Moveable

SEASONAL SAMPLES, ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Due to some quirky calendar alignment this year, Ash Wednesday coincides with Valentine’s Day (first time since 1945); and Easter coincides with April Fools Day (first time since 1956)! That's what happens when the moveable feasts intersect with the fixed feasts. Scheduling intrigue ensues!

Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day have also overlapped in 1923 and 1934 and will do so again in 2024 and 2029.

Easter has fallen on April Fools Day many times: 1584, 1646, 1657, 1668, 1714, 1725, 1736, 1804, 1866, 1877, 1888, 1923, 1934, 1945, 1956, 2018, 2029, 2040, 2108, 2170, 2181, 2192, 2238, 2249, 2260, 2306, 2317, 2328, 2401, 2412, 2485, 2496, 2553, 2564, 2610, 2621, 2632, 2700, 2762, 2773, 2784, 2857, 2863, 2868, 2925, 2936.

The last time the dual overlap (both Ash Wednesday / Valentines and Easter / April Fools) occurred was 1945; and the next time will be 2029 -- only 11 years to wait! On the other hand, maybe it's better when the special occasions are not combined. After all, why reduce 4 days of significance down to 2 when we mere mortals need all the holidays and Holy Days that we can get, right?

Still, I like the coincidence of the doubled up occasions and, even better, the double - double years such as 1945, 2018, and 2029. Perhaps if the cosmic insistence is powerful enough, we will be swayed to once again privilege nature over commerce -- as observed above in connection with Demuth's "Spring" collage: "By titling his painting Spring, Demuth wryly highlighted the new reality of American life, in which the changing of seasons was heralded not by nature but by commerce."

Demuth has another painting (also in the Art Institute of Chicago) that illustrates what happens when the days become too much the same:

Here's to the novelty of our lunar / liturgical calendar for 2018, and to celebrating, observing, and distinguishing one day from another to the best of our ability! In addition to the connections, this year will also come with its own peculiar set of contradictions: receiving chocolates for Valentine's Day and immediately giving them up for Lent; or the troubling juxtaposition of "Christ is Risen -- April Fools"!

My introspective friend Diane opened the season with a facebook query: "Any creative approaches to Lent this year?"

Her witty friend Stone replied: "I am doing the same thing I do every year for Lent. I just give up for Lent. I will start trying again in 40 days."

To which Diane responded: "Give up. Give in. Give over. Not a bad strategy!"

And I shared: "This answer reminds of the year that I gave up going to church for Lent. I resumed after Easter."

In recent years, my husband Gerry and I have come up with the crazy, perhaps indulgent idea of adding something on instead of giving something up. We rarely remember to enjoy even a glass of red wine with dinner, let alone experiment with any novelty cocktails. So, during Lent, in the interest of giving up monotony, we have been searching inside our liquor cabinet, and trying a new mixed drink of some kind before dinner each evening. To name a few, we have sampled the Delta Sunset, the Sazerac, the Brass Monkey, and the slightly unsafe but extremely dramatic Goblet of Fire:

Having spiced things up a bit before dinner, we next addressed the monotony / consistency of our after - dinner rut / routine: Tetley Tea, round bags only! Lent is the time that we steer away from our tried and true favorite and brew up some of the other fine flavors that have made their way into our tea caddy: green cafs and decafs, mints and peppermints, raspberry and other berries, chamomiles and assorted organics. A nearly endless variety, yet none so delicious as that first cup of Tetley Round on Easter Morning!

Moving a step beyond tea bags and cocktails, I also have some more serious answers to Diane's question. First, there's taking down the Christmas tree on Ash Wednesday, putting away all the ornaments, and giving up Christmas for Lent. The saddest day of the year. Truly a Lenten pall is cast over my heart the first few days, learning to live again with the bare front window. In place of a few hundred twinkle lights there is now only the pale blue glow of my light - up globe, a mere speck in "the vast expanse of interstellar space"!

Second, for the past 20 years or so, my primary Lenten discipline has been to give up ordering from amazon. I should be able to live for 6 weeks without clicking "place order"!

