Armchair Travel
Monday, August 31, 2009
The Lobster Coast
The most seasoned traveler I know spends at least a week and usually a good deal more on the Coast of Maine, and if you've been there, you know why. If you haven't, I can only say you should go and see the Gulf of Maine.
However you might feel about the influence of 'intelligent design' upon geography, geology and climatology, it does seem a place uniquely suited to human habitation, where industrious people might subsist happily, as they did for centuries, on the bounty of the seas and the forests.
It's a place of remarkable beauty, too, where the most famous painters in America have always come for inspiration.
New Englanders have this sense that nothing of any importance happens outside New England. And Mainers are the high priests, the Levites of New Englandism.
I picked up a really good book about Maine for a buck at a tag sale in Deerfield, The Lobster Coast by Colin Woodard. This is a really good read, thorough, scholarly, and, well, readable. It tells the whole story of the early settlements and the relations between the Abenaki and the Europeans of different stripes.
There's a lot of interesting detail about the original proprietors of New England, mostly royalists from the West of England and how they allowed a settlement in Massachusetts of roundheads, mostly from the East.
I am always left sick with disgust when I come to King Philip's War. That's when the 'Puritans' of Massachusetts demonstate what vile people they were.
The colony at Plymouth was saved, in its first year, by a shipment of fish from Maine, and in its second year by the generosity of Massassoit, who is shown in the traditional depictions of the Thanksgiving Dinner.
As for Massassoit, the pilgrims poisoned one of his sons and displayed the head of the other on a pike for twenty years. The Mainers who helped them in their first year were subjugated by force and forced to take part in King Philips War, which wiped out every settlement north of York.
These vile people wanted Philip's land to set up a distillery in Narragansetts Bay to take part in the molasses to rum to slaves triangle trade, so they deliberately provoked a war in which the people who suffered most were Europeans on good terms with the Indians and Indians on good terms with Europeans.
Providence was burned twice. The so-called 'praying Indians' were sequestered on an island in Boston Harbor where most of them starved to death,
The so-called 'puritans' were the Cheneys and Bushs and Rumsfelds of their day, who unleashed the dogs of war for their own personal gain. It was very like Bosnia, too, where the cosmopolitan areas that welcomed everyone suffered most.
If there's anyone who buys that John Winthrop 'City of a Hill' crap that Ronald Reagan was peddling, my fond hope is they will wake up and smell the rotting corpses of innocent men, women and children.
But I always see red when I read about King Philip's War, and there's a lot more to The Lobster Coast.
It's like Woodward, not actually a Mainer by birth, but who may become one by adoption, as many have before him, gives the reader an entree into this one-of-a-kind world.
He speaks of Monhegan Island as a world where "scions of great moneyed families are socially and politically outranked by persons who earn their living stuffing rotten herring in nylon bags in an effort to ensnare large bottom-feeding bugs."
"Where democracy is practiced directly by the citizens and aristocratic privilege is unrecognized or unknown."
"A simpler, perhaps nobler world that might have been, but can never be again."
Anyone who knew Martha's Vineyard back in the day knows what he is talking about. ¶ 6:34 PM 1 comments
However you might feel about the influence of 'intelligent design' upon geography, geology and climatology, it does seem a place uniquely suited to human habitation, where industrious people might subsist happily, as they did for centuries, on the bounty of the seas and the forests.
It's a place of remarkable beauty, too, where the most famous painters in America have always come for inspiration.
New Englanders have this sense that nothing of any importance happens outside New England. And Mainers are the high priests, the Levites of New Englandism.
I picked up a really good book about Maine for a buck at a tag sale in Deerfield, The Lobster Coast by Colin Woodard. This is a really good read, thorough, scholarly, and, well, readable. It tells the whole story of the early settlements and the relations between the Abenaki and the Europeans of different stripes.
There's a lot of interesting detail about the original proprietors of New England, mostly royalists from the West of England and how they allowed a settlement in Massachusetts of roundheads, mostly from the East.
I am always left sick with disgust when I come to King Philip's War. That's when the 'Puritans' of Massachusetts demonstate what vile people they were.
The colony at Plymouth was saved, in its first year, by a shipment of fish from Maine, and in its second year by the generosity of Massassoit, who is shown in the traditional depictions of the Thanksgiving Dinner.
As for Massassoit, the pilgrims poisoned one of his sons and displayed the head of the other on a pike for twenty years. The Mainers who helped them in their first year were subjugated by force and forced to take part in King Philips War, which wiped out every settlement north of York.
These vile people wanted Philip's land to set up a distillery in Narragansetts Bay to take part in the molasses to rum to slaves triangle trade, so they deliberately provoked a war in which the people who suffered most were Europeans on good terms with the Indians and Indians on good terms with Europeans.
Providence was burned twice. The so-called 'praying Indians' were sequestered on an island in Boston Harbor where most of them starved to death,
The so-called 'puritans' were the Cheneys and Bushs and Rumsfelds of their day, who unleashed the dogs of war for their own personal gain. It was very like Bosnia, too, where the cosmopolitan areas that welcomed everyone suffered most.
If there's anyone who buys that John Winthrop 'City of a Hill' crap that Ronald Reagan was peddling, my fond hope is they will wake up and smell the rotting corpses of innocent men, women and children.
But I always see red when I read about King Philip's War, and there's a lot more to The Lobster Coast.
