Archive for November, 2006|Monthly archive page
Another Modernist Masterpiece
I love driving across the Bay Bridge under the following conditions:
- there is so little traffic you suddenly think there’s been a nuclear conflagration further back and so everyone who lives in Orinda has decided to stay home for the day — or better yet, you’ve been transported to 1952 (except of course the problem there is that you’d be staying home for the day too, making tuna mousse in your flowered apron and wondering if it’s too early to start watching television)
- it’s so clear you can see Japan or, if you’re a less romantic sort, Marin County
- there’s something good playing on KFOG, a radio station where the people who speak into the microphone in the morning don’t yell things at you
- you don’t have too much work waiting for you when you arrive and, possibly, there is the hope of a good lunch.
A few days ago, all those things, with the exception of nuclear conflagration and time travel, happened. (Which is good, because Orinda is where my friend Debby’s from, and where Maria and Lisa and Lisa’s lovely daughter in law and nice son with the new baby all can be found!) I took my camera out and pointed it in the general direction of the sky and there was the bridge, a modernist masterpiece if I’ve ever seen one. And no, it won’t sharpen a pencil or dispense tape, like its younger siblings (the ones that have been featured here for the last couple of weeks.) It is a stirring sight — you come out of a tunnel and there they are, these huge, beautiful spans for which the word “soaring” is actually accurate.
But I don’t think I’ll be trying to simulataneously steer my car and aim a camera again. The no- traffic thing is unlikely to be repeated under these same conditions in my lifetime.
I hope for all of you a workday that involves some patch of clear weather, or good music, or a nice lunch, or not too much to do when you sit down to do it.
This was a Poet —
Filed under: Emily Dickinson, Memes, Poetry, Reading, Shakespeare, Wallace Stevens |
Comments(23) Many readers grow stone cold when they see lines arranged on the page in the form of a poem. This might be because so few of us have had the experience of reading poetry with pleasure. And that is why Cam’s recent questions about poetry, questions answered just a day or so ago by litlove, make me think about what creates a poetry lover rather than a person who breaks out in hives at the first line break. I do like poetry, and as you’ll see from these questions, I think it’s because I was pretty much kept in ignorance of it for so long that, by the time I got to it, I felt like it belonged to me and wasn’t brussells sprouts I was forced to eat by some earnest parental person who just knew they’d be good for me.
1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was :
Before college, I had almost no exposure to poetry beyond nursery rhymes. Which isn’t as bad as it sounds, because no one ruined it for me by telling me it was good for me. Oh, there is something. Just this moment I realized that when I was about thirteen, I sat through six and a half showings of Romeo and Juliet (the Zefferelli movie). And then I went out and bought the play, and pored endlessly over the balcony scene where Juliet (who was actually Olivia Hussey, which is a nice name for a Juliet) says to Romeo (who was unfortunately named Leonard Whiting) “my bounty is as boundless as the sea…” At thirteen, I found that pretty racy, but it had to come with costumes and nice looking boys and a little bit of soft focus making out to really work.
The first poem that really reached me both intellectually and emotionally was Wallace Stevens’s Tea at the Palaz of Hoon, which ends: “I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw/Or heard or felt came not but from myself;/And there I found myself more truly and more strange.”
At the time, and still, this seems like as good a description of the poet as you could want.
2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and…….. The schools I went to as a child didn’t force you to do anything, which might be why I was woefully unprepared when I arrived at college and blissfully unaware that I wasn’t actually the smartest person on the planet. In college, I was required to memorize the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, which I loved, and part of Milton’s Lycidas, which I also loved. I don’t think I ever minded being asked to memorize anything poetic. But then I never had to memorize anything really stupid.
3. I read poetry because…. its power is different from anything else created with words. A good poem can get to you in a very short amount of time. Put another way, poetry is to prose as vodka is to wine.
4. A poem I’m likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is ……. Wallace Stevens’s Sunday Morning.
5. I write/don’t write poetry, but………….. I haven’t written a poem in about two years. But when I was writing poetry, for a few years, I wrote a poem about polar exploration that I’m pretty fond of and one about cigars, which I also rather like. One thing I liked about writing poems was getting down a sensation, or an idea, or a moment using poetry as the medium.