Back in the pre - amazon days, I started this particular self - restraint by giving up mail order & 1 - 800 shopping. One day my West Philly neighbor Cate was out on the front porch with me when the mailman came by and I reached out to take my mail for the day, which included -- as always -- a stack of mail - order catalogs. She said,"Oh no you don't; I'll take these and put them straight in the recycling for you." I insisted that I wasn't going to order anything -- just look. She insisted that giving up shopping meant not looking as well as not purchasing. Her view made me take my "sacrifice" a step further and take it more seriously.

Third, a few years ago, in addition to amazon -- since I'm used to that one by now -- I decided give up "stuff" for Lent. My goal was one garbage bag full every week: old clothes to Goodwill, old books to the library sale, wherever the "stuff" needed to go in order to be out of my house forever! Even throwing out just plain old trash counts.

I've mentioned this strategy before, but this year I want to try harder to make some visible progress in the war against clutter. I want to commit to the big black garbage bag (or at least a regular brown grocery bag). In addition to the clothes, books, and trash, we're taking DIY leftovers to Habitat for Humanity, over-saved packing materials and plastic food containers to the recycle center, worn beach towels and blankets to the animal shelter or the vet (for making cozy dog beds), re-gifts to friends, relatives, or neighbors who might enjoy the surprise or be able to use the items creatively.

The re - gifting idea comes from a couple of my favorite advice ladies: The Slob Sisters, Pam & Peggy I can't find the exact quote right now, but their advice was that you have to set yourself free from hanging on to every gift you ever receive, that the gift exchange is in the joy of giving and receiving and expressing thanks; after that, it's okay to let the physical gift go out of your life if it doesn't fit in or is just taking up space. (And vice - versa, you can free yourself from any expectation that everyone else must keep the gifts you have given them.)

As you can see, The Slob Sisters were well ahead of the current trend for down - sizing, de - cluttering, and minimalizing. I also appreciate their advice that "it's okay to make a mistake" -- in reference to buying things that you end up dis - liking: clothing, cosmetics, cleaning supplies, knick - knacks. If you simply can't stand the scent of the new hand lotion, you're not required to use up the whole bottle in order to avoid waste, and so forth. Gather up all the unwanted, never - to - be - used - again items and give them away. Or throw them away -- it's okay to make a mistake!

I found that very freeing! It seems so simple, but I don't think we are commonly taught that we can let ourselves off the hook or that it's okay to make a mistake -- even a small one. More often, the vocabulary is about punishing ourselves, or paying the price, or getting what we deserve, or learning to live with our mistakes. How wonderful it would be if we could give up those negative messages -- for Lent and Forever!

How good of the Slob Sisters to give us permission! In their book Get Your Act Together, at the conclusion of a chapter specifically about eating better and exercising -- but also generally applicable to being more organized and kinder to yourself -- Pam and Peggy advise: "Remember, though, you didn't get out of shape in a week, and you're not going to get back into shape in a week. Also, one of your traits is a childlike nature, so be gentle with yourself or you'll rebel" (119).

For additional Lenten reading, about cutting back but also cutting yourself some slack, try Ann Patchett's recent article about giving up stuff, not just for Lent but for twelve months: "My Year of No Shopping." I could see right away why my friend Cate had shared the article with me: because it reminded her of that long ago day when she insisted that I give up browsing through mail order catalogs! Patchett, likewise, has decided that if she's not going to purchase, then she's not even going to look -- no catalogs, no websites, no window shopping. She remembers her parents telling her: "If you want something, wait awhile. Chances are the feeling will pass." The way I learned it: "Want something long enough and you don't," an odd little proverb that confused me at first but eventually made perfect sense.

Patchett's year of no - shopping -- except at grocery stores and bookstores -- reminds me of Barbara Kingsolver's strategy for making it through the year in Animal Vegetable Miracle, when each member of the family is allowed to make one exception to the rule of "buy local eat seasonal." Remember? I think one of the children keeps bananas, or maybe it's dried fruit; and one of them keeps chocolate; the adults hang on to coffee and exotic spices (35).

