Public Service Announcement: Forming Bread Loaves

Just in case someone happens by....The other day, I was chatting with my son and he mentioned that he had made kimchee. i asked him where he got the recipe and he said "From ye olde Frugalscholar blog." How I miss blogging. Or rather, how I miss the way blogging used to feel.

One reason I left my blog up, mouldering though it may be, is that there's a lot of good stuff there. Just today, I looked for a recipe. It was locked on the NYT--even though I have a subscription. But there it was on my blog! Sausage and bread soup from Mark Bittman! And there were comments from my old blog buddies!

Then I remembered that my son posted a video of my dear husband, baker of more than 40 years, forming bread loaves. I'm sure there are others. But here it is, a blast from the past: https://vimeo.com/4859712.

Sadly, I can't figure out how to put the video here. Oh well...ELEVEN YEARS AGO.

Ironic "old lady" or "rich lady" fashion: use what you have

When I started this blog many years ago, I was passionate about sharing my tips for frugality.  My motivation came, in part, from R, friend of both son and daughter. Well! R is now a psychiatrist (I helped him with his med school essay) stationed abroad.

I loved reading other frugality/personal finance blogs. These have generally disappeared or morphed into commercial sites hawking credit cards and other unsavory products.

As has been usual in my life, I got off track and began sampling middle-aged woman sites and got especially sidetracked by ones exploring style for that age group. Of course, most of those have gone the way of the frugality blogs.

And the OTHER blogs that attracted my attention were the decluttering sites. Because...I have a problem. Thrift stores both giveth (to frugality/keeping spending under control) and taketh away (as even a few extra purchases a month  at $3 can add to the clutter in no time flat).

I have been going through my closets, amazed at all the nice things I have. Thanks be  to thrift store gods. In that process, I find a number of unworn items: these are my "old lady"/"rich lady" things.

I keep meaning to wear them, thinking they are "ironic" or will appear to be so. Then it occurred to me that at 66, I have probably passed the age of irony in that department.

And, of course, it is NOT frugal not to  use things. So herewith I vow to wear the following (most not from thrift stores btw).

--the Burberry raincoat, worn ONCE. This was bought by my parents on a trip to London in the  late 70s?/early 80s? when the pound was par with the dollar. My mother outgrew it.  Wore once to a funeral of a person who was not very nice to me. My DH wore the matching one my father outgrew. We got many compliments.

--the authentic LV mono bag (style is Looping, no longer made) This was a gift from my sister-in-law to my mother. My mother placed it in her Goodwill donation bag upon receipt. I happened to see it. I retrieved it. Worn never.

--the vintage Gucci bag I got at a thrift store. This has the disintegrating lining characteristic of the real thing. Has the GG monograms and the stripe. Worn once when I had to go into a snooty store for some reason.

--the alligator bag that belonged to my grandmother. I need to get the handle reattached. My grandmother was very chic but unable to really live her aesthetic because she lost most of her money fleeing Europe in 1938. She worked at a fancy store in Boston. The bag has a label from another fancy Boston store. Worn never.

--the LV mono card case also from my grandmother--see above. Used never. (I believe with Marcel Proust that objects retain something of the person who owned them, so I can never relinquish these items. They give me pleasure just to behold them and touch them.)

--Bally croc patterned bucket bag from thrift.  Used never.

--Gucci loafers from thrift store. A bit big. Want to get inserts. Otherwise, must say good-bye.

Use what you have!

Notes on the Magic Mountain

On at least my seventh attempt to read this book. Even though I am only about 1/3 through, I think I shall make it this time. I am sorely feeling my lack of German--the native language of my grandparents, which I heard spoken my whole life.  I could read the segments in French--in the Walspurgisnacht chapter.

I feel that I have hardly time to experiment with books. Masterpieces--a vexed term, of course--urge me on. My very smart colleague Z said that she read MM many years ago and that "it wasn't worth" the labor. It is worth my labor. Perhaps another instance of needing to wait for the right time to read a book (similar feelings about Bronte's "Villette").

'I just realized that I have adopted the posture of the "horizontals" in my reading. They are on balconies in Davos, swaddled in camel hair and fur  against the cold. I am in my drafty house (in the Deep South! humid as opposed to the dry winters of Davos). So I have taken to reading in my bed, with the heating pad at my feet.

