Armchair Travel
Thursday, June 28, 2007
The Life of the Mind
This blog is about great reads that can be purchased for 25 cents at flea markets and tag sales. Sometime I cheat and they might cost a buck or even five bucks, but the idea is always the same. Enjoyment.
At the same time, every book I blog about can be, for someone, an entry to the life of the mind. It could be Stephen King or it could be Rita Mae Brown or it could be Mikhail Lermontov. For every person it will be different. For me it was Homer and Thucydides and Bob Dylan and Langston Hughes.
But that first book that transports you to another place and time and engages your interest is your admission ticket to a world of ideas that you never knew existed until you read the accounts written down by kindred souls in times long past.
You can float down any of a thousand different rivers, but you will reach the same enormous ocean.
The bookish kids who first experience this great thrill sometimes become alienated from their peers who are not in any way bookish (most kids) and they are like the albatross whose huge wings allow him to soar but make him a clumsy creature on land.
An author I admire a lot, Richard Rodriguez, said that he became connected to the literary universe when he wrote about being alienated. That became an intimate connection with countless readers.
Our alienation is what joins us together. It's like all the teenagers who sat around listening to Bob Dylan finding out that there were millions of other teenagers listening, too.
Now they have all these unfortunate reunions (sorry, I have to pass) but the brilliance of his work was and is undeniable:
"Darkness at the break of noon, shadows, even the silver spoon, the handmade blade, the child's balloon eclipses both the sun and moon..."
Once you tap into the life of the mind, whatever your point of entry might be, you see that the world is insane and it is logical to feel alienated. This feeling creates a bond with writers in the past who have noticed the very same inconsistencies.
And these literary and historical friends can be just as valuable as real-time actual friends because they're saying exactly what's on their minds and they're speaking to one who understands. ¶ 10:41 PM 0 comments
At the same time, every book I blog about can be, for someone, an entry to the life of the mind. It could be Stephen King or it could be Rita Mae Brown or it could be Mikhail Lermontov. For every person it will be different. For me it was Homer and Thucydides and Bob Dylan and Langston Hughes.
But that first book that transports you to another place and time and engages your interest is your admission ticket to a world of ideas that you never knew existed until you read the accounts written down by kindred souls in times long past.
You can float down any of a thousand different rivers, but you will reach the same enormous ocean.
The bookish kids who first experience this great thrill sometimes become alienated from their peers who are not in any way bookish (most kids) and they are like the albatross whose huge wings allow him to soar but make him a clumsy creature on land.
An author I admire a lot, Richard Rodriguez, said that he became connected to the literary universe when he wrote about being alienated. That became an intimate connection with countless readers.
Our alienation is what joins us together. It's like all the teenagers who sat around listening to Bob Dylan finding out that there were millions of other teenagers listening, too.
Now they have all these unfortunate reunions (sorry, I have to pass) but the brilliance of his work was and is undeniable:
"Darkness at the break of noon, shadows, even the silver spoon, the handmade blade, the child's balloon eclipses both the sun and moon..."
Once you tap into the life of the mind, whatever your point of entry might be, you see that the world is insane and it is logical to feel alienated. This feeling creates a bond with writers in the past who have noticed the very same inconsistencies.
And these literary and historical friends can be just as valuable as real-time actual friends because they're saying exactly what's on their minds and they're speaking to one who understands. ¶ 10:41 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Big News: Hemingway Wrote Great Books
I never spent much time reading Ernest Hemingway, but now I do.
I was turned off by the macho image that he seemed to want to project. Until I read his short stories. Then I saw that the author I thought was a macho guy was really a boy who thought by acting macho he could attract attention and love from his inattentive father.
Which figure is more attractive to you, the reader, the macho guy or the little boy trying without success to win his father's love?
Hemingway's work, from beginning to end, hinges on complete honesty. It starts in his short stories and continues throughout his career. That may sound funny for a writer of fiction, but Hemingway was incredibly diligent about it, and you'll see what I mean if you read his books.
He won the Nobel Prize for literature, remember?
He had a lot of talent to begin with, but he was also able to learn from his many brilliant teachers, including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and F. Scott What's His Name.
Hemingway even followed What's His Name to Paris and frequented the same cafes. That's how he met Stein and Pound. A guy with talent who can learn? There's no limit for a guy like that and there was no limit for Hemingway. He was a great writer, period. Everything he wrote.
But I have to say, don't listen to the accounts of his suicide that say, "He got cancer, so he killed himself." This is completely untrue. I say this in hopes of reaching cancer patients who might feel this way.
Hemingway was in a terrible plane crash in Africa and everyone feared he was dead. But he survived and made it back to civilization.
Then he was in a second plane crash that was worse than the first, causing unimaginable injury. Unhealed bone fractures lead to cancer. Hemingway was disabled in ways he found terribly embarassing, and because of the two plane crashes he had no real hope of recovery.
So if he chose to end his life, it had much more to do with the TWO plane crashes than it did with the diagnosis of cancer, and I'm grateful for the chance to set the record straight.
And, like I said, his books are all great reads, and they're taught so much you can find them for a quarter wherever you go. ¶ 10:27 PM 0 comments
I was turned off by the macho image that he seemed to want to project. Until I read his short stories. Then I saw that the author I thought was a macho guy was really a boy who thought by acting macho he could attract attention and love from his inattentive father.
Which figure is more attractive to you, the reader, the macho guy or the little boy trying without success to win his father's love?
Hemingway's work, from beginning to end, hinges on complete honesty. It starts in his short stories and continues throughout his career. That may sound funny for a writer of fiction, but Hemingway was incredibly diligent about it, and you'll see what I mean if you read his books.
He won the Nobel Prize for literature, remember?
He had a lot of talent to begin with, but he was also able to learn from his many brilliant teachers, including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and F. Scott What's His Name.
Hemingway even followed What's His Name to Paris and frequented the same cafes. That's how he met Stein and Pound. A guy with talent who can learn? There's no limit for a guy like that and there was no limit for Hemingway. He was a great writer, period. Everything he wrote.
But I have to say, don't listen to the accounts of his suicide that say, "He got cancer, so he killed himself." This is completely untrue. I say this in hopes of reaching cancer patients who might feel this way.
Hemingway was in a terrible plane crash in Africa and everyone feared he was dead. But he survived and made it back to civilization.
Then he was in a second plane crash that was worse than the first, causing unimaginable injury. Unhealed bone fractures lead to cancer. Hemingway was disabled in ways he found terribly embarassing, and because of the two plane crashes he had no real hope of recovery.
So if he chose to end his life, it had much more to do with the TWO plane crashes than it did with the diagnosis of cancer, and I'm grateful for the chance to set the record straight.
And, like I said, his books are all great reads, and they're taught so much you can find them for a quarter wherever you go. ¶ 10:27 PM 0 comments
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Great Performances - Colleen Dewhurst, Richard Farnsworth, Megan Follows
There are a lot of movies that I would never have seen if I didn't have a daughter that I'm really glad I had the chance to see.
Matilda, of course, everyone should see that movie -- the combined brilliance of Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman and Roald Dahl. My Girl, in which Dan Akroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis show that they are not just serious actors, but brilliant actors.
When I worked for Yankee Candle they had a great guy who did Santa. (The weasels have fired him, of course.) Whenever I saw him, any time of year, I'd say, "Santa I've been real good and all I'm asking for is... Jamis Lee Curtis."
But the movie Sarah and I enjoyed most of all was Anne of Green Gables. Megan Follows -- Megan, please email me, it's urgent -- Colleen Dewhurst, Richard Farnsworth, what more could I possibly say?
These are the best actors I've ever seen, and the cinematography, and the scholarship -- this movie had a Disney budget and they put it to good use.
When Anne and Matthew drive through the cherry orchard, you get these incredible scenic shots of intoxicating beauty, spectacular Prince Edward Island landscapes. And they do it for all four seasons of the year.
On top of that you have the scenes in the kitchen and the laundry and the barn and the general store where you see the implements that turn up in antique stores being used when they were new.
You see the different kinds of conveyances, the buggies and the coaches and the wagons and the sleighs, with all the tack and harness.
But back to those performances. Collen Dewhurst, the voice of Satan in Exorcist Three, and Richard Farnsworth, a Hollywood stuntman for 40 years, play Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert.
Matthew has never been married because he is too shy to speak to a girl and Marilla quarreled with a beau and never made up.
They have lived together for forty years and they're getting along in years and they ask an orphanage to send them a boy who can help out on the farm.
By accident the orphanage sends a girl, Anne Shirley. When Matthew picks her up in the buggy at the train station, he sees that there's been a mistake, but as they drive in his buggy through the cherry orchards and she chatters incessantly, he falls in love, but you need to look carefully to see it.
His sister Marilla, when she learns of the mistake, wants to send Anne back to the orphanage, but serendipitous circumstances begin to turn her around and she agrees to a probationary period. Then, when Anne gets mad at a boy at school and breaks her chalkboard over his head, you see this flicker of satisfaction cross Marilla's face (a particularly beautiful bit of acting without words) and you know Anne is home free.
"Did you hit him hard?" Marilla asks.
"Very hard, I'm afraid," Anne replies sorrowfully.
Turns out it's the son of Marilla's old beau, but never mind about that. The acting in this movie is brilliant from beginning to end and from top to bottom. The character actors are brilliant, too, the nosey neighbor and the shop girl and the school teacher and everyone else.
Matthew works hard to convince Marilla to adopt Anne and they make a deal that she will if he agrees not to interfere in Anne's upbringing. Marilla says she doesn't know much about raising children, but she knows a lot more than an old bachelor like him.
Later, Anne saves a neighbor's baby by the judicious application of ipecac -- so the doctor, who comes later, declares.
Matthew is driving her home in that same buggy and Anne falls asleep on his shoulder and you look at his face and it is the picture of sublime satisfaction, such as any person on earth might aspire to, and he says, "Giddap!"
Farnsworth and Dewhurst do many many scenes where they say next to nothing and just exchange these telling looks, as people will when they've lived together a long time.
After Anne saves the Barry baby, the Barrys want to give a party in her honor, but Marilla won't allow Anne to go, theorizing that she might become "overheated."
Matthew reads his paper and rocks in his chair and finally, at just the right moment, he speaks up loud and clear for the first time in his life. "Marilla," he says, "you got no cause to raise her as cheerless as we was. You ought to let her go."
Then he sits back in his rocking chair, puffs his pipe and says, "T'ain't interferin' to have an opinion." ¶ 10:26 PM 1 comments
Matilda, of course, everyone should see that movie -- the combined brilliance of Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman and Roald Dahl. My Girl, in which Dan Akroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis show that they are not just serious actors, but brilliant actors.
When I worked for Yankee Candle they had a great guy who did Santa. (The weasels have fired him, of course.) Whenever I saw him, any time of year, I'd say, "Santa I've been real good and all I'm asking for is... Jamis Lee Curtis."
But the movie Sarah and I enjoyed most of all was Anne of Green Gables. Megan Follows -- Megan, please email me, it's urgent -- Colleen Dewhurst, Richard Farnsworth, what more could I possibly say?
These are the best actors I've ever seen, and the cinematography, and the scholarship -- this movie had a Disney budget and they put it to good use.
When Anne and Matthew drive through the cherry orchard, you get these incredible scenic shots of intoxicating beauty, spectacular Prince Edward Island landscapes. And they do it for all four seasons of the year.
On top of that you have the scenes in the kitchen and the laundry and the barn and the general store where you see the implements that turn up in antique stores being used when they were new.
You see the different kinds of conveyances, the buggies and the coaches and the wagons and the sleighs, with all the tack and harness.
But back to those performances. Collen Dewhurst, the voice of Satan in Exorcist Three, and Richard Farnsworth, a Hollywood stuntman for 40 years, play Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert.
Matthew has never been married because he is too shy to speak to a girl and Marilla quarreled with a beau and never made up.
They have lived together for forty years and they're getting along in years and they ask an orphanage to send them a boy who can help out on the farm.
By accident the orphanage sends a girl, Anne Shirley. When Matthew picks her up in the buggy at the train station, he sees that there's been a mistake, but as they drive in his buggy through the cherry orchards and she chatters incessantly, he falls in love, but you need to look carefully to see it.
His sister Marilla, when she learns of the mistake, wants to send Anne back to the orphanage, but serendipitous circumstances begin to turn her around and she agrees to a probationary period. Then, when Anne gets mad at a boy at school and breaks her chalkboard over his head, you see this flicker of satisfaction cross Marilla's face (a particularly beautiful bit of acting without words) and you know Anne is home free.
"Did you hit him hard?" Marilla asks.
"Very hard, I'm afraid," Anne replies sorrowfully.
Turns out it's the son of Marilla's old beau, but never mind about that. The acting in this movie is brilliant from beginning to end and from top to bottom. The character actors are brilliant, too, the nosey neighbor and the shop girl and the school teacher and everyone else.
Matthew works hard to convince Marilla to adopt Anne and they make a deal that she will if he agrees not to interfere in Anne's upbringing. Marilla says she doesn't know much about raising children, but she knows a lot more than an old bachelor like him.
Later, Anne saves a neighbor's baby by the judicious application of ipecac -- so the doctor, who comes later, declares.
Matthew is driving her home in that same buggy and Anne falls asleep on his shoulder and you look at his face and it is the picture of sublime satisfaction, such as any person on earth might aspire to, and he says, "Giddap!"
Farnsworth and Dewhurst do many many scenes where they say next to nothing and just exchange these telling looks, as people will when they've lived together a long time.
After Anne saves the Barry baby, the Barrys want to give a party in her honor, but Marilla won't allow Anne to go, theorizing that she might become "overheated."
Matthew reads his paper and rocks in his chair and finally, at just the right moment, he speaks up loud and clear for the first time in his life. "Marilla," he says, "you got no cause to raise her as cheerless as we was. You ought to let her go."
Then he sits back in his rocking chair, puffs his pipe and says, "T'ain't interferin' to have an opinion." ¶ 10:26 PM 1 comments
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Ellis Peters Equals Great Reads
This blog is about great reads for a quarter, and I'm sorry I've gotten off the track with my trip to Maine. We're using blogs on our website as a way of recording daily impressions and testing ideas for our stories.
But one way of catching up fast in the great reads department is to recommend the wonderful Brother Cadfael books by Ellis Peters. Don't tell anyone, but I've paid as much as five bucks for one of these books.
They're on a par with Inspector Maigret, Per Wahloo and Judge Dee.
You'll find them in huge bunches because people just could not get enough of Brother Cadfael. My brother Shady calls him Brother Cardfile because of his ability to store, sort, and make available the most relevant information.
Brother Cadfael does this quite often, but you will be charmed, too, by the wonderful world that this ex-crusader has helped to create in the medieval Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in his role as gardener and apothecary.
Brother Cadfael is a Welshman by birth and he is often able to weave an unseen web of diplomacy between the English and the Welsh chieftains on their border.
Thankfully, he's blessed with abbotts who are not complete buttheads, which is the most unrealistic feature I can find about the series. Everything else works really well. Fantastically well.
What I admire most, and what makes this series really work, is a combination of scholarship and artistry. You will find this in all these books from beginning to end.
I guess the most exciting Ellis Peters book for me is one where an old crusader buddy of Cafael's commits a murder that really needs to be committed. You might say that that's immoral, but that would be before you heard the story.
So how does Cadfael's buddy get to and from the scene of the crime without detection? Simple: He's a leper and he's ringing a bell that makes everybody scamper. There's lot of cool stuff like that in this series.
And once you get hooked on one, there's a lot of enjoyment ahead. ¶ 9:29 PM 0 comments
But one way of catching up fast in the great reads department is to recommend the wonderful Brother Cadfael books by Ellis Peters. Don't tell anyone, but I've paid as much as five bucks for one of these books.
They're on a par with Inspector Maigret, Per Wahloo and Judge Dee.
You'll find them in huge bunches because people just could not get enough of Brother Cadfael. My brother Shady calls him Brother Cardfile because of his ability to store, sort, and make available the most relevant information.
Brother Cadfael does this quite often, but you will be charmed, too, by the wonderful world that this ex-crusader has helped to create in the medieval Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in his role as gardener and apothecary.
Brother Cadfael is a Welshman by birth and he is often able to weave an unseen web of diplomacy between the English and the Welsh chieftains on their border.
Thankfully, he's blessed with abbotts who are not complete buttheads, which is the most unrealistic feature I can find about the series. Everything else works really well. Fantastically well.
What I admire most, and what makes this series really work, is a combination of scholarship and artistry. You will find this in all these books from beginning to end.
I guess the most exciting Ellis Peters book for me is one where an old crusader buddy of Cafael's commits a murder that really needs to be committed. You might say that that's immoral, but that would be before you heard the story.
So how does Cadfael's buddy get to and from the scene of the crime without detection? Simple: He's a leper and he's ringing a bell that makes everybody scamper. There's lot of cool stuff like that in this series.
And once you get hooked on one, there's a lot of enjoyment ahead. ¶ 9:29 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Sssshhhh! You'll Scare the Fish
Can you hear how quiet it is in this picture? It's six a.m. on the St. George River in Penobscot Bay and we're going after striped bass with Captain George Harris of Superfly Charters.
This guy knows where they live. Even I caught one. But just getting out in the cool crisp Maine air and cruising up this beautiful river was a fantastic experience. ¶ 3:17 PM 0 comments
Can you hear how quiet it is in this picture? It's six a.m. on the St. George River in Penobscot Bay and we're going after striped bass with Captain George Harris of Superfly Charters.This guy knows where they live. Even I caught one. But just getting out in the cool crisp Maine air and cruising up this beautiful river was a fantastic experience. ¶ 3:17 PM 0 comments
Monday, June 11, 2007
Dr. Seuss, Dr. Spock and Dr. T. Barry Brazelton
There are three great doctors who had a tremendous influence on my life and that of my fellow baby boomers -- Dr. Seuss, Dr. Spock and Dr. T. Barry Brazelton.
Doctor Spock wrote the book that my mom used in raising me and my three brothers. He deserves to be recognized for the courageous stand he took and the role he played in ending the Vietnam War. He didn't want these babies of his slain needlessly and brought back in body bags.
Dr. S euss wrote some of the books my mom read to us, the greatest of which was "The Cat in the Hat." Dr. Seuss, aka Theodore Geisel, got very frustrated with the limited vocabulary that he was allowed in writing books for first grade readers. Then he got into a groove and wrote "The Cat in the Hat," and it's hard to describe how much of a hit that was. I'll bet you that book was read to nearly every member of my generation.
"Look at me, look at me, look at me now. It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how."
These words have guided me all my life, and what's more they are the guiding philosphy of GoNOMAD.com. I have always searched for people who know how to have fun, and you never have to search far, just find some kids, no matter what their age may be. Don't bother with the grown-ups; they're no fun at all.
Lastly, Dr. T. Barry Brazelton. I saw him on TV -- he's famous and has been on some great TV shows -- and I said, "That guy looks really familiar." I asked my mom, and it turns out he was my pediatrician when I was a newborn in Cambridge, Massachusetts back in 1952. That's more than half a century ago.
I knew I recognized that guy!
¶ 9:56 PM 0 comments
Doctor Spock wrote the book that my mom used in raising me and my three brothers. He deserves to be recognized for the courageous stand he took and the role he played in ending the Vietnam War. He didn't want these babies of his slain needlessly and brought back in body bags.
Dr. S euss wrote some of the books my mom read to us, the greatest of which was "The Cat in the Hat." Dr. Seuss, aka Theodore Geisel, got very frustrated with the limited vocabulary that he was allowed in writing books for first grade readers. Then he got into a groove and wrote "The Cat in the Hat," and it's hard to describe how much of a hit that was. I'll bet you that book was read to nearly every member of my generation.
"Look at me, look at me, look at me now. It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how."
These words have guided me all my life, and what's more they are the guiding philosphy of GoNOMAD.com. I have always searched for people who know how to have fun, and you never have to search far, just find some kids, no matter what their age may be. Don't bother with the grown-ups; they're no fun at all.
Lastly, Dr. T. Barry Brazelton. I saw him on TV -- he's famous and has been on some great TV shows -- and I said, "That guy looks really familiar." I asked my mom, and it turns out he was my pediatrician when I was a newborn in Cambridge, Massachusetts back in 1952. That's more than half a century ago.
I knew I recognized that guy!
Whirlwind Weekend
What a weekend! My friend George and I drove six hours to Rockland, Maine, for a press tour hosted by Historic Inns of Rockland. On the way up he noticed a growing red ring on his shoulder from a tick bite, and you know what that means -- or you should anyway.
We called Rockland Hospital and they said to come in right away. In less than an hour George had his medicine and we were on our way. That's Maine for you. No nonsense.
Saturday we went out with a lobsterman and hoisted some traps and learned about the amazing life cycle of the world's favorite crustacean. We hit the Lighthouse Museum, the Farnsworth Art Museum, and Farnsworth Homestead and three historic B&Bs. Then we took a harbor cruise through the charming little islands around Rockland Harbor and dined on lobster and other delicacies. Thankfully the seas were calm as a mill pond. It was a great chance to meet some interesting Rockland residents.
Sunday we got up at 5:30 am to go fishing for striped bass up the St. Geoge River (yes, I caught one) and got back in time for breakfast. Then we took a sail in the Bay on the schooner (or is it a ketch?) Morning in Maine, visited the Puffin Center (don't miss it!) and the Transportation Museum (WWI aircraft, old cars and lots of other cool stuff). On the way out of town we stopped at the Maine State Prison craft store, which has lots of great stuff for sale.
We also stopped at North of the Border in Wiscassett, where I got a nifty garden sculpture for my mom, who made me bookish. Thanks Mom! Then it was off down the Maine coast on US 1 and back to Sunderland.
Lots of fun, but I'm exhausted.
¶ 3:41 PM 0 comments
Sunday, June 10, 2007
The Hobbit Goes to Rockland, Maine
I'm a hobbit. I like staying at home and tending my garden. My job is posting stories for GoNOMAD.com about having fun all over the world, but when the oppportunity to travel comes up, I always pass.
That trip to Paris -- Sony Stark will do a much better job than I ever could. You can judge for yourself once she writes it. No pressure, Sony. Send it in when you can.
That trip to Spain, Marina Solovyov... just wait 'till you see what she does with that; in fact you don't have to wait, look at her magnificent blog entries. I could write like that, too, but it would take me weeks and weeks, and Marina's stuff would still be better. She's walking the entire Way of St. James.
