People complain about the holiday frenzy starting earlier every year. It's a cliché, but it may actually be true. Last Friday afternoon, I saw people changing lanes repeatedly (more than usual, it seemed) in heavy traffic near the mall. An overeager van driver jumped in front of me with hardly any room to spare, causing me to miss a green light. He/she probably considered it adroit maneuvering, but I considered it rude.
Same thing at the coffeehouse: I don't know what people are drinking to make them so excitable, but it's not the same thing I'm getting. I usually take a book to read, but even if I were talking with someone, I could probably do it without sharing my conversation with the whole room or blundering into other people's tables. What's with all the attention-seeking behavior: loudness, lack of regard for personal space, and odd mannerisms? I was only that overstimulated once in my life, the time I took Midol for cramps and suddenly found I was bouncing off the walls. Maybe some people just shouldn't drink coffee in the afternoon?
Everybody knows that feeling you sometimes get during the holiday season when you've been overtaxed by addressing cards, shopping for gifts, and planning dinner, and you've navigated the over-bright and over-crowded aisles of the department stores one too many times. I remember walking through the grocery store a few days before Christmas one year feeling worn out, and the main action hadn't even started yet. Generally, that frazzled feeling can be expected in mid to late December, but yesterday it seemed to have hit people about a month too soon. I never saw so many pedestrians nearly run over, and that was before I even got inside. The store was extra crowded with people shopping for Thanksgiving, and things only settled down once the people thinned out.
I usually like to take things in small doses, including holiday cheer, but of course that runs counter to the spirit of Saturnalia, the ancient holiday that celebrated excess and the overturning of social order every December. Having read about some of the customs of Saturnalia, I'm inclined to think most of our modern celebrations are an improvement. Shopping and eating do sound better than an actual descent into lawlessness.
If my reading of the current situation is correct, the spirit of Saturnalia may be making more of an appearance than usual this season. If so, we should be prepared for a bit of a bumpy ride. It's probably best to give yourself plenty of time to get places, to focus on doing the things that truly give you happiness, and to handle any tendency to excess with an extra helping of turkey, a well-planned shopping excursion at off-hours, or some enthusiastic caroling. Resist any temptation to run naked in the streets or steal your neighbor's nativity display. Likewise, be prepared for defensive action. If anyone dashes up to you with a spring of mistletoe and a wild look, your shopping cart makes an excellent barrier.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Moonlighting as Gods
We're under a weather advisory right now, but so far, we've only had rain. That's probably a good thing, since there have been very severe storms in the Midwest today. I heard the storm warning alarm go off a while ago, but whatever the hazard was, it must have passed us by. Here, it's just a rainy Sunday.
I've always lived in places where tornadoes are a possibility. In Florida, hurricanes sometimes spawn them, and in Kentucky, we get tornadoes with severe thunderstorms. In high school, I spent one especially wild night listening to the radio by candlelight as a supercell storm raged outside. This storm was so immense that it affected multiple states throughout the Eastern U.S., dropping numerous tornadoes, one of which damaged our school. We had turned in English papers that week that were lost, our words literally carried away by the wind (now I always make a backup copy).
No wonder there were so many sky gods in the ancient religions; no wonder Thor's emblem is a hammer. I remember as a child seeing a commercial that featured an image of a cloud-wreathed god striking an anvil with a huge hammer. That was the image I carried in my mind of Thor or Vulcan, of how he created thunder and lightning every time he struck with his brawny arm. I could almost see him up there any time the clouds were especially black.
I suppose any time the origin of a force is invisible, the imagination is stirred like that. Right now, for instance, there's no thunder or wind, but there's plenty of noise above my head. For the last several years, I've had a succession of exceptionally noisy upstairs neighbors. If I hadn't seen them with my own eyes, I might have wondered if Thor or Vulcan had actually moved in above me! Sounds of heavy objects falling (Crack! Thud!), sounds of hammering and scraping, a commotion as of sizable objects being shoved or pushed -- it's all in a day's work around here.
It gives me sympathy for those poor denizens of the mythical realms who must have lived beneath the workshops of those sky gods (not having had any recourse to NIMBY petitioning, under the circumstances). I can imagine their dismay at all the thundering and yammering and unexplained but ominous bumps in the night originating from up top the mountain. They must have wondered what epic storm the gods were stirring up now every time they heard those low-pitched rumbles and ear-splitting cracks. I have wondered several times if someone was about to come through my ceiling and make an unwelcome deus ex machina appearance in my own living room. (You just really don't want a visit from Zeus; he's usually nothing but trouble.)
