Topic 213: Voices

Carol:

Voices from the Blogosphere

Our New York Times subscription is a small but pricey indulgence. I love sitting at the dining-room table Sunday mornings and reading:  “Travel,” that showcases exotic getaways we can’t afford; “Arts and Entertainment,” that reviews plays and films we will never get to see;  “Book Reviews,” that lists the authors and books we don’t have time to read. However, my favorite section is the “Sunday Magazine,” which I read just about cover to cover—backwards.
 

I start with the last page column called “Lives.” Writers --profession and non—reveal the little, jewel-like moments we call “slice of life.” When I was teaching, I would   use “Lives” essays to show how good writing often comes in small packages wrapped in natural voices. One such essay was Avi Steinberg’s “A Prison-Library Reunion,” which caught my eye last October because, well, by now everyone knows an ex- prison librarian lives in my home right now.
 

 I enjoyed the essay until I saw the end note. Mr. Steinberg’s piece was adapted from his forthcoming memoir, Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian. How dare he write the book that was going to make my daughter famous! I broke the news to Megan that her idea had been stolen, but she bought Steinberg’s book and highly recommends it.

This week, I didn’t have time to read the Sunday NY Times on Sunday, so I read it at Quixote’s Garage where I volunteer.  I grabbed the “Sunday Magazine” first, as usual. After reading “Lives,” washing a few dishes, getting someone’s mail, and greeting a few folks,  I working my way from page 50 back to page 44 and a column called “Riff” by Maud Newton.  I, like, totally identified with Newton’s comments about the evolving use of voice by essayists—professional and non—and how mixed, shaken and poured the language of the blogosphere has become. She blames it on David Foster Wallace, then she sort of blames Dave Eggers for passing on even further what she calls “the stylized mess that is Gen X and-Y Internet syntax” (Newton 46). Newton really seems to hate the way bloggers have gotten into using the word “folks.” 

When I finished Newton’s essay, I jotted down a little note before getting back to washing dishes and playing solitaire. “Note to myself: Megan should read this essay even if Newton maligns Eggers.” Note to readers: Megan loves Dave Eggers, reads all his books, subscribes to his quirky journal McSweeney’s and has attended numerous Eggers readings, even in England.
 

 Avi Steinberg abandoned the temporary job of prison librarian and is now a published author.  Maud Newton abandoned the practice of law and is now a published author. Avi and Maud also have blogs.
 

I couldn’t find a blog for Dave. Maybe… he’s just too busy. Like, folks, um, Dave Eggers spends a lot of his time and money helping kids learn to love writing through his 826 National non-profit organization. Friday is National Youth Literacy Day and “826 on 8/26.” In gratitude, I’ll give Dave the last words:

“Some of these kids just don't plain know how good they are: how smart and how much they have to say. You can tell them. You can shine that light on them, one human interaction at a time.”

Sources:
Avi Steinberg blog.
Maud Newton blog.
Newton, Maud. ‘Really Pretty much the Only One That, Um, You know, Got It.” New
                  York Times Magazine. 21 Aug 2011 p 44.
Steinberg, Avi. “A Prison-Library Reunion.” New York Times 1 Oct 2010.                  
Dave Eggers and 826 National.

Megan:

 I’m in a hurry today because we are leaving for California early tomorrow morning, and there is a lot to do to prepare for a week away. The packing is mostly complete, but I have several assignments due over the next week and I’d rather not have to worry about them while I’m away. The great thing about online classes is apparently that you can work on them from anywhere, but I’m more productive and efficient if I am working in my office than if I am working from a motel room or a friend’s house.

And the voices in my head are rebelling against this project, telling me I should just leave it until we get back because there’s too much else that needs to be done.  But this was supposed to be yesterday’s topic though, and Mom has written hers. I didn’t write yesterday because I had a job interview (it went well, I think). 

So, I apologize, but this is all you get. 

Topic 179: On Being Worth Knowing

Carol:

   

                Vocabulary Lessons

Things are worth knowing as well as people. 

I think it’s worth knowing how to read cookbooks.I have lots of cookbooks, some of which I bought for their photographs or drawings-- like my cookbooks from Provence. I still have the first cookbook I ever owned, Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls (1957), which I  use once in a while because the recipes are uncomplicated and jargon-free. The vocabulary of cooking can be daunting, an extensive polyglot when we evolve from basic to gourmet, from child’s play to Childs’ play : Bechamel, Bernaise, Bordelaise, Hollandaise, Meuniere.  The serious cook learns how to move from “eggs in a frame” to “egg soufflé,” how to master the wrist movement for flipping, folding or whipping an egg.  And the master chef learns the difference between a dash of this and a soupcon of that, a pinch of this and a hint of that.

A Tort. In case you didn't know.

I think it’s worth knowing how to read music. I enjoy looking at a piece of music and being able to read it just like a book because it has its own vocabulary, tells its own story.  The composer not only shows us which sound to sing or play, but how quickly or slowly to play it, how long to hold the sound, and even what mood to express. The writer gives us less to work with although descriptive words like adjectives and adverbs help create the mood. I like looking at a piece of music and hearing it in my head, imagining my fingers picking out the notes on a piano.  I can tell by looking at the following piece of music by Chopin that I would butcher it if I didn’t practice a little bit at a time. Its speed “andantino” is a little faster than andante, which has “vigor or spirit.” The piece also has three sharps, which adds another layer of difficulty for me as my fingers are required to stretch ever so slightly up from the white to the black keys.

I also think it’s worth knowing how to read maps. I love maps, and my family teases me because I pour over maps and prefer  a wrinkled and torn paper roadmap to even the most soothing computer voice of a GPS.  Reading maps is like reading music. There is a vocabulary of sorts to map-reading, knowing what the thickness and color of a  line says about the condition of the road, whether or not its route is scenic or speedy, whether it bypasses a major city, etc. City maps are not only useful for navigating new places, but they  show a “mood” by how the streets are laid out (mathematical grids or whimsical snakes), how many parks and natural spaces are incorporated into the design of the city, where the public transportation lines go.