Patchett's exceptions to the discipline:

"I could buy anything in the grocery store, including flowers. I could buy shampoo and printer cartridges and batteries but only after I’d run out of what I had. I could buy plane tickets and eat out in restaurants. I could buy books . . .

"My first few months of no shopping were full of gleeful discoveries. I ran out of lip balm early on and before making a decision about whether lip balm constituted a need, I looked in my desk drawers and coat pockets. I found five lip balms. Once I started digging around under the bathroom sink I realized I could probably run this experiment for three more years before using up all the lotion, soap and dental floss. It turns out I hadn’t thrown away the hair products and face creams I’d bought over the years and didn’t like; I’d just tossed them all under the sink. I’m using them now, and they’re fine."

I couldn't help noticing the coincidence that Ann, as well as Pam and Peggy, encountered an array of forgotten products under the sink -- all those impulse buys and good intentions! It's also worth noting that they took two different approaches: the Slob Sisters say, "if you can't stand that stuff, throw it out," whereas Patchett says, "use that stuff up!"

I was entertained by Patchett's successful quest for so many stray lip balms, in order to avoid making an unnecessary purchase. However, I would like to gently observe that a simple, or even fancy, chapstick can be found at the grocery store, so the good news is that she could have bought more without violating her no - shopping rule! And as to whether or not lip balm constitutes a need? Indeed it does! In fact, the topic of lip balm has provided an odd little recurring theme to my first week of Lent.

In started when Cate sent a list of things that the well - prepared woman keeps in her handbag -- protein drinks and energy bars, a revolver, a distributor cap, a rosary -- that kind of thing. I wrote back that my purse contents pale by comparison -- mostly kleenex (Swankies!) and chapstick! So boring. Yet, as Cate pointed out: "Well, we all know that chapstick is powerful stuff!" Then a few days later, another friend posted a survey: "If you could pick only one make - up item to wear everyday, what would it be?" Naturally, for me it has to be lip balm -- otherwise, I can't even eat or smile or move my mouth! Please don't ever ask me to give it up!

Whatever you choose to part with -- after six weeks (or a year!) of less shopping, less stuff, less commerce, and more nature -- you are bound to feel so much lighter! Wishing everyone a tidier space, a fulfilling and introspective forty days, and a heart lighter than a feather! All in preparation for the Moveable Feast!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, February 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Poems for Memorial Day

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Memorial Day Service ~ Caney, Kansas ~ 2010
Headstone For My Parents
in Sunnyside Cemetery ~ Caney, Kansas

#1: Memorial Day

On this day every year
our dead afflict us with
a kind of solemn astonishment
at how close to us they remain.

The dates on their headstones
reveal that even in their graves
they grow older year by year
just as we do. They are all still with us.
We are all going in the same direction.

#2: In this once country graveyard

In this once country graveyard
now caught in the tentacles
of a noisily expanding city,
we can feel more intimately than ever
the heavy demands made upon us
by the dead. Here they stand
idling, day and night in the din
of traffic, as mute as time
itself, as still as stone.

They require nothing less
of us than our lives.

#3: How Time Is Kept

In the flurry of our beating hearts
there is never time enough for what we dream of.
Our intimate dead, however, lie calm of face
as if to say, no need for hurry.
They idle in such a wealth of stillness
it can never be wholly spent.

Yet they are close, deep in our one affair.
Don't disturb us, they say, we are busy
at the leisure of not breathing. It takes all our time,
it takes more time than being alive.

All three poems from
the Collected Poems
of Ernest Sandeen (1908 - 1997)
Notre Dame Professor and Poet

In Barbara Kingsolver's sad but magical novel Animal Dreams, the narrator, Codi Noline, joins the people of Grace, Arizona, for "the town's biggest holiday, the Day of All Souls." They walk together to the cemetery to weed and tend the family graves, decorate with marigolds, and enjoy the traditional skull-shaped candies with the children:

"It was the bittersweet Mexican holiday, the Day of the Dead, democratic follow-up to the Catholic celebration of All Hallows. Some people had business with the saints on November 1, and so went to mass, but on November 2, everybody had business at the graveyard." (158 - 59)

Whenever November 2nd and May 30th roll around, I always wish I lived nearer to the cemeteries where most of my loved ones and ancestors are buried so that I too could pay a visit and decorate the graves in the time - honored fashion. When I was growing up, months and months might pass between visits to our grandparents, but we never missed Thanksgiving or Memorial Day weekend.

