My hidden set of struts and joists

Memento

Bad rap for the bones. More permanent
than muscle, hair or blood, they lie alone,
memento mori always. We praise heart,
cuticle and spleen, but say it, bone,
and there's the slightest knell, word you intone
rather than pronounce, and in our art
the skull however rendered is a stone
to swallow, stern reminder to be smart,
waste not a moment, taste each grape, repent,
smell the coffee and the roses, telephone
your loved ones, think of how your light is spent,
Be in the Now. The skeleton's a drone
and best ignored. Meanwhile, my hidden set
of struts and joists, stroll on. Forget. Forget.

April Lindner


I recently read this poem that I like a lot, and then looked up some information about April Lindner. Apparently she is local - teaches in Philadelphia. And has just published a Young Adult novel. I'm going to read more of her stuff. The Internet is wonderful.

My newsworthy daughter

Had her picture in the local paper when her seventh-grade class was taught by poet-in-residence Daniel Lusk (in 1987).

I am pleased to find that he is doing well today, teaching at the University of Vermont - and still looks pretty much the same as he did 20+ years ago!

The heart changes . . . but we learn of it only from reading or by imagination

Proust, on the essential unknowability of other people, and the way literature compensates for that by allowing us to inhabit the inner life of imaginary others (because they are really ourselves, while we read).

I love his insight at the end that all the changes of our heart are invisible to us because they happen so slowly (most of them). The most intense of all our joys and sorrows “would never have been revealed to us because the slow course of their development stops our perception of them.”

We learn about those changes only from reading and from imagination. Otherwise we would progress from childhood to old age in a kind of fog, constantly changing but mostly unaware of those changes, and seldom surprised by realizations such as “I was such a different person then” or “I can hardly believe that I used to think and feel that way; it seems unthinkable now.”

A 'real' person, profoundly as we may sympathise with him, is in a great measure perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, he remains opaque, offers a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to lift. If some misfortune comes to him, it is only in one small section of the complete idea we have of him that we are capable of feeling any emotion; indeed it is only in one small section of the complete idea he has of himself that he is capable of feeling any emotion either. The novelist's happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque sections, impenetrable by the human spirit, their equivalent in immaterial sections, things, that is, which the spirit can assimilate to itself.

After which it matters not that the actions, the feelings of this new order of creatures appear to us in the guise of truth, since we have made them our own, since it is in ourselves that they are happening, that they are holding in thrall, while we turn over, feverishly, the pages of the book, our quickened breath and staring eyes. And once the novelist has brought us to that state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every emotion is multiplied tenfold, into which his book comes to disturb us as might a dream, but a dream more lucid, and of a more lasting impression than those which come to us in sleep; why, then, for the space of an hour he sets free within us all the joys and sorrows in the world, a few of which, only, we should have to spend years of our actual life in getting to know, and the keenest, the most intense of which would never have been revealed to us because the slow course of their development stops our perception of them.

It is the same in life; the heart changes, and that is our worst misfortune; but we learn of it only from reading or by imagination; for in reality its alteration, like that of certain natural phenomena, is so gradual that, even if we are able to distinguish, successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change.

Proust, Swann’s Way

Incense alleviates depression

Anything in use for millenia by millions must have some benefit, right? Here's some of the science behind incense and the brain. It seems to alleviate depression in mice. (Hallelujah!)

Photo courtesy Nina Aldin Thune

How darkness obliterates things and people every night

So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming on the roof a downpouring of immense darkness began. Nothing, it seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which, creeping in at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers. Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely anything left of body or mind by which one could say, "This is he" or "This is she." Sometimes a hand was raised as if to clutch something or ward off something, or somebody groaned, or somebody laughed aloud as if sharing a joke with nothingness.

from To the Lighthouse

Spring fire

In early spring I love spotting new growth on coniferous plants. Soon it will blend into the rest of the plant, but for a short time you can see the new growth at the end of each branch.

Green, gold, and blue spring fire.

