dual personalities

Tag: writers

December 20, 2012

An Updike poem for thursday

by chuckofish

This poem is titled “January”, but it describes December just as well I think.

The days are short,
The sun a spark
Hung thin between the dark and dark.

Fat snowy footsteps track the floor.
Milk bottles burst outside the door.
The river is a frozen place
Held still beneath the trees of lace.
The sky is low, the wind is gray.
The radiator purrs all day.

-John Updike-

I grew up with radiators in an old house. They purred, but they were also known to bink and bonk and rattle, weren’t they? In my first house as a married person, we had radiators and I remember worrying that their audible antics might wake up a sleeping baby!

The boy and daughter #1 playing in front of a big ol' radiator.

The boy and daughter #1 playing in front of a big ol’ radiator.

Our house now has forced air heat. It turns on and off and blows quietly. I guess this is progress.

[We are expecting snow this afternoon, so, as usual, the local TV weather people are all in a tizzy. Daughter #1 is flying in from NYC, so let’s pray that she doesn’t get sidelined in Wichita (or anywhere else)!]

8 Comments
December 19, 2012

Build your own world

by chuckofish

Today’s Emerson quote is brought to you by daughter #2 with whom I had a serious intellectual conversation the other day.

Ralph_Waldo_Emerson-4

Know then, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours a cobbler’s trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar’s garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world.

(from Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson)

It is truly an amazing thing when your children reach an age where they are more knowledgeable than you on certain subjects. It is doubly amazing when that subject is Ralph Waldo Emerson.

5 Comments
December 11, 2012

On the banks of the Wabash

by chuckofish

On this day in 1816 Indiana (“Land of the Indians”) became the 19th U.S. state. The Hoosier (“country bumpkin”) state is the 38th largest by area and the 15th most populace.

usa-indiana-map1

The Wabash River, which is the longest free-flowing river east of the mighty Mississippi River, is the official river of Indiana. Thus, its state song is “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” written in 1897 by Paul Dresser, the brother of noted Hoosier writer Theodore Dreiser. (Apparently Paul Dresser was horrified by his brother’s shocking novels and changed the spelling of his name to differentiate them.)

usa_indiana_flag-2222px

The official state flag of Indiana was adopted in 1917. It was designed by Paul Hadley of Mooresville, Indiana; he won a flag design contest sponsored by the DAR for Indiana’s 100th anniversary of statehood in 1916. There are 19 golden stars on a blue field. The 13 stars in the outer circle represent the 13 original colonies of the United States of America; the 5 stars in a half circle represent the states admitted prior to Indiana (but after the original 13), and the larger star atop the flame of the torch of Liberty represents Indiana.

In our family we have a fondness for the state of Indiana because daughter #1 attended and graduated from DePauw University in the charming town of Greencastle.

Depauw

During those four years we spent a lot of time in Indiana. We have been to many charming bergs in the state, including Indianapolis, Bloomington, Muncie, Terre Haute, New Harmony, Crawfordsville, Evansville–some a lot more charming than others. Indiana is, of course, a state boasting many fine colleges and universities, including Butler, Purdue, Valparaiso, Earlham, Ball State, Wabash, Notre Dame, and, of course, Indiana University.

Indiana is a state full of history and the birthplace of many famous Americans, including Johnny Appleseed, Gen. Lew Wallace, V.P. Dan Quayle, Presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison, Booth Tarkington, Bill Blass, Cole Porter, Kurt Vonnegut, Red Skelton, David Letterman, Hoagy Carmichael, and my personal favorites:

Mcqueen-steve-mcqueen-32021464-366-488

Steve McQueen and James Dean

James-Dean-james-dean-11731876-300-300

Yes, Indiana. Way to go.

I could go on and on about the great state of Indiana, but I’ll stop here. I’ll just make one suggestion. In honor of the anniversary of Indiana’s statehood, I recommend watching a really good movie that celebrates the state’s love of basketball: Hoosiers (1986) with Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper. (BTW, One of the players on the high school team was played by a DePauw basketball player. The NCAA gave him a three-game suspension and he was charged 5% of his acting fee.)

We must also note that today is the birthday of two great actors (neither one from Indiana):

Victor McLaglan (1883-1959)

McL3

and Jean Marais (1913-1998)

Jean_Marais_by_van_Vechten,_1947

Bon anniversaire!

8 Comments
December 3, 2012

A Monday pick-me-up

by chuckofish

wayne301

We went three and four afternoons a week, sat on folding chairs in the darkened hut which served as a theatre, and it was there, that summer of 1943 while the hot wind blew outside, that I first saw John Wayne. Saw the walk, heard the voice. Heard him tell the girl in a picture called War of the Wildcats that he would build her a house, ‘at the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow’.
As it happened I did not grow up to be the kind of woman who is the heroine in a Western, and although the men I have known have had many virtues and have taken me to live in many places I have come to love, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to that bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow. Deep in that part of my heart where the artificial rain forever falls, that is still the line I wait to hear.

