20151122.0904

I finished reading my copy of the November/December 2015 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction last night. As I did, I looked for a piece useful for my work on the Tales after Tolkien Society blog; fantasy literature does tend to lend itself to medievalism such as the Society studies and interrogates, after all, but I was not fortunate enough to be able to pull a piece from the issue for that purpose. That does not mean I did not enjoy the reading greatly; I did, and I do, and so I continue to subscribe to the magazine these many years later. (I remember that the first issue I received, September 1999, featured prominently a story that revolved around shit. Scatological humor continues to amuse me, as should be evident.)

One piece in the issue continues to attract my attention: Carter Scholz's novella, "Gypsy." In it, a small group of people flees an increasingly unequal and self-destructive Earth for a nearby star system, hoping to be able to re-found civilization in a purer, more noble state. It is something of a hard sf piece, not relying on much technology that lies outside current envisioning; it relies on no currently-unknown physical principles to make it work, no imagined substance with a silly name. (Such phlebotinum as it deploys is something that exists even now.) It is also far from uplifting; the mission ultimately fails, with all those sent on the trip dying either from fungal infection, loss into space, or old age itself. Yet there is an image of hope embedded into the text; near the end, the eponymous outbound mission receives word that things have improved on Earth, but it serves only to heighten the sadness of the Gypsy's mission, that it fails after having never needed to have occurred.

Amid such sadness, though, is an interesting point, particularly so in the context of a science fiction story. The character who receives both first and last narrative focus, Sophie, is a poet-turned-librarian--an artist and humanistic scholar in a genre and amid a world that prizes the detached, hard scientist and engineer above all others. The emphasis accorded Sophie--who occupies the rhetorically-privileged positions of both beginning and ending--is therefore unusual and, for a humanistic scholar and long-time science fiction reader, welcome even if the implications of her character are somewhat...off. The name connotes wisdom, and the name belonging to a poet and librarian links wisdom to humanistic study--which I am happy to see, since it conduces to my own ends. Sophie's wisdom is borne out: she insists on handwritten mission logs as a backup, and the backup becomes necessary as systems fail on the Gypsy. But that wisdom itself is ultimately useless and directed towards a thwarted end; the mission fails, after all, even if undertaken for good cause and supplemented by excellent ideas. The humanities are therefore figured as being of no account against physical realities--and that does not bode well for me.

I have to wonder how the Earth from which the Gypsy flees resolves its problems. I have to hope that it is such wisdom as does not do well on the run that makes things better. I have to hope that I have hope in my field.

20150811.0711

The Mrs., Ms. 8, and I returned to Sherwood Cottage from the C-Bar yesterday, arriving in the afternoon and spending the rest of the day recovering from the drive and ride. It went well enough, and I may end up writing about some of the reflecting I had opportunity to do while driving with my wife and daughter asleep in our little shuttlepod of a car and while looking out over hills of granite clad in oak and cedar. Today, however, I have some comments on events from Sunday, events which put me in mind of my

As is commonly the case when we visit my wife's family at the C-Bar, we attended a church service at the Fredericksburg United Methodist Church. It is the church where the Mrs. and I got married, although the pastoral staff has changed over since then, following the Methodist tradition of reassigning preachers at intervals. During the service, the associate pastor gave a sermon that began with an extended anecdote about an episode with his grandmother. In it, she baked prune kolaches, dressing them up with a bit of molasses and sugar to make them more palatable to young tastes--and to those, such as the pastor in his youth, who find them distasteful. The pastor used the anecdote as analogy to help explain the reading for the day, coming from John 6 (35-51, as I recall), explaining that Jesus was to many contemporaries as prunes to the pastor's young self--not initially palatable, but ultimately relied-upon as a panacea.