The word Easter used as a verb

Our King back, Oh upon English souls!
Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east
More brightening her, rare-dear Britain, as his reign rolls,
Pride, rose, prince, hero of us, high-priest
Our hearts' charity's hearth's fire, our thoughts' chivalry's throng's Lord.

Gerald Manley Hopkins

A bit Anglo-centric, but interesting nonetheless. That last line exemplifies the best and worst of GMH.

Setting sun

The setting sun shines through the kitchen door every evening. This used to bother me (it's bright light at an odd angle) until I noticed how fantastic food looks in this light.

The shredded smoked gouda cheese is positively glowing!

Sports shrines

Some folks at work have really decorated their spaces with evidence of team loyalty.

Go Phillies! (I don't really pay attention to the Flyers, the Eagles, and the 76ers.)

We have a new roof!

And we really needed it. When the roofers took off the old shingles (two layers), they found lots of wood that needed to be replaced, and two cracked rafters to be fixed.

The crew of 5-6 men worked 12 hours today, and the job isn't quite finished yet. I am always so impressed with hard-working people. The roofers were a terrific bunch. Here you can see the machine that lifted big flats of shingles up onto the roof, as well as a bit of the streaks of mold on the old shingles.

Here is part of the old roof, now consigned to a dumpster:

I don't have any pictures of the new roof yet, as it was dark by the time the men left. I'm looking forward to seeing it tomorrow morning.

This may sound odd, but things like buying a new roof (technically, borrowing to buy a new roof) make me feel like such a grown-up.

Online teaching

Just started training for online teaching. I think I will like this.

Trollope project, part three

Today I finished Anthony Trollope's third novel, La Vendee. This one is difficult to find in print. Hard copies on amazon.com were expensive. I requested a copy from my local library, and received a little book printed before 1900, with brittle yellow pages and tiny, tiny print. Impossible.

So I asked my husband to download the novel on his Kindle. Only 99 cents and - like magic! - within minutes there it was, with print adjustable to any size. At times like this I am humbled by the age of miracles in which we live.

This was a hard novel to like. It took me quite a while to sort out the various characters, and much of the writing seemed cliched and turgid. Trollope's own assessment of this work, from his autobiography:

"The story is certainly inferior to those that had gone before - chiefly because I knew ... in truth, nothing of life in the La Vendée country, and also because the facts of the present time came more within the limits of my powers of storytelling than those of past years. ... The conception as to the feeling of the people is, I think, true; the characters are distinct; and the tale is not dull. As far as I remember, this morsel of criticism is the only one that was ever written on the book."

It's the story of a group of French people loyal to their king and church who resist the efforts of the revolutionary republicans. I was amused by one scene, in which the hero rescues his fiancee when her home is invaded by the evil revolutionary forces. She has no time to dress, and so he throws a blanket over her thin nightdress. She faints, and a lecherous republican soldier grabs the blanket, but our hero manages to carry the nearly naked, unconscious damsel to safety. Talk about your stereotypical romance novel!

What struck me as good about the novel is the realistic depiction of the terrors of war for ordinary people, noncombatants. All are ruined, starved, and murdered - women, children, and old people, not just soldiers. Although there are plenty of patriotic, brave speeches, the old blacksmith who scorns both sides and finally concludes that all the fighting was worthless and served no purpose at all seems to me to have the most realistic, albeit nihilistic, view of events. I am reminded that Tolstoy considered Trollope one of the greatest of English novelists. I wonder if Tolstoy read La Vendee.

Also, now a big fan of e-readers.

Nice surprise

I had tickets to a concert at the Kimmel Center last week that I couldn't use (too tired, too rainy, too busy a week), so I offered them to anyone who could use them, via email at work. Someone I had never met said that she and her husband would like to see the concert (actually, she said that she had never seen an orchestra in person before, and that this would be very exciting). So I was happy to give her the tickets.

To my great surprise, the next morning I found a gift from her on my desk -- eclairs and cookies! And the concert program. And a very sweet thank-you in my email. I think I made better use of the tickets than if I had attended the concert.

Abington Presbyterian Church

I became a member this morning. Seems like a very nice group of people.

