John Updike

The nation and, to some degree, the world seems to be losing members of a novel-writing "generation" that first found a big readership in the 1950s and 1960s: Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, William Styron, Norman Mailer, and now John Updike (to name a few).

Updike was an important figure in my own reading-life because I picked up Rabbit, Run when I was a sophomore in high school, read it, liked it, and understood most of it. I liked the character and, young as I was, I understood the character. I was in high school, with classmates who were local athletic stars who were, in some cases, being set up for disappointment. Perhaps what I responded well to in that novel and other writing by Updike more than anything was its imagery. In terms of plotting, characterization, and moving things along, Updike was traditional. He knew how to construct and pace a novel. But in another way, he was a "poetic" novelist who had a great eye for imagery for conveying that imagery powerfully.

Later I read Couples, the other Rabbit books, story collections (like Pigeon Feathers), and even Midpoint, a book of poems that was more light verse than not. Later still I lost interest in Updike's writing not so much because I lost interest in his particular characters so much as I lost interest in the type of characters and situations he was writing about. I didn't find their stories especially urgent. I found what James Baldwin was writing about (to cite just one example) more pressing.

When Updike ventured beyond the world he knew well--semi-rural and suburban middle-America; Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York--his powers waned. The Coup is, in my opinion, not a good novel. It's the kind of material Gore Vidal and John Le Carre and Martin Amis can handle better. But so what? It was interesting to see what Updike would do with such material.

Even later, I came to regard Updike as a kind of insider who had been taken under the wing of The New Yorker early on and who was well connected, as it were. That's probably not entirely fair because he was an extremely hard-working writer. Maybe he had an inside track, but he also ran hard. He just kept at it. By contrast, Heller and Styron seem unproductive, or less productive, at least.

But I'll always remember reading that relatively thin paperback, Rabbit, Run, in the sun or in my room, getting myself through the novel on my own, and loving it. I knew it was good writing. It made me want to keep reading. And reading. And writing.

What Should I Say?

Once again I've been inspired by another blogger. Inter-blogging inspiration seems to be a good feature of the blogosphere, although I don't know why it has to be a sphere. Can't it be amorphous like one of those "energy fields" in the old Star Trek TV series?

A Scribble or a Sonnet wrote, "What should [or maybe it was "can"] I say when I have nothing to say?" Fabulous question. The most popular answer might be "Nothing," but we mustn't stop there. A Scribble or a Sonnet came up with the most elegant answer, arguably, which was the question itself, which was something to say.

If my father were alive, he would say, of blogging, "What a goddamned waste of time." He would need to know some practical reason for blogging. On the other hand, if there were (and I'm sure there are) bloggers that write about the sub-culture of those who keep hound dogs, especially "coon dogs," he would read that blog. It's a fascinating sub-culture that, in a way, has absolutey nothing to do with raccoons.

One of my brothers would say, "Tell them about the time you . . . ." and then he would reference some comical calamity from my past.

Queen Victoria might have said, "We do not know what blogs are. We are unimpressed."

Homer, Whitman, or Ginsberg--or some other poet who likes to catalogue items in his or her poetry--would make a list of all the reasons why s/he doesn't appear to have anything to say.

One could also make a list of the different ways there are to say nothing.

How is the equivalent of "nothing" pronounced, say, in Abrabic, Farsi, Swahili, Portuguese [close to "nada" or not?], Japanese, and so forth?

Concerning Failure

Concerning Failure

*

*

Of all the ways to fail,

trying to succeed has to be

the most interesting. You

get into a vehicle and go fast

west, stop, get out, and know

immediately you're east.

*

I've pursued many goals

with grim determination

and ended up in a room

that held just grim

determination, a fly, and me.

*

Meanwhile, success finds me,

or at least it may find you.

At first it seems too light

to be success. You test its

weight. You try to trace

its origin. You wonder what

part you played in its arrival,

exactly. You want to be sure.

