From in the fairy tale asylum:
Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.
(Heinrich Heine)
It’s Banned Books Week. Have you clung to a banned book recently? Have you reviewed one?
The “Thud” of Adult Cool
Once, when I was teaching, I had this fabulous idea for a series of lessons. I just knew it would be a hit with the kids. I just knew I’d love teaching it. It would dazzle my peers. And quite possibly I’d get written up in the local paper — in a, y’know, good way. I could even imagine the headline: Local Teacher “Rocks” Poetry.
Yes. I cringe with you.
Especially do I cringe in memory of some of my selections. This was the mid-1970s, for gods’ sake. It’s not like there wasn’t any, y’know, actual rock music to choose from. So what did I think would happen when I played for my high-school juniors and seniors the Kingston Trio, performing “MTA”? If you don’t know the song, its lyrics, in part, go like this (and by the way, “MTA” is an acronym for Metropolitan Transit Authority):
Let me tell you the story
Of a man named Charlie
On a tragic and fateful day
He put ten cents in his pocket,
Kissed his wife and family
Went to ride on the MTACharlie handed in his dime
At the Kendall Square Station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there the conductor told him,
“One more nickel.”
Charlie could not get off that train.Chorus:
Did he ever return,
No he never returned
And his fate is still unlearn’d
He may ride forever
‘neath the streets of Boston
He’s the man who never returned.…
Charlie’s wife goes down
To the Scollay Square station
Every day at quarter past two
And through the open window
She hands Charlie a sandwich
As the train comes rumblin’ through.
Yes: a socially-conscious folk song, accompanied by banjos, about a long-forgotten political issue in Boston, of a nickel increase in subway/train fares… in a well-to-do suburb in New Jersey with absolutely no subway/train service of its own.
When it finished playing through, I lifted the needle from the turntable (!) and said something like, “So…” (I had no idea what to say.) “…What’d you think?”
The quick-thinking football player a couple rows back, sprawled carelessly at his desk, growled: I thought it sucked.
I couldn’t help it; I burst out laughing. “What… sucked about it?”
Football Player: Why’d she hand him a sandwich? Why’n’t she just hand him some more money?
And thus ended that lesson.
Sky-Blessed
[Image: ‘Untitled, Hateruma-jima, Okinawa, 1971,’ by Shomei Tomatsu]
From whiskey river:
How to Grow Clouds
It takes a lot of work: it is necessary to weed very carefully, to toss out muck and small stones by hand, to kneel on the earth, bend over, dig about in the soil, water profusely, collect caterpillars, exterminate aphids, loosen the ground and serve the earth; when your back hurts from all this and you straighten up and look at the sky, you will have the prettiest clouds.
(Karel Capek, translated by Andrew Malcovsky)
…and:
Postscript
And some time make the time to drive out west
into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
in September or October, when the wind
and the light are working off each other
so that the ocean on one side is wild
with foam and glitter, and inland among stones
the surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
by the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
more thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
a hurry through which known and strange things pass
as big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
and catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
(Seamus Heaney, from The Spirit Level [source])
Unbanning Books Month
Miriam Forster, of the charmingly monikered Dancing with Dragons is Hard on Your Shoes blog, has issued a challenge to writers (and readers!). It springs from an annual event sponsored by the American Library Association, called Banned Books Week. From the ALA site:
Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.
Intellectual freedom — the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular — provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.
Here’s Miriam’s call to action for the month of September:
Since 1990, according to the ALA Challenge Database, over ten thousand books have been challenged in our country. These include The Diary of Anne Frank, The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien,1984 by George Orwell, the Bible, and the dictionary. [JES: ?!?]
The last week in September is Banned Book Week, a way to celebrate and highlight these and other censored books. In honor of Banned Book Week, a community of writers and readers have decided to be part of the Banned Book Challenge.
The Challenge is simple: Read one or more banned or challenged books during the month of September, and post reviews of them. The reviews will be collected and posted to a central site so that people can find out more about these books.
The above comes from the official invitation at the new Banned Book Challenge site which Miriam has set up.
So how do you participate?
