The Sheila Variations

Two of my favorite literary awards are:

1. The Bulwer Lytton fiction contest (award given to what could be a worst opening sentence in a novel - sometimes hypothetical novel - the award is named for the man who began his book with "It was a dark and stormy night.")

2006's winning sentence is, for example:

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

I mean, you know. This is genius.

Some other winning sentences:

Through the gathering gloom of a late-October afternoon, along the greasy, cracked paving-stones slick from the sputum of the sky, Stanley Ruddlethorp wearily trudged up the hill from the cemetery where his wife, sister, brother, and three children were all buried, and forced open the door of his decaying house, blissfully unaware of the catastrophe that was soon to devastate his life.

Aren't these great? Another winner:

A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each other lustily to the respective ends of their distinct musical choices as the gates flew open to release a torrent of tawny fur comprised of angry yapping bullets that nipped at Desdemona's ankles, causing her to reflect once again (as blood filled her sneakers and she fought her way through the panicking crowd) that the annual Running of the Pomeranians in Liechtenstein was a stupid idea.

I can't get enough of this stuff.

This one, the winner for 1985, is, I believe my favorite:

The countdown had stalled at T minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick, rubbery lips unmistakably--the first of many such advances during what would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my career.

Here is the "lyttony" of prize winners. Each sentence is deliciously awful, spectacularly bad ... I also love how some of the prize winners have shown up at the awards ceremonies, full of good and self-deprecating humor about their own badness (kind of like Halle Berry going to accept a Razzie for Cat woman - and being all hysterical and good-natured about it).

So there's THAT. LOVE that prize.

2. My second favorite literary award is the award for Bad Sex in Fiction. Here's a list of past winners.

(More here.)

Unlike the Bulwer Lytton award, which rarely features writers anyone has ever heard of - we get some heavy hitters in this award. Updike, Tom Wolfe, etc. No one is spared. Obviously it's difficult to write a sex scene well. This award celebrates those who not only do not write sex scenes well - but who tip over into spectacular badness. You gotta go read some of the entries on that website. I refuse to put them on my site because, frankly, I'm sick of sexually inappropriate Google searches ... Ha!! But seriously, some of the sentences ... You CRINGE when you read them they are so bad.

One of my favorite things about this award is also the good humor with which (most) authors treat their nominations. People show up for the raucous awards ceremony, they admit their own badness, they laugh at themselves ... so much fun. Sean Thomas who won in 2000 accepted his award, saying sincerely, "It's an enormous honor and I'm gratified." Ha!! (Also, with a bit of scanning you'll be able to find his winning sentence on that site. It's just soooo funny. Soooo bad.)

There are some authors who have been nominated 3, 4 times. Ha!! There must be a strange sense of pride in that.

So. Iain Hollingshead is this year's winner. Here is a very funny essay by him - about his whole experience. I just love his honesty and humor about himself:

My own extract, in comparison, felt rather tame. But it was very badly written indeed. So bad, it seems, that the judges had little difficulty in declaring me, dear reader, the recipient of the 2006 Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

HA!

Woah.

Check out Nick Tosches.

You know, I tore my way through Dino - and didn't write that much about it here - even though it was just a GREAT reading experience.

Must rectify that, and do some posts on the book ... (you know, in all my free time.)

The Proust questionnaire

Any Vanity Fair reader will be familiar with the Proust questionnaire that always graces the back page of the mag. A celebrity, or famous figure - is sent the questions - and he or she responds. They're always fun to read - because the questions are specific, some of them are rather odd - and when people answer in a spontaneous way, really interesting things can come up.

I am thinking about all of this because of Dame's post about it. (Very interesting reading. Her blog, in general, is very good. Scroll around - I really like her stuff.) I decided to answer the questions for myself - not over-thinking it - and also, like she says in her post:

The principle is to answer each question without explanation and in whatever manner suits you - as your manner of response can tell as much about you as the answer itself. I think it makes an interesting exercize in self-examination. The more difficult task is this - to answer as honestly as possible with one’s self, not trying to adapt one’s answers to impress a potential reader.

There's the rub. Giving myself that task made it a bit more difficult. I tried to just blank my brain, get into a really private subconscious mood, and answer as spontaneously as I could.

Also, yes. To answer without explanation.

It took some time. I could feel when I was trying to "come up" with an answer, and that was not what I wanted. So I would put it down for a bit, go on with my life, do other things ... and then come back to it. Clearing out the cobwebs.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

cooking in the kitchen, husband reading in the other room, sometimes talking to each other, sometimes not, maybe music playing low, glass of wine on the counter ... casual sense of shared space ... no stress ... ease ... togetherness ... not being alone

What is your greatest fear?

being alone and old and poor.

What historical figure do you most identify with?

I identify with Emily Dickinson. I identify with Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

Which living person do you most admire?

Madeleine L'Engle

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Cowardice. Negativity.

What trait do you most deplore in others?

Holier-than-thou prudery and judgment of others. Also gleeful cruelty to animals I find unforgivable.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Books.

Flynn.

On what occasion do you lie?

If I'm having a shitty day, and the nice smiley Pakistani guy behind the counter at my deli says, "How are you today?" (as he does EVERY day, bless him) when I come in to get my coffee - I always say, "Good! How are you?"

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

my profile

What is your favorite journey?

those moments when you are coming out of an isolated tough period in your life, when you have withdrawn from the world, maybe you're healing from a heartbreak or whatever, and you force yourself to go to a party, or a family gathering, or a concert - whatever it is - something that you cannot control, an event that is outside of your mind, a social occasion - and instead of having to grin and bear it, and fake like you're having a good time - you actually have the BEST time in your life, you forget your misery, and you find yourself laughing so hard you start to cry, or dancing like a whirling dervish, or deep in animated conversation ... however it manifests itself .... It's like a miracle. Suddenly you look around and realize: I am REALLY howling with laughter. I am REALLY talking and listening. And because you have been alone with your morbid thoughts for so long ... it feels so vivid, so much like oxygen ... a night like that is life affirming. You walk away a different person. You are on the way to healing.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

patience

Which living person do you most despise?

I despise Pat Buchanan. I despise Fred Phelps. I despise John Derbyshire. Oh, and also David Miskeeeevegee. Won't spell his name correctly. Do not want his evil minions coming after me.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

marvelous

What is your greatest regret?

April 30, 1994. I regret what I DIDN'T say, not what I did.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

IS the greatest love? My family. Also Cary Grant, and books, and movies.

But he WAS my greatest love. (So far?????)

When and where were you happiest?

long summer nights, age 7 or 8, sandy toes, wet bathing suit, lining up outside Newport Creamery, the take-out window - to get ice cream on the way home from the beach: chocolate in a cup, with chocolate jimmies ... home, the cool dewy grass, fireflies, sleepy limbs, corn on the cob, sound of crickets, salt water making the skin feel taut and fresh ...

Which talent would you most like to have?

figure skating

What is your current state of mind?

alert

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

how personally I take things, how much I internalize rejection, how willing I am to believe the worst about myself

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?

make it a wee bit bigger by having a baby of my own

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?

person

If you could choose what or who to come back as, what would it be?

dolphin

What do your consider your greatest achievement?

friendships

What is your most treasured possession?

well ... I don't have the Barrister bookcase yet that my parents have given me for my birthday ... but that already is my most treasured possession.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

having health problems when you have no insurance and no money

What is your most marked characteristic?

pale skin, big freckles

What is the quality you most like in a man?

humor
strength
likes women

What is the quality you most admire in a woman?

good listener
down to earth
not judgmental towards other women

What do you most value in your friends?

continuity

Who are your favourite writers?

Shakespeare
Madeleine L'Engle
Annie Proulx
James Joyce

Who is your favourite hero of fiction?

Harriet the spy
Charlotte the spider

Who are your heroes in real life?

firemen

What are your favourite names?

Moira
Zachary

What is it that you most dislike?

coconut

How would you like to die?

just not alone. someone be there with me.

What is your motto?

Make voyages. Attempt them. That's all there is. -- Tennessee Williams, "Camino Real"

Happy birthday, Jonathan Swift!

Jonathan Swift was born on this day, in 1667. Here's a ton of biographical information if you are interested.

Primarily known for Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal he was also a poet of pretty uncommon gifts. I LOVE his poetry. He's also one of the most quotable of all writers. This man had acid running in his veins, acid of contempt for his fellow human beings. Ha!

But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.

His hatred and contempt have echoed across the centuries and given us the primary examples of satire that all writers should study. I am sorry that satire is so tepid these days. I find most of it way too coy, and ... obvious. They WISH that what they were doing was satire of the highest order - but what they are really doing is just bitching and whining in a tiny airless corner. Swift was merciless. Swift's command of language was impeccable. His observations were ruthless. He cannot be touched.

Swift said, in regards to satire:

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

hahahaha So true!

Swift embraced hate. It's hard to describe any other way - and yet he did not embrace corruption. Most people who fill their souls with hate (and I can think of many examples in our present-day political discourse as I am sure you can as well) completely corrupt their humanity. Their hatred for everyone else (and their inability to look in a mirror - or, no, it's not just inability - it is blatant and conscious REFUSAL to look in a mirror) leaves them with no humanity. Swift does not seem to have had that problem. He was just alert, that's all. He just saw the things going on around him, and wrote it all down. He pulled no punches.

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

Come on now. Truth. There is such truth in Swift.

And also:

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

He called things as he saw them:

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Obviously such blunt truth was highly unwelcome in many circles - and still is today. Oh, how much the pious haters despise those who call them on their phoniness!! Again: it all comes back to this: Can you look in the mirror? Can you face yourself? Can you entertain the possibility that that which you hate is also inside of you? Oh ho ho no. Many people don't even know what the HELL you are talking about when you talk like that!

But then there is also this:

It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.

The belief in the good in people. Not universally - oh, no. Swift was perfectly willing to see some people as just plain assholes with no redeeming qualities - and I'm pretty much with him on that. But occasionally - where you least expect it - a "vein of gold".

Many professional haters (and don't get me wrong - I think Jonathan Swift was a first-class straight-A hater - he said it about himself!) have ZERO senses of humor. Oh, they think they do, and I see them chortling on political talk shows, throwing zingers at their opponents - and yet - there's no wit. No humor. None.

But Swift? He used humor. He used it like a whip, yes, but also - well - there's something like this statement which makes me laugh out loud every time I read it:

There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.

