Thoughts from the Hollow

 It has always struck me as a strangely fallow time of year, that gap between whatever winter solstice holiday you celebrate and the time when various calendars proclaim it to be a “new year.” Two peaks in the public consciousness between which is “the hollow” where a listlessness prompts its twin lassitude to stir drifting thoughts.

Among mine are reflections on “Distilled Harmony,” the world view I have be toying with for the last decade or so, and various comments from here on the Wall and elsewhere that wonder how I manage to cling to a positive view of the world when “information media” present a rather contrary view of existence. Hmmm. 

I believe it was my mother who first read the Pollyanna books to my sister and me. If I am wrong Margaret will switch on her super sister memory and correct me. For those of you without access to that marvelous resource, Pollyanna, was a children’s literature classic written by Eleanor H. Porter in 1913. Wikipedia tells us that Pollyanna"has become a byword for someone who, like the title character, has an unfailing optimistic outlook.”  

When you consider the four major tenets of Distilled Harmony, Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity, and Oppose Harm, it would be understandable to consider the Distilled Harmony view of existence to be skewed a tad toward Pollyanna. And that is just fine, as Distilled Harmony is a positive perspective on existence, but not naively so. There are some clouds in this predominantly blue sky interpretation of existence. And it behooves me to clarify the exceptions, which, not surprisingly can be found predominantly in the oppose harm tenet.

First, perhaps, is my extreme dislike of “negative noise.” That is a pretty fuzzy notion. To clarify, I guess I would say “negative noise” is any audible manifestation of discord.  Still broad, but perhaps less so.  A whining puppy, a bawling calf, the banging of a storm loosened shutter - these are all negative noises, and I find them disturbing. But, as we are discovering regarding many of the world’s woes, most negative noises are created by people. 

A personal bete noire is voices raised in anger. I was fortunate to have been raised in a home where discord was most often expressed more gently than I have come to learn was, and sadly still is, the norm in many domestic interactions. And I supposed my surprise at this stark reality is in itself a tad strange given that in my 1990 book, Taming the Wild Tube, I laid blame for this distorted notion of normalcy on the media and its impact on “real life.“ Unfortunately things on that front have not gotten any better.

In journalism the notion of “If it bleeds it leads,” is alive and well. The latest clashes from the never-ending wars of the world usually lead. In “reality TV” think Dr. Phil, or other programs in that genre. Or even “fictional dramas” that center on conflict, the conversations most often featured are manifestations of anger, stress and violence. More “negative noise.” Political “discussions” have “devolved” into media enhanced confrontations bearing more similarities to a fifth grade cafeteria food fight than a rational discussion of pressing local, national, or global issues. And, to stay with the analogy for just a moment, given the tawdry presentation of life via the media, is the rise of the taunting, belittling playground bully in political life really any surprise? Whew! That felt good. And isn’t that the problem?

Well, obviously, if I dislike mediated presentations of conflict, those entities pale in comparison with “real life” arguments, feuds, disagreements, etc. Fortunately, and not entirely by chance, my “real life” has been relatively free of personal “negative noise.” There was, in hindsight, not even much hollering during my divorce. There is an argument to be made that part of that avoidance of “negative noise” in my “real life” has come at the cost of “fighting the good fight!” It is an argument I choose not to make as the idea of a “good fight” is, as manifested in contemporary culture, in itself an oxymoron.

OK. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Things I am not “Pollyanna-ish” about.

Authoritative voices from on high, or on paper, or these days on a digital screen, demanding behavior that ultimately proves foolish.  OK, for this one you’re going to have to squeeze into the WayBack machine with Sherman, Mr. Peabody and me because we are headed to the mid-1960s. Those were the years when young men over the age of 18 began to receive letters that began: “Greetings!” Long, very long, story short, these were letters from on high - the “on high” in this case being the Selective Service System - I don’t believe the irony in the name was intentional - telling them to report to their local draft boards to begin the process that had a good chance of sending them to Vietnam. 

Now, I have no intention to debate that incredibly divisive period in our history. Rather my concern is with the whole “voice on high” from the rather arbitrary Selective Service System. Everyone’s experience during this time was unique, as was mine:

One thing each young man had to do was get physical - and not in the Olivia Newton-John sense of the concept. So, I did, and that was where things began to get strange. I have terrible eyesight, fell into the orchestra pit during a rehearsal for Bye, Bye Birdie in high school. Which bruised my ego but strengthened my case to get contacts. So, word on the street was my eyesight would deem me unfit to serve. But the process was the process, so I went for mu physical; moved from doc to doc, station to station - discovering in one station that the examiner was a good friend of my then wife’s parents. “Give them my best!” he said as he shoved me along to the next station.

And soon I was back on the bus headed for home. Now, another little bit of history. Since this was after December 1, 1964 I was part of the “draft lottery,” a system devised by the Selective Service System that assigned each potential draftee a number between 1 and 366, which determined in what order the draftee could be called to serve. Low number - pack your bags. High number - chill. More of a Random Service System.

My number was 133, or 131, not 132. Funny the things you can sort of remember after 50 years. So another thing draft eligible guys tended to remember was their “draft classification” a letter/number combination that worked in combination with your lottery number to predict your future. 1A - pack your bags. 4F - write a nice thank you note to the AMA because you have been declared physically unfit. So a generation of American lads, sat around watching the mail - analog mail, 1964 remember - for another notification from on high to learn their “draft classification.” I was classified 1H. No, that is not a typo. I was classified 1H. I had no idea what that meant. And like other young men of my era, we were quite familiar with the argot.

