Writerly Quote of the Day

"A thing I have always loved about writing, or even simply intending to write, is that it makes attentiveness a habit of mind."--Marilynne Robinson

Eve is Coming! Eve is Coming!

Eve Ensler is coming to Boston March 21 - 26 to perform her newest play "The Good Body." I bought myself a nearly-front row ticket the better to see her expressive face by. I won't rave about Eve here and now, but I could (and should) in a later entry, perhaps. I do want to encourage local Bostonites to check out the show. I can't vouch for the play yet; but I do support her activism to end violence.

In honor of Eve, here is a poem that I have been working on. I am still not "finished" with it. Or perhaps it is not yet finished with me!

The Scent of Belief
for Eve Ensler

My vagina speaks two words from the pulpit of her: "I believe!"

Hallelujah! Praise be to the Living God
on High from High,
I have found the scent smack between my warm white thighs.

Pink-folding rose purpled red, brown-bleeding,
ocean depths of deep-crystalloid wet,
torn fire-breathing,
ripped from cry of laughter
that stinks up,
wretched river of sweat,
civilizations gone into your wide-mouthed face,
deep into the proteins of your rusty-forgotten red soul until

you cannot stand hushed before such truth—

Wash over me! You on my skin gentle, skilled. Deep down water. Yes, yes.

That smell, my smell,

you can name it now.

Alluring-repulsive invitation with waxy seal, always there, unspoken.

We believe you will beg,

lament on hard—blistered fists pounding and kneeling—sore knees aching,
for sugar blackened incense.

Agitated, never right, no peace. Only impressed upon.

Waiting

until you too find your voice,
find your words stolen, and then

speak softly

through folds of bruised flesh collapsing in praise:

amen.

Gladwell on Freakonomics

Those who know me, know that I am a Tipping Point/Gladwell fan. I also enjoyed Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner.

Now Gladwell (on his very own BLOG) has commented on Freakonomics, a book he loves but yet has criticisms for as well.

Of course, this is fascinating stuff if you have read Malcolm and Freakonomics (plugging here).

But, even if you have not yet moved Jane Austen to the back burner in favor of a little modern cultural/pyschological/economical analysis. . . .this is still a worthy read.

Malcolm Gladwell's Blog Entry on Freakonomics

Plus, you will get to see a picture of Malcolm.

Google Chat with a Ten-Year-Old

me: Hey Dani

Daniel: hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

me: whoah
tell me a joke...

Daniel: hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

me: Okay, now you are just showing off!

Daniel: booooooooooooooooooooooo

me: :)

Daniel: booooooooooooooo
boooooooooooooooooo
booooooooooooooooooooo

me: who

Daniel: booooooooooooooooo

me: ?who?

get it?

bo who?
stop crying?
stop crying!

Daniel: lame+old

me: OUCH!

Daniel: what?

me: calling me LAME and OLD

Daniel: the joke is LAME and OLD

me: Oh, right.

Daniel: jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez

me: :)

Daniel: ;)

me: Did you invite Jon over yet?

Daniel: no
john

me: what are you doing this weekend?

sorry JoHn

Daniel: chases birth­day...... science pro­ject........ same old same old

me: Is Chase in your class?

Daniel: chase's
no he left
went to amenia

me: then how are you going to his party?
I am confused

Daniel: his mom or dad is taking me

me: to Armenia?
Isn't that in Europe?

Daniel: Amenia, no

me: Is it in NY?

Daniel: it's in Dutchess county

me: Sweet
What did you get him?

Daniel: ds game

me: good deal.

Daniel: mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­mo­momo

me: will you play football again? at the party, I mean.

Daniel: ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
i don't know

me: okay. I am off to take a shower.
I just got back from the gym

And now I have to go to a writing class
I don

Daniel: ts

me: I don't want to be sticky in the class.

Daniel: forgot the e

me: I AM THE STINKIEST right now

Daniel: huh?

me: tse?

Daniel: hahahahahahahahahahaha
u forgot the e

me: okay....spelling po­lice...whatever!

Daniel: ts as in the noise

me: what? I don't get iti!

Daniel: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

me: like you are shaking your finger at me for being a bad girl?

