Literature | dual personalities

So ho skip and away

by chuckofish

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Then pater sa in much lower voice ABSENT FRIENDS and everyone else sa absent friends absent friends absent friends ect. and begin blubbing. In fact it do not seem that you can go far at xmas time without blubbing of some sort and when they listen to the wireless in the afternoon all about the lonely shepherd and the lighthousemen they are in floods of tears.

Still xmas is a good time with all the presents and good food and i hope it will never die out or at any rate not until i am grown up and hav to pay for it all. So ho skip and away the next thing we shall be taken to peter pan for a treat so brace up brace up.

–Geoffrey Willans, How to Be Topp

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What are you reading?

by chuckofish

“It saved me from ennui,” he answered, yawning. “Alas! I already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the common-places of existence. These little problems help me to do so.”

“And you are a beneficiary of the races,” said I.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some little use,” he remarked. “‘L’homme, c’est rien–l’oeuvre c’est tout.’ as Gustave Flaubert wrote to Georges Sand.”

–Sherlock Holmes in The Red-Headed League

In casting about for something to read last week, I plucked The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle off a shelf at home. It was a 1930 edition which had belonged to my father. The name inscribed on the frontispiece was in my father’s adult hand, but judging from the words that are underlined throughout the book, he must have read it as an eight-year-old. It adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the experience, imagining little Newell looking up the words amiable and succinct.

Funnily enough, I have never before read any stories in the Holmes oeuvre. Of course, I am well versed in the Basil Rathbone film series

and I have seen one of the Robert Downey, Jr.’s movies.

My DP even gave me a boxed set of the British tv series from the 1950s starring Leslie Howard’s son Ronald Howard as the famous sleuth.

But until now, I do not recall having delved into the original Doyle stories. Let me tell you, they are really good! Holmes is a wonderful character, always observing and thinking and deducing. And the stories are well-written, concise and light-hearted.

They are a wonderful distraction from the worries of the world. I highly recommend them.

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October 5, 2016

“The skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully invested body.”*

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Remington Kellogg (October 5, 1892 –May 8, 1969)–a fascinating fellow who was an American naturalist and a director of the United States National Museum. Born and raised in Davenport, Iowa, he attended the University of Kansas where he pursued his lifelong interest in wildlife. From there he went to the University of California–Berkeley. While serving in the Army in France during WWI, Kellogg still found time to collect specimens, which he sent back to Berkeley and the University of Kansas. He was discharged in July 1919 and returned to Berkeley to complete his doctorate, transferring from zoology to study vertebrate paleontology.

In 1928 Kellogg became assistant curator at the United States National Museum and in 1941 became curator. At the museum he devoted time to studying primitive whales from the Eocene and early Oligocene of North America. In 1948 he was appointed director of the Museum and in 1958 was made assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1951.

Whales have been at the heart of Smithsonian research since 1850. It was Museum director Remington Kellogg who wanted a “scientifically accurate” model and pushed for the research to make one.

So a toast to Remington Kellogg (what a great name!) and to Herman Melville while we’re at it.

“Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!

Have a good “hump” day!

*Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

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October 4, 2016

“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946)–American newspaperman and author. He is most remembered today for writing the stories which inspired the broadway musical Guys and Dolls.

Here are some things about him you probably didn’t know:

He was born in Manhattan–but in Manhattan, Kansas. He grew up in Pueblo, Colorado. His father and grandfather were newspaper editors.

In 1898, when still in his teens, Runyon enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in the Spanish-American War.

He was the Hearst newspapers’ baseball columnist for many years, beginning in 1911, and his knack for spotting the eccentric and the unusual, on the field or in the stands, is credited with revolutionizing the way baseball was covered.

One year, while covering spring training in Texas, he met Pancho Villa in a bar and later accompanied the unsuccessful American expedition into Mexico searching for Villa.

