Hey, What's The Deal?

"Deal" seems to be a word with multiple personalities. The OED online lists four separate noun-versions, with sub-definitions within those categories. The first version has something to do with portions or parts, such as a "deal" of land, as in a portion of land. The second version has more to do with sharing or transaction, and one species of this version historically has been used to refer to "transactions of a questionable nature," out of which sprang expressions like "raw deal" or "bad deal." But you can have good deals, too, of course: "We good a good deal on our new car." "Big deal" seems to be used largely in a sarcastically way: "You stepped on my toe." Answer: "Oh, big deal [get over it]."

"No deal" seems suggest, or perhaps even denote, "No, I do not wish to do business with you" or "No, we do not have an agreement."

Believe it or not, "deal" also was used to refer to sexual intercourse; the citations are to British texts from the late 1500's.

"Deal" can also refer to a slice of a log--but mainly pine or fir (soft wood). So when Wallace Stevens refers to a piece of "deal" furniture in his famous poem, "The Emperor of Ice Cream," he's referring to an inexpensive piece of furniture, such as a chest of drawers made of pine-wood. Of course, "deal" also means distribute--as in dealing cards, and as in the figurative "deal me in," meaning that one wishes to have a portion of some activity or enterprise distributed to him or her, or more specifically that one wants to join a card game and, presumably, is eager to distribute his or her money to others, under the pretense of "gambling." Casinos never gamble, of course. Their "deal" is to make money, steadily and predictably.

Persons in my parents' generation and films from that era seemed to like the expression, "Hey, what's the deal?!" It seemed to be a way of questioning inappropriate behavior, to let somebody know you noticed something wrong. "What's the big idea?" seemed to be a cousin to this expression. "Hey, Bub [or Buster], what's the big idea?" That sounds so Forties to me.

Sometimes people seem to identify their employment or type of business by using the word "deal": "I deal strictly in commercial real estate." "We deal in higher-end jewelry." "I just did a deal in Colorado, as a matter of fact." Ah, to do a deal.

In professional sports, when one player is "traded" to another team, sportscasters (and what a word sportscaster is!) often report, "He was dealt to the Phillies from San Francisco," almost as if the player were flung across the continent like a playing-card; well, I suppose in some ways he was.

My father tended to refer to people who seemed suspiciously busy and self-important as "wheeler-dealers." Somebody who was slick, who had something to sell, and/or who seemed to be involved in many things but not to do much real work--this was the classic "wheeler-dealer," in his world-view. At some point, you could count on my father also observing, mildly, without anger, that this "wheeler-dealer" was also "full of bullshit." This is a very complicated condition, metaphorically, to be a wheeler-dealer full of bullshit. It's quite a burden, really.

In the following poem, "deal" refers to an implied transaction, a business-deal of sorts, really the ultimate contract :

What The Deal Is, Apparently

I did not know it then, but
as I was being biologically
conceived and cellularly developed,
I was borrowing my one and only
life. By being born and continuing
to be, I signed a contract with
eternity. In return for one life, I
agreed to live it, receiving rights,
privileges, wretchedness, befuddlement,
appetites, and terror pertaining
thereunto. This life is the only
situation I, in my one-time capacity
as me, will know. The whole
set-up seems bizarre, but there is
no other, according to the contract.
This is the deal.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Worry Wart

I can't remember exactly when I first heard the term "worry wart." Now the term seems to be out of fashion, although most people still seem to know at least that it refers not to a type of blemish but to a person who worries obsessively, whose personality is to some extent defined by worry.

I do remember my mother telling me one day--I was probably between the ages of 8 and 11--that I shouldn't be "such a worry wart." Of course, I have no idea what I was worrying about at the time, and therein lies one lesson which worry warts seem unable fully to absorb. Posed as a rhetorical question, the lesson is as follows: will this thing you're worrying about matter ten years, ten months, ten weeks, or even ten minutes from now? As all worry warts know, such questions are entirely reasonable and therefore beside the point.

If the OED is to be believed, the term "worry guts" or "worryguts" preceded "worry wart.." Both terms, "worry guts" and "worry wart," are not immediately, shall we say, appealing.

Anyway, here's some additional informaton from the OED, with kind thanks to the producers of that resource:

9. Comb.: worryguts dial. and colloq. = worry wart; freq. as a term of address; worry pear (tree) = CHOKE-PEAR; worry wart colloq. (chiefly U.S.), an inveterate worrier, one who frets unnecessarily.
1932 Somerset Year Bk. 83 The missis, who be a prapper worryguts. 1966 O. NORTON School of Liars iv. 72 He laughed. ‘Worryguts!’ ‘I wasn't worried. I was just trying to be efficient.’ 1982 D. PHILLIPS Coconut Kiss ix. 94 It's all right..isn't it?’ I asked. ‘'Course it is, Worryguts,’ said Vera.
1562 TURNER Herbal II. 108 The wyld Pere tre or chouke Pere tre or worry Pear tre.
1956 I. BELKNAP Human Problems of State Mental Hospitals x. 177 The persevering, nagging delusional groupwho were termed ‘worry warts’, ‘nuisances’, ‘bird dogs’, in the attendants' slang. 1974 J. HELLER Something Happened 445 ‘Don't be such a worry wart.’ ‘Don't use that phrase. It makes my skin prickle.’



So the term "worry wart" seems not to be that old, even as it may be receding from colloquial American usage. It's interesting (to me) that "worry warts," at least according to this fellow Belknap (cited above) , were deemed sufficiently problematic to be sequestered in mental hospitals. I think Dr. Belknap, if indeed he was a doctor, may have been over-reacting. Perhaps he was something of a worry wart.

I notice that the term "worry pear," referring literally to a kind of pear that tastes bad (acidic) and figuratively to a person who worries too much, seems to have preceded both worry guts and worry wart. A worry pear was also referred to as a choke pear, and "choke pear" sent me on another investigative adventure because I was worried that I didn't know enough. The investigation led to a harrowing discovery on the site "Infoplease":

Choke-pear

An argument to which there is no answer. Robbers in Holland at one time made use of a piece of iron in the shape of a pear, which they forced into the mouth of their victim. On turning a key, a number of springs thrust forth points of iron in all directions, so that the instrument of torture could never be taken out except by means of the key. (from Infoplease, online, with thanks)

I had never heard the term "choke-pear" before today, thus I had never heard it used to refer to an argument to which there is no answer ("What are you, an idiot?" seems to be such a question. One doesn't want to answer "Yes," but one doesn't want to answer "No" because to do so lends legitimacy to a question one views as illegitimate. One doesn't want to answer, "I'm not sure" because one might feel as if one is giving an idiotic answer.) Nor, of course, had I ever heard of this Dutch torture-device used by robbers. Good grief! Now I'm really worried!

(I had heard the term "choke-cherry," referring to a plant native to the Sierra Nevada [and perhaps elsewhere] that produce tiny fruits that look like miniature cherries but that are extremely sour; they may look "ripe" but are never sweet. I don't think they're poisonous, but you'd still have to be extremely hungry to eat them. Of course, I tried them a couple of times; children are empiricists. I did not suffer poisonous effects, nor did I choke, but oh my were they sour. )

In any event, here is what is intended to be a playful poem (with some playful rhymes, not unlike those found in some of Langston Hughes's poetry) about worry:

Thin Poem Concerning Worry


Late and early
I worry.
Early and late
I seem to hate
to let go.
I do not know
how to control
a mind on patrol
late and early.
I should surely
know by now
how not to worry.
I often vow
not to worry,
not to worry,
but then hurry
to worry,
wander into
troubled pondering;
take the hubris bait
early and
late--and imagine
that I can
change things
by pulling
these worry-strings,
making the puppet,
me, unfree
of worry, dancing
on a tiny set
in a miniature hell
called Fret.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Ego

According to the OED online "ego," as referring to "the conscious thinking self," entered the English language toward the end of the 18th century; in fact, the first citation is from 1789. As a psychological term referring to that part of the mind that is most conscious of the self, it arose about 100 years later, along with "depth psychology," of course; and at about the same time, it came to refer, negatively, to self-centeredness. That is, according to psychology, "normal" human beings, whatever that means, are supposed to have egos, a sense of themselves, some kind of unified personality. But society suggests--or does it?--that we shouldn't have egos in the sense of being selfish, drawing too much attention to ourselves, and--in the extreme--becoming narcissitic or sociopathic.

All the major religions seem to encourage a person to check the ego, to look not for ourselves when we look inward but (perhaps) for God, and to look outward--to others (especially those in need), to mystery, to the fact that everything changes, to the fact the ego is short-lived. Buddhist texts, The Bhagavad Gita, the Q'uran, the Bible--all seem to agree, perhaps loosely, certainly from different perspectives, on this anti-ego stance.

