maryanne stahl at her mac

mind-body connection

2011-07-01T17:05:00.017-04:00

a dear friend of my son underwent surgery for melanoma this week, and I have been doing what I can to send her healing intentions and reiki energy. I have asked my on-line friends to offer thoughts, prayers and intentions as well, as I believe that intentions can be conduits of powerful healing.

when my niece had a brain tumor a few years ago, I asked people all over the world to pray for her/send intentions, largely through the Zoetrope on-line writers group (one of the first and longest-lasting social networks). natalie recovered completely and is now fine, a lovely teen-ager, and I am very grateful.

I have long been fascinated, in a somewhat scattered way, about the connections between the physical and the spiritual, the emotional and the material, and my son's friend led me to consider how positive or negative emotions such as grief or fear affect health. (I am familiar with Louise Hay's work.)

so this morning I came across a beliefnet.com post on FB regarding a blog contest. I was in need of procrastinating, so naturally I signed up to write at least 15 blog-journal entries about holistic health and spirituality (the topic I selected from their choices, which include News and Politics and Entertainment). if anyone cares to check out my musings over the coming weeks, or post a comment, or join the contest yourself, do so here.

fyi: rachel is the name of the young woman who needs healing intentions. may she recover completely and live a long, happy, healthy and productive life.

father's day

2011-06-19T07:04:00.001-04:00

from the blog of my dear friend and wonderful father Ted Peterson. Into the Woods is probably the best musical about child-rearing I have ever seen. it might be the best musical I have ever seen. listen to Bernadette Peters sing

Flipping the Script

2011-05-28T13:17:00.001-04:00

Flipping The Script: Man In A 'Woman-Shaped' World
by NPR STAFF

Quandary: If a man shops by himself, did a woman put him up to it? That's one of the questions prompted by Helen Simpson's short story "Night Thoughts."

In the new issue of the British literary journal Granta, there's a short story that includes these lines:

So, it was generally agreed that men were nicer than women, less selfish, more caring; men had been awarded the moral high ground. Big deal! And was that supposed to make everything all right? He twisted in the dark, the acid reflux of injustice rising in him.

The world wasn't going to change just because he wanted it to, though, was it?

The world was woman-shaped – get over it!

The lines are from Helen Simpson's "Night Thoughts," a story narrated by a man. And it catalogs the worries that keep him awake in the wee hours of the night, things like work-life balance, whether he looks fat — all issues that are better known for keeping women awake at night.

The story was written on commission for Granta's summer issue, about women and power.

"When I was rung up by the editor of Granta," Simpson tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, "he said, 'This issue is going to be called 'The F Word' — you can guess what the F word is; it's not what you'd think it is: It's feminism."

Simpson says she was asked to write "a story on feminism. But I tend to be a comic writer. And I tried all ways 'round this, but it all came out sighing and moaning and depressed."

"And then I thought, well, actually, all you have to do is what I do in my ordinary life," she says. "When I hear some woman being talked down, I think, 'I wonder if they'd talk to a man like that?' "

So in planning "Night Thoughts," Simpson says she decided, "OK, I'll reverse everything in this story. We'll have the man worrying about whether he's a good father, whether he's feeding the children right, whether he can go part-time.

"And we'll have the woman being the one who leaves the bathroom in a state, and belches and farts, and so on."

There are surely some men who would object to that view — who say they also worry a lot about work-life balance, and are concerned about their children.

Simpson acknowledges that the qualities she has decided to reassign in her story are not strictly unique to women.

"But in my experience," she says, "it's not generally the man who kicks off those conversations about, 'Now, honey, we need to sort out the work-life balance in this family. How about cutting back a bit on your work?'"

And Simpson says things get even more complicated when both spouses have career ambitions — and children to take care of.

"Whose job is going to come before the other one's?" she says. "And that causes a lot of rows. I mean, when it comes to it, if one of the children is sick, who is going to take the day off work? And as I've seen it, it tends to be the woman."

In "Night Thoughts," the narrator snaps awake at 3:29 a.m. and then lies in bed worrying, unable to return to sleep.

Asked if she sees the very act of worrying as a female trait, Simpson says, "Well, I think it is. But again, my husband said to me in the past, and I've had lots of women friends whose husbands say the same: 'Oh, stop worrying. Don't do so much worrying, everything will be fine.'

"But then I've found, when I actually have stopped worrying, and I've said 'OK,' and I've sat back and just not worried, everything's rather started to slide, you know, and gone to pot.

"Actually, the worrying — that's the real work, annoyingly," she says. "It's not doing the stuff, is it? The actual work is the thinking and the feeling."

Of course, some men may be perfectly happy to help — stopping by the grocery store, for instance. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the worrying is equally distributed. And Simpson says that brings a chance to turn the tables a bit.

"It's fun. Just try it for a couple of days," Simpson says. "Just role-play, don't announce it. Just see what happens — you know, if when people say, 'Oh, where is the milk?' and you look slightly puzzled, and say, 'Oh, I don't know. Where is the milk?'

"And just leave it. Because eventually someone will have to buy it."

Flipping the Script

2011-05-28T13:17:00.000-04:00

love your mother

2011-05-07T09:46:00.002-04:00

carry a poem in your pocket day

2011-04-14T06:38:00.001-04:00

is today!

is that a poem in your pocket...?

earth hour tonight 8:30

2011-03-26T11:21:00.001-04:00

turn off your lights for one hour tonight

vernal equinox

2011-03-20T19:16:00.004-04:00

as I type, the vernal equinox is occurring. today is a day where light and dark are equal, but tomorrow light will begin to predominate. may it be so.

the last few weeks have been horrendous on a global scale: war, earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. I can barely contemplate no less write about such events without becoming overwhelmed with anxiety. and then guilt-- my little corner of the world is still relatively peaceful and fortune-blessed. my children and grandchildren are thriving, I have a job and a home. as far as I know my health is relatively good. how can I quiver with anxiety and fear when others suffer so? but that's just it, of course, the suffering of others leaves me weak with grief and helplessness.

I am of no use to anyone, family, students, friends and the world, if I am weak, and so I must endeavor to find strength--and light.

I welcome light.

The Other Life

2011-02-20T07:38:00.009-05:00

My friend Ellen Meister's fabulous new book is out--and may soon be an HBO series! Read an interview with Ellen on Susan Henderson's Lit Park. And check out this review:

How many wonder what their life would be like if they chose a different path? This is the crux of Ellen Meister’s riveting novel, The Other Life.
Before Quinn Braverman was born, she experienced a trauma that followed her throughout her life. As she grew, she knew she could see herself in two different realities, an ability or “power” that deeply frightened her mother, Nan Gilbert, an up-and-coming artist who battled a bipolar disorder most of her life. Because of this trauma Quinn suffered in utero, she is able to cross over from one life to the other.
The prologue commences with Nan on the verge of suicide, even though very pregnant and almost at term for delivery. Segueing into the life of daughter Quinn, now 36 years old, we find her married to Lewis Braverman and the mother of six-year-old Isaac. Though Quinn loves her life and her family exponentially, she grieves the loss of her mother, whose suicide attempt was finally successful just before Isaac’s birth.
Deep inside, Quinn feels responsible for her mother’s death, believing Nan had been upset with her because of the life path she chose. She had not chosen to marry Eugene, a narcissistic, obsessive man on his way to stardom—whom Nan adored—and after a ten-year relationship with him, Quinn felt smothered by his neediness and selfishness. Though Lewis is everything Quinn wants in a life partner, Quinn believed her mother thought she sold out to marry an ordinary man, live in the suburbs, and raise a family.
When Quinn becomes pregnant with her second child, she learns her baby has a serious deformity. Needing her mother’s comfort and advice, Quinn decides to access her old life . . . the life she would have lived had she remained with Eugene—a life where her mother was still alive.
As pressure mounts with the decisions she must make about the baby she carries, Quinn finds herself more and more attracted to the life she once knew. Though that life had been fraught by Eugene’s demanding and smothering ways, she wonders if she would be better off with him rather than Lewis and Isaac. Which life should she choose?
This inimitable tale is mesmerizing with the twists, turns, and angst Quinn deals with at the loss of her beloved mother and the upcoming birth of her child. The author flips from Quinn’s to Nan’s point of view, though this is executed flawlessly so does not confuse or slow the plot. The depictions of emotions of pain and torment as well as blissful happiness are heartfelt and highly plausible—and the cliffhanger ending is sure to surprise.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Reviewer Nancy Carty Lepri is the author of a children’s chapter book, Tiny Angel, and is an illustrator and freelance editor. She has edited more than 20 books for national small publishers in various genres.

rest in peace, jim otterstrom

2011-01-29T07:36:00.003-05:00

I came across jim o's blog via dharma bums, and though I was only an occasional visitor, I very much admired him and the sustainable life he built with his wife, peg, on their beautiful piece of california land. though I didn't "know" him, he seemed a kindred spirit. his words and photographs always resonated with me, and knowing people like him exist in this hard world makes me feel better when I am feeling low. and so I am deeply saddened to learn of his recent passing. I hope his family doesn't mind that I repost his final blog post here, because I think it is a beautiful, wise and fitting tribute to a good man.

namaste, jim. rest in peace.

For Gabrielle Giffords and all those whose lives were ruined on January 8th, by an act of hatred...
~VICTIMS OF HATRED~

I've been trying to come to terms with the contempt and hatred I feel seething through our society since I was a young boy.

I've also been consistently disappointed in my fellow human beings for as long as I can remember, and in myself for carrying within me seeds of that same toxicity which poisons hearts.

Is it any wonder we have so much insanity in a world where every innocence is promptly contaminated by the appalling gore of our collective misdeeds?

We are reaping the fruit of violence we have sewn into the fabric of history---even as we continue shouldering the burden of horrific destruction we still fund throughout the world, with our tax dollars, the sweat of our labor, and the lifeblood of humanity---all in disregard for every other species on earth.

Like the people in this collage [see original blog], we are all victimized by hatred, fear, and ignorance, including our own.
Whatever we think of the individuals pictured here, they were all moved by the cruelty and injustice they saw around them to speak their truths, with compassion for others, and for that, each one was assassinated.

They made mistakes. After all they were only human, woven from the same imperfect cloth as the rest of us, but their common thread was compassion, and they died because of it.
We are capable of becoming so much more than we are, and each of the persons above gave us a glimpse into possibilities.

As long as I live, no matter how ugly the world becomes, I will hold love and compassion in my heart, and do my best to reach beyond the atmosphere of contempt, bitterness, fear, and hatred which permeates our times...
...even if it kills me.

~Peace & Love~
Jim Otterstrom
Gabrielle Giffords favorite quote, from her facebook page:
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, let us strive to finish the work we are in." ~ Abraham Lincoln

writers: submit to this journal with confidence!

