the cassandra pages

Listening, Watching

(click for larger image)

A story begins to want to be told but hasn't found its voice.  I'm going through the archives, the old clippings, yellowed bits from the Evening News, the Post-Dispatch of the 1920s and 30s, the obituaries and the news, the letters from my great grandmothers. I'm listening for the voices in the stories, making notes, jotting down fragments I overhear as conversations echo in distant rooms and photographs speak from their frames. But mostly listening, saying little. I'm online less; it's too noisy there.

Pictures also want to be painted, while the style of the painter remains elusive. And there is no solution for that except to draw and paint, every day, exploring similar subjects, watching and looking for the movement of the hand, the mark on the paper, the juxtaposed colors that unexpectedly lead out of what seems like an endless forested circle onto a still-indistinct but discernible path. A blaze may be put on a tree, then, and when I circle back, as I inevitably will, it will be there.

Meanwhile the blog waits hungrily, none too patiently, to be fed, and the people looking through the gate are probably getting restless and bored, while the humuggity increases. That was Cousin Elsie's word, my own cousin told me on the phone last night, a combinaton of mugginess and humidity. She was a unique character, he adds, and I say yes, they were all unique characters, our ancestors, and so are we. In her journal, my great-aunt Inez as a child rides with her father through the hills to visit her Cousin Elsie, behind the team of Jen and Charlie, hitched to the wagon. It's the summer of 1905, and very hot...

In my studio, vicarious coolness. I've been exploring the Montmorency waterfall, doing an ongoing series of drawings and watercolors, and instead of looking for pieces to put together, I'm searching out structures that I eventually want to deconstruct. Over and over, I draw the falling water, the folds of the rock, the trees clinging to the steep slope like furry animals, the threadlike cables of the suspension bridge and the curve of water in the pool below. I study the complex trees in the middle distance and the foreground, searching for shapes and forms, for patterns of light and darkness, the interlocking curves and lines, for what it is in this landscape that speaks to me. It's good for me; it's so not about words.

Traveling to the studio in the morning, and back in the evening, I see things. A huge pink dahlia in someone's front garden on a poor block, growing larger and heavier each day. A woman with a furrowed brow pushing her baby in a carriage, the baby with the same worried look on its face: the infant face of the mother. Two men in top hats and white shirts with waistcoats, riding Victorian bicycles, who appear and disappear like an apparition, leaving passersby staring after them down the street. There seems to be less of me, as I make friends with a stranger, uncertainty.

And at home in the evening, I write little bits, think, and read a great deal. Berger, lately, random pages of Lilac and Flag and last night, the first story, "Lisboa," in Here is Where We Meet:

"An old woman with an umbrella was sitting very still on one of the park benches. She had the kind of stillness that draws attention to itself. Sitting there on the park bench, she was determined to be noticed. A man with a suitcase walked through the square with the air of going to a rendezvous he kept every day. Afterwards a woman carrying a little dog in her arms - both of them looking sad - passed, heading down towards the Avenida da Liberdade. The old woman on the bench persisted in her demonstrative stillness. To whom was it addressed?

Abruptly, as I was asking myself this question, she got to her feet, turned and, using her umbrella like a walking stick, came toward me.

I recognised her walk, long before I could see her face. The walk of somebody already looking forward to arriving and sitting down. It was my mother."

Looking back on April: Experiments with Poems and Social Networks

 

Primary Colors: Place des Arts, under construction, April 20, 2010

Well, we finally have a sunny, slightly warmer day here. The snow is gone, and most of the flowers and unfurling leaves don't look much the worse for their brief ice-bath. Back on our bikes, we rode to the studio this morning against a stiff wind, and halfway here I got a flat tire. There's a lot of glass on the roads and though we try to avoid it, you can't always: when we took the tube out of the tire there was a clear puncture, and a hole sliced right through the tire itself. It's just one of the dangers of spring on these streets, and we keep spare tubes on hand because we know we're going to get flats. I'm happy the slush is gone, and that I can be back on my bike.

So it looks like this roller-coaster month of April will exit calmly, after all. It's been an experimental month for me in two ways: the commitment to NaPoWriMo and writing a micropoem every day, and a month-long more-serious engagement with social networking, posting my poems on Identica and Twitter, and trying to give Facebook more of a chance. It's also been a very busy time because of managing the qarrtsiluni chapbook contest, with a lot of responsibilities around the closing deadline of April 15.