I did some research - again, at the library - no computers. I never found any reference to a draft classification 1H. But I never heard from the draft board again, so I let it pass. I assumed that it meant that if the Vietcong managed to establish a beach head in Cleveland, and set Lake Erie on fire (look it up, it has happened before - the fire, not the Vietcong) I was to be held in reserve with other 1Hs to serve as hostages. Seriously, an incredible set of snafus from “very highly placed voices from above.”

And that’s not the only example. Set the WayBack machine to around 2001. This time the highly placed voice from above came from the doctor who informed me that I had multiple myeloma and only a handful of months to live. Get your affairs in order. Well, he got the multiple myeloma part right, but missed the other variable in the equation by a few decimal places. Latest data shows me still cancer free, knock on wood - and a thankful knock on the doors of the docs who provided the excellent care I have received both in Raleigh and here in Burr Ridge.

But I hope you can see why when “highly placed authoritative voices” intone, “I can handle this. We’ve got it under control.” My inclination is to respond, “I may be old, but I’m not stupid. Let’s get some other voices into the conversation.”

And then there is “money talk.” I probably could include this in “negative noise,” but it feels like it should get its own category - a decision no doubt influenced by the unbelievable amount of “money talk” I had to endure recently to secure a home equity line of credit which a great deal of money talk convinced us was “the best strategy” surrounding the sale of our former home in Raleigh.

To clarify, I have friends, family members, trusted advisors who love to talk money. Several have made livings far beyond the scope of mine, by talking and doing “money things.” Their eyes light up, voices move to either semi-conspiratorial, or “on high-ish” as they talk about “return on investments” and possible impacts of shifts in the prime. However, since the only obvious shifts in the prime that seem to have touched me, have touched me on the palate where there is significant difference between “choice” and “prime.” My eyes glaze over. I desperately search for diversion on TV, like last year’s cricket finals from Australia - a sport whose rules are as incomprehensible to me as “money talk.” But there is actual movement.

It is, I guess, an attitude drawn from personal experience. Money talk, is like phone calls after 10:00 PM. It has never brought me anything pleasant.

And, all right one final one that at first blush it may seem trivial.  I suspect that my iPhone is short-changing my “walkabout-steps.”  What, you may well ask, are “walkabout steps?” The notion springs from a ritual in Australian aboriginal culture. In this form of “walkabout” a young man - I could find no parallel reference for young aboriginal females, which might speak well of them. Anyhow, the guys on “walkabout” seem to literally wander about the Australian Outback for an unspecified period of time, until they return having somehow transitioned into adults.

 That is not the kind of walkabout-steps I am talking about. Although my “walkabout-steps” are also age related, they are gender non-specific.

I am talking about the steps that pile up as we “walk about” wondering - well, wondering about a plethora of issues. First, the pragmatic wondering; I wonder where I put my phone, my keys, my coffee, my book, my coat, my walking shoes, my hiking sticks - regular stuff, which ironically, often results in wondering just what was it I was looking for. Why am I here in the garage? 

And then there is secondary wandering which induces another level of wondering. Perhaps you find yourself in your study, where you went to look for your iPad, and you find yourself confronted by a painting or a piece of sculpture, maybe even one you created yourself, and you remember the person or place that inspired you to create or collect the work, and you wonder about the current condition of that person or place. The whole “I wonder who’s kissing her now?” “Operator, can you help me place this call?” phenomenon. And then you think, “What am I doing in the study?” And you go back to the kitchen, wondering why your FindMy app never makes your iPad chime.

And finally there is tertiary wandering which can often occur outside the home - maybe even during an intentionally planned walking event! And as you stroll about you find yourself wondering about the world that surrounds you. How did people walk around with twins before dual strollers? Why do people with dual strollers bring them to grocery stores with single stroller aisles? Are golf courses more environmentally damaging than parks? Why don’t public parks let you play golf in them? Can you take a dual stroller stroller onto a golf course? Would there be an additional green fee? Why? Unless the kids in the strollers played? You know with those little plastic clubs? Are there any golf courses designed for kids to play with those little plastic clubs? And what happened to all the miniature golf courses? Where you try to putt your ball into the mouth of a plastic alligator or rotating windmill? And if they want you to “ask for assistance with items on higher shelves,” why do they put stuff up there? And finally, what am I doing at the grocery store? Ah, the list. Where did I put the list? Yeah, laugh now, but just wait. Well, the point is that all this wondering has to generate an incredible amount of wandering. Yet, my iPhone tells me “You walked fewer steps today than yesterday.” Bull. No wonder Steve Jobs died. Lying piece of junk!

Sometimes Distilling Harmony means siding with Pollyanna and overlooking those things that irritate us in order to Foster Harmony, which in turn allows us to Enable Beauty. Yeah, that’s the story to which I will stick, or words to that effect. Better stop now as it is almost New Years with new mountains to climb. May yours be exceptional for the scenery and not for the demands of the climbing.

A Holiday Gift

Sneaking it in here while major holidays are in progress or right around the corner. The gift is not really a thing, it is an idea, and I have always felt - well, once I passed the age of obsessing over toys like a Fanner-Fifty - that ideas made better gifts than things.

