QUIET MINDS: PASS IT ON

08 February 2013

PASS IT ON

I enjoy reading a lot of blogs. One I particularly look forward to is Jo Ann Heydron’s Talking to Strangers: An Introvert Hits the Streets. Her posts are more literate than mine, and longer, and she brings unique life experience and an enormous creative intelligence to events, and often writes about something I’ve been puddling about in my own head and makes it clear for me to understand.

Jo Ann recommended me on her blog, which is a wonderful honor, and that means I am supposed to share seven things about myself. (Heaven knows I’ve done a lot of that here already!)

I turned sixty last fall and although I don’t think I am particularly vain, and I certainly don’t have an issue with age, I am feeling my years on the earth. It’s a lot to see happen—the wars and the advances in science, the beautiful books and other acts of creation and the loss of people who have had no choice about leaving. And those who have but left anyway.

My husband and I have been married a long time—it will be forty years in the summer of 2014. We have two grown sons who live in Portland, and their wives, and our granddaughter. We love them all.

I chose to teach all in a whoosh, about the same time I married. I taught art first at a private girls prep school. After we moved to Oregon I thought I would teach social studies in the local public high school, though I never did. Instead I was hired to teach English and earned my certification in time to begin teaching Junior English and Yearbook in 1990. Since then I have completed a Standard Certificate and a few years ago I attended Pacific University, where I met Jo Ann, and earned a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, in fiction.

Though I rarely travel, my husband and I have been to several states and Canadian provinces while we were active showing and lure coursing our Afghan Hounds in the 70s and 80s. While I was on the ASFA Board I took my mother with me to meetings in New Orleans and Atlanta. Gary and I traveled to Boston for the wedding of a dear friend and former student who now teaches at OSU.

In the last year or so I wove twenty shawls, baby blankets, and scarves. When I was younger I imagined myself as an artist living in the country or an architect or some sort of poet like Joni Mitchell, surrounded by sunflowers and children.

My front yard is the edge of the world. Yes, I am lucky.

Our cat and dog provide endless entertainment, but we also see movies and we agree with one another almost always, which gives us the illusion that we are each smart and articulate people—smile!

I read blogs about art and parenting and the teaching of philosophy, holistic medicine and proper diet, movies and writing. I should probably recommend them all, but several former favorites are no longer active, and of the rest I wouldn't know where to stop. Here are just two very active blogs I check most days: Alisa Burke is a former student and artist who posts almost daily with creative activities, stunning photos of the NW and her daughter, fashion and art. Book of Kells is from poet Kelli Russell Agodon who shares things I would never have found otherwise such as the video bringing to life a six year old's story in film. Neither has time for this sort of award, but that's because they are already attracting plenty of readers. And that should tell you something.

Also check out these fine blogs:

poet Martha Silano at Blue Positive;
philosophy professor Michael Cholbi at In Socrates' Wake;
nueroscientist and YA novelist Livia Blackburn's A Brain Scientist's Take on Writing;
a runner and teacher at Room 101;
filmfan Jeff Botten at Cinematically Jeff.

They each have the right to post the Blogger Award label above and to pass it on. I should email each of them, but I only know two of them personally and since I'm home recovering from surgery, this is the best I can manage. If they choose, they may link back to this site, tell seven things about themselves on their blogs, and pass the award on to blogs they admire.

Most of the others I track haven't posted in the last month.

Go have a look. I will think of other things I should have written here, but I need to get to school. Good wishes and good day to all.

1 comment:

Jo Ann HeydronFriday, February 08, 2013 8:21:00 AM
Jan! Thanks for kind words. I celebrate our friendship. May it deepen.