2011-01-23T14:51:00.002-05:00

Clever, anyway. Journal of Universal Rejection.

interview

2011-01-20T20:32:00.002-05:00

Talented and kind writer Michelle Garren Flye interviewed me on her blog, BREATHE, about naming characters. read it here.

Literary Savannah

2011-01-03T18:56:00.005-05:00

Apparently I have a poem in the first edition of this new magazine. The poem was accepted over a year ago, and then the magazine was never published. In early Decemeber, a google alert notified me that, indeed, the magazine was out. Anyway,
my poem, Leap, appears on page 31.

Order a copy Here (at MagCLoud)

An article about it here.

Happy 2011!

2011-01-01T13:30:00.000-05:00

celebrate the solstice!

2010-12-20T22:19:00.000-05:00

There Goes the Sun
By RICHARD COHEN in The New York Times

WHAT is the winter solstice, and why bother to celebrate it, as so many people around the world will tomorrow? The word “solstice” derives from the Latin sol (meaning sun) and statum (stand still), and reflects what we see on the first days of summer and winter when, at dawn for two or three days, the sun seems to linger for several minutes in its passage across the sky, before beginning to double back.

Indeed, “turnings of the sun” is an old phrase, used by both Hesiod and Homer. The novelist Alan Furst has one of his characters nicely observe, “the day the sun is said to pause. ... Pleasing, that idea. ... As though the universe stopped for a moment to reflect, took a day off from work. One could sense it, time slowing down.”

Virtually all cultures have their own way of acknowledging this moment. The Welsh word for solstice translates as “the point of roughness,” while the Talmud calls it “Tekufat Tevet,” first day of “the stripping time.” For the Chinese, winter’s beginning is “dongzhi,” when one tradition is making balls of glutinous rice, which symbolize family gathering. In Korea, these balls are mingled with a sweet red bean called pat jook. According to local lore, each winter solstice a ghost comes to haunt villagers. The red bean in the rice balls repels him.

In parts of Scandinavia, the locals smear their front doors with butter so that Beiwe, sun goddess of fertility, can lap it up before she continues on her journey. (One wonders who does all the mopping up afterward.) Later, young women don candle-embedded helmets, while families go to bed having placed their shoes all in a row, to ensure peace over the coming year.

Street processions are another common feature. In Japan, young men known as “sun devils,” their faces daubed to represent their imagined solar ancestry, still go among the farms to ensure the earth’s fertility (and their own stocking-up with alcohol). In Ireland, people called wren-boys take to the roads, wearing masks or straw suits. The practice used to involve the killing of a wren, and singing songs while carrying the corpse from house to house.

Sacrifice is a common thread. In areas of northern Pakistan, men have cold water poured over their heads in purification, and are forbidden to sit on any chair till the evening, when their heads will be sprinkled with goats’ blood. (Unhappy goats.) Purification is also the main object for the Zuni and Hopi tribes of North America, their attempt to recall the sun from its long winter slumber. It also marks the beginning of another turning of their “wheel of the year,” and kivas (sacred underground ritual chambers) are opened to mark the season.

Yet, for all these symbolisms, this time remains at heart an astronomical event, and quite a curious one. In summer, the sun is brighter and reaches higher into the sky, shortening the shadows that it casts; in winter it rises and sinks closer to the horizon, its light diffuses more and its shadows lengthen. As the winter hemisphere tilts steadily further away from the star, daylight becomes shorter and the sun arcs ever lower. Societies that were organized around agriculture intently studied the heavens, ensuring that the solstices were well charted.

Despite their best efforts, however, their priests and stargazers came to realize that it was exceptionally hard to pinpoint the moment of the sun’s turning by observation alone — even though they could define the successive seasons by the advancing and withdrawal of daylight and darkness.

The earth further complicates matters. Our globe tilts on its axis like a spinning top, going around the sun at an angle to its orbit of 23 and a half degrees. Yet the planet’s shape changes minutely and its axis wobbles, thus its orbit fluctuates. If its axis remained stable and if its orbit were a true circle, then the equinoxes and solstices would quarter the year into equal sections. As it is, the time between the spring and fall equinoxes in the Northern Hemisphere is slightly greater than that between fall and spring, the earth — being at that time closer to the sun — moving about 6 percent faster in January than in July.

The apparently supernatural power manifest in solstices to govern the seasons has been felt as far back as we know, inducing different reactions from different cultures — fertility rites, fire festivals, offerings to the gods. Many of the wintertime customs in Western Europe descend from the ancient Romans, who believed that their god of the harvest, Saturn, had ruled the land during an earlier age of abundance, and so celebrated the winter solstice with the Saturnalia, a feast of gift-giving, role-reversals (slaves berating their masters) and general public holiday from Dec. 17 to 24.

The transition from Roman paganism to Christianity, with its similar rites, took several centuries. With the Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the fourth century, customs were quickly appropriated and refashioned, as the sun and God’s son became inextricably entwined. Thus, although the New Testament gives no indication of Christ’s actual birthday (early writers preferring a spring date), in 354 Pope Liberius declared it to have befallen on Dec. 25.

The advantages of Christmas Day being celebrated then were obvious. As the Christian commentator Syrus wrote: “It was a custom of the pagans to celebrate on the same Dec. 25 the birthday of the sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity .... Accordingly, when the church authorities perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that day.”

In Christendom, the Nativity gradually absorbed all other winter solstice rites, and the co-opting of solar imagery was part of the same process. Thus the solar discs that had once been depicted behind the heads of Asian rulers became the halos of Christian luminaries. Despite the new religion’s apparent supremacy, many of the old customs survived — so much so that church elders worried that the veneration of Christ was being lost. In the fifth century, St. Augustine of Hippo and Pope Leo the Great felt compelled to remind their flocks that Christ, not the sun, was their proper object of their worship.

While Roman Christianity was the dominant culture in Western Europe, it was by no means the only one. By millennium’s end, the Danes controlled most of England, bringing with them “Yule,” their name for winter solstice celebrations, probably derived from an earlier term for “wheel.” For centuries, the most sacred Norse symbol had been the wheel of the heavens, represented by a six- or eight-spoked wheel or by a cross within a wheel signifying solar rays.

The Norse peoples, many of whom settled in what is now Yorkshire, would construct huge solar wheels and place them next to hilltop bonfires, while in the Middle Ages processions bore wheels upon chariots or boats. In other parts of Europe, where the Vikings were feared and hated, a taboo on using spinning wheels during solstices lasted well into the 20th century. The spinning-wheel on which Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger may exemplify this sense of menace.

Throughout much of Europe, at least up until the 16th century, starvation was common from January to April, a period known as “the famine months.” Most cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed over the winter, making the solstice almost the only time of year that fresh meat was readily available. The boar’s head at Christmas feasts represents the dying sun of the old year, while the suckling pig — with the apple of immortality in its mouth — the new.

The turning of the sun was perhaps even more important in the New World than the Old. The Aztecs, who believed that the heart harbored elements of the sun’s power, ensured its continual well-being by tearing out this vital organ from hunchbacks, dwarves or prisoners of war, so releasing the “divine sun fragments” entrapped by the body and its desires.

The Incas would celebrate the solar festival of Inti Raymi by having their priests attempt to tie down the celestial body. At Machu Picchu, high in the Peruvian Andes, there is a large stone column called the Intihuatana, (“hitching post of the sun,”) to which the star would be symbolically harnessed. It is unclear how the Incas measured the success of this endeavor, but at least the sun returned the following day.

Yet above all other rituals, reproducing the sun’s fire by kindling flame on earth is the commonest solstice practice, both at midsummer and midwinter. Thomas Hardy, describing Dorset villagers around a bonfire in “The Return of the Native,” offers an explanation for such a worldwide phenomenon:

“To light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of men when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout nature. It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against the fiat that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery and death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the earth say, ‘Let there be light.’ ”

So there is good reason to celebrate the winter solstice — but maybe that celebration is still touched with a little fear.

Richard Cohen is the author of “Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star That Gives Us Life.”

The Haven

2010-12-14T09:02:00.003-05:00

check out Jim's story, "The Haven," up at Blue Lotus review.

december, darkness and light

2010-12-11T08:27:00.005-05:00

so, I've had another birthday. attended a few holiday school functions, scrimped and spent . the year comes to an end and the prospect of a new one glimmers.
it's december. a month of duality--of brightly lit candles and early falling dark, festivity and anxiety, cheer and drear (<--I'm making that a word). a month befitting my hybrid name, which most name etymologies say means Bitter (see Mary, below) Grace (Anne, from Hannah):

Mary: Usual English form of Maria, which was the Latin form of the New Testament Greek names Μαριαμ (Mariam) and Μαρια (Maria) - the spellings are interchangeable - which were from the Hebrew name מִרְיָם (Miryam). The meaning is not known for certain, but there are several theories including "sea of bitterness", "rebelliousness", and "wished for child". However it was most likely originally an Egyptian name, perhaps derived in part from mry "beloved" or mr "love".

so that's me, dual-natured, rebellious, bitter, trying for grace, and that's december, too. the darkest month of the year, moving toward light. maybe that's everything.

2010-11-26T13:21:00.002-05:00

thanksgiving

2010-11-25T12:24:00.000-05:00

november, month of death and gratitude, loneliness and blessings

2010-11-19T16:33:00.000-05:00

A Blessing

BY JAMES WRIGHT

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

c'mon, remember

2010-11-01T19:55:00.003-04:00

2010-10-31T07:48:00.003-04:00

for some reason, the city of Savannah decided that trick or treating should take place on Saturday night instead of tonight. why? you don't mess with halloween! there is some argument about it being a "school night," but Halloween falls on a school night 5 out of 7 times. there must be some Christian connection and it pisses me off.

Ommmmmmm
Patience
Ommmmmmm

the upshot of this is that kids trick-or-treated last night and probably will do so again tonight. bah.

happy halloween y'all.

who in his right mind...

2010-10-23T11:27:00.004-04:00

would drive the old Lincoln Highway coast to coast in a Model A Ford?

I mean, besides Jim Devitt.

he's had a few setbacks--e.g., a month in Ohio while he got a new engine for Maybellene (pictured above)--but he's kept on keeping on, and he's been blogging/posting photos of his not-your-everyday experiences.

now he's in Wyoming and it's nearly November... some tough travels and weather ahead. cheer him on:
Lincoln Highwayman Blog

tiny flash fiction in BLIP

2010-10-19T22:22:00.003-04:00

the cool new magazine that was once Mississippi Review.

"I Wake Up, Teetering."

10.10.10 One Day On Earth

2010-10-10T15:54:00.001-04:00

a cool day that the world documented

happy 70th birthday, john lennon

2010-10-09T15:29:00.006-04:00

generations...

2010-09-29T20:10:00.006-04:00

I used to avoid publishing photos of my grandchildren but...they are too beautiful to keep to myself and I am grateful.