It will surprise none of you that the idea for this particular idea stems from a series of videos on Curiosity Stream called either Nature Knows Best, or Nature Got it Right or something like that. The premise of the series is that a bunch of “human concerns” have been addressed through animal evolution over the millennia. Wing development spearheaded by birds and insects whose adaptations appear in our helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. Octopuses reveal secrets of propulsion and camouflage. Skunks - well you get it.

This particular idea stems from flora, not fauna. And from a particular class of cuisine - well maybe a variety of tastes, palates, whatever. To be plain we are talking garlic - Allium sativum. If not one of cooking’s “holy trinity,” at least a saint of some significance. This idea springs from the preparation. Garlic is not one of those foods that you just pick and eat - like fruits, cherries, apples, pears, etc. Even a good sweet onion or fresh corn. No, garlic is a whole ’nutter critter.

First you peel off the white covering of the whole head so you can get to the individual cloves. Then you smack the individual cloves with the kitchen, or garden, implement of your choice. I prefer the flat side of a meat tenderizer hammer. This loosens the tough peel that encloses the shiny final garlic clove that you can then chop, slice, simmer or fry depending upon the requirements of the recipe. Now, try to spread your fingers apart!

Ah! Ha! That is the idea that nature does best! Flora’s parallel notion to a shark skin abrasive, the octopus’s camouflage, the hummingbird’s wing beat! Garlic’s Glue! 

Now remember I said at the very beginning that the gift was not a thing, it was an idea. If I had the chemistry smarts to turn raw garlic juice into “GarGoo,” or “LicStick,” and the marketing ability to compete with “Gorilla Glue” or “Super Glue’” and the motivation to do so, I might have done so. 

But I’m retired. I’d rather read and draw. 

So I gift you this idea! You go ahead and make it a “thing,” maybe kick a finders fee my way 🤪

Happy Holidays!

Golden Oldies

A dear friend just forwarded me a delightful post of the theme from Mozart's Symphony in G Minor. I was surprised to read in the commentary that he composed it during a stressful time towards the end of his life. That was not what I heard. I heard energy, excitement, dancing. I guess I am particularly sensitive to the relationship between Fostering Harmony and Enabling Beauty. I find it difficult to write or draw if "all is not well" with me. The deaths of dear friends, human and canine, and the seeming mindless chaos surrounding our move from NC to Burr Ridge have declared that all has not been well with me for many months now. So I am cheating, by stealing a little bit of Harmony from history. While stumbling around looking for different and far more tedious documents related to the move, I stumbled across a series of compositions from more harmonic times. I may have shared some of them 10 or 15 years ago when I first wrote them. But hopefully enough time will have passed that you will have forgotten them!

I will adopt the haiku tradition of eliminating any title, letting the first line serve that function. I will insert numbers to separate the works as it isn't always clear where one stops and the next begins. So hopefully you will catch a bit of harmony from these golden oldies!

#1

Eyes,

with a single unschooled glance

reveal more than all your fabled

Thousand Words.

#2

One sustains harmony by

Retaining the capacity for

Spontaneous joy and

Innocent wonder while

Avoiding the twin sins of

Certainty and cynicism

#3

Insight, comparison defies,

As we are each uniquely wise.

It is such wisdom's task to find

A morsel sweet for humankind.

#4

You'd think these midnight muses

Might occasionally acknowledge

Tomorrow's obligations.

#5

You are the score on which is writ

The music of your soul and wit.

Your notes of laughter and of tears

Do match the music of the spheres.

#6

Softly I align, now realign,

Knees, shoulders, hips and toes,

Until all point straight to comfort;

As at 2 AM the Midnight Express

Roars through, late again,

But headed straight to Dreamland

Nonetheless.

#7

Life's purest diamonds

Mined of decades deep reflections

Wane once more invisible

Beneath the distracting tumbling stream

Of everyday.

#8

We spend our lives

Collecting truths

And sanding away deceptive certainty

Until what remains

Is the narrative that reveals

Both what we know

And what we have yet to learn.

#9

In every perfect moment

When the chord of you rings true

You rub your wings with angels

Immortal through and through.

#10

A lake perched high above the valley

Flirting with the timberline

Ringed by sighing pines

And raucous jays.

A tiny terrestrial Sea of Tranquility.

#11

When the storm spooks the herd

I seize my pen

To fling a corral

Around stampeding thoughts.

#12

Theses small wakeful hours

Rustle useless and petulant

Pens without paper

Repose without rest

#13

The predicted strong storms

Failed to materialize,

Leaving me jilted,

Exhilaration primed, then wilted.

#14

The first time for everything

is readily apparent;

While the last is resolved

only in death.

 

Thoughts After a Needed Thanksgiving Rest

 I’m not exactly sure when it hit me, but I think it was a direct result of being physically away from the stress and uncertainty that seems to unremittingly permeate every moment of the move from the North Carolina house into the Pine Tree Lane house in Illinois. It was a respite for which I owe my sister-in-law, Sandy, and her husband Wayne, an incredible debt of gratitude.

Anyway, after just a few days in their Wisconsin home over Thanksgiving, it struck me that while 2023 seemed like stepping into the ring with Mike Tyson, there remains a life beyond broken bones, funerals, cardboard boxes and artwork that has yet to find its place. The “it” was the realization that I still have important things to accomplish that are completely discrete from the stress of those aforementioned dark realities.

No, I do not know exactly what “they” are, but the simple realization that they are out there was a significant relief. As to those nagging questions related to figuring out just what they are; I think I will toss the job of answering those questions back into the lap of the universe and try to get better at listening for the answers. If that sounds like a wish and a prayer it is because it is both.

