poetry | dual personalities

Masters of the trivial

by chuckofish

The Things
When I walk in my house I see pictures,
bought long ago, framed and hanging
— de Kooning, Arp, Laurencin, Henry Moore —
that I’ve cherished and stared at for years,
yet my eyes keep returning to the masters
of the trivial — a white stone perfectly round,
tiny lead models of baseball players, a cowbell,
a broken great-grandmother’s rocker,
a dead dog’s toy — valueless, unforgettable
detritus that my children will throw away
as I did my mother’s souvenirs of trips
with my dead father. Kodaks of kittens,
and bundles of cards from her mother Kate.
by Donald Hall

Trivial, we all know, means “of little value or importance.” Yes, it is true, most of my things are of no monetary value. But trivial in any other sense is in the eye of the beholder. To each his own, I say. I love my trivial pursuits.

The OM and I watched a great movie the other night–Kes (1969), an English film directed by Kenneth Loach and based on the novel A Kestral for a Knave by Barry Hines. It is ranked seventh in the British Film Institute’s Top Ten (British) Films.

The story is about Billy Casper, a neglected working-class 15-year-old who finds solace and meaning training a kestrel, and it packs quite a punch. It is not an easy film to watch–so dreary and sad and sometimes it’s like watching a movie in a foreign language, so hard to understand are the Yorkshire accents–but it is well worth the effort. A wonderful film. The boy is perfect. We had DVR’d it on TCM, but you can rent it on Amazon Prime.

The world is more than we know.

“He knew then what it was that Liz had given him; the thing that he would have to go back and find if ever he got home to England; it was the caring about little things–the faith in ordinary life; the simplicity that made you break up a bit of bread into a paper bag, walk down to the beach and throw it to the gulls. It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess; whether it was bread of the seagulls or love.”
― John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold

6 Comments

July 31, 2020

The song of my marrow-bones

by chuckofish

It is the last day of July. Baseball has (kind of) started and I can’t say I care much. But here’s a throwback from 1966 when our Big Brother was in 9th grade and played on the CODASCO “C” team.

They look so young. Our BB is in the front row, third from the right. His best friend is next to him in the middle of the row. He has at least 7 inches to grow! His other friend Mike is directly behind him (obscured) and had about a foot to grow! Such babes. Our brother played third base.

I remember going to see several Cardinals games at the old Busch Stadium with all three of those boys. It was always so much fun to be around them! Though pushing 70 now (!), they are still nice boys.

Well, besides looking nostalgically backwards, I have been reading more Lovejoy.

“Cheerful adversity is vaguely entertaining, but even friends steer clear of doom.”
(Gold By Gemini)

I also searched high and low for my copy of Knowing God, having read about the passing of J.I. Packer last week. I have yet to find by book, but I have read a lot about Packer and listened to an interesting interview with Packer and John Piper. Packer was an evangelical and a lifelong Anglican, someone with whom I can identify. He spent the first half of his life in England and the second half in Canada but was perhaps most popular in the United States. He is widely recognized as one of the most influential theological popularizers of the twentieth century. Like the Puritans he loved, Packer believed that the Christian faith is based on clear thinking while at the same time engaging the heart. According to Justin Taylor, he saw himself as “a voice that called people back to old paths of truth and wisdom.” His entire life was spent resisting the idea that “the newer is the truer, only what is recent is decent, every shift of ground is a step forward, and every latest word must be hailed as the last word on its subject.”

Knowing God was given to me in 1976 as a Christmas present by a young man at Williams College who was in a Bible study I attended. He was a little older than everyone because he had taken a year or two off to travel in Africa. He was certainly not your typical Williams student. He was the first person outside my family who recognized that I was perhaps spiritually deeper than the flakey chick most people saw. I’m not sure what became of Joe, but I’m pretty sure he was headed to divinity school. It is good to be reminded of such people–the ones who encourage and nudge you along the way.

Here’s some more pandemic musing which I found interesting.

And a poem by Stanley Kunitz:

End of Summer

An agitation of the air,

A perturbation of the light

Admonished me the unloved year

Would turn on its hinge that night.

I stood in the disenchanted field

Amid the stubble and the stones,

Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me

The song of my marrow-bones.