And yet this society, the only one I know relatively well, really constantly asserts the opposite. It is obsessed with celebrity, personal wealth, getting ahead personally, buying stuff to make oneself look great, and so on. In what way is Donald Trump, for example, not quintessentially American, and if he is that, then is there something wrong with how Americans define themselves, and if he is not that, then why is he so poplar, such an icon? In what particular ways does he advance the Golden Rule or basic precepts of the Judeo-Christian tradition or of any spiritual tradition?. . . Jacques Ellul claims that one key to propaganda in any culture (including ours) is that it appeals to the masses but in a way that gives the individual the sense that he or she is being addressed individually. So when a politician derides "running out of Iraq with our tail between our legs," he is appealing to some kind of mass-pride in a mythic "America" that can be reduced to the image of a dog, but he is also inviting each person to think of himself or herself as a beaten dog running away, and thus to reject anything connected with ending that war.

In fact, the word "we" is rather beside the point. The people who will leave from or stay in Iraq are military personnel, some journalists, and some private contractors. They aren't dogs, and they don't have tails, and if the military leaves, it ought to leave in the way that preserves the most lives--of the personnel and of Iraqi citizens. "Running out of Iraq with our tail between our legs" thus disintegrates completely, as a statement with any meaning, when treated with the simplest analysis. And yet as propaganda, it apparently works--on individuals, on their egos. It means something because it appears to mean something.

TV has become an especially bad place for ideas or genuine, interesting disagreements (as opposed to shout-ping-pong or interrupt-o-rama) to be explored, partly because it is composed chiefly of advertisement, around which "programming" is folded like wet bread, but also because those moderating the ideas have ceased to moderate or to be moderate. Say what you will about Larry King--he's old, he can lob softball questions, and every guest if of the same cultural importance--but he sets his ego aside and lets people talk; at least he gets that much done. Obviously, Larry King must have a huge ego; he's ambitious, and he likes being liked and likes knowing famous people. But as an interviewer, he can control his ego. Charley Rose seems to be able to do that, too--and Tavis Smiley.

But mostly TV isn't interested in ideas, nuances, thoughtfulness, or exchanges that are neither rushed, combative, faced, or some combination of all three. That's too bad. Once this popular medium had some potential, didn't it? Think of how good it might have been. It is now awful, and I think it's not going to get better. So when someone like Ron Paul (he may be right, he may be wrong, he may be both, that's not the point) cuts through the crap and speaks what he takes to be the truth, we are a) refreshed (again, whether we think he's right or not) and b) certain that his candidacy will go nowhere because he has chosen to say what he really thinks and to pursue a line of argument instead of saying something involves tails between legs, yadda-yadda.

The following wee poem concerns ego, and it's certainly one I could stand to take to heart (physician, heal thyself, and all that):

Station K-E-G-O

It’s just him, broadcasting
to himself with one watt
of power, pretending
to interview an Other,
playing requests and
and taking calls
he called in to himself,
about himself,
breaking for news about his life,
weather he enjoys, sports
that delight him. This
is Radio Solipcism,
from a studio of Self,
broadcast to stations
all along the Narcissistic Network.

Old Technology

In class we were studying the grim poem, "Ballad for Miss Gee," by W.H. Auden, and the poem refers to Miss Gee's bicycle, which is braked by reversing the pedals. Of course I rode such a bicycle when I was a kid, but I assumed that such old technology had long ago gone by the wayside. So I asked my students if they'd heard of such a braking system, and not only had they heard of it, but several had also ridden such bicycles--and recently. I was thrilled that some piece of old technology had persisted, unlike slide-rules and typewriters--not that I miss either of these items. Technology that persists, however incidental it may be, adds continuity to life.

My late friend, colleague, coauthor, and fellow student Wendy Bishop edited several books for Boynton/Cook-Heinemann publishers beginning with The Subject Is. . . . in the title. The Subject Is Writing, The Subject Is Reading, and The Subject Is Story are among them. They collect essays written chiefly by college teachers but pitched to college students; they're nifty, useful little books, eclectic, grounded, and innovative, just like Wendy was.

I borrowed the template of her titles for the following poem about a bicycle, if indeed the poem is about a bicycle:

The Subject Is The Bicycle

This is not I repeat not about me.
It is about the bicycle.

I could have been anyone and was.
Only the bicycle could have been and was the bicycle:

bent, oxidized, built for flatness but
mis-fortuned to High Sierra.

One wheel rubbed against a chrome
deco fender: a rhythm of wear,

an indentured, oblong Cole Porter
song, a raw wound on physics’ perfect hide.

The bicycle went on to represent me in Congress.
It praised my auto-didactic schemes,

which were not I repeat not about
me but about just trying to move along,

even if the chain needs oiling, even if a slow leak
betrays the tube, even if the handle-bars slip.

Motion means balance. Stasis falls over.
The subject is riding persistence.

Copyright 2007

Baseball Sestina

Watching baseball on TV momentarily the other evening, a friend said, "Baseball has its own pace. That's for sure." Baseball is slow, but then at times, everything happens all at once. To say the least, baseball does not attract the best athletes. An extremely ordinary athlete who knows how to throw a knuckle-ball, for example, can enjoy a long career at the top of the professional game. One such player was even a chain-smoker of cigarettes. And yet there are aspects of baseball that reveal it to be a highly evolved human game, with hints of myth, art, and theater. Bernard Malamud captured as much in the novel, The Natural, to which the movie did not begin to do justice, of course.

The sestina form, which recycles six line-ending words, seemed somehow suited well to the subject of baseball, so ritualistic and recursive is that game.

In the midst of autumnal baseball in the U.S., then, here's a sestina for the game:

Sestina: Baseball

The circle is the center of the game:
The trip from home to home; mound; ball.
And Baseball’s creed is O-pen-ness: fields;
Gloves like birds’ mouths; past fences lies forever.
The game plays out in formulae of three.
Combinations interlock like rings.

Grave umpires speak in prophecy that rings
Out in the voice of Moses. Out, Strike, Ball
Mean really Shame, Yes, No! The game
Is subtle, though, like its faintly sloping fields.
And indefinite: A game can last forever
In theory, infinitely tied at 3 to 3.

Though rules say nine may play, it’s often three
Who improvise a play within the game.
(Tinkers, Evers, Chance). Pitcher lends ball
To air. Potentiality of bat rings
With power in that instance. All fields
Beckon to innocence and hope forever.

One chance at a time drops from forever.
Player with a caged face grabs for ball.
But batter knocks ball back into the ring
Of readiness, at which point one of three
Things happen that can happen in the game:
Safe or Out or Ball-Beyond-All-Fields:

Home run. Inspire the ball past finite fields,
And you voyage honored on the sea that rings
The inner island. Sail home, touch three
White islands, Hero. Gamers since forever
Have tried to sail past limits of the game,
Shed physics’ laws, hold Knowledge like a ball.

To know this game you have to know the ball,
An atom when contrasted with green fields—
Less than an orange, white with red pinched rings
Of stitches ridged for grip. With ball come three
Essential tasks: throw, catch, bat. These are forever
Of the Circle in the Center of the Game.

Dropped in the fluid game, the solid ball
Starts widening rings of chance, concentric threes
That open out into the Field. Baseball. Forever.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Oboe Poem, Etc.

A student in one of my classes plays the oboe in a wind ensemble. I don't know much about the oboe, except that I like its sound. She explained that the oboe is very difficult to play because it has two reeds. She also said that playing the oboe requires such a sustained output of breath that one kills brain cells when playing it. Oxygen deprivation. Yikes.

So I was looking through The Norton Book of Light Verse, edited by Russell Baker, and there, on page 92, is a poem entitled "Oboe."


Oboe


Hard to pronounce and play, the OBOE--
(With cultured folk it rhymes with
"doughboy"
Though many an intellectual hobo
Insists that we should call it oboe)
However, be that as it may,
Whene'er the oboe sounds its A
All of the others start their tuning
And there is fiddling and bassooning.
Its plaintive note presaging gloom
Brings anguish to the concert room,
Even the player holds his breath
And scares the audience to death
For fear he may get off the key,
Which happens not infrequently.
This makes the saying understood:
"It's an ill wood wind no one blows good."

by Laurence McKinney


I showed the poem to the oboe-player, and she enjoyed it, but of course there aren't that many oboe-poems from which to choose. . . . --Interesting that apparently at some point "oboe" was not pronounced the way we pronounce it. . . . . I don't know enough about symphony-orchestras to know which player usually plays the first note when the tuning-up begins. Is it always or often the oboe-player? If so, why? . . . .I did observe to the oboe-player that I thought the oboe sounded better than the clarinet, but maybe that's not fair. Maybe it all depends on the piece and/or the player. . . . Does the oboe always sound gloomy? Probably not. There are probably all sorts of lighter, brighter pieces of music that feature the oboe. . . . But it certainly can sound gloomy. Is it possible for a tuba to sound gloomy? I suppose.

Here's another light, if much more fanciful, poem about musical instruments. I think it first appeared in an anthology called The Art of Music, published in California.

Bobby’s Crop

Bobby leased two-hundred acres,
planted clarinets & saxophones. Come harvest
time, he hired bands to play them. It’s a good life,
farming instruments. Folks say
even Bobby’s pigs root rhythmically.
His cows chew the blues.
Oh that sweet Kansas breeze,
swagging through sugar beets and wheat—
and catfish nosing into dusky
muck. That
tornado shuffling up I-35 from Oklahoma
—ain’t no thing to Bobby .
It skirts his acres, sniffs the barn,
now doglegs to Nebraska.
Bobby calls the twister Coltrane, goes
inside, fetches iced tea for himself
and the Missus, plenty of sugar
and a downbeat of lemon. Hey, Bobby. Hey.





Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Poems and Paintings; Mirrors in Bars

One of the most famous poems based on painting is W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" (and the first word needs an accent, but I'm not sure how to add it using the blog-program), which argues that the old [European] masters knew how to represent suffering in their paintings. The poem alludes to several paintings but most obviously refers to Breughel's paiting, "Icarus," which hangs in a Belgian museum that lends the poem its title. You've no doubt seen the painting. If by some chance you haven't, it's easily found on the Internet. You'll see immediately that Icarus isn't existly the center of attention.

I've tried to write a few poems that respond to paintings. Addressing one art by means of another seems like a great idea, but it's often more difficult to do well than one might imagine. Painters try to tell stories; composers write "tone poems"; poets try to have a poem embody a painting somehow; and so on.

I wrote the following poem quite some time ago, after being mesmerized by a reprint of a painting by Edouard Manet, "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère," which depicts a scene from the famous nightclub, of the same name, that thrived in Paris toward the end of the 19th century, at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, and even into the 1920s. Maybe it was the place that made the dance, "the Can-Can," famous--I'm not sure. The renowned American icon Josephine Baker danced there. Allegedly, the nightclub was based on one called the Alhambra in London; one always imagines the British imitating the French in these sorts of things, but in this instance, the reverse seems to have been true. Apparently this painting by Manet (1882) is considered his last masterpiece. From my point of view, it focuses a lot on mirrors and glass, especially on the double-image of the woman in the painting, who appears to look at "us," but whose back we can see in the mirror. --A side-note: I wonder when bars and nightclubs started using mirrors and why. I wonder if the main reason was practical: the bartender could keep his eyes on the customers when he or she turned his or her back. From the customer's perspective, is the mirror-behind-the-bar a good idea? I guess much depends on how much you like looking at yourself. If you've had a tough day, followed by a few drinks, are you really that interested in looking at yourself? Of course, there are types of bars that try to create an atmosphere full of light, so mirrors assist that project. Then there are bars that announce themselve as dark. I suspect that serious drinkers prefer the latter kind, but that's just a guess. The poem:



A Bar at the Folies-Bergère

(Manet)


If you’re interested, the mirror
will show a flat, brilliant image
of our lustrous clutter, of much
white flesh draped in black, of
green bottles, brown bottles, other
mirrors, crystal, lanterns, jewels—
glass and gems we’ve arranged
as a barricade against dawn.

The woman behind the bar lets
her gaze wander until you express
your pleasure. She wears black
velvet trimmed in lace, a brooch
depended on a black ribbon,
a golden bracelet on her arm.

After you order, your gaze wanders
to the mirror behind her. There her
back looks earnest and endearing.
There’s our society, too—busy,
cramped, posing, political, small.
Your gaze prefers the solitary woman.
Nonetheless you take it and your drink,
and you join the tables, and sense
someone gazing at you, too.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Pesky Will

"Will" is one of those perpetually pesky words in English. The OED lists four separate noun-versions of the word, with mulptile connotations within each of the four--and all of that precedes the verb-versions.

Then there's the philosophical/theological business about "free will," which offers one well worn path around the problem of God-and-evil. If God a) exits, b) is omniscience, and c) is omnipotent, then how can or why does God allow evil to occur? One answer is that God allowed us free will--and apparently took a step back, so to speak, to let us exercise it, even if we put our will in the service of evil.

The OED links "will" (with regard to "free will") to "desire"--wanting something, or wanting somethng to occur, or wanting onseself to do something. I tend to associate it with concentration, focus, even stubbornness--that is, not just desire but a kind of hard commitment to desire: will as determination.

I was reading The Rule of St. Benedict, as edited by Timothy Fry; the book is essentially composed of the guidelines and directions that established the Benedictine Order of priests. It's a communal contract of sorts, and much of it concerns the relinquishment of will--to God, to the community of priests, and to the leader of the community. To the mythic average person, religious or not, Catholic or not; and to the mythic average American, inculcated with ideas of independence and democracy, the book is--how to phrase this delicately?--counterintuitive. "Leave your ego and your will and the door," the book often seems to imply. Tough stuff.

I was particularly interested in a section that advises the reader on how to be an instrument of good works--which I think is a very interesting, valuable concept. How does one go about making onself an instrument, a conduit, of good works--of doing something useful or helpful for others, for the world? The Rule of St. Benedict seems to suggest that selflessness, or at least unplugging one's will for a moment, may be of assistance in this process. I liked the advice, but I also saw a paradox in it--namely, that one had to be determined (willfull, focused) to set aside one's will. One had to will oneself to keep one's will in check. The will is almost always there, it seems to me, perhaps even when we are asleep; one question is, then, how to manage the will, given that it's almost always with us. Conceptually, philosophically, theologically, linguistically, and practically, "the will" is one pesky little problem for us--never to be sorted out entirely. Or will it? :-)

Anyway, I wrote this little poem in response to my reading of The Rule of St. Benedict (Vintage edition). The poem first appeared in Christianity and Literature, September 2003.




Instrument of Good Works #59

(St. Benedict)


My will is good at what it does:
insist, persist.
I despise it as I hated
rocks I used to bust up
with a sledge-hammer at
the gravel-plant, minimum wage.
I loathe how my will prolongs
foolishness, knocks wisdom
aside, and belches pride. I will
pay attention to St. Benedict
and despise my will. I will.



Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Hot Chocolate in the Coffee House, Hold the Conflict

The essence of drama is conflict, they say, and probably the same can be said of fiction, short or long. It's not necessarily so of poetry, which certainly may have or represent conflict but which is also free to work at the edges of conflict, step back and meditate upon it, or go so far into conflict that it reaches a calm center. Poems are allowed merely to think, in words (as opposed to musical notes or pigment); readers are allowed not to like such poems or to like only an infrequent diet of them, certainly. Nonetheless, the meditative powers of poetry are useful.

The following poem thinks, so to speak, about one of those experiences that arguably compose the greater part of our lives, even if the conflicts compose the more vivid, telling, decisive parts. The poem is essentially about visiting a cafe. No one is murdered; no one even has an argument; and everyone seems happy with the fare, which includes hot chocolate. Of course, I had to look up "chocolate" in the OED online, and the word seems to have entered the English language in the early 17th century, probably about the time products from tropical cacao trees entered England. It seems as if "hot chocolate" was originally made from the seeds of the cacao tree, whereas now hot chocolate or cocoa is made from what the OED calls a "cake"--what we might call a powder or a bar, I suppose--derived from cacao beans. By "cake," the OED does not seem to mean "chocolate cake" in the sense of a birthday cake, composed chiefly of flour. Samuel Pepys ["Peeps"], in his famous diary (1664) speaks of going to drink "jocolatte" at a coffee house in London. --Interesting that "latte" has persisted--and indeed taken over the world in the form of a beverage sold by Starbucks, which seems to open a new "store" every day somewhere on the planet. Meanwhile, the lovely "joco" has been domesticated into "choco-" or "cocoa." Was the "cocoa" dissolved in water back then, as the OED suggests, or was it dissolved in milk, as Pepys's "latte" may or may not suggest? Considering the absence of refrigeration, I do hope they boiled the milk first. Considering the squalor of London then, I do hope they boiled the water. I guess it doesn't matter now.

Meanwhile, here's a poem in which hot chocolate makes a cameo appearance in a Swedish cafe. Conflict stays outside the cafe, as it should; after all, we go to such places to get away from or to treat, with the cafe's folk-medicine, the stressful effects of conflict. (Boden is a small city not far from the Arctic Circle in Sweden; it is a "garrison town," has a timber industry, and is surrounded by some farms.)

Café in the North of Sweden

There were tables under dappled birch trees,
dappling on white table-linens, waitresses snug
in skirts and starched white shirts, the fresh
Swedish breeze, a tinge of Nordic sadness,
which is composed of history, stoicism,
and routine. There was Swedish spoken:
efficient, supple, sounding like a creek.
There we were; we were there. Some
laughter, not much. There was cardamom
in the rolls, a flower in each vase; hot
chocolate and coffee. There
was a sense in which our lives had been
established by others for others and were
to include this interlude at an outdoor café—
a kind of play that wouldn’t presume
to have a major theme or conflict. There
is this clarified memory of the scene, café
outdoors in Boden, north, far north in Sweden.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

I might just add that cardamom is one of my favorite words and one of my favorite flavors. Here's hoping a satisfying warm beverage is in your near future.