In the meantime I will continue my attempts to Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity and Oppose Harm. Every day a little bit. 

So enjoy whatever holidays still lie before you, and know we will be sending good wishes your way as we gleefully boot 2023 out the door!

Art and Fantasy

 One version of the “many worlds” view of quantum mechanics envisions a kind of existential cloning in which significant decisions in our “right now reality” generate parallel worlds based upon the “roads not chosen” in that moment of significant choice - taking that job, marrying that partner, joining that group of believers - those kinds of choices. Those “roads not taken” worlds spin off in other corners of the universe. It is such a strange concept that while I can understand it from a “the universe is infinite and hence all things are possible” perspective, it stretches even my wildly flexible imagination.

But, interestingly, I am less bothered by my personal conviction that fantasy, creativity, and curiosity are all often fostered by a kind of “leakage” from those “roads not taken” existences into our “right now reality.” It seems that in the arts, philosophy and the sciences world altering changes appear seemingly from nowhere. 

There is a lot of chatter right now in publications across disciplines that artistic expression may have predated not only homo sapiens, but all hominids. Where did that come from? On the scientific side CRISPER and other gene editing tools let us create, recreate, invent all manner of living entities. Our machines are pushing the boundaries of space and the depths of our fragile planet. Again, where did that come from?

At some point and at some time, I believe, they all started as fantasies, as dreams, as the conscious, subconscious or unconscious musings on the general narrative theme of “wouldn’t it be (awesome, cool, wonderful- chose the descriptor you use or were raised with) if we could . . .”

These fantasies obviously live in the same building as curiosity, but in slightly different apartments. Curiosity lives in a “wondering about” apartment, while Fantasy lives in an apartment that houses a reality, where the “awesome, cool, and wonderful” really exists. You can touch it, see it, feel it. You believe it.

So what does that mean for artists? Which, you are not surprised to realize, is where I was heading. The important point, I believe, is to allow fantasy a more flexible place in our lives. Some of the examples I gave above were fantasies that became realities. Fantasies that moved in with curiosities and eventually gave birth to realities. And that is glorious. It is the process that drives humanity forward, that has allowed the species to achieve the unimaginable. And hopefully the process will continue to allow us address and solve the significant issues that confront us.

But that is not necessarily the role of fantasy for artists. Fantasy need not always lead to curiosity and reality; processes, products, businesses, or employment. Sometimes, oftentimes, the contribution of the artist is to simply articulate the fantasy, in visual modes, musical constructions, literature, whatever. This seemingly picky redefinition of fantasy is of particular importance to artists in that it frees them in a couple of important ways.

First, it answers the question often posed to artists by the broader culture - and almost always by parents - what are you going to do with that? Answer: Maybe nothing, or perhaps - wait for it - simply Foster Harmony and Enable Beauty.

Second, but related to the first, it frees the artist from the necessity of, or the expectation of, being the “actual creator” of the fantasy vision. Too old, too young, too poor, too weak, to play the central protagonist in the fantasy? No problem. Actualizing the fantasy is not the artist’s obligation. The job of the artist is to articulate that which, beyond the boundaries of “reality,” is possible in the imagination.

I do realize that this kind of job driven by Fantasy rarely pays the bills and so is often restricted to the retired - like me - or the  wealthy, or the classic “starving artist.” But perhaps a kind of compromise is possible for folks outside those categories. And the compromise is to seek a life path, if not dominated by the expression of Fantasy, is at least tolerant of it.

When I entered the job market 50 odd years ago those kinds of opportunities existed primarily in academia and so I followed my father’s footprints into the university classroom. And while I might have done some things differently - maybe design instead of Communication and media - it was a good choice. I have not followed the job market for many a year now, however some online videos - check out Curiosity Stream - seem to indicate that corporate America has become more friendly to folks with artistic, creative inclinations. Could be that today’s artists might find worlds more tolerant of Fantasy that could actually pay the rent. Probably worth the search. There will always be attics available for starving artists 🤪.

Messing Around with Poetry

I was reading about the Japanese poetic form Haiku in a recent National Geographic. The article informed me that, “In their purist form, each haiku must comprise three lines of five, seven and five syllables, and include a kireji – a “cutting word” that lends the verse contrast, and, crucially, a kigo, or seasonal reference.”

*There seems to be a debate as to whether haikus have titles. One source says flat out “No!” Another as adamantly affirms “Yes!” But quibbles a bit by saying that if a specific “title” is not provided the first line of the haiku fulfills that function.

Anyhow the article reminded me of The Proestry Project that I undertook and published here on The Wall back in 2005. I defined it thus:

Prosetry is a literary genre.  It is primarily prose, but too short to fall into genres with which I am familiar.  Also it shares a variety of characteristics with poetry.  It is softer, more subtle and ephemeral than prose; yet still lacks the formal structure of either the lofty Haiku or the grittier limerick.  The lexicon is, of course, cloned from poetry, hence prosetry for the genre and proem for the individual unit.  They are proving to be one sentence constructions, but broken out of a single line with conscious intent.  Perhaps a nod to ee cummings’s use of space upon the page.  Also, I am resisting the idea of titles since, as our English teachers always said; a single sentence should convey a complete thought.  Hence the content of the proem subsumes the function of a title.  

