Like a Spinning Top, Like a Sponge

A SCENE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

" . . . THIS TREMENDOUS SCENE —
THIS WHOLE EXPERIMENT OF GREEN — "
~ EMILY DICKINSON ~

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

"Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun."
~ Czeslaw Milosz ~

Esse
I was left behind with the immensity of existing things.
A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself;
a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees
are not clouds and trees.
Due to my usual seemingly (but not so!) distracted fashion of spreading and scattering reading material upon every available visible surface and jumping around (not randomly!) from text to text, the above passage from Czeslaw Milosz's poem, "Esse," is forever linked in my mind with Jean-Paul Sartre's essay "Why Write" (Click for full text). My reading method, while usually quite effective, does lead to the occasional "merged book" faux pas. In this particular case, in all good faith, I reassigned the image of the suffering sponge from Milosz to Sartre. I can only trust that Milosz would forgive and that Sartre would be flattered.

I still recall reading the Sartre and talking about it the next day in a critical theory seminar that I was taking at the time (i.e., way back in the Fall of 1983). I was excited for the class discussion and the chance to talk about Sartre's fascinating images and perplexing yet convincing descriptions of reading and writing:

" . . . when we seek to perceive our work, we create it again, we repeat mentally the operations which produced it; each of its aspects appears as a result. Thus, in the perception, the object is given as the essential thing and the subject as the inessential. The latter seeks essentiality in the creation and obtains it, but then it is the object which becomes the inessential. [emphasis added]

"This dialectic is nowhere more apparent than in the art of writing, for the literary object is a peculiar top which exists only in movement. To make it come into view a concrete act called reading is necessary, and it lasts only as long as this act can last. Beyond that, there are only black marks on paper" (Sartre).

Essential.

Inessential.

Essentiality.

Inessential.

Esse.

My contribution to the discussion was to say that in addition to the image of the book as a spinning top, I particularly liked Sartre's image of the writer as a suffering, unsaturated sponge; a river carrying the reflection of the clouds and tress. But no one else shared my enthusiasm or my memory. In fact, the professor informed me, those images were no where to be found in "Why Write."

Huh? Not in "Why Write." Not Sartre? Okay, what else had I been reading in addition to my big old tome of critical theory? A couple of seventeenth - century dramas, a novel, some magazines, some freshman compositions. Where had I read those words? Well, I felt pretty certain it wasn't those first-year essays. The plays? Possibly. The novel? Didn't sound right. Finally, it came to me: it was in one of the magazines (Atlantic Monthly? New Republic?) I went straight home, thumbed through all the pages until I found it, and have remembered it to this day. Esse: that was the connecting factor:

Esse
"I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro stations flew by; I didn't notice them. What can be done, if our sight lacks absolute power to devour objects ecstatically, in an instant, leaving nothing more than the void of an ideal form, a sign like a hieroglyph simplified from the drawing of an animal or bird? A slightly snub nose, a high brow with sleekly brushed-back hair, the line of the chin - but why isn't the power of sight absolute? - and in a whiteness tinged with pink two sculpted holes, containing a dark, lustrous lava. To absorb that face but to have it simultaneously against the background of all spring boughs, walls, waves, in its weeping, its laughter, moving it back fifteen years, or ahead thirty. To have. It is not even a desire. Like a butterfly, a fish, the stem of a plant, only more mysterious. And so it befell me that after so many attempts at naming the world, I am able only to repeat, harping on one string, the highest, the unique avowal beyond which no power can attain: I am, she is. Shout, blow the trumpets, make thousands-strong marches, leap, rend your clothing, repeating only: is!

"She got out at Raspail. I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees."

Brie-Comte-Robert, 1954
By Czeslaw Milosz
Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Pinsky
"Czeslaw Milosz - Poetry: Esse". Nobelprize.org. 8 Feb 2011

In another poem, "On Prayer," Milosz writes mystically of the bridge leading to the "Shore of Reversal," reminding me somewhat of Harry Potter peering into the "Mirror of Erised" at Hogwarts. For Harry, Desire reversed. For Milosz, "everything opposite." The desire of Harry's heart is communication beyond the grave; Milosz ponders the same phenomenon:

All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.

