Bob's Your Uncle

So I went to my local chapter of Starbucks today. I realize I'm supposed to be unamused by the corporate giant, but I like the people who work at the local chapter, which happens to be a destination point on my urban hikes. At any rate, one of the workers there was expecting me to order my usual espresso macchiato, doppio, an Old School drink, but then I said I wanted a tall green iced tea with one splendid splenda, and then I said, you know, that cup looks like it's short to me, not tall (not complaining, just observing), and she said, "Well, we don't have short cold-beverage cups," and I thought but didn't say that this, then, was a categorical problem, or maybe an aesthetic one: my sense of short does not dovetail with Starbucks', but instead I said, "Well, there you go," and she said, "Bob's your uncle, as my grandmother used to say." And I asked, "Is your grandmother British?" ["Bob's your uncle is, of course, a Britishism], and she said, "She aspired to be." And we laughed.

Isn't that marvelous? "She aspired to be British." I think some Americans still aspire to be British, especially those with vague upper-crust leanings. I've even known a few American academics who try, with horrific results, to adopt some kind of British accent. And of course, T.S. Eliot and Hank James turned themselves "British." Naturally, trying to turn yourself British is a quintessentially American thing to do. In the world of poker, it's known as a "tell."

Anyway, I like those toss-away phrases like "Bob's your uncle." They're not really cliches. They're just sort of generic pieces of language we stick in there from time to time. My father and his cohorts often said, in response to mildly surprising news, "Well, I'll be a sonofabitch." They meant "Bob's your uncle," which is to say, they meant nothing remotely connected with bitches and sons (although I recognize the misogyny lurking in the phrase). They didn't view themselves as vulgar, unless they were around women and children they didn't know. They didn't believe themselves to be sons of bitches anymore than people think Bob is their uncle, unless of course Bob is their uncle, in which case they may not use the expression, even in England.

It might be kind of fun to write some poems that take such expressions literally. What kind of poem might one write with a title, "Bob Is Your Uncle"? Ah, the possibilities.

Sonnet Play-By-PLay

So I write sonnets more or less as aerobic poetic exercises and only rarely expect them to turn out as successful poems, and then from that very limited set, I might try to publish one. I think the main thing with sonnets and other traditional forms is knowing why you're writing them. Also, it's good, I think, to see yourself as participating in a long genre-tradition and exploring the tension between adhering to conventions and disrupting them, perfecting your engagement with a mode and improvising upon the mode.

With the following sonnet, a mere exercise, I decided to provide a play by play, line by line, just to show what sort of difficulty the form puts a poet it.

Sonnet: Hometown Paper

[the title/subject: so this is a fairly conventional Modernist move--take the love-poem form of the sonnet and use it to talk about something unrelated to love and otherwise unlyrical]

And shall it disappear, the local paper--

[The "And" is there to jump-start the iambic with an unstressed syllable, and I've presented myself a problem by asking a question; also, I've chose a two-syllable end-word and what's called a feminine rhyme; I've chosen to go with iambic pentameter, the conventional meter]

The hometown's daily, weekly digested

[More hot water--another two-syllable end word, meaning I have to think of rhymes now for both paper and digested]

Familiar fare of nearby news and safer

[So I went with a half-rhyme with paper--which I think worked out okay, but then I caused more problems by introducing a conceit--the newspaper or news as food--hard to continue, and likely to tempt me into a mixed metaphor]

Palatable small snacks, time-tested,

[I love putting multisyllabic words in an iambic line; it really speeds things up. "Time-tested" is a cliche--so I had to pay the price for "digested"; I'm depending on a pronunciation of palatable that stresses the second syllable]

Reliable desserts of gossip, sports,

[So now I'm stuck in that food-conceit, but at least I'm hanging with the subject]

Cooked up by ones who know the local fears?

[Still wearing out that conceit, making the editors cooks--I do like "local fears," however, and it may let me out of the conceit--we'll see; and I've finally sewed up the question--started in line 1!]

Already, so it seems, rags of all sorts

[Sports/sorts: basic rhyme; a shift of subject--papers going out of business--but by using "rags," I may have attached myself to another conceit]

Have been attached to quilts (one hears)

[So I decided to take "rags" literally; as rags are made into quilts, "rags" (newspapers) are attached to figurative quilts of . . . what?]

That make up media conglomerates,

[Conglomerates are quilts. Hmmm. But what will rhyme with conglomerates?! Oy.]

While others simply went, were buried with

[Still stuck on the rag-conceit, now treating rags more as clothes]

Their owner-editors. Moreover, what's

[So I rhymed "moreover, what's" with "conglomerate"--that's fun; some small newspapers perish when their old editors die]

The fate of reading? Yes, like Faith and Myth,]

[I rhymed Myth with With--amusing; more importantly, I'm experiencing what many sonnet-writers experience--the sudden, panicky realization that the poem's about to end; one gets lost in the meter, rhyming, conceits, and so on. Then: OMG! Only 14 lines, and I've written a dozen already--and I need to end with a couplet--and finish the poem! I mean, it's not cliff-diving, but it does create a virtual adrenaline rush, for nerds]

Our Literacy is ultra-local now--

[Now I leap to a Big Point--linking local papers to larger issues of literacy; the couplet is an opportunity to do this; I've played it safe in terms of rhyming by using "now"--lots of options]

Locked to a screen mere inches from the brow.