Naturally I obsessed over these two notion’s separated by 18 years. So they kept me up into the little hours for a couple of nights resulting in:

First, a haiku I composed for today’s sky, trying to follow the rules NG reported. The title - if my software retains it - is in a smaller font as a nod to the title/no title controversy.

  

Flight

Cutting autumn sky

Wings sweep clouds from morning light

Catch cranes ascension 

Second, I went back and played with a couple of proems from the Prosetry Project and discovered that with only minor edits the proems could take on the haiku form. I have left them without titles because, as noted above, proems universally do not have titles.

Proem Number 34

You’d think these midnight

Muses might once acknowledge 

Dawns obligations 

Proem Number 33

Though not a poet

Still I might have been one if

I had had less time

Foster Harmony v. Enable Beauty

They are the first, and therefore dominant, tenets of Distilled Harmony - my template for living life. They seem so mutually supportive it is hard to imagine them coming into conflict. However, I now realize such a conflict is possible, and like everything these days, the insight emerges from packing crates. But let me begin at the beginning.

We have - to use the most generic, but perhaps the least descriptive, definition - somewhere between 150 and 250 pieces of “hanging wall art.” To clarify, by “hanging wall art,” I mean a work composed with artistic intent that is intended to be displayed by hanging it on a wall. Our various pieces run the gamut from large - 5 x 6 ft - frameless digital pieces, through 4 x 5 ft ornately framed oil paintings of sea battles and reclining nudes, all the way down to precious little postcard-sized street scenes dwarfed by their gilded frames. And no, I really had no idea we had so many, and such different kinds of  “hanging wall art,” until we were faced with the task of unpacking them. We are currently trying to move pictures of the pictures around in a weird tetras way - I'll stick an image in here if my tech cooperates. However, understanding how all this stuff can place Enable Beauty and Foster Harmony at odds requires a couple of divergences.

OK, some context. First, I turned 75 today on the 15th of November. Christine is a few years younger. This often puts us in social situations where the discussion of the longevity of marital bliss often comes up:

Maude:  “Oh, yes. Harold and I been together for 48 years.”

I respond: “Christine and I have been married for more than 50 years! (Pause, pause,) Just not to each other!”

It usually gets a good laugh - but more importantly it explains how all those bits of “hanging wall art” came to reside in the same house. Having spent more of our adult years apart than together, our individual efforts to Enable Beauty resulted in a blended grouping - collected and created in different times and places - that strikes sometimes very different chords.

Second, to illustrate how different those chords can sometimes be, I will share, again I realize, the tale of taking Dad to the art gallery in Long Grove. Dad, to set the chronology of events, lived to 100. This trip probably took place when he was in his late 80s or early 90s. At that time Long Grove, IL was a neat collection of galleries, restaurants, and little specialty shops; apples, candy, etc., sort of like little beach towns along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, but without the tourists, surf shops, or the ocean.

Anyhow, we took Dad into one of the nicer galleries. A variety of works, paintings, sculpture, weaving. It was one of those places where one spoke in quiet, modulated tones. And where, somehow it seemed, children under ten had been checked into an invisible quiet room somewhere.  But then, into the midst of all this calm and quiet gentility, Dad’s voice rang from across the room: “Why, I wouldn’t hang that in my toilet!”

We all managed a well-modulated retreat, embarrassment eventually replaced by laughter. But the point for this post is to illustrate that one person’s beauty is another’s banality.  Which is why buying art for someone is like buying them a puppy. In doing so you intrude on what is an intensely personal process.

So we currently find ourselves in the midst of a plethora of art, all of which was acquired to Enable Beauty - but beauty in the eyes of two different beholders. And therein lies the potential friction in the dominant tenets of Distilled Harmony: That which was acquired to Enable Beauty does not always, in the present moment, Enable Harmony.

I have chosen - at this particular moment - to apply different criteria - differentiating between Pleasurable and Interesting. Those images that I prefer, that for me Enable Beauty, I define as "Pleasurable." Those which Christine choses that make me want to holler "I wouldn't hang that in my toilet" - of which, truthfully there is only one - I will deem as "Interesting." And in a delightful demonstration of Enabling Harmony, she, without my overt input, has chosen to hang that specific image in her toilet!

So we continue to sort through this stuff and will reach, if not total agreement, at least acceptable compromise. Which unfortunately bring us to out next problem: where to hang it all. You see even those sorted images will far outpace the available wall space. Again creativity will have to guide us. I'm thinking of the garage as containing "hidden wall space" that in one way becomes a potential "pride of place" consideration, since it will be regularly viewed - well, once all the boxes have been unpacked and trashed.

I'll let you know how that works out. Until then find something to be thankful for and celebrate the day!

Zen Mystery from the Annals of Unpacking

 It was packed in a sandwich size zip lock baggie. Other tech cords and connectors were in the same box.

A masking tape label was wrapped around the cord. Black sharpie, my handwriting.

The label read “heated glover recharge cord.” Nothing else. All she wrote. Nada.

May 6 inches long. A USB plug on one end, two thunderbolt plugs on the other. I have absolutely no idea.

I edited “glover” to “gloves.” Seemed logical even if spellcheck missed it. I still had no idea. No recollection of ever having possessed heated gloves. 

Only frigid possibility would have been teaching in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. But my tenure there in 1975 pre-dates PCs, USB and thunderbolt ports.

I inserted a hyphen “g-lover.” Gay? Garlic? Gallic? Maybe my puerile French girlfriend, 6th grade. 1960?  See tech mismatch above, even more so.

