dual personalities

Tag: writing

January 27, 2026

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

by chuckofish

My driveway was plowed yesterday morning and the front walk cleared (with a leaf blower!) so I was free to move around the neighborhood. I went to the public library to return some books, including two murder mysteries written by A.B. Guthrie, Jr. in the 1970s, which I enjoyed. The library was closed, like a lot of other places. Officially we got 8.5 inches of snow in Kirkwood. Seems about right. Now we are adjusting to sub-zero temps and continuing to hunker down.

Today we toast two writers who both died on January 27–John Updike in 2009 and J.D. Salinger in 2010.

They are both writers I admire a lot.

In honor of the aforementioned birthdays, I re-read For Esmé–with Love and Squalor. I was pleased that I still regarded it with the same enthusiasm as I did years ago.

They sang without instrumental accompaniment–or, more accurately in their case, without any interference. Their voices were melodious and unsentimental, almost to the point where a somewhat more denominational man than myself might, without straining, have experienced levitation. A couple of the very youngest children dragged the tempo a trifle, but in a way that only the composer’s mother could have found fault with. I had never heard the hymn, but I kept hoping it was one with a dozen or more verses.

Keep warm. Happy Tuesday!

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December 7, 2017

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”*

by chuckofish

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“Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch them, to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security. That night she had a new consciousness of the country, felt almost a new relation to it. Even her talk with the boys had not taken away the feeling that had overwhelmed her when she drove back to the Divide that afternoon. She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun. Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.”

–Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

Today we toast Willa Cather (1873-1947), whom we love, on her birthday.

The painting is “High Plains — Range Land,” an oil on linen painting by Raymond J. Eastwood.

*William Wordsworth

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August 15, 2012

Note to self

by chuckofish

Recently I was re-reading the wonderful If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by the wonderful Brenda Ueland, written back in 1937. She was a journalist, editor, freelance writer, and teacher of writing.

She graduated from Barnard College in 1913–I wonder if she knew our grandmother Mira Sargent, who graduated in 1914? Hmm. Another layer to the story.

Anyway, her book about writing is wonderful. Even the footnotes are great.

Yes, I am all against anxiety, worry. There are many people, you can see, who consider worry a kind of duty. Back of this I think it is the subconscious feeling that Fate or God is mean or resentful or tetchy and that if we do not worry enough we will certainly catch it from Him.

But they should remember that Christ said that we should cast off anxiety so that we could “seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and His righteousness” (i.e., live creatively, greatly, in the present) “and all these things” (beauty, happiness, goodness, talent, food and clothing) “will be added unto you.” Of course He is right.

That “Of course He is right” tells you a lot. Even if you are not interested in writing, you should check out this book.

But at last I understood from William Blake and Van Gogh and other great men, and from myself–from the truth that is in me (and for which I have at last learned to declare and stand up for, as I am trying to persuade you to stand up for your inner truth)–at last I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had. Not to preach to them, but to give it to them if they cared to hear it. If they did not–fine. They did not need to listen. That was all right too.

She would have loved to blog.

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