*

Finally you acknowledge that,

yes, success arrived. That's

success for you. It's different

from failure. At least that's

the theory anyway.

*

*

*

Hans Ostrom 2009 Copyright 2009

Poetic License: Time to Renew?

For the first time ever, I renewed my driver's license online. I kind of missed going to the local Department of Motor Vehicles office, which is always located in an obscure strip-mall, it seems, and taking a number, and sitting there for a long time, and then going up to the counter to talk with a person who has been interacting with too many people for too long concerning the same topic. Ah, well: another one of life's small pleasures, gone. Anyway, this license-renewal business got me thinking about whether one needs to renew his or her poetic license.

Poetic-License Renewal

He received a notice telling him his

poetic license had expired. He wanted to

go down (not up, it's never up) to

the Department of Poetry to renew

the license, but he was afraid.

His eyesight was probably worse,

he reckoned. Would they test him

on imagery? Also, he knew he'd

get nervous talking to the muse

behind the counter, the one who

asks questions like "If you're turning

into oncoming poetry, should you use

a simile or a hand-signal?"

Plus he hated when they took his

picture for the license because the

photo looked exactly like him. Still he knew

he had to renew. He was afraid to write

poetry without a license. What if he

got caught? They might tow away

his notebook or make him do community

service, such as writing press-releases

for actors who are on the decline.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Beat-Memo Homage: Dig It

You don't (or I don't, or one doesn't) hear anyone say, "I dig that" or "I can dig that" in the ancient hipster or old-Beatnik sense of "I understand that" or "I'm in tune with that" much anymore--except perhaps when people are genially mocking the usage.

I still recall fondly the pop-song, "Grazing in the Grass (Is a Gas)," with its dig-related riff and refrain. Not the apogee of American music, I grant.

According the OED online, this sense of "dig" arose in English (in print, at least) around 1935:

1935 Hot News Sept. 20/2 If you listen enough, and dig him enough, you will realise that that..riff is the high-spot of the record.

1941 Life 15 Dec. 89 Dig me? 1943 M. SHULMAN Barefoot Boy with Cheek 90 Awful fine slush pump, I mean awful fine. You ought to dig that. 1944 C. CALLOWAY Hepsters Dict., Dig v.(1) Meet. (2) Look, see. (3) Comprehend, understand.

Notice that Cab Calloway is featured in an early citation. This is almost purely guesswork, but my familiarity with African American origins of some American slang and of "hepster," "hipster," and jazz-related slang induces me to hypothesize that this use "dig" may have sprang from African American colloquial speech, which heavily influenced Beat slang.

With regard to the more literal use of dig, I can report that I did a lot of digging in my youth and young adulthood, much of it related to putting in water-lines, building foundations for houses, putting in fence-posts, establishing drain-fields for septic tanks, and even looking for gold. Since then I've done a lot of digging in gardens.

Strange as it may sound, my father loved to dig. (He became a professional hard-rock gold-miner at age 17, at the Empire Mine in Grass Valley California; this meant digging.) To him it was an art. Probably the best tip I can give you from the art of digging according to him is to let the pick (or pry-bar) do the work. Never swing a pick as high or higher than your head; you really don't have to swing it at all. Work with it, and let its iron point do the work, not your forearms and back. If the pick is wearing you out, something is wrong--I mean besides the fact that there you are, using a pick.

Unfortunately, my experience digging, often alongside my father, may have ruined Seamus Heaney's famous "Digging" poem for me. In it, Heaney explicitly compares his writing ("digging" with a pen) to his father's digging in the ground. I think because I saw the comparison coming a mile away (when I first read the poem), I winced. Also, because digging is a form of labor and a skill unto itself, I'd be tempted to leave it alone and not associate it with the figurative digging of writing.

True, a pick and a pen both have a point, and so, therefore, does Heaney. But for some reason I wanted him to let writing be writing and digging be digging and not go for the comparison. I'm in an extremely tiny minority with this response, however, so I think it's mostly about me and not about Heaney's poem, which many people adore.