It's like Woodward, not actually a Mainer by birth, but who may become one by adoption, as many have before him, gives the reader an entree into this one-of-a-kind world.
He speaks of Monhegan Island as a world where "scions of great moneyed families are socially and politically outranked by persons who earn their living stuffing rotten herring in nylon bags in an effort to ensnare large bottom-feeding bugs."
"Where democracy is practiced directly by the citizens and aristocratic privilege is unrecognized or unknown."
"A simpler, perhaps nobler world that might have been, but can never be again."
Anyone who knew Martha's Vineyard back in the day knows what he is talking about. ¶ 6:34 PM 1 comments
Monday, August 17, 2009
Brave Sweet Sally Soldiers On
My mom has actually regained consciousness, sort of, which is a big surprise to my brothers and me, because we thought that Alzheimer's had shut down her brain and we were accustomed to the inexorable, non-reversible nature of the disease.
She has had a very fast-acting version which took away not only the ability to form memory, which most patients lose first, but also all memories whatsoever, early or late, which most patients retain.
She and I met Barack and Michelle Obama in Conway, NH, in the summer of 2007, and we both agreed they were the real deal. She still had all her marbles. Two years later she didn't know who William Shakespeare was and didn't know I was her son.
But now she's opening her eyes completely and sometimes tries to form words. I do believe she's coming back, at least a little way, and that's a small miracle, which we'll take. Miracles are miracles.
Sitting by her bedside is no agony at all, but really more joyful. I know that sounds daffy, but Sally is so peaceful and strong.
She reaches for the oxygen tube on her nose and tries to pull it off, but I told her "No, honey. Leave that there. They put it on to help you breath." Then she took the part of the tube on her chest and held it between her fingers the way she always used to hold her necklaces when she was interested in something someone was saying.
And she's so brave. It just seems to radiate out from her in waves. Here she is, in complete mental confusion, robbed of her education, her dignity, and every vestige of selfhood, facing death itself, and she's still brave and sweet and thinking of others.
I get such an overwhelming sense of what a great mom I have. On her death bed she's still inspiring me.
It's always hard to leave, but tonight I had a plan: I sang to her, show tunes, hymns, Bach cantatas. So I think she was quite happy to see me go.
When I left I instinctively put my had on her forehead the way she used to do when we were sick or pretending to be sick to see if we had a fever. Then I kissed her on the cheek and she smiled. ¶ 7:58 PM 3 comments
She has had a very fast-acting version which took away not only the ability to form memory, which most patients lose first, but also all memories whatsoever, early or late, which most patients retain.
She and I met Barack and Michelle Obama in Conway, NH, in the summer of 2007, and we both agreed they were the real deal. She still had all her marbles. Two years later she didn't know who William Shakespeare was and didn't know I was her son.
But now she's opening her eyes completely and sometimes tries to form words. I do believe she's coming back, at least a little way, and that's a small miracle, which we'll take. Miracles are miracles.
Sitting by her bedside is no agony at all, but really more joyful. I know that sounds daffy, but Sally is so peaceful and strong.
She reaches for the oxygen tube on her nose and tries to pull it off, but I told her "No, honey. Leave that there. They put it on to help you breath." Then she took the part of the tube on her chest and held it between her fingers the way she always used to hold her necklaces when she was interested in something someone was saying.
And she's so brave. It just seems to radiate out from her in waves. Here she is, in complete mental confusion, robbed of her education, her dignity, and every vestige of selfhood, facing death itself, and she's still brave and sweet and thinking of others.
I get such an overwhelming sense of what a great mom I have. On her death bed she's still inspiring me.
It's always hard to leave, but tonight I had a plan: I sang to her, show tunes, hymns, Bach cantatas. So I think she was quite happy to see me go.
When I left I instinctively put my had on her forehead the way she used to do when we were sick or pretending to be sick to see if we had a fever. Then I kissed her on the cheek and she smiled. ¶ 7:58 PM 3 comments
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Brave Sweet Sally
It looks like my mom, who made me bookish, is not going to regain consciousness. She was living in an assisted living facility for alzheimers patients with a yellow cockatoo that dances when you whistle, and we thought she'd be there for years.
She had lost all recollection, but she was still fun to be with. Every time I saw her we laughed and laughed.
It looks like we'll be writing an obituary soon -- I dearly hope I'm wrong but facts are facts -- so I've been recollecting memories of what a wonderful person she was -- the neighborhood circus she organized when we were little, abd the family Prize Day ceremonies we had every year.
These were meant to emphasize the importance of academic achievement and inspire us to new heights. The culmination was when she herself donned her special robes was about to step onto the stage to received her PhD at Brown University.
I'll never forgesther inspiring words to me on that occasion: "Big waste of time and effort."
I'm also recalling the songs and skits she invented for Skit Night in South Conway, New Hampshire, where we went in the summer when we were kids and where she and my dad later retired..
"It's raining, it's pouring, but I can keep on snoring.
I left my kids at Granny Thornes' and I won't pick them up 'til the morning,"
You would have to know Granny Thorne to get the joke, but take my word for it, it was funny and all the South Conway parents and kids in the audience got a good laugh.
Our family also remembers the canoe/float she designed for Venetian Night at the South Conway Club, with my cousin Chris as Cleopatra.
