Here Be Dragons

For someone who had always pictured Kings Richard and John of England as cartoon lions, Sharon Kay Penman’s book was an enlightening read. I thought John was especially well portrayed. I want to read more about Eleanor of Aquitaine.

For me the great value of this book was in the details about life in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For instance, they spread rushes on the floor as a sort of carpeting, and changed them when they needed to be changed. I might try that one of these days. It might beat vacuuming.

The most shocking thing for me was that they only had one meal a day in Wales, in the evening. I would have died. I was comforted that it was a significant adjustment for the main character, too.

Pictured above is one of several small scenes I encountered upon coming home yesterday. My guest―a delightful friend who sows beauty and poetry wherever she goes―had posed my penguin with his wing in the almond jar. She’s also the kind of guest who replaces certain disapproved-of items in your pantry with higher-quality or less-toxic varieties. It cracks me up. I appreciate her audacity... and generosity.

This reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in The Book of Lights by Chaim Potok. But I don’t want to spoil the scene for people who haven’t read it. What do I do? I guess I will have to keep quiet. Some kind of blog.

Conclusions

I have come to some conclusions about life lately. I have decided that Out of Africa is now my favorite book and that of Brahms’s symphonies, my favorite is the fourth.

Also, I’m kind of off the bunny kick. A majority of my family is anti-bunny. Several acquaintances have been unenthusiastic. I don’t really have time to give a bunny the attention it needs. And before Christmas, a wise-looking elderly man in Tucson’s best used bookstore, glimpsing the About Your Rabbit book I was carrying under my arm, warned me that they are twice as much work as you expect them to be. What could be more convincing than an aging stranger’s unsolicited advice?

Since my blog must remain inconclusive, I will wrap up with today’s wildlife sighting:

In the distance behind me I hear the consternation of a woman whose dog has gotten loose. I keep walking ahead, hoping not to encourage the animal, but as I hear it approaching I grow curiouser and curiouser. A great whirring and flapping indicates a beast of significant size.

Sure enough, a huge brown hound (please pause to say that out loud) is soon trotting beside me, its spine almost as high as my hipbones, its head down sniffing, taking no notice of me. I am content to have such a calm and independent creature at my side, filling up the empty half of the sidewalk, but after a few steps I begin to worry about its owner, who is becoming breathless in her pursuit.

I turn around and wait for a few moments while she approaches. I express my amazement at her pet’s dimensions. “And he’s just a puppy,” she says. “Eleven months.”

“Do you mean he’ll get bigger?” Truly, this is a marvelous beginning to the day. The words “huge brown hound” bring considerable merriment to the rest of the walk. I know, it doesn’t take much.

An ear for German

I was reading some Rilke to a friend two nights ago and was happy to hear her say it was beautiful. I have always wanted to prove to someone that German is a pretty language, or at least could be thought of as pretty. Most people think it isn’t. But would they think so if everyone else hadn’t told them that from their inception? Is it really an objective truth?

Take a word like Friedrich. If you say it right, it’s the gentlest rippling of air through your mouth, a relaxing of control to let a soft breeze pass along your throat, tongue, and teeth. You have to smile to say it.

Now German is the poorer for lacking our exquisite th sounds, but it has other sounds that fall in the same class of feather-soft, downy, maternal whisperings.

As for Rs, I think German’s uvular R is superior to the French velar one. It is liquid rather than raspy. I enjoy hearing my German-speaking friend pronounce her French Rs à l’allemand.

I think what people hear and dislike about German is a lot of stops and fricatives. But German is about control of the vocal passages. Americans don’t have to open their throats, and we become unpleasantly nasal. However, German is a rhythmic river of sound, a carefully restrained singing.

Useless characters

Recently my mom sent me a story from The New Yorker about a guy who made miniature palaces. He was a big hit with the king who hired him. This artist could carve not only an apple the size of a grain of sand but the fly on the apple. He got better and better, carving the fly’s hairs and the molecules of the hairs. His work got steadily more and more precise until neither he nor anyone else could actually see what he was carving. They didn’t fire him, just shut him up in a room alone and had food brought to him while he carved his amazing but pointless carvings. He was perfectly happy, obsessively happy.