In any event, and in honor of those old hipsters and long-ago Beats, and in homage to writers I happen to like, here's a list-poem memo (for some reason, the idea of writing a Beat "memo" amused me, probably more than it should have):


Beat-Memo Homage

I dig Basho, Dickinson, Housman,
Lagerkvist, and Gogol. I dig Kafka, Calvino,
Borges, Brautigan. Can you dig Langston
Hughes,W.C. Williams, and Sam Johnson? I can.
Oh, man. I dig Swenson (May), Valenzuela (Luisa),
Sayers, Stout, and Conan Doyle. I dig
Shapiro, Stafford, Bukowski, and Jarrell.
Leonard Cohen and Jay McPherson: I dig
them, too. Of course I dig some of those
Beats, except they're ones who were
on the fringes of Beatly fringehood: Snyder,
Baraka, Everson, Levertov. Sure,
I dig Ginsburg and Kerouac, just
not as much as other people do. I dig Camus,
who didn't believe, and Nouwen, who did.
I dig Suzuki (Zen Mind...), St. Denis
(Cloud of...), and Spinoza. Jeffers, I
dig--Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky. I dig Rumi
an Goethke: what's not to dig? I dig
O'Connor (Frank and Flannery both).
I dig Horace and the Beowulf cat,
Tolstoy, Cervantes. Let's leave it at that.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Our Own Business

Our Own Business


I saw a man carrying a ladder walking alone beside
a highway on the plains. Dusk only just
lit up the shirt on his back and the ladder's
angles. Had he climbed, or was he going
to climb, and what? There weren't any houses,
trees, or barns around. The man had that stiff,
relentless gait of a resolute person in an awkward
situation. As I drove past him,

I was about to laugh and judge him to be
"crazy," but I noticed I was driving a car alone
across the plain listening to a radio talk-show
about mysterious lights in the sky, and I'd just
decided to bypass a human hauling a ladder,
and not to talk to him or offer transportation.

I set aside judgment, looked at the speedometer
and fuel gauge, and turned on the headlights,
which made the highway mysterious.
Say what you will about that man and me. We
were minding our own business on the plains.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Head Officer

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*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Head Officer

*

*

His head was his office. Each

day he opened an imaginary door

and entered to go to work. It was

a well appointed space, with tapestries

made of dream-threads, shelves

and cabinets full of memories,

bright synaptic lights, and windows

looking out on undulating land,

clustered skylines, and upholstered

boulders. He loved his job.

The pay, however, was sub-optimal

in the sense of nothing. So one day,

to support himself financially, he had

to get a job located outside his head.

He closed up the office in his mind. He

went to work with people on tasks

deemed socially appropriate and worth

traditional remuneration. Sometimes

he steals away to the office in his head,

that wondrous interior, and thinks what

seem to him to be marvelous thoughts,

some of which are accompanied by

unusual images: pink ferns, dolphins

broadcasting news, demitasse cups

full of melted gold. Returning makes

him wistful. The world outside the

Head Office is hard: steel, concrete,

that sort of thing. Deep sighs within these

headquarters seem to to have a salutary effect.

*

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

First Day Of Class, In the First Person

I taught, or I should say met, my first classes of the semester today. First Day of Class is such a quirky ritual, no matter what the level of education. I remember that, as a student, from first grade (I did not attend kindergarten) through graduate school, I greeted the first day of classes with apprehension, wariness. I was very much an observer.

*

Now that I'm a professor, I really don't have the option of being an observer, per se, although of course I observe things. My main job is to try to give the students a sense of what they're getting into, what's expected of them, and what sort of professor I am (answer: quirky). Some of the students have taken classes from me before.

*

I recall how extraordinarily nervous I was on the first day of classes in my first years of teaching. --Trepidation that was way out of proportion to the situation. Those days seem to be gone, at least for the moment. Good riddance.