There are other implications for the metaphor through which the pastor worked in the sermon. If we are to read Jesus as prunes (which is the root metaphor at work), we can read the prune kolaches, sweetened as they were, as parallel to the bowdlerization of Scripture often presented to children--after all, how often do we point out to children what was going on with Lot, for example, or the fact that children in Scripture are often made to suffer for their parents' misdeeds? How many conveniently forget Noah's drunkenness as they complain of films of his Scriptural story? But I was not at the time put in mind of that connection; instead, after one of the pastor's comments, I found myself recalling Edward Taylor--whose work I have referenced before, and for much the same reason. (I might note also that the piece in question is a musing on the same part of Scripture that informed the day's sermon.) For one of the things for which prunes are good, and for which they are often associated with those of more advanced years, is in the regulation of the bowels. The pastor hinted around that particular use, and the many elderly in the congregation responded in such a way as suggests their own familiarity with that use; I am certain the scatological humor was meant. Whether the quiet reference to Taylor was, as well, I am less certain--but whether it was meant to be included or not matters not to the fact that it was there.

I find it odd that I am sometimes rebuked for temerity in finding toilet humor in things--and even in my own home, on occasion, or in a piece of explication--when preachers can do so from the very pulpit to acclaim.

20150601.0718

Yesterday, the Mrs. and I attended church services, something we have been doing in large part to make sure that Ms. 8 is exposed to and gets to interact with people other than us at least a little bit each week. She seems to enjoy the experience, and I have to think that the socialization is good for her. The Mrs. reports also that she benefits from the experience, and I am invested in ensuring that both she and our daughter are enriched. I do try to be a good husband and father, after all, even if what being "good" in either role means is uncertain.

The Scripture reading and sermon focused on the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree in Luke 13:6-9. I was put in mind of something I wrote some time ago, linking the reading to Puritan poetry (despite the poet's yoking of the specific poem to John 6:51). I am not going to re-hash the explication of that particular connection; I think I did well enough with it in 2013 to leave it alone at present. (Exodus 33:23 comes to mind, though, God promising to show Moses what sounds much like the Divine Ass. There seems to be a scatological pattern, but I am not so skilled an exegete to pull it out more fully.) Instead, I will take the opportunity, prompted by the content of the sermon, to reflect on a comment made in the earlier discussion: "It is a message more common in the churches where I grew up than in the one I attend, admittedly, but it is present--and applicable." For the content of the sermon did put me in mind of the church I attended as a child, that in which my brother was baptized (an event I recall dimly) and one of my aunts got married (which I do not recall), and it was not entirely comfortable.

Those who have known me know that I spent a long time protesting against faith. Even now, after having been a reasonably active member of a Christian church (and in New York City, no less), I find that I am not at ease identifying as a member of that faith tradition, of aligning with it or embracing it. It means something different here than in The City--but that different meaning is much like that at work in the town where I grew up. (Much like, but not the same; it has not got quite the same social cachet where I live now as it did where I lived then.) Coupled with my being busier here than in The City--or feeling like it, somehow--it disinclines me to open myself more fully. That certain other needs of mine are also not being met, or have not yet been met, where the Mrs. and I have been sitting in the pews is also unhelpful.

Again, though, I am not going so much for me as for the Mrs. and Ms. 8. And perhaps I can, in pooh-poohing the experience, can help it bear fruit for my wife and child.

20130304.1552

First off, Happy Sousa Day!  I look forward, too, to celebrating Star Wars Day in two months' time.

Second, and the actual reason that I am writing, has to do with church yesterday.  The Gospel reading was Luke 13:1-9, in which Christ relates the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree; a tree which has not yielded fruit in three years is promised that if it does not give forth fruit for a fourth year, after it has been tended and fertilized specifically to that end, it will be cut down.  He offers no explication of the story, but its meaning is clear; chances to grow are given, as is aid in the growing, but if they are not seized upon, the alternative is fire and ruin.  It is a message more common in the churches where I grew up than in the one I attend, admittedly, but it is present--and applicable.  In my teaching, for instance, I make resources available and offer to help students if they will but do the work and meet with me; all too often, I sit alone during my office hours, and students wonder why they do not pass my classes.