Self-knowledge - a willingness to include himself in his own merciless searchlight:

Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

And his POEMS. Let me post a couple of them. They're marvelous. Funny, biting, mean ... and yet sometimes so heartfelt (the ones to Stella - the woman he loved all his life - comes to mind) that they bring tears to my eyes.

You don't want to skim these. Read. Read them.

A Satirical Elegy: On the Death of a Late Famous General
His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age, too, and in his bed!
And could that Mighty Warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he's gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the news-papers we're told?
Threescore, I think, is pretty high;
'Twas time in conscience he should die.
This world he cumber'd long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that's the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a stink.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow's sighs, nor orphan's tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse.
But what of that, his friends may say,
He had those honours in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he dy'd.
Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing's a Duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.

I love the line: "How very mean a thing's a Duke". It just says it all.

And here is my favorite of the "Stella poems":

Stella's Birthday March 13, 1727
This day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills.
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet, since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
Which can, in spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days:
From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.

Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.

Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain,
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their proselytes for vice;
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes;)
Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard
That virtue, styl'd its own reward,
And by all sages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should, acting, die, nor leave behind
Some lasting pleasure in the mind;
Which by remembrance will assuage
Grief, sickness, poverty, and age;
And strongly shoot a radiant dart
To shine through life's declining part.

Say, Stella, feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well spent?
Your skilful hand employ'd to save
Despairing wretches from the grave;
And then supporting with your store
Those whom you dragg'd from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preserving what it first creates.
Your gen'rous boldness to defend
An innocent and absent friend;
That courage which can make you just
To merit humbled in the dust;
The detestation you express
For vice in all its glitt'ring dress;
That patience under torturing pain,
Where stubborn stoics would complain:
Must these like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass?
Or mere chimæras in the mind,
That fly, and leave no marks behind?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supplied,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reason can maintain
That no effects of food remain?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action past,
And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reason can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?

Believe me, Stella, when you show
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends,
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.
For Virtue, in her daily race,
Like Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where she has gone
And therefore goes with courage on:
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.

O then, whatever Heav'n intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your suff'rings share;
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you so.

"Does not the body thrive and grow By food of twenty years ago?" God ... that just kills me. Yes, Swift ... yes, it does.

And this one - hee hee:

Oysters
Charming oysters I cry:
My masters, come buy,
So plump and so fresh,
So sweet is their flesh,
No Colchester oyster
Is sweeter and moister:
Your stomach they settle,
And rouse up your mettle:
They'll make you a dad
Of a lass or a lad;
And madam your wife
They'll please to the life;
Be she barren, be she old,
Be she slut, or be she scold,
Eat my oysters, and lie near her,
She'll be fruitful, never fear her.

Ha!

Michael Schmidt's book Lives of the Poets has a chapter devoted to Jonathan Swift, John Gay, and Alexander Pope - it's called "Three Friends". Schmidt's book is a must-read for poetry lovers - he's not a critic first of all. He's an editor and a book publisher. He's a FAN of poetry - and he writes like a fan writes - not like a critic - and yet his knowledge is encyclopedic. I LOVE the book.

Here is some of what he has to say about Jonathan Swift:

His vexed relations with women, especially "Stella" and "Vanessa", and his disgust with physical functions, have given much latitude to Freudian interpretations. Disgust informs much of the prose and verse, but so does a real interest in common people, their language, actions and concerns. The verse opens on this area of his genius, and on his darker musings. It possesses the satiric virtues of the prose with an additional element: the "I" speaks, speaks as itself, with an uncompromised acerbity that few poets have masterd. When he died in 1745, Ireland and England were in his debt. The topicality that limits the appeal of some of his prose is itself the appeal of the verse: it catches inflections and remembers small actions now lost -- the voices of gardeners, street vendors, laborers ... the tone of a cryptic man of conscience speaking of his world, his bitter, life, his wary loves.

Jonathan Swift described style, in writing, as "proper words in proper places". I think he pretty much mastered that - in his prose, certainly, but also in his poems. There isn't an extra word there - there is no FAT in his language - he has pared everything down to its essentials. The verses come to us as though they were born complete - and perfect.

More from Schmidt - and this, I believe, is a brilliant point:

In the more ambitious pieces Swift challenges the reader ... There is a unique irony at work, not normative, like Dryden's, but radical: thematic rather than stylistic. This is why his poems, even the most topical, retain force today. "I take it to be part of the honesty of poets," he wrote, "that they cannot write well except they think the subject deserves it." The subjects he chose he approached as if for the first time, as if we stepped from the chill, clear world of reason into a world of men.

More (I see his point here about Swift not being quotable, not really - most of the quotes I excerpted above were from his prose works - His poems are pretty much complete as they are - and need to be read straight through - they are difficult to excerpt. They depend on momentum and continuity):

Swift is hard to recommend as a poet because he is hard to quote out of context. There are few purple passages, detachable maxims; the poetry is drawn evenly through the poem in ways that out-of-context quotation violates. The epitaphs, the spoofs, the eclogues, the anecdotes spoken by various voices, the ironic love poems, the first-person poems, will not be broken up into tags like the rich couplet bric-a-brac of Pope. In Swift we come upon a writer who might have preferred to be called versifier rather than poet. There is a difference in kind in his work from that of his predecessors; and he is not "polite" enough to have beguiled his contemporaries into imitation. He stands alone, he doesn't sing, he never ingratiates himself. He speaks, and he understands how the world wags.

And on that note, I will close this ginormous post - but I will let William Butler Yeats have the last word on Jonathan Swift, an absolutely goosebump-inducing writer:

Swift's Epitaph
Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.

Yup. Imitate him if you dare.

The Books: At the Altar: 'A Dinner of Herbs' (L.M. Montgomery)

Next book on the shelf ...

At the Altar - 'A Dinner of Herbs' - by L.M. Montgomery

Speaking of maiden aunts! 'A Dinner of Herbs' is about a maiden aunt - who has elements of many other Lucy Maud heroines - Valancy from Blue Castle, Pat (stupid Pat) in her later years in Mistress Pat, and also Margaret in Tangled Web who ends up adopting a little boy and buying her own house - just to get away from being a maiden aunt in her bossy sister's house.

Robin Lyle is a maiden aunt. She lives with her brother, his bossy wife - and their clattering chattering family of loud bossy horrible children. Robin is put-upon, bossed within an inch of her life, and has no privacy. She is just expected to be grateful that she has a roof over her head. However, naturally, Robin is a PERSON and has secret desires of her own. For example, she's in love with Michael Stanislaws - the next-door neighbor - a guy who lives alone (well, he has 2 cats who follow him everywhere) - and has never married. They are good friends ... in a kind of aloof way. Typical Lucy Maud: they never say just what they mean until the very last second. Michael is a very PROUD person - he's poor, and I believe he's lame? The story was written in 1928 - a post World War I story - so I believe he fought in the war and came home changed from it. He's bitter. But Robin really likes him.

Anyhoo ... at the time the story opens, Robin has been proposed to by Irving Keyes - a pompous asswipe - but she feels she must say yes because ... she's a maiden aunt ... what other choice does she have? Oh - and she has also been informed by her horrible sister-in-law that she will now have to share a room with Gladys, her teenage niece. They need the room - they no longer can give Robin her own room. This is the main reason that she actually considers marrying the odious Irving Keyes - so she won't have to endure yet another chipping away of her privacy.

There's something I really like about the writing in this story. I can see why she used most of this stuff in later novels - it's good. The dialogue is good, the characters clear ... good writing.

Excerpt from At the Altar - 'A Dinner of Herbs' - by L.M. Montgomery

Robin went to her room - the only spot on earth she had ever been able to call her own. And, as always when she went into it, the peace and dignity and beauty of it seemed to envelop her like a charm. She was in a different world - a world where George and Myra could not quarrel or the hired girl be impertinent to her; and the everlasting noise and racket of the household died away at its threshold like the spent wave of a troubled sea. For years all that had supported her through the drudgery of days spent waiting on a querulous invalid was the certainty of finding herself alone in her dear room at night where dreams gae some mysterious strength for another day.

The north window looked down on leagues of ripped sea and distant, misty, fairy-like coasts. Between it and the sand-dunes was only a dwindling grove of ragged old spruces.

The west window looked out on Owl's Roost, with its orchard and garden, where First and Second Peter prowled darkly, and Michael himself played the violin at hours when all decent people should be in bed. Sometimes, too, he ate his slender meals in the orchard, under an enormous apple tree, never dreaming that Robin Lyle was watching him from her window, and wishing shamelessly that she might play "Thou" to his crust of bread and jug of milk. Nor was the book of verse wanting. Michael read as he ate, propping his book up against the jug.

And now all this would be taken from her. She knew exactly what rooming with Gladys and her shrieking chums would mean. No more dreaming; no more shadowy hours of listening to Michael's stormy music in the orchard; no more early dawns watching the silent mysterious ships drift by the dunes to the harbour; never again alone with the night.

No, she could not endure it. Even sleek, prosperous Irving Keyes would be better than that.

"Life isn't fair," said Robin drearily, as if there was any use in saying it.

She went to the glass and looked at herself. She looked at her straight, black, bobbed hair, dark blue eyes and white, heart-shaped face; at her wide mouth quirked up at the corners so that she always seemed to be laughing even when very sad. And she thought of Blanche Foster's red-gold hair and flashing black eyes and brilliant complexion. Blanche Foster, who had always made Robin feel old and dowdy and silly. It was amazing that Irving Keyes didn't prefer her, but since he didnt ...

Robin shivered a little and sat down by the west window in the moonlight. The window was open, and the faint, cold, sweet perfumes of night drifted in - blent with the whiff of Michael Stanislaw's pipe, neither faint nor sweet, but very alluring. Once, when she was eighteen, she had had a fleeting fancy for Irving Keyes - and he knew it. Even yet he was attractive - until he spoke. But his funny vulgar stories and his great haw-haws! And his love for practical jokes! He still thought it a joke to stick o ut his foot and trip somebody up. And he still thought it wit to call eggs cackleberries.

Irving Keyes had been heard to boast that he had got everything he wanted in life. And now he wanted Robin Lyle. Robin thought he would get that too, despite his roars of laughter and the jigarees on his house.

What else was there for her? Arnold Clive? No! She shivered again. Austere, religious Arnold with the face of a fanatic: high, narrow brow, deep-set intolerant eyes, merciless mouth - quite out of the question! And, after all, she liked Irving very well.

