Do Not Worry, Do Not Hurry, Just Eat Curry!

A PLACE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

A quiet spot for coffee, tea, curry, rice pudding
and inspiration:
"No. No, we are not satisfied
and we will not be satisfied
until 'justice rolls down like water
and righteousness like a mighty stream.' "
~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~
Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Fountain & Waterfall
in the lovely Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco
Last year, when I flew out to San Francisco for the first time, I was stressing about the trip and asked my friend Eileen to send me some anti - worry mantras. She had already shared many; but, of course, when I needed them most -- when I was worrying! -- I couldn't remember them.

She e-mailed back with a simple mantra, easy to keep in mind while traveling or anytime:
"Do Not Worry, Do Not Hurry, Just Eat Curry!"
Okay! I could remember that advice and, even better, I could follow it! She added some additional words of wisdom that I continue to find both intriguing and useful: "Just breathe. And remember that anxiety and excitement are in fact the same sensations physiologically speaking, just with either fear stories or looking - forward stories attached. I think that's an oversimplification, but it can help." Yes, it does help! Anxious or excited? Choose your story, determine your mood! The power of narrative! Or, better yet, Nostalgic Narrative Therapy!

At the Samovar Tea Lounge
Unhurried, not worried, ordered curry!

We also discussed worry and perfection. Will we ever be able to stop second guessing that life should be other than it is -- or to accept that, in the words of Toby Maguire's character David, the twin brother in Pleasantville: "It. Is. Not. Supposed. To. Be. Any. Way."

"A great way to feel that comes and goes," Eileen said, supplying the following anecdote: San Francisco Zen Chef "Ed Brown tells a wonderful story about making his first from - scratch biscuits when he began baking at Tassajara. He kept being upset because they didn't taste like or have the same texture as the real biscuits that he remembered from childhood -- 'til he realized that what he was Proustifyin' about were those Pillsbury cartons that you crack and extract the crescents & pop in. He used to do a kickass dharma talk, extrapolating to advertisements, etc., on all the ways we imagine we are not 'measuring up.' Nothing one doesn't already know, intellectually, but to really take it in, receive and accept -- aaahhh!"

We interrupt this blog post
for an unexpected connection!
The best kind, of course! A surprise telephone call from dear Cate, who it certainly seems should know Eileen, although they are each from a different phase of my life (i.e., Cate ~ Philly; Eileen ~ facebook) and have yet to become acquainted. Maybe after this blog post they will!

When I told Cate what I was working on, she jumped right in and told me all about Edward Espe Brown's Tassajara Bread Book and Deborah Madison's Greens Cook Book, and their celebrated San Francisco restaurant Greens. Okay, I know where we're eating next time we visit!

My thanks to Cate
~ talented cook and student of Zen ~
for these cookery eatery references!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now, back to Eileen for further annotation
and explication of our brief new mantra:
"Do Not Worry, Do Not Hurry, Just Eat Curry!"
"I wonder if I even answered the simple question? She tends to leave out the obvious and important. That flurry of 'explain yourself, sir' (it feels more 'sir' than 'ma'am') that can overrun a thoughtful calm, 'Here is what I care about, and here are some ways I have earned a living at it.' So interesting, that wanting to be known for / as who you actually are, whilst resisting naming it; feeling like saying anything will somehow distort what might be 'felt - into' from just exposure over time. I remember when I decided to stop asking people that directly, like at parties, and began experimenting with other indirect probes [as I've heard they do in France]. But especially now, we are curious and wonder how others are putting it together / keeping body and soul together, and making sense and cents (that last word was corny, I just hadda end /stop). Also, facebook tends to just be verbal. I already know I am making a picture of my interests and concerns, in colors and shapes, for someone who wants to pay for my services. Doesn't even feel 'brave,' just feels obvious, easier, more relatable. From two phone calls I am intuiting what this person will enjoy. Quien sabe?"