Real-Life Dialogue (Awkward Moments Edition)
[The scene opens in the waiting room of Super Mega Giant medical center in a mid-sized city in northern Florida, USA. He is a middle-aged male, and has been for some time. This report includes two Shes: A, a medical assistant; and J, a nurse practitioner.]
A: Mr. He?
He: Right here.
A: Very good, come with me. [She leads him to an alcove with a scale, weighs him, makes note on chart.] All right, now, here’s the exam room you’ll be using. [Extends hand.] My name is A, and I’m Dr. B’s new medical assistant.
[He does not know what a “medical assistant” is, or where people with that title reside on the medical hierarchy, but believes He will be able to guess from what follows. He is right.]
A: Let me just take your blood pressure and your pulse…
[She does so, then moves to computer, sits down, and asks series of very basic questions about His medical history as she keys in His answers. He concludes she’s some sort of trainee. She checks computer screen.]
A: Okaaay… Looks like you’re due for EXAM* today, is that right?
[He wasn’t expecting it. He never is; its various surprises, after all, are essential features of EXAM.]
He: Um, I guess, sure.
A: Well, I’m pretty much done here. I’m not sure if J will do EXAM or if Dr. B will. I’ll let them sort that out. J will be in in just a minute. Nice to meet you!
[She exits. Five-ten minutes later, J, the nurse practitioner, enters.]
J: Good morning. Mr. He, nice to see you again.
[She sits at computer terminal. Asks him many questions about his prescriptions’ status. Asks if he has any questions about his lab results.]
He: Nope, I think I understood what I was looking at.
J: [Standing up.] All right then. I’ll just take care of this one last thing…
[She approaches the table on which He sits. He dismounts from the table, turns to face it, unfastens his belt and pants, lowers his pants—]
J: Wait! What the hell are you doing?!?
He: Uh, well, A said that either you or—
J: Oh, she did, did she? Well I’ll just straighten her out!
[She leaves exam room. He waits perhaps a minute and concludes that he should refasten his pants.]
[Five-ten minutes more, J re-enters exam room.]
J: Now, as I started to say, let me just get this stethoscope off the wall here so I can check your heart and lungs…
He: Ah. So then you aren’t going to, umm, do EXAM?
J: [Shakes head violently, makes “time-out” sign with both hands.] NO. Dr. B will be in when I’m done and he will take care of you.
He: You have to admit, this is pretty funny—
J: [Says nothing, but shudders exaggeratedly, and leaves.]
_____________
* Details of EXAM need not be spelled out, need they?
BlogIt
Every year around now, a large chunk of blogosphere real estate is turned over to posts, tweets, Facebook status updates, and Flickr albums about a gathering called BlogHer. As the conference title suggests, the focus in on women who blog — it’s apparently attended by a number of guys, as well — and for the several days of BlogHer, attendees take in workshops and panel discussions, attend parties, and go out with friends to take in the sights of that year’s city. (This year, earlier this month, it took place in New York City.)
I’ve never gone to BlogHer, and never expect to, although I follow and admire the bejeezus out of maybe a half-dozen of the BlogHerers (?) with wide name recognition (Maggie, The Bloggess, Kelly…) and make occasional trips through the takeout windows of another half-dozen or so.
There are a few reasons while I’ll probably never get there:
Surprised by What You Want
[Video above: “Rio,” by Hey Marseilles. Lyrics at the foot of this post.]
From whiskey river:
I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit is flinging tennis ball after tennis ball, eternally, and the one thing I want in the world is a tennis ball.
(Annie Dillard [source])
…and:
Born Thirty Years Ago
Thirty years ago I was born into the world.
A thousand, ten thousand miles I’ve roamed,
By rivers where the green grass grows thick,
beyond the border where the red sands fly.
I brewed potions in a vain search for life everlasting,
I read books, I sang songs of history,
and today I’ve come home to Cold Mountain
to pillow my head on the stream and wash my ears.
(Han-shan, Cold Mountain [source])
Think You Know What’s Coming?
From whiskey river:
If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next — if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions — you’d be doomed. You’d be as ruined as God. You’d be a stone. You’d never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You’d never love anyone, ever again. You’d never dare to.
(Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin [source])
…and, from the whiskey river archives (the commonplace book):
How Much Happens in a Day
In the course of a day we shall meet one another.
