dual personalities

Tag: writers

October 7, 2014

The Era of the Wild Apple

by chuckofish

In the Orchard by Winslow Homer

“In the Orchard” by Winslow Homer

“To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of these October fruits, it is necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air. What is sour in the house a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these apples might be labeled, “To be eaten in the wind.” It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit. . . The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past. It is a fruit which will probably become extinct in New England. I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor soul, there are many pleasures which you will not know! . . . the end of it all will be that we shall be compelled to look for our apples in a barrel.”

– Henry David Thoreau

How right you are, Henry!

Claude Monet, 1878 "Apple Trees in Bloom at Vetheuil"

Claude Monet, 1878 “Apple Trees in Bloom at Vetheuil”

Winslow Homer "Green Apples"

Winslow Homer “Green Apples”

Well, it is apple season and, although I can’t pick them wild off a tree, I do buy some pretty good ones at my local Dierberg’s. And you know what they say about an apple a day, right?

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October 6, 2014

“You may have found your sweet spot. But there’s what Bonhoeffer said: ‘We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.'”*

by chuckofish

pumpkinAh, it’s pumpkin weather. Seriously my favorite time of the year. The OM of course is complaining that it is cold, while I am throwing open the windows to let in the fresh air. C’est la vie.

Several people have sheepishly asked me about my own little pumpkin patch, which they notice I haven’t mentioned in quite awhile. Well, my pumpkin patch, which at first seemed to thrive, shriveled up in August and is no more. Heavy sigh. The OM said it didn’t get enough sun. Daughter #1 surmised that it was because I planted the pumpkins in the Indian Burial Ground corner of our yard where nothing has ever grown. Whatever. I refuse to get all upset and weepy about it. The pumpkin patch at the Methodist Church has a ton of pumpkins and so I bought one there on Saturday.

2014-10-04 16.51.23

It’s a beauty!

Meanwhile I finished The Big Sleep and have moved on to Jan Karon’s newest Mitford book—Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good–which I am enjoying immensely. Reading it is like taking a vacation. I know some people find Father Tim and his wife a little cloying, but to them I say, “Bah humbug!” This is science fiction, after all. Furthermore, Karon and I are on the same page. And she includes enough Thomas a Kempis and Wordsworth and references to the BCP to deepen the storytelling. Her focus is always on God.

In any decision making, he’d learned to wait for peace; it was heedless to make a move without it. There was no time for waiting, and yet waiting was imperative.

He remained on his knees, prayed aloud. ‘Heavenly Father, in whom we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray thee so to guide and govern us by the Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget thee, but may remember that we are ever walking in thy sight…’

He moved directly then to the abridged version. ‘Help me, Jesus.’

And she’s funny! So if you are in need of a little literary vacation from the vicissitudes of modern life, I highly recommend Jan Karon.

‘Tis also the season when Evensong starts back up at church. I dragged the boy along with me yesterday and it’s a good thing we went, because we made up 2/3 of the congregation. Afterwards I cooked dinner for him. His wife was at a meeting at the flyover college where she is the recruitment advisor of her sorority chapter, so I think he appreciated the meal.

Hope you are enjoying some glorious fall weather. Try to get out and breathe some fresh air. Have a good week!

*Jan Karon, Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good 

4 Comments
October 1, 2014

Way Back When Wednesday

by chuckofish

On this date back in 1942 the first twelve titles of the Little Golden Books series were published. You remember. These were the books your mother used to buy for you in the grocery store when you were a good child and deserved a treat. The books, which initially sold for 25¢ (rising to 29¢ in 1962 and currently $3.99), were published by Simon and Schuster.

Many of the best children’s writers and illustrators have worked on the series, including several of my personal favorites:

Mary Blair,

golden-fly

Margaret Wise Brown and Alice and Martin Provensen,

Color_Kittens Garth Williams,

babyanimals

and, of course, Richard Scarry.

the-fire-engine-golden-book-lg

You will be happy to know that now there are Little Golden Book apps for children: “Now the Little Golden Book that you loved as a child can be shared with a whole new generation in this magically interactive storybook app. Open the cover, complete with its distinctive gold spine, to reveal the timeless story, beautifully rendered with interactive illustrations on every page, and activities that encourage reading comprehension and creativity.”

“Magically interactive”! Oh brother. Just what every 3-year old needs for his/her iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch! Gone I suppose is the magically interactive time you spent with your mother or father while you were read these books.

I know I am an old curmudgeon, but this concerns me. And I have to say, it’s sad that there is no name plate on an app where you can make that first attempt at proudly writing your own name on your own book.

book plate 2

Oh well. C’est la vie. Do you have a favorite Little Golden Book?

7 Comments
September 4, 2014

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

girl-reading-758651

“These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and their capacity for devotion. You get tired, sometimes, of wit and intellect; everybody’s little display of genius.”

–Michael Cunningham, The Hours

This is so true, don’t you think?  The Hours, which I read over the weekend, is full of such truth. I liked it very much.

I remember going to see the movie when it came out back in 2002 and liking it very much. There was some major mis-casting, but I liked Meryl Streep as Clarissa a lot.

meryl

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”

Not surprisingly, I liked the book better.

Indeed, there are not many instances where the movie is an improvement over the book. Ben-Hur (1959) comes to mind.

Some movies actually measure up to the book: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) does. And although the author did  not think so, I think Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) is as good as the book.

This would make an interesting blogpost topic no doubt, but…back to what I’m reading.

I picked up Malcolm Cowley’s And I Worked at the Writer’s Trade off a shelf at home–I think it was my father’s copy from 1977–and started that. I like reading about writers. Cowley is one of those guys who knew everybody and has a lot to say about them. He spent most of his career as a literary critic and editor and never really made it as a fiction writer himself. He did win a National Book Award for this book, writing about other writers.

I seem to remember thinking that he had a little chip on his shoulder, that he always managed to cast some aspersion on whomever he is writing about, that he makes himself more important than he probably was. But I have not found that to be the case reading this book now. Perhaps I am thinking of Exiles Return which he wrote in 1933 and then revised in 1951. Perhaps he had mellowed by 1977 when he wrote And I Worked at the Writer’s Trade. We do tend to do that, don’t we?

So what are you reading?

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September 3, 2014

A sonnet for Wednesday

by chuckofish

As if you didn’t already know, I’ll remind you that on this day in 1802 William Wordsworth composed the sonnet titled “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”.

Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832) (after) John Bluck (fl. 1791–1819), Joseph Constantine Stadler (fl. 1780–1812), Thomas Sutherland (1785–1838)

Westminster Bridge as it appeared in 1808 by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832)

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Now you’ll have something to discuss at the water cooler! Do they still have water coolers?

Joseph Nicholls 1742

Joseph Nicholls 1742

Daniel Turner

Daniel Turner

Henry Pether 1862

Henry Pether 1862

 

2 Comments
September 2, 2014

Vocation

by chuckofish

smushed_wishful_thinking

In honor of Labor Day, some wisdom from Frederick Buechner:

IT COMES FROM the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a man is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

—Wishful Thinking

Discuss among yourselves.

5 Comments
August 27, 2014

They say that…

by chuckofish

Books make the home

Woodcut by Rockwell Kent

And, as you know, I agree.

more-books-in-the-home-by-jessie-willcox-smith

Here’s what Dylan Thomas said about books:

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
in the world between the covers of books,
such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,
such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,
such and so many blinding bright lights,
splashing all over the pages
in a million bits and pieces
all of which were words, words, words,
and each of which were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.

Maybe I have too many books in my house.

IMGP1072

This is a pile of books I backed into and fell over when talking to daughter #1 on the phone recently. No, I’m not kidding.

And I do move books out of my house–just not as quickly as they move in.

5 Comments
August 26, 2014

Dedication to a mountain

by chuckofish

I was reminded recently that Herman Melville dedicated Pierre: or, The Ambiguities to a particular mountain, which I saw every day when I was a student at Williams College. I climbed Mt. Greylock one Saturday with members of the Mountain Club and enjoyed the view which encompasses five states.