No matter what the weather, on Memorial Day we spent a good part of the day at the cemetery, attending various ceremonies and speeches in honor of the Veterans and the War Dead; placing wreathes and potted plants; sometimes even planting flowers that would bloom throughout the summer. Nobody really says "Decoration Day" anymore, but that's what I remember calling it when I was small -- because we decorated! If I was lucky enough to spend a week or two of summer vacation with my grandparents, we spent the evenings one of two ways -- sitting on the porch or taking a walk to Sunnyside Cemetery. Those were happy times for me, tagging along, picking stray flowers, and listening to the old stories about those at rest there.

At Thanksgiving, when the cemetery was bare and empty -- no parades, podiums or bands; very few visitors, very few flowers -- even then we didn't miss the opportunity to wander from grave to grave, paying our respects. I guess that was our Midwestern way of observing All Souls -- just three or four weeks late.

These days, I live only a few blocks from the nearest local cemetery and can spend a reflective hour there anytime, thinking of the old days, reading the names of strangers, but it's not quite the same. As Codi says:

"More than anything else I wished I belonged to one of these living, celebrated families, lush as plants, with bones in the ground for roots. I wanted pollen on my cheeks and one of those calcium ancestors to decorate as my own" (165).
~ Reposted from The Quotidian Kit ~

Sunnyside Cemetery on Thanksgiving Day 2007
Caney, Kansas
A Grace for Memorial Day
"Let no wars impede our thanking
God above for this our bread
That our song may end the battles,
Let us feed on that instead."

by Beverly Coyle
from the story "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing"
in The Kneeling Bus, 95
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, June 14thth

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
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my running list of recent reading
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Moving Day

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"GOODBYE, BEAUTIFUL, EMPTY HOUSE . . .
WALLS WE PAINTED, SHELVES WE BUILT, FLOORS WE POLISHED . . . "
[By "we," I mean Gerry!]

*****************************
I am dedicating this blog post to my wonderful neighbors
Mia ~ Zoe ~ Bea
who are boxing up and packing and moving away this summer
Au revoir mes amies!

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

Away went our little family,
like rats leaping off the burning ship.
It hurt to think about everything at once:
our friends, our desert, old home, new home.
We felt giddy and tragic
as we pulled up at a little gas-and-go market
on the outside edge of Tuscon.
Before we set off to seek our fortunes we had to gas up,
of course, and buy snacks for the road.

Barbara Kingsolver
from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, p. 2

*********************************
A poem for every poem -- or in this case, four poems for one another -- all about the momentous occasion of Moving Day. The repeated images speak for themselves. In every poem you'll find the cardboard boxes, the eerie lonely no - person's land somewhere in between past and present and future, the strange light and odd sounds, the absent friends and closed doors, the keys, the landmarks, the old roads trailing behind, the new life stretching out ahead, the uncertainty of transition.

Each poet uniquely captures the sense of dislocation, isolation, and apprehension. Since first reading Joyce Barlow's poem in 1977, I have never failed to feel like "a great historical epic" whenever the occasion calls for such; and I was delighted, more recently, by the similarity of Barbara Kingsolver's sentiment: "We felt giddy and tragic." William Meissner unsettles the reader with his acquatic imagery and surprising motif of the pet goldfish / dead minnow; and Robert Wallace takes us back to a time before cell phones: "The phone has been disconnected."

Starting Out
Suddenly your life is packed away
in boxes and the present
is no longer home
again. You think
I must never leave
any of this. You feel
like a great historical epic,
capturing every moment around
you: the turning of keys, the entering
into rooms, your hand resting comfortably
on the light switch.

And then you are going,
the faces of your friends growing small
as they wave in the rearview mirror,
the sign at the city limits saying
COME BACK SOON

********

Then you are past stopping.
You would like to think you know
where you're going --
the map marked, the road clear.
But how will you know
when you get there?
the signs all blank
on this side, the roads narrowed
to a fine black line
behind you.

