Wednesday

29 November 2017

— gun-metal gray dawn with streaks of silver

Good Morning All,

In today’s Day Book is my all time favorite quotation, the single wisest item I have ever read in one sentence. Esther likes to give me stick for all my favorite favorites and the two dozen items in my top-ten lists, but this time this quote is really at the top of my list.

I got into quote collecting years ago while reading Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, a novella I love so much I dare not read it, since it plays such havoc with my own writing style.

In it, Buddy Glass, who is the narrator (and my favorite Salinger character), talks about the quotation wall he keeps with his elder brother Seymour. One of them is from the 18th Century Japanese poet Issa:

O snail, 

Climb Mount Fuji, 

But slowly, slowly! 

For years when I was in the mood I’d go in to other teachers' classrooms and write that haiku on the board. It was sort of my Kilroy-was-here. As far as I know, no one ever suspected me. Issa by the way is a pen name and means “a cup of tea”.

The last year of high school and all through college I collected quotes in a stenographer book, which I may still have out in some box at Wales. One of the quotes in it is: “Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”

At the time, I thought it was from George Eliot’s Silas Marner. A couple of years ago, to my shock and amazement, I discovered it is from Dinah Maria Mulock Craik's A Life for a Life. (I’m happy to report I didn’t and don’t think any less of the wisdom of those words even if they come from some obscure Victorian scribbler virtually no one has ever heard of.)

I have inserted my all-time favorite nuggets of wisdom into a list of other favorites below. If you can—before looking below!--correctly pick it out on your first try, I shall gladly buy you a beer the next time we are in the same place at the same time: 

To understand completely is to forgive all. — Tolstoi in War and Peace.

I trust people and I am willing to pay the price. — E. M. Forster in Howard’s End.

You can’t fault people for their good intentions. — Emmanuel Kant in Critique of Pure Reason.

So we beat on boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. — F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby.

Love is a great beautifier. — Louisa May Alcott in Little Women.

Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see. Paul Klee

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/paul_klee“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. — Robert Frost

The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel. — Horace Walpole in a letter to Anne, Countess of Ossory,

There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship. — Iris Murdoch in A Severed Head.

The giver is grateful. — Zen koan.

The earth keeps some vibration going / There in Your Heart, and that is you. / And if the people find you can fiddle, / Why fiddle you must, for all your life. — Edgar Lee Masters in Spoon River Anthology.

We live in a rainbow of Chaos. — Paul Cezanne

Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you. 

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Art does not reproduce what we see: rather, it makes us see. — Paul Klee

Those whom the gods love grow young. — Oscar Wilde

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Two Holly snaps:

Tuesday

28 November 2017

— Blackbirds at the feeders.

Good Morning All,

Our Detroit representative’s journal entry for 26 November 1968 put me in mind of what I still consider to be one of my best life moments.

The three-months that we were in Louisiana allegedly training to go to Swaziland was—in the parlance of the day—a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I liked virtually every other member of our group of hopefuls, as well as all of the dozen Swazis who’d come over to teach us siSwati. I liked some of the staff members, including Collie Coleman, whose support was probably the only reason I was not eventually deselected.

But a couple of the staff members truly rubbed me the wrong way for their self-importance practice and all the bogus bullshit they put us through. Fred, my Peace Corps comrade from Winthrop, and I, for example, usually had to carry the Chief Selection Officer (the psych professor from Notre Dame) home from one of the two local Black bars within walking distance of the defunct Negro college where we were being housed. Fred would laugh and say to me, “Carry him gently, Ron, he holds our future in his hands."

When they decided we were not learning siSwati fast enough, when we were no longer permitted to speak English at all, even after classes were over, when they staged a funeral for the English language, dug a hole, and buried a dictionary in the hole, I was not all that tickled.

But the encounter sessions were the worst, by far. Here we were a bunch of college kids who’d only recently met each other, and here were a few of the staff members actively encouraging us to bear our souls, confess our sins, make accusations against the behaviour of others, whatever. 

Not only was that anathema to my New England sensibility and regard for privacy, I could not see the point of it. Was it supposed to be some sort of modern-day Puritanical purging, sort of willingly putting our heads and hands into metaphorical stocks, so that the other people in the room (most of them not yet much more  than acquaintances) could toss tomatoes at us?