[Like the Shakemeister General, except not really, I've gone for a wicked little irony. In the age of the Internet, we feel we're superior to printed local, hickish papers, but then here we are peering at our various little personal screens, which in one sense are more insular, even solipcistic, than the local rag, or so I argue.

So there you have it--a not very good sonnet, but a great aerobic poetic workout, getting some work on rhyme, meter, conceits, getting out of trouble, having fun. And play by play, just like sports! Such a deal. Or, as John Madden would say, "And, boom, he finishes the couplet!" Maybe Madden will make a Sonnet Video Game. Uh, maybe not.

Sandburg Gets Morbid

Carl Sandburg, early 20th century American poet, is best known for the fog poem, with its cat-analogy, and the Chicago poem. He took over the long free-verse line from Whitman, made it more laconic, much less ecstatic, and made it work. His poetry is pleasing in ways similar to those in which Jeffers's poetry is. Among the poets he influenced was Langston Hughes, who liked Sandburg's focus on working folks and his unpretentiousness.

Sandburg takes a morbid turn in the following poem, but I don't think it's a gratuitous turn, as one sometimes finds in Poe's verse, for example.

Cool Tombs

By Carl Sandburg

WHEN Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin ... in the dust, in the cool tombs.
And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes ... in the dust, in the cool tombs.
Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she remember?... in the dust, in the cool tombs?
Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries, cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns ... tell me if the lovers are losers ... tell me if any get more than the lovers ... in the dust ... in the cool tombs.

The decision to treat the iconic, even sacred, Lincoln roughly in the first line fascinates me, and I think it takes the poem in a successful, if risky, direction. Then there's a shift to Grant, feckless as a president, victim of corruption. The shift to Pocahontas makes sense; after Lincoln and Grant, we need a feminine icon, and we need a person who represents grace. As plain as the last stanza is, I think it's inspired--especially the choice to interrogate the reader. This not so well known poem is one I admire.

Molecular Sonnet for Sunday

Whether you take some kind of Creationist point of view or some kind of Evolutionary one--or are skeptical of both, as a friend of mine is--it's nonetheless amazing that mere matter, of which we are composed, can have concepts and produce complicated emotions. If we ask how in the heck single-cell organisms evolved into organisms complex enough to think of love, time-share condos, philosophy, chess, and combustion-engines, the Creationist point of few is certainly easier to grasp: God made it so. The Evolutionary point of view, ironically, seems more miraculous. What are the odds that organism A would have eventually evolved into organism Z--a human? A key variable, I think, is time. The Biblical calendar is pretty brief. The Evolutionary one allows for millions and millions of years during which lots of accidents and false starts can happen--eventually leading to organisms called human golfing, cheating on taxes, and singing ballads in cafes. The Evolutionist's retort to God made it so seems, in part, to be Evolution takes its own sweet time, of which there is an infinite amount.

As may be immediately apparent, I did not take millions of years to write the following sonnet, which has something to do with molecules and love.

Molecular Mood: A Sonnet

Molecular in nature were the two,
For they were human, and therefore made
Of carbon, protein, fat--the usual stew
Of which stuff in this matter, fact, is said
By scientists to be composed. But how
Does one molecular composite reach
The point at which it loves, the point called Now
Wherein one body-mind, by means of speech,
Decides and then declares this thing called Love,
A concept generated by uncounted other
Molecular composites, the stuff of
Which Civilization's made? Whatever.
The she loves him; the he loves her. Their cells
Conspire to cast reciprocating spells.

Hans Ostrom/Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

I'm inordinately fond of the made/said partial rhyme in the first quatrain, and of the partial rhyming of other/Whatever. The couplet pleases me, for some reason.

Songbooks Exhumed

Among the items paroled from storage have been songbooks, many of which feature ballads from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. By accident, I started playing these ballads as I was teaching myself to play piano, using the quick-and-dirty "chord" method. So there I was, age 16, playing songs like "Two Sleepy People." Two things interested me about the songs--the complicated chords, never just a D minor, but always a D minor seventh or something like that, clusters of notes; and the lyrics, which were often sentimental, true, but just as likely to be whimsical, wry, and ironic. They were way over my head, of course, written by "sophisticated" and rich lyricists in New York or Palm Springs.

So it's been great playing the songs and reading the lyrics again. There's probably a book to be written out there about American ballads being an important window on American culture, and on the complicated "icons" that sang the ballads, like Sinatra, who in one sense was a hack and a thug but in another sense was a very puzzling amalgamation of traditional American manhood, celebrity, androgyny, money, poverty, East Coast values, and West Coast values. He was also an Old School liberal, who, of course, became a conservative, as almost all Old School liberals did and do. Scratch a Northern White liberal, and you almost always find a redneck, as James Baldwin articulated. Thus has it always been so.

Ah, but the lyrics are so smart, especially those written by Johnny Mercer (not a pleasant person, alas: read Skylark, the recent biography), Dorothy Fields, Billie Holliday, Cole Porter, Jules Styne, the Gershwins, Harry Warren, et alia.