Mother Teresa, Robert Herrick, Faith, and Doubt

Revelations, so to speak, that Mother Teresa often expressed doubts, in letters and other writing, about the presence of God have caused quite a stir. I saw Bill Maher, exuberant atheist, delighting in the revelations on his show. A devout, fundamentalist atheist, and as smug as the late Jerry Falwell, he gloated, quizzing a Christian woman on the panel; somewhat puzzled by his excitement, she noted that doubt is part of the history of Christianity. (She was very polite and did not add, "you idiot." Good for her.) More recently, I saw Richard Rodriguez's piece concerning Mother Teresa on PBS, and he, too, noted the long history of doubt, mentioning "the dark night of the soul" and Christ's own expression on the Cross, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" In other words, Catholics and other Christians--and probably people of other faiths as well--greeted the news as news but not as the proverbial bombshell. Doubt and faith are as close as two siblings; always have been. If anything, the news made Mother Teresa more interesting and confirmed an obvious point: although exceptionally determined, empathetic, disciplined, hard-working, and devoted to helping others, she was human.

Wryly, the Christian on the panel said she would pray for Maher, who said, "You can go ahead and talk, but that doesn't mean anybody is listening ["up there"]. She smiled. Perhaps she was thinking that that was the predicament of a talk-show host as well; you can talk, but that doesn't mean anybody is tuning in.

I thought of the news about Mother Teresa as I re-read the following poem, by Robert Herrick, a 17th century poet, born at the end of the 16th century:



TO FIND GOD.
by Robert Herrick


WEIGH me the fire ; or canst thou find
A way to measure out the wind ;
Distinguish all those floods that are
Mix'd in that watery theatre ;
And taste thou them as saltless there
As in their channel first they were.
Tell me the people that do keep
Within the kingdoms of the deep ;
Or fetch me back that cloud again,
Beshiver'd into seeds of rain ;
Tell me the motes, dust, sands, and spears
Of corn, when summer shakes his ears ;
Show me that world of stars, and whence
They noiseless spill their influence :
This if thou canst, then show me Him
That rides the glorious cherubim.


Obviously, viewed in isolation, this poem might not seem to be from the perspective of a "believer." Indeed, it's quite confrontational on the subject of "showing" God--one of its many appealing features. Essentially, it challenges the listener to do some difficult, more like impossible, science and then get back to the speaker. If the results of the field-work are successful, the the listener may then proceed to try to reveal God to the speaker.

I suppose we've figured out some ways to measure the force and speed of the wind, although where "wind" begins and ends is a separate question; the measurements are still estimations, at best. Weighing fire? At which moment would you care to try to weigh it, making sure to separate it from smoke? And precisely how accurate are our systems of measurement? Can you taste the fresh water that has entered the ocean?

So what's Herrick implying? --That if you can't even properly reveal characteristics of the natural world, how then how can you presume to show anybody God? I don't think that's quite the point. He may be suggesting that the ways in which we study the natural world cannot even completely comprehend the natural world; our scientific work on the natural world will never end; therefore, science is probably not the mode by which one discovers God. If Herrick were alive, he might be very impatient with scientists who tout "intelligent design." He would probably ask them, "How would you know?!" It is impossible to "know" God in that way--that may be the point of them poem. St. Denis, I think, asserts something similar in the Cloud of Unknowing. Hope God is there, believe God is there, but don't presume to know God as you would know a little math problem. At one point, St. Denis even suggests that one highly practical prayer is to pray that God exists. In other words, remember how limited and insignificant you and humanity are; regard each day as a surprising gift; recall how little you know or can know, even on your best days.

Herrick's poem doesn't exactly inspire easy, confident belief in God. I'm not sure it would be the first poem Mother Teresa would have turned to in her moments of doubt, even if it were translated into Albanian. On the other hand, she may have found such a poem bracing, partly because it doesn't attempt to sugar-coat things. The poem doesn't seek to prove that God exists, and may go further to imply that we'd be wise to leave that job to God. If you can weigh fire, then maybe we'll let you do some experiments concerning God; otherwise, check that pride and stick with faith. Baruch (or Benedict) Spinoza, my favorite philosopher, seems to think that we can deduce the existence of God but that all of our other analysis will concern only attributes of God. God is the sum of all attributes, and God knows (so to speak) how many attributes there are, and the attributes are changing all the time anyway. In any event, like the news concerning Mother Teresa, this poem is a counterintuitive one, coming as it does from a Christian. It's a poem that gets in your face and in your faith, politely but firmly. Great stuff. Today, at least, it's my favorite poem by Herrick.

First Place, Last Place

Has there been a more competition-obsessed culture than that of the U.S.? Probably. But I can't think of one. Horses are allowed to win, place, or show, and gamblers are allowed to attempt to make money (the track always makes money) on place and show, not just win. But otherwise, we seem to be a culture obsessed with the celebrity of first place or the ignominy of last place, although the real gamblers out there bet on the points by which team X beats team Y, so in that instance, the importance of place, of coming out ahead or standing atop the heap, has shrunk. Nonetheless, gamblers are led by the phantom of winning.

Is there much doubt that George W. Bush is at once the biggest winner (two-time president, in a manner of speaking) and the biggest loser (what project or response of his has succeeded?, and this is not a rhetorical question--I do wish I could name one success) in American politics in recent memory? Hollywood screenwriters could not have created a better parody-president. The president in Dr. Strangelove, played by Peter Sellers, seems more authentically presidential than George W. Bush; please know this is not a political statement--I am speaking strictly in terms of art. The real guy is a better parody of the president. George W. Bush is a performance artist. Did you see/hear his latest speech? What satirist could have written a more successful satire?. . . .

. . . .We've all won something, I suppose--some little competition. A card game. A foot-race. A contest in which two people try to throw a wad of paper into a waste-can. Poems of mine have won a couple of competitions, but from this vantage point, I have to wonder by what criteria my poems came out "ahead," in "first." My poems have also "lost" competitions, meaning they received no mention. They were ignored. They do not seem to have taken it personally. Good for them. As a friend once said, "One may not, strictly speaking, be offended; one may choose to take offense--or not." Thank you, W.T.H.

. . .As a low-level mere high-school athlete, I was a member of a basketball team that tied for first place in the league and therefore was "co-champion." Did we come in first? Yes and no! I still have a little plaque somewhere that commemorates the event. It's hard to believe that anyone cared enough to create the plaque or that I have held on to it. In college, on an intra-mural flag-football team, I was part of a "championship" team. Ha! What I love most of all is our name: the Moke-Hill Gophers, after a town called Mokulumne Hill in the Sierra Nevada. It is in Calaveras County, the site of Twain's famous frog-story. The team was composed of cowboys, literally, from that town; and me. I also took first place in a dormitory ping-pong (table-tennis) tournament, strictly because of a) my unorthodox style and b) defense. Incredibly as it may seem, I "earned" a trophy. So there's some evidence: a dormitory at a community college in the United States held a ping-pong tournament, for which the winner earned a trophy. Yes, the U.S. is obsessed with competition.

I do fondly recall Robin Williams's having won an Oscar and saying, a few months later, "Don't worry, folks, the Oscars aren't rigged," meaning: of course they're rigged. I liked him more for his having said that. "Best supporting actor." Best acting, or best support? In what sense "best"? What are the criteria? Who are the judges? Who votes, and who counts the votes? Whatever.

In high school, I did not compete in track-and-field, but I remember watching track-meets, and there was a class-mate of mine, Phil, who competed in a long-distance event. I think it was the three-mile race. I'm not sure they even have such an event even more. Phil always came in last. But I remember watching him finish the race, calmly and nobly. That may be my most vivid memory of watching sports in high school. Last place. The nobility of it. Phil, wherever you are, the official records say you didn't win, place, or show. But as far as memory is concerned, you came in first. Well done.

So here are poems about a) first place and b) last place.

First Place

The figure on the trophy
lifts its arms for as long
as its soft, shiny metal
will last. It doesn’t know
what it celebrates. Trophies
are good that way—entirely
disinterested. They’re
unambitious, manufactured.
They weren’t able to hear
the cheers. At landfills they
break apart gracefully.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

* * *
The Last Place

Not long from now
nor far from here's
the place where all
that matters now,
even if it matters then,
must matter to
somebody else.

To anyone who finds
this note: good luck
and look ahead
to your last place
not far, not long
from when and where
you read this--your
eyes, your mind
alive and quick
and liquid, not
concerned with doom.

Ah, bless you on
your way to where
what matters now
must matter to
someone besides
the one your are,
the one I am.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom,

Wrist

What a great old, ornery word "wrist" is. When I say it and think about it, as language, I see it walking out of an Anglo-Saxon forest, in a bad mood. According to the OED online, the word goes back at least to 940 A.C.E. in written (Old) English, and back then it meant the same thing it does today. Later, however, some people got sloppy for a while and used the word to refer to the ankle and to thigh- and calf-bones. That doesn't seem to have lasted long. "Wrist" can also be used a verb--in the game of cricket, for example. I think I've heard it used in tennis, too--"wristing" the ball over the net, as opposed to taking a full swing.

Where does the wrist begin and end? Is that an anatomical question or a metaphysical one?

Here's a poem meditating on the wrist:

Wrist

1.

The road narrows as it approaches the river.
The bridge is brief as bridges are. Beyond it,
five separate routes materialize. Seeming
parallel at first, the routes diverge.

2.

