh boy. It’s Friday.

It’s been an exciting week in Missouri. We had a snow day and a meteorite fell to earth.

In the Episcopal Church we celebrated the lesser feast day of Charles Simeon (1759–1836) who was an English evangelical clergyman. This article by John Piper is interesting.

We all need help here. We are surrounded by, and are part of, a society of emotionally fragile quitters. The spirit of the age is too much in us. We need to spend time with the kind of people whose lives prove there is another way to live. Scripture says, be “imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12). So I want to hold up for us the faith and patient endurance of Charles Simeon for our inspiration and imitation.

And Disney gave us fair warning… Screen Shot 2019-11-14 at 2.59.05 PM.png

Thanks, Disney.

And FYI today is America Recycles Day (ARD)! It is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products. My mother was a recycler. It just seemed logical to her. And her puritan soul did not like waste. I would have to agree. As you know, I buy a lot of recycled items–they’re called antiques! (Vintage is okay too…)

My weekend will be a quiet one and that is okay with me. I will catch up with my reading…

…do some “desk work” and putter around…

The usual.

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How about you?

*Guys and Dolls

5 Comments

November 12, 2019

Mish mosh*

by chuckofish

We had our first snow of the season yesterday and, in fact, I had to call off afternoon classes and send everyone home early. It is always a bit weird, though, when it snows and most of the leaves are still on the trees. The temperature dropped 40 degrees from what it had been over the sunny weekend.

Daughter #1 came into town on Friday because she was part of the big Veterans Day doings at the Soldiers Memorial downtown on Saturday.

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Members of the Scottish-American Military Society

I liked what Chris Pratt wrote about his older brother, a vet, on his Instagram:

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And this great picture of the Queen with her poppies. She remembers.

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scottmeachamwood @Instagram

I had my last chemo treatment on Friday and it was a surprisingly emotional experience to ring that bell and say goodbye to all those nice people who work in the Cancer Center at Missouri Baptist Hospital.

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Well, on to the next phase.

Over the weekend I re-read Delano Ames’ Corpse Diplomatique which I thoroughly enjoyed. Jane and Dagobert Brown are very diverting amateur sleuths and Jane is always saying things like:

I glanced at him witheringly and risked no comment. But Henry did not wither readily.

And we watched The Ten Commandments (1956). It is hard to beat Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner together in a movie.

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Be still my heart.

This movie holds up remarkably well and the pre-CG special effects–the parting of the Red Sea in particular–are impressive. I will also note that Yul Brynner was also in the King and I and Anastasia in 1956. Seriously–wow–quelle year.

The wee babes came over Sunday night for dinner, but no one took any pictures!

Today I will remind you is the 359th anniversary of the day John Bunyan was arrested and taken into custody for preaching in a Puritan meeting house in England. He was convicted as a dissenter and spent 12 years in jail. While there, he began a book–The Pilgrim’s Progress.

“Mr. Worldly-Wiseman is not an ancient relic of the past. He is everywhere today, disguising his heresy and error by proclaiming the gospel of contentment and peace achieved by self-satisfaction and works. If he mentions Christ, it is not as the Savior who took our place, but as a good example of an exemplary life. Do we need a good example to rescue us, or do we need a Savior?”

No surprise that it is still in print and read all over the world. It’s a story that never gets old. My denomination is full of Worldly-Wisemen, that’s for sure.

Stay warm and drive safely.

*Yiddish for a motley assortment of things

3 Comments

October 29, 2019

“Hold the selfies, put the Gram away/ Get your family, y’all hold hands and pray”*

by chuckofish

On Friday I received my copy of Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout in the mail. It was a quick read and I finished it in a day. It was a big disappointment. All of the reviews I have read have been raves, so I am in a distinct minority it seems.

Olive, Again is a sequel to Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, which I loved. I have liked most of her books and almost all of them are tied up in this one. Indeed, in a series of linked short stories, we find out what happens to all those Maine characters who have populated her books. What we find out, basically, is that they are all frightened and lonely people with no spiritual life. It is a bleak world where nothing has much meaning. At the end of the book, Olive writes (spoiler alert!), “I do not have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing.”

I could go on, but it is just kind of depressing, so why bother.

Anyway, despite reading this disappointing book, daughter # 1 and I got quite a lot done this weekend, tidying up the house for daughter #2’s visit this coming weekend. I even persuaded the OM to hang up a pair of new drapes in my office. I got them on Etsy.com and I think they look great.

We also watched Ghostbusters (1984) which I thought held up very well and is kind of a classic at this point.

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The scene at the beginning in the New York Public Library…

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reminded us of Lottie…LOL!

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“No human being would stack books like this.”

Meanwhile, the boy had a fine time at the wedding in Rye, New York.

There he is to the right of the bride

And now he is home again, home again, jiggety jig.

And now I am back to wondering what to read. Have a good week!

“I don’t myself think much of science as a phase of human development. It has given us a lot of ingenious toys; they take our attention away from the real problems, of course, and since the problems are insoluble, I suppose we ought to be grateful for distraction. But the fact is, the human mind, the individual mind, has always been made more interesting by dwelling on the old riddles, even if it makes nothing of them. Science hasn’t given us any new amazements, except of the superficial kind we get from witnessing dexterity and sleight-of-hand. It hasn’t given us any richer pleasures, as the Renaissance did, nor any new sins-not one! Indeed, it takes our old ones away. It’s the laboratory, not the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. You’ll agree there is not much thrill about a physiological sin. We were better off when even the prosaic matter of taking nourishment could have the magnificence of a sin. I don’t think you help people by making their conduct of no importance-you impoverish them. As long as every man and woman who crowded into the cathedrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in a gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on one side and the shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The king and the beggar had the same chance at miracles and great temptations and revelations. And that’s what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own little individual lives. It makes us happy to surround our creature needs and bodily instincts with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have given man the only happiness he has ever had.”
― Willa Cather, The Professor’s House

*Kanye West, “Closed on Sunday”

4 Comments

September 17, 2019

“I simply gotta march/ My heart’s a drummer”*

by chuckofish

We had a beautiful day for our local Greentree Parade on Saturday.

Vrooom, vrooom!

The wee laddie got quite a kick out of all the army trucks and tractors etc…

And Lottiebelle made the round of laps…

After the parade we went home for Episcopal soufflé and Prosecco. Daughter #1 didn’t want birthday cake so we had donuts… IMG_3241 2.JPG The wee laddie approved.

Daughter #1 liked her presents especially this one…

It was a fun day and a fun weekend and on Sunday I even managed to go to a couple of estate sales with daughter #1. I rescued a needlepoint pillow!

The good news for today is that the 15th Walt Longmire novel is being released and I should get it in the mail today!

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Whoopi-ti-yay!

See you on the trail.

*Bob Merrill/Jule Styne

3 Comments

September 10, 2019

The slow-drawn wagon

by chuckofish

I had a very quiet weekend. In fact I never left my house! The wee babes came over on Sunday for dinner and shook things up for a wee bit, but they weren’t too…rowdy…

They are always so good at entertaining themselves with the same old toys and books while the grownups talk.

Speaking of books, I read one I picked up on the giveaway table at work–This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash.

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It was pretty good, but I can’t say it lived up to the cover hype that it was a cross between Harper Lee and Elmore Leonard. There were two children in the book, but they weren’t exactly Jem and Scout, and, yes, it took place in the South. Comparisons are odious and sometimes downright embarrassing.

I also watched a couple of good movies–Rooster Cogburn (1975) with John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn…

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and Wagon Master (1950) directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson and Harry Carey, Jr.

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Rooster Cogburn is worth watching to see the two great stars (both 67 at the time) so obviously enjoying themselves. Clearly they liked each other and were having a fine time. Who cares if the plot is a bit shopworn? The scenery is beautiful and the music rousing.