She looked over at Owl's Roost. What a nice, gentle little old house it was; a nice lazy old house - a house that had folded its hands and said "I will rest." It had none of the Lyle efficiency and up-to-dateness about it, with a sly little eyebrow window above the porch roof and the magic of trees around it. She loved the trees around Owl's Roost. There were no trees around George's house. Myra thought shade unsanitary.

Michael was smoking his pipe at the fence with an orchard full of mysterious moonlit delights behind him. Robin wished she could go down and talk with him. She had sometimes talked with him over the fence. Not often, and yet she felt curiously well acquainted with him. They had laughed together the first time they had talked, and when two peoplel have laughed - really laughed - together they are good friends for life.

Though Michael did not laugh much. If anything, he was bitter. But there was something stimulating and pungent about his bitterness - like choke-cherries. They puckered your mouth horribly, but still you hankered for them.

"I wonder what he is thinking of," thought Robin.

She knew she only thought it. Yet a voice drifted up to her from the orchard.

"I'm thinking how very silvery that dark cloud must be on the moon side," said the voice. "Come down here and help me watch it leaving the moon. It's as good as an eclipse."

Robin flew downstairs, out of the side door and along the brick walk, worn by many feet. Michael was hanging over the fence. First Peter sat hunched up beside him, and Second Peter smoothed about his shoulder. First Peter always let Robin stroke him, but Second Peter swore at her. Second Peter was not to be hoodwinked.

Robin stood beside Michael on the other side of the fence, where the moonlight would lie white as snow on the flagged walk when the cloud passed. She had never been through the fence. There was no gate between the Lyle yard and the old orchard, lying fragrant and velvety under the enchantment of night.

They stood there together in a wonderful silence until the cloud had passed.

" 'He who has seen the full moon break forth from behind a dark cloud at night, has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world,' " quoted Michael, whacking his pipe on the fence and putting it in his pocket. "Wasn't it worth watching, Miss Lyle?"

If there was one thing she hated more than another, it was having Michael call her "Miss Lyle". She hated it so much that she answered "Yes", stiffly and unenthusiastically.

"It's impossible to avoid the conclusion that something is bothering you," said Michael. "Tell First Peter about it and I'll listen in."

A perfectly crazy impulse mastered Robin. She would tell him. She had to tell soembody.

"I can't make up my mind which of two men to marry," she said bluntly.

Michael was silent for an appreciable space. All the soundsaudible were First Peter purring and a dog taking the countryside into his confidence two farms away. His silence got on Robin's nerves.

"That wasn't quite true," she said crossly. "There are two - but there's only one I could really consider possible. And the trouble is I don't want to marry him - or anyone," she added hastily, telling a second tarradiddle.

"Then why marry him?" said Michael. "Why marry at all if you don't want to, in this day of woman's emancipation?"

"The trouble is - I'm not emancipated," sighed Robin, wishing that First Peter would stop purring. It was outrageous that a cat should be so blatantly happy. Though why shouldn't he be happy? Couldn't he sit on Michael's shoulder and snuggle his nose against Michael's face? Wasn't he doing it now, darn him? Yet she was still talking on. "I'm twenty years behind the times. I'm thirty-three and I'm not trained to do anything. I've no special gift. I can't sew or teach or pound a typewriter. All I can do, or want to do, is keep house. And I must marry - or room witih Gladys."

"Do you think Irving Keyes would be a more agreeable room-mate?" said Michael sarcastically - though she had not said anything about Irving Keyes.

"Well, he won't plaster my dressing table with powder - or raise Cain when he can't find his hairpins - or yell to Baal if he has chilblains - or look in the mirror the same time I do - purposely," said Robin defiantly.

"I think I see what you're up against," said Michael, beginning to fill his pipe again.

"You don't - not fully - a man couldn't," snapped Robin. "Gladys will talk me to death about her beaus. Gladys thinks there's no fun in having a beau unless you can tell everybody about him and what he said and what he did. She'll laugh at my funny old pictures with big sleeves and hats high on the head. She'll come in and wake me up in the wee sma's. She'll insist on having the most awful silver pig with a blue velvet pincushion on his back on my table. She'll bring her rampageous school chums in and chitter-chatter for hours. And everything will be either wonderful or priceless. I'll never be alone any more," concluded Robin pathetically.

"That gets me," said Michael. "And the alternative is Irving Keyes. A handsome fellow with gobs of money. Why don't you like him?"

"I do. But I don't feel like marrying him, for several reasons."

"For instance ..."

"He likes bread thick, and I like it thin," said Robin flippantly. She felt she had been absurd in telling Michael as much as she had.

"Every proper man likes bread thick. I've no sympathy with you there."

"Our taste in jokes is entirely different."

"Ah, that's serious," said Michael, not sounding serious.

"And ..." Robin looked at another cloud that was creeping over the moon. "I - I want someone else."

"Oh!" Second Peter snarled, as if he had been pushed aside with a foot.

"He's the only man in the world for me," said Robin, looking straight at Michael.

"That's a large order out of approximately five hundred million men," said Michael drily.

He began to smoke insolently. The cloud was over the moon, and the world was dark. Robin felt cold and old and silly and empty.

"I must go in," she said.

"Wait a sec." Michael was rummaging in his pocket. "Here's something for your rose-jar."

He handed her over a paper bag full of dried rose-leaves.

"All I can give any woman now - withered rose leaves," he said lightly. "Irving's a good fellow. Perhaps you can teach him to laugh in the right place. I'd have a try."

Being understood

I love this piece. I'll write more about it later - I've been thinking about it quite a bit - just wanted to link to it in the meantime.

Stoppard's "Coast of Utopia"

I'm going to have to go see this. You know, there are some things that just have to be done. A 9-hour play about Russia spanning an entire century written by Tom Stoppard? Seriously, in my world, in MY crowd, this is not something you miss. Don't be a jackass, you gotta go see it.

Interesting profile of Stoppard, by Daphne Murkin. Stoppard fans, you won't want to miss it. It's juicy - lots of good stuff. He's an odd duck, just as he should be.

I liked this quote:

Stoppard appears to have had the habits of a squire rather than those of a subversive. According to his long-time agent, Kenneth Ewing, his client was always inclined to luxury. “When I first met Tom,” Ewing is quoted in Tynan’s profile, “he had just given up his regular work as a journalist in Bristol, and he was broke. But I noticed that even then he always traveled by taxi, never by bus. It was as if he knew that his time would come.”

I also found it very interesting that Stoppard appears to answer questions in quips, epigrams, anecdotes - and the profile there makes the point that some of these "quips" have been recycled by him, in interview after interview, for years.

I begin to understand, even before I try to draw him out, why everything I have read about Stoppard seems to recycle the same anecdotes and quips. (He tells me, for instance, that he writes poetry, but “only for domestic consumption,” a line that I appreciate a bit less after I come across it in an interview he gave more than a decade earlier.) The critic Clive James has called Stoppard a “dream interview, talking in eerily quotable sentences.” But it strikes me that it is precisely the acrobatically clever quality of those sentences that keeps real scrutiny at bay.

Makes a lot of sense. It's a facade. An airy facade of cleverness which has the added purpose of leaving a lot of space around him, space that is necessary for him to work. Interesting.

Also, this is beautiful:

When I asked him why he chose [theatre] as his medium — and why he stuck with it — he responded via e-mail: “The standing of the theater in 1960 did have a lot to do with it. But it’s not just that. I like the smell of it, and the immediacy. Also the danger: getting it wrong in public. Also the thrill when you get it right in public.”

Coast of Utopia is a big risk. And I love it, I love him for being that kind of playwright. He raises the bar. I'll be there. So much theatre plays it safe nowadays. With ticket prices being what they are, and the public more interested in seeing Mary Poppins than serious theatre. But there MUST be a place for serious theatre, or challenging theatre, or even plays that have sad endings!! ... and there always will be those who push the boundaries of the artform (sometimes they generate enormous hits, like Tony Kushner with Angels in America - and sometimes they are flops) ... but it's the atmosphere of RISK that appeals to me. I felt it sitting in the audience at Grey Gardens as well. That entire project was a risk. And it's not perfect. But Christine Ebersole? She is transcendent. Her performance is triumphant - a personal triumph for her, to be sure ... but more than that, it is unutterably RIGHT for the material. Things came together - material and actress - in a way I've rarely seen before in live theatre. Her performance aches with pathos, humor, grief, courage ... Never seen anything like it. But it's certainly not an EASY show, it's not a happy ending kinda show ... but again, there IS a place for that kind of story ... because if I know that I hunger for it, then there are obviously others who do as well.

So bring it on, Stoppard ... bring on the 9 hours ... I love you.

Also - I've never seen Billy Crudup onstage and I've heard he is phenomenal - I'm still bummed I missed his Elephant Man. Ben Brantley says Crudup is "unmatchable in conveying the discomforts of self-consciousness." Absolutely. I can so see that.

Here's the review of Part 1 of the trilogy ... eventually they will all run together. (Amazingly, Richard Easton, after collapsing onstage due to cardiac arrhythmia during previews - causing Ethan Hawke to stop his performance and shout out into the audience: "Is there a doctor in the house?" - is back up and running. Got a great review too. Amazing.)

Brantley writes in his review:

“Utopia” portrays people who, determined to pursue a life of the mind, keep discovering that life has a disruptive mind of its own.

Can't wait.

When legends gather ...

Charlton Heston, Marilyn Monroe, and Rock Hudson.

You know, even from that angle (which is disastrous for 99.99999% of the population - especially the female population) Marilyn looks ravishing.

Which reminds me - I finished the third book on my From the Stacks challenge: The Making of the Misfits ... Need to write up a post on it. It was a quick read - a reporter's first-hand journal about being on the "set" in Reno for The Misfits, one of the more notoriously difficult shoots in cinematic history. This is the story of that shoot - from the ground up, no retrospect ... it's all in present-tense: "Today we moved out to the dry lake for the wild horses scene ..." etc.

I loved it. I'll write up a post about it later.

Happy birthday to Louisa May Alcott

"November is the most disagreeable month in the whole year," said Meg, standing at the window one dull afternoon, looking out at the frostbitten garden.

"That's the reason I was born in it," observed Jo pensively, quite unconscious of the blot on her nose.

Louisa May Alcott was born on this day, in 1832. (I just LOVE that picture of her above. The dress!!)

Truth be told, I have only read Little Women. But that, frankly, was enough for me. To me, it is a perfect book - a book I go back to again and again and again - always seeing something new in it, always finding new levels. The characters seem to grow up with me. When I first read it, when I was 10 years old, I was ALL ABOUT JO. And my love affair with Jo continues to this day. She is one of my favorite female characters ever written (it's a tie between Jo March and Harriet the Spy). Jo LIVES. No one can convince me that she is just a fictional character. Nope. You cannot do it.