So if it is Hephaistos' workshop up there, what could they be building? Furniture? Ships? Trojan horses? All seem like odd hobbies for graduate students. When I was in graduate school, I barely had time to cook dinner, much less moonlight as a cabinetmaker. Maybe I have the wrong mythology, and it's really a latter-day Noah up there now, building an ark for a rainy day. The neighborhood is subject to drainage issues, after all.
The only problem I can see with that is he'll never get it out the window. He can't be a god, or he would have thought of that. I suspect it must be some human foolishness, which makes sense. I can't picture Thor using a dishwasher anyway.
Our storm watch has ended while I've been writing, and so, for now, has the noise upstairs.
I've always lived in places where tornadoes are a possibility. In Florida, hurricanes sometimes spawn them, and in Kentucky, we get tornadoes with severe thunderstorms. In high school, I spent one especially wild night listening to the radio by candlelight as a supercell storm raged outside. This storm was so immense that it affected multiple states throughout the Eastern U.S., dropping numerous tornadoes, one of which damaged our school. We had turned in English papers that week that were lost, our words literally carried away by the wind (now I always make a backup copy).
No wonder there were so many sky gods in the ancient religions; no wonder Thor's emblem is a hammer. I remember as a child seeing a commercial that featured an image of a cloud-wreathed god striking an anvil with a huge hammer. That was the image I carried in my mind of Thor or Vulcan, of how he created thunder and lightning every time he struck with his brawny arm. I could almost see him up there any time the clouds were especially black.
I suppose any time the origin of a force is invisible, the imagination is stirred like that. Right now, for instance, there's no thunder or wind, but there's plenty of noise above my head. For the last several years, I've had a succession of exceptionally noisy upstairs neighbors. If I hadn't seen them with my own eyes, I might have wondered if Thor or Vulcan had actually moved in above me! Sounds of heavy objects falling (Crack! Thud!), sounds of hammering and scraping, a commotion as of sizable objects being shoved or pushed -- it's all in a day's work around here.
It gives me sympathy for those poor denizens of the mythical realms who must have lived beneath the workshops of those sky gods (not having had any recourse to NIMBY petitioning, under the circumstances). I can imagine their dismay at all the thundering and yammering and unexplained but ominous bumps in the night originating from up top the mountain. They must have wondered what epic storm the gods were stirring up now every time they heard those low-pitched rumbles and ear-splitting cracks. I have wondered several times if someone was about to come through my ceiling and make an unwelcome deus ex machina appearance in my own living room. (You just really don't want a visit from Zeus; he's usually nothing but trouble.)
So if it is Hephaistos' workshop up there, what could they be building? Furniture? Ships? Trojan horses? All seem like odd hobbies for graduate students. When I was in graduate school, I barely had time to cook dinner, much less moonlight as a cabinetmaker. Maybe I have the wrong mythology, and it's really a latter-day Noah up there now, building an ark for a rainy day. The neighborhood is subject to drainage issues, after all.
The only problem I can see with that is he'll never get it out the window. He can't be a god, or he would have thought of that. I suspect it must be some human foolishness, which makes sense. I can't picture Thor using a dishwasher anyway.
Our storm watch has ended while I've been writing, and so, for now, has the noise upstairs.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Questing for Wanwood
While driving this afternoon, I noticed the sunlight playing on a tree with bright yellow leaves. The leaves were riffling in a slight wind, and it was the kind of sight that could inspire poetry. A phrase concerning showers of gold ran through my head, but I left it there. It was enough just to see the tree in the light.
But you know how writers are: sometimes they just have to tinker. For the last few minutes, I've been trying to think of a word that describes the quality of this afternoon's light. Melancholy is too strong; pensive doesn't quite fit. It was a waning light, but glorious and tranquil. It invoked a wistful feeling, a sort of yearning mixed up with contentment to be out on such a beautiful day.
There are many notable poems about autumn, but Gerard Manley Hopkins' phrase "worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie" from "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child" came to me as I was thinking about the trees and swirling leaves of my drive. That led to a realization that even though I've known the poem for 30 years, I don't actually know what wanwood is, so I looked it up. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that Hopkins might have coined the word, intending to evoke a forest in its decline.