Wagon Master, on the other hand, is a real masterpiece…and there is nary a star in sight. Ben Johnson and Harry Carey, Jr., usually supporting players, are called upon to carry the action, along with Ward Bond, and they do just fine. It is a beautiful movie filmed in black and white by Bert Glennon in Moab, Utah. The story, which follows a group of Mormon pioneers going West, is a solid one and, as usual in Ford movies, is populated with realistic characters.

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Yes, that’s Russell Simpson as a Mormon elder next to Jane Darwell.

So I recommend both movies.

Now it is back to a busy week at work. I am also looking for something to read!

The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.

I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load,
I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.

--Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 9

2 Comments

July 30, 2019

“Surely all this is not without meaning.”*

by chuckofish

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The wee babes came over yesterday and learned some new words.

Aunt Susie reads “Moby-Dick”–can you say harpoon?

Yes, we are in the big build up to Herman Melville’s 200th birthday/birthday bash at the end of the week. So, of course, we had to get the wee babes in the act.

Lottie says, “Is there a sea princess in this book?”

Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals–morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire–by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be–what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,–all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the abandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush to encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but the deadliest ill.

*Herman Melville

2 Comments

April 11, 2019

Something all glorious and gracious

by chuckofish

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“…But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and the air smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have been making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the mowers are sleeping among the new- mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we how we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid greenness; as last year’s scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut swaths – Starbuck!”

–Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter cxxxii – THE SYMPHONY

Just a reminder that the 200th anniversary of Herman Melville’s birthday is coming up on August 1, 2019, so it is time to read/re-read Moby-Dick!

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…God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that. And yet, I’ve sometimes thought my brain was very calm – frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it’s like that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow it; they whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it! – it’s tainted. Were I the wind, I’d blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world. I’d crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, ’tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing – a nobler thing that that. Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents. There’s a most special, a most cunning, oh, a most malicious difference! And yet, I say again, and swear it now, that there’s something all glorious and gracious in the wind. These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their mark, however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where to go at last. And by the eternal Poles! these same Trades that so directly blow my good ship on; these Trades, or something like them – something so unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along! To it! Aloft there! What d’ye see?”

–Chapter cxxxv – THE CHASE – THIRD DAY

“The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

(The artwork is by Rockwell Kent.)

3 Comments

March 25, 2019

“Mary ate my donut.”*

by chuckofish

Another whirlwind weekend comes to an end, this one filled to the brim with the whirling dervishes known as the wee babes.

The boy dropped them off at 9:00 am on Saturday and I entertained them until daughter #1 returned from having her oil changed (and getting donuts). We read this book which I had bought at the Art Mart, having remembered it fondly from my own childhood many moons ago.

They loved it! That color wheel is the best. The wee babes knew all their colors and all the animals–oinka oinka–pictured inside. This book may be 60 years old, but it really holds up! (Back in print for the first time since it was published in 1959, “proudly reissued in celebration of the 75th anniversary of Little Golden Books!”)

Daughter #1 and I then bundled them into their double stroller and walked up to the little neighborhood park. They ran around like free range monkeys and climbed on the climbing structure and went down the slide many times. They also enjoyed picking up sticks and leaves and poking around. It doesn’t take much. We met some friendly dogs being walked and that was exciting too.

After we got home and ate lunch, the wee laddie could barely keep his eyes open–all that fresh air and running around you know–so we moved into the TV room, hoping some Veggie Tales would put them to sleep. This plan backfired as the new room, which is usually off-limits to them, renewed their strength and curiosity, and they were off to the races again. We had no luck getting them to nap, although the wee laddie finally crashed in the crib upstairs and slept like a log for a good long while. Miss Lottiebelle would not settle down, however, so we tried a variety of activities to no avail. She was pretty stressed out by a) the fact that her brother wasn’t around and b) she was upstairs in a mysterious new part of the house and c) her mommy was out of town. As a last resort, we got out a huge box of old Beanie Babies and went through them. By the time we roused her brother and things got back to normal, it was almost time for their daddy to pick them up, which he did around 3:30 pm.

