dual personalities

Tag: writers

July 8, 2015

Mid-week reminder

by chuckofish

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“A religious observance can be a wedding, a christening, a Memorial Day service, a bar mitzvah, or anything like that you might be apt to think of. There are lots of things going on at them. There are lots of things you can learn from them if you’re in a receptive state of mind. The word ‘observance’ itself suggests what is perhaps the most important thing about them.

A man and a woman are getting married. A child is being given a name. A war is being remembered and many deaths. A boy is coming of age.

It is life that is going on. It is always going on, and it is always precious. It is God that is going on. It is you who are there that is going on.

As Henry James advised writers, be one on whom nothing is lost.

OBSERVE!! There are few things as important, as religious, as that.”

–Frederick Buechner, The Faces of Jesus

 

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June 8, 2015

The small joys

by chuckofish

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“…Hilary enjoyed himself, just as he had enjoyed himself drinking the port. Increasingly, as he got older, he enjoyed things. As his personal humility deepened, so did his awareness of the amazing bounty of God…so many things…The mellow warmth of the port, the pleasure of the game, the sight of Lucilla’s lovely old face in the firelight, and David’s fine hands holding the cards, his awareness of Margaret’s endearing simplicity, and the contentment of the two old dogs dozing on the hearth…One by one the small joys fell. Only to Hilary no joy was small; each had its own mystery, aflame with the glory of God.”

—Pilgrim’s Inn

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This weekend I finished re-reading Pilgrim’s Inn by Elizabeth Goudge, an old favorite written in 1948 about an English family after the war. It seems a bit dated now, but I found it quite satisfying and I recommend it. The fact that it and her other novels are still in print tells you something.

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The boy and daughter #3 came over for dinner on Sunday night after returning from a week in South Carolina and we heard all about their adventures.

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Summer has arrived here in flyover country–we topped 90 degrees on Sunday. But spring was long and lovely and the heat and humidity are inevitable. Why complain?

Here are some fun videos (and here) from the Total Lacrosse YouTube channel featuring the boy testing and touting Warrior equipment.

You going to the gun show?

You going to the gun show?

Have a great Monday!

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June 1, 2015

A cup of blessing

by chuckofish

It was a rainy, overcast weekend–which is kind of nice sometimes. It gives one permission to slow down and read a book instead of trying to get a million things done. You know what I mean?

However, I did manage to do a few things anyway. I saw this weird bug on my garage.

_IMG1117 (1)Have you ever seen anything like him? He was big  like a cicada, but didn’t look like our typical flyover cicadas. Zut alors!

I found this while going through a bunch of old books in my basement.

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According to the sentiment written inside the cover, my mother gave it to me February 14, 1968. She was always trying to encourage me in my endeavors francaise, but it really was a lost cause.

Apres le petit dejeuner, il avait repete sa chanson pour bien la savoir par couer, et maintenant il se la chantait tres gentilment, sans se tromper. Cela donnait a peu pres ceci:

Tra-la-la, tra-la-lere!

Zim-boum-boum, ran-tan-plan!

Brrm-brrm-brrm, la-di-dere!

Pout-pout-pout, zim-pan-pan!

(Sorry, no accent marks!)

I’m afraid Winnie the Pooh loses something in translation!

I watched To Have and Have Not (1943) in honor of Howard Hawks’ birthday on Saturday. It was as good as a Hemingway novel adapted for the screen by William Faulkner can be. And by that I mean excellent. Which Hawks classic did you watch?

I also watched a really terrible movie: Rhinestone (1984) starring Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton. I had never seen it, and despite Dolly doing her best, it was pretty awful. Stallone was painfully bad.

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It is amazing that Bob Clark, who had directed A Christmas Story the year before, ever worked again.

Sunday night I DVR’d Grantchester and watched The Cowboys (1972) which is the story of a cattle owner (John Wayne) who is forced to go on a cattle drive with only a bunch of underage cowboys to help.

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The young boys in this movie are excellent. Indeed, the movie is excellent and well directed by Mark Rydell. And although the Duke (spoiler alert) dies at the hands of some lesser men in the movie, it ends well.

The highlight of my weekend was when my old friend Dick, who was in town from Atlanta for our special event at work this week, dropped by my office on Friday and brought me this:

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A Mike Matheny autographed baseball! He asked Mike to sign it when he was in Jupiter for spring training. Wasn’t that thoughtful? It certainly made my day!

Have a good Monday!

*Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting–a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.”

7 Comments
March 4, 2015

Dear March–Come in

by chuckofish

John William Inchbold (1830--1888)

Dear March — Come in —
How glad I am —
I hoped for you before —

Put down your Hat —
You must have walked —
How out of Breath you are —
Dear March, Come right up the stairs with me —
I have so much to tell —

I got your Letter, and the Birds —
The Maples never knew that you were coming — till I called
I declare — how Red their Faces grew —
But March, forgive me — and
All those Hills you left for me to Hue —
There was no Purple suitable —
You took it all with you —

Who knocks? That April.
Lock the Door —
I will not be pursued —
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied —
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

That Blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame —

(Emily Dickinson)

The painting is “A Study, In March”  by John William Inchbold (1830–1888)

3 Comments
February 26, 2015

“I exist as I am, that is enough”*

by chuckofish

Well, thank you, fastcoexist.com for letting me know that I live in one of the worst states for “well-being”.