Runyon died in New York City in 1946, at age 66. His body was cremated, and his ashes were illegally scattered from a DC-3 airplane over Broadway by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. The family plot of Damon Runyon is located at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

His stories are still in print and I am going to read them. His gangsters seem much more appealing than our 21st-century ones.

4 Comments

September 30, 2016

You can do it!

by chuckofish

This made me LOL.

Also it got me thinking about support and encouragement, which are all very well and good, but lest we forget, here’s a word from Ralph Waldo Emerson on self-reliance:

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”

And a poem by Mary Oliver to get you moving:

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

Have a good weekend. October will be here tomorrow! The last quarter of the year is upon us. Let us make good use of it.

4 Comments

September 12, 2016

“My ransomed soul he leadeth”*

by chuckofish

I had a rather long to-do list this weekend, and I checked off most everything on it. This included getting my hair cut, going to several estate sales, going to Lowe’s, cleaning up my closet, doing a little yard work, and going to church. Pretty typical.

[Daughter #1 celebrated her birthday in NYC with daughter #2. They had fun (see picture) and cake!]

I started reading The Lamplighter by Maria Susanna Cummins, which daughter #2 sent me. (Sentimental novels of the mid-19th century are a concentration of her doctoral studies.)

Published in 1854, The Lamplighter, Cummins’s first novel, was an immediate best-seller, selling 20,000 copies in twenty days. The work sold 40,000 in eight weeks, and within five months it had sold 65,000. At the time it was second in sales only to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It sold over 100,000 copies in Britain and was translated into multiple different languages.

I am enjoying it immensely. Although Nathaniel Hawthorne may have sneered at it, there is a reason so many people gobbled it up. It is well-written, diverting and instructive, and to the average person struggling along in the daily grind, uplifting.

[Gerty’s] especial favorite was a little work on astronomy, which puzzled her more than all the rest put together, but which delighted her in the same proportion; for it made some things clear, and all the rest, though a mystery still, was to her a beautiful mystery, and one which she fully meant some time to explore to the uttermost. And this ambition to learn more, and understand better, by and by, was, after all, the greatest good she derived. Awaken a child’s ambition, and implant in her a taste for literature, and more is gained than by years of school-room drudgery, where the heart works not in unison with the head.

Agreed.

At church the Gospel lesson was about Christ eating with sinners and the Pharisees grumbling about it. The Apostle Paul reminded us that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, he foremost among them. In the OT lesson, God changed his mind, at Moses’ prompting, and forgave the slackers in the wilderness. Most of us are grumbling Pharisees ourselves, and it is good to be reminded of it. It is good to be reminded of it weekly and to say this prayer of confession:

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

We will forget soon enough and once again be grumbling Pharisees.

Later today the OM and I are driving to Indianapolis where the boy is having surgery tomorrow at Indiana University Hospital. All trace of his cancer is gone, but there is still a tumor and they will remove it. If all goes well, we will return on Wednesday. Please keep us all in your prayers.

*Hymn 410

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August 17, 2016

“On the banks of the Wabash, far away”*

by chuckofish

“That month he developed the habit every night of picking up the Bible the last thing before he went to bed and reading a few verses, and from thinking a prayer and from thinking thanksgiving, he advanced to the place where he boldly, in the silence and serenity of the little room, got down on his knees and prayed the prayer of thanksgiving. Then he followed it by the prayer of asking. He found himself asking God to take care of all the world, to help everyone who needed help; to put the spirit and courage into every heart to fare forth and to attempt the Great Adventure on its own behalf… Then he arose, in some way fortified, a trifle bigger, slightly prouder, more capable, more of a man than he had been the day before. He had asked for help and he knew that he was receiving help, and he knew that never again would he be ashamed to face any man, or any body of men, and tell them that he had asked for help and that help had been forthcoming, and that the same experience lay in the reach of every man if he would only take the Lord at His word; if he would only do what all men are so earnestly urged to do–believe.”