It may be you will never see any of this
again, coming suddenly bright
on the dark edges
of sleep. Or perhaps in the early
morning hours of some future room you will sit down
to write all this and find
it is the letter from home you've been waiting for.

Joyce Barlow, American Poet
poem from The Chariton Review, Fall 1977 (vol 3 no 2)


Moving Again
1.
You find yourself filing cardboard boxes for days.
When you open them you'll want everything
exactly as you packed it:
the flowers with petals unbroken, not smelling sour,
the slash of sunlight
caught in the corner
like a pet goldfish.

2.
Moving is a way of teaching yourself
where you've been, you think, while you watch
your wife stare at the soles
of her feet.
It's a way of learning
where you should not be,
like a fish that dreams too often
of breathing air.

3.
You step out the door for the last time,
expecting a hoard of neighbors, tears
hanging from their eyes, transparent laundry.
All that greets you is the empty
backyard, the hot sun
splashing you with salt.

4.
You walk to the truck with the key,
the key -- a dead minnow in your palm
that is suddenly heavier
than any packed suitcase, any davenport.

The engine starts in an instant.
As you drive away,
the exhaust leaves a blue stream behind you
where no fish are swimming.

William Meissner, American Poet
poem from The Chariton Review, Fall 1978 (vol 4 no 2)


Moving
Bookshelves empty, tables lampless, walls
bare, the house is a rubble of moving --
foothills of boxes, trunks
under clouds of ceiling.

My friends
said good-bye hours ago, when June twilight
hung on the hills. Now, in late dark
muggy for stars, moths whir at the yellow porch light,
ping screens. By the one dim floor lamp
among the shadowy undoings of my life,
in a limbo between having gone and having gone,
I sit like a caretaker of my doom.
Not an ashtray or a spoon.
In the real dawn, I will be going.

My friends are sleeping, turned toward
tomorrows without me -- will be sleeping
when I begin to drive the familiar streets and roads
in which the sun will come only after me.

If I called them now, in this hollow
past midnight, anything I said would
be from the future.

Alone in the present,
I wait, smoking (a tin can for ashes).
Bugs thwack on the screens. Beyond love
I am a projectile into the future --
still hours, days away.
Time has stopped at the speed I am going, landmarks
appear strangely in new light,
clouds whirling past me, into the past.

The phone has been disconnected.

Robert Wallace, American Poet
poem from the anthology
Some Haystacks Don't Even Have Any Needle, p. 170


And finally, the beautiful imagery and heart - breaking clarity of Howard Nemerov's poem was new for me in 2004 when my good friend Cate (mentioned many times before on this blog) sent me a copy to guide me on my westward journey. For many years we had lived across the street from each other in Philadelphia; then Cate returned to Ohio, and a year later, following in her footsteps, my family and I returned to Indiana. How aptly Nemerov describes the intensity of those neighborly days and years, and how honestly he portrays the conflicted decision to move away. Nowadays, Cate and I remain "neighbors" in the Midwest -- well, Ohio is right next door to Indiana! -- living proof that some friendships manage to survive the momentous, earth - shattering, giddy, tragic, time - traveling confusion of moving day.

Going Away
Now as the year turns toward its darkness
the car is packed, and time come to start
driving west. We have lived here
for many years and been more or less content;
now we are going away. That is how
things happen, and how into new places,
among other people, we shall carry
our lives with their peculiar memories
both happy and unhappy but either way
touched with a strange tonality
of what is gone but inalienable, the clear
and level light of a late afternoon
out on the terrace, looking to the mountains,
drinking with friends. Voices and laughter
lifted in still air, in a light
that seemed to paralyze time.
We have had kindness here, and some
unkindness; now we are going on.
Though we are young enough still
And militant enough to be resolved,
Keeping our faces to the front, there is
a moment, after saying all farewells,
when we taste the dry and bitter dust
of everything that we have said and done
for many years, and our mouths are dumb,
and the easy tears will not do. Soon
the north wind will shake the leaves,
the leaves will fall. It may be
never again that we shall see them,
the strangers who stand on the steps,
smiling and waving, before the screen doors
of their suddenly forbidden houses.