6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature….. poetry is both easier and more difficult to read than other types of literature. It is easier only because a good poem reaches you more quickly than a novel. It is harder because I often can’t read more than a few poems at a time. Poetry is relentless in a way prose is not in much the same way that vodka kicks you in the gut a lot sooner than wine does.
7. I find poetry….. in Poetry magazine, in my writing workshop, in all the books I saved from college and graduate school, and the many more I’ve acquired since then, in the New Yorker, on advertising panels on the bus, and sometimes in my head.
8. The last time I heard poetry…. was at my Thursday writing workshop where there are several really talented poets.
9. I think poetry is like…. well, the alcohol thing has been made quite clear, I think. But here’s another good description, which also relies on the distillation metaphor, but perfume (not booze) is the end product of all that distilling. That’s because the metaphor belongs to Emily Dickinson, who probably wouldn’t have been drinking vodka. With anybody. Ever.
This was a Poet–It is That
Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings–
And Attar so immense
From the familiar species
That perished by the Door–
We wonder it was not Ourselves
Arrested it–before–
Of Pictures, the Discloser–
The Poet–it is He–
Entitles Us–by Contrast–
To ceaseless Poverty–
Of Portion –so unconscious–
The Robbing–could not harm–
Himself–to Him–a Fortune–
Exterior–to Time–
One last thing: I think these are very interesting questions, and ones that are helpful in thinking about how an understanding of poetry evolves (or doesn’t). If you are listed over to the right —— or you are reading this post (you know who you are!) and want to post about it, or leave a comment about your own experience, it would be lovely to hear your thoughts.
Scenes From A Walk
It is difficult to remember sometimes how thoroughly children inhabit a world that is not our own. The other day, walking with my youngest son, this was more obvious to me than it usually is.
He brings a weapon on our walks, and clears the woods of nests of villains. The terrain is rugged, and there are a lot of places for the enemy to take refuge. You have to be alert for them at all times. They’re a tricky bunch, professional soldiers who want to take over the lovely land we’ve lived on for generations and generations.
Here, he’s looking down at the tower where his family stays, safe from their enemies. He’s from a long line of leaders, and he’s made his fortune inventing things “people can really use.”
At the top of the hill, he looks across the land and sees that his people are safe.
It is a good day when the land is at peace.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, if that is a holiday you’re celebrating tomorrow, and whether or not you are, at some point in the next few days, go out for a walk and try to remember how the world looked to you when you were seven, when anything was possible.
Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?
Filed under: Feminism, Musicals, My Fair Lady, Uncategorized |
Comments(21) 
There are a lot of things you can use to draw lines that separate one type of person from another. Red states/blue states. Coke/Pepsi. Fried/Grilled. San Francisco Giants/Oakland A’s.
But my personal favorite line is this one: loves musicals/hates musicals. I’m in the former camp. My brothers? Latter camp. It’s a pretty good line, the kind that can neatly bisect a family. (I’d like to add here, for the purposes of strict historical accuracy, that those throwing up noises in the background, the ones I tried to ignore while I was concentrating on The King and I? They were NOT my brother Ed, who loves musicals. They were a different brother, who has not yet come forward to claim responsibility or deny involvement.)
My own children have inherited whatever gene produces the love of musicals. Especially the youngest, who is as fond of musicals as I am and often chooses, as a conversation starter, the following type of question: “which do you like more: Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music”? You might be surprised to learn (depending on which side of the line you’re on), that this topic can take a very long time — a lifetime really — to answer satisfactorily.
But until today, when I tried to answer a series of questions posed by Mandarine about gender differences, I hadn’t realized just how handy musicals can be in sorting out tricky feminist issues. Say you want to address the interesting subject of how and why women and men differ from each other. Well, here’s your answer, both to the how and why, and it comes straight from Messrs. Lerner and Loewe.
As you’ll see, one part of the answer is that women are different from men because women haven’t yet figured out how to be more like men. I mean, more like Rex Harrison. You know, ‘enry ‘iggins.
So, here’s what Henry Higgins has to say on this subject. It helps if you sort of sing it softly to yourself. (You can find it on itunes if you’ve never heard it.) And don’t say I’m not doing anything to improve your education:
“Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?”
music by Frederick Loewe; lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Why can’t a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair.
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Why can’t a woman be like that?
Why does every one do what the others do?
Can’t a woman learn to use her head?