The poem as a whole is heavier in mood than this afternoon's sunlit trees, but "worlds of wanwood" is just right to describe the drifts of leaves now blanketing yards and sidewalks all over town. I've always pictured wanwood as yellow -- I don't know whether Hopkins did, but this afternoon's palette was definitely in that key.
My search for wanwood led down another interesting byway. I found that -- along with generations of other students of Victorian poetry -- singer and songwriter Natalie Merchant was greatly moved by "Spring and Fall," adapting it to music for her 2010 album Leave Your Sleep. The poem's elegiac quality has never sounded more graceful than it does set to her plaintive melody. It's somber rather than wistful, more in line with a grayer day than today, but beautiful nonetheless.
Autumn is, after all, a time of shifting weather and moods. It shifts with the wind, from mellow to cold and wet, to brisk, to summery, and back again. It's a patchwork quilt of events.
But you know how writers are: sometimes they just have to tinker. For the last few minutes, I've been trying to think of a word that describes the quality of this afternoon's light. Melancholy is too strong; pensive doesn't quite fit. It was a waning light, but glorious and tranquil. It invoked a wistful feeling, a sort of yearning mixed up with contentment to be out on such a beautiful day.
There are many notable poems about autumn, but Gerard Manley Hopkins' phrase "worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie" from "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child" came to me as I was thinking about the trees and swirling leaves of my drive. That led to a realization that even though I've known the poem for 30 years, I don't actually know what wanwood is, so I looked it up. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that Hopkins might have coined the word, intending to evoke a forest in its decline.
The poem as a whole is heavier in mood than this afternoon's sunlit trees, but "worlds of wanwood" is just right to describe the drifts of leaves now blanketing yards and sidewalks all over town. I've always pictured wanwood as yellow -- I don't know whether Hopkins did, but this afternoon's palette was definitely in that key.
My search for wanwood led down another interesting byway. I found that -- along with generations of other students of Victorian poetry -- singer and songwriter Natalie Merchant was greatly moved by "Spring and Fall," adapting it to music for her 2010 album Leave Your Sleep. The poem's elegiac quality has never sounded more graceful than it does set to her plaintive melody. It's somber rather than wistful, more in line with a grayer day than today, but beautiful nonetheless.
Autumn is, after all, a time of shifting weather and moods. It shifts with the wind, from mellow to cold and wet, to brisk, to summery, and back again. It's a patchwork quilt of events.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Peripatetic
It took a while, but I finally tracked down a copy of John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley: In Search of America at the library. I started looking for it years ago, but the main library's copy always seemed to be checked out or missing. Being a fan of both travel writing and John Steinbeck, I was looking forward to reading this memoir, and my only disappointment is that it isn't a longer book.
Maybe it was fate that I never got a chance to read Travels with Charley before. I know I read it in a different way, perhaps with a sharper eye, than I would have even a few years ago. I've traveled some of the same roads as Steinbeck in recent years and was especially interested in the parts of his trip that overlapped with mine.
I've long had an image of Mr. Steinbeck as what you might call a "man's man." It was only recently that I came across a photo of him in his prime that reveled how handsome he was; at six feet tall with those piercing eyes he must have cut quite a figure. It's charming to imagine him traveling about with Charley, his poodle, camping out, and talking to people everywhere without being recognized by any of these strangers. His account of the journey reveals him to be open-minded and deeply thoughtful, with a good sense of humor, though you can tell all that by reading his fiction.
One thing struck me especially, and that was his description of the loneliness that descended on him at the outset of his trip. He missed his wife and, after starting out from Sag Harbor, New York, reunited with her during a stopover in Chicago, not even a quarter of the way through his travels. When they parted for the second time, he was just as lonely as before. I had imagined Mr. Steinbeck as somewhat stoic and was surprised and delighted to read about how regularly he called home and how much he missed it. It made him seem more human and less godlike.
Mr. Steinbeck found Wisconsin especially beautiful; he was prevented from traveling through Yellowstone National Park by Charley's open hostility toward bears; a native of Monterey County, California, he smelled the Pacific Ocean while still far inland; and he made the same trip from Bakersfield to Needles and the Arizona border that I once did (though the roads may be different now). He went quail-hunting in Texas without seeing any quail, but he did catch some fish. He traveled from Amarillo to New Orleans, skirting the Atchafalaya Basin, and witnessed a piece of the desegregation drama then taking place in Louisiana.
Early on, he had gotten lost in a small town in New York, and near the end of his trip, he got lost in New York City, not far from home. In all of this, he captured the bittersweet quality of setting out and leaving behind better perhaps than anyone else I've ever read.