Thanks
by W. S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

International Day of Peace

2010-09-21T09:52:00.007-04:00

join people around the world praying for peace at 12 noon today.

go in peace, every day.

september blessings and reflections

2010-09-12T07:53:00.016-04:00

the best news is, I have a new grandson and max has a baby brother! his name is eli benjamin and he was born last monday, labor day, september 6, weighing 8 lbs. 1 ounce. while my daughter was in labor on Labor Day, I sat reading on the beach, waiting for text updates. just around 4 pm, when I knew she was going to start to push, I began thinking about her birth, nearly 36 years earlier. I went into a reverie and relived much of her delivery, and when I came out of it, though I didn't know it then, eli had been born, at 4:12 PM--with the cord wrapped twice around his neck! but he was fine, and I am so blessed in the department of children and grandchildren. whatever I may lack otherwise, I am so very grateful for the most important gifts of all.

so I video chatted with eli when he was three days old, and I have to say, he has a voice like a lamb! I can't wait to sniff the sweetness of his baby head and kiss his cheeks in the flesh, which I shall do on thursday when I fly up to new york to spend some time with him and max and their mama and dada.

I haven't written much here for the past month...been busy ending summer and starting school, but more than that, my thoughts have often been unsettled. I don't want to just emote and complain, so I refrain from recording anything. but it's time to update, else why have a blog at all? even one no one reads.

in August, I visited my son in San Francisco and was reminded once again how it is a place where I feel I belong. of course, it's difficult to really know about a place when one is just visiting. I think I belong in the bay area , but a good deal of that assumption is based on progressive prejudice and some really nice vacations. after all, savannah looks like a lovely place, and, judging by the fact that its economy is largely based on tourism, lots of people find it worth visiting. but living here is something else. not that it isn't pretty (at least some parts; there's ugliness too); not that it isn't easy to navigate and for the most part free from the congestion problems of larger cities; not that the weather isn't attractive (often too hot, but, as long as one is willing to burn lots of fuel to run air conditioning, easier to live with than too cold), but living here, well... let's just say seven years here and I still don't exactly feel welcome. (I pick up the newspaper to see a notice about a tea party gathering on the front page!)

next to politics, which get me down to the point I don't even want to discuss, the bugs here in Savannah really get to me. I like to spend as much time as possible outdoors in the garden, and I don't mind insects--especially interesting ones. last summer I gave up one half of my porch for months to a banana spider and her offspring-- but here one is rewarded for any time spent outdoors with copious mosquito and fire ant bites and run-ins with palmetto bugs. ugh. I hate dousing myself with chemicals (and don't) but I also hate being bitten to shreds. also, despite its subtropical climate, savannah really isn't the best place to garden. sure, you can have palm trees--but not lavender. (in san francisco, of course, both flourish!) I doubt I'll stay here after I retire from teaching--though never say never.

I do love having a warm ocean in which to swim. and I can (just barely) afford to live here--something I couldn't do in new york or san francisco where my kids are. we'll see. but since jim has been gone (read about his lincoln highway trip here) I have increasingly felt and been alone and alienated.

you'd think that would mean I've been writing up a storm! but no... it's all I can do, apparently, to maintain the house and animals and yard and a semblance of sanity when I am not teaching. but I'm writing a bit, and trying to write more, and we'll see. maybe what makes a writer feel alienated and alone is not writing? you think?

two nows

2010-08-03T16:32:00.006-04:00

a nice writer person just emailed me and mentioned a blog written by Charlotte Rains Dixon examining the use of a type of plot structure she calls the "two nows." there are varieties within the variety. according to Dixon (if you scroll down the blog post), I used the thematic variety of the two-nows structure in my first novel, FORGIVE THE MOON. I guess I did, though I didn't know I was doing anything that had a name. I just wrote the book and then, yes, cut and pasted some chapters around to make psychological sense. (I created a bit of a mess doing it. at one point I had two characters sleeping together before they'd met. ) it's just what I thought of doing, partly because of my sense that time is layered, not linear, my trying to convey that.

in THE OPPOSITE SHORE, my second novel, I attempted to convey concurrent realities by alternating between the four points of view of the central characters, including two adult sisters, a husband and a teenager.

now, happily!, just yesterday I began reworking a novel I had set aside for quite some time. it also has two stories--a contemporary plot and a story set a hundred years in the past, partly in another country, the characters ancestors of the contemporary characters. so, this is something I guess I do.

who knew?

the job I wish I had...

2010-07-25T09:42:00.004-04:00

I often say I should have been a vet, because I love animals and am a natural at healing, but I wasn't a natural at math. so any science beyond biology was a bit out of my league... and though I am fascinated by physics, let's face it, I don't know an algorithm from an alligator (except to know I prefer the latter).

but copy editor? at the New Yorker? that, I think, I could have done. why? (aside from the hours--starting at 10 and going to 6 or beyond) because I have the essential ingredient-- to wit:

Andy: What qualities make a person a good candidate for copy editing?

Mary: Self-doubt.

self doubt! not only was I born with plenty of genetic self-doubt, I have honed it! ah well, maybe in the next life...

read more of agent Andy Ross's interview with copy "OK-er" Mary Norris here: HERE.

high summer

2010-07-08T18:15:00.002-04:00

The Garden
by Andrew Marvell

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays ;
And their uncessant labors see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid ;
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men :
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow ;
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green ;
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name.
Little, alas, they know or heed,
How far these beauties hers exceed!
Fair trees! wheresoe'er your barks I wound
No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion's heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat :
The gods who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race.
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow,
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head ;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine ;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach ;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide :
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets and combs its silver wings ;
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate :
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there :
Two paradises 'twere in one
To live in Paradise alone.

How well the skillful gard'ner drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new ;
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run ;
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!

Cliff Rocks

2010-06-26T08:34:00.003-04:00

Cliff Garstang, that is, the very talented and generous writer whose story collection, In An Uncharted Country, recently won a bunch of prizes. Cliff offers to post reviews on his blog, Perpetual Folly , and I happened to have a quite nice review of my chapbook lying around...so here it is.

thanks, Cliff!

radical gratitude

2010-06-24T08:25:00.004-04:00

think you know what gratitude is? check out this interview with Andrew Bienkowski , whose experience writer Mary Akers details in her deeply-moving non-fiction book, One Life to Give: A Path to Finding Yourself by Helping Others. :

"Andrew Bienkowski grew up in Siberia, his family exiled by the Communist regime. In a life that began with nothing, living on soup made from discarded potato peelings, he learned that true wealth and happiness come from giving, and made his way observing the true value of gratitude, forgiveness, and understanding. With great humility and a smile, he weaves his plain-spoken wisdom with stories of survival and relationship, and the reminder that the things that really matter are available to each of us, every hour of every day. And of course, even the darkest days have their treasures to offer. As Mr. Bienkowski explains, "It's easy to be grateful for those things that are good. It's the very difficult, painful, awful experiences that are probably the most valuable because they teach us the most important lessons..."

the longest day of the year

2010-06-20T21:39:00.002-04:00

happy summer solstice--midsummer's night--Litha--the lushest time of the year. celebrate light and ripening.

loneliness

2010-05-22T13:19:00.001-04:00

from the column, What Would Sid Do? on beliefnet.com

How would Sid cope with loneliness?

Friday May 21, 2010
By Lodro Rinzler

Many people look to Siddhartha Gautama as an example of someone who attained nirvana, a buddha. Each week in this column we look at what it might be like if Siddhartha was on his spiritual journey today. How would he combine Buddhism and dating? How would he handle stress in the workplace? What would Sid do? is devoted to taking an honest look at what we as meditators face in the modern world.

Each week I'll take on a new question and give some advice based on what I think Sid, a fictional Siddartha, would do. Like us, Sid is not yet a buddha, he's just someone struggling to maintain an open heart on a spiritual path while facing numerous distractions along the way. Because let's face it, you and I are Sid.

How would Sid cope with loneliness? -

Loneliness is something that affects us all. Whether it's a longing to be with another person on a cold and rainy night or trying to fill our life with millions of activities and social outings to prevent ever experiencing it we all struggle with loneliness at one point or another.

In some sense, loneliness is just us not being comfortable with the way things are. We get home after a long day of work, collapse on the couch, and experience the spaciousness of our evening. After running around all day that amount of space can feel intimidating. We long to surround ourselves with things to do just so we don't have to explore it.

I believe if Sid felt this anxiety around the spacious parts of his life he would try to lean in to them. What I mean by that is he would actually apply a sense of inquisitiveness as to why he feels lonely. What external factor is he looking for that he thinks will make him ultimately happy?

There are lots of ways to explore your loneliness. For example, you can contemplate where it resides in your body. Is it that tightness in your throat? Is it a weighing down of your heart? Is that what loneliness looks like? Notice if you can pinpoint where it exists. If you see that it does not have a physical location then you may realize that loneliness is not as real and solid as you thought it was. It's actually just another fluid emotional experience that will ebb and flow throughout your life, just like the waves in the ocean.

I believe in his exploration of loneliness Sid would not view it as a "bad" emotion or as something he needs to rid himself of. In fact, in Shambhala Buddhism there are six ways of describing a sense of "cool loneliness" which may arise if you examine and stay with your experience while reserving judgment.

1) Less desire - this form of cool loneliness is when we just relax with the emotion without searching for something that will cheer us up. It's being with our experience as it feels Right Now.

2) Contentment - without giving in to hope or fear we can settle into our groundless state. We don't have to sit around dwelling on the idea that someone may call us and invite us out to dinner. We don't have to get stuck in the fear that we'll die alone. There is a middle way when we don't give in to those two extremes which feels a lot like contentment.

3) Avoiding unnecessary activity - whenever we experience a sense of "too much" space we get uncomfortable. Next time you are on a long elevator ride pay attention to the other passengers. Even though your travel time is approximately a minute long one after another people pull out their phones to fiddle around. We are not trained to rest in space. To call forth an old Shambhala Sun Camp slogan, "Don't just do something, sit there." Enjoy the space of loneliness, don't give in to superfluous activity.

4) Complete discipline - complete discipline in this sense is being willing to come back to our present experience, over and over again, without being judgmental. As we come back to our loneliness we realize that this is basically how things are. There's no problem really. We are fundamentally alone; no external factor can give us ever-lasting happiness. As Pema Chodron once wrote, "We are cheating ourselves when we run away from the ambiguity of loneliness."

5) Not wandering into the world of desire - in other words, let's not walk our habitual road of dealing with feeling discomfort. Whatever our go-to space filler is, don't do it. Whether it's watching TV, eating junk food, or online shopping just chill out. Don't go there. With loneliness there is nothing to be solved so stop looking looking for solutions that will make you feel better.