But as I have grown up, and as I have continuously gone back to the book - the other sisters have come to the foreground - I see myself in all of them. Parts of me are like Amy, parts of me are like Meg, and I would like to think that parts of me are like Beth. But honestly: Jo is the one. Jo is the one I most relate to. She's the artist. The tomboy. The independent wild spirit. The one who is afraid to make the wrong choice. The one who sticks to her guns.

I still am not really reconciled to the fact that she and Laurie did not end up together - HOWEVER, I can see Jo's point. They were like brother and sister. But ... but ... but ... couldn't that have segued into a love thing? The intimacy they have together, the comfort?

When I was a kid, I HATED the professor. With his stupid German accent, and his goofy poetry as he wooed Jo. I resented the fact that he wasn't Laurie. I loved Laurie.

Now I know that Louisa May Alcott was forced by her publishers to marry Jo off. She wanted her to stay single. And if you really think about it, THAT would be much more logical - it makes much more sense that Jo, even with all her passion, and her ability to understand men (in a way that Meg, the one with all the love affairs, doesn't) - would choose to spend her life alone. She would marry her writing. In that day and age, those were the choices. It was the choice Louisa May Alcott herself made. She could not submit to the demands of wifehood and motherhood - it would infringe on her writing. She knew it, even when she was 15 years old, and wrote in her journal: "I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"

Alcott grew up in Concord, one of 4 girls, and part of what we would now call an activist family. They were abolitinists. Social reformers. Her mother was a social worker. Her father was an educational philosopher, and had a belief in communal living (Louisa May Alcott wrote some funny pieces about these experiments of her father's, and having to submit to them as a young girl.) Her father (Amos Bronson Alcott - also born on this day) was buddies with Emerson, and part of the Transcendentalist movement. At the time, her father's views on teaching were very controversial: He actually believed that students should enjoy learning. Heaven forbid! He thought that students should be actively involved in their own education, and not just sit back and be passive little drones. Her father thought it was very important to have a beautiful classroom - not just desks and a chalkboard. He poured his heart (and finances) into a school - which ran for a couple of years - but then went under, putting the family at financial risk. Louisa May Alcott eventually, many years later, would be pretty much the sole supporter of her parents. She made a ton of money DURING her lifetime, which is quite rare. Her parents just weren't the money-making types - obviously. As a young teenager Louisa May Alcott had a passionate girlish love of Emerson - a crush, if you will. His intellect, his library that she was allowed to use, whatever ... She adored him.

In 1862, Alcott (as always, determined to make a living - and to contribute financially to her family) traveled to Washington DC as a Civil War nurse. By this point, Alcott had already started getting stuff published - poems, short stories in the Gothic melodramatic vein ... She actually preferred Gothic melodramas to the kinds of books that later would make her name. (She despised Little Women and found the writing of it extremely tedious.) Her experience as a nurse in the Civil War prompted her to publish a book called Hospital Sketches. At that point, her publisher asked her if she would write a book "for girls". Never one to back off from a challenge, Louisa May Alcott sat down and wrote Little Women in two months. She had grown up with 3 sisters - and she put her entire childhood and life into that book, even as she hated doing it, and didn't think the book would amount to much.

Little Women was published in 1868 and was an immediate rip-roaring success. The publisher, within only a couple of weeks of its publication, begged Alcott to get to work on a sequel. So Alcott did. Another smash success. Louisa May Alcott had become a star.

Every book she wrote after that was eagerly awaited for by a breathless loving public. Success had, indeed, come - her childish ambitions to be 'rich and famous' came to fruition tenfold ... but 'happy'? Was she happy?

She never married. She ended up taking care of her sister May's daughter - after May died from complications in childbirth. Being a surrogate mother to this young girl was one of the most fulfilling experiences of Alcott's life. She kept writing, kept publishing ... although she began to get more and more ill from mercury poisoning she had received years earlier during the Civil War (she had, like many other Civil War nurses, contracted typhoid fever - and at the time, the proscribed cure was something called "calomel" - a drug laden with mercury).

Near the end of her life, Alcott became active in the suffragette movement. Her father (an extraordinary man in his own right) had always been a feminist himself:

His passion was to see that his four daughters were educated, well-rounded, and part of the intellectual community helived in. (Some heavy-hitters there - Emerson, Thoreau, etc.) Louisa's father kept detailed diaries during the raising of his 4 girls, chronicling everything about each one of them. His whole thing was early education - the importance of the first couple of years - and again, you don't ever get the sense that he thought this was only good for BOYS. On the contrary. Here's a snippet of a letter Louisa's father wrote to Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1869, which gives you some idea of who this man was:

Woman is helping herself to secure her place in a better spirit and manner than any we [men] can suggest or devise, it becomes us to take, rather than proffer Consels, readily waiting to learn her wishes and aims, as she has so long, and so patiently deferred to us.

In 1879, Louisa May Alcott was the first woman to register to vote in Concord - for the school committee election. Pretty awesome, huh?

Her beloved father passed away on March 4, 1888. Louisa May Alcott died two days later.

An extraordinary woman.

She didn't care for the book that made her name ... and probably wished that her legacy was different ... but that's okay. It is not for the artist to decide what the audience will react to, what the reader will respond to. She created something with Little Women that transcends the ages, that pierces through the centuries. It is a classic book. And perhaps it's fitting, in a way, that she wrote it for hire, pretty much - it was not her idea, and yet - look at what she was able to create. Look at what she was able to bring out!!

Those 4 girls are immortal.

When I was 16 years old, one of the assignments we had in our Drama class was to do a one-person show - maybe 15, 20 minutes long - based on either a real person from history, or a fictional character - and we had to come into the class as that character, and do a monologue - based on our research - and then take questions from the class - in character. I still remember my core group of friends and their projects: Beth came in as Mae West. She was incredible. She had on a blowsy blonde wig, and wore a tight sparkley dress - and I still remember the shock when Beth started telling us all about birth control options - because Mae West was an early champion of birth control for women. It was awesome. Beth was fearless. Betsy did Paddington Bear (and I still remember how one of the questions for Betsy was: "Why don't you eat some of your marmalade?" and Betsy - who despises marmalade - had to dip her hand into the jar, take out a big scoop of it, and eat it - pretending she liked it. Now that's dedication to the acting craft!). Michele did Marilyn Monroe. Unbelievable. Michele was an amazing actress, a natural. She got the sadness beneath the blonde glamour of Marilyn.

And I did Louisa May Alcott.

One of my first forays into the one-person show format ... I did hours and hours and hours of research for a mere 20 minute piece - because I had no idea what questions people would ask, and I had to be ready for anything!

It was great, because I had known nothing about her before that. I had just read Little Women and we had also visited her house in Concord on a family trip (a great thing to do if you are in the area). Orchard House:

Once I learned all this stuff about her, my admiration for her grew. I loved that our birthdays were almost the same. She was a Sagittarius too.

Little Women. I don't know if I would call it a great book - but I would say that it is something much better than "great": it is beloved. Little Women is a beloved book. And that is a rare and precious thing.

Happy birthday, Louisa May!

The Books: At the Altar: 'Aunt Philippa and the Men' (L.M. Montgomery)

Next book on the shelf ...

At the Altar - 'Aunt Philippa and the Men' - by L.M. Montgomery

At the Altar is another one of the collections put together by Rea Wilmhurst in the 90s of Lucy Maud's work - her short stories, published throughout her life ... but never before compiled. Rea Wilmhurst put different stories together thematically - and all of these have to do with (obviously) getting married.

"Aunt Philippa and the Men" is a very funny story - a Lucy Maud romance with that tone of COMEDY that I love so much - none of that sentimental stuff. She's more interested in the absurdity. "Aunt Philippa" was published in Redbook in 1915 ... and Aunt Philippa is a clear rehearsal for Miss Cornelia in Anne's House of Dreams (which came out in 1917). They are very nearly the same character. The man-hating thing, the Methodist-hating thing, and also the good heart, the no-nonsense heart.

Ursula Goodwin is her niece and she has come to stay with Aunt Philippa for the summer. Ursula is in a bit of a crisis. She's in love with someone - and her father does not approve of the match because of some age-old feud with the guy's family. At least that's what I think it is. She has been forbidden to marry him. Meanwhile, she has quarreled with him as well ... so she thinks the whole thing might be off anyway ... but her parents are terrified that she will make up with this person whom they do NOT want her to marry ... so they ship her off to PEI and Aunt Philippa for the summer. Philippa picks her up at the ferry in her buggy and as they drive home, Philippa chats and rants and raves about the things that bug her. She gossips about the neighbor and the new minister ("I am of the opinion that he smokes"). She says that there are no good Methodists. Ursula protests: "My stepmother is a Methodist!" Philippa replies, "I would believe anything of a stepmother." You know, it's pure Lucy Maud comedy. Great stuff. So the summer goes by - and Ursula settles in to the slow PEI life ... but she misses Mark (her guy) and wonders what will happen with them. Oh, and Philippa has NO sympathy for romantic problems of any kind because she hates men and thinks they are all despicable and are not worth ONE DROP of your tears. So Ursula can't really confide in Philippa. She suffers in silence. But then - one day - Mark shows up at Aunt Philippa's door. His firm is going to send him to South Africa in a month. He will be gone indefinitely. Will Ursula marry him? Now?? Ursula hesitates ... she hates the thought of a quickie wedding like this ... it feels like running away ... and suddenly Aunt Philippa, the man-hater, swoops in and takes care of everything. Surprising everybody. There WILL be a wedding, and she will have it at her house ... and everything will be fine.

I'll post an excerpt from the wedding itself just because Philippa's one comment after they become man and wife is so hilarious. Just great stuff.

Excerpt from At the Altar - 'Aunt Philippa and the Men' - by L.M. Montgomery

For the next three weeks she was a blissfully excited, busy woman. I was allowed to choose the material and fashion of my wedding suit and hat myself, but almost everything else was settled by Aunt Philippa. I didn't mind; it was a relief to be rid of all responsibility; I did protest when she declared her intention of having a big wedding and asking all the cousins and semi-cousins on the island, but Aunt Philippa swept by objections lightly aside.

"I'm bound to have one good wedding in this house," she said. "Not likely I'll ever have another chance."

She found time amid all the baking and concocting to warn me frequently not to take it too much to heart if Mark failed to come after all.

"I know a man who jilted a girl on her wedding day. That's the men for you. It's best to be prepared."

But Mark did come, getting there the evening before our wedding day. And then a severe blow fell on Aunt Philippa. Word came from the manse that Mr. Bentwell had been suddenly summoned to Nova Scotia to his mother's deathbed; he had started that night.

"That's the men for you," said Aunt Philippa bitterly. "Never can depend on one of them, not even on a minister. What's to be done down?"

"Get another minister," said Mark easily.

"Where'll you get him?" demanded Aunt Philippa. "The minister at Cliftonville is away on his vacation, and Mercer is vacant, and that leaves none nearer than town. It won't do to depend on a town minister being able to come. No, there's no help for it. You'll have to have that Methodist man."

Aunt Philippa's tone was tragic. Plainly she thought the ceremony would scarcely be legal if that Methodist man married us. But neither Mark nor I cared. We were too happy to be disturbed by any such trifles.

The young Methodist minister married us the next day in the presence of many beaming guests. Aunt Philippa, splendid in black silk and point-lace collar, neither of which lost a whit of dignity or lustre by being made ten years before, was composure itself while the ceremony was going on. But no sooner had the minister pronounced us man and wife than she spoke up.

"Now that's over I want someone to go right out and put out the fire on the kitchen roof. It's been on fire for the last ten minutes."

Minister and bridegroom headed the emergency brigade, and Aunt Philippa pumped the water for them. In a short time the fire was out, all was safe, and we were receiving our deferred congratulations.

New addiction

This blog: e-closure.

People email in their stories of horrible breakups. They email in their entire break-up correspondences. I can't stop reading it.

Here's a good story to start with.

Watch it degenerate. Well, it doesn't start at a very high level but it plummets downhill fast. The wording is classic. The hatred is palpable.

There are gems like this:

I can't kiss your stuffed animals goodnight anymore. I don't like apple picking. I don't like bike rides. I enjoy farting in bed.

We move on (in the same email) to this:

I'm sorry, but I would rather eat my own leg than continue being your boyfriend.

Follow the trainwreck. And those two only dated for 5 months!!

I'm addicted.

Maiden aunts, singledom, feminism ...

Anne has a really interesting post up - with a great conversation going on in the comments. (Her comments section should be given an award, by the way - I've always felt that way. I went on a huge tangent about comments sections in general ... decided to put it below the fold.)

And Anne, I know that Mr. Darcy will be mine some day. I realize this makes me a cliche, but I seriously cannot help it!

The comments section over at Anne's blog feels like a conversation - rather than a display of clashing opinions. Anne has a great core group .. and the discussion is always intelligent, and interesting. She also doesn't have commenters who appear to want to FIX her. Like - she can write about things that interest her, or confuse her, or stuff she is pondering - without people racing in telling her how she should feel, or what side she should come down on. Does that make sense? At least it doesn't SEEM like people are hovering over on the sidelines, waiting to jump on her, or catch her in a hypocrisy, or stand BACK from the conversation ... people are IN the conversation, know what I mean? They all seem like they're friends. Not all cagey and opinionated. (I love the comments section at this blog too. Chatty, fun, everyone interested in the same thing, helpful, observant ... I always read all the comments over there.)

I was just reading another blog this morning, one of my favorites, and blogger in question posted something racy - but hey, she's a racy blogger - and the BROU HAHA that ensued in the comments, and the rude emails she got - the "advice" and the "I'll pray for you"s ... It was unbelievable. Especially because it's not like the sex-talk is out of the ordinary - that's the main thing she writes about. So naturally she has attracted a core group of people who are not freaked out or judgmental, and who like talking about sex in an open way. Like attracts like - and her comments section isn't usually freaky and judge-y, with people standing back from it, wagging their finger, or judging her or whatever ... I think she recently got some new readers whose delicate little Victorian heads exploded when they read her recent post ... but that's THEIR problem. Read her archives, you'll see what she's about. If you're not into that stuff, if you have a kneejerk "That's wrong" response to topics like that - then don't read. That whole thing on her blog this morning (and she handled it like the steel magnolia that she is!!) was just a reminder of the value of a really good core group of people, who are into what you're into, and like hanging out in the same way. I think the blogger (whoever the blogger is) is responsible for some of that. Not totally - because jagoffs are always going to show up and ruin the vibe in a comments section, or judge you without even knowing you, or COMPLETELY miss the point. But still: a blogger who creates a comments section where intelligent people can hang out and "talk" about stuff? That is definitely credit to the blogger. There are blogs I love - written by bloggers who I think are amazing - where I refuse to read the comments - due to the moronic low level of conversation there, the poo-flinging, the nastiness, whatever. There are blogs that are mainly photo blogs where the comments section is just as entertaining and you don't want to miss what people have to say. There are essay blogs where people usually just chime in with "Awesome!" "Another great essay!" Whatever. It runs the gamut. So a conversation with like-minded people is ONE kind of comments section - and that's the kind of thing that I enjoy. It doesn't have to do with agreeing with one another, or echo chambers, or any of that. It has to do with the TYPE of conversation that goes on. The TONE. Anne PONDERS things on her blog. There's no pressing need to come up with an answer ... that's not the point. Her commenters appear to just ponder things with her ... I love that.)

Anyway - I've been thinking about her post, and what it means to me personally, all day.

Poetry!!

I got this from So Many Books - (which is one of my new favorite blogs): Fun! I grew up in a poetry-loving family - which i think is kind of a requirement if you're Irish - so this was really fun to answer:

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was

Probably A.A. Milne ... the books When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six were constants in my childhood. We read those books RAGGED. Some of it still comes back from memory.

For example:

They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.

And this one ... Oh my God ... I don't know it totally by heart now but there was a time in my life when I knew the entire thing by heart. I still loved to have it read to me ... but this was one of my favorites in that whole collection:

James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he;
"You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me."

James James
Morrison's Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison's Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea."

King John
Put up a notice,
"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN -
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!"

James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he:
"You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me."

James James
Morrison's mother
Hasn't been heard of since.
King John said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?"

(Now then, very softly)
J.J.
M.M.
W.G.Du P.
Took great
C/0 his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J.J. said to his M*****
"M*****," he said, said he:
"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don't-go-down-with-ME!"

(I LOVED the stage directions part ... I LOVED that we had to whisper that part. Magical poem.)

Let's see. What other ones. Well, the Golden Book of Poetry was also huge in the O'Malley family - I can still remember huddling up next to my dad as he read the one about Annie ... in his gruff voice. We had some perennial favorites, ones we went to again and again ... and I can still remember those amazing illustrations that we would just pore over, greedily. My mother still has the copy of that book - I really should get it myself. Classic poems.

We loved "Owl and the Pussycat" MADLY - and this was one of the ones we knew off by heart.

I only can do the first verse now (I just checked it online - the other 2 verses didn't come right back - but here's the first verse - emblazoned in my brain forever:)

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"Oh lovely Pussy! Oh Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

Another one we adored from that anthology was "Raggedy Man" ... and we LOVED "Little Orphan Annie" as well - this one I recall being read to us with threatenings of tickling torture at the end of each verse. I also can remember the illustration to this particular poem as well as if it were sitting in front of me right now. Scary stuff in this poem!! For example:

Once there was a little girl who always laughed and grinned
and made fun of everyone, of all her blood and kin,
and once when there was company and old folks was there,
she mocked them and she shocked them and said, she didn't care.
And just as she turned on her heels and to go and run and hide,
there was two great big black things a standing by her side.
They snatched her through the ceiling fore she knew what shes about,
and the goblins will get ya if ya don't watch out!!

Golden Book of Poetry. A total staple to childhood reading. I believe that that was where we first heard "Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" as well. Great collection - really fun.

And Mum and Dad: there was one about a candy tree??? Do you remember that? I can't remember the name of it ... but it was a long poem about candy in a tree ... bah ... if you can remember it, please let me know. I'd love to read that one again.

2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and........

Hm. I know I was forced to memorize a poem or 2 in the course of my education but I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it was. I know I took a class in Shakespeare's sonnets in college and we had to memorize those left and right. That was one of my favorite classes EVER. Love those sonnets. I read them outloud to myself if I am particularly stressed out and jittery.

3. I read/don't read poetry because....

I read a lot of poetry - and usually outloud - just cause I enjoy it. There's a lot of crap poetry out there, so I'm not indiscriminate about it ... you'd have to pay me to go to a poetry slam, for example, unless it was, you know, REAL poets and not just people who think speaking in some kind of rhythmic way is poetry ... No. I got me some standards. Sorry. Count me in with Camille Paglia (whose book Break Blow Burn is essential reading for poetry lovers. I love her anyway - but I just LOVE this book in particular.) I am also open to trying new poets. If someone tells me to read a poem, and I respect the person telling me ... then I will definitely check that poet out. I have been introduced to some amazing writers (James Dickey, for example, Wendell Berry) that way.

I find poetry relaxing. I find it intellectually stimulating - I like to read stuff that is not necessarily EASY, I like stuff which requires me to meet it halfway. Otherwise I get bored. I love TS Eliot. I love Wallace Stevens. I love Emily Dickinson. And also: I like poetry because sometimes, like a good song lyric, it can cut so directly into the heart of the matter - that I can honestly say that I have been subtly ALTERED in my outlook of things after reading a certain poem. There are poems that I have literally hung onto during bad times in my life - almost like the Hail Mary - something to be said every day, I don't want to say ritual - more like a meditation. I couldn't say that about a NOVEL, although there are many books that I love, and that have deeply impacted me, or changed me. But a poem can be a life preserver. Mary Oliver's "Blackwater Woods" has been a life preserver for me. It has given me strength when I needed it. It has helped me clear out the cobwebs or chaos in my head, when I've had trouble with letting something go. From the first moment I have read it it has been a deep source of ... strength, self-reflection, power, intuition, inspiration ... what have you ... Life preserver. Auden's "The More Loving One" has been another life preserver - I've written about my whole clinging to that poem after Sept. 11 ... and how that and the Hail Mary were never far from my mind, in those first weeks of terror. I turn to poetry for contemplation and, at times, solace. I also just flat out enjoy it. I like language, and I like people who are into language.

4. A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is .......

"The More Loving One" is usually the one that immediately pops into my head.

But I usually have to completely discount Shakespeare's sonnets in order to answer this question. Because otherwise he just would take over, as he has a tendency to do, at least in my world.

Other favorite poems:

Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium" and "Second Coming". Also "Among School Children". I would argue that those are 3 of the best poems ever written.

William Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is scary good. Like Chaucer good. Every line is so profound that it's a bit overwhelming to read it all at once. But the guy was a genius. Keep up with him if you can.

And you know, I adore Christopher Smart ... something about him makes me want to cry ... Check out his life story. You'll see why. Here's a post I wrote about him and I include in that post the poem addressed to his cat Joffrey - and there's just something divine about it. And I don't mean "divine" as a silly adjective ... I mean it in the true sense of the word. I LOVE that poem.

John Milton's "On His Blindness" is almost too painful for me to read with any regularity - but again, I think I can call that one a life preserver. At least it has been. One of the most profound things I have ever read. Helps me to hold on. Just hold on. They also serve who only stand and waite.

5. I write/don't write poetry, but...

I don't write poetry. There are no "buts".

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature.....

Oops. I think I covered that up there. There's a way that a good poet uses language and the tools of his craft - metaphor, simile, repetition - that is very specific to poetry. I find a good poem to be almost perfect in its expression of whatever it is: heartache, sunset, a flock of geese, a tulip - whatEVER. The poem can slow down ... a poem can linger on one thing ... and some writers do that in novels, but it is very tricky to get away with it ... because you have other things like plot and character to deal with. But a poem can pierce into the entirety of life through the mere glimpse of a silvery puddle or wintry branches against a white sky ... The stuff I love starts with the specific and then goes huge and universal (Mary Oliver just kills me in that way) ... but it's in the details, the tiny miniscule details. There are certain poets who actually teach me how to SEE. How to LOOK. How to go deep, always. THAT'S why I love poetry.

7. I find poetry.....

enriching. Fun. I mainly like to read it out loud. I don't even need an audience. I just like to pick up my Seamus Heaney, open it up, and read.

8. The last time I heard poetry....

Live? I may be blanking on this - I don't go out to see poets all that much - but I do remember going with my friend Kate to hear Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill read, here in New York. She writes in Gaelic - and her work needs to be translated into English (she never does the translating - she says she just can't hear poetry in English) - and so she came to the Ireland House at NYU and read. She read in Gaelic AND in English - it was a great night, with cherry blossoms falling through the air outside the window. That was ages ago, though.

9. I think poetry is like.... (free associating here - and I must add to the question: GOOD poetry - because so much of poetry - like everything else - is terrible - and I pretty much stick to the great ones, because bad poetry is, well, so unbelievably unbearable - worse than a bad book, a bad song, a bad anything ... Gimme the great ones, mkay? SO. GOOD poetry is like:)

-- a dreamscape
-- a brilliant insight from a good friend
-- a clear cold bell ringing
-- a tall glass of water
-- an "A-ha!" moment
-- kaleidoscope
-- a widening lens on a camera
-- a mirror

(And I don't usually tag people - but I'm gonna tag Annika here. NO PRESSURE, Annika. I still would just love to hear your answers.)

You know you are an irredeemable geek when ...

... you squeal with sincere delight when you open a package from a second-hand bookseller - to see that you have finally received the book you ordered: Stalin and the Kirov Murder, by Robert Conquest.

I squeal with delight over the Kirov murder.

Repeatedly.

Not the fact that it happened ... but the fact that I can never read enough about this one particular event. And here's a whole book about that one thing.

Squeeeee!

More of my ramblings about Kirov here (that was in response to beginning Conquest's book The Great Terror).

And ... here.

I've already been flipping through it. I can't start it just yet ... there are a couple books ahead of it on "the list" - but I am itching to just tear through it.

St. Paul's White Christmas!

Well, a couple things:

My dear cousin Kerry O'Malley is on the main page of Playbill at this very moment. She is now in St. Paul, about to open in White Christmas at the Ordway Center (here's the promo about it). Irving Berlin's White Christmas was done last year in Boston - Kerry starred in it then as well - and although I didn't get to see it, I heard TONS about it from my family - my father loved it - and Kerry said it was about the most fun she had ever had doing a show.

So now she's off in Minnesota ... and I kind of wish I could get out there to see it.

I know I have readers in Minnesota - so if you want a great night at the theatre for the whole family, fun, happy, feel-good - definitely go see White Christmas!

And clap the loudest for Kerry, won't you??

Ticket information here.

My birthday celebration

I got into my new flannel pajamas, put on my new fur-lined slippers, had a bit of chicken parmasan, a glass of wine (in my new blue-glass wineglasses - thanks Jean!) ... sat in bed with my laptop next to me ... and watched The Magdalene Sisters - one of the more wrenching movies I have seen in a long while. Jesusmaryandjoseph. Happy birthday indeed. Eileen Walsh's performance is a tour de force. (She's the one on the right here.) It's the kind of acting that I not only love but HUNGER to see. She is outrageously good, without having that whole American "watch me gun for an oscar" crap. If you look at her IMDB page, there's not a lot there. Amazing. Baffling. That was just flat out some of the best acting I have ever seen. The last shot of the film is hers ... and she's not one of the main 3 girls ... poor poor Crispina ... God. What an interesting character. Marvelous work. Riveting. She's so so so so good. Everyone's good. Geraldine McEwan as Sister Bridget, the head bitch of the Magdalene Laundry, is terrifying. But in that very specific way where she's a real character, a real person ... not just a caricature of a scary nun. She seems truly dangerous. Oh, and there's not one primary color in the palette of this film. Not ONE. It's all greys and dull greens and browns. It becomes relentless. You start to ache for some bright yellow, some indigo, some crimson.

I kinda couldn't sleep though after seeing it. I lay in bed thinking about Eileen Walsh, her acting, and also about the character she played. It was haunting. Haunting.

If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. If I could do it over again - would I watch it on my birthday? Uhm, no.

Thanksgiving snapshots ... part 2

-- Friday dawned clear and beautiful. I was up before the kids got up - which surprised me. Mum, Dad and I hung out in the cozy kitchen for a while, having coffee and talking. Surrounded by random copies of The Sewanee Review, of course. Then slowly everyone else got up. Grace and Henry appearing, well-rested, sleepy-headed, a bit cuddly, but ready to go NUTS once they really woke up. They are so cute!! Grace immediately went to start banging on the piano but Betsy said, "No, honey, it's too early for the piano." hahaha The dawn's early light ... and banging "chords" from the living room.

-- Nice morning. Breakfast. Hanging out. Lazy day. Nothing to do but just ... hang around.

-- I was reading a FASCINATING book called Snapping ... could NOT put it down. It is a book that Emily must read as soon as possible. I finished it over this past weekend. So I sat there, as Grace and Henry played with Fisher Price toys all around me, and read about Jonestown. Awesome.

-- Later in the day - we went shopping. Me, Mum, Jean and Siobhan. We converged on Marshall's. I got a ton of stuff, after a wee meltdown ("nothing fits! I don't want to go shopping! I hate my body!") ... Jean talked me down ... and I ended up getting a boatload of really cool clothes that I feel happy about. It was my birthday present. (Well, my birthday's today, but you know ... we had the whole birthday thing this past weekend). I got the coziest slippers ever known to man. Fur-lined. I mean ... heavenly. If I could wear them 24/7 I would. I have them on now. I could not be happier.

-- Plans were made to meet up at the beach later and get a bit of exercise with Hudson.

-- Came home and read more of Snapping. Moved on from Jonestown to read about David Koresh as well as Loonytunes Moonies. AWESOME.

-- Siobhan and I drove down to the beach to meet up with Jean, Pat and Hudson. It was about 5 pm when we got there. The sun had gone down, so darkness was falling pretty quickly - but there was still a wash of sunset glowing in the west, blurring up into the black ... You could see the "towers" black and stark against the glow ... and the string of orange lamplights lit up, along the sea wall. The tide was low. The waves were crashing - but they were breaking pretty far out ... one after the other after the other. The foam was dim, bluish in the twilight ... and the water picked up all the stray gleams of colors - so everything looked psychedelic. The sand itself was dark, but then the water rushing across it would gleam like a blue mirror, flecked with orange, smudged with silver. It's one of my favorite times of day to be at the beach. Siobhan and I pulled up beside jean's car - and there they were, down at the shore - Jean, Pat, and Hudson. I said to Siobhan, "This is one of those moments when I wish I lived in Rhode Island." Hey, let's meet at the beach! So we walked down to the Dunes Club and back ... night was really falling by the time we returned, sunset dying out. Hudson chased sticks, and also disappeared into the night to inspect seaweed, or whatever it was he was doing. But then, vroom, he would catch up to us, and fly by us, a blur of ecstatic black. There were a couple of other folks out with dogs - so there were many congresses of the animal world, up and down the beach. Nothing like the salty smell of the ocean, the sound of those pounding waves. It does more for my spirit than pretty much any other healing medicine ever could.

-- We made plans to meet up at The Mist later that night. You know ... to see John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. Or, to Rhode Islanders: "JC and the Triple B". Uhm ... Eddie and the Cruisers anyone? well, they are still going strong and have a regular gig at The Mist which, in general, draws massive loyal crowds. I've never been to a "Triple B" show so even though the whole thing makes me feel unbelievably old - I just HAD to go check it out. They're our local boys!

-- When Siobhan and I arrived, the joint was jumpin'. JC hadn't gone on yet - but the opening band was going strong, they were a cover band - and people were dancing like crazy, jitterbugging. In the rickety shack above the waves. Oh, and the white seagulls (or are they terns?) were in attendance, bobbing on the black-green surging waves outside. What the hell? I love them.

-- The JC crowd was already showing up. Rhode Islanders will know what I'm talking about. This is all just local color, local humor ... hard to explain to an outsider. Jean was out on the deck of the bar and this girl came out there with her - obviously a JC fan. She had long straight hair, she was rather fat, and she was wearing a gold puffy vest. She stood on the deck staring out at the dark ocean, the bobbing seagulls, the crashing waves ... transfixed ... Jean was doing her own thing, maybe talking with Pat, whatever, but Gold Vest was having her own private experience. Suddenly, she shouted, to herself, "I LOVE THIS SHIT." Shouting at the ocean. By herself. In the Rhode Island accent. With the puffy gold vest. "I LOVE THIS SHIT." We loved Gold Vest. We kept an eye out for her all night.

-- Oh - and I just fell in love with this big huge goombah in his backwards baseball cap - who had no neck - and a blonde petite girlfriend with a tan that seemed burned onto her skin ... but the cover band was playing "Signed Sealed Delivered" and suddenly I happened to glance at him - he was standing with his back to me - his huge back - the back of a linebacker - and he was hugging his girlfriend from behind, and they were watching the band, and he was just jamming out, in his own small way, to "Signed Sealed Delivered". He was jiggling his butt back and forth, bopping his head up and down ... It was adorable. We couldn't stop appreciating him. We appreciated him from afar all night.

-- By the end of the night, and by the end of my 2 vodka gimlets, I had made plans to go to Burning Man with Sean in a huge Winnebago. Hahahaha "We have to go!" "We must!" "Burning Man! Burning Man!" 'See you at Burning Man!" Guys ... is this a REAL plan or just vodka-fueled enthusiasm?

-- And then .... JOHN CAFFERTY!

-- You know, people make fun and all that, but here's the deal, and here's what I saw: I saw someone who has not gone bitter and pissed because his moment of fame did not pan out to a lifetime of fame. According to the folks in Rhode Island, he IS a star. And he IS. And not only that: but there he is, playing the songs that everyone knew once upon a time - way back in the 80s when they suddenly were national, rather than local ... and he has probably played them thousands, and thousands, of times. And to me it felt like the first time. He had that same enthusiasm. He's not pissed that people remember. (A lot of one-hit wonders ARE pissed if you remember their one-hit ... because all it means to them is that they didn't have TWO hits. Now I get that ... I get that it's freakin' tough to not have your dreams pan out ... I get that on almost a cellular level, because I've lived it ... ) But to see someone who LOVES that people remember ... and who plays those songs with as much gusto and as much enthusiasm as when he played them in the 80s ... You know, I just really loved him for that. I loved him for being okay with being loved. The crowd goes NUTS for the Triple B ... and I was telling Beth and Michele about it the next night and they both were saying, "Oh my God, we all HAVE to go the next time you're in town." This is our high school years. There he is. The same band. All together. John Cafferty would come out into the crowd with his guitar - and people would jostle him, crowd around him ... give him a stool so he could then step up onto one of the tables in the middle of the crowd. Jean and I, watching, were just laughing and clapping and loving him. He's an entertainer. He's a local staple. He made it big for about 2 seconds. And people remember and still come out in droves to see him. And he loves that. I had a couple of moments when I teared up. Because I am a geek of the highest order. But I've also been an emotional basket-case for about 3 weeks now. Just let's go way up, shall we? And then let's go way back down again, shall we? Seeing John Cafferty stand up on that table, in the middle of a sea of pulsing throbbing arms in the air, people shouting up at him, people who know all his lyrics, who remember him when ... gave me a little lump in the ol' gizzard, I'll tell ya.

-- But we also sang along at the tops of our lungs. Pat was openly laughing at us. And Sean was openly scornful. I think he didn't want to go to Burning Man with me after seeing me go nuts over John Cafferty. Hahaha

-- It was a BLAST. TRIPLE B!!!

Livin in the C-I-T-Y! Livin' in the city!

Or ...

On the dark side, oh yeah
On the dark side, oh yeah
On the dark side, oh yeah

-- When I got home, Alex called me ... I've missed her ... and I stood out in the driveway ... and we had a great talk. I've missed hearing her voice. I was probably shouting. And the neighborhood is dark and quiet at about 7 pm ... so to the neighbors ... my apologies for shouting into my cell phone at circa 1:30 am.

There is nothing I could possibly say ...

... that would be sufficient warning for what you will see when you open this link.

The Books: Along the Shore - 'Young Si' (L.M. Montgomery)

Next book on the shelf ...

Along the Shore - 'Young Si' - by L.M. Montgomery

So this is the last story I will excerpt from this collection and then I'll move on to yet another one of Lucy Maud's books. Young Si is a simple little story that just works. No fireworks, no clunky plot ... no florid language!! A young woman named Agnes (who, from Lucy Maud's description - with her orange hair and violet eyes and creamy skin - is quite a looker) has gone to spend the summer at a boarding house near the sea. She is staying with a kindly family - who welcome her. There is a young daughter, Agnes - who is about 16 - who has a kind of girl-crush on Ethel and wants to show her around. Ethel is polite, sweet ... and yet there is something sad about the look in her eyes. We don't hear the story about why she is sad until halfway into the story. The first half of the story is from Agnes' eyes, basically. Ethel arrives at the house. The Bentley family take her in ... and start to tell her a bit about the town, and the characters who live there, etc. - and a man named Young Si comes up. Everyone seems fascinated by this person. Young Si suddenly appeared in their fishing village at some point last year - from out of nowhere - he stays by himself in a little fishing shack and works out on a boat. He quickly has gained the respect of all the fishermen for his brawn, his skill, and his cooperative nature - and yet there's something aloof about him. If you ask him where he is from, or anything about his past, he clams up. And yet Mr. Bentley (the man Ethel is staying with) can't hold back his admiration for this person's character.

On that first day - Agnes takes Ethel down to the beach to see the sights, to see the fishermen coming in with their catches. It is during this first walk - that Ethel comes face to face with this Young Si ... and ... well ... let's just say he is NOT who he says he is.

Excerpt from Along the Shore - 'Young Si' - by L.M. Montgomery

When she came out they started off, and presently found themselves walking down a grassy deep-rutted lane that ran through mown hay fields, green with their rich aftergrowth, and sheets of pale ripening oats and golden-green wheat, until it lost itself in the rolling sand hills at the foot of the slope.

Beyond the sand hills stretched the shining expanse of the ocean, of the faint, bleached blue of hot August seas, and reaching out into a horizon laced with long trails of pinkish cloud. Numberless fishing boats dotted the shimmering reaches.

"That furthest-off boat is Young Si's," said Agnes. "He always goes to that particular spot."

"Is he really all your father says?" asked Miss Lennox curiously.

"Indeed he is. He isn't any more like the rest of the shore men than you are. He's queer, of course. I don't believe he's happy. It seems to me he's worrying over something, but I'm sure it is nothing wrong. Here we are," she added, as they passed the sand hills and came out on the long, level beach.

To their left the shore curved around in a semi-circle of dazlling whiteness; at their right stood a small grey fish-house.

"That's Young Si's place," said Agnes. "He lives there night and day. Wouldn't it make anyone melancholy? No wonder he's mysterious. I'm going to get his spyglass. He told me I might always use it."

She pushed open the door and entered, followed by Ethel. The interior was rough but clean. It was a small room, lighted by one tiny window looking out on the water. In one corner a rough ladder led up to the loft above. The bare lathed walls were hung with fishing jackets, nets, mackerel lines and other shore appurtenances. A little stove bore a kettle and a frying pan. A low board table was strewn with dishes and the cold remnants of a hasty repast; benches were placed along the walls. A fat, bewhiskered kitten, looking as if it were cut out of black velvet, was dozing on the window sill.

"This is Young Si's cat," explained Agnes, patting the creature, which purred joyously and opened its sleepy green eyes. "It's the only thing he cares for, I believe. Witch! Witch! How are you, Witch? Well, here's the spyglass. Let's go and have a look. Si's catching mackerel," announced Agnes a few minutes later, after she had scrutinized each boat in turn, "and he won't be in for an hour yet. If you like, we have time for a walk up the shore."

The sun slipped lower and lower in the creamy sky, leaving a trail of sparkles that ran across the water and lost itself in the west. Sea gulls soared and dipped, and tiny "sand peeps" flitted along the beach. Just as the red rim of the sun dipped in the purpling sea, the boats began to come in.

"Most of them will go around to the Point," explained Agnes, with a contemptuous sweep of her hand towards a long headland running out before them. "They belong there and they're a rough crowd. You don't catch Young Si associating with the Pointeres. There, he's getting up sail. We'll just have time to get back before he comes in."

They hurried back across the dampening sand as the sun disapeared, leaving a fiery spot behind him. The shore was no longer quiet and deserted. The little spot where the fishing house stood had suddenly started into life. Roughly clad boys were running hither and thither, carrying fish or water. The boats were hauled up on the skids. A couple of shaggy old tars, who had strolled over from the Point to hear about Young Si's catch, were smoking their pipes at the corner of his shanty. A mellow afterlight was shining over sea and shore. The whole scene delighted Ethel's artist eyes.

Agnes nudged her companion.

"There! If you want to see Young Si," she whispered, pointing to the skids, where a busy figure was discernible in a large boat, "that's him, with his back to us, in the cream-colored boat. He's counting out mackerel. If you go over to that platform behind him, you'll get a good look when he turns around. I'm going to coax a mackerel out of that stingy old Snuffy, if I can."

She tripped off, and Ethel walked slowly over to the boats. The men stared at her in open-mouthed admiration as she passed them and walked out on the platform behind Young Si. There was no one near the two. The others were all assembled around Snuffy' boat. Young Si was throwing out the mackerel with marvelous rapidity, but at the sound of a footstep behind him he turned and straightened up his tall form. They stood face to face.

"Miles!"

"Ethel!"

Young Si staggered back against the mast, letting two silvery bloaters slip through his hands overboard. His handsome sunburned face was very white.

Ethel Lennox turned abruptly and silently and walked swiftly across the sand. Agnes felt her arm touched and turned to see Ethel standing, pale and erect, beside her.

"Let us go home, " said the latter unsteadily. "It is very damp here - I feel chilled."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Agnes penitently. "I ought to have told you to bring a shawl. It is always damp on the shore after sunset. Here, Snuffy, give me my mackerel. Thank you. I'm ready now, Miss Lennox."

They reached the lane before Agnes remembered to ask the question Ethel dreaded.

"Oh, did you see Young Si? And what do you think of him?"

Ethel turned her face away and answered with studied carelessness. "He seems to be quite a superior fishermen so far as I could see in the dim light. It was very dusky there, you know. Let us walk a little faster. My shoes are quite wet."

When they reached home, Miss Lennox excused herself on the plea of weariness and went straight to her room.

Thanksgiving snapshots ... part 1

-- Rain. Torrential rain. For the entire day. No let-up. Not one iota. Rain, rain, rain. And wind battering against the house from the north. Siobhan's friend was the lead-off dude in the Macy's Day parade - he's a stilt-walker - and he was going to be the FIRST ONE in the procession - and I thought about him, occasionally, over the morning ... staggering down 5th Avenue on stilts in gale-force winds with the rain pouring down. What the hell??? Would he carry an umbrella? Apparently, he text messaged Siobhan later in the day saying something like: "Nothing like a 2-mile walk on stilts with Julie Andrews riding your ass."

-- Took the car to drive down to Jean and Pat's house to get the dog ... I was fearful that maybe they would be late coming over - hang out - not get home for a couple hours - and I just was nervous about Hudson. So ... after the huge feast - I blithely charge off into the torrential rain to go get the dog. Once I was on the road, I realized how bad it truly was. My car was being buffeted about by the wind. The rain came swooping across the road in long billowing sheets, undulating. The entire town was deserted. There was a massive flood by Old Mountain Field. I had to drive on the other side of the road to avoid it. Visibility was NIL. I tried to keep my wits about me. I arrived at the house - with their cute little pumpkin lights up - a leftover from the Halloween bash - there was a knocked-over plant on the porch from the gale force winds - and I could literally hear the HOWL of the ocean at the end of the street. Insane. I ran to the porch through the rain - getting soaked in 1.5 seconds ... and could see Hudson's disconsolate black head through the window. He was lying on the coach, staring morosely out the window. Ha. When he saw me, he began to have a nervous breakdown. His excitement was palpable - almost painful. He leapt at me, whining, moaning, writhing. He had been in AGONY for the THREE HOURS he had been left alone. I could not find his leash. I was worried I would lose him in the monsoon. But I took that risk. Opened the door. Hudson went bounding off into the dark. I raced to the car, opening up the back seat for him, and shouted into the void: "HUDSON!' He came racing back - and leapt into the car. And then began the drive home. Through the floods. Hudson lay in the back, silent, morose again. He had no idea what was going on in his life. He just succumbed to the chaos.

-- Did I mention the rain? It was insane weather - and it lasted for only 24 hours. The next day dawned sunny and beautiful. The rain was not just a drizzle, or your ordinary downpour. It was a battering ram of water that lasted for hours. So bizarre. Happy Thanskgiving!

-- Tom and Betsy joined us for dinner - with their two kids - Grace and Henry. Grace and Henry are my first cousins - and they are 6 and 2. I love having first cousins who are less than 3 feet tall. It reminds me of just how Irish we really are. Grace and Henry are awesome. I love them both. Neither of them pronounce their "r"s so it gives them odd unplaceable foreign accents. Henry talks in his own babble - with vaguely discernible words - Betsy translates for us - and sometimes he will just stand, stare at you seriously, and say, with total purpose and meaning: "Ah-ka-kee-ka-no-key-cah." Uhm ... come again? And Betsy will flatly say, "He's telling you he loves Thomas the train engine." Of course he is. Henry has boingy-boing curls like Shirley Temple, and his body language of twists and tumbles and leaps and writhings make it seem as though he is working on an audition for Cirque de Soleil. He and Grace play really well together. Grace has the jack-o-lantern smile of a 6 year old - and is just an awesome kid. At one point, the grown-ups were in the kitchen and Grace and Henry were playing in the living room. Suddenly we hear Grace begin to cry. It's the serious crying - the crying of "Ow, that hurt." A moment later, Henry appeared in the kitchen doorway, face worried, cheeks red, and announced, in this "I just want to help!" tone: "Gwace cwying!" Sadly for him, though, he was holding out his fist as he made the announcement - and you could see a huge HUNK of Grace's hair in his hand. Like: dude, you are so busted!! I wonder why Gwace is cwying???

-- That morning we had all gone over to Jean and Pat's for a pre-Thanksgiving-dinner brunch. It was so nice!! Cozy and warm in the house ... crazy rain outside. (Did I mention the rain?) Dad had sent over a rawhide bone for Hudson - who immediately took it over to his corner and did not emerge for over an hour due to the hard work of tearing that thing to shreds. Jean made spicy Bloody Marys. We had this amazing French Toast thing - made famous by my aunt Geddy - and potatoes - and bacon ... coffee ... Oh, and someone had brought cookies with little tiny Reeses' peanut butter cups on top of them - maybe sugar-glued on? I have no idea. But someone made the comment that the plate of cookies - with the little brown cups on top - looked like a bunch of buried dead Pilgrims. Like they had been buried standing up and only their little Pilgrim hats stuck out of the earth. We were howling. "This would be the Thanksgiving dinner we would have if the Indians had won." A celebration of the massacred pilgrims. Guffaws every time we looked at that plate. Amy brought quiche. There were blueberry muffins. The whole thing was INSANE. We played music - I got to hear all about Pat and Jean's huge Halloween party which apparently was a raging success. Jean dressed as Princess Leia and at one point got so into dancing to Prince that the entire world dropped away. She was embarrassed to think about it later but in the moment it couldn't be helped. I just want a picture of Princess Leia zoning out to Little Red Corvette.

-- Siobhan and I then made our way back through the RAIN RAIN RAIN to Mum and Dad's. Betsy and Tom and Grace and Henry had arrived ... so Siobhan and I were in recovery-mode from the huge brunch - but we still had a couple of hours until dinner. Lots of family visiting. Henry came towards me in the kitchen when I walked in, holding out his arms, and hugged my legs. So cute!! And Grace looked very nice in her purple sweater, with her jack o'lantern smile.

-- My parents bought 30 copies of The Sewanee Review They are everywhere.

-- Oh! And Pat wrote an article about Siobhan's show in New York for the local paper - and it came out on Thanksgiving day. There was a picture of her - a nice big write-up - and also a little lead-in on the front page. So cool!

-- Thanksgiving dinner was massive. And yummy. It was already getting dark outside, the rain pounding on the windows, but inside was cozy, family, lots of kid behavior (Grace banging on the piano, etc.), and lots of grown-up talk. A perfect day. Jean and Pat came over after their dinner - and Hudson, who had recovered from the strange chaos of being air-lifted out of his home, experienced huge ecstasy at the sight of his owners. He had been enduring the "love" of Grace and Henry for about an hour: the two of them were rolling Fisher Price trucks over his paws, trying to poke him in the eyeballs, following him around relentlessly and screaming joyously at the experienced of being with the dog (his eyes were silent and long-suffering during this whole time), patting him hard on the head (but affectionately), and trying to pull his tail (and being stopped every time by this or that grown-up). When Jean and Pat showed up, Hudson ran at them in a feverish frenzy. "HELP! SAVE ME! WHAT IS GOING ON? WHERE IS THE RAWHIDE? WHY DID THAT GIRL OVER THERE COME AND ABDUCT ME IN THE NIGHT? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN??"

-- After Jean and Pat left, the Grace and Henry frenzy reached such a pitch that they were like the cartoon of the Tasmanian Devil. Their limbs were blurry, their legs flying this way and that, their faces a frenetic flash as they raced by. They were just having such a good time chasing each other up and down the hallway, and running around the circle of the house, screaming like absolute maniacs. Flashbacks to my own childhood.

-- It was a good day. What Thanksgiving should be. We missed Bren and Cash, most definitely ... but still, it was good to be together.

Today in History: November 26, 1942

Casablanca premiered at the Hollywood Theatre in New York City. It was not expected to be a long-lasting mythical evocation of the quintessential American ideals we all aspire to, from generation to generation. It was just supposed to be another one of the pro-war propaganda movies the studios were churning out at that time. It went on to win the Academy Award the next year - but again, lots of films win Academy Awards and don't go on to achieve legendary status.

The legend around the film began growing in the late 50s, a couple of years after Bogart's death. The stories about the Casablanca showings at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge Massachusetts are now famous ... and make me wish for a time machine.

Aljean Harmetz, author of The Making of Casablanca, explains:

Humphrey Bogart died in 1957. The cult of Casablanca was born three months later. If Cyrus Harvey, Jr., was not the father of the phenomenon, he was certainly the midwife. In 1953, Harvey and Bryant Haliday had turned the Brattle Theatre across from, Harvard University into an art cinema. Harvey, who had spent much of his Fulbright scholarship year in Paris watching movies at Henri Langlois's Cinemathique Francaise, programmed the Brattle with European classics and the early films of Fellini, Antonini, Truffaut, and Ingmar Bergman, for whom Harvey and Halliday became the American distributors.

"At some point, we thought that we ought to bring in some of the American films that hadn't been shown that much," says Harvey. "And my partner and I both thought that the Bogarts were vastly underrated. I think Casablanca was the first one we played. It was my favorite. I thought that Bogart was probably the best American actor who ever lived. And the picture caught on very rapidly. The first time we played it, there was a wonderful reaction. Then the second, third, fourth and fifth times it took off. The audience began to chant the lines. It was more than just going to the movies. It was sort of partaking in a ritual."

Casablanca played at the Brattle for the first time on April 21, 1957. It was so successful with Harvard students that it was held over for a second week. Then the Bogart festivals began, with six or eight of his mopvies playing each semester during final-examination weeks. The festivals would culminate with Casablanca. It was at Harvard that the relevance of Casablanca to a generation that had no relationship to World War II became apparent.

So. Happy birthday to a film that has done so much to shape how we think about ourselves. It has meant different things to different generations - and that's the definition of a good piece of art. If you watch a lot of the other WWII movies made at that time - they seem dated, overblown, propagandistic, and overly simplistic. Not this one. Not this one.

I have a feeling (just a hunch) that if Ilse had not gotten on that plane with Victor - if she had stayed with Rick ... the movie would not be remembered today. It might be still watched, on late-night movie channels, but it would not have taken on that mythical quality. It is the vision of self-sacrifice that taps into our deepest held beliefs and hopes. It is who we hope and aspire to be. It is a noble outlook ... and yet, at the center of the film, is the Rick character, who says he is not good at being noble. If you make a big deal out of your own nobility, then you are just a jackass who thinks way too highly of yourself. But if you quietly, and with no fanfare, do the right thing - abdicate your own wants for a greater cause, practice the art of letting go ... then you truly deserve to be called noble.

Below are a bazillion quotes from various sources about the making of this film. And also what it means to us now.

If you're a fan of this movie - enjoy!!

Assorted quotes:

Billy Wilder says, "This is the most wonderful claptrap that was ever put on the screen ... Claptrap that you can't get out of your mind. The set was crummy. By God, I've seen Mr. Greenstreet sit in that same wicker chair in fifty pictures before and after, and I knew the parrots that were there. But it worked. It worked absolutely divinely. No matter how sophisticated you are and it's on television and you've seen it 500 times, you turn it on."

Sociologist Todd Gitlin writes:

Casablanca dramatizes archetypes. The main one is the imperative to move from disengagement and cynicism to commitment. The question is why Casablanca does this more effectively than other films. Several other Bogart films of the same period -- Passage to Marseilles, To Have and Have Not, Key Largo -- enact exactly the same conversation. But the Rick character does not simply go from disengagement to engagement but from bitter and truculent denial of his past to a recovery and reignotion of the past. And