Is.

Esse.

*****************************
Less seriously, how about that merged book syndrome? Are you familiar with the Merged Book Contest at Laugh Break? It's silly, I know, but also very literary and very funny. Don't forget that even very serious Emily Dickinson allowed for a bit of nonsense:

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown —
Who ponders this tremendous scene —
This whole Experiment of Green —
As if it were his own!

(Rewritten by Roald Dahl (1916 - 90) as:
"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest of men.")
On the one hand, the kings and wise ones are allowed some silliness; yet, how appropriate that Dickinson (1830 - 86) should conclude her poem with a warning against the foolishness of placing ourselves at the center of the universe. To bring this essay full circle, Sartre (1905 - 80) advised similarly in the opening paragraphs of "Why Write":

"But if we know that we are directors of being, we also know that we are not its producers. If we turn away from this landscape, it will sink back into its dark permanence. At least, it will sink back; there is no one mad enough to think that it is going to be annihilated. It is we who shall be annihilated, and the earth will remain in its lethargy until another consciousness comes along to awaken it. . . .

One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world" (Sartre).

As Milosz (1911 - 2004) says in his poem above, we strive to name the world, the spring landscape, the green experiment: "repeating only: is!"

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

and lastly,

some vocabulary words

in esse (in es′ē): in being; in actual existence

as opposed to

in posse (in pä′sē): in possibility; only potentially

as in

a posse ad esse: from possibility to reality

and a poem

Esse & Posse
The groan of fallen Hosts; a torrid glare
Of cities; battle-cries of Right and Wrong
Where armies shout to rocking fleets that roar
On thundering oceans to the thundering shore,
And high o'er all-long, long prolonged, along
The moaning caverns of the plaining air,-
The cry of conscious Fate. The firmament
Waves from above me like a tattered flag;
And as a soldier in his lowly tent
Looks up when a shot strikes the helpless rag
From o'er him, and beholds the canopy
Of Heaven, so, sudden to my startled eye,
The Heavens that shall be! The dream fades. I stand
Among the mourners of a mourning land.

Sydney Thompson Dobell (1824 - 74)

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

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

and my previous Czeslaw Milosz posts
on The Quotidian Kit:

Czeslaw Milosz February 5, 2011

Bridge of Air February 6, 2011

Haiku For The Family January 24, 2010

The Mystery of the Matryoshka: Within Within Within

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Largest ~ Elegant Renaissance Maidens ~
Smallest ~ Very Tiny Little Red Riding Hood and Alice in Wonderland ~
~ Gifts from my friend Marietta. Thanks Et! ~
A couple of months ago, my friend Gabrielle left a couple of mysterious facebook messages. First, there was:

Did you know that your brain contains atoms that were once part of Albert Einstein?

Then a couple of days later:

I just want to let all of you guys that you're leftover stardust! I love you guys! So go be an amazing leftover star!

After that one, I just had to write back and ask her:

Q: Gabi, Have you been reading "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man - in - the - Moon Marigolds"? I love that play!

A: By Paul Zindel? No, I haven't read it, but I should! I'm actually doing my physics homework right now. I am not a nerd . . . okay maybe a little! I've always found it fascinating that we're interconnected through a bunch of atoms. It's just more evidence that we're all part of one big picture. I'll definitely have to read "The Effect of Gamma Rays."

Ah ha! Physics homework! That explains it!

However, you can see why Gabi's posts made me think of Paul Zindel's play, in which the main character, Tillie delivers the following cosmic explanation of her science fair project. Tillie's stirring science fair speech never fails to give me goosebumps! She is a girl of such true vision, and one of my all time favorite literary heroines:

"For one thing, the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds has made me curious about the sun and the stars, for the universe itself must be like a world of great atoms . . . But most important, I suppose, my experiment has made me feel important--every atom in me, in everybody, has come from the sun--from places beyond our dreams. The atoms of our hands, the atoms of our hearts" (101-02).
(See my book blog Still Not Too Late: April 29, 2009)

Not long after my chat with Gabi, another friend had a great passage to share at our First Friday discussion group. But first, she said, "Do you have one of those Russian nesting dolls that we could look at?" Do I? I have big ones, little ones, authentic classics, cheap imitations, storybook characters, cats, Santas. And that's just for a start. I ran a got a few sets, and my friend Nancy read aloud:

"Keep in mind, as you pray and meditate, that the God inside of you is more powerful than anything else in the world. The entire cosmos is imprinted on every atom of your being. . . .

"You can think of the universe as a set of wooden Russian matryoshka dolls, with each doll having a smaller one inside of it. The entire visible universe is the outermost doll, and nested inside it are galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets -- right down to the smallest doll, which is you. But inside of you is an even smaller doll that somehow has the biggest doll inside of it. When you figure out this riddle, you will have discovered the key to your ascension!"

from Reincarnation: The Missing Link In Christianity
by Elizabeth Clare Prophet (1939 - 2009)

Talk about goosebumps! Naturally, as soon as I heard this, I had to share my favorite passage from The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man - in - the - Moon Marigolds, as well a quick summary of my recent conversation with Gabi. Atoms, atoms everywhere!

Little Ben with the Matryoshka Collection, 1997
Sam's Display of the Tiniest
I have collected many matryoshka sets over the years and have been given many as presents, especially when I was writing extensively about dolls and miniatures and the secrets of interiority. Most enlightening on this topic is Susan Stewart's book: On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Stewart's insight on the dollhouse -- "the house within a house" and even more so, "the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority" -- is equally applicable to the nesting Matryoshka / Matreshka dolls, stacked and nested so neatly within one another:

"Transcendence and the interiority of history and narrative are the dominant characteristics of the most consummate of miniatures -- the dollhouse. A house within a house . . . a space within an enclosed space . . . the locket or the secret recesses of the heart: center within center, within within within. The dollhouse is a materialized secret; what we look for is the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority." (p 61)

The atoms of our hearts, the key to our ascension, the tiny doll inside of us that somehow contains the entire universe -- herein lies the mystery of the matryoshka. Within within within.

Egyptian Mummy Matryoshkas from the Museum Catalogue
and Giant Mummy Earrings from Von's

And My Book:
CREATED IN OUR IMAGE:
THE MINIATURE BODY OF THE DOLL
AS SUBJECT AND OBJECT

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, March 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

American / British / Indiana Gothic

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
You probably don't need me or Wikipedia to tell you that Grant Wood's American Gothic "is one of the most familiar images in 20th century American art, and one of the most parodied artworks within American popular culture. . . . one of the most reproduced – and parodied – images ever. Many artists have replaced the two people with other known couples and replaced the house with well known houses."

As you can see, this is just what my friends and I have done! First of all, in the picture above, my neighbors Katy and Peter got dressed up and posed in front of an historic Indiana frame house in our neighborhood. Then their talented daughter Emily took a photograph and added her own artistic finishing touches.

In the pictures below, I was photographing my British in - laws along with some gardening tools that they had been given on their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Inspired by that stark English sky, I suddenly had the idea to pose them just so and then juxtapose their photograph with the original.

Ron might have been having a little bit too much fun,
but Rosanne really caught the spirit!
British / American Gothic
The painting is also the inspiration behind a number of American poems, including

American Gothic
after the painting by Grant Wood, 1930

Just outside the frame
there has to be a dog
chickens, cows and hay

and a smokehouse
where a ham in hickory
is also being preserved

Here for all time
the borders of the Gothic window
anticipate the ribs

of the house
the tines of the pitchfork
repeat the triumph

of his overalls
and front and center
the long faces, the sober lips

above the upright spines
of this couple
arrested in the name of art

These two
by now
the sun this high

ought to be
in mortal time
about their businesses

Instead they linger here
within the patient fabric
of the lives they wove

he asking the artist silently
how much longer
and worrying about the crops

she no less concerned about the crops
but more to the point just now
whether she remembered

to turn off the stove.

by John Stone (b. 1936 - )
found in Where Water Begins, 1998


and this one by one of my favorite poets, William Stafford (click for a reading):

American Gothic
If we see better through tiny,
grim glasses, we like to wear
tiny, grim glasses.
Our parents willed us this
view. It's tundra? We love it.

We travel our kind of
Renaissance: barnfuls of hay,
whole voyages of corn, and
a book that flickers its
halo in the parlor.

Poverty plus confidence equals
pioneers. We never doubted.

by William Stafford, 1914 - 1993
in The Way It Is, 1999

Is it that we are reminded of ourselves when we see American Gothic? Or, as Stafford says, maybe our parents? Or, more likely, our grandparents or great-grandparents. Stafford hints at faith and endurance. Both poems express the sense we get when looking at the painting that life is just so daily, as indeed it is. Stone mentions patience and points out that even the things not visible -- the farm animals, the smokehouse -- would be mundane, entirely predictable. The worried thoughts within the minds of the farmer and the housewife are routine, quotidian.

Yet life can also be so surprisingly strange, so Gothic, like that window. The house may look ordinary, but the window does not. In the middle of my farmyard, here's art! Inside my house, here's a tapestry! Inside my barn, here's a perpetual Renaissance!

!How cute is this?
My older sister & brother dressed up Grant Wood Style!
1955 or so

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, March 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

You might also enjoy my previous posts on the poetry of William Stafford:

9 January 2010
26 February 2010
11 June 2010
18 November 2010

Cold Morning Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Happy Valentine's Day:
"Come and sit by my side if you love me!"

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

"Look around you, look up here
Take time to make time, make time to be there
Look around, be a part
Feel for the winter, but don't have a cold heart"

lyrics from "Lady"
by The Little River Band
**************************************
I first discovered the poems of Naomi Shihab back in 1975, in a publication called Power: Personal Reflections by Youth for Youth. My friends and I enjoyed subscribing to this little St. Louis - based poetry magazine and ordering gift subscriptions for each other every Christmas. Although Naomi didn't know it, I was her groupie in those days and copied all of her work into a notebook that I kept throughout high school and college. The following cold morning poems have long been among my favorites:

#1
I would be no one.
I would have no head, no hair, no comb.

I would be the thin mist in the air of a cold morning;
I would rise and disappear early, before the sun
and the noisy streets and everyone moving.


I would hum and greet you when you awaken,
with no words, no face, no promise but my love,
like a river.

I would be here, be here, be here invisible, forever --
when all the braver ones have gone to hide --
when all these tears have years and years been dried.


#2
It is a new day, chill and icy like a cold, sharp, knife.
It is a new day in a long line of new days in a life.

OH! OH! OH!

I walk in wonder to watch
The bundled people in the early light returning with nods
A morning hello

And to think we felt alone all night.


Now, I think I might read this second poem somewhat differently than I did back in the years when I was first such a fan of Naomi Shihab's youthful poetry. More often than not, the "bundled people" do not respond with a nod or a morning hello. No acknowledgement whatsoever of your shared humanity on this planet. Life can seem so harsh, making it through the maze of obligations and errands, dealing with this conflict or that, so many daily unpleasantries. Then, as evening falls, home at last to the inner sanctum of family, friends, and loved ones. Such security!

And to think we felt alone all day!

Home Sweet Home
Here is one more "cold morning" poem, written some twenty years later than those above. This one carries a more somber tone, a sense of loss, and a bit less certainty that all is now or ever will be right with the world:

Snow
Once with my scarf knotted over my mouth
I lumbered into a storm of snow up the long hill
and did not know where I was going except to the top of it.
In those days we went out like that.
Even children went out like that.
Someone was crying hard at home again,
raging blizzard of sobs.

I dragged the sled by its rope,
which we normally did not do
when snow was coming down so hard,
pulling my brother whom I called by our secret name
as if we could be other people under the skin.
The snow bit into my face, prickling the rim
of the head where the hair starts coming out.
And it was a big one. It would come down and down
for days. People would dig their cars out like potatoes.

How are you doing back there? I shouted,
and he said Fine, I’m doing fine,
in the sunniest voice he could muster
and I think I should love him more today
for having used it.

At the top we turned and he slid down,
steering himself with the rope gripped in
his mittened hands. I stumbled behind
sinking deeply, shouting Ho! Look at him go!
as if we were having a good time.
Alone on the hill. That was the deepest
I ever went into the snow. Now I think of it
when I stare at paper or into silences
between human beings. The drifting
accumulation. A father goes months
without speaking to his son.

How there can be a place
so cold any movement saves you.

Ho! You bang your hands together,
stomp your feet. The father could die!
The son! Before the weather changes.

from Fuel

all poems by Naomi Shihab Nye (b 1952)
Contemporary Palestinian / American Poet

A few more of my Naomi Shihab Nye favorites from the mid - 1970s appear in previous posts:

"Now"
Intellectual Cup of Lyrics (November 4, 2009)

and

"My Cat" & "Feeding the Cat"
Quotidian Cat (November 6, 2009)

and one more

"Spiritual Journey"
can be found in the right hand column of mantras on
The Quotidian Kit:

"Where are you on
your spiritual journey?"
you ask, your sharp eyes
thumbtacking the question
on my heart.

What can I say?
I am somewhere beyond "go"
I have not stopped.

Years have shown me
the idea of travelling
is a game we play with ourselves
to pretend we're not home.

ANYONE HOME?SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, February 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

January: Forward Vision, Backward Glance

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUSOrpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld, 1861
by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796 - 1875)
French Landscape Painter

The Legendary Orpheus, greatest musician of Greek mythology, and his wife Eurydice, who died young but was granted leave by Hades, god of the Underworld, to return from the dead, upon the condition that Orpheus, who had descended to claim her, should walk in front of Eurydice without glancing behind until they were both safe in the Upper World.

Corot's 1860 Sketch
for Orphee Entrainant Eurydice

*********************************************
So the first month of 2011 is nearly gone! Not only is the old year past, but fast away the new year passes as well! However, we can't let January get away without paying our respects to Janus, the ancient Roman god of "gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, endings and time."

As I wrote last year around this time, it's good to remember that our opening month is named for this two - headed, two - faced deity who possessed knowledge of the future and wisdom of the past. Conveniently, Janus could see forward into the New Year and backward into the Old. It was customary to place his image, maybe a small statue or amulet, at the front entrance of every home where he could look outward at the passersby as well as inward toward the home dwellers.

Speaking of passing fast away, let me recommend a timely, stylish, and informative blog out of Philadelphia: Obsolescing: watching technologies as they wane. It is a nostalgic blog, but also forward thinking -- like Janus! Each post reads like an elegant reverse treasure hunt, presenting items such as typewriter erasers (not to mention typewriters!) and telephone books (not to mention telephones!) and tracing each technology back to its origin.

I like the way that my friend Ann de Forest and her co-blogger David Comberg describe what their blog is about: "We are not so much interested in wringing our hands over what we are losing as in considering the experience of loss that has always been a part of technological change." As they explain in their very first post (March 26, 2009): "Documenting objects and experiences that are rapidly disappearing from our daily lives, this blog elegizes the obsolescent and extinct, celebrates creative reinterpretations of technologies liberated from their original function, and analyzes the particular language used to talk about those technologies as they are vanishing."

No time for hand wringing! The technological landscape is changing much too quickly for such indulgence. Besides, if we take that approach, there are so many things to mourn, how could we ever find enough hours in the day? Better, surely, to spend that time looking forward. The backward glance must be swift, the forward vision steady, especially if we hope to master each miraculous new life - enhancing technology.

In several of her essays, Ann takes a closer look at these conflicting emotions:

1. "The Nature of Elegy" (July 7, 2009): "If change is loss, as pop psychologists love to say, then we all must be in a state of perpetual mourning. Depending on your age, you grieve for skate keys or glass milk bottles or the iceman’s cart; for 2-sided record albums, Checker cabs, solid black desk phones; Polaroid cameras, typewriters, cork in wine bottles, the Walkman – the list is endless. Even as we embrace convenient, new technologies, it seems to be human nature to lament whatever the next new thing replaces."

Further examples, such as Robert Louis Stevenson's insistence that electricity was inferior to the dear old gas lamp, illustrate the point that lamenting waning technology is hardly a new phenomenon. It was ever thus.

2. "An Emblem for Our Times" (July 7, 2009): "We all – no matter how old we are – can name a thousand things, the stuff of our childhoods, that now are virtually extinct. I’m sure I’m not alone in having felt an irrational pang for the passing of utilitarian objects that I never paid much attention to when they were commonplace" (e.g., the typewriter eraser mentioned above).

Yes, I have felt that pang! In fact, I feel it now, just reading these words. For things like the Joe Namath Popcorn Popper (try ebay). It's not the machine itself -- I mean, really, who wants to wash that thing? Anyone can see that microwave popcorn, in it's own sealed, disposable bag, is far superior -- cleaner, healthier, safer, easier -- you name it. But the memory isn't about any of those features; it's about Santa Claus bringing such a cool present for the whole family to play with, back in 1972!

On the coffee table:
Joe Namath Popcorn Popper & Princess Phone
As my sister Peg wrote, back when I
posted this same photograph a few months ago:
"Our pink princess phone! I loved that phone
and spent a lot of time talking on it late into the night.
Sometimes even when Mom & Dad didn't know I was on the phone!"
Because of another amazing feature -- an extra long cord! --
we could even pull the phone into the closet
(behind the door I'm leaning against) and shut the door.
How we loved that privacy, secrecy, and coziness!
But I digress! Back to Obsolescing . . .

3. One of my favorite recent posts is the autumnal "Ode for the Season" October 6, 2010 with it's allusion to the bereft Orpheus and Gerard Manley Hopkins' mournful little Margaret: "I think that the emotions that autumn elicits, the melancholy my own primitive soul starts feeling as the days shorten, are akin to the distress and sorrow we feel as the objects of our life, the utilitarian technologies that once surrounded and defined us, fade into memory. News of a past technology’s demise makes us suddenly, desperately long to hold, to touch, to smell, to hear the things of our past. Like Orpheus leading his beloved from the Underworld, we look back to reassure ourselves that the everyday things we have known and loved and remember still exist in their full corporeal presence (That’s why we revel in the sensory details — the typewriter’s clacking keys, the mimeograph ink’s distinctive scent.) Instead, we turn back to watch, in sadness and horror, as the objects of our lives, the tangible evidence of our own existence, slip from our outstretched arms" (~ Ann de Forest).

[detail from Corot's painting]
So as January comes to a close, should you crave a late night reminiscence of the old year or desire some early morning reading in contemplation of the new months ahead, turn on your astonishingly capable laptop computer and take a further look at Obsolescing: watching technologies as they wane. Enjoy the nostalgic, visionary musings of Ann de Forest and David Comberg.

Republican Janus Coin, c. 225 - 212 BCE
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, February 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

Keep Christmas With You

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

~~ Reminds Gerry of his grandfather's "Old House" in England ~~
Urban Garden Under Snow
by Douglas Percy Bliss (Scottish Painter, 1900 - 84)

*******************************************
Presents From A Friend!

"But while we often like to comfort
or flatter ourselves with the thought that the future is now,
the brute truth is, the future is not now. The present is now.
The future is later -- in some cases much later."

quotation from the humorous little book,
Santa Lives! Five Conclusive Arguments
for the Existence of Santa Claus
by wry humorist Elllis Weiner (b 1950)
Coauthor of Yiddish with Dick and Jane and The Joy of Worry

********************************************************
The following poem by W. H. Auden is one of my favorites, but with all the presents put away, and the neighbors' (not mine! not yet!) undecorated trees abandoned by the curbside, I was afraid that I might have left it too late for blogging. You often see this poem appearing last, in the final "end - of - season" section, in the holiday anthologies and poetry collections. The opening lines tell you right away that it is a post - Christmas poem, appropriate for the day or even the week after -- but the middle of January?