 

I guess I am passionate about all kinds of reading: the vocabulary, notations and abbreviations that translate the three-dimensional world of sound, sight and taste onto a flat page. I may not be a gourmet cook or a world-class musician, but I think it’s worth knowing that a torte differs from a cake in that it contains almost no flour, that I can find  my way from a cheap hotel on the outskirts of Vienna to the five-star Sacher Hotel to indulge in a piece of delectable chocolate Sachertort before I plan the shortest route to from the hotel in the first district to the third district  Konzerthaus  for an afternoon concert of Viennese waltzes.
 

Oh, yes. I absolutely believe it’s worth knowing another language. Vocabulary Lesson #1:

Source:
Sachertort: Simfan34. Sachertort, Café Sacher, Vienna. Wikipedia 
        

Megan:

Networking for (Insecure) Dummies

I suppose, on a social level,  most people consider themselves worth knowing. I certainly do. I’ve said before that it takes some effort to get to know me. As is probably the case with a lot of writers, I’m more confident on paper than I am in person. I find small talk with strangers excruciating. I’m trying to work on that because I hate being the person at the party alone in the corner or hovering around the one person I know. I don’t want to stand around with the other outsiders; I want to participate. As usual though, I’m starting slow. I made a joke with the barista at my regular coffee house. I comment on the weather with my softball teammates (most of whom I don’t know). By the end of the season, I might ask about their weekend.

But there’s another way to look at this topic, and that is being worth knowing career-wise. I’m talking about professional networking.

To aid in my job search, I have “liked” and subscribed to a number of advice columns and library list-servs. I followed the advice about “branding” myself and establishing a professional presence online. I joined relevant groups on LinkedIn and followed big names in the library profession on Twitter. I made business cards.

What I haven’t done is joined in the conversation. In the job seeking circles there are numerous threads and discussions about the effectiveness of personal branding etc. There are also a lot of complaints about the economy, library closures and long-term unemployment. I find these topics depressing and unhelpful. If I sit around participating in the whining circle, I start to remember that in addition to being unemployed,  I’m turning 30 in a few months, I live with my parents and I am single. The male version of this cliche would be playing video games in the basement. But I’m writing blog posts in the shed about how I have nothing to contribute.

This is all the more frustrating for me because I used to be worth knowing. The community of prison librarians in the UK is  small, but  active. When I worked at the prison, I was on the national committee. I was a person other people called for help, for advice, and for information. I helped plan and execute training days and annual conferences. Professionally, I had a lot of potential and I was ambitious and … I totally burned out. But that was because of the prison, not the job.

Anyway, next week I’m going to New Orleans for the ALA annual conference. I will be volunteering in a school library and attending a job fair. I will make jokes and talk about the weather. I will go armed with a fistful of resumes and business cards and if anyone follows the address to my website they’ll be directed here.

Um.  I may not have thought this through.

Topic 143: Earth Bound

Carol:

Star Gazing

My favorite scenes of Huckleberry Finn are those where Huck and Jim left the high adventures of land for the river and the raft.  They hid on shore during daylight  while steamboats and smaller vessels carried passengers and freight along the Mississippi between the North and the South.
 

When dark began to fall and the river traffic subsided, Huck and Jim would set out again on their water journey. As midnight approached and the world nodded off to sleep, Jim and Huck relaxed their vigilance, looked upward at the infinity of stars, and began to philosophize:

We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened- Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many. (Ch. 19)

As the two runaways allowed the raft to drift quietly in the current, they must have come as close as one can get, while still earth-bound, to the sensation of floating through space.
 

This scene captures a moment when we look up at the night sky, wonder at the immensity of it all, and consider our tiny part in the pattern of the universe. Such moments often lead to “what if” discussions—what if there is life on those stars, what if they are looking back at us, what if we could travel to the back side of the moon?
 

The great astronomers of the Renaissance, Kepler and Copernicus, must have looked up to the skies in wonder long before they shifted from the philosophy of  “what if” to the science of “what, when and how.” Even before Galileo’s telescope brought the stars closer to earth, people were imagining what it would be like to leave behind the boundaries of earth and fly up to the heavens. In the early 17th century, probably around 1600, an English bishop named Francis Godwin wrote the earliest science fiction book in English, The Man in the Moone, published under the name “Domingo Gonsales.” (source: Wikipedia).
 

About two hundred years later, a young Jules Verne spent summers with his family in a house by the Loire River.  He would later attribute those idyllic summers to awakening in his imagination dreams of voyages to inner and outer worlds. Did he too lie awake at night, gazing up at the starry sky and write stories in his head, the seeds of 54 novels, including From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Around the Moon (1870) and Off on a Comet (1877)?
 

What about Mark Twain?  The man who liked to tell the world he was born in the year of Halley’s Comet made fun of his older brother Orion Clemens for reading the fantastical works of Verne.  Did Samuel Clemens lie awake on the river, gazing up at the stars and imagining far-away worlds and drifting silently  in space?
 

The science and imagination of the 20th century finally made space travel a reality, and the first men to walk on the moon were probably childhood star-gazers themselves. When Apollo 11 landed on the moon in July 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong shared the reflections of his crew on their moon walk by beginning with a reference to Jules Verne.  Their historic mission completed, the men of Apollo 11 boarded their space raft and lay back in wonder as, earth bound, they saw above them the water-blue planet Earth hanging in the sky.  

From the Moon to the Earth

 

Sources: 
The Man in the Moone. Wikipedia. 

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  1885.              

Verne, Jules. Wikipedia.

Megan:

Bound to the Earth

Yesterday, I went to a presentation at the Prescott Public Library by Carolyn O’Bagy Davis, about her book Hopi Summer: Letters from Ethel to Maud, which is this year’s selection for the OneBookAZ project (every year in April, Arizonans are encouraged to read the same book and then talk about it with each other).  

The book is about a Depression-era Massachusetts family who took a 9-month road trip around the country.  In the course of their travels, they spent some time at Hopiland , which sparked a lengthy correspondence between the matriarch of the family and a Hopi potter. It is a true story and the author uses excerpts from a journal and photographs taken on the trip, as well as the letters themselves.  The book, which I have not yet finished, isn’t particularly uplifting, but it’s clear that both the author and her subject share a deep fascination with the Hopi culture.

In the book, Ms. Davis details some of the ceremonies and rituals undertaken by the traditional Hopi to appease the spirits, in particular the sacrifice of an Eagle who they believed acted as a messenger to the spirit world. The eagle would report that the Hopi were living in the proper way, and then the spirits would send rain for their crops. Ms. Davis assured the audience that although tourism and modern technology have altered much about the daily lives of the Hopi, there are still many who adhere to the traditional ways.

Ms. Davis’s presentation made me think about how a dependence on the earth and the weather for survival once led to polytheistic worship of these elements. I wonder if the shift to monotheistic religions which worship a deity “not of this world” has aided the divorce of  people from the land. It used to be that one appeased the gods by showing respect to the earth. I know there are people within the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths who consider stewardship of the Earth part of their responsibility to their god, but for the most part modern religion emphasize that life on earth is a temporary test of an individual, rather than a cyclical rhythm of a collective.

Setting aside religion, science and technology have also created a rift between humanity and the land. Now that we understand the science behind farming and cultivation, it seems that our humility and respect for the earth has been stripped away along with the mystery.

I’m really only musing about this idea and I’m not offering any real solutions. Sometimes I feel like it is too late – we (in the US, at least) are too accustomed to our artificial comforts to be able to return to the earth. And then I see evidence all around me, within my own family, of proof to the contrary. I’m no farmer, but maybe I could be.

Yesterday, when I was too busy to write, I asked Mom if we could delay because I was intrigued by the topic – mostly because it seemed ambiguous. Earth can mean the planet we live on, or the soil below our feet. Bound can mean tied or destined.  But after thinking about the Hopi and the “old ways”, I realize there is no difference between the planet we live on and the soil below, and bound, tied and destined all mean the same thing – inescapable dependence.

Topic 137: Intellectual Pioneers

Carol:

Curiosity Did Not Kill This Cat           

I love the inventiveness of the designers who can stylize the word “Google” to pay tribute to a special event or person. Thursday’s tribute showed  a science lab table set up with glass vials, a flame, even a coffee pot, and a maze of tubes configured to spell out G-O-O-G-L-E. Aha, it was Robert Bunsen’s 200th birthday.
 

Name  recognition.  We throw around  lots of names without having any idea what they signify. I haven’t been in a science lab for many years, but I recognize a Bunsen burner or a Petri dish. Just as I know what Apgar score, Morse Code, Richter Scale and Braille system refer to. Significant inventions, but what do we know about the inventors and scientists whose names have been branded into our memory banks?
 

I’m probably typical of many Americans who accumulate trivial “factoids” about popular culture and celebrities but can’t name a pioneer in mathematics, astrophysics, biochemistry, or macroeconomics. Well, maybe I can name somebody, a man whose creative and intellectual interests span so many fields that, according to Wikipedia, his books are found in 8 of the 10 major Dewey Decimal System categories, the man who made robotics famous, Isaac Asimov (1920-1992).
 

Rowena Morril's painting of Asimov.

I never really thought much about the science—or the scientist—behind my favorite science fiction: the Foundation Series, Nightfall, and the Robot Series.  Out of respect for the subject, I will head to the Isaac Asimov Homepage, a site that is short on glitz and long on substance. It  lists all of the books and essays this prolific author has written, including 1600 essays from science fiction magazines and other sources such as Science World, Chemical and Engineering News, The Humanist, and Space World. The topics touch on just about every “logy”: psycho, geo, zoo, bio.  According to homepage authors Seiler and Hatcher, Asimov’s genius  was not just in the breadth of his intellectual curiosity and his depth of knowledge but in his ability to explain complex information in a simple way.
 

In 1982, the 2nd  Revised Edition was published of Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. The book contains 1510 names, some of which would surprise no one (Newton, Kepler, Faraday) and a few who might seem out of place (Alexander Pope and William Wordsworth). In a 2009 review of the book, Robert Wilfred Franson comments: “Asimov's scope is the vast range of human science and technology. He seems equally at home in discussing theory and experiment and invention, medicine and chemistry and rocketry.” Just as Seiler and Hatcher noted, Franson emphasizes Asimov’s ability to make complex material accessible to a general audience.
 

Dr. Asimov collected numerous awards  over the years, including 14 honorary doctorates.  He has been recognized by such diverse groups as the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation, the American Heart Association, and of course the science fiction community.   An asteroid is named after him, and in 2009 a crater on Mars. Behind all the scientific accolades and writing accomplishments was a man with a personality, humanity and sense of humor: “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
 

It looks like I missed the Isaac Asimov Memorial Panel Debate at New York’s Hayden Planetarium again this year. The topic was “The Theory of Everything… Still Searching.” Quite an impressive group of credentials although, of course, I didn’t recognize any  of their names. They are mostly Physics professors working on string theory, superstring theory, loop quantum gravity, and the detection of dark matter. Asimov would have loved it.

Sources:
Franson, Robert Wilfred.  Review.
Johns Hopkins University. Bio of Edward Seiler.  
Isaac Asimov Home Page.
Isaac Asimov Biography. Wikipedia.
Rowena Morrill  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isaac_Asimov_on_Throne.png

Megan:

So, this is one of those topics that gets Mom all excited because it means research. When I moaned about it, she suggested I write about the president of the college I went to because she was the first female president of a college west of the Mississippi. I find that difficult to believe because the school, first a seminary then a college,  is 158 years old, and has always been west of the Mississippi. Also, it has always been a woman’s college except for two weeks in 1990, which resulted in the college needing a new president.  Anyway, I know there was a female president before this one. But I’m not going to prove it because I’m not in the mood for research right now.