Another nice lunch ~ this time at Cafe de la Presse

"Maybe it's a self-selection thing (big superego sorts), or maybe it's the scholarly crucible itself, but I can feel the 'military neck' want to happen. I so wanna be / have FUN. & ENUF (ha! I know u c that near - anagram). You know how in the Feldenkrais Method [similar to the Alexander Technique], you can 'visualize' a movement -- even if your body cannot or can no longer execute -- and it will have the same effect, neuro-howeverly? So then, can we not say that metabolizing insights is not doing nothing -- for the greater social organism, I mean. Is that what the Buddha meant by with our thoughts we make the world? All that time spent doubting the value of my natural way of doing my life? And, yes, I'll still do the odd 'motivational discussion,' but it will sound more like quietly coexisting and then 'reporting out to the group.' And inhale. And exhale."
Thanks Eileen!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Try to remember:

1. "Do Not Worry, Do Not Hurry, Just Eat Curry!

2. "It. Is. Not. Supposed. To. Be. Any. Way."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Parting Words of Wisdom

from StoryPeople by Brian Andreas

Things to know about the future.
#1:
It doesn't have to look any particular way,
but around here, if it doesn't,
a lot of people will never speak to you again
[well, just don't worry about those people!]

deciding everything is falling into place perfectly
as long as you don't get too picky
about what you mean by place.
Or perfectly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and from the movie Pleasantville, 1998
script by Gary Ross
David, the previously nerdy teen - aged son has returned from "Pleasantville," wiser in his newfound knowledge that there's no such thing as a perfect life, not even over the rainbow. He finds his mother crying and gently asks her what is wrong.

"MOM: Oh, I don't know. It's all so f---ed up. . . .
You know, when your father was here I thought well this is it.
It's always gonna be like this.
I have the right house and the right car and the right life.

DAVID: There is no right house. There is no right car.

MOM: Oh, God. It's not supposed to be like this. . . .

DAVID: It's not supposed to be anything.

MOM: How'd you get so smart all of a sudden?

DAVID: (stops for a second, smiles to himself, shrugs): I had a good day."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, September 28th

Between now and then,

feel free to take a look at my
San Francisco Photo Albums: October 2012 & September 2013

and 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

Winnow the Dreams

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Sun and Wind on the Roof, 1915
John French Sloan, 1871 - 1951

“Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven."
Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.

Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.

The soul shrinks

From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day,
And cries,

“Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven."

Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,

"Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance."

by Richard Wilbur

Click to hear poet Richard Wilbur read this amazing poem
and explain how he was inspired by the idea of the floating laundry.

Another painting by artisit John French Sloan ~ also inspired by laundry!
Red Kimono on the Roof, 1912

See also:
1. additional perspectives on Wilbur's poem
2. interesting blog post on "Love Calls Us"
3. clever little analysis for beginners

And a few more connections:
1. Contemporary poet, Barbara Kunz Loots describes the tension between possibility and duty with elegant simplicity. For her the "infinite possibilities" are "delicate grain" and the "infinite duties" are "the plain bread of day."

Waking
How hard it is to winnow the dreams from waking,
To watch the gold illusion drift away
And turning to the delicate grain of morning
Grind it into the plain bread of day.
by Barbara Kunz Loots
2. Last week on facebook, epigrammatist and collage artist Michael Lipsey captured the same idea in this fetching visual. Is it a beaver, as in "busy as a beaver" (infinite duty)? Or is it a groundhog, as in if I don't like what I see, I'm not coming out! Maybe it is not the bright sunshine so much as the it is the sheen of infinite possibility that causes the groundhog to shrink from its shadow and run away, overwhelmed. Perhaps love does not call the groundhog to the things of this world.

"There's an in between time when you wake up,
hanging onto the dream, but beginning to remember
things you need to do today." ~ Michael Lispsy
When I read Lipsey's caption concerning the "in between time," I couldn't help thinking of what Loots says about watching "the gold illusion drift away," as the dreamer sifts the wheat from the chaff; and of the "astounded soul" in Wilbur's poem, hanging "bodiless and simple," waiting to rejoin the waking body for another round of mundane errands. At first "the soul shrinks from all that it is about to remember" -- the repetition, the banality, the laundry. But after a few moments of semi - wakeful debate, "the soul descends . . . in bitter love" to accept the reality of the day at hand. Similarly, we rise up "in bitter love" to embrace each day, despite a thousand misgivings. The voice in both poems is resigned yet optimistic: the grain is delicate, the laundry is sacred, the day redeems itself.