But every profession of faith stirs up an equal body of doubt.

A very, very funny blog

Hyperbole and a Half.

Explore. Laugh. Remember.

Hello, spring!

Good week. Got lots done at work. Two estimates on a new roof, both lower than what we expected. And the bulbs have bloomed!

Very fond of forsythia

One of the delights of early spring is forsythia spotting. It's not at all difficult.

Sometimes you see a wall of gold.

Sometimes a fountain of gold.

Sometimes a neat yellow fence.

I don't have any photos of this, but I also especially like the delicate, airy, young forsythia bushes, the ones that aren't big enough to be very showy.

Bright, bright harbingers of spring.

Pinhole camera

My son Tim has been experimenting with pinhole photography. The photo below was made with little more than a piece of film and a couple of pieces of cardboard. Amazing.

There will be rationing

There will be rationing of health care. There is rationing now, for that matter, but we don't usually call it by that name.

Here's Mickey Kaus, from a basically left/Democratic viewpoint, in  "The Real Medicare Divide":

"But the bigger fault line will be the line that is just emerging, between those who want Americans to keep getting whatever health care will make them better–which is more or less Medicare’s current, costly posture–and those who accept some system, whether public or private, that would deny them some treatments because of their expense: the Treaters vs. the Rationers."

He notes, correctly, that President Obama is among the Rationers, and has been obviously so ever since his famous conversation about whether it was a good idea for his grandmother to have hip replacement surgery (which is, in my opinion, a matter worth discussing). I really like, though, Kaus' defense of the Treaters.

And here is Megan McArdle, from a basically right/Libertarian viewpoint, in her post "The GOP Health Plan: A Difference in Kind, not Degree":

"But one thing to keep in mind is that this Medicare plan is not effectively very different from what the Democrats claim ObamaCare is going to do: which is to say, cap the amount of money spent on providing health benefits to those who are not rich enough to opt out of the public system. The Democrats want to do so by having a central committee of experts decide what our health dollars get spent on; the GOP wants to put those decisions into the hands of consumers. But this is not an argument about who loves old, sick people more. Both parties are promising to halt the rapid growth of government health care expenditures, which is definitionally going to fall hardest on old, sick people."

Physicians can do so much more today, compared with what was possible 50-60 years ago. No wonder health care costs more - today doctors can actually do things, like transplant organs and save very, very sick people. Or even just perform routine colonoscopies and other preventive care procedures on almost every patient. None of this was going on 50 years ago.

But though they can perform near-miracles, they still can't perform miracles. And it does seem reasonable to at least have a conversation about where and when and how the rationing will occur, since occur it must.

McArdle:
"Since denying access to health care is really unpopular, it's natural that whenever convenient, both sides will complain that the other is heartlessly (and ham-fistedly) curtailing access to health care. But as the GOP starts to coalesce around block grants and vouchers, it looks like the difference between the models lies less in whether we cut, than in how. The GOP will devolve the decisions as far as possible, while the Democrats will centralize them. That's the debate we should be having, not whether one side or the other are a bunch of heartless bastards who hate sick people."

But still . . .  read Kaus' arguments in favor of the Treaters. Very appealing.

Paper, glue, pennies

My son made a chess set out of paper. Just paper and glue (and a penny glued into the bottom of each piece to give it weight). It's from a book you can buy with the paper forms to cut out.

Perhaps the lad has too much time on his hands . . . .

Old blooms, new blooms

When the snow melted a couple weeks ago, I noticed that one yellow pansy blossom had somehow survived under that cold, wet blanket. Odd to think of that delicate flower blooming under the snow. And now the plant is celebrating spring with new blossoms.

Pansies are pretty tough.

Plus, today the first flower from the bulbs I planted last fall bloomed.

Yay spring!

More mail from the eighties

Proof that my daughter had a good sense of humor, even in grade school.

The angst-o-meter

The difference between 5-1 and 0-6 is about 300 miles and a similar measure on the nearest angst-o-meter (patent pending). The Phillies and Red Sox, preseason betting favorites to collide in the World Series, are instead strapped onto rockets traveling in opposite directions, all the while offering up a case study in the underrated value of peace of mind.