But, in one day, things spring to life —
they sell grapes in the street,
tomatoes change their skin,
the young girl you wanted
never came back to the office.They changed the postman suddenly.
The letters now are not the same.
A few golden leaves and it’s different;
this tree is now well off.Who would have said that the earth
with its ancient skin would change so much?
It has more volcanoes than yesterday,
the sky has brand-new clouds,
the rivers are flowing differently.
Besides, so much has come into being!
I have inaugurated hundreds
of highways and buildings,
delicate, clean bridges
like ships or violins.And so, when I greet you
and kiss your flowering mouth,
our kisses are other kisses,
our mouths are other mouths.Joy, my love, joy in all things,
in what falls and what flourishes.Joy in today and yesterday,
the day before and tomorrow.Joy in bread and stone,
joy in fire and rain.In what changes, is born, grows,
consumes itself, and becomes a kiss again.Joy in the air we have,
and in what we have of earth.When our life dries up,
only the roots remain to us,
and the wind is cold like hate.Then let us change our skin,
our nails, our blood, our gazing;
and you kiss me and I go out
to sell light on the roads.Joy in the night and the day,
and the four stations of the soul.
(Pablo Neruda; translation by Alastair Reid [source])
What Takes You Back?
Yesterday, Granta magazine kicked off a new collective-memory project called “Nostos Algos.” From a publicity release which just made its way to my Inbox:
The word ‘nostalgia’ comes from the Greek words nostos (‘a homecoming’) and algos (‘pain, grief, distress’). We have all known the desire to return to another place or time, and the feeling of being unable to truly go back. Nostos Algos is a collective exercise in bringing the past into the present and making it part of a shared experience with fellow users and the imaginations of Granta’s famed writers. After you post your memory, it will appear in a live feed and be matched to an extract from our Online Archive. Alongside your musings will appear words from Doris Lessing, Arthur Miller, Ryszard Kapuscinski and many other distinguished authors.
I have no idea, yet, if there’s some way to follow the project online in any ongoing way. You can pass individual posts to Twitter and Facebook; but I don’t see an RSS link there, and as far as I know the site doesn’t have its own social-networking presence. I’ll check on this and update this post as needed. (Note especially that the memories can be no longer than 500 characters; this means that for Twitter, at least — with its 140-character limit — some truncation will take place.)
Surely everyone reading this post has something to contribute. And how cool would it be to see your entry matched up with a selection from Granta‘s remarkable, wide-ranging past? Of its modern incarnation, the magazine’s “About” page says:
Since 1979, the year of its rebirth, Granta has published many of the world’s finest writers tackling some of the world’s most important subjects, from intimate human experiences to the large public and political events that have shaped our lives. Its contributors have included Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Saul Bellow, Peter Carey, Raymond Carver, Angela Carter, Bruce Chatwin, James Fenton, Richard Ford, Martha Gellhorn, Nadine Gordimer, Milan Kundera, Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jayne Anne Phillips, Salman Rushdie, George Steiner, Graham Swift, Paul Theroux, Edmund White, Jeanette Winterson and Tobias Wolff. Every issue since 1979 is still in print. In the pages of Granta, readers met for the first time the narrative prose of writers such as Bill Bryson, Romesh Gunesekera, Blake Morrison, Arundhati Roy and Zadie Smith; and have encountered events and topics as diverse as the fall of Saigon, the mythology of the Titanic, adultery, psychotherapy and Chinese cricket fighting.
Whoa, hmm?
See the dozen or so most recent entries which others have posted to Nostos Algos, and tack on your own to the stream, here.
For more details about the project, see the publicity release (139KB) itself.
Hits and Misses
Complicated here, during the last week. Not bad, just… complicated. Thought I’d sort of summarize a couple of points of potential interest, but first, a question for regular visitors:
Have you had problems accessing RAMH recently? One of your number has reported getting repeated “the connection was reset by the server” errors. It’s prevented her from even seeing the site, apparently. (I got the information via a Facebook message.) I haven’t been able to reproduce it from any of various locations, using various browsers and operating systems. But I wanted to check before proceeding to see if anything like that has cropped up for the rest of you. (Of course — ha! — if it has, then you won’t be able to read this post.)
Okay, now onto “real” matters…
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