I love my job, but I don't want to go anywhere. I love where I live.
But when I saw that B&B tour in Rockland, Maine... I couldn't pass it up. Even though it was a six hour drive.
Do you have a practical member in your family? The one who says, after you've outlined your plans for ziplining through the rainforest or riding yaks in Mongolia, "We could have just as much fun at a B&B in Maine."
I have to state, here and now, by my own certain knowledge, they're right.
The Gulf of Maine is unquestionably one of the most beautiful places on earth. I could do my utmost to describe it, but I would still have to say, you have to see it for yourself.
There are at least 10,000 islands, and I could spend a memorable, life-changing day on every single one.
Even authentic Down East mariners enjoy touring the islands and bays of the Gulf of Maine. As one skipper said on the tour I just took, "This is the first time I've ever been through here without having my nose in a chart."
I had the same sensation once, passing through British Columbia on a freight train through the Rockies: "This is where God comes for vacation." ¶ 8:51 PM 1 comments
That trip to Paris -- Sony Stark will do a much better job than I ever could. You can judge for yourself once she writes it. No pressure, Sony. Send it in when you can.
That trip to Spain, Marina Solovyov... just wait 'till you see what she does with that; in fact you don't have to wait, look at her magnificent blog entries. I could write like that, too, but it would take me weeks and weeks, and Marina's stuff would still be better. She's walking the entire Way of St. James.
I love my job, but I don't want to go anywhere. I love where I live.
But when I saw that B&B tour in Rockland, Maine... I couldn't pass it up. Even though it was a six hour drive.
Do you have a practical member in your family? The one who says, after you've outlined your plans for ziplining through the rainforest or riding yaks in Mongolia, "We could have just as much fun at a B&B in Maine."
I have to state, here and now, by my own certain knowledge, they're right.
The Gulf of Maine is unquestionably one of the most beautiful places on earth. I could do my utmost to describe it, but I would still have to say, you have to see it for yourself.
There are at least 10,000 islands, and I could spend a memorable, life-changing day on every single one.
Even authentic Down East mariners enjoy touring the islands and bays of the Gulf of Maine. As one skipper said on the tour I just took, "This is the first time I've ever been through here without having my nose in a chart."
I had the same sensation once, passing through British Columbia on a freight train through the Rockies: "This is where God comes for vacation." ¶ 8:51 PM 1 comments
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Enjoying William Faulkner
.
There is no denying that many, many people, myself included, have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of reading William Faulkner. But if you ask us whether we recommend his work, we might hesitate. The enjoyment we've gotten out of Faulkner we've worked hard for. He doesn't make it easy. The guy writes sentences that are fifteen pages long.
There is one guy who can give you the background information that can be so helpful in understanding -- and therefore enjoying -- Faulkner. His name is Cleanth Brooks and he wrote a book called The Yoknapatawpha Country -- or something like that. I'm not sure of the spelling. It's been more than 30 years.
This guy knew Faulkner. He savored Faulkner. His greatest joy was to explicate or, in the terms of my elderly generation, to "turn someone on to" Faulkner.
I had the privilege of hearing Cleanth Brooks read "An Odor of Verbena," and to me, that's a lot like saying you heard Caruso.
I took his course at an Ivy League institution in New Haven, Connecticut, that has more buttheads than thinkers, and always will. But I am thankful, certainly, for the chance to hear him and meet him.
Just to give a short sample of why Faulkner is worth reading, but not so often recommended, is his quintessential work The Sound and the Fury. If you just pick it up and read it, you're going to have to hang onto it for several years before you even begin to understand what's going on.
Here's why: The opening section is written by the idiot Benjy who gets things mixed up in time. It starts something like this: "He hit and then he hit and then he yelled "Caddie."
Now here are three bits of background information: One, the only person Benjy ever loved was his sister Caddy, but she went away. Two, Benjy's portion of the family inheritance was the lot across the street, which has been sold and is now a golf course. Three, Benjy has been castrated because of an incident. See how this information helps explicate those opening lines?
Benjy's section is followed by one from Quentin, who goes to Harvard and commits suicide. It sounds grim, but it's handled well.
Faulkner took a year off from the post office to read the Russians, and it shows in this work, which is unquestionably one of the greatest works of American literature, and of world literature. He got the Nobel Prize, remember?
It took three full-time guys to get him to the podium half sober, but that's another funny story.
Caddy? She was last seen leaving a Berlin nightclub and stepping into a German staff car.
If you do read The Sound and the Fury, see how many allusions you can find to The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. I found a lot of them, and we can compare lists. The lost bones, the pearls that were his eyes...