Sometimes I think I could be like that. I consider myself a writer by nature and I have a job that involves writing and layout and graphic design. I enjoyed drawing as a kid, and I used to create newspapers for fun, so it’s all right up my alley. But sometimes I feel like my tastes take a turn that is obsessive, minute, approaching uselessness.

Most people who consider themselves “visual” or “creative” can come up with great schemes or ideas. There are days when I have good ideas and grand schemes. I think I am reasonably productive. But the grand scheme is not my greatest joy in life. I am happier staring at a black-and-white page of type (the right type, set in an attractive manner) than at a colorful poster. I am happier staring at a single perfectly curving letter than at the flashiest full-color effect that a Photoshop artist can produce.

People who consider themselves writers often have plots and ideas. Sometimes I have plots and ideas, but I’m best at just amassing words. People will complain about too much information on a page and I will nod my head, completely uncomprehending. I love spreadsheets and pages of words. Or I look at closed books and revel in all the wisdom and adventure and beauty that I know, without even opening them, is inside.

When you read about the carver of miniature palaces, it does occur to you to wonder if the things he is carving really exist, since even he must be unable to see them. But that is not the conclusion that I reached at the end of the story. I believe that he really could carve things that minuscule. I believe that his gift continued to approach the ever-more-slightly tinier limit of perfection until he died.

I am interested in Chinese calligraphy right now. Chinese writing is remarkable because it conveys meaning that speech alone cannot convey. To us, written language is an imperfect system for representing speech. Chinese script, however, is more perfect than speech.

In China, calligraphy has historically been an art form as eminent as (or even moreso than) poetry or painting. The characters are important for their appearance, not just their meaning. A specimen of calligraphy is described this way: “reeds on the shoreline of a quiet lake―the slender strokes bent by the night breeze rustle in the still twilight,” or compared to dancers, farmers, forests, waterfalls, in Johan Bjorksten’s book pictured above.

I could get lost in this arguably useless world forever. Fortunately I have a marvelously broad range of tasks at work, including talking to people, and ample extracurricular activities that keep me away from home, so there is no immediate danger of ending up in a lonely room with food passed to me under the door. I know I would probably hate it if I actually did have that much solitary time on my hands. But I admit I dream of it sometimes.

Double delight

One of my favorite things is setting up surprises and waiting for them to hatch. It can be tricky when you’re targeting a large concentration of people with a single source of surprise, because you want as many unique instances of surprise as possible. This was satisfactorily achieved over my Christmas vacation, with no particular care on my part.

I got my brother and sister-in-law a blue faucet light. It wasn’t really a Christmas present, but I wanted to get them something extra for their house since I was staying there for a long time. I came across the light in my favorite gift shop. I had no idea they existed, but it was prophetically clear that this had to be purchased for them. Gift-giving is one of my greatest sources of anxiety, so it is wonderful when the perfect gift appears. Everything is right. Nothing is better than that.

You may be wondering about the blue faucet light. It is not a cheesy gift. It is a reputable, high-quality piece of hardware that installs onto the end of your faucet after you remove the existing mesh thing. It comes with batteries installed PLUS a second set of batteries. It also comes with two adaptors, making it likely to fit any faucet in America. My siblings were pleased with the improvement it caused in their faucet’s water flow. The light it emitted was remarkable. It would even flash after you turned the faucet off, as water continued to drip.

So we installed it. I have to mention here that the reaction from my siblings was disappointing. They seemed to think it more weird, less amazing. But I persevered in my enthusiasm, and I think they eventually saw it for what it was. They began looking forward to episodes of discovery by the guests at their New Year’s party.

Meanwhile, I was anticipating the joyful reactions of my parents, who arrived later than I did. They flew in and went straight to their hotel the first night. The next time they were there, I casually asked if anyone needed to wash their hands and no one wanted to. (Pigs.) It might have been a days later when the older generation finally came over to the Little Presidio after dinner. While everyone was hanging around in the living room accomplishing nothing, I finally couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Hey, Mom,” I said, “I think you need to wash your hands. They smell kind of funny.” My sister-in-law, sitting across from my dad, lowered her face into her hands and tried not to laugh audibly.