Blue poured into summer blue,

A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,

The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew

That part of my life was over.

Already the iron door of the north

Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows

Order their populations forth,

And a cruel wind blows.

Best Face Mask Award goes to Marty Stuart and his Manuel-designed couture mask. ❤️

4 Comments

July 27, 2020

“How good to rise in sunlight”

by chuckofish

As you can imagine, I have been doing a lot of snoozing, watching tv and reading as I recuperate from surgery.

High on my list of things to do, is watch episodes of Lovejoy, the British tv show from the early 1990s which starred Ian McShane as the antiques dealer/amateur sleuth. I also read the first novel in the Lovejoy series, The Judas Pair from 1977. It was great–full of details about the antiques trade and actual suspense! Lovejoy himself is a great character and, for once, the tv show is well cast with Ian McShane.

I am now waiting with bated breath for my lot of 10 Lovejoy novels, which I purchased on eBay, to arrive. Then I will be all set (for awhile.)

I know she was 104, but I am still very sad that Olivia de Haviland has died.

She was a beautiful lady, a great actress and a devout Episcopalian. They don’t make ’em like Olivia anymore. Aren’t we lucky to have a large array of Olivia’s films to remember her by! She made some classics in her long career. My favorites include: Captain Blood (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Santa Fe Trail (1940), They Died With Their Boots on (1941), Devotion (1948), The Proud Rebel (1958) and a lot more.

Into paradise may the angels lead thee, Olivia, and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem. (BCP, Burial of the Dead, Rite I)

And I have to say I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Regis Philbin who also died recently. He endeared himself to me when he co-hosted Regis and Kathie Lee, which I watched during the 1980s when I was home with three little kids. He even made me like (a little bit) The University of Notre Dame, which he loved so much. Going there had clearly meant everything to him, a smart-alecky kid from the Bronx, who made it to the Big Time. The man was a workhorse, a rare thing nowadays. RIP, Regis.

And here’s a poem for Monday–seize the day!

Dawn Revisited
by Rita Dove

Imagine you wake up
with a second chance: The blue jay
hawks his pretty wares
and the oak still stands, spreading
glorious shade. If you don’t look back,
the future never happens.
How good to rise in sunlight,
in the prodigal smell of biscuits –
eggs and sausage on the grill.
The whole sky is yours
to write on, blown open
to a blank page. Come on,
shake a leg! You’ll never know
who’s down there, frying those eggs,
if you don’t get up and see.

3 Comments

July 14, 2020

“Sweet July, warm July!”*

by chuckofish

I have been reading a little bit of this, a little bit of that…

The Walter Mirisch book is fascinating if you are at all interested in movies. Written by an extremely successful film producer (several Academy Awards for Best Picture), one learns how someone who can make brilliant decisions can also make dumbfoundingly bad ones and never understand why. The David McCullough book contains “portraits in history” ranging from Louis Agassiz to Frederick Remington to Miriam Rothschild. As I have said before, McCullough understands context better than almost anyone writing today. He does not judge his subjects, but he likes them (you can tell).

Did I mention that we watched The Brothers Karamazov (1958) Sunday night? I’m not sure I had ever really watched the whole movie. Of course, it is not the masterpiece that the book is–it is just the plot with some character development that we see. The spiritual aspects are mostly left out, although (spoiler alert!) Richard Basehart as Ivan does admit that there is a God at the conclusion of the story.

Nevertheless, it is very good. Yul Brynner is excellent and so handsome–really at the top of his game–his performance shows a lot of depth. Also, William Shatner is very good as the youngest, most spiritual brother. (And he is also very handsome.) There are also some casting mistakes (why did Albert Salmi have a career?), but on the whole, I was impressed by this adaption by Richard Brooks–well done.

[Also I will note that there is a line in the movie said by Grushenka–“All the truth adds up to one big lie.”–which is also a line in a Bob Dylan song. Of course, Bob.]

I am having some follow-up surgery this Thursday, but my DP, along with daughters #1 and 2, will pick up the slack, and I’ll be back soon.

“Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education.”

–Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

*George Meredith, “July”

4 Comments

June 29, 2020

“I’ll keep the path open, the path in my mind.”*

by chuckofish

I had a quiet weekend. It was hot and sometimes rainy, so I stayed close to home. But I ventured out to a couple of estate sales and had some luck. I found an antique/vintage highchair, of which I am in need since we sometimes have wee twins to dine…

I also rescued a needlepoint brick!

Anyway, I was pleased.

I also did some closet rummaging/rearranging and finished reading A Glassful of Blessings by Barbara Pym. Practically nothing happens in her novels, but she is such a good writer and her descriptions of the smallest interactions are so on target, that I find her books very enjoyable.

In my rummaging I found this little doll from the Soviet Union, which my mother told me she had bought with her pennies in Woolworth’s in the 1930s. It may have been the first thing she bought herself. She is small–only about 5 ” tall.

It appealed to her and she had kept it all those years and now I have kept it all these years. How different she is from all of Lottiebelle’s Disney princesses!

I watched Destry Rides Again (1939) which stars James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich.

Stewart is well cast as the initially misunderstood deputy who does not wear a gun. Dietrich, as usual, steals the show, and everyone is happy to let her. The supporting cast is strong. All in all, it is an excellent summer entertainment.

I fell asleep in the middle of most everything else I watched. Par for the course.

Now it is back to the salt mine of working remotely.

The lark is up to meet the sun,
The bee is on the wing,
The ant her labor has begun,
The woods with music ring.

Shall birds and bees and ants be wise,
While I my moments waste?
Oh, let me with the morning rise,
And to my duties haste. (Jane Taylor)

*Bob Dylan

4 Comments

June 26, 2020

“Forc[ed] to sing our songs in little rooms”*

by chuckofish

So another weekend is upon us. June is nearing its end! The year is already half over! Good grief.

But it is tiger lily season here in all its glory. And fireflies are back! Summer is definitely here in flyover country! I’ll toast that!

In other news, I liked what Paul Walker said in his daily devotional the other day:

Christ Church, Charlottesville, is taking its Sunday morning service outside this week. I don’t know if that means they will not be recording it. If so, I will miss them. But it is a good thing that more and more churches are getting back together in person. I salute them.

I liked this too, written by Sam Bush, who plays the guitar at the Christ Church services. (The bit by John Mulaney is pretty funny too. I haven’t watched SNL for 100 years.)

While rummaging in the basement, I found some smocked dresses made by my mother (and two store-bought) plus one made by my grandmother. I washed and ironed them this week and sent them to daughter #2 for Katiebelle.

Here’s Katiebelle’s Mommy wearing one of them!

I didn’t do anything else too interesting this past week. The OM and I watched Patton (1970)–all three hours of it!–and enjoyed it, but not that much. Patton ends on a depressing note. As usual, journalists come off badly.

We also watched The Train (1964) an American/French WWII film with Burt Lancaster getting to do all the physical stuff at which he excelled.

The story takes place in August 1944 when masterpieces of modern art stolen by the Wehrmacht are being shipped to Germany by train. The Nazi officer in charge of the operation is determined to take the paintings to Germany, no matter the cost (in other words, he’s a nut.) The French resistance members (led by Burt) save the paintings but at quite a loss of French lives, begging the question, is art worth human lives? The obsessed art-loving Nazi in this story would say, yes, without hesitation. But Burt doesn’t agree–very existential, and in black and white too (unlike the poster above, of course).

I will note that on this day in 1977 Elvis Presley held his final concert in Indianapolis, Indiana at Market Square Arena. We might want to watch an Elvis movie and raise a toast. Jailhouse Rock (1957) anyone?

Have a nice weekend!

*Billy Collins, “American Sonnet”

7 Comments

June 22, 2020

i am a little church

by chuckofish

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
--i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april
 
my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness
 
around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains
 
i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
–i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing
 
winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

–e.e. cummings

How was your weekend? The boy and daughter #3 brought the wee babes over for a frolic on Saturday morning to celebrate Father’s Day. They mostly played with daughter #1 who was home and happily accompanied them upstairs to explore. Funnily enough they had come over on Friday morning as well (so their parents could go sofa shopping without them) and I played with them upstairs. They reminded me of Goldilocks, wishing to try out all the beds in the house.

Not that they like to nap; they like to “pretend” to nap. When we were in my room, we discussed the wallpaper and how the scenes are Chinese.

Lottiebelle looked at it and thought and then said, “Panda bears are from China.”

https://gfycat.com/constantflusteredkouprey

Their father told me that when he mentioned to the wee laddie that Olympus Mons is the great mountain of Mars (they are very into planets), the WL said, “No, Daddy, Olympus Mons is a volcano.” Are these three-year-olds not amazing? These babes who weighed less than 1.5 1bs. at birth! Think about that for awhile.

Also, I will note, that they can now go up and down stairs without holding on to a railing while holding an armload of stuffed animals/and/or/cars. This is frightening to say the least.

Meanwhile the newest wee babe continues to thrive and gain weight.

It is fun and fascinating to watch these babes grow and learn and to see my own children as parents and aunts and uncles.

Meanwhile we amused ourselves by listening/singing along to a lot of Bob Dylan–always a stress reliever. We also watched The Detective (1968) with Frank Sinatra. (I had not seen it after all.) It may have been edgy in 1968 with its subplots involving homosexuals and a sex addict wife–but it is not now. Also Frank Sinatra phoned in his performance and was terrible, not to mention (way) too old for the part. Maybe it might have worked with Paul Newman or James Garner. Whatever.

I also did laundry, vacuumed, found some baby clothes my mother made for my children and washed them, and went to an estate sale where I bought some books and rescued a needlepoint pillow.

Not bad for a weekend. Now it is back to the salt mine of working remotely where I lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever. Have a good week!

5 Comments

March 21, 2017

“Such rock-ribb’d hills our own New-England gave To mould her sons as rugged and as brave”*

by chuckofish

Did you know that today is World Poetry Day? Me neither.

“Poetry reaffirms our common humanity by revealing to us that individuals, everywhere in the world, share the same questions and feelings. Poetry is the mainstay of oral tradition and, over centuries, can communicate the innermost values of diverse cultures.”

Thanks, UNESCO, for reminding us all.

Of course, the world could not totally agree on when to hold Poetry Day. It is celebrated in October in the UK. Also, FYI, April is National Poetry Month in the U.S. and Canada.

So why don’t we all just agree that every day is poetry day! Here’s a good one for today (“Monadnock Through the Trees” by Edward Arlington Robinson):

Before there was in Egypt any sound
Of those who reared a more prodigious means
For the self-heavy sleep of kings and queens
Than hitherto had mocked the most renowned,—
Unvisioned here and waiting to be found,
Alone, amid remote and older scenes,
You loomed above ancestral evergreens
Before there were the first of us around.

And when the last of us, if we know how,
See farther from ourselves than we do now,
Assured with other sight than heretofore
That we have done our mortal best and worst,—
Your calm will be the same as when the first
Assyrians went howling south to war.

I like the image of old Monadnock as a pyramid. And the last two line are great, don’t you agree? Enjoy your Tuesday!

*H.P. Lovecraft wrote poetry too–who knew? Check out “To Templeton and Monadnock”. The painting of Monadnock is by Dave Dodge.

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January 25, 2017

The moon is mine

by chuckofish

George Sotter (1879-1953)

I have a compact to commune
A monthly midnight with the Moon;
Into its face I stare and stare,
And find sweet understanding there.

As quiet as a toad I sit
And tell my tale of days to it;
The tessellated yarn I’ve spun
In thirty spells of star and sun.

And the Moon listens pensively,
As placid as a lamb to me;
Until I think there’s just us two
In silver world of mist and dew.

In all of spangled space, but I
To stare moon-struck into the sky;
Of billion beings I alone
To praise the Moon as still as stone.

And seal a bond between us two,
Closer than mortal ever knew;
For as mute masses I intone
The Moon is mine and mine alone.

–Robert Service, from “Moon-Lover”

In case you have forgotten, a tessellation of a flat surface is the tiling of a plane using one or more geometric shapes, called tiles, with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellations can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety of geometries. A periodic tiling has a repeating pattern.

(I’ll admit, I had to look it up.)

The painting above (“Silent Night” c. 1923) is by George Sotter (1979-1952). The paintings that follow are by Maxfield Parrish, Bertha Lum and Albert Bierstadt.