Posting comments can be a hassle. Email me. ¶ 9:26 PM 0 comments
There is no denying that many, many people, myself included, have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of reading William Faulkner. But if you ask us whether we recommend his work, we might hesitate. The enjoyment we've gotten out of Faulkner we've worked hard for. He doesn't make it easy. The guy writes sentences that are fifteen pages long.
There is one guy who can give you the background information that can be so helpful in understanding -- and therefore enjoying -- Faulkner. His name is Cleanth Brooks and he wrote a book called The Yoknapatawpha Country -- or something like that. I'm not sure of the spelling. It's been more than 30 years.
This guy knew Faulkner. He savored Faulkner. His greatest joy was to explicate or, in the terms of my elderly generation, to "turn someone on to" Faulkner.
I had the privilege of hearing Cleanth Brooks read "An Odor of Verbena," and to me, that's a lot like saying you heard Caruso.
I took his course at an Ivy League institution in New Haven, Connecticut, that has more buttheads than thinkers, and always will. But I am thankful, certainly, for the chance to hear him and meet him.
Just to give a short sample of why Faulkner is worth reading, but not so often recommended, is his quintessential work The Sound and the Fury. If you just pick it up and read it, you're going to have to hang onto it for several years before you even begin to understand what's going on.
Here's why: The opening section is written by the idiot Benjy who gets things mixed up in time. It starts something like this: "He hit and then he hit and then he yelled "Caddie."
Now here are three bits of background information: One, the only person Benjy ever loved was his sister Caddy, but she went away. Two, Benjy's portion of the family inheritance was the lot across the street, which has been sold and is now a golf course. Three, Benjy has been castrated because of an incident. See how this information helps explicate those opening lines?
Benjy's section is followed by one from Quentin, who goes to Harvard and commits suicide. It sounds grim, but it's handled well.
Faulkner took a year off from the post office to read the Russians, and it shows in this work, which is unquestionably one of the greatest works of American literature, and of world literature. He got the Nobel Prize, remember?
It took three full-time guys to get him to the podium half sober, but that's another funny story.
Caddy? She was last seen leaving a Berlin nightclub and stepping into a German staff car.
If you do read The Sound and the Fury, see how many allusions you can find to The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. I found a lot of them, and we can compare lists. The lost bones, the pearls that were his eyes...
Posting comments can be a hassle. Email me. ¶ 9:26 PM 0 comments
Monday, June 04, 2007
The Trickle-Down Theory
Jim Mullen is a very funny guy, as you might expect from the author of "Baby's First Tattoo," and "It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life."
He has a funny column in the Vernon (British Columbia) Morning Star about CEOs who make as much as a billion dollars a year.
"At first, like everyone else, I thought, 'That’s crazy, no one is worth that kind of money,' " Mullen writes. "But then it was explained to me by a 30-year-old billionaire hedge-fund manager on television that it just sounds crazy.
"It’s really OK, because that $300 million, that $1 billion is going to trickle down to you and me. That CEO is going to buy a house and clothes and cars for himself and his wife and his children, and all that money will get spread around to people who make the cars and the houses and the clothes. It’s really good for everyone, see?"
Of course the CEO buys not one, but two cars: a Maserati and a Lamborghini, and he builds a house in Tuscany and another in London. His wife spends lots of money on clothes -- in Paris. His daughter is on safari in Kenya and his son is mountain climbing in Patagonia.
Mullen explains why it's only CEO pay, not workers' pay, that trickles down:
"I’m not an economist, so I can’t give you the technical explanation for it, but a CEO’s money trickles down, whereas if he took less and paid his workers more, it wouldn’t.
Only CEO money trickles down. It’s a well-known fact that workers will just waste any money they make on food and medicine. Or throw it away on clothes for their children. And most of that is spent right in the towns where they live. What a waste. That money’s got no place to trickle down to. It already is down. It can’t help anyone."
"But there is trouble on the horizon for our hardworking CEOs," Mullen concludes. "Some people, I won’t say who, communists probably, think our CEOs get paid too much and want to replace them with cheaper, less costly CEOs. From Mexico..." ¶ 3:35 PM 1 comments
He has a funny column in the Vernon (British Columbia) Morning Star about CEOs who make as much as a billion dollars a year.
"At first, like everyone else, I thought, 'That’s crazy, no one is worth that kind of money,' " Mullen writes. "But then it was explained to me by a 30-year-old billionaire hedge-fund manager on television that it just sounds crazy.