6) Not seeking security in discurssive thoughts - similar to number five, we need to realize that loneliness is not something that needs to be fixed. We don't have to make a list in our head of 50 ways to get over loneliness. As opposed to going about activities that will make us feel better this form of working with loneliness relates to our internal chatter. There's no need to wander off into discurssiveness. When you find yourself drifting off gently acknowledge that and bring your mind back to your underlying experience.

When you experience loneliness you don't have to give in to the million and one ways to fix it. There's nothing to fix. You can use your experience as a practice opportunity, transforming it into cool loneliness. You can honestly and without aggression look at your own mind. While you may not feel the instant gratification of going out to a movie and distracting you from your emotional state, you are learning something much more valuable: how to be comfortable

happy mother's day!

2010-05-09T08:01:00.000-04:00

a moment

2010-05-04T19:25:00.023-04:00

I meditate with a small group of friends each Sunday from 10-ish to 11-ish. (I am always late.) this past Sunday I arrived early and we set the iphone gong to 10:59. I came out of meditation, reached for my camera, went outside joel and laura's house over-looking the marsh and took three photos of their tibetan prayer flags fluttering in the breeze.

I chose to send the photo above to the NYT project because I thought it would be visually strong if incorporated into a mosaic of tiny thumbnails. I don't know that it will be, but it's what I sent. did you send one?

and here's the first one I took. I think it captures the moment better, in terms of feel of place, but I didn't know how well it would hold up in tiny form. anyway, joel and laura's:

April 30 is SAVE THE FROGS DAY

2010-04-30T10:28:00.003-04:00

please sign the petition to get the pesticide atrazine banned..

Also check out Frog Art and Frog Poetry contests.

A Moment in Time

2010-04-23T21:47:00.004-04:00

Pretty cool:

Where will you be on May 2, 2010 at 11:00 AM EST?

Wherever you are, the New York Times hopes you’ll have a camera — or a camera phone — in hand. And they hope you’ll be taking a picture to send to Lens (the photography blog) that will capture this singular instant in whatever way you think would add to a marvelous global mosaic; a Web-built image of one moment in time across the world.

The NYT extends the invitation to everyone, everywhere. Amateurs. Students. Pros. People who’ve been photographing for a lifetime or who just started yesterday.

What matters more than technique is the thought behind the picture, because you’ll only be sending one. So please do think beforehand about where you will want to be and what you will want to focus on. Here are the general topics:

Religion
Play
Nature and the Environment
Family
Work
Arts and Entertainment
Money and the Economy
Community
Social Issues

In New York, it will be 11 o’clock on Sunday morning when the clock for Coordinated Universal Time — which carries the neither-English-nor-French abbreviation U.T.C. (it’s formerly Greenwich Mean Time) — reaches 15:00 hours. So some people will be settled into church pews while others prepare to head out to the park, if not the beach. Los Angeles and San Francisco will be a good deal quieter at such an early hour, except for some hard-partying types unwilling to concede that it’s no longer Saturday night. Lunch time will be at hand in Rio de Janeiro, dinner time in Cape Town. Dusk will be bringing an end to another tough day in Afghanistan, while midnight will be an hour away in Beijing. For Australians, it will already be first thing Monday morning.

After you take your photo, please send it as soon as possible to submit.nytimes.com/moment (the link should be active at 15:00 U.T.C.). On the Web form, you’ll be asked to categorize your photo by location and subject (the topic list shown above) and to include caption information. We don’t expect everyone to hit 15:00 exactly, but we do ask that you try to stay within a few minutes of that targeted time.

The photos will appear quickly on the Lens blog and on NYTimes.com, and — if you’d like — you’ll be able to arrange them by country, by topic or by how they were ranked by other readers. Or you can just view them randomly. Some will almost certainly be spotlighted on the Lens blog.

happy earth day

2010-04-22T18:24:00.002-04:00

not much has changed...

extending 4.20 felicitations to California

2010-04-19T22:59:00.000-04:00

37 Things

2010-04-16T06:54:00.001-04:00

Why does Mark Morford have to be so funny, so handsome, and so right all the time?

His column today:

37 things worse than a KFC meatwich
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, April 16, 2010

And lo, the reaction was swift and true, an incredible flood of comment and reply, recoil and horrified laughter, in response to last week's column -- and the Huffington Post's wondrous reprint -- on the gut-clenching KFC meat phenomenon/abomination known as the Double Down.

But amongst the amazement and wonder, a few oxygen-deprived souls dared to write in to say, "Aww c'mon, it's not all that bad? There are far worse things out there, for sure." And then they proceeded to try and prove how the DD's noxious calorie and fat numbers aren't even as toxic as some other vile fast foodstuffs, completely ignoring the larger picture I was delineating -- all the pollution, animal abuse, industrial farming, chemicals, synthetics, antibiotics, hormones and just plain insidiousness of a company concocting something this greasy and disgusting in the modern age.

But it got me thinking, aside from the food porn on thisiswhyyourefat.com, well, just what are those things that are worse for you than KFC's fistful of karmic hate? What else can you shove into your body, your brain, your very anima itself, if you really despise yourself, stopped caring long ago and just want to curl up and die in a corner somewhere? Shall we list a few? Let's.

1) Tea Party Rally. Recently did I stumble, like stepping on a rusty nail, across a surreal clip of Sarah "Queen of Duh" Palin rallying the "troops" at a Tea Party Express stop somewhere in Gunlick, Kentuckansasiana, and I found my mind suddenly blasted clean by the giant pile of dumb I was witnessing, unable to pinpoint exactly what it was that this circus sideshow reminded me of.

Then I had it. Remember that bizarre, 30-second acid trip of a scene in "The Wizard of Oz," the moment just before a very stoned Dorothy skips away to hook up with her crazy gay pals and traipse through a giant Pink Floyd album, the moment when those three adult dwarves stumble out of the Munchkinland horde wearing little kid outfits, and sing their little surly song, replete with surly, out-of-sync-leg spasms? Yes, the Palin-led Tea Party rally reminded me of the Lollipop Guild, serenading Dorothy. Perfect.

2) Floating garbage. Not to be outdone by the wily Pacific, the Atlantic Ocean is now reporting the existence of its very own giant, rancid, thousand-mile-wide swath of plastic collected over a period of years in a huge, swirling vortex and choking off sea life as far as the eye can weep. The Atlantic Plastic Explosion™ (as it would like to be known) is drifting somewhere between Bermuda and Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores. Yay world!

Representatives for the Pacific Garbage Patch responded almost immediately, announcing plans hatched in the Netherlands to gather all its drifting plastic together and turn it into a colorful, Hawaii-sized floating island, suitable for living and frolicking and decrying the hellbound descent of man.

Aching for attention, the Indian Ocean is, meanwhile, planning to set itself on fire.

3) Military spending. Did you know 53 cents of every tax dollar you just sent to the IRS now goes to maintaining the U.S. military? Indeed, much to the confusion of gun nuts and warmongers alike, military spending is simply off the charts, even under Obama. We outspend all our allies and enemies combined, by a huge margin, far more than China, Russia, India and your grumpy right-wing grandfather hoarding bullets in the garage.

We have the largest, most bloated war machine in the world. We sell more guns, tanks, jets and warheads to more dictators, regimes and drug cartels than anyone on the planet. Are your local schools crumbling? Public hospitals failing? Entire state dumber than Glenn Beck's fact checker? Blame the military, at least in part, for sucking down about $1.6 trillion every year.

4) Miley Cyrus. Indeed, the sweet little billionaire's romantic movie came and went so fast you probably didn't even learn its name; it passed through the cultural slipstream like some sort of irritable bowel movement, the reviews of the poor tween's atrocious acting skills veering between a semi-gracious "maybe someday she'll be tolerable" and "Oh my God, someone stab out my eyes with a flaming pitchfork right now." Did you spend 10 bucks on this movie? How is it you're still upright? Shouldn't you be getting to a doctor? An asylum?

5) The Catholic Church. Sure sure, the Double Down will enrage your colon, toxify your blood, disfigure your heart, greasify your skin, shrivel your genitalia, and dumb you down to the level of slug shoelace. But that's nothing compared to 2,000 years of abuse, lies, oppression, lack of sunshine and dead, leathery skin that accompanies handing over your soul to the sinister clan of old men who run the Vatican. As for the pope, well, it would appear the "holiest" man in the Christian empire cares more about PR than child rape. You know, just like Jesus wanted.

6) "Jersey Shore," cast of. Word has it there's a new spinoff show in the works to augment this oily smear of cultural insect repellent, called "Wicked Summer" (or "Wikkid Summah" for those in the dialect) documenting -- can you guess? -- the awful hair, insane sports obsessions and big dumb babes of blue collar lugnuts from Boston.

The show's tagline, "Five minutes with these walking billboards for 'No Child Left Behind' makes you feel like a genius for being able to work a goddamn can opener" is still, apparently, being honed. Can't wait.

7) Republicanism. Some scholars believe there used to be a modicum of nobility and respect attached to this political party, long ago. History seems to indicate the GOP was, at one point, the home of a few reasonable and decent men, fighting for just and balanced causes.

Of course, the party of Lincoln has devolved into a shrill, shrieking puddle of Glenn Beck's crocodile tears, Rush Limbaugh racists and surly white men who hate the fact that you might have decent access to health care, can marry someone you love, and don't hate everything and everyone not inbred near a Texas football stadium. Want to ensure your kids grow up scared, angry, well armed, heavily medicated and confused about everything? Raise them Republican. Oh, and spank the hell out of them.

8-37) And finally, seeking additional input for this list, I posted a humble query to the 12,000+ followers on my Facebook fan page, asking for suggestions. And so, without further ado, I present to you an abbreviated list of those non-food items deemed far worse for you than a KFC Double Down, according to, well, you.

In no particular order, they are:

Marriage, Las Vegas, lobotomies, rat poison, spray-on tans, radioactive isotopes, Kansas, the Oklahoma militia, Meg Whitman, Ann Coulter, Nancy Grace, Fox News, Mormons, the Louisiana school system, the Texas State Board of Education, nuclear waste (barely), strychnine (ditto), Christian universities, unprotected bestiality, dating writers (wait, what?), foot binding, a dioxin enema, home-schooled fundamentalists (note: possibly a food item), auto-erotic asphyxiation, resentment, war, a closed mind, uterine fibroids, the Bible and, of course, sleeping in a cage with seven hungry weasels. Just FYI.

vernal equinox blessings!

2010-03-20T12:24:00.002-04:00

happy ostara; happy spring. the light and dark are equal today--and light prevails. (at least for 6 months.) enjoy!

a good time was had

2010-03-18T19:29:00.001-04:00

at the first Savannah Literary Death Match.

"...Eschewing an intermission to keep things pushing forward, Maryanne Stahl (representing The Poetry Society of Georgia) and Zach Powers (The Peacock Guild) squared off, with Stahl going first. Stahl was brilliant, reading three flash fictions, the second of which inspired her to place devil horns on her head, and at the finishing words, a devil tail sprung from beneath her shirt. She flung confetti-as-meteors for her finale. "

Pay It Forward--Free Art!