More to the point, however, the Gospel reading spurred interesting comments from the ministerial intern and the senior pastor.  Since the Scripture speaks of putting dung to a tree, the intern in her words of grace and liberation and the pastor in the sermon made more than passing mention of Gods fertilizing the soil of the soul.  And I found myself in mind of a piece of Puritan poetry I read during my graduate coursework, Edward Taylor's "Meditation 8."  In it, the narrator observes that "Gods Tender Bowells run / Out streams of Grace" (sic, ll. 15-16); the image is jarring from the pen of a Puritan, who was surely more devoutly religious than any of us fallen, hedonistic, immoral people can hope to be.  The idea of salvation being shat out upon us, of holy shit being instrumental to the redemption of sins...I remember provoking gales of laughter in the class.  I was certainly much amused by my recollection of it yesterday morning, even as it ticked my fancy to hear that even Christ compares Providence to manure.

Knowing that the Scripture, accordance with which supposedly keeps people pure and from thinking "nasty" thoughts, and that the Puritans, who are praised for their purity and derided for their rigidity, both run to the scatological is freeing, somehow.  If the traditionally most moralistic of Americans and the very document upon which they based their understanding of the world and their place in it both joke about poo, then surely I may safely do the same.

20141231.0843

Today is the day of the backward look, of course, and I do not find myself immune to it. Fortunately, I have some record of what I was doing around this time in years past; I can content myself with looking over some of what I wrote then.

Four years ago, I commented but briefly on the undesire for nostalgia. After having finally gone through my piles of filing, some of which went that far back, I am reminded of why. There are many ways in which things have changed for the worse in my life since then, although I am minded of the ways in which things are better. I want to think the balance is in my current favor, but if it is, it is not in the parts of my life that can be measured and assessed.

Two years ago saw me amidst a series of deaths. It was not a good time, and other bad news was yet to come. I have no desire to revisit it further.

Last year, saw me make a complicated scatological comment, the truth of which I maintain. It was far more in line with the kind of writing I prefer to embed in this webspace than its antecedents. Whether it is worth reading, of course, is another matter entirely, but it was not so bad to write it.

I am sure that I could pore over the volumes of my journals to look for more records and different of what I have tended to do on New Year's Eves of the past. I have not tended to spend them in revelry; I am not typically a person given to merriment and celebration, as those who know me know. Those who know me best know of no small number of times that I was expected to be festive and was very much the opposite, including this very day several years back. I am pre-Bilbo Bagginsian, after all, perhaps more so now than before, but always in that mold. (Although more so, because the bare-footed small-folk of movie and myth enjoy a good party, and I typically do not.)

I expect that they will reveal that I have spent New Year's Eve much as I am going to spend New Year's Eve this year: quietly at home, working. There is writing to do--and for which to be paid, happily. Ms. 8 is as she is, and so needs care and attention. (She is fine, but she is also less than a year old.) The Mrs. is working a fairly full shift today, so I will need to do something nice for her when she gets home. None of these things argue in favor of my going out and getting drunk with people I do not know (as most of those I do know are away or with their own children and families) or staying home and getting drunk in front of my daughter.

It is not for nothing that I avoid International Hangover Day year after year.

20130920.0647

I have commented before on my enjoyment of the morning hours for the quiet that they offer.  In The City, quiet is a rare and precious thing, eagerly to be sought by those who grew up with access to it, and notably unnerving to many who grew up without.  I have seen some who do not do well when removed from the clamor of too many people in too small a space, jostling against one another loudly and navigating through clotted streams of traffic and the occasional pockets of heavy machinery grinding and rumbling,

Well away from The City, now, I have greater access to the quiet I seldom got while there, and I can feel the noise and tumult that had been in me easing out of me.  It is a purgation not entirely comfortable; it is a tenacious thing, the noise that seeps into a person when amid several million others, clinging in resistance to being passed.  And if the reference is scatological, I have written before about the fetor that occupies much of The City and of the propensity of people to defecate in public--there is a connection between the digestive and acoustic wastes, in that both are natural, both go away, and both are unpleasant to have in close proximity.

There is this connection, too, that both are the results of what is taken in--and the most flavorful meals often leave the least pleasant smells well after they are eaten. (I cannot seem to shake the scatology this morning.  I do not apologize.)  So while I am glad to be relieving myself of what it is that I yet carry, I cannot say that I have it without enjoying quite the meal, one by which I have been well nourished.  But I find myself hungry again, and I am looking about for what I will eat next.  It is fortunate, therefore, that Stillwater's school deals so much with agriculture...