Luckily, I came across an incredibly insightful, helpful essay, by ethics professor William F. French, entitled "Auden’s Moral Comedy: A Late-Winter Reading" (click to read). Not mid - January, mind you, but "Late - Winter." Clearly, I still have plenty of time! Actually, I'm early!

French writes that Auden's poem "has more to do with the serious confrontation with emptiness in late winter than with holiday good cheer in December." He suggests reading it near the end of January or during February, "when the chilling winds and numbing routine have taken their toll . . . Only a late-winter reading allows access to the deeper layers of meaning in the poem." Although it is better known by its subtitle ("A Christmas Oratorio") French prefers to focus on the title -- "For the Time Being," a concept that he defines in his analysis as "the deadeningly mundane . . . the monotonous sludge . . . the general drudgery . . . the flat stretches." That's the Time Being for you! (See Ellis Weiner above for a more humorous explanation, but just as true.)

As the ennobling sentiments of the season recede, we must accept the fact that "our ordinary existence is lived out in a post-Christmas world . . . the mundane world of the everyday," the quotidian, shall we say. Here is a brief excerpt from Auden's lengthy (around fifty pages) "Oratorio":

For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes --
Some have got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week --
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted -- quite unsuccessfully --
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility . . .

The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are . . .

And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. . . .

In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God's Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

by W. H. Auden (1907 - 73)
Anglo-American poet
Born in England, later an American citizen

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Consistent with Auden's "unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought / Of Lent and Good Friday," contemporary poet Steve Turner presents a somewhat bleaker vision:

Christmas is Really for the Children
Christmas is really
for the children.
Especially for children
who like animals, stables,
stars and babies wrapped
in swaddling clothes.
Then there are wise men,
kings in fine robes,
humble shepherds and a
hint of rich perfume.

Easter is not really
for the children
unless accompanied by a
cream filled egg.
It has whips, blood, nails,
a spear and allegations
of body snatching.
It involves politics, god
and the sins of the world.
It is not good for people
of a nervous disposition.
They would do better to
think on rabbits, chickens
and the first snowdrop
of spring.

Or they'd do better to
wait for a re-run of
Christmas without asking
too many questions about
what Jesus did when he grew up
or whether there's any connection.

Steve Turner (b. 1949)
British music journalist, biographer, and poet

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And finally, some excellent post-seasonal advice from Sesame Street. If you're not familiar with this song already, perhaps from watching Christmas Eve on Sesame Street a couple hundred times with your kids, then you are in for a treat. Click on the title to view the children's surprising and touchingly rendered sign language presentation:

Keep Christmas With You All Through the Year
When Christmas time is over
and presents put away,
don't be sad
There'll be so much to treasure
about this Christmas day
and the fun we've had
So may happy feelings to celebrate with you
And, oh, the good time hurry by so fast,
But even when it's over
there's something you can do to make
Christmas last:

Keep Christmas with you
All through the year,
When Christmas is over,
You can keep it near.
Think of this Christmas day
When Christmas is far away.

Keep Christmas with you
All through the year,
When Christmas is over,
Save some Christmas cheer.
These precious moments,
Hold them very dear
And keep Christmas with you
All through the year.

Christmas means the spirit of giving,
Peace and joy to you,
The goodness of loving,
The gladness of living;
These are Christmas too.

So, keep Christmas with you
All through the year,
When Christmas is over,
Save some Christmas cheer.
These precious moments,
Hold them very dear
And keep Christmas with you
All through the year.

lyrics by David Axelrod (b. 1936)
American lyricist,composer, and producer

music by Sam Pottle (1934 - 78)
American composer, conductor, musical director

from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

Which one should I open next?SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, January 28, 2011

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www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

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