Some will say the wry, ironic, whimsical poetry has disappeared from American popular music, and to some extent that's true. Most popular songs are about as subtle as an avalanche. But you will still find a great deal of subtlety and wit even in some Hip Hop music, such as that by the Fugees (one example). Nonetheless, the Great Age of the Ballad has passed. Hence the importance of exhumed songbooks.

Not that you asked, but my all-time favorite Sinatra "album" is the one recorded live in Las Vegas with Count Basie's orchestra and Quincy Jones's arrangements. There's an edge to the swing that you don't find in the Nelson Riddle arrangements, and you sense that Basie, Jones, and Sinatra are engaged in a healthy competition. Sinatra is 50, I think, so the voice is down an octave or two, but the schtick is finely tuned. When Basie's orchestra is about to take off on an instrumental raid, Sinatra warns, "Run fuh covah; run and hide!" If you like Sinatra, you'll love (and probably already know well) this CD. If you don't know much about Sinatra or are skeptical, give a song or two a listen on this one. A fascinating artifact.

Boring

An apt title for the blog, don't you think? Speaking of boring, I looked it up in the OED online--a terribly boring thing to do if, unlike a tiny percentage of the population, you think (quite rationally) that looking words up on the OED is tediously nerdy or nerdily tedious, or just plain wrong. Anyway, some info:

1840 T. HOOK Fitzherbert III. iv. 66 Emily was patiently enduring..Miss Matthews's boring vanities.

I was a bit surprised that the word, with this connotation, apparently arose in the written language so relatively late, a mere nine years before the California Gold Rush, which was probably more boring than its name makes it sound. Digging for gold is terribly boring work, although my father didn't think so.

Anyway, it looks as though the adjective, as deployed this way, springs directly from boring as in boring into--like a drill. Monotonous, unrelenting. Let us leap to the next point and avoid a boring transition:

Karl Shapiro, among others, insisted that the single most reliable test of a poem's worth [aside from historical worth, etc.] was whether the reader wanted to read it again--not necessarily right away (although that would be fine), but tomorrow, or next week, or five years from now. I think this also means that the poem isn't boring, but I suppose the poem has to be more than just not boring. Now a hop, as opposed to a leap:

Samuel Johnson, one of the most discerning readers ever, apparently got bored with one of the great poems ever, Paradise Lost. He agreed that Milton's blank-verse tour de force, or tour de paradise, was terrific, but he also famously said of the epic poem, "No one wished it longer." I feel the same way about films by Oliver Stone and John Cassavetes, not that the latter two are in Milton's league; on the other hand, did Milton ever direct a film? I think not. A sideways hop:

My "urban hike," which I attempt to take every other day (cycling in place on the other every other day, speaking of boring [but heart healthy, or so they tell me] exercise), takes me on the same vaguely circular route. Going in a different direction helps, and sometimes I stop halfway and do something, like drink espresso or observe Moldavians. Today, however, I was thinking that what really makes a familiar route interesting is simply paying attention. To the tiniest scrap of something someone throws away, for example. Or one weird rock. Or what people try to do with and to their yards. Or a cat, watching you as if you were dinner.

A high school teacher, attempting to teach us to write poetry, made a similar point. He told us to go outside and "really look at the world"--and then write. His implicit argument was that whatever one saw (and heard, etc.) was interesting, by definition, because it existed and because we would, he hoped, apply attention to it. I think it was a vaguely Zen point he was making, and I'm not sure whether "vaguely Zen" is redundant or not. It's still a great prompt for writing a poem--or story or essay: A) Assume that wherever you are, you are in an interesting place, and B) just observe the heck out of the place, pouring your attention into it and receiving all its particularity in return, and C) write.

Write.

Hey, Cliche

I tend not to get quite as upset by cliches as most teachers of writing, especially in introductory writing classes. (By the way, I know the word needs an accent over the e, but how to put it there using the blog machinery is beyond me.) If you look at the alleged problem of cliches from a relatively younger writer's point of view, it's no big deal, and I think I just used a cliche. Usually, when I'm visiting a work-group in class or writing comments on a poem (or essay or story), I simply point out that most readers of such pieces react badly to the appearance of a cliche, and the writer gets the point immediately, and he or she then knows that what's expected is a fresh analogy or metaphor--or, if a good fresh one doesn't seem to arise, then a different good way of expressing what needs to be expressed. I don't take cliches personally.

Moreover, I have a special fondness for the word, cliche, because I acted in a short film of that title. It was directed by Ben Shelton, and, among other things, it landed my name in the IMDB database ("database" is redundant here, I think) as an actor. (Apparently, IMDB uses the term "actor" loosely.) The role did not prove to be my big break in the movie business, but I didn't expect it to do so.

"Big break." That's a cliche, I think. But it's one of those cliches that are part of the everyday linguistic currency.

What does it mean literally? I'm not sure. Does it refer to a breaking through (which would be a kind of military term, as in breaking through the enemy's lines)? When we say "give me a break," I think we mean something like "please provide me with a rest-period from your nonsense.? For example, if we're watching yet another tired Hollywood movie with 23.5 plot-cliches, we might mutter, "Give me a break." Ironically, and intentionally, Ben Shelton's short movie did not have such cliches.