Mr. Steinbeck died when I was quite young. I would have liked to have known him; so much of his personality comes through in his writing that in some ways I feel I do. I once spent a pleasant afternoon visiting his hometown and looking in at the Steinbeck Center, where I read a letter he had written containing a humorous response to the proposal of having a school named after him. I've visited Ed Ricketts' rebuilt lab in Monterey, even summoning up the courage to climb the stairs and peek in. (I received the surprise of my life when I glimpsed a group of men sitting around, apparently shooting the breeze. I beat a fast retreat but not before getting the impression that I'd just witnessed a scene much like the ones Steinbeck, Ricketts, and their cronies would have enacted many times in their day. It's nice to think that some things don't change.)
There's also the matter of the Joseph Campbell connection. He was one of their group of friends, and apparently he, like Steinbeck, was influenced by Ricketts' writings on nature and philosophy. When I was visiting the Monterey area all those years ago, reading Cannery Row and thinking about Steinbeck, I wasn't aware that a few years and a few miles down the road, I'd be the recipient of some of that influence when I started my own studies of mythology. How strange that the winding road that led from John Steinbeck to Joseph Campbell and back again, many times, has not only philosophical and literary layers but also geographic ones.
Maybe it was fate that I never got a chance to read Travels with Charley before. I know I read it in a different way, perhaps with a sharper eye, than I would have even a few years ago. I've traveled some of the same roads as Steinbeck in recent years and was especially interested in the parts of his trip that overlapped with mine.
I've long had an image of Mr. Steinbeck as what you might call a "man's man." It was only recently that I came across a photo of him in his prime that reveled how handsome he was; at six feet tall with those piercing eyes he must have cut quite a figure. It's charming to imagine him traveling about with Charley, his poodle, camping out, and talking to people everywhere without being recognized by any of these strangers. His account of the journey reveals him to be open-minded and deeply thoughtful, with a good sense of humor, though you can tell all that by reading his fiction.
One thing struck me especially, and that was his description of the loneliness that descended on him at the outset of his trip. He missed his wife and, after starting out from Sag Harbor, New York, reunited with her during a stopover in Chicago, not even a quarter of the way through his travels. When they parted for the second time, he was just as lonely as before. I had imagined Mr. Steinbeck as somewhat stoic and was surprised and delighted to read about how regularly he called home and how much he missed it. It made him seem more human and less godlike.
Mr. Steinbeck found Wisconsin especially beautiful; he was prevented from traveling through Yellowstone National Park by Charley's open hostility toward bears; a native of Monterey County, California, he smelled the Pacific Ocean while still far inland; and he made the same trip from Bakersfield to Needles and the Arizona border that I once did (though the roads may be different now). He went quail-hunting in Texas without seeing any quail, but he did catch some fish. He traveled from Amarillo to New Orleans, skirting the Atchafalaya Basin, and witnessed a piece of the desegregation drama then taking place in Louisiana.
Early on, he had gotten lost in a small town in New York, and near the end of his trip, he got lost in New York City, not far from home. In all of this, he captured the bittersweet quality of setting out and leaving behind better perhaps than anyone else I've ever read.
Mr. Steinbeck died when I was quite young. I would have liked to have known him; so much of his personality comes through in his writing that in some ways I feel I do. I once spent a pleasant afternoon visiting his hometown and looking in at the Steinbeck Center, where I read a letter he had written containing a humorous response to the proposal of having a school named after him. I've visited Ed Ricketts' rebuilt lab in Monterey, even summoning up the courage to climb the stairs and peek in. (I received the surprise of my life when I glimpsed a group of men sitting around, apparently shooting the breeze. I beat a fast retreat but not before getting the impression that I'd just witnessed a scene much like the ones Steinbeck, Ricketts, and their cronies would have enacted many times in their day. It's nice to think that some things don't change.)
There's also the matter of the Joseph Campbell connection. He was one of their group of friends, and apparently he, like Steinbeck, was influenced by Ricketts' writings on nature and philosophy. When I was visiting the Monterey area all those years ago, reading Cannery Row and thinking about Steinbeck, I wasn't aware that a few years and a few miles down the road, I'd be the recipient of some of that influence when I started my own studies of mythology. How strange that the winding road that led from John Steinbeck to Joseph Campbell and back again, many times, has not only philosophical and literary layers but also geographic ones.
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