Whenever we visited her in New Hampshire, she always worked in a play at the Barnstormers in Tamworth or the North Conway Players. After all the outdoor recreation, she made sure we had something intellectual to chew on too.
She was a very, very good listener and very empathetic. Naturally I would say that since I'm her son, but there are a lot of people who can back me on this.
When she was getting her master's degree at Boston College, one of the teaching assistants didn't show up, so they asked her to become a fellow, and her fellow fellows were people from my generation for whom she was both a colleague and a mentor.
It was kind of automatic for her to think of others. She loved to shop, but it was for presents that other people might like.
That was my indomitable mom, who made me bookish. In the last year of her life I met Brave Sweet Sally who kept her love of humanity and her sense of humor while, as she put it, "The world went crazy."
She knew she was losing her mind but she focused on love and laughter.
I know lots of people who are on reasonable terms with death, ready to accept it as the natural end of life. But the loss of our faculties at the end is a scary idea for all of us.
Brave Sweet Sally lost 'em all and walked right through the fire like Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego. She was still brave and sweet and she still loved a good laugh.
I don't know if she heard me, but I told Sally I hope she comes back to us, in whatever shape she might be, but I really don't think it's going to happen. ¶ 7:25 PM 3 comments
She had lost all recollection, but she was still fun to be with. Every time I saw her we laughed and laughed.
It looks like we'll be writing an obituary soon -- I dearly hope I'm wrong but facts are facts -- so I've been recollecting memories of what a wonderful person she was -- the neighborhood circus she organized when we were little, abd the family Prize Day ceremonies we had every year.
These were meant to emphasize the importance of academic achievement and inspire us to new heights. The culmination was when she herself donned her special robes was about to step onto the stage to received her PhD at Brown University.
I'll never forgesther inspiring words to me on that occasion: "Big waste of time and effort."
I'm also recalling the songs and skits she invented for Skit Night in South Conway, New Hampshire, where we went in the summer when we were kids and where she and my dad later retired..
"It's raining, it's pouring, but I can keep on snoring.
I left my kids at Granny Thornes' and I won't pick them up 'til the morning,"
You would have to know Granny Thorne to get the joke, but take my word for it, it was funny and all the South Conway parents and kids in the audience got a good laugh.
Our family also remembers the canoe/float she designed for Venetian Night at the South Conway Club, with my cousin Chris as Cleopatra.
Whenever we visited her in New Hampshire, she always worked in a play at the Barnstormers in Tamworth or the North Conway Players. After all the outdoor recreation, she made sure we had something intellectual to chew on too.
She was a very, very good listener and very empathetic. Naturally I would say that since I'm her son, but there are a lot of people who can back me on this.
When she was getting her master's degree at Boston College, one of the teaching assistants didn't show up, so they asked her to become a fellow, and her fellow fellows were people from my generation for whom she was both a colleague and a mentor.
It was kind of automatic for her to think of others. She loved to shop, but it was for presents that other people might like.
That was my indomitable mom, who made me bookish. In the last year of her life I met Brave Sweet Sally who kept her love of humanity and her sense of humor while, as she put it, "The world went crazy."
She knew she was losing her mind but she focused on love and laughter.
I know lots of people who are on reasonable terms with death, ready to accept it as the natural end of life. But the loss of our faculties at the end is a scary idea for all of us.
Brave Sweet Sally lost 'em all and walked right through the fire like Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego. She was still brave and sweet and she still loved a good laugh.
I don't know if she heard me, but I told Sally I hope she comes back to us, in whatever shape she might be, but I really don't think it's going to happen. ¶ 7:25 PM 3 comments
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Visions of a Better World
You don't have to be a Trekkie to like Star Trek Memories by William Shatner with Chris Kreski. I know, I know, books that have a 'with' are usually stupid junk, but I think here Shatner was just acknowledging his collaborator who clearly did a lot of leg work collecting material and organizing the story.
It's not Shatner's personal story at all. He sees himself as a comparatively minor player, even though he played the captain. The central character is Gene Roddenberry and his vision and the amazingly intricate battles he fought to put it on the screen. He was driven.
And once he got the show on national television, he was driven to use it as a bully platform to create a vision of a cooperative egalitarian world, aligned with other cooperative egalitarian worlds. Besides the Vulcan in the control room, and Roddenberry had to fight tooth and nail to keep him there, there's a Russian.
It's hard to describe how shocking that was at the time. The Masters of War had somehow convinced us that the Russians wished to destroy us, and would like nothing better than to blow us all to smithereens. Preposterous as it may sound, nevertheless it was true. I was there.
Can anyone else back me up on this? It sounds like I'm making it up.
Roddenberry's vision of a better world also included equality for everyone, regardless of race or gender. The original pilot had a female character called Number One who outranked even Captain Kirk who had the icy commitment to locic later assumed by Mister Spock.
In the focus groups, men hated her and women hated her even more!
The network told Roddenberry he had to get rid of Number One AND Spock. They wanted Captain Kirk to go around the galaxy blsting thinds. Roddenberry saw that he could save only one, and in a Sophie's Choice kind of situation, he picked Spock. He alone understood how important those ears were, to exemplify the cooperative nature of the Federation.
It turns our there was one other American who understood the importance of the Enterprise and its five-year mission, and since Gene Roddenberry was being bold, strong unseen forces worked in his favor.
When Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) got completely fed up with having her lines cut every week to where she had nothing to do except keep the hailing frequencies, and then a visiting actress was brought in to explore a planet while Uhura stayed at her post doing nothing for an hour, she told Roddenberry she was quitting the show.
"Don't do this," he said.
"I have to," she replied.
That night she went to a benefit for the NAACP, and she was told a big fan of hers really wanted to meet her. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. He told her how much he enjoyed the series. She told him she was quitting.
"Don't do this, Nichelle," he said, "You can't do this. Your character has gone into space on a five-year mission. She's intelligent, strong, capable and a wonderful role model, not just for black people but for all people. What you're doing is very, very important."
So of course she stayed, and they wound up expanding her part right up to the historic interracial smooch.
Martin Luther King understood the importance of Star Trek because he wrote the book on creative visualization. He visualized a nation where his four little children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
In fact the best way to illustrate the power of visualization is just to say, "I have a dream."
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed." ¶ 9:03 PM 0 comments
It's not Shatner's personal story at all. He sees himself as a comparatively minor player, even though he played the captain. The central character is Gene Roddenberry and his vision and the amazingly intricate battles he fought to put it on the screen. He was driven.
And once he got the show on national television, he was driven to use it as a bully platform to create a vision of a cooperative egalitarian world, aligned with other cooperative egalitarian worlds. Besides the Vulcan in the control room, and Roddenberry had to fight tooth and nail to keep him there, there's a Russian.
It's hard to describe how shocking that was at the time. The Masters of War had somehow convinced us that the Russians wished to destroy us, and would like nothing better than to blow us all to smithereens. Preposterous as it may sound, nevertheless it was true. I was there.
Can anyone else back me up on this? It sounds like I'm making it up.
Roddenberry's vision of a better world also included equality for everyone, regardless of race or gender. The original pilot had a female character called Number One who outranked even Captain Kirk who had the icy commitment to locic later assumed by Mister Spock.
In the focus groups, men hated her and women hated her even more!
The network told Roddenberry he had to get rid of Number One AND Spock. They wanted Captain Kirk to go around the galaxy blsting thinds. Roddenberry saw that he could save only one, and in a Sophie's Choice kind of situation, he picked Spock. He alone understood how important those ears were, to exemplify the cooperative nature of the Federation.
It turns our there was one other American who understood the importance of the Enterprise and its five-year mission, and since Gene Roddenberry was being bold, strong unseen forces worked in his favor.
When Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) got completely fed up with having her lines cut every week to where she had nothing to do except keep the hailing frequencies, and then a visiting actress was brought in to explore a planet while Uhura stayed at her post doing nothing for an hour, she told Roddenberry she was quitting the show.
"Don't do this," he said.
"I have to," she replied.
That night she went to a benefit for the NAACP, and she was told a big fan of hers really wanted to meet her. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. He told her how much he enjoyed the series. She told him she was quitting.
"Don't do this, Nichelle," he said, "You can't do this. Your character has gone into space on a five-year mission. She's intelligent, strong, capable and a wonderful role model, not just for black people but for all people. What you're doing is very, very important."
So of course she stayed, and they wound up expanding her part right up to the historic interracial smooch.
Martin Luther King understood the importance of Star Trek because he wrote the book on creative visualization. He visualized a nation where his four little children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
In fact the best way to illustrate the power of visualization is just to say, "I have a dream."
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed." ¶ 9:03 PM 0 comments
Sunday, August 09, 2009
The Ideal Whereunto Mankind Slowly Draws Near
I take back everything I ever said about transcendentalism being boring. I'm not taking back anything I ever said about Bronson Alcott or Ralph Waldo Emerson -- those guys are boring, boring, boring. It doesn't necessarily mean they had the wrong idea.
Far less boring, I find, is the transcendentalist, abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker who delivered sermons in Boston that were written down and published and made their way to a lawyer in Illinois named William Herndon who passed them on to his partner Abraham Lincoln.
Ulike many other reverends, he didn't split from his church, despite its racism, because he saw it as it could be:
"By Christianity, I mean that form of religion which consists of piety -- the love of God and morality -- the keeping of His laws. That is not the Christianity of the Christian church, nor of any sect. It is the ideal religion which the human race has been groping for."
When William Lloyd Garrison burned the US Constitution because it's a racist document, and it is, on its face, Theodore Parker endorsed our form of government, imperfect tho it was, because it was leading inexorably toward pure democracy:
"This is not the democracy of the parties, but it is that ideal government, the reign of righteousness, the kingdom of justice, which all noble hearts long for, and labor to produce, the ideal whereunto mankind slowly draws near."
With respect to ending slavery in America, Parker believed in the philosophy of "Blossoms in March, buds in May, apples in September." And his teachings helped bring it about. He was Lincoln's favorite author.
In 1949, in Los Angeles, California, a motorcyle patrolman walked into a bar called the Cock and Bull and asked, "Which one of you is Lefty Lazar? This is for you. I suggest you read it." He left an envelope on bar which foreshadowed Americans and Russians in space together, as well as the famous interracial kiss on national television.
The highway patrolman was Gene Roddenberry, the producer of Star Trek, whose vision, I believe, really helped shape the world once Lefty Lazar helped him get it on TV.