My good friend, the OED online, informed me that the French word cliche entered the written English language around 1892. In French, the term originally referred to a pre-fabricated pattern or matrix that was plopped onto molten metal to create an object. --Rather like a cookie-cutter, I reckon. Some Brits, perhaps following a French lead (to use a cliche), apparently decided that such a pre-fabricated mold served as a good image for a too frequently used expression. But of course no one thinks of the mold or matrix anymore when they read or hear "cliche," and the same is true of cliches. In English, cliche is now a noun, of course, and an adjective ("that is a cliche expression"). I believe the more standard usage of the adjectival form is "cliched," however: e.g., "that is a cliched expression"). Both forms are probably acceptable, as long as there's an accent over the e, a wee homage to French, a feather in the cap of the e, to use a cliche.

My parents' generation used the expression "don't go off half-cocked," and I assume that refers literally to a pistol that fires as the person is cocking it. The pistol "goes off." Now, however, I'd be willing to wager that if anyone uses the expression (I don't hear it much), they may not think of a pistol or anything concrete. Moreover, they may vaguely think of "going off" in terms of leaving, of going away. And they may vaguely think that half-cocked refers to being only half prepared--or something like that. "Don't go off half-cocked" now means "don't behave impulsively," yes?

Similarly, when people to refer to a dependable or resilient person as a "trouper," they may think they're saying "trooper," and they may, as I did once, write "trooper." A "trouper" is a dependable member of an itinerant performing troupe, at least that is my inference. Now, however, people may vaguely think that "trouper" is "trooper" and that "trooper" refers to a dependable member of the military, so they may think that the comparison is between a reliable person and a foot-soldier. And one one cliche leads to another: "foot soldier." Is that a podiatrist who works for the army? :-)

Another expression that interests me is "tow the line," which I belief refers to one boat towing another boat, as when a tugboat tows a large ship. So "towing the company line" would mean that, like a tugboat, a person is behaving in a servile, unquestioning way with regard to the company's policy, or the policy of "the big ship." However, I think most people now think the expression is "toe the line," as in bringing your feet in close proximity to a line on a floor. Again the reference is to a kind of obedience or servility. I think of getting one's shod toes close to the free-throw line on a basketball court, for example--obeying the rules, so that your free-throw counts, even though you don't really throw the ball as much as toss it--unless of course you're a terrible shooter of free-throws, in which case you really do hurl the ball.

In any event (to use a cliched transition, and just what event are we talking about?), I seem to be more interested in how cliches operate, how they drift far away from the original comparison, than I am in eradicating them or fiercely correcting writers who use them. (As you probably already know, there's a nice section in George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" about how expressions drift, become cliches, and otherwise lose precision and force.) Probably if writers get interested in how cliches work or even in the origins of favorite cliches, they will be likely to recognize cliches in their writing and speaking and, in revisions, excise and/or replace them, if that's the right writerly move to make.

I'll conclude by noting that I think "wasted" has become a cliche, in reference to being intoxicated or inebriated. I was most amused yesterday in a health-food store, where I went in search of almond-butter, when I heard one of the clerks say to another one, "I was totally wasted, so I had a good time." I liked the counterintuitive sense in which "totally" (as opposed to partially) wasted resulted in a "good" time, and I liked the fact that a clerk at a health-food store would not only get his body and mind "wasted" but happily discuss the matter at work the next day. I had (but did not act on) the urge to say to the clerks, "Hi--I'm interested in a product that will get me totally wasted so I can have a good time--do you have that sort of thing in the store? I'd like it to be organic, however, and healthy."

Thanks, Rachel

One of the smarter radio talk-show folk seems to be Rachel Maddow, articulate and well read. She explains things so well that even poets can appear to understand.

One of her good points today was that at least one of Bush's cronies is working against alleged U.S. interests in Iraq. The Hunt Oil Company, the head of which has donated $35 million to the Bush II Library [what will be in that library?], has cut an oil deal with the Kurds that effectively removes those oil deposits from the control of the Iraqi government. Maddow's point is that if the alleged goal of U.S. occupation is to establish something that resembles a viable state with a viable economy, removing the main source of economic strength, oil, from the state works against that alleged goal. Thus a Bush oil crony is arguably working against Bush's interests. But who says Bush's interest is in establishing a viable Iraqi state? Another crony in the midst of attempting to seal private oil deals is, of course Richard Perle, one of the main neo-con architects of the Iraqi invasion and occupation. He's working for a corporation with oil interests. Of course.

An old-fashioned way of viewing such matters is through the lens of conflict-of-interests. But I think the point of the military/industrial complex is to remove any conflict between the military and the industrial complex by having the former smoothly pave roads for the former.

The only point at which Maddow got a wee bit predictable is when she asked, "Would a President McCain remove Perle from the usual inner circle of neo-con advisors?" A better question, I think, is whether a President Obama would do anything about the way in which American oil interests trump all other interests, or appear to do so. My guess is . . . No. I think the vision of a United Federation of Iraqi States (or whatever) is a fairy tale, and I don't thing anyone is going to achieve that, especially if it runs counter to oil interests, which, if Maddow's argument is correct, run counter to a united Iraq in control of its own oil and oil-profits. Second, I think Obama is a pragmatist, and I don't think he'd dream of taking on big oil. Even if he wanted to do so, how could he do it? He'd only be the president, not an oil CEO.

Thus ends a poet's foray into Iraqi/oil politics. Thanks, Rachel Maddow. I think I'll stick to translations of Iraqi poetry.