3. I am reminded of the E. B. White "To - Do - List" fridge magnet:
"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy.
If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem.
But I arise in the morning torn between
a desire to improve the world
and a desire to enjoy the world.
This makes it hard to plan the day."
White vacillates between enjoyment and accomplishment, as do the sunstruck groundhog (though maybe not the industrious beaver), the reluctant dreamer, and the astounded soul. The vacillation makes it "hard to plan the day" -- but not impossible. One way or another, even if only by "habit" (Wilbur's pun), we accept the challenge of the sun, yawn, rise, go forth day after day, keeping our "difficult balance." I especially like the way that Wilbur's conlcusion can actually be found in his title: "love call us to the things of this world."

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, August 14th

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

La Cucaracha

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

~ A Favorite Game of Childhood ~

~~~~~~~

First they came for the Socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Paraphrased from the lectures of
Lutheran minister Martin Niemöller (1892-1984),
spoke against Hitler and was imprisoned
who in concentration camps from 1937 - 42
Whenever I hear these lines from Niemöller, I am reminded of the following poems by Muriel Rukeyser. And I was reminded of them again this weekend in connection with the hugely popular Purdue Bug Bowl -- a giant science / fun fair, held every spring, where they are more than decent to cockroaches, and insects are king!

What Do We See?
When they’re decent about women, they’re frightful about children,
When they’re decent about children, they’re rotten about artists,
When they’re decent about artists, they’re vicious about whores,
What do we see? What do we not see?

When they’re kind to whores, they’re death on communists,
When they respect communists, they’re foul to bastards,
When they’re human to bastards, they mock at hysterectomy-
What do we see? What do we not see?

When they’re decent about surgery, they bomb the Vietnamese,
When they’re decent to Vietnamese, they’re frightful to police,
When they’re human to police, they rough up lesbians,
What do we see? What do we not see?

When they’re decent to old women, they kick homosexuals,
When they’re good to homosexuals, they can’t stand drug people,
When they’re calm about drug people, they hate all Germans,
What do we see? What do we not see?

Cadenza for the reader

When they’re decent to Jews, they dread the blacks,
When they know blacks, there’s always something : roaches
And the future and children and all potential. Can’t stand themselves
Will we never see? Will we ever know?

by Muriel Rukeyser
from Breaking Open, 1973

In "What Do We See," Rukeyser is willing to count everyone in. Her pattern of inclusiveness extends to all the groups she can think of who are regularly subject to oppression and exclusion. In an ideal world, no group or individual would suffer discrimination for her being or her beliefs; yet the poet is realistic, realizing that even if in theory everyone is accepted, in practice this is almost never so. If we bring ourselves at last to take all human beings on their own terms, we'll balk at something else.


Cockroach, Periplaneta americana
Pushing the limits of tolerance, Rukeyser concludes with an invitation to consider the cockroach. Could we go that far? Can we overcome the words we were taught to sing as children:

La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha!
Me, I love you not at all!
To be fair, the roach is merely another living creature, trying to do its job on the planet, just as we are trying to do ours. In much the same context, Rukeyser expands upon the roach image in a later poem, "St. Roach," testing the reader's ability to empathize with the outgroup, the other. The poem begins with a lament for closemindedness:

St. Roach
For that I never knew you, I only learned to dread you,
for that I never touched you, they told me you are filth,
they showed me by every action to despise your kind;
for that I saw my people making war on you,
I could not tell you apart, one from another,
for that in childhood I lived in places clear of you,
for that all the people I knew met you by
crushing you, stamping you to death, they poured boiling
water on you, they flushed you down,
for that I could not tell one from another
only that you were dark, fast on your feet, and slender.
Not like me.
For that I did not know your poems
And that I do not know any of your sayings
And that I cannot speak or read your language
And that I do not sing your songs
And that I do not teach our children
to eat your food
or know your poems
or sing your songs
But that we say you are filthing our food
But that we know you not at all.

Yesterday I looked at one of you for the first time.
You were lighter than the others in color, that was
neither good nor bad.

I was really looking for the first time.
You seemed troubled and witty.

Today I touched one of you for the first time.
You were startled, you ran, you fled away