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Yes, there we are in gray in flyover country. Well, I say phooey.

Don’t you get tired of being told the results of surveys and studies? I say, live your life and forget about surveys.

I think I will give them up for Lent.

Meanwhile, our well-being in flyover country is greatly enhanced by the fact that these guys are back in training.

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C’mon, Mike, turn around!

“I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself.”

(Walt Whitman)

 

9 Comments
February 10, 2015

Thought for the day

by chuckofish

UUSA Angel by Roger Bird for website

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

–C.S. Lewis

“Angel of the Lilies” by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst

2 Comments
February 2, 2015

“You will call your walls, Salvation, and all our portals, Praise”*

by chuckofish

Well, another weekend is over. This one was filled with sifting through old, dusty boxes of papers and correspondence. I made a lot of progress! And the OM made guacamole!

Among other things, I found piles of my father’s old book reviews.

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He wrote them for the Boston Sunday Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, the Post Dispatch, and various smaller papers through the years. He had a column for awhile called “Bookshelf Browsing,” which was an easy-going, chatty review of new books as they appeared in the mid-1950s. We learn that he preferred Hemingway to Fitzgerald, liked John Buchan and General MacArthur and making sweeping statements like,

It is a rare thing these days to find a novel that is full of wit, humor and whimsy at the same time, and to have all three written by an author who does not belabor them.

He goes on to pronounce The Honor of Gaston Le Torch by Jacques Peret,

A delightful book that might be made into a wonderful film, if Hollywood could, for once, be sane…

Does he sound familiar?

I think our pater would have really liked writing a blog–perhaps one with the catchy title: Bookshelf Browsing. In fact, I’m sure he would have become obsessed with the internet had it been available to him. He certainly would have loved email–all his correspondence with his collector friends all over the world would have been much easier and faster!

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However, I’m pretty sure he would have hated everything else about the 21st century.

Have a good Monday!

*from the Sunday Canticle

11 Comments
January 27, 2015

Bull’s eye

by chuckofish

JOHN UPDIKE

“When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas.

–John Updike

Today is the anniversary of John Updike’s death in 2009. So tonight I shall raise a glass to this acclaimed writer and fellow Episcopalian. How about you?

I went to see John Updike speak at my flyover university back in the nineties. I didn’t work there then, but I walked over from the church where I did work which was (and is) a few blocks away. Graham Chapel was packed and I was sitting pretty far in the back. He was unpretentious and generous. A good guy–I could tell.

2 Comments
January 22, 2015

Valuing the poet

by chuckofish

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Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is not in the encyclopedia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play. In my daily work I incline to repeat my old steps and do not believe in remedial force, in the power of change and reform. But some Petrarch or Arisoto, filled with the new wine of his imagination, writes me an ode or a brisk romance, full of daring thought and action. He smites and arouses me with his shrill tones, breaks up my whole chain of habits, and I open my eye on my own possibilities. He claps wings to the sides of all the solid old lumber of the world, and I am capable once more of choosing a straight path in theory and practice.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles

 

2 Comments
January 20, 2015

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening

by chuckofish

Did you enjoy your long MLK weekend?

We celebrated (belatedly) the birthday of daughter #3

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and I celebrated (belatedly) the birthday of an old friend with my pals.

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The OM and I watched American Sniper 

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with Bradley Cooper and–this is the last thing I thought I would be saying–he was awesome. He really deserves the Oscar. This movie is really, really good. Clint Eastwood–and I am not a big fan of his directing–knocked one out of the ballpark. I also have to say kudos to Clint, who is eighty-four, for even being able to attempt this at his age. (I know a lot of guys in their eighties and it is hard to imagine any of them making a movie in the desert.)

Put this movie on your “to do” list!

According to Forbes, American Sniper blew past all reasonable predictions and crushed the January record books with a scorching $90.2  million Friday-to-Sunday and an estimated $105 million Friday-to-Monday debut frame. Well, no kidding. This is a movie with an actual (non-comic-book) HERO in it, with a plot, characters, action, tension–the whole nine yards. Of course, people are going to go see it. Duh. Wake up, Hollywood.

In between bouts of reading Middlemarch, I read a Louis L’Amour oater, Ride the Dark Trail, about one of the innumerable Sacketts. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I am also enjoying Middlemarch, which is full of passages like this:

“My mother is like old George the Third,” said the vicar, “she objects to metaphysics.”

“I object to what is wrong, Camden. I say, keep hold of a few plain truths, and make everything square with them. When I was young, Mr. Lydgate, there was never any question about right and wrong. We knew our catechism, and that was enough; we learned our creed and our duty. Every respectable Church person had the same opinions. But now, if you speak out of the Prayer-book itself, you are liable to be contradicted.”

It is a sure sign that I am really getting old, that I identify with the minor, comic characters, I suppose.

Oh, lordy, life is good, right?

7 Comments