Head Officer

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Head Officer

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

Muser Wins Award

Lumpenprofessoriat has bestowed upon Poet's Musings one of several curmudgeonly awards. The bar was set high: I had to appear to be a poet. My old bones appreciate it when the high-jump bar is placed on the ground. With the award comes a grave responsibility--to bestow other awards on other bloggers. I think you see where this is headed and why Lumpenprofessoriat suspected poets, among others, might like it. The idea is not necessarily to subvert awards, awarding, and awardification, but--well, actually, I think that may be the idea, or one of them.

Here, then, are my awards, which bring with them the image above, although I may have copied the wrong image (sigh, I am a poet), but a giant squid embracing (?) a whale is better than an Oscar, if you ask me.

1. The What's Not To Like Award goes to the Hyperborean, who writes smartly about a range of political and economic topics: what's not to like about that?

2. The Get Off Your Duff and Blog On the Road award goes to KCugno , known as ms. cugno to some, and also the blogger formerly known as Island Musings. Spanning the globe from Hawaii to New Zealand and points in between, this blogger does much more than sit in the chair and blog, and this is but one reason her blog is interesting.

3. In the grand tradition of award-giving, I give an award to the awarder, Lumpenprofessoriat ,
for inventing this ironic award-scheme, and for exhibiting the correct mixture of befuddlement and grumpiness in blogging. As many of us know, befuddlement is often a mask that is as polite as a grump can be, and grumpiness often springs from not being able to understand that which is too outrageous to understand, such as the utterance, "I'm the Decider." A Decider does not say "I'm the Decider"; thus befuddled grumpiness ensues.

4. The Scrap Irony award goes to The Scrapper Poet, for writing poetry, teaching, blogging, and driving in snow--almost simultaneously! --And for just publishing a scrappy chapbook. And because I couldn't summon the discipline to resist the pun, scrap irony.

5. The e.e. cummings/Ansel Adams award goes to Waking Jonas for deployment of the lower case and wry humor, and for photo-management on a blog. If I were to receive some training, my photo-management skills might eventually reach the level of rudimentary.

6. The Poetry Diaspora Award goes to Poefrika, a blogger who posts great poetry early and often, and who also alerts readers to new books of poetry and other literature recently published. Poefrika is among the hardest working bloggers in the blog-business.

I urge you to let the award-games continue. Play anthems of your choice.

Someone We Know

Someone We Know


"He's a nobody," people sometimes say,
as a way of saying the person described
should be ignored. Overlooked. Forgotten.
The sentence raises problems.

If the person were a nobody, he or she
wouldn't have a gender, and there'd be
nothing and no one to ignore. Also,
"a" nobody implies particularity,

when indeed we must assume that all
who constitute the mythical Nobody
are indistinguishable. If, however,
"nobody" is used only in a figurative

sense, even more problems arise.
Figurative nobodies--the obscure,
the abandoned, the betrayed, the
common, the exploited, the humble--

approach heroic stature as they
persist in their lives. Think of
an obscure waitress in Canada,
Uruguay, the Ukraine, or Lesotho.

To herself she's not obscure. She
performs tasks well, keeps herself
clean, cares for others, remains
patient and energetic amidst

persistent obscurity and impending
oblivion. How extraordinary. How
utterly not in keeping with the term,
"Nobody." The unknown, exemplary

waitress embodies somebodyness--
in secret, without hope of extraordinary
reward. At a news-stand, she glimpses
a magazine's cover, on which appears

the rendered image of an officical
Somebody, a Celebrity who appears
momentarily to have slain Time and
seized immortality. The waitress, the one

who serves, alleged by some to be
a nobody, smiles. Her smile is particular.
She is herself and specific, standing there,
just like someone we know.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Of Thin Books, Mainz, Gutenberg, and Gooseflesh, etc.