Which gets me to a very quiet girl in our group, who completed the training program, but did not go to Swaziland, either because she was deselected or changed her mind. She seemed to me a very shy and reserved person. She was not a beauty queen, and perhaps that had an impact on her self-confidence. The couple of times I’d chatted with her, including one longish walk, I found her to be a person blessed with kindliness and humor, two qualities high on my list.

Anyway, at one of these encounter sessions, the staff member in charge decided it was time to go after her. She’d been too quiet, he said. She’d not been forthcoming enough. It was time for her to assert herself and tell us something about herself, since she seemed so aloof. She needed to participate, especially if she hoped to go to Swaziland with the rest of the team.

The other half dozen people in the group, bless them, were far more gentle as they encouraged her to open up and be more a part of us. She responded to that and did her best, but then—for however many complex reasons—she seemed to lose control, and suddenly all sorts of private things were being hinted at, as if somehow she thought she was in the midst of her closest friends back home, and not a group of people she hardly knew.

When she got onto the general topic of physical appearance and how important it was for a person’s success or failure, I simply could not sit there any longer, feeling all too sure of what was coming next. Instead, I went to the corner of the room, fetched the metal trashcan, placed it in the middle of our circle, sat down again, took out a deck of cards I happened to have in my pocket, and began flipping them into the trashcan where they made quite a racket.

  Needless to say, I caught hell for that from the staff member and one member of our group. I was asked to defend this rude behavior. Another member of the group said—kindly, I thought—I was just Ron being Ron. I might have been kidding myself, but it seemed to me I saw on the faces of most of the others relief.

Still, I didn’t sleep much that night, mostly for worrying about what the girl had thought of my actions, but also about how exponentially my chances of getting deselected had gone up.

Happily, the girl herself caught up with me next morning on my way to breakfast, gave me a semi-hug, thanked me for coming to her rescue, and (as if reading my thoughts) hoped I’d not damaged my own chances too much. What she actually said was: “I’m certainly glad I’m not packing my suitcase now and calling a cab for the airport.”

Okay, I know that’s boasting. But the sad truth is, there have been all too few moments in my life when I have risen to the occasion, so it’s nice to recall one when circumstances (Lowell’s journal entry) bring one to mind.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Two Holly snaps.

 

 

Monday
27 November 2017

— the palest lavender sky in the southeast

Good Morning All,

Today is Buffalo Bob Smith’s birthday, as I was reminded when I sent out my daily quiz to the ten of you who did not get them the first time around. Here’s the first question in today’s quiz:

1. Art/Culture: Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1917, he had a children’s tv show that included a red-headed, freckled marionette modelled after his sister Esther. Others on the show included Dilly Dally, Clarabell, Major Phineas T. Bluster, Flub-a-Dub, and PrincessSummerfallwinterspring. Hint: Gals.
A. Robert Keeshan  C. Robert Emery

B. Robert Emil Schmidt    D. Robert Barker  

The marionette, of course, was Howdy Doody, and at age nine or so I owned and loved my Howdy Doody marionette. He had a thousand-watt smile and always looked so glad to see me. I got good at the strings, so that I could walk him up and down the stairs and get him to lift his arm and flap his chin as he said, “Howdy!” (I, of course, was convinced I was succeeding as a ventriloquist, but I suspect my family members would abjure.)

Since I was a pretty dreamy kid and spent loads of time in my own company, Howdy became one of my best friends. We could chat for a half an hour while he walked around my room and told me how much he liked all the neat stuff I had in there. It is safe to say that Howdy and his jovial company afforded me some of the very best days of my middle childhood.

Even after the tsunami called puberty hit me, and Howdy went to live in the attic, I still sort of missed him. And when I did go up the attic for something, there he’d be hanging on his hook from the rafters, his head bowed, but still smiling, still ready to go for another walk around my room with me if I ever changed my mind, or at least forgave him for whatever crime he’d committed.

I mention all this because I have a friend who worries about my spending so much time in the past. I was trying to explain that I do not have a very good sense of time, that my entire past all seems to have happened not much more than yesterday, or a week at the most. Plus, I have also found that rooting about in my past quite often has an astonishing effect upon my present.

For example, while I was reading over today’s quiz, when I got to: "that included a red-headed, freckled marionette modelled after his sister Esther,” it suddenly hit me like a sledgehammer to the forehead: “Hey, wait a second, here! Could this possibly have anything to do with a certain red-headed, freckled lass with a sister named Esther?!?!”

The Britta in my head almost immediately responded, “Gee, there’s a compliment, Bheka! You fell in love with me because I reminded you of a plaster-headed string doll from your childhood?”

To which I almost immediately replied, “Well, maybe a bit, although mostly it was when you arrived at  the baseball game and "felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken.”

Who can say how all that works, falling in love? There must have been thousands of reasons I fell in love with Britta, but … well, I did dearly love Howdy, strings and all. So, I’ll submit it is at least possible one of those thousand reasons could have been that I saw in Britta is a new-and-improved Howdy without the strings.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Keep this under your hat, but on a kitchen shelf in our cottage we have a Dilly Dally glass that once held Welch’s grape jelly.

P.P.S. Johs’s 2 of Hearts snap in the Day Book was not a set up picture.

P.P.P.S. Two Holly snaps:

 

 

Sunday

26 November 2017

— Last leaves gliding down between heavy raindrops. 

Good Morning All,

Lord love a duck, it turns out our representative in Detroit kept a journal during our Peace Corps training in Baker Louisiana from early September until we flew home for a week of Christmas before flying to Swaziland on the 30th of December. Below is his entry for 26 November 1968, forty-nine years ago today. (I did write and get permission to cite this entry.)

Among other things, he mentions the Peace Corps selection process. None of the sixty or so people in our group had any guarantee he or she would be chosen to go to Swaziland. We had to prove our worth, reliability, work ethic, social skills, tooth-brushing technique, and God knows what else. 

If we failed to do that, the eleven staff members in charge of our training (including the chief selection officer, an alcoholic psych professor from Norte Dame) could choose to deselect us and send us home to see if we had any new mail from our selective service office. 

One example, two of our members fell in love and got married while we were there. They were deselected on the grounds that such an action demonstrated a level of immaturity that would impede their work and effectiveness in Swaziland. (The horseshit level during our training could sometimes run knee-deep or more.)

He also mentions feedback sessions, which were actually encounter groups,  all the rage back then. With people we’d not met until early September, we sat around in groups of seven or eight being frank, candid, and honest with each other. We got up close and personal. Each group had a staff member present to encourage us to—in the parlance of the day—let it all hang out. You may well imagine how much a New Englander like myself enjoyed that sort of fun. 

Anyway, some of what our Detroit rep says here about me embarrasses me more than a little. I tried taking out some of it and toning down the rest,  but the entry did not hang together then. I’ve decided to leave it in as a testimony to his optimism and generosity of spirit.

I can’t say to what extent this entry will interest you non-Peace-Corps folk on the Day Book list, but I’ll wager you Peace-Corps compatriots will get a kick out of reliving one of the many nutty aspects of those three months in Louisiana:

26 November 1968 Tuesday

A day passed where I worked out crossword puzzles during education meetings dealing with TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). 

We went to staff evaluation readings today. I was below normal by about .3 to . 5 on all topics, but it really didn’t bother me.  It indicates that I should increase my eagerness and ass-kissing, but I don’t feel up to it for the moment. Perhaps later toward the end of our final evaluation.

There were feedback group meetings tonight. I was switched into a new group due to my assignment change [from rural development to education].  The group meeting I found myself in turned out to be long and interesting because a lot of repressed conflict surfaced.  I did not perceive it during the meeting but many said later that I was the catalytic agent at the meeting and added that it changed the past complexion of the meetings.  This was  a super shot to my ego and now I’m trying to control my reaction of being egotistical.  

In thinking over what happened, I remember my attacking Collie Coleman—a black staff member—for being too aggressive to get to know.  He responded aggressively causing others to jump in and concur with my statement.  This touched off a whole series of personality conflicts and the words were blunt and many for about one hour. Further gas was thrown on the fire when I told Collie (in response to a query) that I didn’t consider my feelings and thoughts changed when I conversed with him because he was, as I put it, as white as anybody in the group.  

For a while attacks were turned on Ron Pierce by both Collie and LaDena Schnapper (Mel’s wife).  Ron is a rather eccentric fellow who lives across the hall from me, but it is an eccentricity that I really admire.  Now for the same reason—eccentricity—he is not too popular with the staff (the American staff). Hence the attacks.  

Ron has a peculiar but profound manner of expression similar to that of Mike Robertson’s [intellectual college roommate of mine, also a writer] but in a different language, so to speak.  Ron, like Mike, also writes rather proliferately hunched over his Smith-Corona typewriter smoking odd-shaped pipes and long smelly cigars.