Poets On Strike

For several months, I've been having a blast reading the Rumpole stories and novels by John Mortimer. They rival P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves narratives for pithy, hilarious writing, although because Rumpole is a barrister, there's also some underlying commentary about law and society. There's a very strong libertarian streak running through the books and Mortimer's worldview, but it's genuine libertarianism, not cloaked GOP politics (or Conservative politics, in Britain). Rumpole defends anyone with whom the State is unamused, including women, minorities, smokers, immigrants, persons deemed strange, and nonviolent criminals, including the Timson family. If you're looking for quick summer reading that will bring belly laughs, knowledge of poetry, and stylish British writing, go with John Mortimer and Rumpole. It doesn't matter where in the series you start, either. Just go to a used bookstore and pick one out.

The late actor Leo McKern played Horace Rumpole on the BBC (I've posted a photo of him), and you'll enjoy that video series, too.

In a story called "Rumpole and the Summer of Discontent," strikes or "industrial action" are featured. The clerk in Rumpole's firm threatens to strike, and Rumpole is sympathetic but reasons that the action in this case would be about as effective as if poets or pavement artists were to go on strike. Most amusing, and most certainly true.

Indeed, if poets were to go on strike, who would care? This is not to say that poetry is unimportant. It's only to say that society regards poetry as inessential. If you would test what profession, service, or vocation is essential, ask whether a strike by said profession, service, or vocation would be effective, would cause consternation if not chaos. Police, fire, emergency rooms, truckers, longshoremen, teachers, farmworkers: essential. (Teachers are essential in part because both parents work and even if both parents don't work, they want a break from the kids.) Poets, painters, interior decorators, stock brokers, philosophers, priests, rabbis: not essential. Of course, people might be wistful that such folk were on strike, but society would not grind to a halt.

Should Rumpole's observation (and remember, Rumpole loves poetry, especially that which appears in Quiller-Couch's edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse--it's just that, as a barrister, he must practice Realpolitik and even observes that knowledge the law only unnecessarily encumbers a barrister) be depressing to poets? Heavens, no. We poets (and philosophers) do what we do because poetry and philosophy are essential in ways that vegetable-produce, gasoline, and emergency medicine are not. There are different kinds of "essential," that's all. Oxygen is essential in one way; poetry is essential in another. Luckily for people and oxygen, people know right away when they are deprived of oxygen. Unfortunately, it may take the better part of a lifetime for someone to realize how much better life would be with poetry.

Rumpole regards employment, trial by jury, innocent until judged to be guilty, wine, small cigars, shepherd's pie, and poetry to be essential. Like Samuel Johnson, Rumpole is a dangerous person with whom to disagree. Therefore, I shall continue to read the Rumple stories and poetry, and I shall continue to write poetry, but I've decided not to go on strike, at this time.

Maher Unamused by God

Someone showed me a copy of Playboy magazine in which appeared an article by comedian Bill Maher concerning a book he's about to publish. The book apparently attacks all religion. I think the illustration of Maher that accompanied the article was meant to be flattering, but it didn't seem so.

The article mentions an image of a giant in Ireland (I think), carved into a hillside. The reference is meant to illustrate that people will preserve religious images long after the particular religion has died, but the real purpose of the reference is, predictably, to go for a penis-joke. Then Maher slides over to more established religions and mocks the opulence of the Vatican. Gee, that's a new one. Finally he gets to his point, which is apparently that belief in "groundless" things leads to all manner of evil.

That the article should appear in Hefner's surreal, exhausted magazine is itself amusing--an attack on religion sandwiched between the ultimate Middle Schooler's airbrushed, Barbie-esque nudes and lame cartoons. More amusing is the sense one gets that Maher takes himself seriously as a critic of religion and as a "thinker," and that he imagines he's breaking new ground. I think he may also believe he's being slightly mischievous as he attacks religion. On his HBO show, he often gets a look on his face that suggests he thinks he's being quite daring. "Watch this: I'm going to say the F-word!"

Well, if groundlessness is the criterion, he should also attack everything else human. It's not as if science is based on solid ground, for example. Just ask Hume--or Einstein. The more science discovers, the more Jello-like becomes the "ground" on which it's based. Also, what is more absurd--religion or stand-up comedy? A priest or a diminutive fellow wearing makeup and reading from a tele-prompter? I should think it's at least a toss-up.

I think one key to a humorous and by no means stupid fellow like Maher is, ironically, his naivete. He seems ultra-hip, ultra-cynical, and jaded. When he was on top of the mass-media world with a show called Politically Incorrect, he fashioned himself a gadfly who would say all manner of offensive things, allegedly insulting the "politically correct" [whatever that means] Left and the prudish Right. Ah, but who fired him and for what? His corporate bosses fired him for suggesting that terrorists who blow themselves up are braver than American pilots who drop bombs. So, of course, it wasn't feminists or professors or multicultural theorists or pastors' wives in Nebraska who got offended and censored him by firing him. It was the corporate suits. And for some reason, he didn't see it coming: that was the surprising part. He seemed to assume his carefully modulated mischief, with good ratings, wouldn't piss off the corporate types. Oops, one slip, and you're out.