20140116.0725

There are days I sit in front of my computer to write in this webspace (or in other webspaces or in documents that are far from being webspaces) and words flow freely.  I will not say that the stream is always clear and pure (the metaphor of text as fluid again), and I know well that it is not always wholesome, but it flows.  But there are days when I sit down to write, and it is as though the pipes are clogged.  They permit no outflow, or perhaps only a trickle, a rivulet strained and made dirty by seeping through congealed grease and matted hair and decaying proteins best left unexamined (and I seem not to be able to avoid the scatological).

In such circumstances, I am tempted not to write.  I am tempted to fall back on the old conceit that the Muse comes when she will, and until she comes, there is no sense in my trying to write.  "I have to be inspired to write," whines the annoying little jerk voice within me that wants me to not, a voice a much more popular netizen than I calls The Blerch.  (I do not always agree with The Oatmeal, but it is good reading even so.  And The Blerch is a good concept, little bastard that he is.)  "Things have to be right or it won't work."  It is a refrain I have heard from students any number of times; "I just couldn't get it going.  It didn't feel right."

You should know where this is going.

It is true that the Muse comes when she will.  It is also true that getting any given woman to come often takes dedicated effort on the part of those who want her to come.  Sometimes it does not work, admittedly; the mood does have to be right and the circumstances sufficiently relaxed or otherwise suited to her, and even then, other things can intervene.  But that does not mean that the effort ought not to be expended, that hands and tongue ought not to be bent toward the goal of making the Muse come.  And when the effort does induce the Muse to come, there is a joyous outpouring that is itself quite stimulating, one that in my case often promotes something cylindrical to send out streams of fluid of its own.

I am a more skillful lover of my Muse than to simply quit when the response I seek is not immediately given.  Instead, I work at it until I can work no longer, until hands cramp and tongue will flap no longer--or until my Muse comes and I can enjoy her having come from my efforts, as I have noted before.  So it is that even in such circumstances as those with which I began to write today, I do not turn away but labor on.  Really, even if the Muse does not come in response to my efforts, she appreciates them, and I still have some reward.

20190612.0430

I've posted on 12 June seven times previously in this webspace: 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. The last four years have presented poems, either in sequence or independently. The earlier three are short prose pieces, with the 2014 ranting against disregard for the academic humanities, the 2013 musing on my now long-lapsed study of aikido, and the 2010 reflecting on what was then commonplace in my classrooms and is now far less so (in part because I teach so much less now than I did before). As is often the case, the verse attracts my attention more than the prose, largely because I think the prose explains itself in its own overly verbose way. (I've been accused of writing turgid prose more than once. I could quip that it's more tumescent, but I don't know how well that joke would stand up.)
As I read the 2015 poem, I have to think that I was describing a toilet. I know I have a tendency towards scatological humor; I never have outgrown poop and fart jokes. (I am in good company among Geoffreys for that, as the Miller's Tale attests, among others.) I imagine it's fairly clear to readers that I've not. Whether it's similarly clear that the 2015 poem is a toilet piece or just one fit for a toilet is less certain. Hell, even I'm not really sure, and I wrote it. I suppose it bears out Wimsatt and Beardsley a bit more, anecdotal as it is.
The 2016 piece is a bit more opaque to me. I know I have a tendency to write riddling pieces that describe things or people in oblique terms. I do not think the 2016 poem is such a piece, though. Writing that moves of its own accord might still be an interesting idea, and I might follow up on it in one of the other venues I maintain; I always need to be doing more writing, even when I am writing, and that means I need material about which to write. But I do not think that what I wrote corresponds to any physical object. Then again, it's been years since I wrote the piece; it may simply escape me at the moment. Enough does, certainly.
I am happier with the 2017 piece. I'll admit that my meter gets a bit ragged at times, that the cadence is looser than it ought to be. The rhyme scheme--the four triplets and a couplet I prefer when I try to write sonnets--works well, and I am pleased with the description of the Texas Hill Country I give. I still rise early in the morning, still prize the quiet and look with love on the scrub-clad hills under the moonlight, silver turning cerulean through pinks and golds as the sun rises. And it is still the case that I cannot linger looking as long as I would like; work still wants doing, now as ever, and I yet have responsibilities I must meet.