Virtual Eldorado
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 09/05/2013 - 22:10Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Of late, I've been looking for something to engage my mind. I read posts from friends on Facebook; many which are good progressive screeds, but I grow weary of that. I see what's on television, in the movies, playing on the radio, or written in popular books and I am uninterested.
My thoughts turned to reading the great books. Maybe, I can work my way through the American writers. I try to find a thread to pull.
Massive Open Online Courses catch my interest. I've kicked around a few in the past and made it a little way through some of them, but get distracted. Perhaps, I can set aside an hour each night to explore MOOCs.
In my search, I stumbled across The Saylor Foundation and start looking at their offerings.
ENGL405: The American Renaissance catches my eye and I start reading The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets By Kathryn VanSpanckeren.
There are many great diversions along the way. It is not surprising that I get distracted and rarely finish a MOOC.
VanSpanckeren quotes Emerson's essay, The Poet
For all men live by truth, and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in labor, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.
I spend a little time reading, or perhaps re-reading some of that essay.
A little later on VanSpanckeren references The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne which I download to my cellphone and start reading.
A number of Transcendentalists were … were involved in experimental utopian communities such as nearby Brook Farm (described in Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance) and Fruitlands.
I read a little bit of The Blithedale Romance and then spend some time exploring online articles about Brook Farm.
Ah yes, to find a Brook Farm I could join.
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
Perhaps an online Brook Farm or Bloomsbury Circle. Miranda talks about wanting to start a salon, an artist colony, or something of the sort. Perhaps when I am "old and gray and full of sleep and nodding by the fire" I can find a corner in my daughter's salon.
But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
Yet perhaps, this Brook Farm, Bloomsbury Circle, Eldorado can by created online; a venue for the techno-transcendentalists.
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied-
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
Jam
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 09/04/2013 - 21:20"I stand here ironing…"
Well, I wasn't ironing, I was making beach plum jelly as I reflected on my life. I remember taking a literature class in college, my senior year. Actually, I took a few. One was on Virginia Woolf. Another was something like a retrospective on feminist literature. It was from that class that I learned the work of Tillie Olsen. It was over three decades ago and I remember reading "I stand here ironing", but I'm not positive. Did Tillie Olsen come speak to my class, I think so, but I'm not sure.
My story is different from the mother in Tillie Olsen's story, but there are plenty of parallels. I've been through hard times and like the mother in the story, I wonder what I could have done differently as a parent when my first marriage fell apart.
It was the day after my wife's 47th birthday and the 14th anniversary of her mother's death. Kim, and our daughter Fiona were out at dinner with a friend, and I was home making jam.
I've been thinking a lot about societal constructs and gender roles. I was creating something special, yet transitory; another batch of beach jam. We will give it away as gifts, eat a little bit of it ourselves, and then, before another Labor Day roles around on Cape Cod, most of it will be gone.
The domestic arts. Throughout the ages, the fine arts and literary arts have been dominated by men while the domestic arts have been dominated by women. Should I submit my jam to a county fair? Maybe make a quilt some time? Challenge some of the old gender roles?
This year, my middle daughter wrote the book, "Don't' Make Art, Just Make Something". It is about not letting the word 'art' stop you from being creative. There is an art to making good beach plum jam. I'm not sure I've mastered that art yet, but I am making something, and that something, my friends tell me, is some really good jam.
Fourteen years ago, my wife's mother died, and the tears still reappear each year. My mother is more recently deceased. I'm coming up on the first year, and I find myself drifting more and more towards something between the dreams she had for me and my idealized memories of her.
As I stir the heating syrup, soon to be jam, I think of those days as a child when I would help her with jelly making and canning. It was part of my childhood, part of who I am now.
Seventeen jars of jam yesterday; sixteen more today. Another batch to be made. Then, I'll probably find some time to start a batch of hard cider.
And, in my spare time, I make space, here and there, to write. I feel no closer to my aspirations of literary grandeur than I did over three decades ago, studying in the shadows of some great writers.
But, at least I know I can make some good jam
Still, Dave Rises
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 08/31/2013 - 02:36The other night a solitary black man, trying to do his job was attacked by a group of drunk white college aged boys. He knew what he needed to do to finish his job. He faced them down from as safe a distance as he could. He smoked a cigarette, read a little bit from a book and bided his time.
As soon as his time was up, and the minimum requirements of his job was fulfilled, he beat a quick retreat.
The entertainment press went wild. Those who profit over the rude behavior of concert-goers wrote about his 'hissy fit' saying he had a melt down.
There is a great section in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, where Thompson talks about being chased by a highway cop for speeding. He goes into a great description of driving like hell when chased, and stopping with bravado. The cop won't like it, he may even pull his gun, but you'll know and he'll know who was in control.