Why do they do everything their mothers do?
Why don’t they grow up, well, like their father instead?
Why can’t a woman take after a man?
Men are so pleasant, so easy to please.
Whenever you’re with them, you’re always at ease.
Would you be slighted if I didn’t speak for hours?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Of course not.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Would you be livid if I had a drink or two?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Nonsense.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Would you be wounded if I never sent you flowers?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Never.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Well, why can’t a woman be like you?
One man in a million may shout a bit.
Now and then, there’s one with slight defects.
One perhaps whose truthfulness you doubt a bit,
But by and large we are a marvelous sex!
Why can’t a woman take after a man?
‘Cause men are so friendly, good-natured and kind.
A better companion you never will find.
If I were hours late for dinner would you bellow?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Of course not.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
If I forgot your silly birthday, would you fuss?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Nonsense.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Would you complain if I took out another fellow?
Pickering
Never.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Why can’t a woman be like us?
[dialog]
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Why can’t a woman be more like a man?
Men are so decent, such regular chaps;
Ready to help you through any mishaps;
Ready to buck you up whenever you’re glum.
Why can’t a woman be a chum?
Why is thinking something women never do?
And why is logic never even tried?
Straightening up their hair is all they ever do.
Why don’t they straighten up the mess that’s inside?
Why can’t a woman behave like a man?
If I was a woman who’d been to a ball,
Been hailed as a princess by one and by all;
Would I start weeping like a bathtub overflowing,
Or carry on as if my home were in a tree?
Would I run off and never tell me where I’m going?
Why can’t a woman be like me?
And that, Dear Reader, is all I have to say tonight.
A Loaded Gun
“My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun” is not greeting card Emily Dickinson, nor is it the murmuring of the sweet, reclusive poetess you might have been told she was.
It’s a shocking poem, really. Within the regular scheme of alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter, (you can learn a lot about the iambic line from this poem) lies an image of the loaded gun that is a woman who knew her power as a poet.
There are few better poems about the force of words (none stir the second time/on whom I fix my Yellow eye).
My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun -
In Corners – till a Day
The Owner passed – identified -
And carried Me away -And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through -And when at Night – Our good Day done -
I guard My Master’s Head -
‘Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s
Deep Pillow – to have shared -To foe of His – I’m deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -Though I than He – may longer live
He longer must – than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without–the power to die–
How Many Times Did You Laugh Today?
There’s a commercial that plays on the radio here in the Bay Area, sponsored by a local hospital in its campaign to encourage healthier living, that got me thinking this morning. Apparently, when you’re five years old you laugh about 3,000 times a day. By the time you hit your forties, that number has dropped to 14. (Typing those numbers, I realize one of them couldn’t possibly be correct. That’s the number for the adult. Fourteen strikes me as high. I’m guessing it’s closer to two, and you only get there by counting the grim laugh that escapes from you when you get your property tax bill in the mail.)
Anyway, I thought I’d respond to these statistics by doing a little Laughter Audit today. So far, I’ve counted the following Laughter Moments:
- three Laughter Moments in child’s school conference. One being a laugh of relief when parents heard child described, without a hint of irony, as a “Scholar and Gentleman.” Second laugh came when parent pointed out that there were six teachers and two parents in the room and that was plain scary. Third laugh, and best of all, came when parent told teachers –ten minutes into praise of child — that they’d better escape while they (and child) were ahead. Teachers laughed at this suggestion, meaning child had managed to get through term without getting in any fights with other children and had basically turned in homework on time. (I’ve just remembered one other Laugh Event: in parking lot after school conference, father of genius child describes him as “fruit of my loins.” Mother laughs and says, “everyone knows genius comes from maternal line.” Father, as I recall, doesn’t exactly laugh. Small smile.)
- two laughs at conference in chambers at the court where I work. Cannot repeat either, because they were law jokes, and so only funny to an extremely limited number of people, people many believe incapable of ever being funny.
So, okay. That’s five. That’s a bit pathetic, as it’s currently 11:57 a.m, pacific daylight savings time. Obviously, I’ve got some work to do today. I’ll report back at 5:00. In the meantime, go out and look for laughter of your own. Feel free to report back; perhaps a cumulative laughter audit will get us somewhere close to that of a five year old.