Howard Nemerov, American Poet
poem from
The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov, p. 220


SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, July 28, 2011

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

How to Keep on Hoping

"Girl With Red Balloon: There is Always Hope"
By contemporary British graffiti artist, Banksy.]

" . . . in a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart."
~Louise Bogan, 1897 - 1970
Poet Laureate of the United States, 1945-46
When my heart is aching for the world's lost heart, I turn to novels, essays, and poetry. If you are feeling sick at heart, one writer you can count on to repair some of the damage is Barbara Kingsolver. Never shamefaced, Kingsolver is a consistent advocate of common sense and social justice. Embedded within the narrative of her novel, Animal Dreams, are a number of letters written to the main character, Codi Noline, from her sister Hallie who has involved herself with life - risking work in Nicaragua. Codi, conflicted and searching for meaning in her life back home, wonders how it is that her sister is "not afraid of loving and losing," how she retains her composure and determination, always moving forward with certainty. Hallie writes back:

"What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive. You keep your eyes open, you see this damned-to-hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, 'What life can I live that will let me breathe in and out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods?' . . .the very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That's about it. Right now I'm living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides" (Animal Dreams, 224, 299).

Hallie's metaphor of being on the road and knowing how to drive reminds me of the E. L. Doctorow passage that Anne Lamott quotes in Bird by Bird: " 'writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you are going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you" (Bird by Bird, 18). Life can work that way too.

Even more compelling than the driving metaphor is Hallie's description of running down the hallway of hope, touching the walls on both sides. I can almost remember that sensation from childhood, the rush that came from stretching my arms out to touch both sides of a narrow corridor at the same time. Likewise, I recall the intoxicating sensation of running outside, trailing my fingers along the borders on either side of an overgrown path or between two rows of tall vegetables in the garden. The current summer movie, The Last Airbender includes a similar scene, filmed from overhead so that the audience can see Aang, the little Child Avatar running between two hedgerows, arms outstretched, fingertips spread wide.

Hallie's simple hope for the world -- elementary kindness -- resembles the wisdom of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: "Please -- a little less love, and a little more common decency" (from the Prologue of his novel Slapstick). I guess calling it common decency is just an ironic play on words, since experience teaches us that it is one of the most uncommon sentiments available, despite being so necessary to peace and order. All we have to do is glance around -- international strife, national crisis, local incivility, anywhere at all -- to see how right Matthew Arnold was when he wrote in 1864 that "the general practice of the world" reposes not on common decency or common sense but on very inadequate ideas:

"The mass of mankind will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they are; very inadequate ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate ideas reposes, and must repose, the general practice of the world. That is as much as saying that whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all. The rush and roar of practical life will always have a dizzying and attracting effect upon the most collected spectator, and tend to draw him into its vortex . . . But it is only by remaining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the point of view of the practical man, that the critic can do the practical man any service; and it is only by the greatest sincerity in pursuing his own course, and by at last convincing even the practical man of his sincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which perpetually threaten him" (Matthew Arnold, "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time").

It's helpful to remind ourselves that the world often seems crazy and inadequate because -- guess what? -- it is crazy and inadequate at certain times, in certain places. Speaking of inadequate ideas, too bad Arnold has to sound so classist and masculine, but what can we do at this point, aside from overlooking his gender exclusivity: "mankind," "himself," and so on? Perhaps he knew not what he did. It does seem that he's trying to say the same thing as Louise Bogan (above) about giving the world back its lost heart, about upgrading to "adequate," about leaving everything that we touch somehow better than the way we found it. We have to keep trying to do that, to stay collected and sincere, to stay within that small circle of seeing things as they are if at all possible, to keep running down the hallway touching the walls on both sides.

So how to keep hoping? How to figure out what to hope for? How to keep from selling out to the general churlishness?

Send answers soon!

Art Appreciation Sketch: Perspective Down the Hallway

DON'T FORGET TO
CHECK BACK FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com