2010-03-09T18:09:00.007-05:00

how cool is this? a friend has started a movement that combines free art and acts of kindness! anonymous artists create art and leave it in public to be found. on the back of the work is a printed request that, if you find and keep the art, you "pay if forward" by doing a random act of kindness for a complete stranger.

so if you live in Savannah, Asheville or Ottowa...and other cities to come...keep a look out for free art! :-)

check out the website.

Literary Death Match

2010-03-06T20:37:00.002-05:00

what did I get myself into? I am going to participate in a Literary Death Match, hosted by Opium Magazine. at Blowin' Smoke on MLK Blvd. in Savannah, show starts at 8:30. Thursday, March 11. come.

(post heading is link)

a man

2010-02-06T21:40:00.004-05:00

whom I once loved, who taught me about French and Russian and Japanese literature, about writing and opera and dim sum, about gardening, calligraphy and just about everything, has died. he wasn't old--66. I haven't spoken to him in nearly thirty years. he was brilliant and kind. may he rest in peace.

I have a new flash fiction in Per Contra

2010-01-17T19:15:00.003-05:00

"Watering," Read it here."

time “persists merely as a consequence of the events taking place in it.”--Heidegger

2010-01-06T20:37:00.003-05:00

interesting article about the human perception of time.

ch-ch-ch-changes

2009-12-31T16:34:00.010-05:00

it's been a hell of a december. horror highlights: I had the H1N1 virus, and my s.o., jim, decided to move out (tomorrow, on the new year). it's an amicable parting, probably best for us both, but very sad. these last few days of saying good-bye have been heartbreaking. and now I am faced with my entire future--grocery shopping for one (is there anything sadder?), wondering whether I will be able to afford to stay in this house or have to sell and rent. should I (can I stand to) stay in Savannah until I am vested at school (6 more years) and eligible for a pittance of a retirement? can I manage Lucy (dog) alone? can I manage myself alone?

this entire past decade has been one of swift and profound change. life as we knew it in the U.S. ended on September 11, 2001. and racism as we know it took a big hit on January 20, 2009. war, unfortunately, is not over.

among other personal endings I faced the end of my marriage, of my son living at home, of my life in a house I loved on a lake in Atlanta, of my professional relationships with my editors and agent...and now of my relationship with jim. I have endured lyme disease, gallbladder surgery, several colonoscopies, all manor of minor ailments, and clinical depression.

among the good things: I published two novels and a chapbook. my son graduated (BS, MS) from Stanford and began living a cool life working for Yelp! in San Francisco. my daughter married and had my grandson, my beloved max, while managing to continue working as community editor of The New York Times web. her husband, my son-in-law, quickly worked his way from beginning a writing career as a freelancer to executive editor of Billboard magazine, and a veteran TV guest.

I became a certified high school teacher, which, despite current furloughs and salary and step freezes and a wide variety of annoyances, has meant that I can (barely) support myself for the first time in my life. I also began a meditation practice, which has helped me in every aspect of my life.

so tonight the decade ends--with no less than a blue full moon eclipse. and though I grieve the loss of all that has passed, I acknowledge that all things do pass, and I am grateful for all I have and for having lived.

and, oh yeah, I am grateful for henrietta, my 2000 honda civic, who, bless her engine, is NOT giving up the ghost with the decade.

happy new year.

2009-12-06T16:53:00.001-05:00

giving thanks

2009-11-25T16:45:00.000-05:00

i am blessed and grateful.

happy thanksgiving, all.

Buddhist humor

2009-11-19T18:24:00.002-05:00

transform the ugly American revenge impulse into something celebratory and optimistic.

2009-11-13T07:46:00.002-05:00

The Lethal Injection College Fund
Here's one billion dollars. Kill a few people, or help thousands?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, November 13, 2009

Here's a modestly clever idea that will never come to pass in a thousand years because it's absolutely not the way modern life or America work right now, but it's nevertheless all sorts of delightfully ironic fun to ponder anyway.

I'm reading a bit about how our fine, God-loving nation just executed John Allen Muhammad, aka the Washington D.C. sniper, injected his remorseless flesh with a megadose of sodium pentothal as dozens of people actually chose to sit behind a glass wall and watch him writhe and twitch and die sans any final statement or single sign of penitence or satisfying explanation as to his murderous actions.

If you like, you can read the story right now on this fair site, and then jump to the bottom where you will certainly find a reeking cesspool of some of the most nasty, disturbing anonymous comments from fine, God-fearing Americans, and then proceed calmly to feeling utterly soiled, disgusted and sad about the human race as a whole.

Here's a better idea: Skip that, and instead check out the recent study from the Death Penalty Information Center, which states that after all court costs, fees and various social machinations are factored in, the average death sentence costs each state that supports it about $30 million per inmate, running well into hundreds of millions in wasted taxpayer dollars every year.

I say "wasted" because the study proves that, even from a simple economic perspective, the death penalty is ridiculous and culturally debilitating, and the various states in question could save hundreds of millions a year simply by locking the prisoner up for life.

To be honest, the first idea to occur to me wasn't even all that clever. I initially wondered what would happen if you took, say, 30 of the nastiest, most hateful, eye-for-an-eye death penalty supporters and anonymous commenters in America today, and made them the following offer:

I will hereby give each of you $1 million if you agree that we will not kill this insane, murderous criminal, and instead just let him rot in prison for the rest of his life without a chance of parole. A million bucks, all for you. Or, we kill him, waste the $30 million and you get nothing.

Do you know how many would accept? Of course you do. All of them. Which means, for most, support of the death penalty is no serious moral conviction at all; it's merely an ugly, black hunk of reactionary spittle, the bleak human vengeance synapse writ large, something reptilian and small and just about as far from our often hypocritical concepts of God and forgiveness, compassion and understanding, as you can possibly get.

Thankfully, this admittedly spiteful thought soon passed and quickly led to the wider idea I mentioned at the top of this column. Do you know what $30 million can buy these days? What your average cash-strapped urban playground could do with that kind of money, particularly during a recession?

Here's my simple and semi-obvious idea: what if Washington D.C. had taken the same $30 million, and instead of killing a single remorseless criminal, created upwards of 600 full-ride college scholarships for lower-income or minority students, at 50 grand each.

In other words, for every criminal a given state is seeking to execute -- like, for example, the Fort Hood killer, who they say might well be eligible for the death penalty -- we take the same tens of millions in taxpayer dollars and send hundreds of kids through college instead, kids who otherwise would never have been able to afford it and in fact might've ended up on the streets or in prison.

We'll call it the Lethal Injection College Fund. It shall, by its very existence, do nothing less than completely transform the ugly American revenge impulse into something celebratory and optimistic. We shall transmute a brutal crime into a glimmer of hope and possibility. From dark to light. From excrement, flowers. From our most violent nightmares, a hint of grace. What a thing.

In 2008, the United States executed about 30 males, all by lethal injection, unless they lived in South Carolina, in which case it was electrocution preceded by being forced to stare for two full weeks at a poster of Lindsay Graham. Horrible.

That's nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money wasted last year alone across the U.S. -- mostly in the South -- just to kill a few criminals, just to keep alive a vile and primitive idea that's proven to be not the slightest deterrent to violent crime, and only puts us on par with some of the world's most cruel and sadistic third-world nations. Theoretically, that's 18,000 kids we could've put through college. One dead criminal, or 18,000 educated kids. What a choice.

Did you note the fascinating kicker regarding the Lethal Injection College Fund? The amazing twist? Among those theoretical 18,000, it's a safe bet that, had it not been for the LICF, many would've eventually wound up in prison themselves, a few probably on death row. Translation: One violent criminal saves countless potential future criminals from the same fate. There's a karmic lesson in there somewhere.

Do not misunderstand. I am well aware of the utter absurdity of this idea, not to mention that you could take the same simplistic formula and apply it just about anywhere -- for example, say, flipping the insane cost of a single U.S. military fighter jet (also about $30 million, ironically) into how many homeless puppies could be saved if we used that money for shelters. I realize that the economy simply does not work this way.

Unless it does. Because of course, the death penalty has a special, particularly nasty tang. It is no weapon for peace. It is no advancement of the human experiment. It only serves to devolve, regress, keep us low and brutal and mean.

I would like to report that we are nearing the end of the reactionary bloodlust phase of the American experiment, that, with the Obama-inspired resurgence of positivism and the concomitant lessening of the bogus, pseudo-cowboy American fantasy, the dark energy that seems to welcome the death penalty is lessening, and it feels as if we are about to join the rest of the civilized world in rejecting this inhumane, animalistic practice.

But of course, I can't possibly say such a thing. We are nowhere near that point. Not when 65 percent of Americans still support the death penalty, bullets are sold out across the land, and millions absolutely refuse to evolve past paranoia and fear and vengeance, the ugliest of American cornerstones and the most clenched, spiritually bereft aspects of our national identity.

And now, John Allen Muhammad is dead, and no one anywhere feels the slightest bit better, not really, not if they're honest, not if they truly look their god in the eye and try to justify this dark, spirtually bereft human impulse. And, oh yes, 600 hypothetical kids will now never go to college.

Oh well. It was all just a silly fantasy anyway.

________________

Mark Morford's column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/11/13/notes111309.DTL
© 2009 Hearst Communications Inc.

honor veterans Nov. 11; honor life Nov. 12

2009-11-10T18:37:00.006-05:00

November 12 is the day of the Charter for Compassion!

celebrate!

2009-10-31T08:21:00.002-04:00

the dark half of the year

choosing your religion made easy with flow chart!

2009-10-27T19:14:00.003-04:00

posted on the awesome grrlscientist blog

happy 35th birthday, heather!

2009-10-20T07:20:00.000-04:00

new moon wishes

2009-10-17T21:26:00.001-04:00

tonight

Let Peace Reign

2009-10-10T13:20:00.007-04:00

October is a month filled with important celebratory dates for me: my grandson's birthday, my daughter's birthday, my sister's birthday, my nephews' birthdays, my aunt's birthday...many birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, including the birthday of John Lennon and anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the Americas.

to this add various other harvest festivals, days of atonement and celebrations of the dead, and October rivals December for things to celebrate and remember.

and now Barack Obama has been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize (because, despite his brief tenure as leader of the free world, he has changed the timbre, tone and direction of the world conversation--not a moment too soon) and His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been award the Tom Lantos Prize for humanitarian effort.

I can't help but stop and watch the leaves change color (subtly though they may here in Savannah) and meditate on what is truly important: love and compassion and equality and peace.

happy autumnal equinox/international peace day

2009-09-21T22:33:00.002-04:00

Six Little Things

2009-09-17T20:03:00.005-04:00

a little story of mine appears in this cool zine: Six Little Things

every issue has a different theme and different accompanying artwork. I swear I had no idea the art for this issue would look like walking blunts!

a letter I didn't write...