My general feeling is that I'll be glad to see April go! I've enjoyed writing the poems, and think that together they form a pretty interesting condensation of my impressions during one month of my life. I'll continue, as I did throughout last year, but loosely. My feelings about the social networks are a lot more complex.

I use Identica and Twitter mostly as places to post poems or short observations; in other words, creatively.  I think they offer a lot of possibilities that way, and that few of us are exploiting them fully. But in order to do that you have to be very engaged with the medium and willing to post a number of times per day, and I just can't do that; I do the minimum, to keep my hand in, and to be able to notice what the people I follow are doing.

Facebook is different, and while my instinctive dislike of it has softened during this past month, I still have really big problems with it. At its worst, it reminds me of high school: I've got absolutely no desire to go back to the unhappiest time of my life, when everyone was collecting friends and striving to be noticed while basically swimming in a sea of superficiality. At its best, FB is clearly a fantastic networking tool for organizations, artists, groups and individuals; it's been great for Phoenicia Publishing, and is important for me as an editor at qarrtsiluni too; I've been able to be visible and connected in new ways with our contributors and with other writers, and that's all good.

It's also clearly a way to reach out of one's solitude or boredom during the day and connect with people, or at least feel like other people exist. But I'm not sure how much actual friendship or genuine interest really occurs in these postings and responses; my number of "friends" has approximately tripled during April, but most of these are people I don't know at all, and probably never will. If I made the same kind of effort many people apparently do, I could probably accumulate a thousand FB "friends" - but what would this mean? Of course I'm glad to hear from real friends and make new ones, to read what they're doing and be able to respond, but it's all so fast, and the interaction as slight and fleeting as the hint of breeze on a hot summer day: briefly the skin cools and feels refreshed, but the next moment the discomfort and heat are back again.

What I perceive as the force driving social networking is the basic and universal human hunger for recognition, connection, affirmation, and relief from loneliness. Blogging was/is that way too, but it requires a different level of time commitment and focus. For me, interacting on social networks does very little to address those needs, and actually distracts me from the sort of activity that does make me feel fulfilled -- like trying to write a thoughtful blog post, practicing the piano, making something in the studio, writing a letter to a friend, having someone over for dinner, reading a book, taking a walk, talking to people. I'm sad, actually, that social networking has replaced blogging for so many of us, but I understand why that is. There's only so much time in a day, and everyone calculates their own time-benefit ratio to determine how to use it.

I get a lot less creative or serious work done when I'm active on Facebook or Twitter, and at the end of the day I realize I feel worse, not better. On the other hand, social networking is obviously here to stay, it works for a lot of people, for many it's become their preferred method of communication. I want and need to maintain a presence there, but I also know now that I need to limit my exposure. The privacy issues are another whole subject, and I think they're pretty significant.

So, I'll think I'll continue to post occasional micropoems online, and use FB and Twitter and Identica to help Phoenicia and qarrtsiluni, and check once or twice a day to see what other people are up to, but that's it. I need to focus on my work and on the friendships I already have, and actually to go deeper into my own solitude, both because running from it does no good, and because it's one of my creative and spiritual wells.

What I've said here is personal and not intended to judge anybody else's engagement with different forms of online media. I'd love to hear what you think about this subject.

Seven

Two corals, pen and ink, 1976

On Saturday, the 20th, this blog will turn seven, which is rather hard to believe. I'll be in New York City, with friends from Montreal, visiting museums and friends from that place as well. And I'm strongly considering not taking my computer along, though I'll certainly have my camera and the recorder that runs in my head most of the time...

 Lately I've been reflecting on the changes in my daily life since moving up here for good last summer. We've settled into a routine of rising at 7:30 or so, dressing quickly, and coming to our studio -- by bike, now -- where we make coffee and a light breakfast - steel-cut oats for me, with some fruit or yogurt. I spend the first hour checking email and the social networks, and then begin the day's work, which is sometimes professional design work, sometimes writing, and more often these days, various tasks for qarrtsiluni and Phoenicia Publishing. We make lunch here around noon, and then are back at it, often until 7:00 pm or even later. I usually break up my day with a walk and am trying to spend a couple of hours doing artwork of some sort, and if I can I play the piano for half an hour. You might think that working at home, as we did for 30 years, would be more productive but it's just the opposite. I miss being at home sometimes - it's easier to start dinner in the middle of the afternoon, and easier to take a walk and do the day's shopping - but in general this situation feels better. Home feels quiet and calm and slow; it's a meditative atmosphere for cooking, bathing, reading, and seeing friends.