I was talking to my Dad on the way home tonight about how I completely forgot to mention this website in the interview I had last week – didn’t conceal it on purpose, but actually forgot to mention how I’m spending half my days. And he said that if they find it (and they will) they’ll probably want to hire my mom instead because her essays are researched and mine are silly. And I was like, thanks a lot jerk. But I didn’t actually say that, because I don’t speak that way to my father.

Look. I like this project. I didn’t think we’d make it this long, but I’m glad we’re still doing it. But this is not a job for me. I write this stuff mostly to be funny, or at least entertaining. Occasionally a topic really interests me and then I do the research, but not everything excites my curiosity. If this were my job, it would be different. I’d be answering questions, or hopefully, helping people learn how to answer their own questions. But I’m only willing to put a certain amount of time into these essays – like a maximum of an hour – because I have a lot of research and reading to do that is unrelated.

Getting my master’s degree and starting out my career in England has handicapped me. I am not saying I am unqualified to work in this country because that is absolutely not true. But librarianship is practical career and it involves a lot of different skills, most of which are honed on the job. So, while I don’t have a job, I’m spending a lot of time trying to figure out the American way – the American vocabulary, the American resources. I’ve taken classes since I got back, and spent a lot of time reading professional literature.  I’m not trying to hint that I am an intellectual pioneer, self-training for the job I eventually hope to land. I wouldn’t be getting anywhere at all without the wealth of information and advice available to unemployed librarians concerned with keeping their skills up-to-date. There are a lot of us, working while unemployed. This website is the thing I do when I’m either reflecting on it, or I want a break from it.

Especially when I realize that the thing that would help me the most, I haven’t done. I should be volunteering in a library. But I really thought that at any moment I might find a job and I didn’t want to let anyone down by suddenly quitting. Which was not a concern I had when starting this project – although it is now.

Anyway, another reason writing this essay isn’t like a job: I’m actually writing this in the middle of the night, in the middle of my bed, wearing the nightgown I tried to dress Milo in earlier today. I wish I had been able to video him running up the stairs while the little dress slid further down with each step. By the time he reached the top, it was just hanging off his tail. You probably had to be there.  

Milo wishes he wasn't there.

PS: Mills College is named after its founders, Cyrus and Susan Mills. Susan became as president of the college in 1890 and served for 19 years.  I knew this already. I’m guessing what my mom actually meant to say was that Mills was the first women’s college established west of the Rockies, and is the second oldest women’s college still in existence.

PPS: Mom has clarified to say that she meant Aureilia Henry Reinhardt (Mills President 1916 – 1943) was the first female president.  But as we’ve already established, that is wrong too.

www.mills.edu

Topic 126: Animal Resemblance in People

Carol:

Animalia Mania

I told Megan not to worry about me being late on my daily theme today because I had no intention of doing research. Generally, it takes me about four times as long as Megan to write my essays because that’s what I do, get sidetracked on all kinds of little Googly research trails. In search of animal resemblances, I looked up:

• David Naughton: loved him dancing through the Dr. Pepper commercials, then loved him even more in An American Werewolf in London, one of my favorite   wolfian incarnations);
• James Naughton: did not know he was David’s older brother; loved him in Glass Menagerie, thought to myself maybe he acted or directed in an Edward Albee play;
• Edward Albee: well, James Naughton was in Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But, I was really hoping that he was in Seascape, which Marc says is one of the best plays he has ever seen performed at the Prescott Fine Arts theater—the lizards were incredible.
• Frank Langella—omigod, did anyone know he made his broadway debut in Seascape? The same Frank Langella who was the first actor to make vampires sexy in the 1979 John Badham version of Dracula. Maybe the word is sensuous,  which neither Tom Cruise nor Brad Pitt are in Interview with the Vampire.
• Being Human—so, vampires and werewolves just kind of go together. And, this British TV series proves that they can co-exist and even like each other. Not like those shapeshifters in Twilight. Now, the British version (haven’t seen the American copy-cat) is filmed in Bristol, which looks to be about 2-3 hours west of London. London! American Werewolf in…that takes me back to David Naughton
• I’m caught in a perpetual google-loop!

But, like I said, I wasn’t going to do any research on this topic because it is too time-consuming.  And, I don’t want people to think that just because I’m retired, I have so much time on my hands that I don’t do anything but watch British TV shows on my big-screen HDTV, go to B-Grade teen flicks with my daughter, and obsessively surf the Internet.

I used to read, folks. I mean I really read a lot of great things. And I went to plays, all kinds of plays. Here is what I can say about animal resemblances in people without using the Internet.

 Great world literature:

•  Frankz Kafka--who can forget Gregor Samsa, the caripaced protagonist in   Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” Those first few lines of the story where Gregor wakes up  to realize he has turned into a cockroachian insect with multiple legs are creepy.
• Julio Cortazar’s surrealistic short stories.  In one story a man goes to a zoo to observe a group of lizards, then suddenly he becomes one of the lizards. Cortazar also wrote a great story translated as “The Man Who Vomited Rabbits,” but the man doesn’t actually resemble a rabbit.
• Eugene Ionesco's play Rhinoceros, a great example of Theater of the Absurd. I never saw the play, but in the movie version, Zero Mostel is incredible as he gradually transforms into a rhinoceros. His best acting work, I think.
• Ichabod Crane—don’t have to be a genius to get the picture of this character in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Disney got him right in the cartoon version with his long, knobby knees.
• Aristophanes’ The Frogs—haven’t read it in a long time, but Marc saw a production of it at Yale that was performed in the University swimming pool. Look it up yourself. That was the year Christopher Walken and Sigourney Weaver were both Yale drama students, so one of them might have been in that pool.
• Beauty and the Beast—an old story with many incarnations, one being Cocteau’s film, another being, okay I admit it, the B-grade teen flick Beastly I saw last week with my daughter.