2009-09-05T09:01:00.004-04:00

because, as a high school teacher, i would never use such language publicly.
Dear Republicans...

and please, respect your children.

as for intelligence in action...

R.I.P. , Senator Edward Kennedy

2009-08-26T07:01:00.001-04:00

mein health

2009-08-23T15:30:00.002-04:00

from the LA Times

power to the spirit!

2009-08-21T13:45:00.000-04:00

Our problems, both those we experience externally such as wars, crime and violence and those we experience internally as emotional and psychological suffering will not be solved until we address this underlying neglect of our inner dimension. That is why the great movements of the last hundred years and more--democracy, liberalism, socialism, and Communism--have all failed to deliver the universal benefits they were supposed to provide, despite many wonderful ideas. A revolution is called for, certainly, but not a political, an economic, or a technical revolution. We have had enough experience of these during the past century to know that a purely external approach will not suffice. What I propose is a spiritual revolution.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

half the sky

2009-08-19T21:19:00.014-04:00

I love New York Times reporter Nick Kristof. He is deeply committed to investigating and writing about things that matter--to him, to all humans, to the planet-- whether they are issues of global importance or insights into the daily lives of people often unseen. Every time I read or listen to him I have renewed faith in humanity. (Whereas when I turn on the news and hear about the idiocies going on in town hall meetings across the country I want to tear out my hair! )

This week's Sunday Magazine features an article excerpted from his upcoming book, Half the Sky, written with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, about the necessity of empowering women in the developing world. Kristof's thesis is that the central moral battle of the 21st century is against the brutality inflicted on women in developing nations. He tells a number of women's stories, horrifying and inspiring, about those who survived the most deplorable conditions and went on to make productive, even successful lives, often helping others. The smallest financial aid can turn a life around.

I'm thinking right now about what I can do.

Check out the article and perhaps enter the contest.

omg I too was born in Kenya !

2009-08-12T00:00:00.004-04:00

can you give a hint?

2009-08-04T21:01:00.003-04:00

writers of flash, sudden, micro and other teeny tiny fiction take note: the norton hint fiction anthology is open to submissions.
see guidelines here.

happy birthday, Jack! xxx

2009-08-02T17:54:00.002-04:00

sites to soar i's

2009-07-31T14:19:00.003-04:00

there are so many writers' sites on the internet, so many places to find prompts or discuss the publishing industry or critique work in progress. I have been a member of Zoetrope for ten years and have met some of my closest (not geographically!) friends there.

every now and then some of those friends start other sites, and here are two excellent new ones:

readwritepoem

and flashfiction.net.

good stuff. check them out.

electric urgency

2009-07-10T20:59:00.007-04:00

Pudding House Press has just published my chapbook of poetry and flash fiction, Electric Urgency. Of course, chapbooks must be hawked. so, I officially announce the news here!

If anyone is interested in buying or reviewing a (signed) copy, send $12. to me at paypal (use my email addy: moondoxy@mac.com) or email me or see other options below.

I have to say I rather like the book. I'm glad to see the selections I choose together and the cover is growing on me. I think the blank billboards are the electric sort, non-working (thus, urgency); jim thinks I am reading too much into it.

I like the blankness because I can write or draw in there! or, readers can color in their own copies! how cool is that?

Ordering Options:
Pudding House phone orders: 614-986-1881
email at jen@puddinghouse.com
and mail order :

state title, author, 1 copy at $10 + 2.50 p/h
send to
Pudding House
81 Shadymere Lane
Columbus Ohio 43213

Ossabaw Island

2009-07-01T20:25:00.012-04:00

As part of the Ossabest Program, I spent three days on the magical (if itchy) Ossabaw Island, a large (26,000 acres) barrier island 20 miles south of Savannah off the coast of Georgia.

or click here
(from wikipedia):
History
Evidence of human presence extends for at least 4,000 years based on pottery shards unearthed from the island's numerous oyster shell middens. It was inhabited by the Guale Indians at the time of the Spanish exploration of the Georgia coast in the early 1500s. Throughout the Spanish mission period the Guale alternately supplied and fought with the Spanish. When English occupation of the area replaced the Spanish in the 1730s, the Guale had moved inland possibly in response to disease and coastal marauding under the Spanish. The earliest English treaties reserved the island as hunting and fishing grounds for the Creek Indians.
In 1758 a group of Creek leaders was persuaded to convey the island to King George II of England. In 1760 the island passed into private ownership and was farmed and timbered with slave labor and was eventually divided into four plantations. After the American Civil War the island was farmed on a small scale by several owners and tenant farmers until the early 20th century. After 1916 it was used as a hunting retreat while owned by a group of wealthy businessman until it was purchased in 1924 by Dr. Henry Norton Torrey and his wife Nell Ford Torrey of Detroit, Michigan.
In 1961 The Ossabaw Foundation created by Eleanor Torrey West and Clifford B. West launched the Ossabaw Island Project as an artistic and scholarly retreat. Over the years the island's solitude and natural beauty served as the setting for such luminaries as: composers Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber; writers Ralph Ellison, Annie Dillard, Olive Ann Burns, and Margaret Atwood ; sculptor Harry Bertoia; and scientist Eugene Odum among many others. The Ossabaw Foundation was also host to The Genesis Project, scientific research and public use and education programs on the island.
In 1978, no longer able to subsidize the artistic, educational, and scientific activity on the island, and eschewing lucrative offers of resort development, Mrs. West and her brother's children chose to sell the island to the State of Georgia as a Heritage Preserve with the understanding that Ossabaw would "be used for natural, scientific and cultural study, research and education, and environmentally sound preservation, conservation and management of the Island’s ecosystem.”

poetry was killing her

2009-06-29T16:55:00.003-04:00

Are poets and fiction writers equal but separate? Read what my dear friend, writer Laura Valeri has to say about her experience in her essay in Fiction Writers Review.

a conversation about creativity

2009-06-28T18:25:00.006-04:00

between authors Ellen Meister (my good friend) and Saralee Rosenberg in Eclectica.

Thomas Edison once said that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Can the same be said about creativity in general? Novelists Saralee Rosenberg, author of Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead, and Ellen Meister, author of The Smart One, had an online chat to discuss this issue.

michael jackson, rip

2009-06-26T17:12:00.001-04:00

yay, fat (but not too much)

2009-06-26T09:15:00.001-04:00

June 26, 2009 The New York Times
Excess Pounds, but Not Too Many, May Lead to Longer Life

By RONI CARYN RABIN

Being overweight won’t kill you — it may even help you live longer. That’s the latest from a study that analyzed data on 11,326 Canadian adults, ages 25 and older, who were followed over a 12-year period.

The report, published online last week in the journal Obesity, found that overall, people who were overweight but not obese — defined as a body mass index of 25 to 29.9 — were actually less likely to die than people of normal weight, defined as a B.M.I. of 18.5 to 24.9.

By contrast, people who were underweight, with a B.M.I. under 18.5, were more likely to die than those of average weight. Their risk of dying was 73 percent higher than that of normal weight people, while the risk of dying for those who were overweight was 17 percent lower than for people of normal weight.

The finding adds to a simmering scientific controversy over the optimal weight for adults. In 2007, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute reported that overweight adults were less likely than normal weight adults to die from a variety of diseases, including infections and lung disease.

“Overweight may not be the problem we thought it was,” said Dr. David H. Feeny, a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., and one of the authors of the study. “Overweight was protective.”

He said the finding may be due to the fact that a little excess weight is protective for the elderly, who are at greatest risk for dying, or because many health conditions associated with being overweight, like high blood pressure, are being treated with medication.

The study took into account smoking status, physical activity, age, gender and alcohol consumption. It included a separate analysis excluding those who died early in the 12-year period, in order to weed out participants who might have been thin because they were smokers or had an underlying disease, like cancer.

happy Bloomsday!

2009-06-16T16:28:00.002-04:00

Dublin ignores recession to celebrate Bloomsday

Tuesday, 16 Jun, 2009

DUBLIN: Thousands of James Joyce fans Tuesday cast aside worries about recession in Ireland to recreate Bloomsday, the fictitious day at the centre of the author’s most famous novel, ‘Ulysses.’

The annual literary hooley involves devoted Joyceans dressing in the fashions of 1904, eating the ‘inner organs of beasts and fowls,’ attending readings and celebrating at various venues and pubs mentioned in the book.

The 700-page Ulysses charts the adventures of the novel’s hero Leopold Bloom, a Jewish advertising salesman, and young poet Stephen Dedalus as they wander the streets of Dublin 105 years ago.

Bloomsday was first marked in 1929 in Paris, eight years after ‘Ulysses’was completed. It has now become a June 12 to 16 festival for the Irish capital as followers of one of the country’s leading writers flock from around the
world.

Joyce himself famously worried on the 20th anniversary of Bloomsday: ‘Will anyone remember this date?’The first and most famous Bloomsday celebration in Dublin took place on the 50th anniversary in 1954, when a group of writers set off in horse drawn cabs with the intention of visiting all the locations of the novel.

Their odyssey was truncated after stops at several pubs. Followers are similarly diverted today.

There is no official Bloomsday programme said James Quinn of the James Joyce Centre.

‘We have the traditional breakfasts here but there is no co-ordination of events. People wander around and turn up at locations throughout the day for events like the lunch that Bloom had of a gorgonzola sandwich and glass of burgundy.’ Arts Minister Michael Mansergh, who performed a reading in the centre city, described Bloomsday as a ‘unique day for Dublin.’

‘It provides an opportunity for Joycean followers all over the world to celebrate Joyce’s seminal work.

‘It is best celebrated and recognised in his own city. Nowhere else in the world is Bloomsday and indeed Joyce himself commemorated with such enthusiasm.’ Traditionalists dressed up in Edwardian costume, or something resembling it — straw hats, stripy blazers, waistcoats, long skirts, parasols, watchchains and any other trimmings.

For the purists with strong stomachs breakfast was a grilled pork or mutton kidney, slightly singed, but could also include giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart and liver slices fried with crust crumbs.

Any cooked breakfast is acceptable, especially if accompanied by booze.

Aficionados also swam at the Forty Foot bathing spot in the south city visited the Joyce museum in a Martello Tower in Sandycove and bought lemon soap.

‘Anyone who happens to be in Dublin on June 16 who might not have heard about Bloomsday before really enjoys it because there is so much going on,’ said Aine Kavanagh, Dublin Tourism spokeswoman.

‘Its great because it then gives them an interest in Joyce and the various attractions associated with him.’ Joyce, who spent most of his life in exile, had a love-hate relationship with the city of his birth.