I sorely miss being a student of a good teacher. I was lucky to have more than a handful. Unlike my students--who scarcely read anything now and depend on internet analyses to write their papers and provide relevant passages from primary and secondary texts--I do not find Sparknotes and the like particular helpful.

BUT I did find a one hour lecture given by a University of Chicago professor for "Humanities Week." Meant for non-specialists--that would be me--he provided a framework for the book. I am writing this for me, but in case a reader is on a similar quest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaZZcRB01kQ.

The rest cure on the balconies becomes an occasion for reading (chapter called Research) and, even more, for intense daydreaming. I have always been  (too) prone to that. Even more than usual, I lay the book on my chest and drift off.

Perhaps internet meanderings are a form of day dreaming. While meandering about other works by the UC professor, I learned that he is, or perhaps was, married to someone I knew slightly in college, a woman I am sure would have no recollection of me. And that led to a memory, which came out of nowhere.

The woman was very friendly with the daughter of an old-style Hollywood star, though we were all too cool to ever mention it. I was slightly friendly with the daughter. One night I was invited to a small gathering at the home of one in their crowd. Also attending--a charismatic and smart and heavy drinking fellow who later married the daughter of the star. They were all incredibly heavy drinkers. I left early. I could not keep up. One is now a physician, one an attorney....

How strange...

on commence....trois

Little pieces of paper with notes everywhere

From December 2019: student finishing up final exam at a desk outside my office. "C's hands trembling. Heartbreaking." Test anxiety PLUS he acknowledged that he had skipped some of the reading.

The real heartbreaker is that I can't remember the student, though I probably could if I looked at my roll from last semester, which now is on-line complete with photos.

Coming to end of teaching one way or another. The title of Jan Kott's famous essay reverberates: "King Lear or Endgame."

Starting new semester with a schedule  (worst of career) so frighteningly difficult that two of my acquaintance asked if the department head was trying to get me to retire. I don't think so. But see the academic classic "Stoner," where a chair uses a schedule as a weapon.

Picked up a long-neglected copy of Walter Benjamin's "Illuminations" in my office. Folded inside was the first page of a paper I wrote for a comparative lyric course in 1978. Before theory! Title: "'Time's trans-shifting' and the Lyric Imagination." It was on the subjunctive in poems by Spenser, Ronsard, and ????. The paper was written for Frank Warnke (who was a guest teacher in summer 1978), of esteemed and beloved memory. It received an A+. Two of my friends/frenemies asked me how I did and when I said "fine," their eyes sparkled. So I knew that FJW had sprinkled many A+s throughout the class--so there I and D! Both became quite famous, especially D in the field of literacy studies.

The paper came complete with an epigraph from Wallace Stevens. The title came from a poem by Robert Herrick.

The whole production is sooooooo 1978.

"The Argument of his Book" from Hesperides.

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, 

Of April, May, of June, and July flowers. 

I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, 

Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. 

I write of youth, of love, and have access 

By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. 

I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece 

Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris. 

I sing of Time's trans-shifting; and I write 

How roses first came red, and lilies white. 

I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing 

The court of Mab, and of the fairy king. 

I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall) 

Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all. 

Frank J. Warnke, a former chairman of the department of comparative literature at the University of Georgia, died Monday of injuries suffered when he was struck by an automobile in Antwerp, Belgium. He was 62 years old.

Dr. Warnke, who was still on the University of Georgia faculty, was teaching at the University of Antwerp in an exchange program.

He leaves his wife, Janice; two sisters, Ruth Lancetti of Alexandria, Va., and Margaret Macdonald of Washington, and a brother, Paul, also of Washington, a specialist on disarmament.

On commence....encore

--Oof--forgot I went to Venice! I started to cry as I stepped out of the train station. More beautiful than I had imagined. When I got home, I re-read Death in Venice, Wings of the Dove and the American (both H James, natch).