I think I may have completely muddled the topic because most of the references I have made are not, strictly speaking, people who are like animals but people who become animals.

I have to wrap up this not-quite-an-essay because Megan has come up to check on my progress. She can be doggedly determined, stubborn as a mule, quiet as a mouse, wily like a fox depending on her mood. If I get this essay to her right away, maybe she will give me a great big bear-hug.

P.S. I refuse to list all the sources I went to for the first list. I blame any misinformation on the second list for faulty memory. Look them up yourselves. However, here is a gift.
Read Julio Cortazar’s story Axotol online. Here’s the link.
http://sayberklas.tripod.com/anthology_short_stories_in_english/id32.html

Megan:

People Resemblance in Animals

Yesterday, and not for the first time, Milo rolled over to escape my admittedly aggressive affection and fell off the bed. At the same time, my mother knocked over a jar of paper clips and I said, “See that? He gets his clumsiness from you.”

A simple Google search will provide plenty of proof that there are people out there who look like their pets, or who behave like animals. I worked with an officer in the prison who had a squirrell-like habit of keeping stashes of food hidden in drawers and other places around the library. But other than that one example, I can’t think of anything else to say about the topic as it is stated. So, I’m gonna reverse it and talk about Milo.

Aside from his remarkable gracelessness, my mother claims he is a very intelligent dog. He knows exactly what he can get away with from each of us in the house. Obviously, I am the most lenient and my father is the most strict. Considering that he pretends not to even like the dog, Milo hasn’t noticed. And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, that dog clearly worships my father.

Milo has studied Dad’s habit of never closing a door behind him. In the dead of winter, my father will go down to the laundry room, via the basement, and then out the garage, leaving every door in between wide open which creates a perfect tunnel of arctic wind to circulates through the house. He may claim his hands are full with the laundry or the trash, but I believe it is simple carelessness. Just as Milo is careless when he opens the sliding glass door on the porch and lets himself in after dinner. Never thinks of shutting it behind him.

And when Milo sneaks into the kitchen for a snack if he thinks no one is looking (something he may have inherited from me), he leaves the cabinet doors open too. After he finishes (or is caught) rooting through the trash, my mother will say, “Look how smart he is! He knows just where to go.”

Well, the other day, he knew just where to go when he regurgitated corncobs in the middle of the night– her room. I’d known it was coming because the last time he had corn on the cob, it was my room he puked in.  This time, I locked my door.

Speaking of having to lock my door – remember when Milo was peeing on my bed? Well, we finally figured out that  he was jealous of my cousin’s kids. He’s too rambunctious for them, so when they come over he is banished outside. The moment he is let back in, he marks the corners of my bed. My mom told me this story once about how shortly after my brother was born, she was feeding him on the couch. I resented his introduction into our family, and peed on the floor right in front of her, knowing she couldn’t get up to stop me. I wouldn’t normally reveal something like that about myself, but I can honestly say that I don’t remember doing it, and have not urinated out of jealousy in the 27 years since. I guess it’s another example of the complexity of the nature vs nurture argument. Some behaviors are learned, and others are just in the blood.

Mom and Milo

Topic 125: Beyond My Horizon

Carol:

Remember the Ladies                       

           

“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead."  Louisa May Alcott

Thank you, Louisa May Alcott, for giving American girls high aspirations through the story of four special Little Women.  Against the backdrop of the Civil War, loving Marmee struggles to raise her 4 children while their absent father serves as a chaplain in the Union Army. I might have liked history more if a teacher used Little Women as a window to the Civil War, or showed us the birth of a nation through the letters of Abigail Adams.  

Abigail Adams

March 1776 was an eventful time in our history.  The British had evacuated Boston, pulling out 11,000 soldiers, a sign of hope for leaders of the Revolution.  On March 31, John Adams received a letter from Abigail, another mother raising 4 children as an  absent father met with the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.  Abigail advises her husband: “In the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors” (source: America.gov).  

 March is National Women’s History Month. It honors women who wrote letters, marched, rallied, stayed behind, and  pushed to the front of the line-- all to gain the right to vote, raise healthy children, earn a fair living,  and dream beyond their horizons. March is a time to “Remember the Ladies.” 

 

March 8 was also the centennial of International Women’s Day. United Nations Secretary Ban Ki-moon read a  special declaration, Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton honored “International Women of Courage, “ and countries like China, Bulgaria, the Ukraine and Russia celebrated an official holiday.  That morning’s New York Times did not have a single news article photograph about International Women’s Day. I guess they forgot to “Remember the Ladies.”

The Times did include two full-page corporate advertisements.  Goldman Sachs highlighted its “10,000 Women” program, a global project to expand business and entrepreneurial opportunities for women.  L’Oreal Cosmetics announced its annual “For Women in Science” awards in partnership with UNESCO to promote women scientists and provide fellowships to young women in science research. Both announcements are tangible evidence that we need to “Remember the Ladies” of the future as well as the those of the past.
  
Our little Prescott book club “The Distinguished Literary Ladies”  meets this evening to discuss Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Kristof and WuDunn).  This  book is a sobering (and sometimes horrific) reminder that women around the world are still enslaved, living in abject poverty, suffering abuse and paralyzing discrimination.   The book is also about hope. The final chapter describes “Four Steps You Can Take in the Next 10 Minutes,” simple ways to connect with agencies and grass roots groups that make a difference in the lives of young girls and women around the world.

Every Spring, as I peel away the calendar from the chill of February to the hope of March, I think about women.  Their stories invite all young people to aspire beyond their horizons, to “believe in them, and follow where they lead.” 