–Joan Didion, John Wayne, a Love Song

3 Comments
November 27, 2012

A settled rest: Isaac Watts remembered

by chuckofish

Yesterday the Episcopal Church remembered Isaac Watts (July 17, 1674 – November 25, 1748), preacher, pastor and a prolific and popular hymn writer, often recognized as the “Father of English Hymnody” and credited with some 750 hymns. It is also worth noting that he was the first hymn-writer to give expression to the Reformation emphasis on a personal appropriation of the faith by using first person pronouns in hymnody.

Watts, unable to go to either Oxford or Cambridge on account of his non-conformity, went to the Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington in 1690, and much of his life centered around that village, which is now part of Inner London.

London’s only public statue to Isaac Watts is in Abney Park, Stoke Newington.

He is honored with a memorial in Westminster Abbey.

Among his more enduring hymns are Jesus Shall Reign, Joy to the World, Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past, and I Sing the Mighty Power of God. One of my favorites has always been My Shepherd Will Supply My Need especially the last verse:

The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days;
O may Thy house be my abode,
And all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger, nor a guest,
But like a child at home.

Marilynne Robinson (see yesterday’s post) quotes Watts in Gilead:

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

“Good old Watts,” she writes. “I’ve thought about that verse often. I have always wondered what relationship this present reality bears to an ultimate reality.”

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone…

Truly they don’t write hymns like that anymore, do they?

Enjoy! (the choir of the Washington National Cathedral)

God of truth and grace, who didst give Isaac Watts singular gifts to present thy praise in verse, that he might write psalms, hymns and spiritual songs for thy Church: Give us grace joyfully to sing thy praises now and in the life to come; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

5 Comments
November 26, 2012

Happy birthday, Marilynne Robinson

by chuckofish

“…I’ve developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some very tedious gentlemen have written books. This is not a new insight, but the truth of it is something you have to experience to fully grasp.

Thank God for them all, of course, and for that strange interval, which was most of my life, when I read out of loneliness, and when bad company was much better than no company. You can love a bad book for its haplessness or pomposity or gall, if you have that starveling appetite for things human, which I devoutly hope you never will have. ‘The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.’ There are pleasures to be found where you would never look for them. That’s a bit of fatherly wisdom, but it’s also the Lord’s truth, and a thing I know from my own long experience.”

from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Have you read any Marilynne Robinson? She is so great! She has written three highly-acclaimed novels plus several books of essays. She has been writer-in-residence or visiting professor at many universities and currently teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Iowa City. If you are not acquainted with Marilynne, you are in for a treat. She is wonderful.

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with lots of good food:

family:

maybe a little Christmas decorating:

The boy puts up the Christmas lights

and even a little estate saling:

Estate-rescued angel choir

And, of course, some Marilynne Robinson!

7 Comments
November 5, 2012

A sonnet for Monday

by chuckofish

In my flyover institute of learning we sometimes offer a course on reading sonnets facilitated by a gentleman who really loves sonnets. I have never been a big fan of sonnets myself, in large part because when we studied them in the 6th grade, we had to write one. Good grief! What 12-year old is capable of writing a sonnet I ask you? John Keats maybe. Certainly not I. It prejudiced me against the form. Anyway, I was glancing through the syllabus the other day and came across this one.

The Cross of Snow
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face — the face of one long dead —
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

Longfellow wrote this sonnet about his second wife, Frances Appleton Longfellow, who died after her dress caught on fire and she was severely burned. Longfellow himself was burned when he attempted to put out the flames with a rug and his own body. His face was burned and that is why, from then on, he always wore a beard.

Longfellow photographed by Julia Cameron

Longfellow’s great fame faded after his death and he is mostly known today for having written The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. However, I doubt that school children are made to memorize portions of it now or learn about meter by reciting This is the forest primeval…from Evangeline.

More’s the pity. I like this sonnet about his wife. Could I be wrong about sonnets? Look for more sonnets in this blog as we widen our appreciation together!

8 Comments
October 23, 2012

Who would you choose?

by chuckofish

If you read a variety of blogs, you have certainly come across more than one of those posts where the writer asks the question: Who would you choose if you could have lunch with anyone? Usually they go on to tell you how they would love to get together with Audrey Hepburn, Princess Diana, Thomas Jefferson, Mother Theresa, Steven Spielberg and so on. Blah, blah, blah, boring celebrities. And, yes, I include Thomas Jefferson in that company. He would probably choose to have lunch with Marilyn Monroe.