When I looked at her brown wrist
that summer, I fell in what-I-thought-
was-love. I don’t blame myself
for having thought me into love.
Her wrist was better than ideal because
it existed. So did she. Aristotle always
held a better hand than Plato’s, so
to speak, for he knew real beat ideal
every time just because it showed up.
The rest of what I knew that summer
seemed useless. It was. I do hope
she kept the bracelet.

3.

His wrists were placed under arrest
and bound. They were booked, charged,
arraigned, tried, convicted, and sentenced.
Loyal to his wrists, he went
to prison with them.

4.

The other day a woman’s wrists asked her
why she’d worked so hard. She said because
she wasn’t born a Rockefeller, for example.
The wrists said, “That’s what we thought.”
With the help of her wrists, she picked up
a tool and went back to work.

5.

By means of repetitive motion,
Industrial Society declared war on The Wrist.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Weeds, Jobs, and Long, Tall Poems

I was talking with someone who works at a college and employs college-students. She said that for some of the students (who are 18-22 years old), this part-time job at college is the first job they've had. She and I discussed the merits and drawbacks of going to work early, as in when you are 15 or 16. I think we both had started working "full time/part time" when we were about that age--meaning that we'd held 8-hour-a-day-jobs but only in the summer. I never worked during high school because I played sports, but once summer started, I worked full time. Oddly enough (odd-jobly enough) my first paying job was as a self-employed laborer--a cutter of weeds.

I'd been meaning to write a poem about, or "out of that," experience for the longest time, but it took me, oh, 35 years to get to it. That's probably a good thing because when you write a poem about something you know really well, sometimes you are too loyal to the facts, and imagination sits on the bench. For me the poem is a throwback not just in the sense that it's about something that happened a long time ago but also in the sense that I used to write "long, tall" poems. They're in free verse, but the lines are pretty much the same length--and short. I don't really know why I got into that groove, but I did. Then I got out of it. With this poem, I went back to it.

Regarding work: it's probably a good thing, a net-plus for a "kid" to hold a job before s/he gets to college, chiefly because a) it reminds the person why college can be an economic benefit, longterm b) it induces you to encounter difficult personalities and c) it gives you some basic good habits: show up on time, pay attention to detail, get the job done. Also, if you or your family need the money, then the job is giving you part of what you need. Otherwise, I'm not Puritanical about work; there's more to life, so they say.

Regarding work and poetry (or creative writing in general): I often advise writers who are stuck to write about work. It's something they know, it brings vivid images, it often involved some kind of conflict, it can bring its own language (for example, carpentry brings "joist," bussing tables brings "Run silver!"), but probably you have some distance from the job-in-the-past, so you are free to make stuff up, too.

The poem, which first appeared in Sierra Journal a few years ago:

Weed-Cutter for Widows

I used to cut weeds for widows.
--Blue shirt, blue jeans, brown boots,
cap, a pocket knife, gloves, and
a wood-handled, saw-toothed hacker
called a devil-stick. Sweet-pea vines
rioted, overwhelmed old ladies’
clapboard houses. Yards and cars
and stuff like that had been territory
of the husbands, who’d retired
into death, picture-frames, and
annuity payments. The widows
came out on porches and waved
baggy, soft arms in slow motion
toward a place in the yard they
didn’t like. I went to work.

I cut back ten summers of growth,
sweating shirt and jeans through.
Inside the stuffy houses, the widows
napped themselves into youth, where
they married someone different who
didn’t have the bright idea of buying
a summer home in a hard High-Sierra
town full of thin oxygen and mountain
misfits. The widows woke up
and were old and shawled again.

They brought out a few dollar bills
and lemonade, too sweet. I needed
water. I was quiet and polite
and did the work,
unlike their children, who were 40
years old, mean, fat, lazy, and down
there in the Bay Area hoping Ma
would die soon and feed their greed
with Will. I walked home on state-highway
asphalt that pulsed heat. One widow
would tell another about the boy
who cut weeds. I had quite the
little business that summer. Sometimes
the widows visit me when I nap and
dream. I give them their money
back just before a wave of sweet-pea
vines crests and inundates us all.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom. First published in Sierra Journal, edited by Bill Hotchkiss.

Moisture

I called a good friend in San Diego today and told him that in the Northwest, we were experiencing a day of cold wind and hard rain. He said in San Diego it was, well, San Diego; sunny. I cursed gently, insincerely, and humorously; still I was envious.

A good day, then, to consider moisture, a word that, in English, goes back to the medieval period (according to the OED online), specifically to medieval philosophy, which at that time incorporated science. The word referred to the liquid inherent in animals and plants, and often it was called "radical moisture." One etymological root of "radical," apparently and ironically, is "root." So I guess radical moisture was natural moisture--the water infused in the tissue, if that's the right term, of plants and animals.

Here's a poem that meditates on moisture. I think the poem is more medieval than radical.

Moisture: A Study

Cleopatra’s perspiration; water her slaves
drank; Rasputin’s mucous; my great-aunt’s
tears, dispatched when, in Sweden’s north,
she discovered she was pregnant by
Sig the traveling fiddle-player; sweat on
Sig's fiddle-strings; denatured
alcohol of perfume dabbed behind an
ear before a party; party in which the
room gets humid because of human heat;
saliva I expressed
that summer we built the long stone wall
beside the cemetery; water in the mortar
of that wall: any of this and all other
historical moisture might reside in raindrops
dimpling a fish-pond I stare at now
using moist eyeballs. It’s no news we’re
mostly water, so after we die, most of what was
us is in earthly circulation—puddle, Pacific,
creek, blizzard, mist; also in other bodies
full of water, rats in Paris, a cat in Nairobi,
a toad napping next to damp gravestones,
not to put too fine a point on it.

Copyright 2007

Waiting

I remember reading once that, based on a life-expectancy of 70 years, most people will spend about five years in the bathroom--not all at once (one hopes), but total. I wonder if that's accurate. Assuming it's in the ballpark, then most of us must spend even more years waiting. Stuck in a chair, leaning against a wall, pacing, or holding a phone to the ear (while being "on hold"). It's probably worse for me because I tend to show up for appointments very early, so like those people at the beginning of Casablanca, I "wait. . .and wait. . .and wait."

It's interesting that people who are sick in hospitals are called patients. For once, an institution tells the truth! By using that name, hospitals are disclosing that if you are sick and come to the hospital, your main task will not be to get well but to wait, to be patient. If politicians were as truthful, they would openly refer to voters and other citizens as "victims," "patsies," or "suckers." The president would begin a TV-speech by saying, "Good evening, suckers! Social Security is toast! I'm spending all your money in Iraq; a lot of it is going to large corporations! What's new with you?"

I don't know how waiters and waitresses and "wait-staff" got that wait-related name and its variations. In most restaurants, they don't wait at all. In fact, sometimes they leave the table too quickly, just when you're ready to order or have a question, or right after they've given you what you did not order. I guess sometimes they wait for the chef to produce the food. "Server" is more accurate, I suppose, but it sounds strange. Maybe we need a brand-new term, like a "plate-jockey" or a "food-hauler" or "calorie-delivery specialist." No, better stick with waiter and waitress. Or server.

It may have been William Burroughs who said that the life of a junkie consists almost entirely of waiting--for the next fix. And what a great word "fix" is in this context. The junkie is in need of constant repair, but once s/he gets the fix, s/he's ruined again and needs fixing.

In my childhood, I heard people make the sarcastic comment, "What are you waiting for?", when they really meant "Start" or "Hurry" or "I'm impatient; take care of me." I don't hear that comment much any more, nor do I hear "I don't have all day!" I do hear the more direct "What's taking so long?"

What is patience? I know it's an alleged virtue. I think it may be the ability to wait without being internally (or externally) agitated. I know lots of people who look calm while they're waiting, but inside things are in turmoil, so they're not really being patient. How do you know when you're being patient? It's more than just waiting with apparent calmness and politeness, I think. It's a quality of being. The more power and/or celebrity people have or appear to have, the less they are required to be patient and the more they are entitled to force other people to be patient. Is that an accurate statement?

Anyway, here's a little poem about waiting (and I apologize for the delay):

Expect Delays

At the annual International Patience Festival,
held every other year (or so),
participants double-park on each other’s nerves;
wait in lines leading up to
unstaffed stations;
are notified appointments with a
chiropractor
have been rescheduled; ache; stand by
for further announcements;
get the runaround and put on hold;
pray, hope, digress; pass the
time;
consult obscure religious texts; sigh; check their
watches,
their messages;
ask each other if there’s been “any word”;
fall behind schedule; and,
and
believe people are basically good.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Phrase Books

The concept of a phrasebook is amusing, I believe. The idea is that you buy a book of phrases commonly used in a language and you use that book to make your way in a country whose language is not your own. Things quickly get complicated, however, even with the simplest of phrases. Your "Goodbye" might be someone else's "Go with God." You will probably mispronounce whatever phrase you're trying to use, thereby turning it into a) strange sounds or b) a joke or c) an insult.