‘How sick, sick, sick I am of Dublin!’ he wrote in 1909. ‘It is the city of failure, of rancour and of unhappiness.’ — AFP

school's out and I feel like dancin'

2009-06-13T10:10:00.000-04:00

Monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery visit Savannah

2009-06-07T23:38:00.001-04:00

and create an exquisite sand painting mandala and then empty it into the river

gay marriage

2009-05-31T07:59:00.001-04:00

will lead to sex with ducks. who knew? pat robertson, apparently, and the brilliant "Garfunkel and Oates." these gels rock! er, quack.

good news and bad news, neither life altering*

2009-05-27T18:03:00.007-04:00

*at least not my life.

first the good: Alice Munro won the prestigious Man-Booker International Prize for a body of work in literature. damn straight!

The Man Booker International Prize, worth £60,000 to the winner, is awarded once every two years to a living author for a body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage. It was first awarded to Ismail Kadaré in 2005 and then to Chinua Achebe in 2007.

Best known for her short stories, Munro is one of Canada's most celebrated writers. On receiving the news of her win, she said, ‘I am totally amazed and delighted.'

and the bad? oh, just that I discovered my car tires were torn and shredded, bands showing, and I had to rush to get new ones and an alignment, to the tune of $500., and so now my tax return money is officially depleted. I'd hoped for a new laptop, or a vacation, or getting my house painted...

oh well. it's only money. could have been worse. but god bless Henrietta Honda, the best, most reliable car I have ever owned. we are growing old together. (OK, a word of praise for Guenther, the almost-antique Mercedes, purchased by my son's grandparents on the day he was born, handed down to him, saving his life in a highway accident once, driven now by Jim. Guenther is golden, too, in a beat-up kinda way. both he and Henrietta sport green magnetic peace signs on their doors. maybe that's what keeps 'em young at heart.)

guess I can't complain.

and YAY Alice Munro!

global scorning

2009-05-17T09:06:00.003-04:00

my mother's refrigerator--the harvest gold model we grew up getting our orange juice ice pops out of, the one my sister inherited when she took on the house--lasted thirty years. I'm not sure it ever died; quite possibly well-meaning relatives locked eyes over a holiday dinner table and silently agreed to whisper to my brother-in-law as he cleared their plates, "it's time."

my current refrigerator, on the other hand, a stylish stainless steel side-by-side with automatic water and ice dispenser, lasted five years.

as did its cousin, my washing machine. just over five years. two weeks out of warranty, to be exact.

it's possible Sears is out to get me. at any rate, I can say with certainty that I am done with Sears. forever. at least so far as appliances are concerned. which is not to say that any other American brand will fare any better. aren't they all, like publishing companies, owned by the same two or three corporations now? (at least the Maytag repairman is no longer lonely. he's collecting unemployment and working off the books for his son's start-up internet venture.)

at least I know what I am going to do with the disposable income I don't have. replace my 10 year old Honda, god bless her rubber soul? no way. get my peeling house painted? another next year. hope my 15 year old, freon-leaking HVAC system holds up another season? you betcha. go on vacation?

now that's just cruel.

what does my desk reveal about me?

2009-05-06T17:52:00.001-04:00

feel free to offer your analysis. check out the pic of my work space (and lots of others. in fact, submit your own!) at Sitting Pretty.

happy May Day! (Beltane)

2009-04-30T22:50:00.001-04:00

2009-04-22T16:23:00.001-04:00

r.i.p. , Deborah Digges

2009-04-19T09:07:00.002-04:00

another poet lost to suicide, April 10, 2009.

Darwin's Finches
by Deborah Digges

1
My mother always called it a nest,
the multi-colored mass harvested

from her six daughters' brushes,
and handed it to one of us

after she had shaped it, as we sat in front
of the fire drying our hair.

She said some birds steal anything, a strand
of spider's web, or horse's mane,

the residue of sheep's wool in the grasses
near a fold

where every summer of her girlhood
hundreds nested.

Since then I've seen it for myself, their genius—
how they transform the useless.

I've seen plastics stripped and whittled
into a brilliant straw,

and newspapers—the dates, the years—
supporting the underweavings.

2
As tonight in our bed by the window
you brush my hair to help me sleep, and clean

the brush as my mother did, offering
the nest to the updraft.

I'd like to think it will be lifted as far
as the river, and catch in some white sycamore,

or drift, too light to sink, into the shaded inlets,
the bank-moss, where small fish, frogs, and insects

lay their eggs.
Would this constitute an afterlife?

The story goes that sailors, moored for weeks
off islands they called paradise,

stood in the early sunlight
cutting their hair. And the rare

birds there, nameless, almost extinct,
came down around them

and cleaned the decks
and disappeared into the trees above the sea.

all micro!

2009-04-18T19:16:00.001-04:00

check out the new, all micro-fiction edition of FRIGG magazine. good stuff! beautiful art.

I'm a Hit and Run!

2009-04-13T17:03:00.001-04:00

Maybe you can be, too. Check out photos of writerly notes and scrawls, including mine.

Easter's nearly done

2009-04-12T21:54:00.001-04:00

Hope you enjoyed your eggs and rolled them too.

Easter's almost here

2009-04-11T21:31:00.001-04:00

by any name, so pretty

2009-04-08T18:03:00.004-04:00

it's that time of year: weeks after most people in Savannah have cut their lawns, months (or more) after the ones who really have no lives have done so, the time of year when the doorbell rings and passing pick-ups slow and I get asked the question, "lady, do you need your lawn cut?" "no thanks," I say, " we'll be doing it soon." and we will. or rather, jim will. because even though this is Thunderbolt, lawns are more or less kept cut.

I don't like cut lawns. I mean they can be pretty and, in some places (with fewer fireants than Savannah), nice to run barefoot upon. but oh those chemicals. and the poor meadow critters. and the wildflowers! uncut lawns invariably produce wildflowers. I love wildflowers.

so, since jim is planning to fix the mower soon, I cut some "weeds" for the porch.

the moon cannot be stolen

2009-04-07T17:36:00.001-04:00

Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal.

Ryokan returned and caught him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift."

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.

Ryoken sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."

Poems Out Loud/ Found Poem

2009-04-05T09:52:00.007-04:00

check out our poet laureate's project, many favorite and many unfamiliar (to me) poets, each reading a selected poem out loud. Good stuff!
Thanks, Mr. Pinsky. Great idea!

oh, and check out this, too. (scroll to Katherine Mechling, a fifth grader. I couldn't find a way to post it directly.)

and here's my "found poem" for today (thanks to Beliefnet Horoscope):

"A Different Kind of Discomfort"

Just as we start to recover from the heaviness
of yesterday's Mars-Saturn opposition, we face

a different kind of discomfort. Instead of being
constrained by responsibilities, today's Leo Moon

encourages spontaneity. Rather than preventing
us from doing what we want, authoritative Saturn

is now just a serious annoyance. The Moon's entry
into careful Virgo at 7:01 pm EDT announces that

playtime is over and we must again think
about the workweek ahead.

April is National Poetry Month--Again!

2009-04-03T20:25:00.007-04:00

so, I didn't get the NEH grant (neither did anyone in my department, nor 127 other people. 25 did, but I don't hate them). was kind of bummed and also in a weird way I felt free. now I can think of something else to do this summer.

anyway it's national poetry month. and I got through grading oceans of papers, getting report card grades into the computer, sitting through several meetings and now--SPRING BREAK! sleep! beach! read! write poems?

April Foolery

2009-04-01T19:32:00.005-04:00

so, I am supposed to hear BY April 1 about an NEH summer institute grant for which I applied , but I haven't heard. is this a joke? or is California time like Tybee (Georgia) time: approximate at best? there are four of us in my department who have applied. who will get it? who won't? I feel like one of my seniors waiting on college acceptances. only a lot older. and fatter. and probably less likely to succeed.

oh well, today IS April 1. I loved gmail's little amusement. auto-email!

tune in, turn on, switch off!

2009-03-25T22:20:00.001-04:00

Join Earth Hour this Saturday night.

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness.

In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote. Unlike any election in history, it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from. VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet. Over 74 countries and territories have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday.

We all have a vote, and every single vote counts. Together we can take control of the future of our planet, for future generations.

VOTE EARTH by simply switching off your lights for one hour, and join the world for Earth Hour.

Saturday, March 28, 8:30-9:30pm.

Rmembering Bob Arter

2009-03-11T06:54:00.007-04:00

Dave Clapper posted the following on Facebook yesterday:

Yesterday, I learned that the world lost one of its most beautiful people over the weekend. Bob Arter was, for me, a bit of a mentor, probably without his even realizing it. He was the guest editor of the 17th issue of SmokeLong. As a quadriplegic (due to a surfing accident in 1973), he had to write or type using an instrument held in his mouth. Despite that, he offered line by line edits on hundreds of the submissions that came in for that issue, making us see beauty in pieces we might have more easily passed over. I don't think the writers who submitted for that issue realize how much love Bob put into reading their submissions.

He also NEVER talked about his condition. He wasn't embarrassed by it, but he just wasn't interested in calling attention to it. He was gregarious and met several folks from the Zoetrope community in person. It was only through those meetings that others of us ever learned of how he lived his life day to day.

Tonight, around the world, dozens of writers who loved Bob will be reading pieces of his outdoors, howling at the moon, drinking toasts to him. Maryanne Stahl came up with the idea, and folks immediately jumped on board. Won't you all join us in reading, howling, and drinking to Bob tonight? I'd like to think he'll hear us.

If you have your own favorite piece of Bob's, have at it. If not, links to several of his stories can be found here: howl for bob arter

We love you, Bob. May you rest in peace, finally free of pain.

*********************************************

And so...

I started at five, on the porch, with red wine. I red Riley's Shoes, aloud.

Then I read Springtime on the Moon, Grace, Corinna, Pictures of You, My Mama's Prom, Phiddie:A Remembrance, Telescopy, Jenny Craig..., Remembering Elizabeth, a few more, and then Audrey's Garden. Some I read silently. Most I read aloud but softened the racy parts, on account of the neighbors.

Sometime after six I went back inside, lay on the bed with Jim, had dinner.

At 8 I went outside again. The moon was rising. I read Spaceman. At times my throat hurt so bad I could barely read, but I pressed on, wiping my reading glasses every few sentences.

At the end, I was sobbing. But I stood and looked at the moon for a good while as it hung in the trees. Just before I turned to go in, I whispered, Good night, Bob.

2009-02-28T16:51:00.008-05:00

How to Procrastinate Like Leonardo da Vinci

By W.A. PANNAPACKER

Chronicle of Higher Education February 20, 2009

"Dimmi, dimmi se mai fu fatta cosa alcuna." ("Tell me, tell me if anything ever got done.")
— Attributed to Leonardo

On his deathbed, they say, Leonardo da Vinci regretted that he had left so much unfinished.