Daniel: SPELLING POLICE. WATCH OUT­!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NO

me: danger beware all bad speller­s....*WE ARE AFTER U*

Daniel: ?!@#$%!?@# CAPS LOCK­!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no bold?!?!?!

me: I think spelling is over­rated. I mean...who cares?

Daniel: yeh

me: I know, I just caps lock and it totally didn't work with the bold

Daniel: mine did

me: show off

Daniel: AD
@!?@#$%!&!@#$ CAPS LOCK

me: crazy

Daniel: UHUH

me: ALD­FJDLKJSLFJD­SKL
HA HA

Daniel: see it works!

me: cool

Daniel: @!#$^#!$#@$$@$%@@!%!$@$^@

me: awesome awesome awesome are you.

Daniel: ye­h............. right

me: Ser­i­ously, dude, I STINK
must go shower

Daniel: :{

me: must be clean

Daniel: :}
;(

me: must be the CLEAN­EST in the world!!!!!

Daniel: :(
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

me: what are U doing?
finished with homework, etc.

Daniel: faces
yep

me: I heared that is supposed to be really warm this week­end...

Daniel: yep

me: maybe 60 degrees

Daniel: wwwwwwwwwwwwwww­wooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwww

me: now that is ....truly......AWE­SOME

Watch me:
I
am
about
to
sign
off
and
take
a
shower

Daniel: noway

me: yesway

Daniel: crud

me: crudway

Daniel: huh

?

me: Why? Do you have something to tell me?

Why should I stay?
Give me a reas­on....

Daniel: u
dont
need
shower
@@

me: You don't smell mle

Daniel: _

me: Ser­i­ouisly, I STINK reall nasty

Daniel: @@
-
@@

me: I am saying goodbye now.......

Daniel: -

me: bye
bye
bye
bey
bey
bye
bye
bye
bye

Daniel: heheheheh­heheh­h
bey

me: BYE

Daniel: u stiill on?

me: szia
etc.
bye
bye
bye
No I am not
I am not here
I am in the shower
I am washing my hair now

Daniel: NO SPELLING PO­LICE!!!!!!!

me: The water is too hot!

Daniel: UHHUH
HOW ARE U TYPING

me: It is hard to reach the comptuer from the shower­.....but I can do it!

Daniel: UHHUH
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
me: STOP SHOUTING

Daniel: IS URE LYING GRADE

me: What?
Janet is scratch­ing her head in confusion

Daniel: 0 IS URE LYING GRADE
NICE

me: Oh.....very, very very very FUNNY
(really that was funny!)

Daniel: 100 IS URE WRITING GRADE

me: :)

Daniel: UHHUH

me: Wait, who is the teacher?
I am supposed to give grades.....

Daniel: UH­H­H­H­H­H­H­H­HH U
YE­H............................

me: Dude
I
am
outa
here
Catch you
LATER

Daniel: NO URE NOT

me: ACK!
Daniel did not receive your chat.
Daniel did not receive your chat.

Daniel: ure still on?

me: LEAVE ME ALONE
just kidding

Daniel: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

me: I was rereading our chat

Daniel: UHHUH

me: we are two funny people...

Daniel: WHERE IS TATA

me: Cali­for­nia

He will be back tomorrow am

Daniel: UHHUH

me: k
bye

Daniel: KK

me: bye

Daniel: UHHUH
UHHUH
UHHUH
UHHUH
UHHUH
UHHUH
UHHUH
UHHUH
UHHUH
UHHUH
UHHUH
UHHUH

me: Ack
Argh
uch

Daniel: Ar­ghAr­ghAr­ghAr­ghAr­ghAr­gh
Argh
Argh
Argh
Argh
Argh
Argh
Argh
Argh

me: :0

Daniel: ACK
ACK
ACK
ACK
ACK
ACK
ACK
ACK
ACK

me: splat

Daniel: GO OUT ON 1
5

4

3

2

1

God Says Yes to Me by Kaylin Haught

God Says Yes to Me

by Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said sure it is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked up that
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Taken from Being Alive edited by Neil Astley and published by Bloodaxe Books