Far less boring, I find, is the transcendentalist, abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker who delivered sermons in Boston that were written down and published and made their way to a lawyer in Illinois named William Herndon who passed them on to his partner Abraham Lincoln.
Ulike many other reverends, he didn't split from his church, despite its racism, because he saw it as it could be:
"By Christianity, I mean that form of religion which consists of piety -- the love of God and morality -- the keeping of His laws. That is not the Christianity of the Christian church, nor of any sect. It is the ideal religion which the human race has been groping for."
When William Lloyd Garrison burned the US Constitution because it's a racist document, and it is, on its face, Theodore Parker endorsed our form of government, imperfect tho it was, because it was leading inexorably toward pure democracy:
"This is not the democracy of the parties, but it is that ideal government, the reign of righteousness, the kingdom of justice, which all noble hearts long for, and labor to produce, the ideal whereunto mankind slowly draws near."
With respect to ending slavery in America, Parker believed in the philosophy of "Blossoms in March, buds in May, apples in September." And his teachings helped bring it about. He was Lincoln's favorite author.
In 1949, in Los Angeles, California, a motorcyle patrolman walked into a bar called the Cock and Bull and asked, "Which one of you is Lefty Lazar? This is for you. I suggest you read it." He left an envelope on bar which foreshadowed Americans and Russians in space together, as well as the famous interracial kiss on national television.
The highway patrolman was Gene Roddenberry, the producer of Star Trek, whose vision, I believe, really helped shape the world once Lefty Lazar helped him get it on TV.
If you want to see Russians and Americans in space, just look skyward. And if you want to see interracial kisses, just look around you. They are the hope of the world. We can all become one race, and it's easier than you might think.
For me the message is that if you have a vision that you believe in, it might take a course that you don't expect, but you should stick to it. There are so many rivers and streams that all flow into the same great ocean.
Theofore Parker saw the "bossoms in March" and the "buds in May," but died in 1860 so he didn't see the apples in September. But I'm confident he knew they were coming and I have no doubt he will rest in peace, with the thanks of a grateful nation.
¶ 6:27 PM 0 comments
For me the message is that if you have a vision that you believe in, it might take a course that you don't expect, but you should stick to it. There are so many rivers and streams that all flow into the same great ocean.
Theofore Parker saw the "bossoms in March" and the "buds in May," but died in 1860 so he didn't see the apples in September. But I'm confident he knew they were coming and I have no doubt he will rest in peace, with the thanks of a grateful nation.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Developing as a Writer
.
One of the coolest things about working for GoNOMAD is editing stories by people from all walks of life all over the world, including our bright and lively college interns. You get to see people develop as writers.
GoNOMAD has been a springboard for many writers whose work you might see in the New York Times or the Atlantic Monthly.
We have some writers for whom English is a second language and some who are dyslexic and will never be able to spell, and even if they use a spell checker, they're going to miss homonym problems like plane/plain, bear/bare and compliment/complement.
That's why I thank my lucky stars every day that in the 21st century, there is still a need for good old fashioned copy editing.
Some of our most prestigious writers don't actually know what constitutes a complete sentence, and you know what? It would take a heck of a lot longer to explain it to them than it does to tidy up their copy. For me, after twenty years as a print journalist and speech writer, it's like rolling off a log. Their meaning is always clear and it's easy to elucidate it.
It's better for the writers to go on writing great stories without having to worry about some arcane body of grammatical rules. You can always find an under-employed ivy leaguer to fix it up for you.
What I just noticed, looking over my Houston story, and I never thought about this before, was how I myself am developing as a writer. I noticed how different writers have influenced my style:
Kent St. John, dangling over Macau or dancing in the bedouin camp like Elaine on Seinfeld. Max Hartshorne floating through a luminescent Hungarian cave or going the full monty at a nudist resort in California.
Sony Stark sleeping on a park bench in Quebec City or fighting off army ants in a Buddhist temple in Vietnam, Paul Shoul savoring tapas in a bar in Bilbao or checking out the Basque community in Boise, Idaho.
Or Janis Turk's brilliant story about New Orleans Rising, or Marina Solovyov walking the Way of St. James, or Roman Skaskiw climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, Matt Kadey's bike stories, Mridula Dwivedi's treks, Kelly Westhoff's quest for the fabled Ombu tree...
And David Rich -- the second story he sent us was called "Call Me Tammy." He had been to Bike Week in Sturgis, South Dakota (half a million Harleys) but he came in riding on the back of someone else's bike, so the Harley hags called him a Tammy. He wore it like a badge of honor and I said right there and then that I was going to put this guy's stories up exactly the way he sent them, a decision I have never regretted.
What I realized looking over my own stories was how much all these writers have changed the way I write. They all have their own unique ways of putting themselves in their stories, because, without that. all you've got is a Wikipedia entry.
But if you get to the sixteenth paragraph of your story and you still haven't said where you are or what you're doing, that might be a good sign that you're oversharing.
All these GoNOMAD writers walk that line in their own way, and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to work with them because it fosters my own development as a writer.
For one thing, I'm braver. "Be bold," my friend Vernon advises. "Strong unseen forces will work in your favor."
Like in my latest story I say "What I took away from my visit to Houston was the city's relaxed atmosphere that allows everybody to be themselves."
That's incorrect. It should be "him or herself."
For those who would insist on grammatical exactitude, I have a scholarly rejoinder based on exhaustive studies of the American idiom:
"I'm talking American here, buddy. You got a problem with that?"