“Oh, OK,” Mom said, and headed into the bathroom. I guess decades of raising tactless children keeps one from taking offense too easily.

She used the toilet and then washed her hands. I imagined her happiness at seeing the unexpected electric-blue water.

She came out of the bathroom. “Why is the water blue?” The room erupted in riotous laughter. “That’s really cool!” she added. I knew my mom had taste!

“Bear, you need to go use the sink,” she said. “I think you’ll like it.” My dad was sitting in the epicenter of the hilarity, reading The Arms of Krupp.

“Oh, really?” he said, slowly entering the 21st century. He hesitated, got up, walked slowly down the hall as if he feared some trap, and went over to the sink. Then he gave his daughter the gift she wanted: a spontaneous “That is so neat!”

Keatsian advent calendar

I thought I was flirting with blasphemy in my last entry, but this beats all. Thanks to my Eastern European friend for recommending this devotional practice.

I probably won’t be posting for a while. Merry Christmas, blogosphere!

Righteous are you, O Lord,
and right are your rules.
You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness
and in all faithfulness.
My zeal consumes me,
because my foes forget your words.
Your promise is well tried,
and your servant loves it.
I am small and despised,
yet I do not forget your precepts.
Your righteousness is righteous forever,
and your law is true.
Trouble and anguish have found me out,
but your commandments are my delight.
Your testimonies are righteous forever;
give me understanding that I may live.

Trolleys, bunnies, and Keats

Three inordinate affections of mine in one entry!

The trolley is decked out for Christmas. I have not mastered the art of photographing it, although I try every chance I get. But I think you can at least dimly sense how attractive it is.

About the bunny: the more I think about this adorable creature that will soon share my home, the less I can understand why anyone would ever want any other kind of animal. Bunnies seem to have all the merits and none of the drawbacks of pets in general. My friend cautioned me tonight—after I had mentioned how much I already missed having the bunny, and when I dismissed today’s woes by saying that everything would be better when I got a bunny—that maybe I needed to lower my expectations or risk serious disappointment. All I can say is, be prepared for Christmas cards with photos of me and the bunny next year. Maybe the best way to end one’s annoyance with pet-obsessed people is to become one.

Now I’m going to finally catch up with my reportage of Keatsmas. There’s no way I can write about it without writing about my friend the gorgon. I feel like an imposter, really, when people act like Keats is my specialty, because Medusa is the one who first loved Keats. I enjoy Keats, but I’m sure I’ve never understood him like she did.

Our little group of literature majors studying abroad one summer found no end of amusement at how seriously she took the dead poet. I must admit some embarrassment, some uncertainty about whether to lose track of the rest of the group or leave her behind as she trudged ever more slowly up Hampstead Heath to the house where Keats had stayed in his illness, muttering things like, “I’m not sure I can handle this.” The towering, brooding Greek with her long, dark waves of hair and the five-foot-two-inch Cockney poet, existential status aside, were an odd couple indeed.

Inside I was wholly charmed by her passionate spirit, her determination to care about things. The day we spent at Blenheim Palace—she, I, and the complete poems and letters of Keats that she insisted on reading entirely, no matter what the syllabus said—is one of the most perfect days of my life. I have no idea what I was reading or writing on that grassy bank overlooking the water, but I relished the frequent excerpts and reactions erupting by my side.

I have celebrated the high holy days pretty religiously, reciting “To Autumn” on October 31, his birthday, and eating only bread and water on February 23, the day of his death at 25. I’m pretty good at slavish rituals, even though for the last few years I thought Medusa had moved on. It has occurred to me that in venerating Keats maybe I have really been venerating my dear gorgon. It made me so happy, almost Blenheim-happy, when she e-mailed me this year and said we must celebrate together.

I never let myself have high expectations for Keatsmas—the only time we’ve celebrated it together in person, it went so dreadfully wrong that Medusa has forbidden me to ever speak of it.