--Also--almost two years since I spent a little time in Bloomington. Reconnected with G and J, one of whose daughters--whom I babysat for--had just died at 36, 8 years after a tragic accident. Also saw C, my first friend in Bloomington, always intimidated by her. I did a terrible thing. She and her 3rd husband (the only good one) died of a brain tumor. We met him when they visited New Orleans. I was afraid to email C.  She emailed an obituary. That was in the somewhat early days of email--and I  had read that one should NOT send a condolence via email. So I procrastinated. G and J assured me that--after the death of their daughter--they had no idea who had sent a condolence note.

C came to their door. The first thing she said was "You never sent me a note about Gerry." I started to cry and said "Can you ever forgive me?" I have no recollection of the rest, but apparently we walked arm in arm the rest of the visit. i am grateful for her forgiveness.

i wonder if I will ever return. Also met a friend of J's whose much younger friend had worked under my dissertation director. The friend expected me to badmouth my director, but all I said was "Working with JA was the great honor of my life." Wow. I should have called JA.

--Even further back--I meant to write about the fancy family I followed in the art museum in Berlin. Private guide--rumpled, handsome, elegant., earnest.  He was talking to mom--tall blond--40's--wearing short cutoffs and a GIANT Birkin bag. He said "One must understand Caspar David Friedrich to understand the German character." She showed him her phone and said something about her renovation. Perhaps he was an art consultant. The rest of the family: two teens giggling, not looking at anything. Dad aloof--short--looking like a Renaissance nobleman in profile--looking bored and contemptuous. Aggressively not looking at anything or listening to the guide. I tried to follow but lost them.

Things I've been Meaning to Write About

a list in no order

--The beautiful paintings I saw in San Diego--who knew there were such treasures in the small museums in Balboa Park? And the French woman in one of the museums--I admired her scarf and she unfurled it to show me an orange Savana Dance.

--My thoughts about retirement that cannot be "published" till after I retire. Coming soon.

--All the Bronte novels I've been reading--the two by Anne Bronte, trying to read Villette--Lucy Snowe, who wants to be seen/not seen

--Country Girls Trilogy--only really liked the first one.

--Northanger Abbey as a sorbet between the Bronte books.

--my encounter with Patti Smith in the Verona train station last summer. I am embarrassed in retrospect--since I tend to ignore famous people and try to pay attention to people who get little notice, much less adulation.

--roasting grapes!

--a few emotional encounters with former students (MB, D, DS, DR)

--my connection with a young European rabbi who is married to a descendant of the great-uncle who died before I was born--a link to finding out something more--the postcard still in Vienna

--how we coped with the heat wave in Paris--frozen bottles of water in front of a fan in the apartment, many outings to the Petit Palais  (free!) to listen to concerts on antique pianos (also free!).

--Florence! Rome (too short--we missed out flight b/c of storms...and lost a lot of money....), Verona, Milan (the park/school near our house--with a ruined aviary etc)

OK:  pour moi
on commence

Summer Reading: The Line of Beauty

I had wanted to read this for a while. Forgot about it. Then saw a library copy at my daughter's house. I picked it up and she said that she didn't like people starting books she was in the middle of reading.

Forgot again. Then I came upon a copy during the closing days of the wonderful Friends of Library building a short walk away. The building has since been torn down. The land had become very valuable and a little book sale was a relic from another time.

As it happened, I was not very engaged by the book, which is set in the early 80s in London. The main character is a young gay man, supposedly working on a thesis on Henry James (several of whose books I reread this summer). He is living in the home of a very wealthy power couple, the parents of a college chum.

Percolating through the book is the advent of AIDS--and I remember those days well, though from a distance. Since the book was not engaging, I did what I have started to do: jumped to the end.

The main character has been kicked out of the house and is preparing to get another test for AIDS. He imagines that the results will be positive.

The time had come, and they learned the news in the room they were in, at a certain moment in their planned and continuing day. They woke the next morning, and after a while it came back to them. Nick searched their faces as they explored their feelings. He seemed to fade pretty quickly.He found himself yearning to know of their affairs, their successes, the novels and the new ideas that the few who remembered him might say he never knew, he never lived to find out.

This passage got me back to read the whole book that I was about to abandon. I thought of the Alumni Bulletin (one) sent by my college, perhaps in the late 90s or early 00s. As I read through the names, I saw many Ls and Ds. L was for LOST. D was for DEAD.