"It’s really OK, because that $300 million, that $1 billion is going to trickle down to you and me. That CEO is going to buy a house and clothes and cars for himself and his wife and his children, and all that money will get spread around to people who make the cars and the houses and the clothes. It’s really good for everyone, see?"
Of course the CEO buys not one, but two cars: a Maserati and a Lamborghini, and he builds a house in Tuscany and another in London. His wife spends lots of money on clothes -- in Paris. His daughter is on safari in Kenya and his son is mountain climbing in Patagonia.
Mullen explains why it's only CEO pay, not workers' pay, that trickles down:
"I’m not an economist, so I can’t give you the technical explanation for it, but a CEO’s money trickles down, whereas if he took less and paid his workers more, it wouldn’t.
Only CEO money trickles down. It’s a well-known fact that workers will just waste any money they make on food and medicine. Or throw it away on clothes for their children. And most of that is spent right in the towns where they live. What a waste. That money’s got no place to trickle down to. It already is down. It can’t help anyone."
"But there is trouble on the horizon for our hardworking CEOs," Mullen concludes. "Some people, I won’t say who, communists probably, think our CEOs get paid too much and want to replace them with cheaper, less costly CEOs. From Mexico..." ¶ 3:35 PM 1 comments
Friday, June 01, 2007
A Free Piece of Advice
I searched our site the other day to find a story called "The Art of Wandering in Paris," one of those stories that make an editor's day. But when I searched for stories about France, it didn't come up. Why? The word France was never used in the story.
It's a beautiful story, and I'm not going to retitle it "The Art of Wandering in Paris, France." Too clunky. Nowadays I would leave the headline on the story as is and put France in the url and the title that is used by search engines. I was just starting back then.
But it brings up an important point about how you can make your story draw more readers from search engines without in any way altering your personal style of writing. It's called "key-word use in body text" and it's listed as one of the top ten factors that Google spiders use in evaluating a web page in relation to specific key words.
"So I went to the dog show and did I ever see a lot of dogs! I mean there were dogs everywhere. Skinny little weiner dogs, long lanky setter dogs, little hairless Chihuahua dogs..."
You don't have to go that far, but for travel writers it makes sense to include the name of the city, the region, and the country at least once, if not two or three times in the story. Adjectives won't work. It has to be France or Thailand, not French or Thai.
This runs counter to a stylistic inclination to avoid repetition. Once we know we're in France, it seems redundant to repeat it. But there are ways that aren't clunky or awkward: "This mustard is said to be the best in all of France..." "Wherever we went in Italy..." "What I remember most about the hill tribes of Thailand..."
And the old stylistic considerations are less important for modern web readers. Their attention span is a lot shorter so they don't mind being reminded what country you're talking about.
The same goes for the theme of a trip or the activities -- bungee jumping, mountain biking, parasailing, cooking school -- put these key words in the body of your text. It's not at all difficult; in fact it often makes a better story.
Key-word use in body text -- there's a free tip that will give your stories a better position on key-word searches, which will in turn bring you more readers.
Just another helpful tip from your friends at GoNOMAD. ¶ 9:28 PM 1 comments
It's a beautiful story, and I'm not going to retitle it "The Art of Wandering in Paris, France." Too clunky. Nowadays I would leave the headline on the story as is and put France in the url and the title that is used by search engines. I was just starting back then.
But it brings up an important point about how you can make your story draw more readers from search engines without in any way altering your personal style of writing. It's called "key-word use in body text" and it's listed as one of the top ten factors that Google spiders use in evaluating a web page in relation to specific key words.
"So I went to the dog show and did I ever see a lot of dogs! I mean there were dogs everywhere. Skinny little weiner dogs, long lanky setter dogs, little hairless Chihuahua dogs..."
You don't have to go that far, but for travel writers it makes sense to include the name of the city, the region, and the country at least once, if not two or three times in the story. Adjectives won't work. It has to be France or Thailand, not French or Thai.
This runs counter to a stylistic inclination to avoid repetition. Once we know we're in France, it seems redundant to repeat it. But there are ways that aren't clunky or awkward: "This mustard is said to be the best in all of France..." "Wherever we went in Italy..." "What I remember most about the hill tribes of Thailand..."
And the old stylistic considerations are less important for modern web readers. Their attention span is a lot shorter so they don't mind being reminded what country you're talking about.
The same goes for the theme of a trip or the activities -- bungee jumping, mountain biking, parasailing, cooking school -- put these key words in the body of your text. It's not at all difficult; in fact it often makes a better story.
Key-word use in body text -- there's a free tip that will give your stories a better position on key-word searches, which will in turn bring you more readers.
Just another helpful tip from your friends at GoNOMAD. ¶ 9:28 PM 1 comments