. ¶ 8:08 PM 4 comments
One of the coolest things about working for GoNOMAD is editing stories by people from all walks of life all over the world, including our bright and lively college interns. You get to see people develop as writers.
GoNOMAD has been a springboard for many writers whose work you might see in the New York Times or the Atlantic Monthly.
We have some writers for whom English is a second language and some who are dyslexic and will never be able to spell, and even if they use a spell checker, they're going to miss homonym problems like plane/plain, bear/bare and compliment/complement.
That's why I thank my lucky stars every day that in the 21st century, there is still a need for good old fashioned copy editing.
Some of our most prestigious writers don't actually know what constitutes a complete sentence, and you know what? It would take a heck of a lot longer to explain it to them than it does to tidy up their copy. For me, after twenty years as a print journalist and speech writer, it's like rolling off a log. Their meaning is always clear and it's easy to elucidate it.
It's better for the writers to go on writing great stories without having to worry about some arcane body of grammatical rules. You can always find an under-employed ivy leaguer to fix it up for you.
What I just noticed, looking over my Houston story, and I never thought about this before, was how I myself am developing as a writer. I noticed how different writers have influenced my style:
Kent St. John, dangling over Macau or dancing in the bedouin camp like Elaine on Seinfeld. Max Hartshorne floating through a luminescent Hungarian cave or going the full monty at a nudist resort in California.
Sony Stark sleeping on a park bench in Quebec City or fighting off army ants in a Buddhist temple in Vietnam, Paul Shoul savoring tapas in a bar in Bilbao or checking out the Basque community in Boise, Idaho.
Or Janis Turk's brilliant story about New Orleans Rising, or Marina Solovyov walking the Way of St. James, or Roman Skaskiw climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, Matt Kadey's bike stories, Mridula Dwivedi's treks, Kelly Westhoff's quest for the fabled Ombu tree...
And David Rich -- the second story he sent us was called "Call Me Tammy." He had been to Bike Week in Sturgis, South Dakota (half a million Harleys) but he came in riding on the back of someone else's bike, so the Harley hags called him a Tammy. He wore it like a badge of honor and I said right there and then that I was going to put this guy's stories up exactly the way he sent them, a decision I have never regretted.
What I realized looking over my own stories was how much all these writers have changed the way I write. They all have their own unique ways of putting themselves in their stories, because, without that. all you've got is a Wikipedia entry.
But if you get to the sixteenth paragraph of your story and you still haven't said where you are or what you're doing, that might be a good sign that you're oversharing.
All these GoNOMAD writers walk that line in their own way, and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to work with them because it fosters my own development as a writer.
For one thing, I'm braver. "Be bold," my friend Vernon advises. "Strong unseen forces will work in your favor."
Like in my latest story I say "What I took away from my visit to Houston was the city's relaxed atmosphere that allows everybody to be themselves."
That's incorrect. It should be "him or herself."
For those who would insist on grammatical exactitude, I have a scholarly rejoinder based on exhaustive studies of the American idiom:
"I'm talking American here, buddy. You got a problem with that?"
. ¶ 8:08 PM 4 comments
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Heading for the Light
I found a cassette of the Traveling Wilbury's, and I've been playing it whenever I have to travel in an enclosed vehicle. All the songs are great, tho' I'm a little sick of the Monkey Man, and they always get these really great groves going.
The lyrics always sound like they're made up on the spot, but that's not a bad thing. Dylan comes up with this:
"It was in Pittsburgh
Late one night.
I lost my hat,
got into a fight.
Rolled and tumbled
Til I saw the light.
Went to the big apple,
Took a bite."
And Tom Petty has a great verse:
"Maybe somewhere down the road a ways
You'll think of me, and wonder where I am these days.
Maybe somewhere down the road a ways
When somebody plays...
Purple Haze."
But as I play it over and over I find I love the George Harrison songs best of all, like Heading for the Light:
Been close to the edge, hanging by my fingernails
I've rolled and I've tumbled through the roses and the thorns
And I couldn't see the sign that warned me,
Heading for the light
I didn't see that big black cloud hanging over me
And when the rain came down I was nearly drowned
I didn't know the mess I was in.
My shoes are wearing out from walking down this same highway
I don't see nothing new but I feel a lot of change
And I get the strangest feeling, that I'm
Heading for the light.
My hands were tied,
Jokers and fools on either side
But still I kept on till the worst had gone.
Now I see the hole I was in.
I see the sun ahead, I ain't never looking back
All the dreams are coming true as I think of you.
Now there's nothing in the way to stop me
Heading for the light. ¶ 10:14 PM 1 comments
The lyrics always sound like they're made up on the spot, but that's not a bad thing. Dylan comes up with this:
"It was in Pittsburgh
Late one night.
I lost my hat,
got into a fight.
Rolled and tumbled
Til I saw the light.
Went to the big apple,
Took a bite."
And Tom Petty has a great verse:
"Maybe somewhere down the road a ways
You'll think of me, and wonder where I am these days.
Maybe somewhere down the road a ways
When somebody plays...
Purple Haze."
But as I play it over and over I find I love the George Harrison songs best of all, like Heading for the Light:
Been close to the edge, hanging by my fingernails
I've rolled and I've tumbled through the roses and the thorns
And I couldn't see the sign that warned me,
Heading for the light
I didn't see that big black cloud hanging over me
And when the rain came down I was nearly drowned
I didn't know the mess I was in.