*

In college, one choice professors may make is whether to keep the class for the whole time on the first day. (In K-12, this isn't an option.) I usually do go the full time, and inevitably some students start to squirm, as if they preferred (and why wouldn't they?) the other alternative--get the syllabus, ask some questions, get out. I often raise the subject explicitly and say, "Well, I know you want to get out of here, but we're going to keep going." This tactic doesn't necessarily improve the response, but it might induce a grudging smile.

*

There were a couple of amusing surprises today. One student in a creative-writing class asked politely whether it would be possible for us not to read material meant to "inspire" us to write. She said she'd just rather read short stories (in this case), and to inspire herself, if need be. So I agreed immediately to avoid inspiring them whenever possible. :-) Actually, she had a specific book in mind that had been used in another class and that had not proved inspirational. Anyway, that discussion provided some amusing turns. I think we tentatively decided to try to occupy a middle ground between doing things that were "inspirational" and doing things that were completely counter-productive. --A happy medium, of which Horace would have approved.

*

Another student said that in a writing class she had once taken, the teacher had come close to prohibiting the use of the first-person point of view in writing short stories. I must say I did not see this anecdote coming, and since, for the most part, short-story writers must work with versions of either the first- or third-person, I had never imagined jettisoning one of those options. The student said she liked to use the first person because "Most people live life in the first person." What a fabulous quotation! It is one I must duly attribute to Amanda M.

*

I'm sure all sorts of psychologists, psychiatrists, philosophers, and neurologists would quibble with the claim, but that's beside the point, which is that Amanda M. has given us much to consider. Do people live life in the first person? If so, what does that mean? Do others live life in the third person? I know that many professional athletes refer to themselves in the third person when they are interviewed. How would you say you live your life? Would you even think in terms of first- or third-person or of "person" at all? --Maybe not, if you weren't a writer, film-maker, or reader of literature. Hard to say.

Langston Hughes and Barack Obama

(Langston Hughes 1902-1967)

Langston Hughes and Barack Obama

Let's lay down some lines for Langston Hughes

this day of news: 20 January 2009. A fine

piece of the dream's no longer deferred, though

the thought's occurred that Mr. Hughes

might focus on the people out of work or,

working, out of money. (Remember:

he gave even Roosevelt what-for.) Still I see

him in a Harlem bar, sitting next to

Jesse B., speaking in his clipped

Midwest English, having sipped

something fortified, brown eyes bright and wide.

He'd be smoking if they'd let him, saying

or thinking, "Lord, a day has come I never even

dreamed to dream in 1921." He'd go back

to the brownstone with its small garden

in front, sit down, and write a simple, profound

lyric capturing the spirit of President Obama's day.

Cross the Jordan, cross the Nile, cross the Congo--

and that Ocean, too. Cross the Harlem and

the Hudson Rivers. Cross the Mississsipi. Dear

Madame Johnson: Mr. Obama crossed the Potomac.

That's a fact, no not some dream. Think

of Mr. Hughes's rivers. The soul shivers.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Natural Rhetoric

Natural Rhetoric

After the cat goes outside, two
perched crows open black beaks
wide to release loud sounds
suggesting outrage, warning,
threat--crow-rhetoric, mechanical,
never ornate. The cat looks up,
sees birds in feline-vision, and makes
cat-noises, nothing as loud or dire
as a warning, more of a refined
complaint, really--aristocratic.

After the cat runs and hides
in shrubbery, we make human
sounds, calling her "name," making
nonsense-noises, expressing
pretend-anger, muttering real
frustration. We're convincing
ourselves of something, not sure
what. The crows leave, the cat
reappears, we pick up the cat
and carry it into the house and talk
to each other about what just happened.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Crossing the Creek

Unfortunately, one's dreams are about as interesting to other people as tales of one's socks. Or maybe "fortunately" is more apt. If we were all fascinated by one another's dreams, we might not get much work done.