Allrighty, it’s 5:30 (PST). Laughing began in parking garage on way home. Odd guy who works in garage was signalling people to the exit by doing funky chicken dance. A Bay Area moment: no one can just be a parking lot attendant. There always has to be something more, because one’s personhood cannot be suppressed by one’s day job.
Home after school, I notice that, with children, many Laugh Moments have to do with, well, excrement. Several jokes about bodily functions, more than I’ll actually admit, occurred blindingly fast. No wonder five year olds laugh so often. Put a bunch of them in a room and the amount of bodily function jokes must be huge. In our house, there was much laughing after each and every one of these jokes. And I’ll tell you right now, not a single one of them was particularly new. However, I’ll admit I do find this sort of thing funny, although it’s my job to act like I don’t. Still, the fruit of my (well, my husband’s) loins apparently were blessed with my humor genes, which is to say we all like pretty much the same really stupid stuff.
Let’s see, oh, a conversation with an older child in which older child complained about younger brother being terribly immature, in a way he was not when he was that age: “mom, he can’t even tie his own shoes. And he can’t just USE the bathroom, he has to talk about it. A lot.” Several moments of laughter, which I should have suppressed because it’s not nice to laugh at the fruit of your husband’s loins, but really, I’ve noticed these two attributes of terrible immaturity seem to be evenly spread throughout the male line in our household.
In an effort to game the Laughter Audit (and at least see if we can approach the laugh per day numbers of, say, a mirthful young adult), we’re going to watch our netflix movie at dinner tonight. And no, we don’t do that all the time. It’s plain weird having the computer on your dinner table, which is the only way we can watch dvds. It’s like having a super geeky dinner guest at your table. One who doesn’t eat but just watches you. We’ve been on a Sitcoms-From-Days-Gone-By kick, so tonight it’s Leave it To Beaver. We’ll see. I like the Beave, and sometimes watching the parents interact totally cracks us up, so different are they from we.
Happy Evening (or morning or afternoon, depending on your time zone, of course), BL
A Bunch of Gorgeous Guys
Filed under: Children, Feminism, Parenting, School, gorgeous guys, male role models |
Comments(18) A few days ago, I thought I’d do a little computer housekeeping. You know, erase the 26 episodes of the Daily Show I’ve been hoarding, see if Jon Stewart’s the reason why I keep getting the spinning disco ball whenever I try to do online banking. And while I was at it, I thought I’d put some documents in folders of my own choosing, maybe even answer some emails. That sort of thing.
But what began as a quick cleanup occupied the better part of two days.
That’s because at the same time I was doing my electronic housekeeping, I was also taking care of a flu-stricken 11 year old boy. He seemed to regress every six hours into an even more helpless version of himself. Every time I started to do something that required concentration, he’d shout my name (which is mom, by the way, but pronounced like it’s a three syllable word, like this: maaaaahhhh-ahhhhh-aaaahhhhhmmm). And then, when I’d come running upstairs to see if he needed immediate medical attention, he’d ask me to do something like hand him the glass of water that was on the bedside table inches away from his hand.
Before long, I was muttering dark things about the male sex and their well-known difficulty dealing with illness. Right around then, I got to my iPhoto library. And right around then, any irritation I might have felt about having to take care of a helpless pre-teen was banished. You see, dear reader, what I found on my computer was something that made me look at men and boys in a completely different way. I discovered — right in front of my eyes — six gorgeous, inspiring, amazing 21st century male role models. And I didn’t even know that’s who they were when I took their pictures. It could be that’s because most of them were dressed in Halloween costumes. Still, here they are — the sort of men I wouldn’t mind any of my sons growing up to become, after he gets over the flu, I mean, and starts growing up again:
I’ll start with Farmer Jonah. He’s new at the school. The regular school farmer is named Farmer Ben. But his first baby arrived over the summer and he took a leave. He won’t be back until January. So Farmer Jonah arrived. He’s dressed, in case you’re wondering, as a giant ear of corn. Obviously, he is not bothered by itchy things and he loves the garden. He’s a gentle soul — and very funny.
Oh, here’s Farmer Jasper. He dressed up as an ear of corn for Halloween too. In this picture, though, he’s holding a giant sign he and Farmer Jonah made. It announces the First Annual JackRabbit Juice-A-Thon, in which I assume, things will be liquefied and then drunk. He’s explaining this to a child in the lunchroom. Y ou will also note that he is wearing a sticker. It says I voted. And a good thing too. Thanks to Farmer Jasper and others like him, we now have the first woman House Majority Leader, Nancy Pelosi.