He writes well too.  His manner is mild and gentle like Robertson’s. He is a good person—like Robertson—and for that reason I defended him tooth-and-nail and not, as I later told him, because I felt sorry for him.

I mentioned the witch trial analogy where the people who lied and said they were witches were freed.  Whereas those who denied the accusations perished in the fires. 

Ron’s sense of feeling is very acute. In the midst of the meeting he said that he was probably twice as serious as anybody in the room.  He is, I think. He then produced some evaluation copies he had found.  He described them as people’s lives.  There were extremely important to these people—a lump of xeroxed statistics stapled together—as they were Warren Enger’s [staff member] copies and he (Ron) had found them on the dirty lounge floor. With classic, and now recognized, Piercian cant he said, “And that worries me.”  It worried me too. After his three minute description there was silence. The meeting ended by 1AM…long.

Collie thanked me and was very happy  when we met at the coop later.  That did a lot for me because I wasn’t sure whether I had hurt him or not.  I had hoped not. I had hoped to come through to him that I desired to know him, even though I feared him [for what he could do to my selection prospects]. I had succeeded and this was a great moment for me in a different sort of way, but great.

Thanks, Detroit!

Go Well and Stay Well

Bhekaron

P.S. Erratum: Esther was surprised to learn I finished my novel in 1911, thirty-five years before I was born. It should have been, 2011. 

P.P.S. Two snaps from Peace Corps times. (Probably second time around, but who is counting.)

 

 

Saturday

25 November 2017

— the pale blue air that hovers above a heavy frost on early mornings.

Good Morning All,

Johs’s photo  in today’s Day Book is of the church in Sengeløse. I dimly recollect it was built sometime in the 1200s.

Today's good news (or bad news, depending on your perspective) is that late Thanksgiving night I got to the last page of editing the novel manuscript I completed in 1911. Back then, it was a modest 261,871 words long,  putting it about halfway between Moby Dick (206, 052 words) and Middlemarch (316,059 words), but of course far more interesting than either one of those classics, or—now I think about it—both put together.

This time through it, I’ve managed to lose 101,256 words, though exorcising each and everyone of those words was heart wrenching and about as easy and painless as self-dentistry. If the average page of a novels run around 300 words, the manuscript has gone from 872 pages to only 457. That’s practically beach-reading length.

The title had been Delina Recollected. (Delina pronounced Dee-lee-nuh.) But I do not think that will survive. Since then, it has been The Smell of the Garden after Rain, followed by Head over Hopscotch, and at the moment D. & D. Sitting in a Tree. None of them has made me say: “Yes, that’s it for sure!”

My plan now is to put it away for a month and a bit and then make a final run-through in January, in the hopes of off loading another 20,000 or 30,000 words, or enough to come in around 399 pages. At that time, I shall begin the fun of A) trying to find an agent, or B) trying to find a publisher. I am already working on the cover letter:

Dear Sir/Madam/Ms,

I am a 71 year-old fat guy living in Denmark, who got a poem published in the Christian Science Monitor around fifty years ago, but has not published much recently, other than a couple of vanity books. 

Anyway, enough about me! I have a Coming-of-Age novel about a socially awkward boy growing up in a suburb of Boston who falls in love with a girl who is basically a pain in the butt. There’s not a whole lot of action in the story, but quite a bit of adolescent angst and soul-searching, which goes on for quite some time, roughly 50% longer than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, although not as funny as that novel. 

I would like to market it in the category of Young Adult fiction, but since it takes place in the later 1950s and early 1960s it might sell better for its nostalgia value in the category of Old Adult fiction, even if many of those readers are now dropping like flies.

Family members and friends who have read it have been known to exclaim in the middle of it: “Dear Jesus, if your plan is to come get me in the next month or two, please do so now!”

I do not know what your policy is on monetary advances against publication, but I am somewhat strapped for cash at the moment, and could use, say, a number in the medium six-figure range.

Please let me know where to send the manuscript.

Yours truly,

C. R. Magwaza

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Needless to say, if you would like—after that build up—to look at the first few chapters, I’d be glad to send them. I do actually need a few readers. 

P.P.S. Two Holly snaps: the one with the postcards is of the wall between the cottage living room and kitchen. The green books are a complete set of Dickens. The cartoon is of my Uncle Norman Alberti.