 "Hope is a thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without words, And never stops at all." (Emily Dickinson)

Thanks, Louisa May Alcott. Thanks, Emily Dickinson. Thanks, Abigail Adams.  Thanks, Mother and Daughter for your patience and support as I aspired to “move beyond my horizon.”

Sources:

Abigail Adams. America.Gov.  

International Women’s Day. http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Kristoff, Nicholas D. and Sheryl WuDunn. Half the Sky. Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. Vintage Books: 2010.

Megan:

Beyond My Horizon

Over the weekend, I got an email from a friend of mine in England who worked with me in the prison library. It was a perfectly normal update, but it sparked a deep feeling of homesickness for the place I used to live. I received the message on my phone after having breakfast with a friend, and on the drive home I tried to figure out how I could move back to England and get my old job back and be happy again. Even though I wasn’t happy there, and I am not unhappy here.

The mind is a weird thing.

When I got home I yelled at my parents for not being perfect specimens of humanity, and then I cried in my room for a while.  The last time I was that upset, about that very thing, they put me on a plane and sent me back. But that was five years ago, in a better economy, and the reasons I had for returning to the United States are still true.

For all my recent talk about having a zen-like, in the moment contentment with my present situation, it’s just not always true. Last week was also the anniversary of when I handed in my resignation, even though I didn’t leave until June.  I know my recent frustration has more to do with feeling useless than missing an old life. And it seems when I don’t know what’s coming, I reflect more on what’s passed -- at least when I’m writing.

When we pulled this topic yesterday, I originally thought I might write about the landscape. Mom talks a lot about seeing Granite Mountain out the window.  Because our house sits at its base, the mountain is definitely the dominant feature of our view to the west.  I’ve only hiked it once, but as a kid, I spent a lot of time wandering the dry creek beds and horse trails in the valley. The ashes of my maternal grandparents were scattered there. Sometimes in a storm, the mountain disappears behind the clouds or the fog, and ever since childhood, I have found those moments thrilling and scary at the same time. It can be a little overbearing in its presence, because really it is the only thing to see if you look that way.

Looking to the east, our view really opens up. Whenever we have guests over, my mom takes them straight out on the back porch and says look at what we get to see every day. The view from our back porch encompasses all of Williamson Valley until it reaches the Bradshaw mountains about 30 miles away. We can see the San Francisco Peaks, in Flagstaff, almost 100 miles away.  It is a splendid view, but except for during the lightning storms in the monsoon season, and eating dinner on the deck in the summer, we don’t spend much time looking that way.  Our writing desks and chairs are turned towards the west, to Granite Mountain.

On a map, West is on the Left and East is on the Right.
On a time line, the Past starts on the Left and progresses to the Future on the Right.
For this reason, I think of the West as the Past and the East as the Future.
The Past is an ever present, semi-oppressive (but beautiful) mountain and the Future is an expansive, wide-open area that stretches for miles into the unknown.

  
                             

(Turn up your volume for the full effect)

Topic 84: On Discovering Oneself

Carol:

Sentimental Journey 

Things aren’t very different this morning than they were a week ago. I’m sitting at the computer trying to pull ideas out of my head at six a.m. I’m cold. The dog is asleep, everybody is still asleep. Except that I am not in my house. The dog belongs to my brother, the computer to my sister-in-law, and the view from the window is a southern California swimming pool.  Things feel a bit strange, and yet...I have been coming to this home since I was a teen-ager and I know it as almost as well as my own. 

My brother Hugh and his family moved into the house in 1967 when my nieces were about 7, 5 and 3, little tow-headed steppingstones. I was already in college in another state, so I would come for a week or more at a time. I would play on the floor with the girls for hours as we laid out their collection of Barbie Dolls, accessories and a Ken doll companion or two.

I watched my nieces grow up in this house as I did the same: visits with my boyfriend became visits with my husband, the teen-agers on the floor became my nieces playing with my toddler daughter and her collection of Cabbage Patch Kids. The sweet little dachshund Lady who would tunnel down under the covers of my bed at night in 1967 has morphed into Lucky the Chihuahua who greeted me at the door last night in a Lakers tee-shirt. And the teen-ager who gave me a hug was the son of that little 3-year-old from 1967.

The flood of family memories is counter-pointed by the history-in-the-making I watched from this house. In 1968, the morning after I arrived from college in Missouri, my brother woke me up to the news that Robert F. Kennedy had been shot. In 1973, we spent hours watching John Dean’s testimony and the unfolding of the Watergate scandal. In 1995,   huddled in front of the TV with Hugh and Jean watching the O.J. Simpson trial with its parade of witnesses, the testimony about the fancy shoes and the glove that didn’t fit. Not that we just watched any of this—we are talkers, arguers, debaters in this family, so all that history-in-the-making was pulled apart, chewed at, and spit back at the dinner table or sitting by the pool.

The house is beginning to wake up, and the sun is rising above the ivy-covered hill in the backyard. Hugh is making coffee with a machine whose built-in bean grinder sounds like a helicopter taking off. Megan just wandered in to announce she can’t find the power cord for her lap-top to start her essay for topic #84. I want to say something profound about self-discovery, the “aha” moments and large events that shaped me into who I am.

For the most part, who I am and what I have become is more about the lifelong “collection” of little moments, a string of tiny pearls rather than a huge diamond on a chain that says “Here I am.” As I pass through my sixties, my life is more about re-discovery. When I come to this house, I get to take a sentimental journey backwards and meet the me I was at 18 playing with my nieces, the me I was at 28 arguing politics with my brother, the me I was at 38 with my own children playing in the backyard. And the me that is 62 wants nothing more right now than to sit down with a cup of coffee and the Los Angeles Times’ Crossword puzzle, a little ritual I have practiced in this house for more than 40 years, another of those little tiny pearls that have helped me discover, and rediscover who I am and who I want to be.

Megan:

On Discovering Myself

I may owe Eckhart Tolle an apology. I haven’t decided yet. I still fall asleep if I read more than  3 pages of The Power of Now at a time but the dreams, they are peaceful. I’m kidding (sort of), but people I respect recommend this book – people who have opened their hearts and minds to new ideas that I have shared so maybe I owe them, and maybe I’ll learn something, if I can just shed my automatic and cynical revulsion towards New Age vocabulary. I’m not sure why, but I resist terms like “self-actualisation” and the expression “inner peace” creates for me an inner storm of  bitter and sarcastic retorts. Yet, I envy the lifestyle and secretly want for myself the calm these crazies claim to have achieved.

For Christmas this year, I received Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. I had already seen the movie and didn’t find Julia Roberts’ character to be particularly likeable. And I felt the same about the book really, except again for the envy and attraction to the lifestyle that this woman experimented with for a year. How nice for you, I thought, that you could take a year off to run away from everything you had screwed up for yourself and a publisher was basically going to pay for your pursuit of pleasure and … see the bitter, jealous side of me bursting out? I wish someone would pay ME to do that. I want to hang out in Bali and learn how to meditate in an Ashram in India. I would even settle for a weekend retreat at the Buddhist center near my house.

So, at the same time I’m thinking about all of this, I’ve just come from the ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in San Diego where I did not find a job, but got a lot of useful advice about job hunting. I’ve even come up with a quarter-of-a-million dollar idea, that I don’t think will make me rich, but might take my career in a new direction assuming I don’t lose interest.

The key-note speaker at this conference was, of all people, Ted Danson (promoting his book Oceana) and he summed up his interview with a brief explanation of his belief in the Law of Attraction (another theory I have both dismissed and secretly been drawn to) and how any changes we might want to see in the world or in ourselves must be approached from a positive angle, from a place of joy and delight instead of fear or disgust. Fear and Disgust have always fueled my sense of humor (in which I take joy and delight) but I recognize truth in Mr. Danson’s words. And Mr. Tolle said (just before I fell asleep) something about how he wasn’t saying anything new in his books, instead was just reminding us of truths we had forgotten.

What surprises me is that I am actually open to these ideas. Maybe it’s a developmental stage. In both Tolle and Gilbert’s books they were roughly my age when the desire to make a profound, spiritual change came over them. Maybe that explains why I felt drawn back to Church. I’m not looking for God really, I just need to calm the hell down and learn to sit quietly by myself. That’s the appeal: To learn something about myself that I’ve forgotten that I always knew.

I'm including this picture because I have it on my phone.

Topic 82: The Triumph of the Machine

Carol:

I Sing the Body Mechanical

 One of our recent guilty pleasures has been the daily ritual of watching 2-3 episodes of Battlestar Galactica.  Marc likes the show because of the strong acting and the West Wing-like political and diplomatic intrigue, but frankly I get a little chill thrill whenever those Cylon “Toasters,” not the humanoidish ones but the big metal ones, come clanking Terminator-style into a scene. They are just the latest of a long line of robotic villains (and heroes) that have fascinated me since I began reading Isaac Asimov and watching science fiction as a kid. 

I just want to get it over with right now. Science fiction titles.  I think titles are important, the punchy or punny ones that pull me right in.  My two favorites are: Philip K Dick ‘s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” which was adapted into a pretty good movie Blade Runner; and, Ray Bradbury’s “I Sing the Body Electric,” which he cleverly stole from Walt Whitman and which was made into a movie with the blah title The Electric Grandmother. For simplicity, Asimov wins with I, Robot, which has the slightest hint of un-ease in the idea that a robot could develop the ego to consider itself an “I” even though the reader knows it was programmed to follow Asimov’s 3 Laws: don’t harm a human, obey a human unless it contradicts the first rule, protect your robotic self unless it contradicts the first two rules. (source: Wikipedia) A book titled We, Robot would be even scarier because of its whiff of collective, connected ego…legions of Toasters marching goose-step to annhiliate their Creators. See, titles are important, Megan.

Since the annual Oscar buzz has started, here are my favorite robot movies. They are old,   i.e. no high tech shimshammery, no digital manipulations, just clever photography. Both films have been re-made with modern special effects and inferior artistry.

The first is the 1927 Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang. The only literal robot in the movie is the evil Maria, created in the likeness of the human, good Maria.  But, underneath the city of Metropolis is the hidden world of gigantic machines tended by shifts of automaton-like workers. Robots who look like people may be scary, but people who act like robots are a nightmare. (See Night of the Living Dead.)

The other is the 1950’s The Day the Earth Stood Still. The robot here is a primitive-looking tin can giant, and the film is built around shadows and camera angles that elongate the alien Michael Rennie and his robot sidekick Gort. No  fancy computer enhancements, just great cinematography enhanced by our own imaginations.

Who or what is evil?  Can we really trust the Cylons? Will machine triumph over man? So say we all,

  Klaatu Barada Nikto 

 

Sources:

Isaac Asimov’s 3 Laws. Wikipedia.  

Metropolis. IMDB.  

The Day the Earth Stood Still. IMDB.

 Megan:

The "Triumph" of Machines

The book from which we draw the titles for these essays was published long before computers became a daily part of our lives, but at the time of its initial publication (1917) the Industrial Revolution was more than 100 years old: the assembly line, sewing machines, trains, tractors and automobiles had already changed forever the way people lived. And for better or worse, many of us wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for some machine somewhere – whether it was a threshing machine that allowed a farmer ancestor to feed his family, or a steamship that brought immigrant relations to this country, or the incubators and oxygen tanks that kept me alive after a difficult birth. Some people argue that these mechanical and electronic advances work against nature, and I certainly have said the same from time to time. But I know I’m lucky to be alive to say it.