Nearly all the Ds of the years around my graduation were the gay guys. I remembered a few: Marty B, with his pony tail and smile. He went into advertising in San Francisco. Steve J, who had a crush on me for a while and then confessed that he hitchhiked and had sex for money with the men who picked him up, Bob C, who was so smart and confident. He became a dancer in Boston. He wrote his thesis on Richard Crashaw.

I could not find any mention of them via the internet. I thought of all they had missed.

Another French Poem: Mallarme

I'm starting with short poems that aren't too difficult to translate. I did this one with M Danon in college. I later wrote about translations of the poem for a graduate class "Methods of Comparative Literature."

Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd’hui
Va-t-il nous déchirer avec un coup d’aile ivre
Ce lac dur oublié que hante sous le givre
Le transparent glacier des vols qui n’ont pas fui!

Un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui
Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre
Pour n’avoir pas chanté la région où vivre
Quand du stérile hiver a resplendi l’ennui.

Tout son col secouera cette blanche agonie
Par l’espace infligée à l’oiseau qui le nie,
Mais non l’horreur du sol où le plumage est pris

Fantôme qu’à ce lieu son pur éclat assigne,
Il s’immobilise au songe froid de mépris
Que vêt parmi l’exil inutile le Cygne.

from Harvard Center for Hellenic studies (There is a lengthy essay on the poem on this site. Also a translation by Barbara Johnson.)

I remember that M Danon showed us how the last line is a pun: par mille exils inutiles le Signe." I can't remember if he did anything with the beginning of the line. How amazing that I remember this after almost 50 years! 

I showed this to my French-speaking, Proust-loving spouse. He told me the title of a famous book on Proust: "Proust and Signs." That is a bit of cleverness because the first volume of Proust's masterwork is "Swann's Way." Swan=Cygne.

Reading List: A French poem/poem in French

To prepare for retirement
I declare myself semi-retired
I will try to read a French poem every day
Today's poem
I searched for my old textbook--"French Romantic and Symbolist Poetry"
In the meantime, the internet.
I could translate this without much trouble and (mostly) without looking at the translation
Merci to my teachers, esp Ms ??, who quit after a dispute with the administration, M. S. Giordano, M R. Moore and M. S. Danon. For M. Danon, I wrote a paper on Paul Valery. Not one of these teachers  would remember me. That is the way of teachers and students.

1- “La Feuille Blanche” de Paul Valéry – French Poem

En vérité, une feuille blanche

Nous déclare par le vide

Qu’il n’est rien de si beau

Que ce qui n’existe pas.

Sur le miroir magique de sa blanche étendue,

L’âme voit devant elle le lieu des miracles

Que l’on ferait naître avec des signes et des lignes.

Cette présence d’absence surexcite

Et paralyse à la fois l’acte sans retour de la plume.

Il y a dans toute beauté une interdiction de toucher,

Il en émane je ne sais quoi de sacré

Qui suspend le geste, et fait l’homme

Sur le point d’agir se craindre soi-même.

2 – The Blank Sheet – English Translation of the French Poem

In truth, a blank sheet

Declares by the void

That there is nothing as beautiful

As that which does not exist.

]On the magic mirror of its white space,

The soul sees before her the place of the miracles

That we would bring to life with signs and lines.

This presence of absence over-excites

And at the same time paralyses the definitive act of the pen.

There is in all beauty a forbiddance to touch,

From which emanates I don’t know what of sacred

That stops the movement and puts the man

On the point of acting in fear of himself.

Summer Reading: Wuthering Heights/a poem by John Donne

I had a good friend in graduate school named Steve. We ended up with similar jobs. I called him now and again. The last time I spoke to him, lying on the floor of my office at school, he sounded, I told my husband, as if he were dead: his speech was halting and slurred. He was going through a divorce. It was not his idea.

Via the internet, I checked up on him now and again. A few years ago, I read an interview with him (conducted by a student). He said that his favorite book was "Wuthering Heights"--that he reread it every year and tried to teach it as much as he could.

I filed that away and thought that I would reread it and send him an email. Last month I finally read it while I was in Paris. It is not, I'm afraid, my favorite book. Maybe I need to try again--and again. I looked him up in a google search yesterday and discovered he died last November at the age of 68. No cause was given.

His obituary, written by a colleague, was kind, noting his wit and crankiness, making mention of his superlative gardening skills and his love of cats.  That sounded about right. I saw that his divorce took place in 1992--that was the last time I spoke to him, 26 years ago.

He wrote his thesis on numerology in Donne's poetry. He never published anything from it.

We were in a class together under an extraordinary scholar who directed both our dissertations. In that class he wrote a paper on Donne's "Hymn to God, my God in my Sickness." It is a magnificent poem. His paper was so good that he received an A+ on it. It had something to do with music. His father was an organ tuner in a small town in Indiana and Steve had some technical knowledge.

I always meant to ask him for a copy of the paper. An A+ is a rare accomplishment.

SINCE I am coming to that Holy room,     Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore, I shall be made Thy music ; as I come     I tune the instrument here at the door,     And what I must do then, think here before ; Whilst my physicians by their love are grown     Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown     That this is my south-west discovery,     Per fretum febris, by these straits to die ; I joy, that in these straits I see my west ;     For, though those currents yield return to none, What shall my west hurt me ?  As west and east     In all flat maps—and I am one—are one,     So death doth touch the resurrection. Is the Pacific sea my home ?  Or are     The eastern riches ?  Is Jerusalem ? Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar ?     All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them     Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem. We think that Paradise and Calvary,     Christ's cross and Adam's tree, stood in one place ; Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me ;     As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,     May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace. So, in His purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord ;     By these His thorns, give me His other crown ; And as to others' souls I preach'd Thy word,     Be this my text, my sermon to mine own,     “Therefore that He may raise, the Lord throws down.”

Stanley Plumly

I saw an obituary for the poet Stanley Plumly.
I have never read one of his poems.
His work is "not in my field"--loathsome concept.

When I taught at a college in Texas, grad student and friend VC (who was about 45--so 15 years ahead of me) took me to a poetry reading. She had owned a bookstore before returning to school.
SP was a handsome and distinguished fellow. Perhaps he taught at University of Houston at the time.
VC sat next to me with tears running down her face.
It turned out that she--smart, beautiful, and wealthy, though troubled--had had a brief affair with SP. He had spurned her.

That was 35 years ago. VC is close to 80. If we passed in an airport (I have met several people from the past in airports), we would not recognize each other.

I just read a few poems by Stanley Plumly. And a few by one of his wives, who jumped off a building at UMass, dying at 59.

I would like to read his work on Keats. Will I find the time?

Perhaps I should retire.

Infidelity

The two-toned Olds swinging sideways out of
the drive, the bone-white gravel kicked up in
a shot, my mother in the deathseat half

out the door, the door half shut--she’s being
pushed or wants to jump, I don’t remember.
The Olds is two kinds of green, hand-painted,
and blows black smoke like a coal-oil fire. I’m
stunned and feel a wind, like a machine, pass
through me, through my heart and mouth; I’m standing
in a field not fifty feet away, the
wheel of the wind closing the distance.
Then suddenly the car stops and my mother
falls with nothing, nothing to break the fall . . .

One of those moments we give too much to,
like the moment of acknowledgment of
betrayal, when the one who’s faithless has
nothing more to say and the silence is
terrifying since you must choose between
one or the other emptiness. I know
my mother’s face was covered black with blood
and that when she rose she too said nothing.
Language is a darkness pulled out of us.
But I screamed that day she was almost killed,
whether I wept or ran or threw a stone,
or stood stone-still, choosing at last between
parents, one of whom was driving away.

Infidelity

Stanley Plumly, 1939 - 2019

The two-toned Olds swinging sideways out of
the drive, the bone-white gravel kicked up in
a shot, my mother in the deathseat half

out the door, the door half shut--she's being
pushed or wants to jump, I don't remember.
The Olds is two kinds of green, hand-painted,
and blows black smoke like a coal-oil fire. I'm
stunned and feel a wind, like a machine, pass
through me, through my heart and mouth; I'm standing
in a field not fifty feet away, the
wheel of the wind closing the distance.
Then suddenly the car stops and my mother
falls with nothing, nothing to break the fall . . .

One of those moments we give too much to,
like the moment of acknowledgment of
betrayal, when the one who's faithless has
nothing more to say and the silence is
terrifying since you must choose between
one or the other emptiness. I know
my mother's face was covered black with blood
and that when she rose she too said nothing.
Language is a darkness pulled out of us.
But I screamed that day she was almost killed,
whether I wept or ran or threw a stone,
or stood stone-still, choosing at last between
parents, one of whom was driving away.

From Boy on the Step by Stanley Plumly. Copyright © 1989 by Stanley Plumly. Reprinted by permission of The Ecco Press.

About that time my friend and I were victims of sexual assault

Let's see, I was 16. Teri was 15.
We had a club held over our heads.
We got back to Teri's house and called the police.
I was crying as i gave the info to the operator--we had car description, perpetrator description, etc.
We waited for many hours.
The police never showed up.

WE DID NOT TELL OUR PARENTS.

Massapequa NY circa 1970.

In Between: a Draft

When Tom and I first lived here, we met a very brainy couple. Cara was the daughter of a nurse and a radical lawyer. Cara and Kirk explained to us  a characteristic of Louisiana. They said that to understand Louisiana, we had to understand that there was a small upper class, a giant lower/poverty class, and a relatively small middle class. I don't know if this is statistically true, but it APPEARS to be true.

At the gallery opening, I talked to other people in the middle, teachers mostly. As I wandered around, I overheard bits of conversation. A tough looking guy in a motorcycle teeshirt with cut-off sleeves was talking about a property in Paris that he had looked at for 800,000 euros. Only 1800 square feet, he exclaimed. He must have been the owner of the Harley outside.

Most of the attendees were members of the upper classes: beautifully dressed women, preppily dressed men (except for Mr Harley), who bore themselves with aristocratic self-assurance. Everyone was white.

Earlier that day, I visited the Food Bank Thrift Store (which has recently rebranded as a RESALE store). There I mostly encounter members of the lower classes, some black, some white, and, since Hurricane Katrina, some Hispanic. I have quite a few buddies among the shoppers--we go way back! But their financial struggles are not mine. I try not to mention that I travel to Europe. I call myself a teacher, not a professor. I dress way down.

I do encounter some of the upper classes at the thrift store...erm RESALE store. Based on newspaper coverage, I can say that this is the high status place to volunteer, to serve on the board, and to donate. Recently, a whole fleet of black Mercedes were in the parking lot, including one with an Honorary Consul license plate!

My encounters with the upper classes are with their cast-offs. I have learned a lot from drycleaning tags!

To be continued....maybe

Just some notes

Tonight we went to an art opening downtown. Our dear real estate agent is the president of the Art Association. He asked us to come. He said there would be a nice set up of cheese and fruit (he knows me).

I always think we don't know anyone around here, having lost most of our friends from the school days of our children. And I feel extremely alienated among the upper-class Trump voters who are the culture vultures here. But in a small town, one knows many people. Even recluses like Tom and me. The artist for instance: he is excellent and I have long admired his work. But I have a little spot of resentment, from something almost 20 years ago. The artist is somehow affiliated with the Benedictine Monastery nearby. I was teaching a Shakespeare course  at the seminary college there. He and another older fellow sat in on the first two sessions--looking extremely bored and almost contemptuous. They threw me off my stride. Of course, they voted with their feet and never returned...

I saw two people we know from school. And a very good artist/teacher who retired some time ago. From afar, I saw a New Orleans cultural bigwig, who always surprises me--he remembers me from a brief period when he ran an Arts Administration program at our school. That memory for people must be why he is so good at his job--in the stratosphere of New Orleans musical culture.

Best of all, I ran into a former student--she is about my age. She must have been in my class more than 20 years ago. A few years ago, I saw one of her pieces in a gallery. It was outstanding! And then there she was. I was surprised that she remembered me. And she was surprised that I remembered her. I run into  her now and again.

Tonight she asked me when I planned to retire. I must have started stuttering...something or other. She told me I should rechannel my creativity and recommended a book called "The War of Art," which is about overcoming resistance to creativity. She suggested that I teach something at the Art Association in retirement. And recommended that I start journaling. Hence this little piece of writing.

I mentioned that idea to my pal the President of the Art Association. He said "Why not do something on poems that are about works of art, like "Ozymandias?" This guy is a fount of unexpected knowledge. We told him that such poems are called "ecphrastic." He is always happy to learn a new word (we had a little tiff recently about the meaning of "penurious"--we were both right.)

I remembered an essay that blew me away in college: "Ecphrasis and the Still Moment of Poetry, or Laocoon Revisited" by Murray Krieger. I found the article because it was mentioned in a footnote in a book by Rosalie Colie, a critic whose works taught me so much about how to read and set me on a path to studying the English Renaissance. Those kind of accidental discoveries--in footnotes, in a book NEXT TO the book you were seeking on a library shelf--were the hallmark of my studies in the days before the internet. And thank God for that, because my students tend to do internet searches for the EXACT thing they are writing on, and seldom if ever wander down the meandering paths of literature and essays on literature . . .  and on other things.

So Ozymandias, Ode on a Grecian Urn, the shield of Achilles, that poem by Auden about the Brueghel painting ("Musee des Beaux Arts")--I'm sure I'll think of some others.

Thanks to Maggie for setting me down this meandering path of memory.

Happy Birthday August 5 2018

August 5 2018: That would have been my father's 90th birthday. Surely, we thought, he would make it. How own father had lived to be almost 100.

Instead, he died suddenly a few months after his 80th birthday. We had a difficult, nay terrible, relationship. I had hoped to find a way to repair or forge a relationship with him that did not devolve into arguments (reading various books recommended--pop psychology), but such was not to be.

Two years ago, my mother, with whom my relationship has been in steady decline also (though once, I thought we were quite close) cornered me in Florida. She said "Your father cried because you didn't talk to him. How does it make you feel to know that you made an old man cry?" That is a very short version of a very long list of accusations.

I responded badly, only thinking of what I should have said later.

My family thinks I should get therapy or at least write things down instead of TALKING ALL THE TIME.  OK.

At his funeral, his cousin Ira spoke. He recited a parable about "the TALL Man." The family is proud of its height--though the gene missed me, it went to both my children.

But then he spoke about my father as "the angry man."

Thank you to my Grandmother for my Wedding Gift

A few summers ago, I remarked upon the enameled cast iron pots that were at the cottage (now sold, a daily source of pain that enters even my dreams). My mother is a committed non-cook and, indeed, they had never been used.

"Oh, Grandma bought them as your wedding gift, but she died before you got married."

I took them home, and now Emma is taking them to her new home in New Orleans. Her name, following religious tradition, even though my family was decidedly NOT observant, is the same as my grandmother's: Emma.

Thanks to my grandmother for a wonderful wedding gift (acknowledged more than 20 years after the event) and for giving my daughter such a beautiful name.

GTD: Haiku

Once I was at a conference with GTD in Asheville. We went to a hip restaurant with a verrrry long line. We were definitely the oldest people there. I struck up a conversation with the people in front of us. They were members of a rock band. They asked me about G. I said, "He looks like a regular middle-aged guy, but he's really neat. Kind of a Zen Catholic." So taken were they with my description that they invited us to share their table.

G's favorite writer Thomas Merton also had an interest in Buddhism and Japanese culture. It is perhaps no wonder then that G went to teach English in Japan. M was his student and he fell in love with her.

I once asked him how he wooed her. He said "I wrote her a haiku." He proceeded to recite the haiku. It was in JAPANESE. He then recited it in English; it was beautiful even in translation.

One Valentine's Day, G announced to the people in our hall that he wanted to show us the card he got from M. We huddled around. It was a regular looking Valentine's Day card. When he opened it, it played Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire."

GTD: Making Do

At the service for G aka Merton, a colleague read a piece G had written in a meeting of The Writing Project called "Making Do." G loved the project because he loved writing in controlled, timed situations. He was otherwise a great procrastinator.

This piece--which I wish I had a copy of--was the essence of G. He was one of my few truly frugal friends--and the essence of frugality is "making do." He didn't write about frugality in his short piece--the only part I remember was about how God "made do" when he created Adam and Eve.

He was an excellent writer, with the extreme simplicity that seems easy, but is not.

His favorite piece was a five paragraph essay about how one should not write five paragraph essays! I remember hearing him in conference with students telling them that they were trying to fit their thoughts into 5 paragraphs and it wasn't working. He was proud of the fact that he had written a superb five paragraph essay.

In Memoriam: GTD aka Merton

GTD, colleague and frugal friend, died on July 13. We arrived back from our trip on the 17th and went to his funeral the morning of the 18th. I had planned to speak, but then decided not to. At the service, few people spoke. His widow, dear M,  said "I thought more people would speak." I remembered a little adventure G and I had had--one of many. So I got up and recounted it.

G and I were chatting late one afternoon. Tom probably had a night class and we had office hours, It was a happy day for me when I got to move into the office opposite G--and not just because I got a rare window.

We decided to get some coffee from the Writing Center. We walked into a meeting in progress. As we got our coffee, we were asked if we wanted some cake (!). So G and I decided to stay.

The little celebration was for a group of ESL students who had just completed a program. The instructor mentioned that funding for the program was cut...so she would be leaving. The program would end.  Students were invited to speak. Many had prepared pieces about what the program had meant to them. Others read poems they had written. Still others read pieces written by others.

G and I were asked if we wanted to present something. I said OK and read Shakespeare's sonnet 73 from the Norton Anthology. Of course, I added a short explanation--a teaching moment!

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Then G got up and read from Volume 2 of the Norton. He picked Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Spring and Fall." G was very brainy--a linguist--and wore his learning lightly. A rare thing. His choice was brilliant. First of all, it picked up on the themes and language of MY poem: leaves, leave-taking, mortality. Second of all, it reflected his deep love and practice of Catholicism.  Hopkins was a Jesuit priest. My name for G--Merton--is a tribute to his favorite writer: Thomas Merton. G was so taken by Merton's "Seven Storey Mountain," which recounts his journey to monasticism, that he went to Merton's Abbey at 17 and asked if he could be admitted. The monks told him to go to college, learn Latin, and then return. He did all but return. Because of G, I read a whole bunch of Merton too and we would discuss Merton and grocery bargains. Frugal friends are hard to find.

At the service, I did not read the sonnet by Shakespeare. Much to my amazement (since I've never taught it), the text of "Spring and Fall" jumped into my head. So I recited G's poem from memory. I only missed two lines.

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Second Hand Shopping in Paris

We did not try to check out the second hand market in Paris. In fact, other than groceries, we barely shop at all. The only reason I bought my tencel dresses is that we are at Monoprix, where Tom can look at the cheese and other goodies, while I can look at the clothes, play with the makeup, etc.

We were walking down a street in our favored neighborhood. I showed Emma the hotel we always passed and said "Look at the bird wallpaper." Really pretty. I then mentioned that three years ago, the hotel had had a vide-grenier in a small courtyard down the street.

We continued walking and happened upon their vide-grenier (empty-attic)! What a coincidence. They had various hotel fixtures, clothe, books--all sorts of stuff. i resisted, but Emma pulled out a Georges Rech linen twin set and bought it for 5 euros.

On another walk, we all happened upon an enormous street vide-grenier--stretching as far as the eyes could see. There was SO MUCH STUFF. A lot was nice too--not the usual junk one sees in thrift shops in my humble town. The sellers were a mix of people selling off their own stuff and professionals. Emma bought a Max Mara navy silk slip dress with a sheer overtop. That was 6 euros.

I saw a lot of Hermes ties. They were pristine and the standard price was 25 euros. I had a few Hermes ties back in the day and ended up selling them in a futile effort at decluttering. Now I know where to get more if I get the desire to provide the men in my family with ties. Imagine how many Hermes ties exist in Paris!

I just remembered another accidental second-hand encounter: at a St Vincent de Paul hospital compound now being used as a center for immigrants. Sam had been there a few years before and said that it had been a squatter abode; he saw it in early stages of renovation.  The Center had a thrift store and I ALMOST bought a long faux sheepskin vest for 3 euros. I resisted. Next year, I will return and see if I can help these people with their good work: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B4pital_Saint-Vincent-de-Paul