This year I had two pleasant Keatsmas experiences. A few days early I recited “To Autumn” in a dugout for the first time, with an intensely poetic friend, someone who recites poetry better than anyone I’ve ever heard, as we gazed at barred clouds across the baseball diamond; and then that evening I recited it via cell phone to the gorgon as she was being rowed to her sailboat in a dinghy off the coast of Massachusetts. I’m sure she had never heard “To Autumn” in a dinghy.

I hate the double-minded,
but I love your law.
You are my hiding place and my shield;
I hope in your word.
Depart from me, you evildoers,
that I may keep the commandments of my God.
Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live,
and let me not be put to shame in my hope!
Hold me up, that I may be safe
and have regard for your statutes continually!
You spurn all who go astray from your statutes,
for their cunning is in vain.
All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross,
therefore I love your testimonies.
My flesh trembles for fear of you,
and I am afraid of your judgments.

Blogger is best

I did some experimentation the other night and decided to stick with Blogger. Although I am in love with Wordpress, it has a size limit (unless you pay) and I want to be able to keep uploading my photos until kingdom come. And although Wordpress’s canned templates are lovely and Blogger’s are hideous, Blogger allows you to modify your template, and Wordpress doesn’t (unless you pay). I hope someday to find the time to make my blog visually exquisite.

Alas, there is one thing I would dearly like to have, and that is the “recent comments” sidebar item you can get in Wordpress. How else will you know that I have added a significant comment to the post on yams? It is important to read it, because it completely alters the existential equilibrium reached at the end of the main post and proves that life is forever unresolved.

I am never going to catch up with all the things I want to write about. There are times when I have nothing to blog about and there are times when I have billions of things. Currently I have billions.

Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for your testimonies are my meditation.
I understand more than the aged,
for I keep your precepts.
I hold back my feet from every evil way,
in order to keep your word.I do not turn aside from your rules,
for you have taught me.
How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through your precepts I get understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.

Happy visit review

I went to the Texas State Fair twice this year. I still didn’t see all there was to see. I love the Texas State Fair. But the coolest thing was the people who went there with me.

First, I took a friend I’ve known since first grade who came to visit me for a weekend. I treasure my times with faraway friends, and this is the first time an old friend from my hometown has come to visit me on my home turf. I’m not used to being around someone who shares so much of my life history. It was very refreshing.

My grandparents stopped by a couple days later. I went to the fair again with them. Their average age is 80, as they put it, and they traveled around the country in a camper van for several months this year. They used to run a campground in the summers, and Grandpa was a forest ranger for a while, and they still cultivate their adaptability.

“You know, we’re campers,” Grandma says when I apologize for the limitations of my guest suite. “We’re used to it.”

My friends and coworkers were amazed to hear that they slept on my futon for a couple of nights. We walked all over Dallas in cold weather. We rode buses and trains and trolleys. We climbed in and out of my little two-door car. As octogenarians go—as anyone goes—they’re low-maintenance guests.

It has struck me lately that Grandma and Grandpa never complain. Being with them is nothing but pleasure. Grandpa is curious about everything and has great stories. Grandma is humorous and sincere. They’re both good at being grandparently, making you feel special and interesting and loved. And I like seeing them work together like people who’ve been together for decades and decades do.

Forever, O Lord, your word
is firmly fixed in the heavens.
Your faithfulness endures to all generations;
you have established the earth, and it stands fast.
By your appointment they stand this day,
for all things are your servants.
If your law had not been my delight,
I would have perished in my affliction.
I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have given me life.
I am yours; save me,
for I have sought your precepts.
The wicked lie in wait to destroy me,
but I consider your testimonies.
I have seen a limit to all perfection,
but your commandment is exceedingly broad.

Yams

In the kitchen at work, as I was preparing some coffee, my ears sent me rumors of a conversation on a topic that greatly concerned me. Were they really talking about the difference between sweet potatoes and yams in the reception area just outside? It became clearer and clearer to me that they were. Eventually, as I hovered closer and closer, their eyes turned to me, and to me they directed the wobbling queries that had been looping around in ever-wilder orbits of indecision.