After they left, daughter #1 and I indulged in a large glass of wine. (It was 5 o’clock somewhere.) The OM took us to dinner at Dewey’s (more wine) and when we came home and got in our jammies, we watched Tommy Boy (1995),

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Fat guy in a little coat…

which says a lot about the state of our minds, and went to bed at 9:00.

Sunday we got up and finished the last of the donuts and daughter #1 hit the road for mid-MO. I straightened up and did laundry etc. and moved all my plants to the Florida room. I cleaned it up and put out all the pillows. It is almost ready to have the girls over for an end-of-the-week drink! Believe me, I will need one.

I also tried to mentally prepare for the hell week that commences today. So many events this week.

But I can handle it. I am woman; hear me roar.

And this Instagram post (not actually posted) by the boy made me laugh: Screen Shot 2019-03-24 at 11.23.54 AM.png

Have a good week!

*Lottiebelle after her aunt ate the last bit of donut which had been sitting on a plate in the living room for 4 hours. Her tone was matter-of-fact but tinged with judgement.

5 Comments

February 26, 2019

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

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I finished re-reading The Trees by Conrad Richter over the weekend. It is such a great book. So underrated. He reminds me of Willa Cather, who also worked hard at her craft, getting it right. Richter also put so much into his books, so much research, and they are spare and perfect–no extraneous showing off.

“There is great tenderness in his stories,” wrote David McCullough about Richter, “Much that is raw and earthy, much that is funny, and not a little cold-blooded violence. The land is never merely the setting; it is elemental to the story, vast and full of power and mystery. His characters do not merely move across the landscape; it is part of them and they are part of it…In the trilogy [The Trees, The Fields, The Town] it is the ancient trees, ‘a race of giants,’ that shut out the light.”

There they stood [Sayward Luckett reflects] with their feet deep in the guts of the earth and their heads in the sky, never even looking at you or letting on you were there. This was their country. Here they had lived and died since back in heathen times. Even the Lord, it seemed, couldn’t do much with them. For every one He blew down, a hundred tried to grow up in its place.

“The underlying values expressed in the trilogy,” McCullough continues, “in all the novels, are the old-fashioned primary values–courage, respect for one’s fellow man, self-reliance, courtesy, devotion to the truth, a loathing of hypocrisy, the power in simple goodness. He called them “the old verities” and he was sure they were vanishing from American life. He had no patience with such expressions as “the Puritan ethic.” He thought most of those who used that expression never bothered to understand what the Puritans were all about.”

So, if you are looking for something to read, try Conrad Richter! I am going on with the trilogy.

On another note, I must say, there is nothing more gratifying than seeing the wee babes “reading” books.

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“You can be too rich and too thin, but you can never be too well read or too curious about the world.”
― Tim Gunn, Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work

5 Comments

February 12, 2019

“Like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.”*

by chuckofish

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A Valentine picture from the past!

“You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can’t remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind. And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this presence. But you have a life too that you remember. It stays with you. You have lived a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present, and your memories of it, remember now, are of a different life in a different world and time. When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. You are remembering it as it is. It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present, alive with you in the only time you are alive.”

― Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

*Wendell Berry

3 Comments

dual personalities

Category: Books

November 15, 2019

What’s playing at the Roxy?*

by chuckofish

November 12, 2019

Mish mosh*

by chuckofish

October 29, 2019

“Hold the selfies, put the Gram away/ Get your family, y’all hold hands and pray”*

by chuckofish

September 17, 2019

“I simply gotta march/ My heart’s a drummer”*

by chuckofish

September 10, 2019

The slow-drawn wagon

by chuckofish

July 30, 2019

“Surely all this is not without meaning.”*

by chuckofish

April 11, 2019

Something all glorious and gracious

by chuckofish

March 25, 2019

“Mary ate my donut.”*

by chuckofish

February 26, 2019

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

February 12, 2019

“Like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.”*

by chuckofish