Could be the cord was intended to recharge an artisan who made gloves in an unheated garret?  An unheated garret requiring USB and thunderbolt ports?

“Perhaps all of the above, Grasshopper, perhaps none of them.”

Empathy and Curiosity

“Tote that barge, lift that bale,

Get a little drunk and you land in jail.”

- “Old Man River” Show Boat, 1927, lyrics 

by Oscar Hammerstein II.

I am cognizant of, and thankful for, the fact that neither I nor my ancestors needed to serve King Cotton by hauling around those bales of cotton weighing hundreds of pounds. That unenviable task fell, literally, onto the backs of the poor farmers and enslaved people of the American South in the 1800s. 

However, as a retired university professor whose 75th birthday looms a couple of weeks away, confronted with 30-some packing boxes of books weighing 80 lbs apiece that need to go from the garage floor to a basement storage area, my heart goes out to those unfortunate souls and, by extension, to whoever had to “tote” the multi-ton blocks of stone to build the pyramids - in the ancient kingdoms in Egypt or Mesoamerica.

The internet is remarkably silent on the question of how the bales of cotton went the short route from field to bales, and then how the bales found their way on to more mechanical conveyances. I have my suspicions. A number of illustrations show bales of cotton stacked on wagons pulled by mules. But nowhere can I find a discussion of how the bales got onto the wagons. That is like saying, “then Schrag’s book boxes were moved from the garage into the basement.”

But neglecting to mention: “The boxes were first wrestled onto a hand cart with one flat wheel, dragged onto a towel, slid across the floor and a rug for a dozen feet to the top of the stairs where they were bumped, one stair at a time (13 of them), down to the towel awaiting in the basement where they were dragged across hardwood and concrete floors for about 20 feet to their final/temporary resting place waiting to be unpacked once the bookcases found their place.”

The issue of moving giant pyramid stones suffers no such neglect. Articles, websites and videos posit multiple hypotheses as to how this was accomplished. Descriptions of hundreds of workers, (the question of paid or enslaved fosters lively debates), ramps, logs, sand moisturizers, even magical transportation all get their share of attention. However as neither my garage nor basement have ramps or sand, not to mention hundreds of workers. There is only one, me, unpaid. Christine broke her arm falling over a bale of cotton - actually a packing crate - back in Raleigh so is no practical assistance in the toting and hauling of 80 lb. book boxes. So none of the pyramid speculation has any bearing on my current situation.

Back in the early 1800s, in England, the Luddites attacked and destroyed “new” weaving looms because they feared the new technology would “steal” their jobs. If any of you are aware of technology that will steal my job as chief book box hauler, please feel free to inform me. No Luddites need apply.

Foster Harmony

 The hounds of war are savaging the Middle East again - as they have since the dawn of time. Perhaps they were aroused by northern howls from the Crimea, or western echoes from Haiti, or south from the Sudan. Presidents, generals, warlords, gang leaders, cartels, terrorists of various stripes rage on. They have no particular geographic preference - they are united only by hatred of some “other” identified  variously by religion, history, ethnicity, belief, perceived unjust privilege, or merely preferred proximity.

Unable, it seems, to unite against the shared existential threat of environmental disaster, humanity falls back against a mindless hatred of “the other.” Distrust, hatred and fear lies, contrarily, at the core of philosophies and faiths that overtly profess love, acceptance, peace and gentleness. These lions lying down with the lamb see only an invitation to dinner. Weapons not wisdom.

It is days like today that cause me to cling, with a touch of desperation, to the core concepts of my personal ideology - Distilled Harmony. They remain - in order of unique imperative:

Foster Harmony 

Enable Beauty

Distill Complexity 

Oppose Harm

I have addressed each in more detail elsewhere here on The Wall, but today my focus is a plea for Foster Harmony. Feel free to share it with all those for whom you care.

Hello Houston! The Eagle has Landed!

 Er, perhaps, “Chicago, Southwest has Landed!” I can see Midway Airport out the window.  The flight was a bit delayed, but it appears we have arrived. The moving van is promised a couple of days behind us.  Fingers crossed!

It is, I guess, how a story about which I had heard, but never really believed in, is supposed to unfold: an amicable divorce. This morning, back in Morrisville, NC, I was returning from Mc Donald’s at some obscene hour - somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00 AM. This is not why I retired. I mean even when I was “working” I arranged my schedule to allow a civilized wake-up around 9:30 or 10:00. Even when the kids were small their Mom insisted on being the “morning parent.”  Why fight it?

Anyhow, I had a sack of what passes for breakfast at Mickey D’s on the seat beside me so Christine and I could inhale some calories before the movers arrived for what was supposed to be the last day of packing. The sprinklers were misting the golf course as the sun yawned, stretched, and poked her nose up over the edge of the trees. I immediately flashed back to Greek I at Kalamazoo College, Dr. Poggi’s translations - maybe The Iliad? “Behold the rosy fingered dawn!” Or words to that effect. 

It really was lovely. And I should have been more moved. I mean this was, in all likelihood, my last “in residence” day in a city that I had called home for more than four decades. It was the scene of the most intense experiences of my life. You name it, it happened here. And the vista was ethereal. And yet I really just wanted the van to be filled and on the road to Illinois.

It is, of course, a question of what is here and what is not.  What is here is one set of kids and a couple of awesome grandkids. But they aren’t going anywhere. One set of close friends from my years at the remains, but our intentions of a “hail and farewell” gathering with them was torpedoed - as is too often the case these days - by the unexpected death of half of an even older dear couple and the imperative to provide comfort to the surviving spouse. 