Fast as a dancer, light, strange and lovely to the touch.
I reach, I touch, I begin to know you.

by Muriel Rukeyser
from The Gates, 1976 (McGraw-Hill)

Any discussion of the poetic cockroach must include at least a nod to poor Gregor Samsa who is certainly troubled but beyond all wit. Rejected by all who know him, he is a victim of the disregard and loathing that Rukeyser describes. Untouchable.

On the witty side is Archy, the clever typing (all lower case) cockroach (and his friend Mehitabel the cat) created by humorist Don Marquis. Perhaps not as well known today, Archy was everyone's favorite cockroach when I was growing up:

He was literary:

" . . . the main question is
whether the stuff is
literature or not"

romantic:

"when the pendant moon in the leafless tree
clings and sways like a golden bat
i sing its light and my love for thee
. . . us for the life romantic"

wise:

" . . . there is always some
little thing that is too
big for us every
goliath has his david and so on ad finitum

pithy:

"procrastination is the
art of keeping
up with yesterday"

witty:

"to hell with anything unrefined
has always been my motto"

perceptive:

" . . . the lyric and imperial
attitude
believe that everything is for
you until you discover
that you are for it"

cosmic:

"I find it possible to forgive
the universe
i meet it in a give and take spirit
although i do wish
that it would consult me at times"

opinionated:

" . . . i hate one of these
grinning skipping smirking
senseless optimists worse
than i do a cynic or a
pessimist"

and just:

" . . . i would not consider
it honorable in me as a
righteous cockroach to crawl into a
near sighted man s soup . . . "

from
Archy and Mehitabel




A troop of clever cockroaches, perhaps not as wise as Archy but equally entertaining, appear in T. S. Eliot's Book of Practical Cats. The Old Gumbie Cat takes it upon herself to domesticate the roaches and put them to use around the house:


Postcard by dosankodebbie
These cartoonish cockroaches are fun, but it is Rukeyser's "St. Roach" and "What Do We See" that really ask if we are capable of overcoming prejudice and modifying our behavior. Can we open our hearts to the cockroach and grant it the title of "Saint"? A tall order, but something to think about.

What do we see?
What do we not see?
Will we never see?
Will we ever know?
In closing, thanks to Eileen Sheryl Hammer who said,
"We love Muriel, who understands what our world is made of!"

Previous References to Muriel Rukeyser
on this blog:
Icarus, Who Really Fell
Lot's Wife, Who Gave Her Life For a Single Glance
and coming next time: When the Iris Blows Blue

and on my daily blog The Quotidian Kit
All the Little Animals
Another Good Poem by Muriel Rukeyser
The Wrong Answer


SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, April 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

Pastiche

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Greeting Card Collage
To collage the classics. To repurpose. Two weeks ago, I concluded with a promise (to Eileen) to look further into these concepts. Here, for example, is the visual collage that I created in my undergraduate Women's Studies Class, a successful completion of the assignment, I'm sure:

However, it became a problem when I took a similar approach to my written work as well. I was warned against the pastiche: "literary patchworks formed by piecing together extracts from various works by one or several authors" (A Handbook to Literature, Holman & Harmon). But I liked the pastiche! And I like that it comes from the French pastiche = "a medley made up of fragments from different works" . . . and from the Italian pasticcio = "medley, pastry, cake, pasta, paste." Which brings us to collage = "a pasting." Perfect!

Last time, it was a bouquet of flowers; this time it's a tea tray of pastries. Sweet! Who could object? The pastiche may be derivative but Wikipedia assures us that the pastiche celebrates! And so does my friend Paula! Although she doesn't use the precise word, she offers these encouraging words about pastiching (is that a verb? it is now!):

"I’ve been reading lately that it is bad for one’s blog (GASP! O no!) to post bits and pieces of the web with just a little text of my own, because it will cheapen my brand and make me seem like a moocher. I generally try to follow that advice. Hey, wait! What brand? Aging baby boomer pinko crank? Who am I trying to kid here? The fact is, that’s somebody’s opinion, and there’s every chance in the world that it’s wrong, since I never read one piece of advice without reading its exact opposite within 24 hours. Does that happen to you too? But, since this blog ain’t a money-making, mind-blowing dream machine pumping out pro-blogger amounts of traffic, who cares?"

When left to our own devices, we feel free to pastiche, collage, re - purpose, and juxtapose. To connect! Go Paula! Go Eileen!

I learned to love the literary pastiche early, thanks in part to this this well - worn anthology of middle - brow poetry. Perfect for a middle - schooler, this collection was among my favorite books for as long as I can remember.

The American Album of Poetry
compiled by American radio personality
Ted Malone, 1908 - 1989