I seriously doubt that anyone's posts are more literate than yours, and there are so many other reasons to read them--your extraordinary commitments, for example, to teaching and writing and generosity.
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16 BOOKS READ January 2013 to now

• THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins (2008) is the inspriation for the film, which follows it more faithfully than most movie version. I liked the book at lot, read it fast, and wanted the next novel right off. My only complaint is the writing, which is not great. The author is fond of stylistic use of fragments, a common habit among YA authors that goes a long ways toward explaining why I see the same pattersn in my students' writing.
• FAT KID RULES THE WORLD by K.L. Going (2003) was recommended by a student. It's a lively read and has moments of delight. " 'I always want you around. You're my brother.' In our entire lives I've never said this to him. I've spent years waiting for those exact words and it never once occurred to me to give them away" (158). This lines alone are woth the price.
• BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2012 edited by David Books has its ups and downs, but three essays stand out. In one, a Harvard doctor who has focused her career on pharmaceuticals reviews the work of three researchers who question the direction psychiatry has gone in treating depression. A review of all research (including what the FDA is forced to release through the Freedom of Information Act) suggests that we may be doing a great disservice prescribing medication for depression. Another by a well known essayist describes her own decades-long treatment with a variety of anti-depressants, which she declares have forced her to choose between the health of her mind and the health of her body. My book is on loan for the sake of a third essay about the bamboo ceiling that argues Asian Americans are hired but fail to advance for exactly the same reasons—they follow the rules, hold their tongues, and remain silent about their opinions.
• THE GREAT AGNOSTIC: ROBERT INGERSOLL AND AMERICAN FREETHOUGHT by Susan Jacoby (Yale, 2013) argues that Ingersoll deserves his place in American history for restoring Thomas Paine to the pantheon of American patriots, for arguing for the rights of the oppressed including women, for making science and the scientific method transparent, and for his outspoken views on religion, which he insisted had done great harm in the world. The man was a devoted husband and father, honest and honorable, and because of honesty and courage maintained many friends among the clergy despite their differences. It was an interesting book. He supported rights for women and access to birth control, opposed vivisection and capital punishment, supported the poor and protected the weak. He passed in 1899.
THREE MEN IN A BOAT (TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG!) by Jerome K. Jerome (1889) is a very funny read. Jerome is compared to P.G. Wodehouse and the connection is clear with the incompetent wealthy class of England. I was curious about this novel because of Connie Wallis' To Say Nothing of the Dog which references this older novel. I laughed out loud and kept reading sections to my husband. "It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form.” So he and two of his friends, also concerned for their health, plus his dog (who is perfectly healthy and delights in stirring up more trouble) decide to spend a fortnight boating up the Thames—everything goes wrong but the merriment is nonstop.
• HAVE YOU SEEN MARIE? by Sandra Cisneros (2012) is not what I expected. Last time I was there, I saw it on Powell's shelves, picked it up, and then set it down because I didn't love the illustrations and I thought it was a children's book. The day before yesterday, Tina Hess handed it to me and told me it was wonderful so I opened it again and read it cover to cover. Tina was right. It's not a children's book and I love the illustrations and I nearly cried several times reading it—in a good way. This is about grieving and recovery—something I have experience with. The book is charming and wise and I am the better for having read it.
• STITCHES: A MEMOIR by David Small (2009) is another in a long line of incredible graphic memoirs. Small traces his troubled family history—madness and silence—and I was captivated from the first illustration shown opposite the title page: a little boy dives into the drawing paper on the floor before him. Escape. This is a wonderful tale presented by a powerful illustrator of how a troubled marriage can damage children... also another story (not new to me) of a doctor-father neglecting the health of his own family.
• I SAW A PEACOCK WITH A FIERY TAIL illustrated by Ramsingh Urveti (2012) is a beautiful presentation of a traditional 17th century folk poem—both poem and illustrations acknowledge the puzzle of the words. It is a charming book, delightful to read and to look at, a playbook for adults—nothing "inappropriate, but the wordplay demands a relatively grown audience.