Hubbard Street Dance in Boston

A few times over the years that I was living near Chicago, I attempted to make it to a Hubbard show to no avail. Finally tonight L, d. and I will make a night of it: Italian for dinner and then off to the show! Here is the program description: In their 2004 Celebrity Series debut, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago mesmerized crowds with energy that literally jumped off the stage and into the audience. From its humble beginnings nearly three decades ago, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has blossomed into one of the most influential and original forces in contemporary dance. Performing the repertory of the most innovative international and American choreographers, the company of 21 powerfully versatile dancers sails through work blending ballet, jazz, and modern influences. "The troupe can dance anything and everything- and...they invariably do so with fluid brilliance and understated virtuosity." -Chicago Sun-Times Program: Enemy in the Figure - (1989) Choreography: William Forsythe Choreography Assistance: Ana C. Roman, Thomas McManus, and Ayman Harper Original Score: Thom Willems Strokes Through the Tail - (2005) Boston Premiere Choreography by Marguerite Donlon Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Float - (2003) Choreography by Julian Barnett Music by Orvar Smarson and Gunnar Tynes Gnawa - (2005) Boston Premiere Choreography by Nacho Duato Music by Hassan Hakmoun, Adam Rudolph, Juan Arteche, Xavier Paxadiño, Abou-Khalil, Velez, Kusur and Sarkissian Check out their website: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago You can read information about each dance on the program as well as each choreagrapher's bio.

Eisenberg: Twilight of the Superheroes

I am currently paging my way through this very "hot" collection of short stories by Deborah Eisenberg. It seems it is getting press everywhere all over the place. So far, it deserves all the attention it has garnered.

Link of Note:

NPR Audio Book Review 'Twilight of the Superheroes' Explores the Senses' by Alan Cheuse

Philip Roth: Goodbye, Columbus

Sheer Playfulness and Deadly Seriousness are my closest friends.

--Philip Roth

This week's novella for class discussion is Philip Roth's first, Goodbye, Columbus, which is still published with five short stories. It was first published in 1959 and won the National Book Award the following year. Other than this work, I have previously read "Sabbath's Theater" (1995) and I still have "The Plot Against America" (2004) on my bookshelf--a Christmas present I am still wading my way toward.

Here is a summary of the novel provided by enotes.com:

‘Goodbye, Columbus’’ is narrated from the point of view of Neil Klugman, a twenty-three-year-old Jewish man who lives with his aunt and uncle in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, and works at a public library. It concerns his relationship over the course of one summer with Brenda Patimkin, an upper-middle-class Jewish college student staying with her family in the suburbs. Their relationship is characterized by the stark contrast of their socioeconomic differences, despite the fact that they are both Jewish. The summer ends with Brenda's brother Ron's wedding, after which Brenda returns to Radcliffe College in Massachusetts. When the two arrange to meet at a hotel over the Jewish holidays, she tells him that her parents have discovered her diaphragm and have both written her letters expressing their dismay and their disdain for Neil as a result. As Brenda feels she can no longer continue the relationship, Neil leaves the hotel, ultimately achieving a new sense of self-knowledge, which is expressed by the dawning of the Jewish New Year as he arrives back in Newark.

Here is the New York Times May 17, 1959 Review of the novel:

By William Peden

Some years ago, in the vanguard of the Southern literary renascence, Ellen Glasgow commented that what the South needed was "blood and irony." The same might be said of some recent writers who have concerned themselves with depicting the role of the Jew in American society, which is the subject of Philip Roth's collection of short stories and a novella. An English instructor at the University of Chicago, 26-year-old Mr. Roth has published fiction in Harper's, The Paris Review, The New Yorker and other periodicals. "Goodbye, Columbus," a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award, is his first book, and an impressive one. There is blood here and vigor, love and hate, irony and compassion.
Mr. Roth's novella is a somewhat incongruous mingling of conventional boy-meets-girl material and portrait-of-the- intellectual-as-a-young-man, narrated with an occasional fondness for clinical detail reminiscent of Edmund Wilson's "The Princess With the Golden Hair." Young Neil Klugman ("Whenever anyone asks me where I went to school I come right out with it: Newark Colleges of Rutgers University") meets beautiful, wealthy Brenda Patimkin, a Radcliffe undergraduate. Neil pursues Brenda with the determination of a well-trained bird dog, and soon catches her. After a summer love affair, he rejects Brenda and the nouveau-riche Patimkins with the smug self-righteousness of Joyce's Stephen Dedalus.
Such a summary, however, does justice neither to the author nor to his people; out of such hackneyed materials Mr. Roth has written a perceptive, often witty and frequently moving piece of fiction. He is a good story-teller, a shrewd appraiser of character and a keen recorder of an indecisive generation. Although Brenda's family has "moved up" from Newark economically by virtue of Mr. Patimkin's Kitchen-and-Bathroom-Sinks Enterprise, and Neil has made the "migration" intellectually, they are all of them refugees haunted by echoes from a not-to-be-buried past, unsatisfied by the too-tasty viands of a sterile hedonism, and confused by the uncertainties of the future. Characteristically, at the wedding of Brenda's brother, Neil and Brenda are further apart than ever, and in the gray confusion of early morning Neil sees some of the Patimkins "from the back, round-shouldered, burdened, child- carrying--like people fleeing a captured city."
Most of Mr. Roth's protagonists are, like Neil Klugman, adrift in a limbo between past and present. The author seems to know his people inside and out, whether he writes of a boy arguing the Virgin Birth with an exasperated rabbi, ("The Conversion of the Jews"), or, in "Eli, the Fanatic," of a young Jewish lawyer trying to explain suburban mores to the leader of a rabbinical orphanage, or, in "Epstein," of the ludicrous yet pitiable aftermath of an aging man's search for love. These stories, though concerned with universal, archetypal experiences, are somewhat transmuted into that which is at once strange and familiar. "I'm a Jew," one character says. "I am different. Better, maybe not. But different."

It seems that there is little I can say about the author only because there are legions out there in the literary world who are making their living doing just that.

Check out a few of these links:

The Philip Roth Society

CNN/TIME: America's Best Novelist

New York Times Featured Author: Philip Roth
(needs free registration with New York Times)

Vocabulary and Great Lines from Goodbye, Columbus:

dithyrambs
1 : a usually short poem in an inspired wild irregular strain
2 : a statement or writing in an exalted or enthusiastic vein
- dith·y·ram·bic /"di-thi-'ram-bik/ adjective
- dith·y·ram·bi·cal·ly /-bi-k(&-)lE/ adverb

"Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them -- at least I didn't; to phrase them was to invent them and own them."

"Sitting there in the park, I felt a deep knowledge of Newark, an attachment so rooted that it could not help but branch out into affection."

muscleless devotion

slashing my face with a smile

"His breath smelled of hair oil and his hair of breath and when he spoke, spittle cobwebbed the corners of his mouth."

sententiously
1 a : given to or abounding in aphoristic expression b : given to or abounding in excessive moralizing
2 : terse, aphoristic, or moralistic in expression : PITHY, EPIGRAMMATIC
- sen·ten·tious·ly adverb
- sen·ten·tious·ness noun

"By the light of the window behind him I could see the hundreds of spaces between the hundreds of tiny black corkscrews that were his hair."

At the wedding:
"I stayed behind, mesmerized almost by the dissection, analysis, reconsideration, and finally, the embracing of the trivial."

I smiled as collusively as I knew how.
: secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose
- col·lu·sive /-'lü-siv, -ziv/ adjective
- col·lu·sive·ly adverb
". . . and I did not say a word, afraid what a word, any word, might do."

"I was getting no answers, but I went on. If we meet You at all, God, it's that we're carnal, and aquisitive, and thereby partake of You. I am carnal, and I know You approve, I just know it. But how carnal can I get? I am acquisitive. Where do I turn now in my acquisitiveness? Where do we meet? Which prize is You?"

". . .with just a little body-english"

"And then he exploded into silence."

"I looked, but the outside of me gave up little information about the inside of me."

"What was it inside of me that had turned pursuit and clutching into love, and then turned it inside out again? What was it that had turned winning into losing, and losing -- who knows -- into winning? I was sure I had loved Brenda, though standing there, I knew I couldn't any longer."