As the story goes, my mother brought our old maroon copy home from work years before I was ever born, or maybe borrowed it from a friend and never got around to returning it -- something like that, you know, one of those apocryphal anecdotes of how a certain book was fated to enter your life and find a home on your shelf. Anyway, I have to trust that the original owner was a forgiving soul, because my young reader's heart was opened by the presence of that book in our household. It didn't have to contain the best poetry ever written, it just had to be tender and accessible and introduced by a companionable, articulate editor who knew how to polish each little gem and show it in its best light -- not with paragraphs of analysis but in snippets.

As pointed out in the introduction by Joseph Auslander, this was not your typical anthology, this was Ted Malone's album, containing neither studio portraits nor formal photographs, but snapshots of poetry; nothing well - known, yet everything familiar. Writes Auslander, "The treatment of the Album is distinctive. There are twenty - six sections, each with a fresh and engaging title ["But, Definitely!" "First Person, Singular," "Wit or Without, Brevity is the Soul," "Sing Me A Song of Social Significance"]. And throughout the book, connecting poem with poem, is Ted Malone's friendly running comment ["It isn't so bad, a crowd of people running through your mind, but only two or three tramping through your heart," "Hold your breath while you read this one," "Close your eyes and read this one," "Six days shalt thou labor, six days shalt thou dream"]. Even before I got to the poetry I was charmed by these chapter headings and insightful little prologues to every single poem in the book. It turns out Malone was blogging! Paving the way! He was doing way back then what I like to do now on The Fortnightly and The Quotidian.

I've featured a couple of my old favorites from Malone's Album on earlier Fortnightly posts: "Thoughts of a Modern Maiden" in Time to Write a Letter and "Blue Willow" in That Old Blue Willow. About ten years ago, when more and more vintage books started appearing on amazon and ebay, I was lucky enough to track down a couple of copies of The American Album of Poetry, so that my mom and I could each have our own, and she could at last feel free to return our original copy to its original owner. The results of my search were rather thrilling! For my mom, an autographed copy:

and for me, a copy with the following note inscribed inside:

SAVE
Reminder: Save! Do Not Discard This Book

I quoted last two lines on p. 38
in my second mystery story he
published for me in 1948 and
for which I used pen name of
Julie Masterson instead of
J. F. as he would have
preferred.
~ J. F. ~
I have yet to determine who "J. F." might be or why her nearest and dearest allowed this book out of their hands (I purchased it from a bookseller, not an individual or family). Will I ever solve the mystery of these mystery stories by "Julie Masterson"? Was it Ted Malone who published them? In the meantime, I turned straight to page 38 and found -- to my surprise! (or maybe not!) -- another of my old favorites, one that I often used when teaching simile and metaphor:

Words

Our words are flame and ashes, fleet as breath,
Plumes for adventure, pageantry of death.

Our words are color -- yellow, blue, and red,
Drumbeat for marching, prayer for bed.

Words are our armor, they are our intent,
The coin we used along the way we went.

Grace Mansfield
Thanks Ted Malone for sharing your snapshots, blossoms, and tea cakes -- and for being a pre - blogger!

Thanks also to my supportive sisters Peggy Rosenbluth and Diane Burrows; and brothers Dave, Bruce, and Aaron Carriker (click each name to read their various guest columns on The Quotidian Kit). They support my blogging enterprise in a dozen different ways: sharing old photos and memories; recommending novels, poems, and recipes; providing insightful commentary on the complex issues of our troubled times; reading what I have written and offering constructive criticism.

In the early days of my blog, my older brother wrote to say: "You are a true master in linking nuggets of wisdom, wit, and rational thought, but I see so little of the inner Kit. Or perhaps, I just haven't been reading enough of your blogs."

I really liked his comment about my nugget - linking skills, because that's what I want to do and what I think I do best -- pastiche! I know some entries are just a quotation and / or picture, but I like doing that -- and it's always a good match, one that no one else would have thought of, or even found (because I'm the careful reader, that's my gift). I took his words to heart and trust that, as he read further, he encountered to a greater extent the voice of the inner Kit -- which I'm sure is there! -- in addition to the cut and paste -- pastiche!

My creative writing teacher in college once wrote in the margin of my paper: "What's at stake here?" I have never forgotten that comment. I think my brother may be asking a similar question. What I took away from his advice was the need to take more personal risk, go out on a limb, embarrass myself a little bit, move beyond "So what?"