Our upstairs neighbor, noticing our new routine and late hours, admonished me recently: "Don't work too hard!" I laughed and he said, "Yes, I know you love it." "A lot of it doesn't feel like work, I said. "This is just what I do."

Being involved with art again has made me think about a time in my life, long ago, when I had my first job after college. I was working as a naturalist in one of New York State's environmental education centers, and was in charge of their exhibits and trail guides. In the evenings I'd come home, make myself some dinner, and spend the next four hours drawing, painting, and doing calligraphy. It would be more accurate to say that I was teaching myself to paint illustrations from the natural world in watercolors, and practicing calligraphy so that I might be able to do it professionally. All that winter of 1975-76 I worked hard, night after night, listening to the public radio station from Syracuse, which is when I also learned to love opera. I remember it as a time of deep, quiet satisfaction. I enjoyed my daytime work and my colleagues there, who were every social people, but I knew I wouldn't stay indefinitely, and felt I was preparing for the future. My whole life stretched ahead of me, a bright ribbon of possibilities, and instead of feeling scared or lonely I looked forward to the solitude of those evenings with my paints and pens and music, searching for something beneath my fingers that I hoped would eventually take shape.

 
Self-portrait, ~1990

Did it? Not the way I expected, of course. I met a man and moved to New England, became a self-employed graphic designer and calligrapher, became a much more serious painter and left music behind for a long time. Then work and business and community became the primary focus, along with a long happy marriage to a very different man. Computers came along. Spiritual matters became a much greater focus, as did politics; painting was laid aside, music re-entered my life, and twenty years after those long nights in that makeshift studio I became, working each morning instead, the writer I had wanted to be all along.

So what's happening now, after nearly another twenty years? It feels like a weaving together of the many threads of my life, but in a different form: I'm no longer interested in doing skillful realistic drawings or paintings, for instance, and most of my attention has shifted from the finished product to the process itself. But once again, I don't know what will take shape or how I'll be changed. I do know that blogging has played, and will continue to play, a major part in that evolution, not only because it encourages my practice of writing, forming a space of solitude and concentration where the writing can take place, but because it takes me out of my own world into yours.

Read, Write, Cut -- and Keep Going

Read, Write, Cut -- and Keep Going: a new essay in the series on books, writing, and publishing over at my Phoenicia Publishing site.

My Saturday morning began with a quick read of a two-part article in the Guardian, "Ten Rules for Writing Fiction," in which a number of contemporary authors were asked to give their advice. As both a writer and an editor, I found a lot that was worthwhile, though some took the question more seriously than others, and the article was very long -- probably the editors didn't want to offend anyone by leaving them out. The best standalone lists, I thought, were those by Geoff Dyer and Al Kennedy.

So let's look at what the responses had in common, and what stood out...

Macro- and Micro-Economies

"At What Price Progress?" is the first in a series I'm writing at Phoenicia Publishing to encourage discussion about about the future of poetry (and other forms of writing) in the challenging new publishing environment. Hope you'll go over and read it there; this is a typical Cassandra series (but I decided to post there to encourage visits to the new site.)

"It's obvious that as the larger publishing houses merge and find themselves squeezed financially, taking risks on experimental, innovative writing - especially where the audience may be limited - has already become less and less viable. Academic publishing and journals are becoming, in my opinion, an increasingly  insular club. So, for truly creative writing, writing by people who don't fit into the existing systems, writing that crosses genres and boundaries and takes risks -- the sorts of things that small presses and independent bookstores once championed -- online publishing is one of the only remaining solutions. Doesn't some of that work also deserve to be in print?  Yes. But we've yet to figure out how the economy of it can work for everyone's benefit."

κριτικός

kritikós: "able to discern," from the Greek

Several recent conversations have made me think about the role of bloggers as critics, myself in particular. Just the other day I wrote a pretty harsh review of a film, and today I responded to a post and conversation at (p)(b) about literary criticism in general and a particular book, Caroline Alexander's "The War that Killed Achilles," and a review thereof in the NYTimes.

I've had some second thoughts about the review I wrote, trying to put myself in the shoes of the filmmaker if she were to read it. It certainly hurt me when I read negative comments in reviews of my own book, and I don't want to be unfair, especially to someone who is clearly talented at the art of making films and who could, I think, grow into a deeper interpreter of her own cultural heritage. So there's that.

Trying to be non-judgmental and kind has always been my desire. But when also trying to get at the truth about things, a sharp intellect and verbal skills don't always result in absolute kindness.