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Tonight we will finally make our first trip (at least my first trip) to the Boston Symphony. Here is the Boston Globe review that convinced me to get my act together:

Passion rules the night in BSO's 'Gurrelieder'

By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff | February 24, 2006

Many in the audience were on their feet, applauding, before intermission of last night's performance of Arnold Schoenberg's ''Gurrelieder" by James Levine the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and by the end of the concert the response was unanimous.

''Gurrelieder" is one of the composer's early masterpieces, composed mostly in 1901 and 1902, although Schoenberg didn't complete the orchestration for another decade. The work is a series of narrative songs that recount the old Danish legend of King Waldemar, his beloved Tove, and his jealous Queen who engineers Tove's death. The King mocks God and is condemned to ride nightly from dusk to dawn for eternity, but the King finds Tove again in the splendor of the natural world.

In the music, as the work progresses, you can hear the 19th century pass into the 20th, and Schoenberg evolve from the world of Brahms, Mahler, and Richard Strauss into the world that he both perceived and helped to create.

The work always stirs an audience but it is seldom performed because of its size, cost, and difficulty. Last night the orchestra assembled a world-class team of soloists. It took tenor Johan Botha and charismatic soprano Karita Mattila awhile to warm up and ride their voices over the orchestra in the songs for Waldemar and Tove, but both came through in the later songs which Schoenberg scored more considerately -- Mattila did seem swept away by passion, and rose thrillingly to the great climax of her last song. Botha, who looks like a cross between a scholar and a bounty hunter, surmounted the most strenuous passages with impressive security and he never forced. Given the opportunity, he can also deliver text with sensitivity. The rolling bass-baritone of Albert Dohmen was luxury casting as a peasant; tenor Paul Groves achieved a convincing physical and musical characterization of the fool/jester without quite meeting every vocal demand.

The veteran Viennese tenor Waldemar Kmentt has sung three roles in this work in the course of his 56-year career. As the narrator, he delivered the speech/song with musicality, insight and instinct, occasionally coloring a word with his fondly remembered singing voice. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was magnificent in the tragic narrative of the Wood-Dove who sings of Tove's death. Wearing a period dress in dove gray, her hair done in feathery style, Lieberson sang with flaring, all-giving tone; tragic splendor; and soul-sharing communication.

The huge orchestra -- 8 flutes, 10 horns -- covered itself with glory throughout. It also covered the men of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus too much of the time, but the full TFC sounded like a sunburst at the end. Levine has probably conducted more performances of ''Gurrelieder" than anyone in the work's history; he helped the performers deliver every dimension of the piece -- its roots in tradition and its modernity; its peculiarities and its reassurances; its particularity and its universality.

James Levine, conductor Karita Mattila, soprano (Tove) Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano, (Wood Dove) Johan Botha, tenor (Waldemar) Paul Groves, tenor (Klaus Narr) Albert Dohmen, baritone (Peasant) Waldemar Kmentt, tenor (Speaker)

American Life in Poetry: Boys Are Born To Wander

American Life in Poetry: Column 048

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Every parent can tell a score of tales about the difficulties
of raising children, and then of the difficulties in letting
go of them. Here the Texas poet, Walt McDonald, shares
just such a story.



Some Boys are Born to Wander

From Michigan our son writes, How many elk?
How many big horn sheep? It's spring,
and soon they'll be gone above timberline,

climbing to tundra by summer. Some boys
are born to wander, my wife says, but rocky slopes
with spruce and Douglas fir are home.

He tried the navy, the marines, but even the army
wouldn't take him, not with a foot like that.
Maybe it's in the genes. I think of wild-eyed years

till I was twenty, and cringe. I loved motorcycles,
too dumb to say no to our son—too many switchbacks
in mountains, too many icy spots in spring.

Doctors stitched back his scalp, hoisted him in traction
like a twisted frame. I sold the motorbike to a junkyard,
but half his foot was gone. Last month, he cashed

his paycheck at the Harley house, roared off
with nothing but a backpack, waving his headband,
leaning into a downhill curve and gone.

First published in "New Letters," Vol. 69, 2002, and
reprinted from "A Thousand Miles of Stars," 2004, by
permission of the author and Texas Tech University
Press. Copyright © 2002 by Walt McDonald.
This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation,
The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not
accept unsolicited poetry.