There are many cases of children being raised in exotic locations and coming back to the dreary colonial homeland with airs of Kubla Khan. These insufferable children, described with sympathy in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s books, for example, alienate their playmates with the false grandeur they feel for having seen untamed landscapes and eaten indescribable tropical fruits. I am afraid I might have been such a child for a while after a short, barely remembered Caribbean sojourn in my near-infancy, and I now take pains to avoid projecting such privileged superiority. Still, when yams are misidentified I feel it deeply.

Sweet potatoes are clearly understood. When asked to indicate a sweet potato, no one will hesitate to point out the lovely orange potatolike root with its delicious properties and important vitamins.

However, a horrifying number of people, especially in the South, will call this same tuber a “yam.” My mother used to cook yams. If you have ever tasted their dense, buttery texture, their sweet, hard, grainy flesh, you will know that this is an unforgivable confusion. It is hopeless to explain it to anyone, for the reasons mentioned above and because yams are not commonly available here.

Does this explain the immense good fortune of being asked to discuss the difference between the two vegetables, twenty-three years after my transplantation to this country, at 9:30 in the morning in an office building in Dallas? And after a heartfelt exposition on the subject, allowing all the respect in the world for those who retained their own (mistaken) opinions, to receive this vindicating link from a coworker who had researched the matter after our conversation?

My soul longs for your salvation;
I hope in your word.
My eyes long for your promise;
I ask, “When will you comfort me?”
For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke,
yet I have not forgotten your statutes.
How long must your servant endure?
When will you judge those who persecute me?
The insolent have dug pitfalls for me;
they do not live according to your law.
All your commandments are sure;
they persecute me with falsehood; help me!
They have almost made an end of me on earth,
but I have not forsaken your precepts.
In your steadfast love give me life,
that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth.

Paris frames

The previous photo (before Chevènement) was on Mockingbird Lane in Dallas. Maybe you are beginning to guess the theme.

You have dealt well with your servant,
O Lord, according to your word.
Teach me good judgment and knowledge,
for I believe in your commandments.
Before I was afflicted I went astray,
but now I keep your word.
You are good and do good;
teach me your statutes.
The insolent smear me with lies,
but with my whole heart I keep your precepts;
their heart is unfeeling like fat,
but I delight in your law.
It is good for me that I was afflicted,
that I might learn your statutes.
The law of your mouth is better to me
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

Chevenement

I just discovered that a former neighbor of mine is once again running for president of France. Above are a couple of pages of the scrapbook my friend and I kept back in those months when we lived so close to him.

The Lord is my portion;
I promise to keep your words.
I entreat your favor with all my heart;
be gracious to me according to your promise.
When I think on my ways,
I turn my feet to your testimonies;
I hasten and do not delay
to keep your commandments.
Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me,
I do not forget your law.
At midnight I rise to praise you,
because of your righteous rules.
I am a companion of all who fear you,
of those who keep your precepts.
The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love;
teach me your statutes!

Eternal sunrise

After a disappointing dry spell, On the Bus Today has some great recent entries. I laughed out loud today at “A tale of two journeys,” “Santa,” “Giant,” and “Seat!”

I wish I had had a camera at White Rock Lake yesterday afternoon. I was running before sunset, and the sky stayed pretty the whole time. Not the bright sunset light you see a lot in Texas, but a pale winter sunset. The lake was sapphire-blue, sparkling, and the clouds were amethyst, and the rushes and the grass by the lake were minty green. I was on the shadowy side of the lake and the ground where I ran was in that dead light, cold and pale. There is one place where I run on the grass down a hillside, and I felt like I was in northern England or Scotland in the summer when it’s still light in the late evening, silver-green grass, silver-yellow dead grass, silver-blue sky, none of it quite gleaming but almost, rolling fields of grass, ruins of castles certainly lurking over the next hill. I am in between reading a book on Alaska and a book on medieval Wales, which probably explains my geographical illusions. On the long days in Alaska, when the sun never really rises or sets, are there hours and hours of pretty sunset skies?

I want to do some reflection about 2006. Mostly it’s been a really hard year for me, because of the end of an important relationship. I don’t know how you deal with that. But there were lots of good things too. I wanted to do a post-Keatsmas post back in October, and then a Thanksgiving post after I had some special guests. Then last weekend there was the Party of the Century at my apartment, which was vastly fulfilling. Maybe I will do a couple of entries about those things. I hope the coverage does not disappoint because it’s so late. I am also unveiling a new photo series with this entry.