.
Farmer Ben came by the school on Halloween. I’m pretty sure he’s dressed as Che Guevara. His daughter’s very cute. As is he. All the farmers at the school have lovely patches of color on their cheeks because they’ve been working hard showing children how to juice things and how to bring in the harvest. Everyone misses Farmer Ben. He could be counted on to play long games of kickball after school. He went to this school when he was a child. The children love that.
This is Damian. He’s the student teacher in my son’s classroom. He plays the congas. He was responsible for the spirited parade around the neighborhood on Halloween.
He’s also a wicked dancer, even when he has a lollipop in his mouth. Here he is with my son’s teacher. What you don’t see is the swirl of little kids all around him, dancing along.
Here’s Luis. He’s one of the fifth grade teachers. He dressed up as a very natty Latino guy. Come to think of it, Luis IS a very natty Latino guy. It’s just he doesn’t usually do his hair like a pop star.
Luis is a fabulous kickball player. He and Farmer Ben are the go-to guys for kickball. But in Farmer Ben’s absence, Peter’s been in charge. Peter works in the afterschool program. It was dusk when I took this picture, but here he is, Peter, a man who loves hanging out with children:
One last note, something I think registers a sea change in what it means to be male. Peter is wearing Ugg boots. The kind of boots Kate Hudson wears.They’re not very practical for kickball. So, when they started getting in his way, he took them off and played in his bare feet. He was very matter of fact about it. He liked those boots. But he didn’t need to try to run in them. Every child out there, including the little girls who’d been wearing those princess shoes that kill your feet earlier in the day, must have been delighted to see Peter take those boots off and run around the playground barefoot. It’s probably not allowed, regulation-wise, but as a model of how to get around your gender get-up, it seemed perfect to me.
And that’s what all these men have in common. They’re very male — but they also mix it up with things you’d think of as female: they dance, they dress up for Halloween as sexy pop stars, they wear impractical shoes, they show little kids how to make juice, they take time off to be with their new baby. And they all play a really fine game of kickball and every single one of them has chosen a job where they look after children and teach them how to grow up in the 21st century, a time when maybe men and women will be allowed to be whoever they want to be.
On Going to Mass
I went to mass yesterday for the first time since the new pope was chosen. I’ve been thinking about if off and on since then — when I wasn’t busy looking through my voter pamphlet and wondering if I should vote in favor of the City of Berkeley recommending to Congress that Bush be impeached (why not?) or making lentil soup (very tasty; happy to give you the recipe if you want). But back to church.
As a child, I often felt I could not survive the crushing boredom of mass, that I would simply disintegrate from the weight of sitting still and listening to the same thing said over and over. But I also loved the church. It was a mysterious and quiet place — – that is to say, sacred — in a way no other institution I knew about (mostly school) could ever be, except maybe the library. One year, shortly before Easter, sitting in the pew wearing shiny black mary janes, I felt as though the church and my body were made out of the sunlight that came in the windows above me. I suppose what I felt was a mixture of awe and a sense of being completely loved: nothing I did condemned me, nothing I was could hurt me. (And yes, this was an experience I had before I went to confession for the first time.)
But beyond that one moment of golden light, what really makes me Catholic, and so a person who returns over and over to the church despite all the ways in which it has has betrayed us, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, are the stories I heard as a child. The miracles — loaves and the fishes, wine at a wedding, the dead coming back to life, walking on water. And wonderful Old Testament rages, and famines and floods and the destruction of cities and oldest boy children (being the fourth child and a girl, I particularly found these sorts of stories interesting.) There’s something primal about the bible. I know that, because I often felt when I sat in church, listening to the readings, that I’d dreamed them before.
As much as the seasons, the liturgy locates you within the cycle of birth and death and rebirth. In fact, the liturgy is more reliable than the seasons, because it is the same no matter where you live. And so you can always tell from the readings, what will happen next in your life: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter. These events, particularly Christmas, always had a powerful spiritual component that took some of the sting out of the disappointments that come from their secular and material celebration.