Then there's this problem: You want to ask someone in the country something, so you look at your phrasebook, pick out the question, and say it. The person answers. You don't understand the answer, so what was the use of saying your phrase? Or you do understand the answer but don't know what to say next. You look at your phrasebook, but of course it offers no help. In conversation, it's the second, third, fourth (and so one) things that matter, not the serve. You serve your phrase, and a response comes screaming back over the net, and there's no way you can handle it.

Nonetheless, I'm a sucker for phrase books. I bought one before we went to Berlin this summer. I think I used it once out of a possible--oh, let's say 50--interactions, and even then I used it only as a kind of prep. I had studied German long ago, and I had lived in Germany for a year in 80-81, so I had that to fall back on, but "falling back on" was about all it was good for. Rather like an old worn-out bed. Pieces of a second language do float to the surface, however. And hearing the language makes you remember things; you get into the swing of language; you get by. And we mustn't overlook the fact that because of the British and American Empires, English has insinuated itself all over the place, so even ins spite of our best intentions, our desires to blend in, we are, by default, linguistic bullies. Meanwhile, the phrasebook stays up in the hotel room, on vacation. Think of all the free vacations phrase books have taken!

This poem is based on the premise that two travelers communicate using only their phrase books. I'd prefer that every other line of the dialogue were indented, but I can't get the blog-program to let me do that. Clearly, I need to buy a phrasebook in Blogese so I can talk to my blog.

The poem:


Two Travelers Meet By Chance Inside a Phrase-Book


“My name is Carmen,” she said.
“The Post Office is over there,” he replied.
“Thank you! It is one o’clock.”
“Goodbye! How are you?”
“Do you speak English?”
“The pleasure is all mine.”
“My factory is on fire.”
“Excuse me.”
“That dog is frothing at the mouth.”
“You’re welcome!”
“My passport lies under your thigh.”
“Where is the café?”
“Keep walking to the left.”
“Please put this on your head, my painful cousin.”


Ambrose Bierce wrote The Devil's Dictionary, with all sorts of funny definitions of words. I think he may have defined "coward," for example, as "One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.” (I just finished re-reading Gore Vidal's novel, Lincoln, in which Vidal has Lincoln signing [or not]execution orders for hundreds of soldiers who ran away from battles or who committed other potentially capital offenses. Lincoln has sympathy for those he calls "the leg men," the ones who run away, because he thinks that's how he might react in battle.) I think someone should write a phrasebook-counterpart to Bierce's Dictionary--something like the Franz Kafka Phrasebook for Foreign Travelers, a phrasebook that revels in the absurdity of phrase books.



Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Yes We Know a Banana: A Thing Poem

A thing poem is a poem about--you guessed it--a thing. --An object, an item.



In News of the Universe: Poems of The Two-Fold Consciousness, poet, Men's Movement leader, and Jungian Robert Bly argues that the thing poem is new to the West (as in Western civilization); actually he argues that old German riddle-poems (about things) were in the right ballpark but that the West abandoned such poems. It's pretty easy to come up with thing poems written after the riddle poems in the West, however. Swift's poem about a rain-shower in London is really about a sewer-system. Keats wrote about an urn, Wordsworth about a locomoitve, Dickinson about all sorts of things. Bly's interested in a particular kind of thing poem, however, one in which the poet doesn't merely describes but free-associates. Bly might argue that poets should let their unconscious or submerged-conscious mind go to work on the object, just as our dreaming minds go to work on objects, associating freely and surrealistically. Elsewhere Bly has argued that mainstream English and American poetry hasn't done enough of this "leaping," this association. There's too much flat-footed, linear description in the tradition, from his point of view, if I'm representing his view correctly. He's passionate and insistent about his Jungian approach. Me--I'm no Jungian; or if I am, I am one by accident; or I am one and I don't know it--maybe that's the point of Jungianism. But I do like to read and write thing poems, and when a poet gets stuck, turning to the writing of a thing poem is usually a good way out. It's a way to get back to basics. Look at something, write about it, let your mind play carom-shots off it.



Here is a thing poem about a banana. I have given it the second most predictable title I could think of, not "Banana" but "Of Banana." I rather like that old-fashioned use of "of," to mean "concerning."



Of Banana


An armada of curved yellow boats
sails from tropics to a blue northern bay.
On surrounding hills, something
has happened to snow, which is
warm but not melting, is firm
and edible. Modestly we chew the snow.

In the cobbler’s workshop, scraps
of gold leather darken with age.

Tiny faces appear in fog, recede.
Air tastes of smoke and vanilla.

I shall ask that to your door be delivered
a bouquet of enormous commas
with which to punctuate sections
of lush rhetoric you bought at auction.
It is not the least I can do.

Harvesters are chopping, hacking
at sun’s abundant fruit.
Eros arrives in a Panama hat, promoting
a golden fertility symbol. From dense trees,
bright birds deride phallocentrism,
and why wouldn’t they?

Here, dear, are a few soft, white coins
with which to purchase sated hunger
before you walk back in the world,
before you must decide
how many of what to buy.

Here, dear, is charcoal. Please
use it to draw lines on thick, soft yellow paper.
Now peel back the paper to reveal the essence
of what you thought you were drawing. Are
you hungry?

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom

Life-Changing Books

It's an especially interesting era in which to be a book-lover, which I define not simply as someone who likes to read but as someone who loves books themselves--who may have not just a favorite novel but also a favorite particular copy of that novel.

In all of human history, it has never been easier than it is now--if one has a bit of currency--to get a book. With the electronic web in place, the world is a bookshelf. At the same time, the book, as such, seems to be on its way out. Reports of its demise are exaggerated, but maybe not enough to quell a book-lover's fears entirely. Those who publish books think of them first (and second, and third) as "product," and the product is getting expensive to make, and there are not unreasonable demands for "sustainability," and the literary novel--to pick one genre--is something not a lot of people seem interested in. The remaindered-book table at Borders or Barnes and Noble is full of hardback novels. The real estate in such stores is taken up by romance novels, graphic novels, mysteries, and nonfiction. At the same time, libraries begin to look more like hotel lobbies with computer terminals, as opposed to places where books are stored. I wonder if, in the not-to-distant-future, used-book stores will become even stranger places than they are now--truly underground sites where eccentric readers and keepers of old-fashioned objects called "books" prowl like today's collectors of old-fashioned hand-tools or like people who horde string for no apparent reason.

So when I consider the topic of life-changing books, I'm tempted to assert that the reading of books itself and the attachment to books itself constitute the life-changing, or consciousness-changing, phenomenon, not so much the particular books that apparently pack dramatic influential power. That is, we may say that Book X "changed our lives," but in fact Book X may just have seemed to have changed our lives, while the more glacial process of reading itself may have been the real source of change. Also, a consciousness-changing book need not be a great book or even a good book. A terribly flawed book can, I believe, change a person's consciousness for the better simply becauses it creates some kind of awakening. A priest I know knows a priest who is writing an article for Commonweal, and in the article the writer-priest apparently defines "spirituality" as the intentional changing of consciousness (for the better, we hope), and 0ne can't predict what kind of book will trigger that intentionality (now there's a Latinate word!).

Nonetheless, here's a brief list of books that seem to have changed my life in the sense of changing my consciousness. I'm deliberately excluding sacred texts because they occupy a category unto themselves.

Huckleberry Finn--not for the reasons you might guess, not because it's "a great novel," although it probably is. I think I was about 11 years old, and I'd read Tom Sawyer and had a pretty easy go of it. Also on the family bookshelf was an inexpensive green hardback of Huck Finn, probably published by Grossett and Dunlap. I picked it up and started to read it--and it was tough. It was just flat out different than Tom Sawyer. I learned then that books could be hard, even if you understand the words. I couldn't finish the book then, but I didn't blame the book, no more than I would have blamed the mountain if at the time I'd failed to hike up a mountain. I also "knew"--guessed--that I'd return to Huck Finn one day, and I'd be more ready, and it would be more ready for me.

Around the same time I think I was reading books written especially for adolescents, in particular some adventure stories--hunting stories, really--by an author named Jim Kjellegaard. And not much later, I started reading the Doc Savage series of adventure novels by Kenneth Robeson. Kjellegaard later became quite obscure, his books hard to find, and I discovered that Robeson was a pretty bad writer, for lots of reasons. But at the time, these books kept me reading, kept me involved in plots, characters, and language, and that's important.

When I was about 15, my parents bought me the complete Sherlock Holmes tales and novels. It's the equivalent of buying someone their own private ocean, for I've gone swimming in those tales ever since. The character, Holmes, is unique; his relationship to Watson is mercurial; and Conan Doyle's stately sentences entrance. Whatever is old-fashioned and flawed about the tales seems only to contribute to their charm.

The Fire Next Time, composed of long essays by James Baldwin, was probably my first life-changing book in the classic sense of the term. I found it by accident in the back of a high-school classroom and read it straight through. It changed entirely the way I looked at ethnicity in the United States. It changed my view of language, of how powerful it could be. The experience was a bit like being knocked down, physically. The book is still at the top of my list of nonfiction books.

Into the early college years, Camus's The Stranger captivated me and induced me to think about "larger issues," such as whether life has any meaning and why "the rules" of life are what they are, and who really is "in charge," if anyone or anything is. I was not immune from having the usual undergraduate response to the book--what happened [in the book]? Did anything happen? I mean, I know he killed a guy, but still, what happened? Nonetheless, the book got to me. So did Barrabas, by Par Lagerkvist, and there is an umlaut over the a in par. Like The Stranger, it's a spare book that cuts to the bone of things. I always think of those books in tandem.

Poetry anthologies at the time bowled me over--A Little Treasury of Modern Verse and a couple of the Norton anthologies. Any anthologies of lyric poetry in English would have done the same; these just happened to be the ones I bought for courses. I suddenly became a compulsive reader of poetry. I feasted on it. I even liked reading the poems I didn't like. I had it bad, and that ain't good, as the saying goes. Poems by Browning, Dickinson, Hopkins, Housman, and countless others burst like fireworks in my reading-consciousness. I began seriously to write my own (terribly serious) poems. Around the same time, I discovered the poetry of Randall Jarrell and Karl Shapiro. The work was modern, but not in the T.S. Eliot way. It was smart, and it was also "American" in ways with which I could identify at the time.

A two-volume history of philosophy, written by Wallace Matson, was certainly a life-changing book, just as the two-semester course on the same subject was probably the most influential course of my undergraduate career. It was taught by George Sessions. Philosophers tend not to like history-of-philosophy courses because you really don't "do philosophy," as they say, in such courses; instead you watch the big ideas and arguments go by. But what a parade! And we "did" philosophy in the sense of having George induce us to put the ideas in friendly competition in our minds.

Subsequently, . . . .ah, so many books. Langston Hughes's book of short stories, The Ways of White Folks. . . . . Innumerable volumes of poems by invidual authors (not antholgies, I mean), including The Back Country, by Gary Snyder--his best, but not his best known, book of poems. . . . Jeffers's Selected Poems. . . . Much more Dickinson. . . .Franz Kafka's stories, especially "The Hunger Artist" and "The Metamorphoses"--the latter "blew my mind," as we used to say, back in the day. . . . James Joyce's short stories, Dubliners. . . . .Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki. . . . . Accessories After the Fact (which I read when I was a junior in college, I believe), a painstaking, dispassinate deconstruction of the Warren Report on JFK's assassination. Yes, Virginia, there was more than one shooter, and there was a plan to kill him, but for our official history, we prefer the denial and the lone assassin. It's pointless to argue about it. The book is by Sylvia Meagher. It changed my consciousness because it changed entirely my view of "my" nation and its government....Jacques Ellul's book, Propaganda, which I just recently read. A political-scientist friend recommended it. It is perhaps the book on propaganda, and much of it is counter-intuitive (and least to the naive reader, like me); for example, Ellul points out that allegedly smart people like college professors are highly susceptible to propaganda (no matter the source--"left" or "right"), partly because of their addiction to information, partly because they fancy themselves smart, and when you fancy yourself, your open to propagandistic attack. . . . Robert Farris Thompson's book on African and African American culture and aesthetics: Flash of the Spirit. Brilliant. Paul Monette's book, Becoming a Man: great insight into being gay in the U.S. . . . .William Styron's Sophie's Choice, which I read in Germany. . . . A Little Book on the Human Shadow, by Robert Bly--his own idiosyncratic take on Jungian "thought.". . . . The Cloud of Unknowing, by St. Denis. . . . Snow Country, by Kawabata. . . . Rabbit, Run, by John Updike (this is out of chronological order; I think I read it when I was a junior in high school; it helped show me what "the contemporary novel" was). . . . Colette's Claudine novels--fascinating in their study of gender-and-power, gender and class. Fatima Mernissi's Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood, opened windows on a culture completely different from mine. . . . Faulkner's novella, The Bear. . . . Shakespeare's King Lear, which I finally "got" when I was about 20 or 21. The most essentially tragic play I have read. And seen. And War and Peace, a massive but exquisitely constructed novel. Just the best. I'm finishing my third reading of it. It's a beast, but a friendly beast. It lies there, knowing, distant, and self-contained, like a cat. A very large cat.

What about "the greats," however? The Iliad and The Odyssey. Yes, I read them, more than once. I recognize their greatness, how they lay a foundation. Fabulous scenes. Fascinating psychology--why Odysseus doesn't want to go to war and even gets in disguise to try to "dodge the draft," as it were. Why Achilles stops fighting. And starts again. The Trojan Horse! Scylla and Charybdis! The Sirens! But I can't say the books changed my consciousness. The same goes for Paradise Lost. A tremendous achievement. But in my case, not life-changing. And to tell the truth, boring in places, like a very long solo by a virtuoso jazz-player; you don't question the greatness, but you're still bored by the solo. Plato? Maybe. I struggled pleasurably with some of the dialogues. The parable of the cave is pretty cool. But as early as age 18, when I was taking that history of philosophy course, I knew I was an Aristotelian. Form only seems to be elsewhere and ideal; it actually is in the things themselves. Down-to-earth Ari. Unlike Socrates (at least Plato's version of the S-Man), Aristotle did not view himself or philosophy to be above rhetoric; rhetoric is essentially "the fray," the mixed up verbal and social interaction of living humans. It can be awful, and it often is, but it ain't necessarily so; so Aristotle studied it, as he studied all things. The great empiricist. "Let's have a look": that seems to have been Aristotle's impulse. "Let's keep doubting whether having a look will do any good; let's be passively aggressive; let's pretend we don't use rhetoric when we attack rhetoric; let's affirm something called 'virtue' by denying all else." This seems to have been Socrates's impulse. . . . So I guess maybe reading Plato did change my consciousness.

Essential Reading from the Middle East

Concerning some essential reading (in my opinion) from the Middle East, by way of San Francisco and Guantanamo:


According to amazon.com, a book called The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, has earned the following "honors":

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,396 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

#1 in	Books > Religion & Spirituality > Islam > Sufism
#1 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( R ) > Rumi, Mevlana Jalaleddin
#2 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Ancient, Classical & Medieval

That's right: Number One in Sufism (okay, let's assume that's not a massive category), but also Number One in Literature and Fiction by an author whose last name begins with R, and Number Two in all of Ancient and Classical & Medieval Poetry. And roughly 3,400th of all books sold on amazon.com. Sales position 3,400 (roughly) at amazon.com is pretty high up there for any book, but for poetry? Almost incredible.

Why is the translated (by Coleman Barks) work of a medieval poet from Afghanistan so popular in the U.S.? Well, I think Rumi's work earned the popularity the old fashioned way. It's terrific, even as one supposes the translation, which is no doubt excellent, does not do it complete justice. In an English translation, we can't get the full sense of Rumi's talent for rhythm and meter, but his gift of imagery, his wit, his learning, his intelligence, and his vast breadth of interests come through, as does his generous spirituality. Here's a snippet that may exemplify the combination of wit and spirituality often found in Rumi's work:

from On Resurrection Day

by Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks

On Resurrection Day your body testifies against you.
Your hand says, "I stole money."
Your lips, "I said meanness."
Your feet, "I went where I shouldn't."
Your genitals, "Me, too."

The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks (Harper San Francisco, 2004), expanded edition.

Rumi was born in 1207 and died in 1273.

Barks writes (p. xvii), "Because of these troubles we are living in, I want to call attention again to Rumi's role as a bridge between religions and cultures. . . . Interfaith hardly reaches the depth of his connecting. Rumi speaks from the clear head at the center." One illustration of this connective quality: Rumi is the favorite poet of a Jesuit parish priest in Tacoma.

If you haven't looked into The Essential Rumi yet, give it a try, and it's the kind of book a person may just leap into at any point--no reading from page 1 to 300+, please, unless you simply must read that way. Jump in an have a look around. Move fast until you find something you like, and I think you will. Fair warning: You may find yourself continuing to read when you have allegedly better things to do.

As essential as Rumi, I would argue, if much more tied to the political moment, is Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak, edited by Marc Falkoff, a professor of law who represents some of the prisoners at Guantanamo (University of Iowa Press, 2007). It's a painful book of poems to read, to say something close to the least. It's also a mortifying, shaming book for an American to read. Some of the poets have been released from the prison--but only after years of abuse and of being deprived of due process, and in many cases, after having been detained for no good reason. That is, even if one sets aside whether the prison is morally or legally correct (I really don't want to set these questions aside), one must conclude that many of the prisoners were clearly detained because of a combination of overzealousness, greed, rough politics (especially in Pakistan), and/or incompetence on the part of Americans and others. The collection is one of those books of poems that pulls you in opposite directions. It forces you to see, again, that the differences between Guantanamo prison and a concentration camp are difficult to cite, and yet it confirms the essential power of language and, more specifically, of poetry. I'm not sure it's proper to speak in terms of a "national shame" because I don't know if nations can be shamed. All nations are institutions of power. But people of and in nations can be shamed. From the dust-jacket, a comment from poet Robert Pinsky:

"Poetry, art of the human voice, helps turn us toward what we should or must not ignore. Speaking as they can across barriers actual and figurative, translated into our American tongue, these voices in confinement implicitly call us to our principles and to our humanity. They deserve, above all, not admiration or belief or sympathy--but attention. Attention to them is urgent for us."