Leonardo had so many ideas; he was so ahead of his time. His notebooks were crammed with inventions: new kinds of clocks, a double-hulled ship, flying machines, military tanks, an odometer, the parachute, and a machine gun, to name just a few. If you wanted a new high-tech weapon, a gigantic bronze statue, or a method for moving a river, Leonardo could devise something that just might work.

But Leonardo rarely completed any of the great projects that he sketched in his notebooks. His groundbreaking research in human anatomy resulted in no publications — at least not in his lifetime. Not only did Leonardo fail to realize his potential as an engineer and a scientist, but he also spent his career hounded by creditors to whom he owed paintings and sculptures for which he had accepted payment but — for some reason — could not deliver, even when his deadline was extended by years. His surviving paintings amount to no more than 20, and five or six, including the "Mona Lisa," were still in his possession when he died. Apparently, he was still tinkering with them.

Nowadays, Leonardo might have been hired by a top research university, but it seems likely that he would have been denied tenure. He had lots of notes but relatively little to put in his portfolio.

Leonardo was the kind of person we have come to call a "genius." But he had trouble focusing for long periods on a single project. After he solved its conceptual problems, Leonardo lost interest until someone forced his hand. Even then, Leonardo often became a perfectionist about details that no one else could see, and the job just didn't get done.

A friar named Sabba di Castiglione said of Leonardo, "When he ought to have attended to painting in which no doubt he would have proved a new Appelles, he gave himself entirely to geometry, architecture, and anatomy." Leonardo worked on what interested him at the moment, cultivating his energies and insights, even when those activities were not directly related to his current commissions.

Leonardo, it seems, was a hopeless procrastinator. Or that's what we are supposed to believe, following the narrative started by his earliest biographer, Giorgio Vasari, and continued in the sermons of today's anti-procrastination therapists and motivational speakers. Leonardo, you see, was "afraid of success," so he never really gave his best effort. There was no chance of failure that way. Better to "self-sabotage" than to come up short.

Of course, the therapeutic interpretation of Leonardo — and, perhaps, of many of us in academe who emulate his pattern of seemingly nonproductive creativity — has a long history. Leonardo's reputation spread at exactly the right time for someone to become a symbol of this newly invented moral and psychological disorder: procrastination, a word that sounds just a little too much like what Victorian moralists used to call "self-abuse."

The unambiguously negative idea of procrastination seems unique to the Western world; that is, to Europeans and the places they have colonized in the last 500 years or so. It is a reflection of several historical processes in the years after the discovery of the New World: the Protestant Reformation, the spread of capitalist economics, the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the middle classes, and the growth of the nation-state. As any etymologist will tell you, words are battlegrounds for contending historical processes, and dictionaries are among the best chronicles of those struggles.

The magisterial Oxford English Dictionary presents a wide range of connotations for "procrastinate," ranging from the innocuous "to postpone" to the more negative "to postpone irrationally, obstinately, and out of sinful laziness." The earliest instances of procrastination do not carry the moral sting of the later usages. To procrastinate simply meant to delay for one reason or another, as one might reasonably delay eating dinner because it is only 3 in the afternoon. For example, in 1632 someone described "That benefite of the procrastinating of my Life." In other words, sometimes delay is good; it is a good idea — in this case — to delay the arrival of death.

Somehow it is not surprising that the first notable shift in the moral weight of the term is found in relation to business and the building of empires. In his 1624 account, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, Capt. John Smith — adventurer and founder of Jamestown — wrote of his gang of shiftless cavaliers, "Many such deuices [devices] they fained [feigned] to procrastinate the time." It was, no doubt, owing to this procrastination — not tyrannical leadership and impossible conditions — that Jamestown's early years were so unsuccessful. Eventually, Smith developed the policy of "He that will not worke shall not eate," since eating seems to be one of the few things about which one cannot procrastinate for long. It's a telling moment when procrastination becomes a crime against the state potentially punishable by death.

As time wore on, and the pace of life accelerated, the exhortations against procrastination in the English-speaking world rapidly became stronger. By 1893 we find someone not being accused of procrastination or warned against it, but accusing himself of the shameful vice: "I was too procrastinatingly lazy to expend even that amount of energy." The rhetoric of anti-procrastination — constructed by imperialists, religious zealots, and industrial capitalists — had become internalized. We no longer need to be told that to procrastinate is wrong. We know we are sinners and are ashamed. What can we do but work harder?

Like the English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, we live our lives with regret for what we have not done — or have done imperfectly — instead of taking satisfaction with what we have done, such as, in Coleridge's case, founding English Romanticism in his youth and producing, throughout his life, some of the best poetry and literary criticism ever composed, including his unfinished poem "Kubla Khan." But that was not enough; always, there was some magnum opus that Coleridge should have been writing, that made every smaller project seem like failure, and that led him to seek refuge from procrastinator's guilt in opium.

One thing about this dalliance with the OED is reassuring: If words emerge and evolve over time, it is possible to get behind them, to disconnect the relationship between "signifier" and "signified" so to speak. Since procrastination emerged from a specific historical context, it is not a universal and inescapable element of human experience. We can liberate ourselves from its gravitational pull of judgment, shame, and coercion. We can seize the term for ourselves and redefine it for our purposes. We can even make procrastination — like imagination — into something positive and maybe even essential for the productivity we value above all things.

In 1486, when Leonardo was still struggling with the Sforza horse, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola gave his famous "Oration on the Dignity of Man," encouraging artists to become divine creators in their own right. In this vision, God encourages Adam not to embrace human limitation but to lift himself upward into the realm of the angels.

It was this dream of human perfectibility that animated artists like Michelangelo, and, perhaps, forever rendered Leonardo unable to relinquish voluntarily any of his more serious artistic projects. As Vasari writes, "Leonardo, with his profound intelligence of art, commenced various undertakings, many of which he never completed, because it appeared to him that the hand could never give its due perfection to the object or purpose which he had in his thoughts, or beheld in his imagination." Through his many episodes of alleged procrastination, we see an artist who engages with the irresolvable conflict between unlimited aspiration and the acknowledgment of human limitation.

If Leonardo seemed endlessly distracted by his notebooks and experiments — instead of finishing the details of a painting he had already conceptualized — it was because he understood the fleeting quality of imagination: If you do not get an insight down on paper, and possibly develop it while your excitement lasts, then you are squandering the rarest and most unpredictable of your human capabilities, the very moments when one seems touched by the hand of God.

The principal evidence for that is, of course, Leonardo's notebooks. He kept those notebooks for at least 35 years, and more than 5,000 manuscript pages have survived — perhaps a third of the total — scattered in several archives and private collections. Leonardo's known writings would fill at least 20 volumes, but if one includes the lost materials, he probably wrote enough to fill a hundred.

Some of Leonardo's entries are short jottings; others are lengthy and elaborate. The notebooks give the impression of a mind always at work, even in the midst of ordinary affairs. He returned to some pages intermittently over many years, revising his thoughts and adding drawings and textual elaborations. Several compendiums have been compiled from his notebooks, but, like so many of us, Leonardo never used his voluminous private writings to produce a single published work.

For the most part, his notebooks — like the commonplace books that were kept by students in the Renaissance (Shakespeare's Hamlet had one, for example) — were a polymath's workshop: a place to try out ideas, to develop them over time, and to retain them until circumstances made them more immediately useful.

Leonardo's studies of how light strikes a sphere, for example, enable the continuous modeling of the "Mona Lisa" and "St. John the Baptist." His work in optics might have delayed a project, but his final achievements in painting depended on the experiments — physical and intellectual — that he documented in the notebooks. Far from being a distraction — like many of his contemporaries thought — they represent a lifetime of productive brainstorming, a private working out of the ideas on which his more public work depended. To criticize this work is to believe that what we call genius somehow emerges from the mind fully formed — like Athena from the head of Zeus — without considerable advance preparation. Vasari's quotation of Pope Leo X has rung down through the centuries as a classic indictment of Leonardo's procrastinatory behavior: "Alas! This man will do nothing at all, since he is thinking of the end before he has made a beginning."

If creative procrastination, selectively applied, prevented Leonardo from finishing a few commissions — of minor importance when one is struggling with the inner workings of the cosmos — then only someone who is a complete captive of the modern cult of productive mediocrity that pervades the workplace, particularly in academe, could fault him for it.

Productive mediocrity requires discipline of an ordinary kind. It is safe and threatens no one. Nothing will be changed by mediocrity; mediocrity is completely predictable. It doesn't make the powerful and self-satisfied feel insecure. It doesn't require freedom, because it doesn't do anything unexpected. Mediocrity is the opposite of what we call "genius." Mediocrity gets perfectly mundane things done on time. But genius is uncontrolled and uncontrollable. You cannot produce a work of genius according to a schedule or an outline. As Leonardo knew, it happens through random insights resulting from unforeseen combinations. Genius is inherently outside the realm of known disciplines and linear career paths. Mediocrity does exactly what it's told, like the docile factory workers envisioned by Frederick Winslow Taylor.

Like so many of us in academe, Leonardo was endlessly curious; he did not rely on received wisdom but insisted on going back to the sources, most important nature itself. Would he have achieved more if his focus had been narrower and more rigorously professional? Perhaps he might have completed more statues and altarpieces. He might have made more money. His contemporaries, such as Michelangelo, would have had fewer grounds for mocking him as an impractical eccentric. But we might not remember him now any more than we normally recall the more punctual work of dozens of other Florentine artists of his generation.

Perhaps Leonardo's greatest discovery was not the perfectibility of man but its opposite: He found that even the most profound thought combined with the most ferocious application cannot accomplish something absolutely true and beautiful. We cannot touch the face of God. But we can come close, and his work, imperfect as it may be, is one of the major demonstrations of heroic procrastination in Western history: the acceptance of our imperfection — and the refusal to accept anything less than striving for perfection anyway.

Leonardo is just one example of an individual whose meaning has been constructed, in part, to combat the vice of procrastination; namely, the natural desire to pursue what one finds most interesting and enjoyable rather than what one finds boring and repellent, simply because one's life must be at the service of some compelling interest — some established institutional practice — that is never clearly explained, lest it be challenged and rejected.

Academe is full of potential geniuses who have never done a single thing they wanted to do because there were too many things that needed to be done first: the research projects, conference papers, books and articles — not one of them freely chosen: merely means to some practical end, a career rather than a calling. And so we complete research projects that no longer interest us and write books that no one will read; or we teach with indifference, dutifully boring our students, marking our time until retirement, and slowly forgetting why we entered the profession: because something excited us so much that we subordinated every other obligation to follow it.

If there is one conclusion to be drawn from the life of Leonardo, it is that procrastination reveals the things at which we are most gifted — the things we truly want to do. Procrastination is a calling away from something that we do against our desires toward something that we do for pleasure, in that joyful state of self-forgetful inspiration that we call genius.

--W.A. Pannapacker is an associate professor of English at Hope College.