But now, I rarely go to mass, although our parish is home to a liberal university church, one where people actually do things to help those who suffer from economic and social injustice. Even in the company of so many people who see the world in a loving and generous way, I am still well aware of how much damage the Catholic church has done to so many of us. Most Sundays I think there are more reasons not to be Catholic than there are to be Catholic. Most Sundays I don’t go. I often think I should make a complete break with Catholicism and simply stop going. Forever.
Instead, I’ve done the opposite. I’ve had my sons baptised. I took my oldest sons to catechism and made sure they were prepared for First Communion. I can’t quite explain why I’ve done this, although I’ve been thinking about it for several days. The closest I could get to an explanation is that I don’t want them to miss the experience of grace, the one I had that spring day when I was small. I think of that moment fairly often and it gives me something I would not want to do without. Perhaps it’s a false experience, partaking more of the institution that’s so often been false than of something else, something sacred that exists outside the church and can’t so easily be dismissed. Certainly, that kind of sacredness lives other places. But it’s so rare that I don’t want to lose touch with the version of it I knew first. And I want my children to have access to it. That’s the best I can do, this Monday.
The Simple Life: Freddy and Fredericka
Filed under: Books, Freddy and Fredericka, Reading, Reviews, Simple Living |
Comments(13) I have a weakness for books and magazines about simple living. For those who don’t know, Simple Living — capitalized — isn’t what happens when Paris Hilton and the other skinny one take off across America and discover how hard it is to get a decent haircut. It’s more the idea that ordinary, middle class people can make life purer and happier by not buying so much stuff. At its extreme, this way of thinking has you making Christmas gifts out of dryer lint and heating your house with grass clippings. At the other end of the spectrum, it suckers you into buying $19.95 books that tell you how to make your house a museum to minimalism and $4.95 magazines that tell you just what products to purchase to organize your clutter and purify your fridge.
Still, every once in a while, I clean out a cabinet and think I’ve finally, finally achieved the simple life. And then, somebody brings home a free water bottle they got at a school event, along with a package of crayons, two seed packets and a fistful of stickers and we’re right back where we started.
That’s when I turn to literature for my simple living fix. When I’m feeling anxious about all the clutter, I like to imagine I live on the prairie with Laura Ingalls Wilder, or in the big woods, and all I’ve got to buy anybody for Christmas is an orange and — if it’s been an exceptional harvest — a stick of licorice. In my free time (when I’m not sewing quilts), I’ll make a doll out of an old corncob. Or my husband will whittle something out of oak — a wheelbarrow, a barn and maybe a cow or two.
Surprisingly, Mark Helprin’s book about the royals (which turns out not to really be about them at all), Freddy and Fredericka, turns out to be another novel I can add to what I’ve just decided to start categorizing as literature of the simple life. It’s a silly, witty, slightly ridiculous story about what happens when two royals who start out looking an awful lot like Charles and Diana are parachuted naked into New Jersey and told they can’t come home again until they conquer the United States and bring it back into the British Empire.
It’s one of those books you laugh over on the train to work and in bed while everyone’s asleep: full of puns and twists and turns of fortune, punctuated by occasional beautiful pieces of prose about love and life and, well, simple living. That’s because what happens is that Freddy and Fredericka discover they like being self-sufficient and making their own way through the world. That they’re dirt poor and have dental issues for most of the novel doesn’t really bother them. (Some might flinch at this portrayal of the virtues of poverty as an insult to the poor, but really it’s so obviously a fantasy that it’s hard to see it as insensitive.) The novel gives you a whole new appreciation for the comforts of heat, enough food, decent clothing and love. But mostly, it’s just really funny and made me quite happy. I’m on page 400 and something, and I really don’t want it to end. But when I do, in the spirit of simple living, I’m putting it up on BookMooch so somebody can enjoy it for free.
Another Curvy Mid-Century Pleasure
Filed under: 1950s, Mid-Century Pleasures, Office Supplies, Pencil Sharpeners, Pencils, Poetry, Readers and Writers, Roethke, Stationery, Writing, Writing Instruments |
Comments(20) 
Do you think, dear reader, you might absorb two mid-century pleasures in the space of a week? Do try. It’s a good antidote to all that Halloween candy.
And for your reading pleasure, here’s a poem written by a man quite clearly in need of a curvy, mid-century something or other, poor thing:
Dolor
Theodore Roethke
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