― Gene Stratton-Porter, The Keeper of Bees

Today is the birthday of Gene Stratton-Porter (August 17, 1863 – December 6, 1924) who was an American author, naturalist, and nature photographer.

She wrote several best-selling novels–Freckles, A Girl of the Limberlost, and The Harvester–which are set in the wooded wetlands and swamps of the disappearing central Indiana ecosystems. She knew and loved these, and documented them extensively. Her works were translated into several languages, including Braille, and she was estimated to have had 50 million readers around the world. Many of her books are still in print.

I have to admit I have never read any of her books, but I have always heard of them–especially The Girl of the Limberlost, which has to be one of the all-time best titles ever. Indeed, Stratton-Porter is one of Indiana’s best known authors and she really put Geneva, Indiana on the map by writing about the Limberlost swamp. Besides writing best-selling novels, she was an amateur naturalist who studied the bird life of the upper Wabash and recorded her observations. She was also a pioneer photographer, taking pictures of the birds she studied and loved.

Stratton-Porter’s two Indiana residences, “Limberlost Cabin” in Geneva, Indiana

and the “Cabin at Wildflower Woods” in Rome City, Indiana

were both designated Indiana State Historic Sites in 1946 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They are operated by the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites Corporation as house museums.

She also had a honkin’ big house in Bel Air, California (she was in the movie business too), but I’m going to limit myself to exploring more of the Hoosier State. Road trip, anyone?

*Indiana state song by Paul Dresser

5 Comments

July 12, 2016

Cherish your moodiness

by chuckofish

“Melancholy Promenade” by Diego Rivera, 1904

Now I yearn for one of those old, meandering, dry, uninhabited roads, which lead away from towns, which lead away from temptation, which conduct to the outside of earth, over its uppermost crust; where you may forget in what country you are travelling; where no farmer can complain that you are treading down his grass, no gentleman who has recently constructed a seat in the country that you are trespassing; on which you can go off half-cock and wave adieu to the village; along which you may travel like a pilgrim, going nowhither; where travellers are not too often to be met; where my spirit is free; where the walls and fences are not cared for, where your head is more in heaven than your feet on earth; which have long reaches where you can see the approaching traveller half a mile off and be prepared for him; not so luxuriant a soil as to attract men; some root and stump fences which do not need attention; where travellers have no occasion to stop, but pass along and leave you to your thoughts; where it makes no odds which way you face, whether you are going or coming; whether it is morning or evening, mid-noon or midnight; where earth is cheap enough by being public; where you can walk and think with least obstruction, there being nothing to measure progress by; where you can pace when your breast is full, and cherish your moodiness; where you are not in false relations with men, are not dining nor conversing with them; by which you may go to the uttermost parts of the earth.

–H.D. Thoreau, A Writer’s Journal

It is the birthday of Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), so let’s celebrate by reading the longest sentence ever (see above) and having some alone-time in the out-of-doors.

Vincent Van Gogh

Peder Mork Monsted

“The Tree” by John Milne Donald, 1861

Cheers to Henry David Thoreau! Enjoy your Tuesday.

4 Comments

May 25, 2016

“Lots of people are wonderful, but you’re just the best.”*

by chuckofish

Today we celebrate the birthday of the oft-quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803–April 27, 1882).

It would be a good day to take down one of his books, blow off the dust and read it. It would also be a good day to take a walk–an activity he was fond of.

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”

I will also remind you that tomorrow (May 26) is the birthday of John Wayne, so you might want to charge up your DVR in anticipation of said day. TCM is, of course, running his movies all day, although it is not a very inspired line-up if you ask me.

I will no doubt dig into my cache of John Wayne favorites and choose something else.

Speaking of JW, last week CBS ran a couple of classic (colorized) episodes of “I Love Lucy” from season 5 of the series–I’m not sure why. Originally broadcast in October of 1955, they centered on Lucy and Ethel trying to steal John Wayne’s footprints from in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the hilarity that ensues. I was never a huge fan of this show and its slapstick comedy, but I admit I laughed out loud watching these two episodes.