Now, like Christopher Hitchens, he seems to have discovered atheism and wants to tell the world. Next, I suppose, will come some breaking news about gravity. As a friend of mine (an atheist and politically radical person) used to say, "Get in the game," meaning: People have been having these arguments about religion since religion came on the scene. Nothing Maher asserts hasn't been asserted more effectively than by writers in the tradition, including contemporary ones like Garry Wills. And then there's this: the atheist jokes aren't that funny. I think there's probably a more productive comic vein to mine at this point than religion, just as there may be a slightly more daring magazine (ya think?) than Playboy. In other words, snore. Bertrand Russell is a lot funnier than Bill Maher when it comes to atheism, and Bertrand is dead.

The one fellow on Maher's show recently who seemed to get the better of him was Russell Simmons, the record producer and inventor of Def Poetry Jam. Maher was mocking how ego-maniacal most Hip Hop artists seemed to him, and Russell Simmons merely observed, ". . Whereas you have no ego?"

God must be quaking in the celestial boots after hearing about Maher's impending attack.

Counterpoints

Counterpoints


Snow. A red bird. Fog.
A yellow scarf. Rain. A
white cat. Wind. An
orange leaf. Hail. Blue
marbles. Mist.
Silver fish-scales.


Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

The Herman Melville Invitational Golf Tournament

The Herman Melville Invitational Golf Tournament


Hawthorne reached the 9th green in two, but lightning
struck him down as he walked up the fairway.
Edgar Allan Poe was buried alive in a sand-trap
on the 13th. Walt Whitman fell in love
with his caddy. Near the hazard on 15th,
there was an unusual set of divets
leading up the the water, and a harpoon
had been driven into the green.

Emily Dickinson carried the day,
("epic for show, lyric for dough"),
and Fred Douglass presented her
with the trophy. Henry David Thoreau
filed suit against the developers
who'd wiped out a perfectly good
marsh to carve the course.

Hans Ostrom

Copyright Hans Ostrom 2008

Business As Usual

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxFranz Kafka

Business As Usual


"Bonnie, will you get
Mrs. Phillips on the line
and remind her that everything
except Emptiness is an illusion?
Oh, yes, and tell her she's
trapped in the nightmare
of history. Ask her if next
Monday is a good day for her
to come in and discuss
her portfolio. Thanks, Bonnie."

Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Exhumed Story-Poem

A large crowd of books and notebooks has been paroled from storage, is now assembling itself, with my encouragement, on some darned fine custom-made bookshelves. Just when the world, via Kindle, etc., is turning to digital reading-matter, I decide to get some old-fashioned built-in bookshelves. Timing is everything in show business.

In one of the exhumed notebooks I found an old story-poem--about a preacher, a man of the cloth. Oddly enough, I remember the poem's origin, too: a walk beside a creek near my brother's home in California. It's a creek that gets hit pretty hard by the human presence. How or why I took a leap, so to speak, from the creek to the story, I don't know. The poem is pretty much a free-verse ballad, I'd say.

Evangelical Detour

On the way to deposit
tithings in a secret account,
a preacher lost his way,
found himself misplaced in woods.

Hungry and bug-bitten
beside a creek that smelled
strongly of sewage, this
preacher asked God

to direct him toward
a way out. A weird
child appeared then. There
was something too wise

in her pallid face. There
was no indication she lived
anywhere but in
those words. Maybe, thought

the preacher, she lives nowhere.
She said to him, "Throw the money
away. Throw it, preacher, in
the creek." He said, "No."

He claimed the money, of course,
belonged to God. It wasn't that
the child disagreed. It was that
she smiled thinly, sweetly.

She said, "Then throw it in
the creek, preacher. Throw that cash
in the creek. Do you doubt God
will retrieve it if it belongs to Him?"

The preacher knew his powers
of conviction had left the congregation
of his mind. He was hungry
and bug-bitten, lost in woods.

He feared the child more
than any lacerating snake.
He flung the money in the creek.
He watched the currency float

on water like leaves. The child
evaporated. The preacher
was tempted to reach for the money,
run after it. In his mind,

he saw it drying on the rocks.
But he turned, and he left.
He woke up in his car. A state
trooper tapped on his window.

"Am I dead?" asked the preacher,
after the window had come down.
The servant of the people said, "No,
sir, but you look like hell."

Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Dusk Poem

Just a Poem at Twilight

Late skies drape light
over dimming woods. Smaller
animals come to life and mind--
burrowers, scuttlers in the brush.
They work very hard. Thinking
about them improves thinking,
which is nudged now toward
an idea of someone turning around

in the woods, coming back
near the cabin. She will encounter
clouds of gnats and mosquitoes.
Her thin jacket will not seem
sufficient. Sighting lit cabin-windows
will insinuate a melange of excitement
and regret. Birds and bats against
late skies--wings! Damp air.

Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

OMG! WTF!

I send approximately two text-messages per month, always to the same person, a family member. It takes me quite a while to construct and send a text-message because phones now are apparently designed to fit in the paws of very small rodents, not in humans' hands.

I gather, however, that the text-messaging language, if it can be called that, has become quite extensive. I tend not to abbreviate much, but I might use 2 in place of to and 4 in place of for. In other words, I'm a text-messaging dinosaur in this respect, too.