Among the innumerable privileges I enjoy is a personal library, or a close facsimile thereof: three walls of custom-made bookshelves, with a mission-style oak desk roughly equidistant from each wall. Surrounded by books. It took a while, but I finally was able, and was lucky enough, to achieve this modest goal, which for others I live with bears the additional fruit of much less clutter. A place for every book, and every book in its place: well, that's the theory anyway. In practice, some clutter still breaks out.

I was glancing at one of the shelves today when I spotted that most irresistible object: the spine of a thin book. I'm not sure why, but thin books--especially cloth-bound, but also paperbacks--have always entranced me. In fact I do judge such books by their covers, at least at first.

What made this re-discovery sweeter and more symbolic was that the book is about Johannes Gutenberg, conventionally thought to be the first printer/publisher of books in the modern sense; that is, he used movable type. It had been used before in Asia, but Gutenberg used it in a way that led to, well, that led to the Gutenberg Revolution, or what Raymond Williams calls The Long Revolution--that of printing, mass production of books, and increased literacy, all of which led to or was connected to many other revolutions.

The book is called The Gutenberg Bible, and indeed it does print images of pages from various extant copies of that famous Bible, printed by Herr. G. in Mainz in the mid-1400s, although some additional handwork on the Bible(s) was done in other cities. Martin Davies wrote the book, which was published by the British Library in 1996. As usual, I can't remember where I picked it up, but it may have been on a recent trip to Berlin, or it may have been on a recent trip to a used bookstore in Tacoma.

The thin book is mis-titled, to some degree, because its content is really a pithy overview of Gutenberg's life, discussion of the interaction between guilds and the aristocracy, and description of Mainz, a city of immense historical importance, and one that sits squarely in the midst of the Rhineland, or Rheinland.

It will not come as a surprise to anyone associated with printing, publishing, and writing that Gutenberg seemed to be in financial trouble virtually his whole adult life. In fact, many biographical details spring from records of law-suits related to these difficulties.

Another privilege I've enjoyed was teaching at Gutenberg University in Mainz for a year when I was an A.B.D. ("all but dissertation), thanks to an exchange set up by an Americna professor named James Woodress and a German professor named Hans Galinsky. I still correspond with a good friend from those days who still teaches in the American Studies Department, or Amerikanistik Abteilung.

Coincidentally, I'd just talked a day or so ago with a colleague who has also spent time in Germany. We discussed one of the innumerable grim facts of World War II: that, owing to the strategy of the "Allies," some German cities were leveled by bombing, while others were left almost completely intact. Thus about 80-90 per cent of Mainz was destroyed by bombs, whereas its sister-city, just across the river, Wiesbaden, was not bombed. The lore I have heard is that Wiesbaden was spared in part because at one point the Allies thought Eisenhower's headquarters might be there, if indeed the war went a certain way. I do not know the actual historical facts about the bombing, however. Mere lore.

In any event, the architecture in Mainz looks extremely modern, whereas in Wiesbaden, numerous "layers" of different architectures are preserved. The red sandstone cathedral in Mainz was not destroyed, and a few other buildings made it through.

Anyway, all of this and more sprang to mind when I happened, by accident, to glance at one of my shelves, saw the thin book, and read it again. I've been back to Mainz once since I taught there, and I'm hoping to get back there again soon. Among other things, wine and history, including the history of publishing, converge in Mainz; that's quite a convergence. And there's a Gutenberg Museum there, too, as one might expect.

Incidentally, the book asserts that Gutenberg's full name is Johann Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg--John Gooseflesh of the Good Mountain. That's one heck of a name. You just don't hear names like that anymore. That's a product of some serious naming practices.