Yeah, Dave Chappelle had a melt down, right! Just like Hunter S. Thompson speeding to L.A. If I smoked cigarettes right now, I'd take a drag and look contemptuously at the crowd.
No, the people who had the melt down were the privileged drunk white boys and the leaches in the entertainment industry that make a buck off of them.
Probably the same leaches that used a fabricated child star, gave her a raunchy ill conceived and ill performed rip off of part of black culture. It is probably the same leaches that got all upset when we talked about how bad the performance was and how it only adds to sexism, racism, and the degradation and objectification of certain groups of people, instead of focusing on some other drama we have control over, like Syria.
No, from what I'm reading, Dave Chappelle's performance in Hartford was a masterpiece, long over due. it was John Cage's 4'33" performed in a not-so-post-racial twenty-first century in a large venue. Listen to the sound of the audience today. It was Martin Luther King's speech reworked to be a commentary on discourse and hecklers in the age of social media. I have a dream that thinkers, both great and small will not be heckled off the stage in Hartford, or online, or in high schools because they look different and say challenging things. It was a eulogy for Bart, the 15 year old boy who was heckled and bullied to death in Greenwich Connecticut.
Yet Dave Chappelle's exit from the stage also echoed a hopeful note. Like Maya Angelou, still Dave Chappelle rises
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
The first reports I'm hearing online this evening is that Chappelle killed it in Pittsburgh this evening.
Syria, Cyrus, Bullying and Suicide
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 08/30/2013 - 10:59It is a popular meme, right now, to complain about everyone talking about Miley Cyrus and nobody talking about Syria. Let's look at this from a different perspective. We can argue into the wee hours of the morning the best course of action in a complicated geopolitical crisis. In fact, there are political leaders around the globe doing exactly that. Would a military strike be an unnecessary escalation of the conflict? Would failure to act be current day appeasement? What actions would have the most beneficial impact?
Yet the Miley Cyrus performance provides us with things we can do to make a difference. We can talk to the people around us, especially our children about social norms. What can we do, what are we doing, individually, each one of us, to fight racism, to fight sexism, to fight the objectification of people based on their gender, skin color, or sexual preferences?
Yes, by all accounts, it seems as if Bashar al-Assad is a bully, but what are we doing to address bullying in the lives of people around us? What can the Miley Cyrus performance tell us about how far people will go to be accepted? What can the suicide of the 15 year old boy in Greenwich, CT teach us about how to respond, or not respond, to bullies?
It is all well and good to be concerned about national and international events, but unless take these events and deal with them in our daily lives, it really doesn't seem to make a difference.
Cape Cod - Day 1
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 08/29/2013 - 10:35Over the past few days, we've been very busy at Cape Cod, without doing a lot; swim, eat, sleep. At moments I've gotten online and read and written a little bit, but not much, so here it is Day 5, I think, and I'm just getting around to writing my thoughts from Sunday on the Cape.
We arrived on Cape Cod on Saturday afternoon, ate at a clam shack and settled into our camping trailer. I awoke early on Sunday morning, as I do most mornings, whether it is on the cape, or at home, a workday or a weekend. I thought about heading off to church. I didn't relish the idea of driving into Provincetown. I'm not keen on trying to find parking there any time of the day or week. I thought about heading down to Wellfleet, but ended up just taking my daily walk to the beach.
It was warm and sunny and along the trail, I found some huckleberries. They were ripe, nearly past ripe. Being late in the season, I was surprised there were any left. How many people had hurried past them on their way to the beach and not noticed them, or not been aware that they were good to eat. How many other times have we hurried by something wonderful, not noticing or not being aware of the wonderfulness.
Warmed by the sun, the berries were even more enjoyable than anticipated. Along the path, I found black currants and beach plums to add to my morning snack. We come out towards the end of August so I can pick beach plums that I take home to make beach plum jelly.
I'm always torn by pointing out the joys of beach plums to those I encounter on the trail and not revealing my prime picking areas. Later, on the beach, I saw a similar behavior in a seagull. He stood with his back to me, and a dead crab lying in the sand. He appeared unconcerned about me or the crab, but kept a close eye on both of us, until I had walked sufficiently past him that he could return to his meal.
Down the beach I saw various people standing, and I wondered if I was approaching a seal colony. The first gathering was of a man practicing yoga and another person taking photographs. Further down the beach were more people standing. I kept watching and found they had come to see the seals, yet the seals were still some distance off. I walked further and eventually came within sight of the seal colony.
It was getting later in the morning, and I still had a long walk back to the campsite.
