My thoughts on whatever
I was feeling pretty ecologically minded the other day–big garden, compost, chickens, solar panels on the house, and a new-to-me pre-owned (there’s an adjective for you!) electric Nissan Leaf, just purchased. You plug it in. No gas. Zero emissions–a new way to think about driving. I had to get educated.
But then I went to an event and a woman there told me she had decided to have no plastic in her house. Continue reading “Degrees of green”
What is seductive about Amazon, is that they have made it so very easy to order from them. From the beginning, they took the lead in smart, user friendly customer interface design. Free shipping? No problem, you and your whole family can have that for less than $100 a year. Arcane products? They carry almost everything. No more going to the store searching for something they don’t have. And now Amazon even supports your favorite charity with fractional amounts from each purchase–their “smile” program.
Of course, the more Amazon dominates the market, the fewer stores there will be. So I feel a twinge every time I place an order. But perhaps this is just social Darwinism at work. I wonder. I know the same concerns exist about box stores.
Maybe the world will be ok without unique retail? Or with a few specialty retail stores only? What do you think?
An influential guy you probably never heard of, Prince Rupert zu Lowenstein, had an obituary in the Times on Friday. He was born a Bavarian aristocrat (where is Bavaria anyway? does it still exist?) and left Paris on the last plane to London before the Nazis invaded, studied history at Oxford, became a financier and later the money manager for the Rolling Stones.
He got them out of a draconian contract that payed them practically nothing, convinced them to reside outside England to avoid taxes, and copyrighted that red-tongue logo. He got them to stop accepting paper bags full of cash as payment, planned their blockbuster tours, and licensed their music to advertisers. On a more personal level he negotiated Mick Jagger’s divorce from Bianca and separation from Jerry Hall. He described himself as “combination of bank manager, psychiatrist and nanny.” Continue reading “The power behind the Stones”
One of Yakov Smirnoff’s signature jokes is about getting off the plane in the United States and seeing on a billboard “America Loves Smirnoff,” which he follows with the line, “What a country!” But here are two excerpts from one morning’s NY Times, which Larry read to me while I made breakfast.
The combination made me grateful for such a country, in all it’s crazy diversity.
The first is about the journalist Jayson Blair, who managed to hoodwink the Times for years, plagiarizing stories and inventing interviews and facts. The first is from a new film about Mr. Blair and his career:
“But perhaps the most potent of all the films commentaries comes from the soon-to-resign executive editor on that walk, Mr. Raines, who says ‘We were dealing with a disturbed individual exhibiting sociopathic behavior, two primary traits of which are lack of empathy and a highly manipulative personality.’ Jayson Blair is now, the film reveals, working successfully as a life coach.”
The last line made me drop the knife, I was laughing so hard. And then a couple of paragraphs from David Brooks, writing about a legendary meeting of Isaiah Berlin and Anna Akhmatova, whose work I’ve translated:
“Berlin and Akhmatova were from a culture that assumed that, if you want to live a decent life, you have to possess a certain intellectual scope. You have to grapple with the big ideas and the big books that teach you how to experience life in all its richness and make subtle moral and emotional judgements.
“That Berlin and Akhmatova could experience that sort of life-altering conversion because they had done the reading. They were spiritually ambitious. They had the common language of literature, written by geniuses who understand us better than we understand ourselves… Continue reading “What a country!”
Talking Writing has published the story of my mother’s death.
As she always liked to “write up” here experiences, I wrote this one up for her. Here is my last photo of her, two days before she died.
Gladys Natchez
November 13 1915 – May 29, 1994
In the introduction to The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, le Carré writes about how the publication of this book changed his life:
“I had written literally in secret…and free of serious critical attention. Once this book hit the stands, my time of quiet and gradual development was over for good, however much I tried to re-create it…For years to come there would be no such thing, for the publishing industry, as a ‘small’ le Carré book–a distortion both longed for and abhorred by any artist worth his salt.”
Have you saved every letter you ever got and every photo you ever took? It seems we have, boxes and boxes of them, moved from house to house, stored in attics, garages, rented storage spaces. We moved 21 times in the last 40 years, although we did spend 23 years in one house. We’ve discarded so much in the process, but these boxes moved each time, with the idea that… Well, it’s hard to remember the exact idea that made these items worth saving.
Going through them now, discarding letters from people I can’t remember, wondering what to do with letters from the dead, I do find random pieces of our history, like this, the receipt for $25 the first month’s rent on the first place Larry and I lived together, a moldy, decrepit and perfectly wonderful float house on Cowichan Lake in Youbou, BC. We rented it from Mr. and Mrs. Gold.
Looking at this receipt brings back that month, March, 1969, living on practically nothing in that drafty cabin with its smelly oil stove and gorgeous setting. I remember the shyness of first living with someone, listening to Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, Cream, the Chambers Brothers, Dylan–all new to me, learning to add cinnamon to French Toast, friends visiting from California, various adventures and misadventures.