To conclude this pastiche, here is one last little pastry
from my most recent reading:

"The tales of our exploits will survive as long as the human voice itself . . .
And even after that, when the robots recall the human absurdities
of sacrifice and compassion, they will remember us.
They will robot - laugh at our courageous folly . . .
But something in their iron robot hearts will yearn to have
lived and died as we did: on the hero's errand . . .
the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention."
(202, 312)

from the novel The Fault in Our Stars
written by the awesome & multi - talented John Green
recommended by my awesome & multi - talented son Ben McCartney
read aloud by my awewsome & mult - talented husband Gerry McCarntey

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, February 14th

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

Say Moon

BROADWAY: WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUSIncludes: "Lullaby of Broadway" (from 42nd Street)
"Never - Never Land" (from Peter Pan)
"Jenny Rebecca" (by Carol Hall)
"Blueberry Eyes" (from Gone With the Wind)
"Castle on a Cloud" (from Les Miserables)
"Not While I'm Around" (from Sweeney Todd)
"My Broth of a Boy" (by Cole Porter)
"Edelweiss" (from The Sound of Music)
"New Words" (by Maury Yeston)
"Count Your Blessings" (from White Christmas)
Lullabies of Broadway by Mimi Bessette was one of our family's earliest lullaby purchases, so early, in fact, that we owned the old technology cassette tape version (1990), ordered from one of our all-time favorite catalogues: Music for Little People. I upgraded a few years ago to CD, because I just can't live without this beautiful, lyrical collection of tunes for night - night and early morning ("Manhatten babies don't sleep tight until the dawn"). I first bought it for my kids, of course, and then for friends of ours as their children came along, but it turns out that I'm the one who has remained in love with every song, every word.

One of my favorites is "New Words," a song about discovery, connection, the magic of language, and the gift of naming. I couldn't find it on youtube, but listen ~ here ~ for a short, sweet snippet.

And the rest:

New Words
[published by Yeston Music Ltd.]

Look up there
High above us
In a sky of blackest silk
See how round
Like a cookie
See how white, as white as milk
Call it the "moon" my son
Say "moon"
Sounds like your spoon, my son
Can you say it?
New word today, say "moon"

Near the the moon
Brightly turning
Are a thousand sparks of light
Each one new
Each one burning
Through the darkness of the night
We call them "stars," my son, say "stars"
That one is "Mars," my son
Can you say it?
New word today, say "stars"

As they blink all around us
Playing starry-eyed games
Who would think it astounds us
Simply naming their names

Turn your eyes
From the skies now
Turn around and look at me
There's a light
In my eyes now
And a word for what you see
We call it "love," my son
Say "love"
So hard to say, my son
It gets harder
New words today
We'll learn to say
Learn "moon," learn "stars"
Learn "love"

Music & lyrics
by Maury Yeston

I like the way the opening stanza moves so swiftly from one simile to the next, as the moon becomes first cookie, then milk, then spoon. And a few lines down, the verb astounds is so astounding, isn't it? Not necessarily a word you expect to come across in a lullaby, yet so apt -- because it does indeed "astound us, simply naming their names": Aldebaran . . . Andromeda . . . Cassiopeia . . . I am reminded of a conversation I was having just recently with my mother - in - law Rosanne. She said that it is so entrancing each month to watch the moon get full, you'd think it had never happened before. I had to agree!

This lullaby of amazement is perfect for the night of the full moon, such as February's Full Snow Moon, coming soon, or last month's most unusual Halo Moon, as photographed by my son Ben:


After one of last winter's full moons my friend Cheryl wrote to say that she had been up at 4:00 that morning and seen the full moon "shining across the new snowfall. It was breathtaking, but I couldn't get my camera to capture it very well." A few months of following this blog, and you will notice, if you haven't already, that, like Cheryl, I have a weakness for running outside and trying to photograph the full moon whenever it presents itself. Without any special National Geographic equipment, it's hard to get an excellent shot, but every now and then, with the help of my little zoom lens, I get one that turns out right.

On this occasion, I wrote back to share with Cheryl that, no matter how our photos had turned out, I knew just what she meant about the moonlight on the snow -- it's like that line from The Night Before Christmas: "The moon on the breast of the newfallen snow gave a lustre of mid-day to objects below." When I was little, I had no idea what that meant, but now I get it! [Also, see my post Blue Moon.]

And in closing, how about these inspiring words from my insightful friend and fellow blogger ~ Almost 60? Really? ~ Paula Lee Bright. [Also, see my post Green Stamps]:

When I was a kid I didn't know what it meant either, but it's funny: when presented with something like that a kid's brain still attempts to make sense of it. And in a way, I did! Keywords moon, snow, and mid-day DID kind of sink into our consciousness, and the other words were stored away with a tiny bit of info attached to them. How they were used, with other words. And so we began to understand. Isn't the way kids learn vocabulary and imagery and yes, even art such as poetry ~ isn't it fascinating? Dang, I loved teaching!

Like you, I am in love with language. Nothing else in the world is as all-encompassing and exciting (other than the coolness of TEACHING language to exciting kids!).

Yes, indeed ~ thanks Paula! As Mimi Bessette sings so poignantly:

New words today
We'll learn to say
Learn "moon," learn "stars"
Learn "love"
One further connection:
Mimi Bessette has also performed in the musical Opal, written by my cousin Robert Nassif Lindsey. How I would love to have seen that production live!

More on Opal:
Fortnightly: "In Love With the World"
On Kitti's Book List: About Opal Whiteley
Click to watch on youtube

The Full Wolf Moon
January 2012
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, February 14, 2012

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

My Favorite Result: November 2010
Comprehensive List of Full Moon NamesGutsy Lantern
[see first comment below, from Eileen S. H.]

This Year's Words

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"WE WILL SAY THIS POEM AGAIN AND AGAIN . . .
THERE IS NO END TO ANYTHING ROUND."
~ RUMI ~

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

"Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers."
from The Wasteland
by T. S. Eliot
A new year full of new words!

Some of the best New Year's words I know come from T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets":

Quartet No. 1: Burnt Norton
Quartet No. 2: East Coker
Quartet No. 3: The Dry Salvages
Quartet No. 4: Little Gidding.

These are perfect poems for the re-beginning cycle, dealing as they do with the human experience of past, present, and future and our place within time.

In the first quartet, Eliot imagines the simultaneous existence of past, present, and future:

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
"Burnt Norton" (from section I)

In the fourth quartet, some things, like "last year's words" can be left in the past, while "next year's words" remain in the future. In my post last month, I quoted Salman Rushdie as saying that "the home we make . . . is anywhere, and everywhere, except the place from which we began." Eliot, however, brings us back around:

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice . . .
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from . . .
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.*
"Little Gidding" (from sections II & V)

*These great lines from Eliot have already
appeared a couple of times previously on this blog:
see ~ "Three Passions"
and ~ "Parallax"
On the topic of wintry words, you may remember this one from
last January, but here it is again, always a favorite:

"Antiphanes said merrily,
that in a certain city the cold was so intense
that words were congealed as soon as spoken,
but that after some time
they thawed and became audible;
so that the words spoken in winter
were articulated next summer."
Plutarch, (46 - 120)
1st Century Biographer
born Greek but later became a Roman citizen
A Little Window on Winter
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, 28 January 2012

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

Snow at last!
Time to winterize your croquet set!

Ad Hairenum

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUSLADY LILITH, 1866 - 68 ~ BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828 - 82) "Rosetti makes Lady Lilith's long flowing hair the central focus of the composition." ~Breanna Byecroft

***************
In keeping with my recent hair-stories, Gerry picked this birthday card for me (and carefully added the glasses by hand). Cute!

Also arriving on my birthday was this little hair-story:

Tight Perm:
If you get a tight enough perm, she told me,
it's almost as good as a face lift.
But she had worked around a lot
of toxic chemicals in the 60's,
so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
by Brian Andreas . . .
"telling people about a better way of seeing."
"Tight Perm," showed up as my "Story of the Day." and immediately brought to mind a recent discussion with my curly - haired friend Eileen about a hair "relaxing" treatment called the Brazilian Blowout; she is also the one who said ad hairenum, which I stole for my title! Because of our natural curl, we have both been receiving numerous suggestions to try the scary - sounding "Brazilian Blowout," because it will make us shinier, save on styling time, and give us a "more professional" look. But she says, "No! It's fun being curly girls! Curls are purty! And our products have clever names like Be Curly, Bed Head, Control Freak, Deva Curl, and Mixed Chicks."

Repressing natural curl: why do we do it? In my last post (scroll down to read Scary Hair), I described a few fictional characters who struggle between accepting, changing, and apologizing for their natural curl. In real life, I myself have been known to straighten and oppress my hair upon occasion; but Eileen is adamant when it comes to the implements of hair torture, e.g., giant rollers (that was the old days), flat irons, and so forth: "I will not do it!" And her opinion of the Brazilian: "I think it's the botox of hair!"

See the connection here?
Tight perm = face lift,
Brazilian blowout = botox!

I know there is truth in Eileen's observation that behind the desire for fake straight hair lies the troublesome issue of conforming to "the rules of mainstream white beauty" (Anne Lamott's phrase). Not to mention various other issues of acceptance and celebration, surrender and control, prejudice, aesthetics, and personal insecurity. In Traveling Mercies, Lamott describes her first - hand experience with extremely curly hair:

"Can you imagine the hopelessness of trying to live a spiritual life when you're secretly looking up at the skies not for illumination or direction but to gauge, miserably the odds of rain? Can you imagine how discouraging it was for me to live in fear of weather, of drizzle or downpour? . . . Obviously, when you really want this [spiritual] companionship and confidence but you're worried about your bangs shrinking up like fern fronds, you've got a problem on your hands."

Lamott recounts the liberating scene in Shawshank Redemption when Andy stands in the pouring rain with his arms outstretched. She confesses, " . . . if I were the prisoner being baptized by the torrential rain, half my mind would be on how much my bangs were going to shrink up after they dried." Ultimately Lamott concludes that "it would be an act of both triumph and surrender to give up trying to have straighter hair."

Sure you want to have the right priorities and keep your mind on higher things, but you also have to live down the prejudiced notions: "good children have shiny combed hair, while bad children, poor children, loser kids, have bushy hair"; the unkind remarks: "did you you stick your finger in a light socket"; even racist insults in Anne's case, because, though fair in color, the texture of her "crazy hair crown," tends toward wiry and kinky -- making it perfect for the cool dreads that she now wears. I admire her soul - searching explanation of making the switch to this new style:

"First of all, I felt it was presumptuous to appropriate a black style for my own liberation. But mostly when I thought about having dreadlocks, I felt afraid and disloyal. Dreadlocks would be a way of saying I was no longer going to play by the rules of mainstream white beauty. It meant that I was not longer going to even try and blend. It was a way of saying that I know what kind of hair I have, I know what it looks like, and I am going to stop trying to pretend it's different than that. That I was going to celebrate instead" (all quotations are from Traveling Mercies, 6 - 13, 229 - 37).

Anne Lamott







Alice Walker









Interestingly, both Anne Lamott and Alice Walker cite over-investment in haircare as an impediment to spiritual liberation. In Walker's terrific essay, "Oppressed Hair," she explains why accepting your hair on its own terms is crucial to a larger sense of self-acceptance and personal growth. She personifies her hair in the most delightful way: "I discovered my hair's willfulness, so like my own! I saw that my friend hair, given its own life, had a sense of humor. I discovered I liked it. . . . I would call up my friends around the country to report on its antics."

She describes her realization, practically an epiphany "that in my physical self there remained one last barrier to my spiritual liberation, at least in the present phase: my hair. Not my friend hair itself, for I quickly understood that it was innocent. It was the way I related to it that was the problem. I was always thinking about it. So much so that if my spirit had been a balloon eager to soar away and merge with the infinite, my hair would be the rock that anchored it to Earth. I realized that there was no hope of continuing my spiritual development, no hope of future growth of my soul, no hope of really being able to stare at the Universe and forget myself entirely in the staring (one of the purest joys!) if I still remained chained to thoughts about my hair."

Well, it requires thoughtfulness and fortitude to break those chains! However, if there's anyone who can put the issue into perspective, it's these two admirable women: wise Alice Walker who asks if we can ever achieve equality as long as woman aspire to look another way than what they are: light instead of dark, tan instead of pale, blonde instead of brunette, straight instead of curly; and honest Anne Lamott who points out that surrender is not all bad: "giving into all those things we can't control," letting go of "balance and decorum," befriending our hair.

Complete Picture from which above detail is taken,
face of Alexa Wilding, 1868
Original Version, face of Fanny Cornforth, 1867Also by Rossetti
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, June 14, 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