Someone close to me recently asked, basically, "Who do you think you are, setting yourself up as a critic?" suggesting that doing so is mostly about my own ego - a charge that probably fits most critics like a tight T. But, as if there were a wasp caught inside that taut shirt, the comment stung me.

There's a difference between having something to say (and trying to say it well and carefully) and pontificating in order to put oneself up on a pedestal. The Greek root of the word, κριτικός, has to do with that overused Anglican word, "discernment," (often trotted out in vague circumstances when people who don't agree at all agree to go through a "process" together to "discern the will of God.'") The "ability to discern" has come to imply a sifting of right from wrong, good from bad, making the best decisions rather than not-so-good ones. Not much in life can be put into such neat piles, it seems to me. I suspect the original meaning was closer to "having good judgment", a by-product not of innate intelligence or sharply-honed debating skills, but of long experience and wisdom -- which is why it probably grates on us to read snarky put-downs of other writers and artists by young self-seeking critics. In my role as editor at qarrtsiluni, I have to pass judgement on other people's work; the result can encourage or it can, especially when handled clumsily, completely squelch someone's creativity. It's not a task I approach lightly, and it's only recently, on the upper end of middle-age, that I've felt comfortable at all about taking it on. A degree of humility seems fairly important, but even if you have that, the role itself can obscure it.

Maybe offering opinions is always fraught with peril. I probably won't stop, but thinking about what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and weighing the potential results is pretty crucial.

What do you think? Just as the internet has allowed everyone to publish their work, it also allows us all to be critics. Is that good? How do you "discern" intelligent commentary and discussion from the clamor of the millions of voices out there, and is it even something you seek? Or is much of the popularity of the medium, really, just because we get to to hear the sound of our own voices?

Film Gluttony

The Montreal World Film Festival began yesterday with an opening gala - we didn't go - but tonight we'll start on our annual movie-binge, which should clear our heads from all lingering dust remaining from the summer of cleaning and moving, and replace it with the excitement and drama of a world tour. Tonight we plan to see two films, a French movie by Tony Gatlif ("Latcho Drom") about a Roma family during the Second World War, and an American art film called "Redland" about a family's desperate wilderness frontier life in the 1930s. Sounds like a grueling and interesting evening; will report.

After the heat of last week, the days have been progressively cooler, and riding my bike up to the studio this morning, it actually felt like fall. It always happens, right around September 1 - that first day when autumn unmistakably arrives, and then there's no going back, in spite of the hot days we'll probably have in September. Apples will soon supplant the peaches, and chrysanthemums the late roses and lilies, and I'd better get ready for it. But damn, that's going to be hard!

--

While we're speaking of upcoming events, I want to mention that there are only a few more days left for submissions to qarrtsiluni's "Words of Power" issue, which Dave Bonta and I are editing. The submission period closes at the end of this month, and the theme description is quoted below. We'd especially like a few more visual interpretations of the theme to consider - photography, artwork, multimedia - but your poetry, prose, flash fiction and other writings are more than welcome. Thanks!

Call for Submissions: Words of Power

29 07 2009

In magic, to have said is to have done.
—Eliphas Levi

Again this fall we’re taking the helm ourselves, not for want of volunteer guest editors, but because we had such a blast with last fall’s Journaling the Apocalypse issue that we resolved to do it every year if possible. The submissions period is from August 1 to August 31, and publication will begin around September 15.

This time we’re looking for words of power: curses, spells, charms, prayers, incantations, mantras, sacred scriptures, explicit performative utterances, oaths, or legal instruments. Submissions may consist entirely of such super-charged language, or may riff upon or explore such language. Submissions of visual art may of course take a more figurative approach to the topic; images of amulets and other power-objects, for example, would be welcome. But otherwise we urge contributors not to interpret the theme too broadly. Please don’t just send us a piece of writing that you think is powerful according to some subjective evaluation. We’re looking quite specifically for language freighted with mana and/or executive force, or writing about that kind of language. If you’re not sure whether something qualifies, feel free to query.

Please limit written material to no more than five items per submission, with individual pieces not exceeding 3,000 words. Please refer to the general guidelines before submitting, and note especially the recommendation to query us if we don’t acknowledge receipt within two days — occasional server hiccups and email glitches are a fact of life on the internet.

We look forward to reading your words of power with an unusual admixture of excitement and trepidation. This issue could be a real test of our editorial juju!

—Dave and Beth

Would-be writer, October, 1995

I've been re-reading some old journals. Here's a paragraph written when I was in my early 40s, before I was doing much serious writing, and long before blogging. Which just goes to show you can't predict much of anything about your own life.