• GRAMMAR GIRL'S 101 WORDS EVERY HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE NEEDS TO KNOW by Mignon Fogarty (2011) has words for every letter in the alphabet: ad hoc, bellicose, canard... to zeal. My students should know these words, though I do quibble with xeriscape, which I think made the list only because it was the only X word worthy.
• I'VE HEARD THE VULTURE SINGING by Lucia Perilla (2007) is a short collection of memoir essays weaving together the author's knowledge of biology and her MS diagnosis decades earlier. She has a poet's skill at sculpting langauge because aside from her mountain-climbing youth, she was a biologist and has been a poet probably all her life. These essays look at destiny and hope, beyond Prufrock's despair and May Sarton's chosen. She has created a life for herself and shares it with the reader.
• NIGHTINGALE WOOD by Stella Gibbons (1938) is wise in the way people find love. You might know this author because of the sharply ironic and surreal film made from her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, but the books are always better and this one is splendid—smart, wry, cynical, and sweet. Gibbons understands and reveals truth about people is a way no current author does. You will laugh and you will learn something. It’s the best I’ve read this year.
• THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING by Catherynne M. Valente (2011) is a romp. Even my granddaughter, who carefully paged through to find them, enjoyed the black and white illustrations at the beginning of each chapter. September is bored with her father overseas fighting some war, her mother at work all the time, and the pink-and-yellow teacups, so when she is offered a ride to Fairyland, she jumps. She is warned against giving her full name or eating fairy food, but she's so very hungry—and she meets an astonishing variety of characters. This is an bloody knock-off of L. Frank Baum and as a fan of Baum, I have to say I enjoyed it thoroughly—but maybe it’s best to read it first before sharing with the young-uns.
• VEGAN CUPCAKES TAKE OVER THE WORLD by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero (2006) was a gift from my younger son and daughter because I am making 80 cupcakes for my older son and daughter's ring ceremony in June. I pretty much read this sweet cookbook cover to cover, but I didn't want to review it until I'd tried at least one recipe. The Coconut Lime Cupcakes were tempting, but the recipe I baked this afternoon was the Toasted Coconut Cupcake. Since I wanted to use coconut oil as the fat instead of butter, I was interested in a recipe that exploited the coconut flavor. I put a little organic powdered sugar on top. Next stop: vegan buttercream! I almost never follow others' recipes, but this one was great. The Coconut Lime Cupcakes look like they are worth a try too.
• THE ROUND HOUSE by Louise Erdrich (2012) is a novel with a grand goal of waking up America to the need to treat women better and the very real challenges of reservation life. There is rich cultural context here, authenticity and beauty. I have been a fan of the author for most of my adult life. The story is dramatic and compelling and funny. The choice of a man recalling himself at thirteen is an unexpected choice for a narrator. I read it fast. And yet... I have mixed feelings about the novel. It would make a very good film. It's too complicated to explain the plot, but a couple of turns felt wrong to me. Some of the set-up felt a little forced. I live in a small, highly connected community, so that much I appreciated. But I was sorry that Geraldine was such a victim—not just that she was made a victim, but that she remained one. I still want to see women demanding their place, not being handed over ditches. I guess that's my only real quibble.
• THE WORLD OF A FEW MINUTES AGO by Jack Driscoll (2012) is about love and pain and the ways we survive it all. I was already fgamiliar with most of these stories, having heard Jack read them, or having read them in their original publications, but they were worth my time again. These are not gentle stories, or optimistic stories, but they are all true in the most important way they can be true—to the heart.
• THE SCAR by China Miéville (Ballentine, 2002) is a second and slightly longer story (638 pages) set in the same world as the earlier Perdido Street Station. It begins shortly after the other leaves off, following a different set of characters on another grand adventure. I did not, at first, think I liked it as well but this changed partly because while PSS is a wild ride, I didn't feel it left me with much. Mostly, though, it was the discussion and explanation of the Possible Sword as a device only useful when it is allowed to turn its own way—forcing it, even with skill, is a disaster. It must be allowed to select its own possibilities. That's the way I see creation. At its best it may be pointed in a direction, but the mind must hold it gently, allowing it to flow where it wills.

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08 February 2013

PASS IT ON

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