From Rich Hofmann’s column on the Phillies’ latest win, over the Mets, 11-0.

Attention

"It needs good management to enjoy life. I enjoy it twice as much as others, for the measure of enjoyment depends on the greater or less attention that we give to it....The shorter my possession of life the deeper and fuller I must make it."
Michel de Montaigne

This quotation from Montaigne reminds me of two things:
1.       Montaigne had a very good opinion of himself ("I enjoy it twice as much as others")
2.       He's right - the more attention you pay to something, the more you enjoy it.

Point two is the point I always tried to make on the first day of class when I taught Introduction to Poetry. My first-day lecture began something like this.

Introduction to Poetry. Let's begin by talking about football.

I have never enjoyed football. Of course, I've only watched one game; this happened when I was invited to a Rose Bowl party about 12 years ago. I thought this would be a normal party, except with a TV playing in the background for people who wanted to watch. To my surprise, it turned out to be a small group of rapt football fans, seated around a very large television set, each person furnished with a TV tray to hold food and drink. We got up every so often to replenish our plates and glasses from the buffet table. Except for the sounds of chewing and drinking, there was nothing but the Game and talk about the Game.

I tried to watch the Game, but it was meaningless. Just a bunch of colorfully costumed fellows running around a field, and sometimes piling up in what looked like dangerous, haphazard stunts. I understood that one group was trying to get the football past the goal lines on one end of the field, and the other group trying to get the ball in the opposite direction, but that was about it. The scoring seemed Byzantine. There were frequent dead spots in the program, where everyone just stood around. It was excruciatingly tedious. I ate way too many nachos, just to have something to do.

Therefore, it seems pretty obvious that the game of football is boring, pointless, stupid, and dull. Does anyone disagree? 

Well, of course people disagreed. I asked them why I had not enjoyed that one game of football. And everyone observed that I didn't enjoy it because I knew nothing about it. If you don't understand the rules, and the history, and the strategy, and the ongoing story line of the teams, you won't like the game.

Okay, agreed. And it's the same way with poetry. If you haven't read very much poetry, and you don't understand the history of it, and the "rules," and the strategies, and the story lines of movements and poets and literary traditions, it will likely be just as boring to you as football is to me.

I am more than willing to acknowledge that my lack of interest in football is a result of my ignorance and inattention. It is extremely likely that if I spent ten or twenty hours studying the game, I would start to enjoy watching it. (After all, I'm not opposed to sports; I'm crazy about baseball.)

Now, I'm not willing to put that amount of time into learning to appreciate football. My lack of appreciation for football is just something that I can live with happily. And you might feel the same way about poetry: frankly, I can live without it.

That's a perfectly reasonable conclusion. You might feel that way now, and you might feel the same way at the end of the semester (although I hope very much that by the end of the semester you won't say that you positively hate poetry; that would be an unfortunate outcome). However, sometimes it happens that people who put 20-40 hours into studying poetry end up liking it very much indeed, often to their surprise.

What happens to them is what Montaigne (and many others) have noticed: the measure of your enjoyment of something depends on the greater or less attention that you give it. For every person who finds gardening dull, there is someone else for whom it is delightful. For everyone who finds video games dumb and inexplicable, there is someone who finds them fascinating and even addictive. For everyone who hates opera, there is someone else who loves it, and can't live without it.

The difference is partly innate predisposition, but mostly attention. In this class you will learn how to pay attention to poetry, which basically means paying attention to language - more attention than you might have thought possible, down to the level of syllable and letter and placement on the page, and sound and breath and stress. Some of you already like poetry a lot, and in that case my hope is that a semester of paying close attention to several poems will increase your enjoyment. But for everyone, I hope this class will make your life fuller and deeper --  even if the end result is to make you appreciate football more than you did before, because you can think whenever you watch a game, "Well, at least I'm not sitting in that poetry class."

Let's begin by paying close attention to one line.