D.H. Lawrence wrote a poem by the same name (again, after our book was published) in 1930, in which he laments the ruination of the countryside brought about by the machine:

    for one sad century
    machines have triumphed, rolled us hither and thither,
    shaking the lark's nest till the eggs have broken.

I’m not going to use this space to criticize life saving technology, but perhaps it is appropriate to question the value of machines that are used not as tools, but as toys. Televisions, game systems like Nintendo, X-Box and Playstation, and computers (used outside of work) serve only to keep us still and passive on our beds or couches, entertained perhaps, but spending hours, days and eventually years inactive in our bodies and minds.

I believe the triumph of the machine has been to convince (Western) humanity that it is indispensible, essential to our survival. The computer has certainly done that. I have lived without television, and without game systems, but how can I live without a computer? I need it to stay informed, to stay connected, to apply for jobs. Five years ago when I was searching for jobs, although most postings were online, half the applications still had to be mailed (this was in England). That is no longer the case.  If I chose to distance myself from this machine, I fall behind, might miss a new development, miss an opportunity. How did I come to believe this?
   

    And at last
    all these creatures that cannot die, driven back
    into the uttermost corners of the soul,
    will send up the wild cry of despair.

Source:

Lawrence, D.H. "The Triumph of the Machine." 1930.

Topic 77: On Giving Advice

Carol:

How to Enjoy the Holidays

       

This morning I am bleary-eyed and fuzzy-brained from four days of Christmas celebrations, of having both my adult children home together, of being “early to rise” without “early to bed,” of taking a delightful but intense break from the daily routine—and the daily theme.  I did think about today’s topic from time to time, especially when I was tempted to dispense some unrequested “wisdom” to my husband or kids.

 I have spent the last few years trying hard NOT to give advice, at least not unsolicited advice.  My father used to admonish my mother “Mind Your Own Business,” which at the time I appreciated—except for the tone—because the business he was trying to keep her out of was often mine. I guess whether or not I have succeeded you would have to ask my friends and family.

I first decided to write about my favorite advice-givers, Ben Franklin and William Shakespeare, especially Polonius’ speech to Laertes. However, as I struggled my way through several  false starts,  I realized that what I wanted to write about was just a few feet from my head, the only framed piece of writing in a room filled with art and mementos of my world travels.

The hanging was originally typed up with fancy computer fonts and colors as a retirement gift for a friend who wanted suggestions on places to travel. The words are actually a set of Practices taken from Phil Cousineau’s book The Art of Pilgrimage—The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred: 
•    Practice the art of attention and listening
•    Practice renewing yourself every day
•    Practice meandering toward the center of every place
•    Practice the ritual of reading sacred texts
•    Practice gratitude and praise-singing

Cousineau’s book is a thoughtful guide to making travel more meaningful than a sightseeing opportunity.  Adapted from a 5th century writing from Confucius, these 5 practices can become a guide for traveling through life with fresh eyes and renewed intention. That includes retirement. And it even includes holidays with a houseful of family and friends, lots of cooking and cleaning, and the intensity of excitement and emotion that can tip into chaos and stress.

Most of what made this week special for me was the opportunity to practice The Art of Pilgrimage. I got to listen to a 5-year old explain the intricacies of his brand new spy watch that blinks and pings. I was able to slip away a little each day to work on a project or read a book. Each evening, I meandered upstairs to the loft to hang out with my children around the TV, and this afternoon I’m looking forward to meandering into the loft to work on the jigsaw puzzle Megan gave me for Christmas.  I watched and heard the ritual re-enactment of sacred texts at a church service full of excited children and  proud parents. Christmas morning, I sang alto on “Joy to the World” over the telephone with dear friends and Christmas evening I listened to my niece sing "Silent Night" in German with her son, the spy master.

How to enjoy the holidays? Listen, rest, focus, ritualize, but most of all sing praises and show gratitude.

Sources:

Cousineau, Phil. The Art of Pilgrimage—The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred. 

Megan:

On Getting Advice

I don’t give a lot of advice (not serious advice),  but I get a lot of it. Sometimes my first instinct is defensiveness (with anger being my default defensive reaction). Sometimes I react this way to stupid advice, but more often if the advice is warranted. Still, most advice is unwelcome. Example: the other day my father suggested that I NOT tell potential employers about this website because if they read I was lazy in college they won’t want to give me a job.

To which I responded: Mind your own damn business I don’t want to talk about it leave me alone.

I have since worked out a more reasonable response about how I approach my part of this project from a humorous angle, and some of what is written here should be taken ironically. Also, college was 10 years ago (or 5 years ago depending if you start counting at the beginning or the end).  Something like that.

The other person I regularly get advice from is my grandmother. Some of her comments are so far beyond the mark of what is appropriate or what I believe in that it’s best just to nod and smile. For example, this weekend she suggested I move to Washington D.C. because that is where all the rich men in their 30’s are living, and then I could hook up with someone in the Obama administration. Strangely, she is not the first person to make that exact suggestion. But I would rather work for the President, than date someone who works for him. Have you seen The West Wing? Those people are super busy and have no time for their families. So, thanks but no thanks, grandma.

Here’s some advice from people who want to give me advice:

Don’t mention the job search. If you’re not a librarian, don’t tell me what qualities you would be looking for in a librarian. Just because you don’t want your employees to be “lazy” or “drunk” doesn’t mean everyone uses the same hiring criteria. Some people like their employees to be “efficient” and “ironic.”

Don’t encourage me to attend single’s clubs to find rich, older men. The average age of attendance to one of these clubs is at least mid-70’s. He may die soon, but first he’s just gonna blow all the money on pills and experimental treatments trying to hang on and spend time with his young wife, and then where will I be?

Don’t encourage me to move 3000 miles on a hunch that I might meet someone in politics.  

I already tried moving 6000 miles to try to meet someone Royal and look how that turned out.

Don’t get mad if I ignore your advice and make fun of it on the Internet.