A colleague in philosophy posits that within 100 years, almost everyone will be illiterate by today's standards. I think he means that only eccentric groups of people will read books to any great extent and that people who do write will mostly rearrange digital-screen icons or compose short messages in a language rooted in today's text-messaging language. That is, what we think of as an abbreviation or an acronym will be a word unto itself, and those using this language won't think in terms of parallels between the abbreviated and the abbreviation.

I don't disagree with him, but on the other hand, it's almost impossible to predict what will happen with literacy and language. Language especially is such a protean, independent force that you pretty much have to sit back and just see what happens. As a teacher of writing, what I've noticed happening for a long time is the disappearance of the possessive apostrophe. I can "correct" the "mistake" until I'm blue in the face, but basically the apostrophe is toast. It doesn't exist in German, and will cease to exist in English. "Quote" as a noun has replaced "quotation," and I think at some point "alright" and "alot" will be accepted into Standard Written English. These are trivial examples, but they're also place-holders for much larger shifts of language that happen because the amorphous group of people actually using the language have decided, without deciding, that the language works better with these changes. Sociolinguists have a much better handle on how this happens than a mere writing-teacher, of course.

But people already speak of a "post-literate" society, by which is meant, I think, a society more comfortable with screens, images, and icons than with old fashioned chunks of written language--sentences, paragraphs, pages, documents, books.

I gather that OMG--which apparently stands for Old Mother Goose--and WTF--which apparently stands for Wild Truffle Foundation--are common acronyms in text messaging. Gee, I do hope I have the proper translations here.

I remember hearing Brad Comman reading a poem, many moons ago, composed entirely of three-letter acronyms much in use at the time. The art came from the juxtaposition, as I recall. For example, "LSD" and "CIA" were cheek by jowl--as well they should be, for the CIA experimented with LSD as--what? An interrogation tool? A reward for good spying? Who knows? A list like Brad's would be much different now, I reckon, but CIA might still be there, along with OMG, WTF, WTO, DVD, SDS (in revived form), and WMD. (I invite you to make your own list.) Interestingly, referring to presidents by their three initials--LBJ, JFK--has gone the way of the apostrophe. Headlines routinely included JFK and LBJ during the respective presidencies, but I don't believe I've seen GWB even once. OMG!

Spy Poet

I don't think being a poet necessarily disqualifies one from being a spy, but I could understand if espionage-agencies worldwide would be wary of deploying poets as spies. I think poets are more likely than other people to get confused by codes because poets are tempted to deconstruct codes and try to turn them into poems. Also, what "cover" could usefully be constructed for spy-poets? True, spy-poets could give readings and teach creative writing in the nation on which they were supposed to be spying, but would that put them close in information crucial to national security? I envisage a spy-poet contacting his or her handler and excitingly reported that poets from the nation in question allude to 19th century European philosophy in extremely inventive ways. I can hear the handler saying, "Gee, that's fascinating." I can also envisage spy-poets padding their expense-accounts with purchases of notebooks, poetry-books, pens, coffee, and wine. On the other hand, "the enemy" might suspect that the poet would be a spy, but the counterintuitive characteristic of a poet might also make the poet a likely spy. How convoluted this poetry-espionage gets, and so quickly!

Spy Poet

He was supposed to be in Phoenix
giving false secret information to agents
from a nation whose economy was
smaller than Arizona's. Instead he lay
in bed in North Dakota, writing poems
about cats, observing that cats know what
they want humans to do and watch to see
if humans do it, and if the humans don't
do it, the cats devise ways to change
humans' behavior. Some of the poems

worked with the idea that domestication
was not a process by which humans
changed cats but one in which cats changed
humans. He had completed drafts of several
poems when federal agents burst into his
motel-room in that sudden bursting-
federal-agent way and arrested him.
He reminded them that it was unprofessional
of them to laugh at his poems.

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Self-Cleaning Cats

Not that you asked, but I've never known how self-cleaning ovens work. I suspect I cling to my ignorance on this subject because I'm suspicious of the concept, "self-cleaning ovens." You want ovens that will cook food well and reliably, I think. Ideally, you might want self-cleaning ovens, but requiring an oven to self-clean as well as to cook reliably seems like asking too much, in the sense that whatever bizarre technology is required for "self-cleaning" might disrupt the technology that insures reliable cooking.

Cats, on the other hand, are self-cleaning in ways I understand, ways I've observed, with some fascination. Therefore, I wrote a poem on the subject.

Cats' Baths

A cat is not a user of tools,
must therefore clean its body
using only its body. At some
juncture, self-cleaning cats
persisted well in Evolution's
pageant, passed on codes
of instinct which direct regular,
thorough cleaning of fur, feet,
orifices. A cat concentrates

on cleaning longer than it
concentrates on anything else.
Cleaning calls to cats. They
are somber as they clean, not
quite grim but determined
and earnest, certainly sincere.
Distracted, cats may pause
briefly, the edge of the pink tongue
lodged between teeth, bright
and vivid like a fragment of
a rose's petal.

This cat-vocation, cleaning,
fascinates. After cats clean,
they often sleep deeply, as if
sleep were a solemn ritual
in preparation for which they
licked their fur in the direction
their fur lay, and rubbed their
ears with dampened paws,
and licked between each
separated claw-sheath.