My shoes are wearing out from walking down this same highway
I don't see nothing new but I feel a lot of change
And I get the strangest feeling, that I'm
Heading for the light.
My hands were tied,
Jokers and fools on either side
But still I kept on till the worst had gone.
Now I see the hole I was in.
I see the sun ahead, I ain't never looking back
All the dreams are coming true as I think of you.
Now there's nothing in the way to stop me
Heading for the light. ¶ 10:14 PM 1 comments
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Pre-Code Movies and Salacious Paperbacks
.
The books would bear this out, too. They were from all different periods with none of the contemporaneous clusters you usually find when one family member or another happened to be a big reader.
There were lots of old arithmetic books, early 1800s and some gazettes that were really old too and those can be fun to read, but not that fun. I don't collect them. Life's too short. And old beat-up books aren't really worth anything, generally speaking, even old family bibles.
I did decide to spend a dollar on an old book called The Story of an African Farm by Ralph Iron, and then right under it in parentheses it says Olive Scheiner, so maybe Ralph Iron is a pen name, but if that's the case why put the real name underneath?
Maybe the author assumes a persona as narrator the way H. Rider Haggard becomes Horace Holly in She.
Back in the old days people could spend years figuring things like this out, but a quick trip to Wikipedia reveals the following:
"The Story of an African Farm (published 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron) was South African author Olive Schreiner's first novel. It was an immediate success and has become recognised as one of the first feminist novels."
I was going to guess from the binding around 1870.
And from the summary of the 2005 movie I find that there's an ostrich named Oswald, so I guess I'll have to read it. It's pretty beat up already, so it might fall apart, but that's the chance you take with old books.
I also forked over a dollar for a Horatio Alger novel called Tom the Boot Black with the title page missing. Horatio Alger is like the Bobbsey Twins. There's kind of an urban legend that there are collectors out there who will pay big bucks for them. If there are I haven't met them, but if you know of one email me and I'll cut you in.
Also, The Chinese Parrot, a Charlie Chan mystery by Earl der Biggers. And an intriguing looking volume in pretty good shape called The Bitter Tea of General Yen by Grace Zaring Stone. Wiki says the book was published in 1932, but someone has written 1945 on the fly leaf, which makes sense because it's a Reader's League of America edition.
Wiki also says Frank Capra made a movie of it in 1933 starring Barbara Stanwyck, and not just an ordinary movie, a "pre-code movie." Va va voom! Hard to imagine Victoria Barkley from The Big Valley in a get-up like that... or is it? Hmmm...
Then there's a salacious looking paperback from the 50s in great shape called The Roman and the Slave Girl by John Medford Morgan, which, it says on the first page, is "a robust and racy novel about ancient Britain where the wild pagan orgies were rivaled only by the barbaric slaughter," so it appears to have something for everyone.
Wiki says it hasn't been made into a movie that we know of... yet!
¶ 9:27 PM 1 comments
I found an interesting estate sale in Amherst last week. I got a nice set of vintage luggage from the 1940s maybe, three suitcases that fit inside one another. It was in the original box, so I figure the decedent whose estate it was was a collector. If you're buying suitcases to use you generally throw away the box.
The books would bear this out, too. They were from all different periods with none of the contemporaneous clusters you usually find when one family member or another happened to be a big reader.
There were lots of old arithmetic books, early 1800s and some gazettes that were really old too and those can be fun to read, but not that fun. I don't collect them. Life's too short. And old beat-up books aren't really worth anything, generally speaking, even old family bibles.
I did decide to spend a dollar on an old book called The Story of an African Farm by Ralph Iron, and then right under it in parentheses it says Olive Scheiner, so maybe Ralph Iron is a pen name, but if that's the case why put the real name underneath?
Maybe the author assumes a persona as narrator the way H. Rider Haggard becomes Horace Holly in She.
Back in the old days people could spend years figuring things like this out, but a quick trip to Wikipedia reveals the following:
"The Story of an African Farm (published 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron) was South African author Olive Schreiner's first novel. It was an immediate success and has become recognised as one of the first feminist novels."
I was going to guess from the binding around 1870.
And from the summary of the 2005 movie I find that there's an ostrich named Oswald, so I guess I'll have to read it. It's pretty beat up already, so it might fall apart, but that's the chance you take with old books.
I also forked over a dollar for a Horatio Alger novel called Tom the Boot Black with the title page missing. Horatio Alger is like the Bobbsey Twins. There's kind of an urban legend that there are collectors out there who will pay big bucks for them. If there are I haven't met them, but if you know of one email me and I'll cut you in.
Also, The Chinese Parrot, a Charlie Chan mystery by Earl der Biggers. And an intriguing looking volume in pretty good shape called The Bitter Tea of General Yen by Grace Zaring Stone. Wiki says the book was published in 1932, but someone has written 1945 on the fly leaf, which makes sense because it's a Reader's League of America edition.
Wiki also says Frank Capra made a movie of it in 1933 starring Barbara Stanwyck, and not just an ordinary movie, a "pre-code movie." Va va voom! Hard to imagine Victoria Barkley from The Big Valley in a get-up like that... or is it? Hmmm...