Mount_Greylock_Massive

It was always in the background of all our shenanigans.

mt greylock

Kite flying in the spring of 1977 with Spud and Emmett

I miss those mountains, and I suppose those big-hearted football players.

Anyway, here is Melville’s most gracious dedication:

To Greylock’s Most Excellent Majesty

In old times authors were proud of the privilege of dedicating their works to Majesty. A right noble custom, which we of Berkshire must revive. For whether we will or no, Majesty is all around us here in Berkshire, sitting as in a grand Congress of Vienna of majestical hill-tops, and eternally challenging homage.

But since the majestic mountain, Greylock–my own more immediate sovereign lord and king–hath now, for innumerable ages, been the one grand dedicatee of the earliest rays of all the Berkshire mornings, I know not how his Imperial Purple Majesty (royal born: Porphyrogenitus) will receive the dedication of my own poor solitary ray.

Nevertheless, forasmuch as I, dwelling with my loyal neighbours, the Maples and the Beeches, in the amphitheatre over which his central majesty presides, have received his most bounteous and unstinted fertilisations, it is but meet, that I here devoutly kneel, and render up my gratitude, whether, thereto, The Most Excellent Purple Majesty of Greylock benignantly incline his hoary crown or no.

Don’t you just love old Herman? I mean really.

7 Comments
August 21, 2014

“My soul has grown deep like the rivers”*

by chuckofish

St. Louis in 1846

St. Louis in 1846

“The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book–a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.”

– Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

I have lived in the city on the River nearly my whole life and I always know where I am in relation to the river. I always know or feel where it is–running north and south and I am “situated” that way. I cannot imagine not living by a river or some body of water. I wonder if other people feel this way?

*Langston Hughes

 

5 Comments
August 18, 2014

“In Naomi’s Eyes we were about as Jewish as Episcopalians.”*

by chuckofish

"Barrow Farm" by William Stott of Oldham (1857--1900)

“Barrow Farm” by William Stott of Oldham (1857–1900)

“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change.”

–E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

As I have mentioned before, summer in our flyover state is hot and muggy and generally pretty terrible. But this summer has been just lovely and I am loathe to see it end. Sigh.

End it shall…but not yet.

This weekend, which followed a long, stressful, sad week, I decided to throw in the towel and leave the rest of my bathroom to the professional who is coming to paint this week. If there’s one thing I know, it’s my limits. I cleaned up the mess I made.

I watched Out of Africa (1985) which is a pretty wonderful movie and one of the few which deserved its Best Picture Oscar.

Out_of_africa_poster

I hadn’t seen it for many years and I think it has certainly held up. Although some may think it over-rated and slow, I think its pace is perfect. It has a smart script and it is beautifully directed and the cinematography is sublime. Good grief, Meryl Streep is perfect. It is very romantic. And who doesn’t love Isak Dinesen? Granted there are no car chases or explosions, but there is a great sequence in a bi-plane.

I re-read The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank, which is the follow-up to her best-selling The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing. Bank’s writing, you recall, was one of the first to be labeled “Chick Lit”–so unfortunate. When the Girl’s Guide was published to such acclaim in 1999, I spurned it because it sounded stupid and it was so popular–it couldn’t be good, right?  Then ten years later when I was having a very bad week, I saw it at a rummage sale and thought, “What the heck? I’ll give it a whirl.” (This was one of those shoulder taps from my guardian angel that I have learned to listen to.) When I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. It was so good–genuinely funny without being vulgar, heart-felt and remarkably kind.

The Wonder Spot was not the giant best-seller of its predecessor, but I like it, and I enjoyed re-reading it. I laughed out loud on numerous occasions. It is both funny and sad–a combination of which I approve.

IMGP1070

“The women are young, young, young, liquidy and sweet-looking; they are batter, and I am the sponge cake they don’t know they’ll become. I stand here, a lone loaf, stuck to the pan. ” (“The Wonder Spot”)

Have a good week!

* “2oth Century Typing”, Melissa Bank

 

3 Comments