International Relations

International Relations


I think I'm going to threaten
myself. I'll say," If you don't
stop threatening me, I'm going
to attack you." Then I'll over-
react to myself, and things will
escalate. Attack, counter-attack.
I'll make me sorry I ever
tangled with myself. I'll seek
total victory. If this strategy
seems madly self-destructive,
then it probably is. Maybe
I'll take the diplomatic route,
go all negotiation on myself,
sling some morphemes of
outrageous nuance, get the
conflict stuck in the mud,
the cool mud, of process,
which may make me bored
but won't make me bleed.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Manor of Speaking

Manor of Speaking


A simile is like or as
it should be, attached
to the thing it purports
to describe. Thing and
simile clutch each other
and dance in front of
an apprehending audience,
cutting a fine figure
of speech indeed, while
the dance operates
as a metaphor for how
a simile performs for
an audience. Welcome
to the mirror of halls,
where this is like that
and in so many words
is, as in were, in a
fanciful Manor of Speaking.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Light a Candle

Strictly as sources of light, candles are pretty cumbersome, in my experience. When "the power" got knocked out in the Sierra Nevada, we first went for the flashlights and then the candles. We didn't have enough bona fide candle-holders, so sometimes we'd heat the bottom of a candle and stick the candle on a saucer--precariously.

No matter what kind of holder you use, you have to walk very slowly with a candle. Then: where do you place the candles in the house? How do you make sure they don't start an unwanted fire? If you use them to read by, how do you position them? It's all quite complicated in a pre-Modern way.

We go through the same thing if and when the power goes out in the Northwest.

At the same time, candles are an immense source of fascination and can be a source of comfort. I didn't take up any religion, per se, until I was pretty far along in life (the year 2000), when I converted to Catholicism at St. Leo Parish. But when I was in Europe two decades before that, I still liked visiting cathedrals, chapels, and churches. They are cavernous, built of stone, and cold, and often (as with gothic cathedrals) the architecture is, as they say, "out there." So what's not to like? The gargoyles can be awfully fascinating, too--and the stained class, obviously.

At any rate, I always lit candles (and contriuted to the candle-fund by putting coins in a box) when I visited these places. Often I lit one for Charlie Epps, or rather for my memory of him. Charlie and another guy were killed in a car wreck one week before we all graduated from high school. The event permanently marked a lot of us who knew them. Perhaps it made us grow up, in some respects, more quickly. Hard to say.

. . . What is one doing, exactly, by "lighting a candle for" someone? Opinions vary about this quesiton. Even so, there seems to be a note of comfort there, or at least a focusing of the mind, regardless of the reason why the lighter lights the candle.

In Germany, in 1981, a colleague took me to an ancient church in the town of Kiedrich, near the Rhein. The parish had received permission to continue using the Latin liturgy. The pews were made of stone. The acolytes, et al., used large incense-burners, and there were candles lit everywhere. I knew very little about Catholicism then, chiefly the historical background, so I was very much a spectator, an outsider, a tourist. But the experience was a bit like being launched just for a moment back into the Medieval era.

In Sweden, candles are a huge part of the Christmas season, and they're associated with St. Lucia. Because the sun doesn't come up for a while in Winter up there, the non-religious connection between Winter and light (candles) is obvious. But the variety of ways Swedes use candles at that time of year is impressive. . . .

. . .Apparently candles made of soy are more environmentally friendly than those made of wax. And I do hope candles made of whale tallow are 100% a thing of the past.

Nowadays aromatic candles seem to be quite the rage. I don't buy many of them, but I pick up quite a few in stores and sniff them. Technically, does this qualify as olfactory shop-lifting? I mean, my nose is taking molecules out of the store without paying for them.


Light a Candle


Sure, light a candle. Watch the wick, air,
and fire adjust to one another. Wait
as flame rights its posture. Glance at
gleaming liquid wax in a shallow pool
around the wick. Hear the nearly
inaudible sigh of oxygen as it expires.

Think your thoughts--or no thoughts:
stare. Consider someone afflicted, recall
someone gone long, say a prayer out loud
or silently, or say nothing. Flame seems
to center silence and the darkness. Light

a candle for a primitive impulse: flame
fascinates, it always has, and aromas
pique. Shadows perform. Light one
for a practical reason: to see better.

Light a candle and carry it in a silent
parade past the Power House. Or let
the candle stand. Stay home and subvert
the Power Houses simply by thinking
for yourself. Light a candle. Good idea.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom