forman howes + patricia holland | the cousins on christmas eve

iPhone photograph (filtered)

connie braun | a christmas gift from the sea

This Christmas we are away from family and friends. The decision to leave was mine, and I wonder if I'm flawed, like a sweater with a snag, or worse, a defect in the domestic fabric of motherhood. I feel so overwhelmed at this time of year when other wives and mothers immerse themselves in the traditions of the season. Part of what makes leaving a little easier is that we both have families living close by that we see regularly, so, with our children, my husband and I come to an island in the sea this year. There will be no usual Christmas activities and obligations. And, as if to justify missing the snowfall at home, I imagine that a balmy breeze is truer to the nativity setting in Bethlehem anyway.

I have brought along a book, Gift From The Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in which she comments on the luxury of choice many of us in our North American culture have, including me, between complexity and simplification of life. "For the most part, we who could choose simplification choose complication." This statement stirs me. The author goes on to say that a simplified outward life is not enough, but I decide that it is definitely a start.

Throughout the book, the author uses the image of an island as a metaphor for solitude and reflection. Solitude is necessary for a peaceful inner life, and vacations, she writes, are like an island of space and time – I think of the five of us here as being our own island. My thoughts shift like the sand in the breaking waves to another place, to home, where it is snowing. Our mothers will be engaged in activity for Christmas Eve while I have spent the day at the beach with no responsibilities – lazy hours liberally sprinkled with sand and salt.

Showered and refreshed, I recline on the patio sipping a glass of eggnog and gaze at the ocean in anticipation of the sunset and the descent of this special night. Just offshore, the water softly breaks and a dark shape emereges; the back of a whale! Elated, I call my family over with a hushed trace of urgency in my voice. They know how inexplicably drawn I am to these mysterious graceful giants and quickly gather around me. Together we watch, captivated, as the whale gently rolls to the side and a long fin, like a slender hand, claps the water's surface, as if to ensure our attention. Her act is audible a moment later, just as thunder is heard moments after lightning. Again and again, fin against water. Then a tiny fluked tail pops up from the waves and wags in response. The mother raises her tail, bringing it down with a thud and displacing water into a fan of spray that areches and showers like a summer downpour.

I am mesmerized by this affectionate interplay between whale and offspring. It goes on for fifteen minutes, a halfhour, is it longer? And suddenly during that time I sense the significance of what I am witnessing, so grateful that I wasn't preoccupied but rather sill and available. That these whales should pause along their journey to play in front of us, on this evening, seems intentional, as if this was an intimate gift from the Divine Creator to me. Time seems to stop, until the shimmering sun slowly slips into the sea.

At church, in the glow of the candlelight, once again I think of our families at home, gahtered by now around the tree, exchanging gifts. Mild guilt washes over me like a wave, then flows away as the singing begins. "O Holy Night... The night when Christ was born..."  As if speaking to reassure me, the pastor prefaces his sermon by commenting on all the things we do to get ready for Christmas, making ourselves three times busier than usual – baking, cooking, shopping, visiting, decorating – yet that is not what Christmas is about. All around me heads nod slightly, creating a subtle movement throughout the congregtion, like an undulating body of water. I feel acceptable. The purpose of Christmas, he declares, is simply for us to know God personally. The message that follows warms me like tropical sun rays.

A few days later, I enquire about a whale-watching excursion and an islander tells me that this is not the right time of year; experts have sensed only about twenty whales in this waters. He says I'd be lucky to see any activity at all. My intuition about the whales on Christmas Eve was correct; they were a gift, and they will become my personal metaphor for a simpler life wherein I recognize God's grace in the deeper, quieter moments.

sheila rosen | no safe place : thoughts after reading frederick buechner

So there’s no safe place. God, it seems,
might insert himself into any conversation,
any century. Might settle in - any old place,
as he quintessentially did in the West Bank,
Palestine, small town called Bethlehem.
The story is - God breathed himself
into the womb of a woman, turning himself
over to her umbilical care, folding himself
into fetal position, pressing and turning
inside Mary, ‘til she, breathing hard, bore down.
Mary’s womb turned inside out - amniotic
water, gasping infant, placenta spilling
into the night, messy and miraculous
as any birth anywhere and not a safe place.
Did he know - he must have - when he took on
flesh and fingernail and bone marrow,
he would be at our mercy?

For us too, no safe place. For you see what
he’s done - given notice how he, at any time,
might break into our conversation, West Bank,
West Coast, Bethlehem, Vancouver. There’s no place
safe from his radical willingness to be among us.

mike royko | pretty well picked over

The owner of a Michigan Avenue restaurant called me with a problem that frequently comes up at Christmas. He had planned a party at his place for 100 needy children. But for some reason he had only half that many coming. Now, with the party only two days off, he was frantically trying to find an extra fifty needy children.

"Do you know where I can get them?" he said. I asked if he had tried an orphanage. He hadn't, so I gave him the name of one.

He called back a few minutes later and said: "No luck. They're already taken." All I could do was suggest that he keep trying, call orphanages and social agencies. But I warned him to expect disappointment. He had waited much too long. When you get down to the last week before Christmas, the needy children - especially orphans - already have been pretty well picked over.

Last year, on Christmas Eve afternoon, a very angry young woman called. She and some friends had just rounded up old clothes and old toys to give away, but couldn't find anyone to give them to. They had called several social agencies but they had closed for the day.

Knowing how upsetting such disappointment could be, I tried to be helpful and suggested that they wait until after Christmas when the social agencies reopened, since the clothes and toys would be needed then, too.

"But Christmas will be over then," the woman said, "and it won't be the same."

How true...

One should start thinking about these things as early as Thanksgiving-- or before, if possible...

One of the problems in looking for someone to good-deed is that there is no convenient way to shop around. What may be needed is some kind of special Christmas catalog, such as Sears put out for their merchandise, but containing instead a complete assortment of the needy. If people had something like that, they could plan calmly and avoid the frantic, last-minute rush to perform a good deed.

Best of all, there wouldn't be any disappointment. Christmas comes but once a year, and everyone should get a chance to do good. It's such a long wait until next time.

paradise | two images

paradise

(2016, russia/germany, andrei konchalovsky)

the new yorker goes to korea

Families enjoy National Liberation Day at the Rungna Dolphinarium

My guide was Pak Song Il, whose job has allowed him to visit several countries, which he described in terms of their cleanliness: Switzerland (very clean); Belgium (not so clean); Bangladesh (not clean at all). In 2015, he went to Utah (clean) for a nongovernmental exchange attended by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The experience convinced him that Mormons have a lot in common with North Koreans. "When the L.D.S. started, they were hated. They were sent to the desert. But they made it thrive. They are organized like a bee colony, where everyone works for one purpose and they would die for it. And they make huge output, as a result. We understand each other very well."

*

When you buy a North Korean newspaper with an image of Kim Jong Un on the front page, the clerk folds it carefully to avoid creasing his face.

Kim Jong Un executed his uncle Jang Song Thaek. The charges against Jang ranged from “treachery” to applauding “halfheartedly” when Kim entered the room. Many of Jang’s children and aides were also put to death. Some were killed by flamethrowers; others were shot by anti-aircraft guns before outdoor audiences.

*

Kim Jong Il, who assumed power in 1994, was a cinéaste, plump and sedentary, who made his own version of “Godzilla.” (His favorite films also included Rambo and Gone With The Wind.) On foreign trips, his aides brought home his feces and urine, to prevent foreign powers from hijacking the waste and evaluating his health. He was five feet two inches tall, and insecure about his height. In 1978, he ordered the kidnapping of his favorite South Korean actress, Choi Eun-hee, and greeted her by saying, “Small as a midget’s turd, aren’t I?”

*

Kim Jong Il's second son, Jong Chul, was reserved and gentle. While in Switzerland, he had written a poem called “My Ideal World,” which began, “If I had my ideal world I would not allow weapons and atom bombs anymore. I would destroy all terrorists with the Hollywood star Jean-Claude Van Damme.”

*   *   *

excerpted from
The Risk Of Nuclear War With North Korea
by Evan Osnos
The New Yorker, September 18, 2017

maggie's farm

If Dylan and the Band, buoyed by Levon Helm’s strutting, deep-in-the-pocket Southern groove, had sounded like American comfort food, a triumphant homecoming football team on a crisp Thanksgiving afternoon, the singer and his band on the Hard Rain album sound like a surly crew of mercenaries adrift at sea; exhausted, strung out, and hungry, they are so bored out of their wits that they’ve taken to drinking the ship’s supply of whale oil and throwing one another overboard for fun.


howard fishman compares two performances of maggie's farm
in never ending bob dylan
the new yorker, november 3, 2017

the pulp fiction of henri nouwen

"As Doc fired several rounds into the attacking platoon, he heard the unmistakeable rat-a-tat-tat of enemy fire, and felt a tearing, burning sensation in his left leg. Damn! He was hit..."

A shocking tale of wasted youth! He stole his father's money, fled his home town, and cast off every rule of decent society! He slept with hookers! He ate with pigs! And now... He's back! The long awaited sequel to the searing thrill-o-rama that shocked a generation! If you liked "The Prodigal Son," you'll LOVE... "The Return Of The Prodigal Son"!!

so close to the stage

the new yorker
june 26, 2017

brad aaron modlin | what you missed that day you were absent from fourth grade

What You Missed that Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade


Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,

how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer.
She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark.

After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s

voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—

something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This prompted

Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,

and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.

The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.

And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,

and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person

add up to something.



by Brad Aaron Modlin
from the book Everyone At This Party Has Two Names

an almost holy picture | notes for an interview

where do we find hope in the face of loss?

beauty
small things
a burlap sack of beans, jars of salsa verde
making things grow
walking your daughter to school
watching your wife in a play
smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee in a friend's 57 Thunderbird

haas, baden, drake | three photos from an exhibition

Ernst Haas, New York City, USA, 1981

Karl Baden, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, 2009

Carolyn Drake, Breeze, Zhetisay Kazakhstan, 2009

from Cartier-Bresson: A Question of Colour
the inaugural show of The Positive View Foundation,
Somerset House, London

adam gopnik | shakespeare and forgiveness

Shakespeare believed in fate, order, and forgiveness; we believe in history, justice, and compassion – three pairings so similar as to sometimes seem the same, though they are not. The novelistic, psychological work of explaining why evil people are evil gets very little energy from him. His villains are the products not of trauma and history but of nature and destiny. He amputated Iago's motive for malignancy from the Italian story where he found Othello's tragedy, in order to make the evil more absolute. Even to ask if Shylock's graspingness is a product of his people's history of exclusion would not have seemed important to him. He wasn't looking for causes. Though not satisfying to our modern sense of psychology, this is actually psychologically quite satisfying. The malevolent people we encounter in life are mostly just like that. They don't have a particular trauma that, if addressed and cured, would stop them from being evil. They were creepy, malignant kids, too....

Shakespeare also believe in forgiveness in a way that we don't. Really rotten people get forgiven, in the comedies and romances, at least, in ways that still make us uneasy. In The Tempest, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, bad actors get easy outs. Even Shylock isn't killed. Dr Johnson thought the moment when Hamlet delays killing Claudius in order to deprive him of any chance of forgiveness was "too horrible to be read or to be uttered." We are much more ostentatiously compassionate and much more effectively vindictive. Small incidents of plagiarism end careers – not a rule that Shakespeare himself would have escaped – and sexual sins can place their perpetrators forever beyond the bounds of redemption. In Shakespeare, rotten people do rotten things, but if they stick around and say they're sorry they are forgiven. By contrast, we feel everyone's pain, forgive no one's trespasses."

Adam Gopnik, "Why Rewrite Shakespeare?"
The New Yorker, October 17, 2016

walker evans | stare

Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.

Walker Evans

mookie wilson | 'then i bust out'

samaritan woman | sheila rosen

On the outskirts of Sychar,
I bear my empty water jar to Jacob's well.
Under searing sun this daily trek is only one
of the vexing complications of my day.

Mornings I wake with dryness. I've dreamed again
of water pots, spilling, cracking, falling into shards.
I rouse myself before others, to keep my tryst
with the tiny bird that darts and sings each morning.
by my door. This small fidelity is all
that whets my appetite for another day.

The sun is high. Each day’s a new beginning, they say.
I set out alone, turning over, like dusty prayer beads,
the usual string of questions:

How is each day new? I am who I am, and was
all the other beginnings. Where is my help?
Neither in me nor the man who is not my husband
and isn’t likely to stay. I look up to the hills.
Where is the one true worship that might lift me,
even me, to the heights? Where is running water
for this never-ending thirst? Where, in this heat
is there even one bird singing?

My throat is dry. My feet hurt. I'll do well
to fill my water pot and bear it home. I'll climb
no bless/ed mountain today. Would that God
were a man who’d come down off his holy hill
and give me a hand drawing water. Deep water
from Jacob’s ancient well. And sweet,
I want sweet water, I want a soaking —
water enough to set a small bird singing,
under this scorching Samaritan sky.

found poem | no use

gift wrap,
old prescriptions, old chargers, broken headphones,
old towels, old bath mats, chipped mugs,

old magazines,

shoe boxes, old bills, dried pens,
old warranties, receipts,

takeout menus,
event tickets, invitations, old nail polish,
party favours, broken jewelry,
unused gifts.


by Ron Reed
(source forgotten. probably the new yorker.)

raymond chandler on walker evans | negro barber shop, atlanta, 1936

"In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption."

Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder"

quoted in "Walker Evans: Depth Of Field" with reference to this photograph, "Negro Barber Shop, Atlanta, 1936"

acting edition

I looked up a pdf of a play script online. This is the helpful description.

found poem 2016 | assembled from the pages of the new yorker

Other people's minds are a foreign country
in which we're guests, tourists, or strangers,
unsure where we are and what's expected of us.
People say things that they don't mean literally:
"Someday I am going to get my eyes open all the time
and then I will eat you and Lizzie both."
They tell jokes and they use ironic expressions:
"Make it extremely squalid and moving.
Are you at all acquainted with squalor?"

He'd had enough of what people said,
tips and tales, theories, tidbits.
If he could have it his way,
nobody would ever say anything again.

Once,
looking through this garbled, pearly whorled window,
he'd pulled a seven-foot coil of ingrown hair from an abscess
on the tip of a patient's tailbone,
theatrically slipping sleeping pills
into their tea,
a cluster of pastel plaster.

He was not well behaved in the girlfriend situation.
Unsuitability, resistance, seduction,
failure of imagination,
failure of courage,
bad planning,
incompetence,
corruption,
fecklessness,
the laws of nations,
the laws of physics,
the weight of history,
inertia of all sorts;
like an exotic dancer at a trustee's meeting.


by Ron Reed

link to the 2015 edition