I realized that the list of blogs I read is out of date, so am updating.
While I occasionally look at A Way to Garden, I’d rather find a more nuts and bolts gardening site.
I’ve kept Gina Gotsill’s blog about preserving, but she needs to post more often.
It’s language like this that made me delete Bookslut from my list:
“The phrase “semantic polarities” could be profitably switched out for the drama of becoming, because this is what Ugazio describes. Everyone wants not only to acquire certain material or sensual benefits but also to become the sort of person who would acquire these benefits, and to be seen as this precise sort of person in the eyes of others.”
Of course, that’s the blog for you if you like that sort of thing.
Harriet Devine continues to be a wonderful source for book suggestions, and I still enjoy the Mark on the Wall, Lisa Jones’ poetry selections.
I’ave added a food blog with some excellent recipes, Serious Eats.
But I’ve dropped a few other literary blogs as not very interesting. I realize this leaves me with a very short list!
Any suggestions?
I’d love to hear about other good sources–yes, besides the overwhelming Facebook posts!
In my world, if it bleeds, it’s skipped. Here are a few excerpts from the morning paper:
“Lorenzo Robinson, the longtime and loquacious men’s room sentry at the lofty 21 Club died. Now..the restaurant’s general manager said he expected to put a small plaque honoring him in the men’s room ‘and call it a day,’ without replacing him…
” ‘They really are a throwback to another era…like a hat check girl. Who wears a hat any more? What are you going to do–check your Yankees baseball cap?’ ” Continue reading “All the news…”
I have been doing the hard work of promoting my little book of translations (more about that another day). In between doing this work of pure attachment to the world, of assiduously courting its recognition for this project that means so much to me, I’ve been mulling the idea of faith.
Margaret Holub, the inspiring Mendocino Coast Rabbi, talked about this on Rosh Hashonnah. She read a passage about “coming to God as children or as slaves…” and noted that most modern prayer books change this language, as it is too hierarchical, too patriarchal. We’re uncomfortable with it, uncomfortable with the very idea of a patriarchal God. But this year, she said, those words had been ringing in her ear because she felt that they addressed the recognition that we are not in control.
None of us knows what will happen in the coming year, or even who will be here next year at this time. This acknowledgement that we have no control is the basis of faith, of acceptance not that “God will be good to us,” but that life will happen according to its mysterious, unknowable unfolding. A conscious acceptance of that can be a luminous thing. To have faith in the Divine Order, an order that contains suffering, terror, uncertainty, to be joyously open to that, is a definition of faith. She suggested we “act as if” we have such faith, and see how that colors our perception.
As a control freak myself, this is a challenge, but one that intrigues me, and I’ve been thinking about it as I go about the varied tasks of fall: clearing and redefining the labyrinth, culling the chicken flock, cutting old growth, preparing for planting once the rains begin.
The chicken flock is now down to six hens, no rooster, and nine pullets (almost two months old). I’m planning to put them together tonight, as the pullets are outgrowing their coop, and I have faith(!) that they are old enough to endure a little hen-pecking.
Laying slows down as the light wanes, and I couldn’t see keeping 11 hens through the winter. They are voracious, and while I love giving away the extra eggs, the feed bill/egg ratio tips in fall.
Now on days when all the hens are laying, I get two white, two brown, and two green eggs.
What did I do with the rooster and the rest of the hens? I sold two of the good laying hens, and gave the rooster and the four older hens to my Ethiopian friend to eat. I’m willing to kill and pluck a young meat chicken, but not an older bird. And she’s very glad to get them.
How can I love them and name them and then have them killed? This is the reality of farming (well, not necessarily the loving and naming).
But what I’ll do when Houdini, my little Hamburg, and Selina my favorite banty are too old to lay, I’m not sure.
Hopefully, they’ll get broody this spring and raise some chicks for me. That would justify my keeping them another year.
Going through boxes again, I came on my first diary. It dates from when I was six, and I can still remember being inspired to start writing when my mother gave me a metal box of index cards. Here are a few entries (text on the right in case you can’t read it):
I was one of those insufferable children who adore school. As the youngest in my family by five years, in school I competed only with my peers. I have always been a quick study, and the rewards at school were easy and plentiful. By 9th grade, I was taking honors classes, Geometry, Biology, honors English. I loved the spatial predictability of geometry, the way it explained the world. I was lucky to have an English teacher who introduced me to poetry I would never have found on my own and a Biology teacher who introduced me to the scientific method of exploring the world. I loved it all. Socially, I struggled. I was unavoidably a teacher’s pet and my sartorial skills had not been honed by being dressed for years in my brothers’ hand-me-downs and my mother’s occasional lightning shopping expeditions. But I had a group of friends, and I even tried out for the cheerleading team.
At the same time, I was encouraged to compete in the annual science fair. Continue reading “Techie or Fuzzy”