Anyway, I'll keep this short: After my father died in '97, I kept dreaming that he was in the middle of a creek, wading upstream, toward me, or at least a P.O.V. that represented me. He and the creek always looked the same. He wasn't in distress, but he was laboring, and of course there's almost no occasion for anyone to wade directly upstream into the force of the water. Dreams are fiction. He had jeans and the usual workshirt on--but not the hat he always wore outdoors. (His was a hat, not a cap, generation.) In some versions of the short dream, he'd ask, calmly for assistance. In some he'd say someting like "It's okay. You go ahead." It some he said nothing. I rather liked the subtly of the dream. Significant (to me; boring to others) but subtle.

Almost simultaneously, I was musing casually about that dream and also wanting to engage in some poetic aerobics and write a poem in formal verse, so I decided to do both at once. Of course, sacred texts, vast crowds of poets, and so on, have been there before me with the basic "crossing" image, including Tennyson with "Crossing the Bar," so I viewed the poem as an exercise, but not necessarily as one in orginiality.

Crossing the Creek

They wait for me across the creek.
They look like shadows from this side.
One day I'll wade across to seek
The insubstantial. Petrified

With cold and fear, I'll stand, midstream,
And feel what's real: round, slippery stones,
The force of water in a seam
Of that ravine. My skin and bones

Will read the creek a final time,
Will feel its push and temperature.
I'll stand unsteadily, a mime
Without an audience and most unsure

About the balance of the act.
But then I'll move, make it across.
The creek will be the final fact--
Its gravel, boulders, trout, and moss.

The far side shall be near. I'll fall
Into the life of death. Will they assist,
Who've gone before, and bear the pall
When I fade into mottled mist?

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Rubber Bands

Based on the minimalist research I've done, I can write with 10% certainty that rubber bands are the product of the mid-19th century and may have been patented in Australia first.


Rubber Bands


I bought a bag of rubber bands. What a paltry
confession! The purchase paid retail homage (one
dollar) to simple binding and flexibility in this age
of monstrous, rigid packaging. I thought of all those
times we searched a whole abode like jonesing addicts
for just one thing: paper clip, shoe lace, thumb tack,
rubber band. Benedict Spinoza proved to my

satisfaction that anything which is, is an attribute
of the only substance (God), which includes
rubber bands, which in repose are lazy bracelets
and flaccid circles. I admit I bought a bag

of rubber bands because they were so much
themselves for so little money. Like cats,
rubber bands stretch profoundly and then
return to their original composure and serenity.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Financial Advice

Well, I paid a visit (so to speak) to our financial adviser. It was a nasty job, but someone . . ., etc.

Not having many finances that need advising helps to streamline such visits, I have learned. Nonetheless, our adviser was born for the business and is a pleasure to watch in action. He has four different computer-screens going at the same time, one of which I and other clients get to watch, plus an adding machine. --No abacus (pictured above), but a pad and paper as backup. He loves what he does.

Musings about the visit produced the following poem, which does not (one hopes this is obvious, but given who's in charge of U.S. finances, you never know) actually reflect the advice I got.


Financial Advice

"Mr. Debit, we advise you to put part
of yourself in stocks and part in bonds.
These punishments should occur in the
Town Square, as penance for your miserable
money-managing skills, and as an example
to all. Unfortunately, your folio seems
never to have left port. It's taking on water
and barnacles. Our projections indicate

you'll be able to retire uncomfortably
when all the mountains run into the sea.
By then, the National Economy
shall have melted, leaving a residue
of prosperity. In those far-off days,

travel by burro, but don't go near
the fortresses of the mega-rich
and super-celebrated. From bastions,
their minions will train designer-weapons
on you. You must understand that from
the wealthy's point of view, few
things drive down property-values
more than semi-retired, Quixotic
geezers sitting atop humble beasts.

Currently, your liquid assets fit
into a shot-glass and may be
downed in one gulp. Among
your liabilities is you. Please
try harder to be a credit to
yourself. Crawl low. Pray high."

Copyright Hans Ostrom 2009