Of course, John Wayne was the guest star and at one point Lucy says to him, “Lots of people are wonderful, but you’re just the best,”* and I couldn’t agree more.

The same goes for old Ralph Waldo Emerson. Have a great day and “write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year…”

3 Comments

May 16, 2016

“O Lord, how manifold are your works!” *

by chuckofish

Happy Pentecost! How was your weekend?

We went to the last lacrosse game of the season on Friday after work and enjoyed sitting outside on a beautiful day, watching the game and the people around us. We never talked to the boy but the OM took a few pictures of him across the field with his giant lens.

On Saturday I went to several estate sales, including one in the lovely home of the brother of a former president of the U.S. His wife died a few months ago and I suppose he is down-sizing–you know, the kids took what they wanted and they were getting rid of the rest. The house was lovely and unpretentious, full of familiar things (books and LPs and monogrammed towels) and comfortable in an old school, slightly shabby way–just my style. They even had one of these–our family totem:

(I didn’t buy his, because I have already given one to each of my children.) I did buy an old child’s chair, which had been chewed by a family dog, and a BCP.

A good morning’s outing to be sure.

I finished Nightwoods by Charles Frazier and I highly recommend it. Good characters, tightly paced–well done. I am now reading Hope Leslie written by Catharine Maria Sedgwick in 1827, encouraged by daughter #2 who has read all of Sedgwick’s oeuvre for her dissertation. I am pleasantly surprised to report that Sedgwick is a regular Jane Austen, writing with a wry humor about “early times in Massachusetts.” Indeed the action takes place in the early seventeenth century and explores the “tumultuous relations between Puritans and Pequots.” I love this scene, described in a letter, where the fourteen-year old son pokes fun at an Anglican newcomer during a storm:

But Dame Grafton was beside herself. At one moment she fancied we should be the prey of the wild beast, and at the next, that she heard the alarm yell of the savages. Everell brought her, her prayer-book, and affecting a well-beseeming gravity, he begged her to look out the prayer for distressed women, in imminent danger of being scalped by North American Indians. The poor lady, distracted with terror, seized the book, and turned over leaf after leaf. Everell meanwhile affecting to aid her search. In vain I shook my head, reprovingly, at the boy–in vain I assured Mistress Grafton that I trusted we were in no danger; she was beyond the influence of reason; nothing allayed her fears, till chancing to catch a glance of Everell’s eye, she detected the lurking laughter, and rapping him soundly over the ears with her book, she left the room greatly enraged.

Now that is funny. “The prayer for distressed women, in imminent danger of being scalped by North American Indians.” I already like this Catherine Maria Sedgwick a lot.

The rest of the weekend was spent pleasantly puttering around, working in the yard, eating the donuts that my friend from Atlanta brought to me at work on Friday (he was in town for the air show)–note they are the “right” donuts–

and going to a garden party in support of the Shakespeare Festival St. Louis.

It was held at our friend’s 1867 house high up overlooking the mighty Mississippi…

There was even a bassett hunt.

Not bad for a stay-at-home introvert!

*Psalm 104

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dual personalities

Category: Literature

December 25, 2016

So ho skip and away

by chuckofish

December 14, 2016

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

October 5, 2016

“The skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully invested body.”*

by chuckofish

October 4, 2016

“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”

by chuckofish

September 30, 2016

You can do it!

by chuckofish

September 12, 2016

“My ransomed soul he leadeth”*

by chuckofish

August 17, 2016

“On the banks of the Wabash, far away”*

by chuckofish

July 12, 2016

Cherish your moodiness

by chuckofish

May 25, 2016

“Lots of people are wonderful, but you’re just the best.”*

by chuckofish

May 16, 2016

“O Lord, how manifold are your works!” *

by chuckofish