And off we went. I really liked teaching poetry classes.

From the days when people sent paper letters to each other

Our friend Matthew is an artist - a real artist. He had a show at a gallery in New York recently, and Joyce Carol Oates wrote the introduction to the catalog. He's good, very good. His web site is here.

We happen to own some of his earlier pieces, mixed media works in US postage and pencil. I hope they will be valuable some day. We enjoy them.

Trying to keep his balance

Pig


Poor patient pig – trying to keep his balance,
that’s all, upright on a flatbed ahead of me,
somewhere between Pennsylvania and Ohio,
enjoying the wind, maybe, against the tufts of hair
on the tops of his ears, like a Stoic at the foot
of the gallows, or, with my eyes heavy and glazed
from caffeine and driving, like a soul disembarking,
its flesh probably bacon now tipping into split-
pea soup, or, more painful to me, like a man
in his middle years struggling to remain
vital and honest while we’re all just floating
around accidental-like on a breeze.
What funny thoughts slide into the head,
alone on the interstate with no place to be.

Henri Cole

Jacket with words

In church this week I sat behind a woman wearing a jacket with writing incorporated into the design. It wasn’t obvious at first; the pattern was hidden among various swirls and dabs of color. But eventually I noticed the words:

• We have so much to chat about.
• I’m so glad you’re here. You have such a good heart.
• I can’t wait to see you.
• Thank you – you are a dear friend.

 I wanted to ask her if I could take a photo, but that seemed way too intrusive. So I contented myself with telling her that I admired her jacket when it was time to shake hands and “pass the peace.”

And I do admire it. I wouldn’t wear something so extroverted myself, but I admire people who can do so with a glad spirit.

Wrapping yourself (literally) with cheerful, friendly thoughts might not be such a bad idea.

 Also, I wonder if there is a word for design that incorporates words and/or letters. If not, there should be.

Sunday walk around the neighborhood

Beautiful spring day, time for walking!


So different from just a few weeks ago:

Phillies fans are showing their colors.

Some of the trees look quite muscular.

And there is the occasional Easter egg tree.

Some trees are difficult to comprehend. Who trained this tree to look like this? And why?

A peculiarly pruned bit of shrubbery has always given me pause. What effect do you suppose the owners are going for?

Did they attempt some sort of topiary sea monster?

There is a very hilly section that features modern homes high up above boulders.

These houses look very cool.

One house features a very ambitious greenhouse or sunroom or conservatory or something like that.

A girl in the neighborhood seems to be feeling quite positive: "Madelyn. I am pretty."

There is a stream in the neighborhood, and some houses have bridges in their yards, which impresses me. We have a hard enough time maintaining a regular old house, let alone keeping up with structures like this.

For example, below is my nemesis. This enormous tree on our property needs to be removed. The last time we got an estimate, removal would cost $8,000. That's a lot of money to pay for a stump. We have spent several hundred dollars just to have it trimmed. (Our neighbors would like to see it removed, too. It's a big mess every fall.)

Grrr. Someday we will take care of you, giant tree. Some day.

Oh, well. Not to end on a sour note - later today we visited a used book store where an extremely friendly old dog greets all the customers. Technically, not a part of my walk around the neighborhood, but still in the neighborhood, if you interpret the term broadly.

It was a good day.

Ferry Cross the Mersey

Gerry and the Pacemakers were one of my earliest favorite groups, and Ferry Cross the Mersey was one of my favorite songs. My son Chris once asked me what songs I liked when I first started to listen to music, and I mentioned Gerry and the Pacemakers.

Somehow he found a tape of their first album (this was before CDs, and when obscure things were much harder to find - before the Internet) and gave it to me for Christmas. One of the best presents I ever received.

The first eight innings felt like waking from an anxiety dream, only to find that it wasn't a dream at all.

I really like baseball writing, Today was the Phillies opener. I'm glad I wasn't there, as it was cold and gray and dreary and also very worrisome up until the last inning, which was a corker. The sentence in the title of this post is from a column by Phil Sheridan, Phillies sports writer extraordinaire.