What, then is here? Kids and grandkids who will remain only a short plane ride away, easily revisited and a continuing source of delight. Also remaining are, sadly, fewer friends than we have fingers on one hand to count them, with whom we have hopes of revisiting - but who may not remain. 

What is most powerfully here are memories. And what is most powerfully not here are many of those precious people with whom those memories were created. Some have died. Some have disappeared. Some have moved away. Some have chosen distance over intimacy. Some have returned but with a fragile permanence. 

Some appear as mist upon fairways in the morning. A smile, an inhalation paused and treasured. 

But not enough to remain.

Masque #1

 Jock Gault, my sculpting mentor in Raleigh - maybe 20 years ago - was a bit of a purist. He was here on The Wall, back in the early days, but went off the grid which created problems, :-).  But he felt that if your intent was to do a bust, you started by building the skull, then the muscles and eventually the skin and the hair. You can catch the process sometimes on TV crime shows, but more accurately on internet science videos that demonstrate attempts to recreate what early hominids looked like.

Then once you got the bust done to your liking, and fired, you painted the whole thing black! Really. Then you painted the pure black bust with some kind of metallic paint - I forget what exactly. The final step was to put on a layer of another magic fluid that turned the whole bust into an excellent facsimile of bronze. Very cool.

But here is the important part related to this post: Jock warned us that we would either love or hate the piece as we moved through the various steps. The result of these emotional swings was a desire to either destroy the piece, or stop and not go on to the next step. 

That sculpting process was duplicated in creating Masque. Masque started as a photo of the model - a former student and friend from NC State who now teaches Communication in Taiwan. I really liked the photo, but realized I had to pull it into Photoshop and erase most of it to create an outline cartoon of the image. Then I had Staples print a black and white 14x16 version of the cartoon. Next I drew the designs within the cartoon spaces and began to add color, shifted parts of the cartoon, recolored, shifted, recolored, etc. You get the point. And I loved and hated the piece at every step along the way.

I am content - mostly - with this version of the image. At least she has convinced me to explore the process with other faces from other times and places. So, here she is:

First Sentence

It settles, lighter than a feather touch,

Marking the sacred spot from which

Everything that follows will commence.

A lure to other worlds, different lives

Where we may wander, seeing but unseen.

Yet not unaffected or unmoved.

Learning, feeling, caring, or not.

Weeping, laughing, hating, loving.

And the key that opens the door,

Providing access and invitation,

Is the first sentence.

Make America Gentle Again

 I began this post, in my head, probably a couple of weeks ago. Started to write it a few days ago, before the recent horrific shootings in Florida. Those events underscore the necessity of sharing these thoughts with you - Robert

My family, like every family in America descends from immigrants. It is simply a case of how far back to want to move the needle. Those with the earliest paths probably came by foot across the land bridge from what we now call Siberia. And while there are some neat ideas about seafarers sailing across the pacific, we usually think of those northern foot travelers as the “first Americans,” “native” Americans. 

My family springs from those later immigrants who arrived by ship on the other side of the continent. As Mennonites, we were part of the subset of immigrants who came voluntarily seeking a better life.

Mennonites, like many European religious minorities, had been chased around the continent for a few hundred years looking for a place to call home. And what did that mean? Well, to simplify, it mean a place where they could live, work, farm and worship in peace. It is a story, with minor variations, common to most voluntary immigrant communities of America in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries. 

Any serious reading of our nation’s history during those years reveals that these immigrant communities were not always inclined, or allowed, to “keep themselves to themselves.” Often they imposed upon one another the very inequities they had fled. Most obvious exception to “finding a better life,” was the huge community of “involuntary immigrants,” the enslaved people who labored in the fields and privileged homes of the nation.

But those lingering failures should not blind us to the more noble motivations that drove our voluntary immigrant ancestors to these shores: they were seeking a better life. They were seeking a home where they would be free from the arbitrary predations of those “great” and powerful cultures who denied them the quiet, peaceful, existence they sought.

Several years ago I visited the home of a “friend of a friend” who turned out to be a lawyer of a rather extreme version of the “MAGA proud boys persuasion” whose leaders are currently trudging through our courts. He was a bit put off when I showed no inclination to look over his collection of automatic weapons. It was pretty obvious that to him the “Greatness” he foresaw for America was a land where those with automatic weapons could structure a society that was eerily similar to the one his own ancestors had fled some indeterminate number of years ago.

It is that notion of “great” that encourages the violent and aggressive posturing and behavior that currently besets our nation. Supporting that notion of “great” is a gross inversion of the beliefs and values that brought our voluntary immigrant ancestors to this nation and would further obstruct the attainment of those compassionate values and opportunities sought by the descendants of those involuntary and enslaved ancestors who arrived in chains.

Being gentle and compassionate is harder than being “great” as it is currently being defined by MAGAites around the country. It is nearing autumn and football is in the air so I will turn that way to make a point. Two things: first, it is always the aggressive response to an initial foul that will get you tossed out of the game. So even our admittedly hype-violent, yet incredibly popular, national pastime says, “Hey! He may have hit you first, but control yourself, control your anger, or you are out of here!” 