I read someone like Hemingway and say, “What do I know about that is worth writing about? I know nothing exotic or foreign or adventurous in the usual sense.” All my adventures are inward, and how many people really want to read about that, at least directly? But you can write about the inward journey by putting it into an outward context. Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure how to do any of this. I just know I want to. These are doubts I have to face down. Talking to an old girlfriend I remembered that I do know about one thing, which is small town life. I know a lot about that. But I read something the other day and the descriptions went on for pages and pages and I thought, well I guess this is how you end up with a book, you just elaborate forever. It’s not that it wasn’t interesting or well-written, it just wasn’t necessary. I think I might start and be done in twenty pages; going on like that would feel like a room filled up with finished canvasses - wasteful somehow. So much of what is written and published today seems superfluous to me, not important, not interesting and certainly not even an attempt to be literature. Well, if I keep thinking about it I’ll figure it out.

It's hot here, like it is in the rest of the northeast. Yesterday the cathedral was nearly unbearable, and we all sat and fluttered fans or the service leaflets in front of our faces; when we stood up to sing a psalm I could feel rivulets of sweat running down my stomach and legs. Afterward, one of my friends said that she used to have elderflower water in the summer; it came in a small bottle and if you patted it on your face and neck it would cool you off immediately. I'd never heard of that, but thought we might be able to find out how to make it, and sure enough, my friend V., who was also in on that conversation, sent me this today. I'm not in the country and it's too late for elderflowers, but maybe next summer?(BTW, the picture at the top of the linked page is NOT of elderflowers, which actually look like this.)

I used to make elderberry ink when I was little. Which is one of those things I do know something about, and could probably build a story around. As I've learned over time, it doesn't really take much.

Consequences

"Who could possibly quarrel with eyes like those?" she wondered, taking the cold cloth from her face and leaning toward the mirror. The tears had stopped and her eyes, soothed by the cool water, gazed back at her: two enigma variations in greenish-blue. She slowly ran the cloth around the small stainless steel sink, and then set her purse on the counter, unzipped the center compartment and took out a tube of mascara; steadying her hand she applied the thick black color to her lashes, and then pulled a tissue from the dispenser and carefully dabbed away an errant spot from the fold beneath her left eye.

Why had she gone there for the holidays? She was old enough now to have predicted the first rush of happiness at being home again, the enthusiastic greetings and favorite foods, and then, once everyone’s initial physical and emotional hungers were sated, the beginning of the questions and her awareness of the two red spots on her cheeks that appeared when she was angry or humiliated, even though her long legs in the expensive stockings had remained gracefully crossed and the rapid beating of her heart quite hidden beneath the pale pink linen shirt and confident grey suit.

Well: it was over. She closed her purse, opened the door, and stepped out into the aisle. The plane was full, and the anonymous strangers suddenly seemed as benevolent as the happy clouds outside the windows. A person could walk right through them without falling.

This is the ninth post in an ongoing online game of Consequences. Each successive entry begins with the closing lines of its predecessor. Entries are 250 words long, and are linked thematically. The series started with Hydragenic and was followed by Patteran Pages, Porous Borders, The Middlewesterner, Feathers of Hope, Blaugustine, Small Change, and Via Negativa. The series will soon continue at 3rd House Journal.

On the Identity of Thieves

"The proposal was this: if Liebard would help him clear the overgrown fields beside the house and clarify the lawns under the full-branched chestnut trees, then he and his family were welcome to stay on that land for as long as they desired. Lucien would sign any formal document if Liebard wished, but Liebard waived that possibility. He disapproved of putting pen to paper - that and excessive dialogue had always got him into trouble in the past. And while they were talking, in a footnote to the conversation, Liebard announced that he was relinquishing the name he'd been using, and was now taking the name Astolphe.

Within an hour the boy, who was used to these changes, was calling his father Astolphe. Lucien realized the man used names like passwords, all of them within a brief life span. But this time the thief wished that he had owned the name earlier in his life. He spent the first day imagining moments from his past when he could have been "Astolphe," when he might have behaved and participated with more ease and subtlety just for having the epaulette of such a name...The thief liked the sound of the name, its aftereffect, its airiness, with a hint of an echo. With such a name it would almost be possible for this thickset man to turn into a three-ounce bird or a subtle grammatical form.

...The name Astolphe appeared in the sixteenth-century Orlando Furioso. How had this man come across it? Would he have stolen such a book in the past -- did thieves even steal books? How did he gather such things into his pockets?"

Michael Ondaatje,  Divisadero