Remember your word to your servant,
in which you have made me hope.
This is my comfort in my affliction,
that your promise gives me life.
The insolent utterly deride me,
but I do not turn away from your law.
When I think of your rules from of old,
I take comfort, O Lord.
Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked,
who forsake your law.
Your statutes have been my songs
in the house of my sojourning.
I remember your name in the night, O Lord,
and keep your law.
This blessing has fallen to me,
that I have kept your precepts.

Coming into the Country

I've praised McPhee’s writing before. His language is felicitous and sometimes startling.

Describing salmon in an Arctic river:

Looking over the side of the canoe is like staring down into a sky full of zeppelins. (p. 6)

He has a subtle and rewarding wit that plays out over the pages.

The grand theme of the book, and one much to my liking, is “the country.” If I were to write my dream novel, it would be one where settings were like characters. I’m not sure how this would be done. People are usually bored out of their skulls by the stuff I write and ask for plot development. So I read McPhee.

The sight of the bear stirred me like nothing else the country could contain. What mattered was not so much the bear himself as what the bear implied. He was the predominant thing in that country, and for him to be in it at all meant that there had to be more country like it in every direction and more of the same kind of country all around that. He implied a world. He was an affirmation to the rest of the earth that his kind of place was extant. (pp. 61-62)

In the society as a whole, there is an elemental need for a frontier outlet, for a pioneer place to go—important even to those who do not go there. (p. 436)

It’s true; I think. Nothing frees the soul quite like knowing there's somewhere to go, that like Huck Finn we can light out for the territories if things go wrong around here.

Many of the characters in the book are fiercely self-reliant.

I once asked [Ed Gelvin] if there was anything that could go wrong around his place that would cause him to seek help from elsewhere. He looked off into the distance and carefully thought over the question—this compact and gracefully built man of fifty or so with thick quizzical bifocals, a shy smile, a quiet voice. Finally, he said no, he guessed there wasn’t. (p. 233)

I find this all extremely appealing. I have always loved survival stories. I have welcomed the chance to learn new skills, just in case I ever might need them. Personal responsibility is one of my highest values.

There is a lot of talk of community these days, especially in my current social milieu, and who can deny its importance? I owe everything to my family and friends. It’s foolish to trust yourself and rely on yourself. We don’t see clearly, and we need correction. I couldn’t last a minute outside Eagle, Alaska, and all my fantasies of surviving like Robinson Crusoe are silly. Most of us need help frequently.

But it is important to do everything you can do to be a strong and responsible human being. That’s how you make a contribution to society. I have tons of admiration for the industrious, energetic people in this book who take care of themselves and have the power to be generous to others.

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes;
and I will keep it to the end.
Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
and observe it with my whole heart.
Lead me in the path of your commandments,
for I delight in it.
Incline my heart to your testimonies,
and not to selfish gain!
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;
and give me life in your ways.
Confirm to your servant your promise,
that you may be feared.
Turn away the reproach that I dread,
for your rules are good.
Behold, I long for your precepts;
in your righteousness give me life!

Bunny

Bunny, so peaceful and intellectual, may soon have a companion. I’ve been joking about getting a live (notice I don’t use “real” to distinguish it from Bunny) rabbit for a while now and have decided that a fluffy lagomorph, hopping pleasantly across the carpet, gnawing sweetly on my computer cords, is no longer just a fantasy; it would greatly enhance the wellbeing of those in my household. I intend to do research for a few weeks and start seriously looking for one when I get back from Christmas vacation.

My soul clings to the dust;
give me life according to your word!
When I told of my ways, you answered me;
teach me your statutes!
Make me understand the way of your precepts,
and I will meditate on your wondrous works.
My soul melts away for sorrow;
strengthen me according to your word!
Put false ways far from me
and graciously teach me your law!
I have chosen the way of faithfulness;
I set your rules before me.
I cling to your testimonies, O Lord;
let me not be put to shame!
I will run in the way of your commandments
when you enlarge my heart!