Then there's a salacious looking paperback from the 50s in great shape called The Roman and the Slave Girl by John Medford Morgan, which, it says on the first page, is "a robust and racy novel about ancient Britain where the wild pagan orgies were rivaled only by the barbaric slaughter," so it appears to have something for everyone.
Wiki says it hasn't been made into a movie that we know of... yet!
Monday, August 03, 2009
The Fine Art of Being Yourself
Tonight I took the bull by the horns and finished my Houston story. It took seven hours of intense grappling, but it's done. I have a deal with GoNOMAD that when I'm fussing over my stories, I do it off the clock, as one of our writers would do.
I can't wait to go in tomorrow and pop in the photos. That I can do on the clock because I do it for all our writers.
This Houston story was really hard because, for one thing, I had a great time and our hosts were so gracious and such nice people that I really wanted to do justice to the destination and hold up the GoNOMAD reputation.
And I've always done too much fussing over pieces with my name on them. My freelance career was, like, "Wow, they paid me $200 and it only took three weeks. At this rate I'll be... bankrupt soon."
On top of that, I visited my Houstonian friends Geoff Walker and Ann Kennedy, whom I deeply love and admire, and I had to write something that hopefully they would like, too.
The whole thing came together when I figured out how to put myself into the story. A lot of our writers do this naturally, but for me it takes a while to figure out.
I had devised a title, "Houston Texas: A Great Place to Be Yourself" which I liked. I think what took almost three months was the line, "Being yourself sounds like a simple proposition, but in my experience, it's not; and it is from literature, music and the arts that we learn from others how to do a better job of it."
I had been bowled over by some great exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art which I'm definitely going to work into a gallery, but talking about them would have been an overlong sidetrack from the main story -- stuff that I find really interesting, but many readers might not.
One guy had a bible rotating on a turntable in a diorama about his college days -- see he had me right there, tho' someone else might not get it. It was in a plexiglass case with cigarette butts, empty liquor bottles and albums from the 70s that served as a bar where he sold drinks in the museum.
Another guy had a junk shop in the museum where he sold stuff. He had a painting called Ocean of Tears that I'm thinking of purchasing and donating to the Museum of Bad Art in my hometown of Dedham, Massachusetts.
And there were lots of other great exhibits like Gallery 1.6 and the Fundred Dollar Bill Project, and so many others.
But all this stuff was too difficult to explain.
Instead I invoked two Houston artists who have made an impact on the world in a uniquely Houston way. The postal worker who created the backyard museum known as the Orange Show, dedicated to his favorite fruit, that spawned the foundation that brought you the Art Car Parade, and the Beer Can House guy who spent 40 years siding his house with beer cans and making curtains out of ring tops.
Here were guys who had a lot of great ideas about how to be yourself.
Then I found the student named Roxanne who decided to be an artist after visiting the Orange Show. Her teacher left a comment on the Orange Show website.
And I realized, here it was, the spark being passed along. After that it was a piece of cake. ¶ 11:47 PM 1 comments
I can't wait to go in tomorrow and pop in the photos. That I can do on the clock because I do it for all our writers.
This Houston story was really hard because, for one thing, I had a great time and our hosts were so gracious and such nice people that I really wanted to do justice to the destination and hold up the GoNOMAD reputation.
And I've always done too much fussing over pieces with my name on them. My freelance career was, like, "Wow, they paid me $200 and it only took three weeks. At this rate I'll be... bankrupt soon."
On top of that, I visited my Houstonian friends Geoff Walker and Ann Kennedy, whom I deeply love and admire, and I had to write something that hopefully they would like, too.
The whole thing came together when I figured out how to put myself into the story. A lot of our writers do this naturally, but for me it takes a while to figure out.
I had devised a title, "Houston Texas: A Great Place to Be Yourself" which I liked. I think what took almost three months was the line, "Being yourself sounds like a simple proposition, but in my experience, it's not; and it is from literature, music and the arts that we learn from others how to do a better job of it."
I had been bowled over by some great exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art which I'm definitely going to work into a gallery, but talking about them would have been an overlong sidetrack from the main story -- stuff that I find really interesting, but many readers might not.
One guy had a bible rotating on a turntable in a diorama about his college days -- see he had me right there, tho' someone else might not get it. It was in a plexiglass case with cigarette butts, empty liquor bottles and albums from the 70s that served as a bar where he sold drinks in the museum.
Another guy had a junk shop in the museum where he sold stuff. He had a painting called Ocean of Tears that I'm thinking of purchasing and donating to the Museum of Bad Art in my hometown of Dedham, Massachusetts.
And there were lots of other great exhibits like Gallery 1.6 and the Fundred Dollar Bill Project, and so many others.
But all this stuff was too difficult to explain.
Instead I invoked two Houston artists who have made an impact on the world in a uniquely Houston way. The postal worker who created the backyard museum known as the Orange Show, dedicated to his favorite fruit, that spawned the foundation that brought you the Art Car Parade, and the Beer Can House guy who spent 40 years siding his house with beer cans and making curtains out of ring tops.
Here were guys who had a lot of great ideas about how to be yourself.
Then I found the student named Roxanne who decided to be an artist after visiting the Orange Show. Her teacher left a comment on the Orange Show website.
And I realized, here it was, the spark being passed along. After that it was a piece of cake. ¶ 11:47 PM 1 comments