Pinsky may be anticipating the reaction of those who suspect that some of these poets might be, for lack of a better term, "bad guys." Pinsky does not respond by pointing out that even the detention of bad guys is supposed to be governed by international law and respect for human rights (how naive this sounds in these jaded times). Nor does he point out that even from the point of view of the jailors, some of these men should never have been arrested, let alone jailed. Instead he suggests, implicitly, that as you hold on to your skepticism, your worries, your anger, or your fear, pay attention. Read what some of these prisoners say. Then consider your principles and your humanity. Attention to the prisoners in Guantanamo is, as Pinsky argues, urgent for us, but it is also urgent for the prisoners.

Haircut

Here follows a miscellany regarding haircuts:


I got a haircut on Sunday.

Up through the middle-school years, my father cut my hair and that of my brothers. He had purchased some clippers, probably from a mail-order catalogue (Montgomery Ward). He gave us all buzz-cuts, and he had a buzz-cut, too, so I'm sure we looked like a family of Marines or a cult of some kind. Only my mother, the sole female in the family, was allowed something besides a buzz-cut. She chose something akin to a Katherine Hepburn parted-look, right out of the 1940s. Good for her.

Rain, shine, snow, or sub-freezing North Wind at 4,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada, my dad always cut our hair outside. That way he didn't have to sweep up anything. Ever had your hair cut while the snow is falling--around you? I have. It's become a fond memory, but its becoming a fond memory took decades, believe me.

The buzz-cut didn't become a problem until a)I turned 12 or 13 and, like every other kid who turns 12 or 13, became hyper-self-conscious and b) longer hair became the fashion, owing in part to the arrival of the Beatles in . . . 1964--if I have my history right. I entered high school in 1967, and long hair was not just a style but a statement. And there I was with my buzz-cut. Damn.

Things have come full-circle, and I'm back to a modified buzz-cut, spiked up with some hair-gel.

The culture of hair and hair-cuts is endlessly fascinating, of course, especially in the U.S., where the meaning of hair is conditioned (so to speak) by so many factors: ethnicity, politics, gender, images of sexuality, class, age, and--above all--relentless advertising, which has convinced us that hair is alive; it isn't; only the follicles are, I believe.

Interestingly, I am well past the self-conscious era of my life, at least with regard to haircuts, so when I went to work today, I was surprised when many people registered recognition that I'd gotten a haircut. I'd actually forgotten that I'd gotten one. My standard blast-from-the-past response is, "No, I got my ears lowered." My head seems to get bigger (I'm not referring figuratively to ego, although that's possible, too) and more perfectly cubicle as the years go by. I attribute this phenomenon to my being partly Scandinavian, as Americans once referred to Swedes as "square-heads." Cube-heads would have been more accurate. . . .Today a student said, "At least you still have hair" (meaning, I suppose, that a lot of other men don't still have their hair and that, even if my haircut looks stupid, at least I have hair to cut).

I also think the etiquette surrounding the question of noticing someone's haircut is interesting. Are you supposed to comment on someone's change of "hair style"? If you just say, "So, you got a haircut," are you leaving some rhetorical space open that could be filled by the following assumption: "...and it looks [or you look] funny"? Sometimes people add, a bit late, ". . . . it looks good!" Once more with feeling, please.

Barber shops, per se, have almost disappeared in most mid-sized to large cities, at least on the West Coast. Franchises like Hair Masters have replaced them. You can get a relatively inexpensive haircut at the franchises, but elsewhere, you have to drop some serious coin to have somebody work the scissors or the clippers. I think the first haircut a child receives is still a big deal, probably across all cultures. In spite of the women's movement and feminism, women's hairstyles have remained fairly stable, with regard to length and (added) coloring and other treatments. In the U.S. most women still seem to shave their legs and under-arms, too. I wonder why that's so. Anthropologists would know, perhaps. . . . In spite of or maybe because of my buzz-cut in the late1960s and early 1970s, I was a big fan, as a spectator at least, of the afro. Mainstream magazines deployed photos of afros to suggest radicalism, I remember. Angela Davis's afro became a symbol of radicalism (to some), I recall. Me, I liked it when NBA players started "wearing" afros, and I liked movies such as Shaft and Superfly in which the afro made appearances. (The sound-tracks were what sold me on the movies, however, I must admit.) I thought Joe Willie Namath's long hair was cool, although I realize I probably have to point out that Namath was a famous football player at the time. (Joe Who?). . . . .To date, I have not gotten my hair "permed." I think I probably won't, ever. When I was a kid, I wondered about that term, "permanent," applied to a hair-treatment that was so obviously temporary. Older now, I've given up on the possibility that the language connected to such things as grooming might make sense.

The best hair-story I know is still the one with Rapunzel, but I love the "Barber Shop" movies, all about African American men in barber shops, and I love Eudora Welty's story, set in a hair-parlor, "Petrified Man." It is a perfect short story. My favorite hair-poem is Karl Shapiro's "Haircut," which John Updike includes in his recent selection of Shapiro's poems. The movie (based on the musical) Hair is not as bad as you might think it would be (there's a stirring recommendation), even if it makes you wince in a few places. Treat Williams is the star, and Milos Forman directed. Beverly D'Angelo is in it, too.

Not that you asked, but "haircut" or "hair cut" seems to have entered the English language in the early 1800s. Words in which "hair" now appears have proliferated to such a degree that the OED can barely keep up.

"Hey, you got your hair cut. . . . . It looks good!" Right.

A Less Well Known Lazarus from A Less Well Known War Poem

In class we recently studied some poems about war, including such "standards" as Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" and Randall Jarrell's "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner." Among the less well known poems we studied was "Still Falls the Rain" (1942), by Edith Sitwell, which--between the title and the poem--suggests that the topic is "The Raids. 1940. Night and Dawn." By "raids," of course, is meant the nightly bombardment of England, especially London, by German aircraft.

However, the poem turns out not to be about life (or death), per se, in London during the bombing. There are no images of the bombed city or of bomb-shelters. Instead the poem begins this way:

Still falls the Rain--
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss--
Blind as nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.

That is, the poem begins not so subtly. It places the raids squarely in the midst of general human suffering and sin and in a Christian tradition and does not concern itself with this particular war (World Warr II), with the Germans, or with the British. It appeals to Christ insofar as he suffered, believe Christians, for the sin that, among other things, apparently keeps driving people to make war, so Sitwell is not focusing on who is bombing whom or on who "started" the war. As far as her poem is concerned, humankind started the war. She also alludes to Cain and, not honorifically, to "Caesar's laurel crown" (as contrasted, implicitly, with the crown of thorns). Conventionally, of course, we may be accustomed to thinking of World War II as needing to have been fought and to thinking that "the good side" won, so Sitwell's poem is disconcerting insofar as it perceives the war from a completely different framework, just as Robinson Jeffers, in his poems, viewed the war as a clash of empires. Neither Sitwell nor Jeffers takes a conventional, "popular" view of the war.

Later in the poem, the speaker urges Christ to "have mercy on us--/On Dives and 0n Lazarus./Under the Rain the sore and the gold."

The reference is not to the "famous" resurrected Lazarus but to a chapter in Luke (16, verses 19 and ff.), in which there is a rich man [Dives] who wears fancy clothes and dines extravagantly every night. A beggar named Lazarus appears outside the rich man's house, hoping for some crumbs but getting none. He's covered with sores, which the rich man's dogs lick. Thus the dogs treat Lazarus better than their master does. Dives and Lazarus die, the former going to Hell and the latter to Heaven. According to Jesus, Dives then looks over to the other side (to Heaven) and asks Abraham to send Lazarus over with some water. Abraham responds by saying (to paraphrase), "Sorry, it's too late; you made your choice when you were alive, and now you and Lazarus will be separated by a chasm."

By coincidence, this parable from Luke was the subject of a homily at my parish the same week, and the priest pointed out that even in Hell, Dives "doesn't get it." In Hell he behaves like a selfish rich person and asks Abraham to treat Lazarus as a servant. In a sense, the priest said, Dives's Hell is self-created; it is as much a mind-set as anything else.

But Sitwell's poem lumps Dives and Lazarus together, as the rain (and the bombs) fall, and asks Christ for mercy for everyone, rich person and poor person alike.

The parable--which Christ tells to the Pharisees, by the way--is hard to take because there's no second chance for Dives. The poem is hard to take because Sitwell sidesteps conventional ways of looking at war, at Germany's raids on England, and at World War II, and she goes straight for a Christian theme. I told the students it was perfectly all right not to like this poem, as long as they understood it--understood why they disliked it. Ironically, it may be easier to like "Dulce et Decorum Est," in spite of of the graphic images, because to mock empty, easy patriotism is more conventional now than asking Christ for mercy during a war. Sitwell not only invokes religion in time of war but a particular religion. She also invokes a less well known Lazarus from the New Testament.

We also studied some poems by an American Iraq-war veteran, Brian Turner, who has published a book of poems with Alice James Books in Boston. He, too, does some unconventional things with war poetry. You might look for his work.