Second, growing up in the 1950s in central Ohio, I was a Cleveland Browns fan, and to be a Cleveland Browns fan was to be a Jim Brown fan. Though many younger folks will remember Brown as an actor and civil rights activist - I will always remember him as an indestructible fullback who would carry, seemingly, half the opposing team four, five, or six yards down the field. Disappear under a writhing mass, only to slowly, calmly, even gently, get up, walk back to his huddle and do it again. There was nothing gentle about professional football, but I was always amazed by Brown’s ability to appear as an island of tranquility amidst the chaos.

There are others who may spring more quickly to mind as role models of gentility: political figures, Bertrand Russell, Gandhi, Dr. King; entertainers, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Donovan - thankfully the list is long. Still those thoughtful voices seem somehow muted these days amidst the raucous rabble rousing cries of “Great, Great, Great!”

It is a simple-minded refrain. We have, with some notable stumbles, always been great. Perhaps it is time to tackle the harder stuff: gentle, gentle, gentle.

Leaving Younger Poetry Behind

It is not that springtime’s magic has fled.

The perfume of new cut grass remains as sweet,

The rose still startles with its first blossom.

Dew yet washes the face of meadow clover.

Nor has summer failed to lull us to slumber,

With its languid patchwork of sunshine and shadow,

Distant thunder rumbles amid cicadas

As soft birdsong calls upon the evening air.

Fall retains its finery of burnished gold and scarlet,

And jack-o-lanterns still sport their flickering grins.

But nowadays I am more drawn to the unique

Mysteries of falling flakes at close of day,

To the crackle and hiss of glowing logs

Settling in the pine scent of the fireplace.

A book, a beverage, a bit of baroque.

Half dreaming, half dozing, quiet shades

Tell tales of yesterday, last year, 

Or perhaps it was some year before?

Schrag Wall: The Leaky Barrel Syndrome

This is not a condition that would interest either a physical anthropologist, a cooper, nor a urologist. But a psychiatrist might find it interesting. I have mentioned before that my sister has an exceptional memory. She is my “go to person” when I want to know things like “What was the National Park we camped in, in 1952, where they pushed the bonfire off the cliff and I got lost?” Because her memory is strongly visual she could probably provide, in addition to the name of the park, the color of the tents surrounding our campsite. Freaky, huh?

But I don’t mean to imply that I was without my own memory acumen. I recall an instance from a class in grad school when we were debating where a particular notion had first been introduced in the text. I opined, without the book, “It first gets mentioned on page 106, left-hand column, towards the top.” A more responsible student, who had brought her text to class, opened it and, Ta Da! There it was. Yeah, I could do that. Equally freaky, and did not endear me to my classmates. Almost sotto voce,  “I hate it when he does that!” “Jerk.” “Show off.”

But the point is not my lack of knowing how to win friends and influence people, but rather how my memory worked - something of which I am only now becoming aware.  My memory worked as kind of a big barrel. Whenever I read, or saw, or heard something, it sort of got tossed into this big barrel in my mind. Then when I needed it - the page in a text, my line in a play, the lyric in a song - I just reached into the barrel and, Ta, Da! - there it was. No memory palaces or other carefully constructed devices - I just reached into the barrel.

Joni Mitchell - “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” Sitting here, clicking away - no problem with that lyric. But if, sitting around with friends at dinner, someone were to ask, “Oh, what is that song about paving paradise?” I might reach into the barrel only to discover that Joni had gone “slip slidin’ away.”

So does it bother me that my memory barrel has sprung a few leaks? I suppose it must on some level. I mean I am writing about it after all. I guess that I am adapting to it. I mean, I won’t get into community theater where I would have to learn lines - something that used to come easily. Trivial Pursuits - I think not. But drawing remains quite barrel free. And writing to you? Of course I'll continue. Besides, if I need just the right word or the rest of a fuzzy lyric? That’s why god invented the internet! 

A Moving Journal: Entry Two

Selection by Exhaustion 

I'm going to leave this paragraph in here, even though I think I fixed it:

I don’t know how many of you, if any will actually see this post. One result of moving induced exhaustion was the deletion of all the email addresses to whom the Wall is sent. There may be a way to retrieve them within the Evernote app, but I think I need to be on a computer to do so. Being restricted to my phone and tablet for the time being, that attempt will have to put on hold. The possible silver lining to this dark cloud is the fact that while The Wall is sent to about 85 folks, only 35 or so of you actually look at it. Yes! Blogger does tell me that, but unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your feelings regarding digital privacy, Blogger does not tell me who the 35 are!  Anyhow, no use worrying about that until I am back in front of my computer - sometime next month.

But that is not the selection by exhaustion issue that concerns me at the moment. One of the most vexing issues of moving house - I like the British version - is the “what to keep/what to leave” dichotomy. It is influenced by a variety of variables - some pragmatic, like how does the space being moved to differ from the space currently lived in?  And is that favorite piece of driftwood from Santa Fe worth the cost of moving it from North Carolina to Chicago? But the pragmatic is inextricably interwoven with the emotional.

After a good night’s sleep, breakfast and a cup of coffee or an energy drink, making those decisions is well within your capabilities. But eight or nine hours later, after many such decisions and trips to Goodwill and the dump, exhaustion raises its evil head, or more accurately, lays down its weary head and the possibility of bad decisions runs amuck. 

Like great, grand Aunt Cecilia’s wedding dress. “God, the fabric and the faux pearls alone weigh a ton. And those are moth holes! Besides the woman died in 1837!” And there goes Aunt Cecilia into the Goodwill box.

It is fortunate that neither children or pets share our current abode, or Aunt Cecilia might have some company!