Not that I’m judging anyone for their choices. Everyone is free to choose whom they want to choose. This is America after all! Come on.

Anyway, I’m sure you can guess who I would choose. Just in the last few days I’ve talked about Bob Dylan and Hilary Mantel and Marty Stuart–all would be charming companions at a meal. And you know how I feel about Frederick Buechner and Raymond Chandler. A conversation with them–to die for! As for movie stars, we’d need a big table to accommodate all my favorites.

But if we’re really talking about conversation, let’s invite:


Thomas Cranmer. He wrote the book.


General Sherman. He had Grant’s back.


U.S. Grant. He epitomized humility and courage. He had Lincoln’s back. And he was a really good writer.


Dorothy Rabinowitz. She tells it like it is in the WSJ.


T.E. Lawrence. He would be awesome, but we’d need someone to come along with us who could make him feel comfortable and draw him out of his shell–like Mrs. George Bernard Shaw.


Mary Prowers Hough, my great-great grandmother and the classiest lady to ever set foot in Colorado. I’d have a million questions for her.


J.D. Salinger. We could talk about Jesus over a glass of ginger ale in the kitchen.


Eudora Welty. We’d talk about stories and the art of writing them. I think I would like to invite


Shirley Jackson to come along too. The three of us would get along famously.


Saint Timothy. He received letters from Saint Paul containing personal advice which I take very personally: God did not give you a spirit of timidity!

Well, I’m sure I’ve left out some obvious choices. Who would you want to share a meal with? Alexander? Sargon the Great? Thomas Cromwell? Oliver Cromwell? Johnny Depp?

12 Comments
October 22, 2012

Hip hip hooray!

by chuckofish

How wonderful to be able to give a big shout out to Hilary Mantel for winning her second Man Booker Prize! She previously won the award in 2009 for Wolf Hall. Now she has won the 2012 award for the sequel Bring Up the Bodies. She is the first woman to win twice. I couldn’t be more excited for her, and if you have not yet read either of these two wonderful books–run (don’t walk) to your nearest book store/library to acquire the books and do so!

Meanwhile the wonderful fall weather continues here in our flyover state.

The leaves on the ancient mulberry tree in our yard are bright yellow.

…and at the same time the rhododendron bush continues to bloom

along with several spring annuals!

And I have been trying to find something to read. I have started several books that were recommended by friends and abandoned them all. Bleh. Now I have gone back to an old favorite and am reading Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, Volume One. Not surprisingly, Bob has a wonderful way of expressing things and amazing powers of recall.

Having moved to New York City after one semester of college, he drifts around playing music, staying with people he meets, reading their books, and listening to music. His brain is like the proverbial sponge as he sets about educating himself:

I had broken myself of the habit of thinking in short song cycles and began reading longer and longer poems to see if I could remember anything I read about in the beginning. I trained my mind to do this, had cast off gloomy habits and learned to settle myself down. I read all of Lord Byron’s Don Juan, and concentrated fully from start to finish. Also, Coleridge’s Kubla Kan. I began cramming my brain with all kinds of deep poems. It seemed like I’d been pulling an empty wagon a long time and now I was beginning to fill it up and would have to pull harder. I felt like I was coming out of the back pasture.

Don’t you just love that?

I wonder if Bob has read Hilary Mantel’s books. I think he would really like them and old Thomas Cromwell especially.

7 Comments
September 27, 2012

You can say that again

by chuckofish

“In the mail a letter from a twelve-year-old child, enclosing poems, her mother having asked her to ask my opinion. This child does really look at things, and I can write something helpful, I think. But it is troubling how many people expect applause, recognition, when they have not even begun to learn a craft. Instant success is the order of the day; “I want it now!” I wonder whether this is not our corruption by machines. Machines do things quickly and outside the natural rhythm of life, and we are indignant if a car doesn’t start at the first try. So the few things that we still do, such as cooking (though there are TV dinners!), knitting, gardening, anything at all that cannot be hurried, have a very particular value.”

—May Sarton, Journal Of A Solitude
(found here)

After I read this on the W.W. Norton blog, I went back to my May Sarton books which I have collected over the years. Some belonged to my mother who liked Sarton a lot and felt a certain bond with this lonely writer.

Image from the New York Public Library

Born in Belgium, May Sarton (May 3, 1912 – July 16, 1995) was an American poet, novelist and writer of memoirs. Although she is frequently pigeon-holed as a lesbian writer, she has a lot to say to everyone. Here’s a poem to think about today:

Now I Become Myself

Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before– ”
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!

May Sarton, Collected Poems, 1930-1973

3 Comments