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Found Poem, Portland

We hadn't been to Portland (Oregon) for a while, so we spent a few days there. Many moons ago, we used to stay at a cavernous old hotel called the Mallory, and then we'd go to the venerable Benson for a drink. This time we stayed a few blocks from the Benson and stopped by, only to find that they'd remodeled the lobby and pretty much gutted the great old immense bar that used to be lined with dark carved wood. Oh, well. Things get modernized.

Predictably, I went to the secular shrine for bibliophiles, Powell's Books--always a good time. The place isn't quite as magical as it used to be, but it sure seems to be thriving. So far the Internet and some of the surviving used-book stores seem to experiencing a beautiful friendship. The stores can appeal to their traditional clientele but also sell books online. Maybe Kindle and other devices will eventually undermine even these stores, or maybe paper books will survive somehow. . . .

All big cities have a lot of homeless citizens, but Portland seems to have more than its "share," whatever a share is supposed to be. There also seems to be a greater percentage of younger homeless persons--people of high-school age--in Portland. I'm wary of a state and the State having too much power, but with regard to homelessness, I lean toward Sweden's attitude, which is definitely state-heavy.

Basically, Sweden sees homelessness as unacceptable. The police pick up homeless people and take them to a shelter. I'd be in favor of building a lot more shelters and having the police, or another agency, or non-profit groups transport homeless people to the shelters. I'd rather see taxes go to that then a lot of other stuff. There is an argument, I guess, for allowing people to live on the street if they want to, but it's not an argument that convinces me. In most cases, they've been forced to live there, one way or another, or they have mental conditions so genuinely disorienting that they're not good judges of where they ought to live. Also, a huge percentage of people on the street, especially but not exclusively younger ones and women, are targets for all manner of predation and abuse. I think people have a right to shelter and basic meals, and I think society has the responsibility of getting them into shelter, maybe even in spite of initial opposition. At the same time, the shelter has to be safe, not another site of potential abuse.

Now that the rant is over, I'll mention a found poem I saw in Portland. It was composed of eight signs, one word each, on the side of a grocery store downtown--I think it's called Helen's. The words were in white, with a black background, and appeared in a line on the side of the building. I've kept them in order but arranged them vertically.

FOUND POEM: GROCERY

BEER
WINE
SNACK
DONUT
CARD
BEER
WINE
CIGARETTE

The order of the words appealed to me a great deal--three single-syllable words followed by a multiple-syllable word. Then there's the repetition of beer and wine. All the nouns are singular, although "beer" and "wine" can work as collective nouns. I also like what the "poem" says about what items are most essential, perhaps most desired, and I rather like that "card"--greeting card(s), presumably (although playing cards were available in the store--is among the perceived essentials. Beer and wine appear to be doubly essential. I agree, of course, that the list is a bit of a nutritionist's nightmare.

Successful Beading

While I was waiting for the train, which is actually a bus (it's complicated, as they say on Facebook), to Tacoma in Bellingham, I made a bracelet out of beads for someone I've known a long time. I'd ambled past many a bead-shop before, but this was my first venture into one of the shops.

I didn't have a lot of time before the train left, so I set a brisk pace as I selected beads and politely pressured the person in charge of the shop to show me how to put a bracelet together. I had the sense my speed-beading was not a customary part of bead-culture. I chose beads of a similar color--light brown, tan, burnt umber, that sort of thing. And I chose three different kinds of beads and arranged them in a pattern, a kind of visual representation of Morse Code--a simple repetition of a simple series. I also went with the wire, not the nylon string.

Crimping proved to be a huge challenge because I couldn't see what I was doing, even with glasses on. I think next time I'll make a gigantic necklace.

People usually pretend to like something you make for them yourself more than they pretend to like something you bought for them, in my experience.

I predict bead-shops will thrive in this economy, which is starting to take on Herbert Hooverish characteristics. I'm not sure Bush even knows what country he's presiding over, but I digress.

According to the OED online, "bead," spelled "byd" and then "bede," originally donated "prayers," and if I'm inte-preting things correctly, it had nothing to do with prayer beads. "Bead," as referring to a small object with a hole in it (for stringing) didn't come into the written language until about 1377, whereas bead (bede) as prayer came in about 855.

It's too bad "beady eyes" is now a cliche. It's not a bad description.

I know what "draw a bead on" means with regard to sighting something and shooting at it, but I'm not sure precisely how the metaphor was supposed to have worked originally. A lot depends upon "draw," which can mean to pull but which can also mean to mark. So maybe the phrase meant to mark, figuratively, a bead on the target; or maybe it meant that once you shot a hole in the target, you would have, so to speak, drawn (marked) a bead (a wee circular image) on the target. I think it's too much of a stretch to link "draw a bead" to the tiny sphere that used to be on the front sight of some rifles; one would visually place that "bead" in the notch of the front sight and align both with the target.

Luckily, beading is now a completely nonviolent pursuit, although I suppose patrons of a bead-shop could get into a bead-throwing fight, but judging by the customers I saw in the Bellingham shop, this is unlikely to happen.

I do have to improve on my crimping skills, meaning I have to bring a magnifying glass next time. My eyesight has become too beady. The bracelet had to be recrimped, I guess because there was a crimp in its style, nyuk, nyuk, but everything is fine now.

In any event, I encourage all poets and readers of poetry to try to make something out of beads. In some ways, a line of poetry is like a string of beads, yes?