Pre-Authorized But Unlocked

It's just my opinion, but I do think travel isn't what it used to be. As recently as three years ago, I still viewed travel as a great tonic, a way to not only clear the head and get a change of perspective but also to have fun. Now that I'm back from my trip to Chicago, I'll say this: I expect to one day start enjoying travel again, but that day has not yet arrived.

Actually, there was a little bit of silver lining to this trip. I was told at the airport security checkpoint in Louisville that the code on my boarding pass meant I had clearance and could go through a special line. In essence, this meant I didn't have to take off my shoes and hop around barefoot while pulling out items that need to go in bins by themselves. I had read about paying $100 or so to get this kind of treatment, but I certainly hadn't done that. It seemed such an anomaly that I asked the security officers how it happened. The answer seemed to be that sometimes you just get lucky. It reminded me of the feeling I used to have when I was a Silver Medallion flyer: the perks are modest, but any little bonus is enough to boost your spirits.

Once on the plane, I somehow managed to seat myself next to a UPS pilot, who was flying on business. Sitting next to a pilot will certainly make you feel safer, in case you happen to be having any jitters about the whole friendly sky experience. He told me about his career and all the places he'd been, and before I knew it, we were in Chicago. So far, so good. I had to get from Midway to the conference hotel via train, which isn't hard to do, except that the last bit involved finding my way from the Red Line station to the hotel on foot. I asked for directions, and I'm glad I got a second opinion, because following the first person's advice would probably have gotten me lost only two blocks from the hotel.

I didn't do any traveling within Chicago, except for walking to Millennium Park one afternoon and going to lunch at Downtown Dogs the next day; the conference kept me too busy. On Saturday, my last day, I decided to give myself more time than I thought I needed to get back to the airport. Despite having had a pretty easy time of it on the way up, I didn't want to be in a position of having to rush due to unexpected problems. It's good I took that attitude because the first thing that happened was that none of the machines in the Red Line station were making change, so I had to go back out, cross the street, and buy a bottle of water in a fast food store to get some dollar bills. One of the bills I was given felt a little strange, so to be on the safe side, I asked the cashier for another one. Sometimes those ticket machines are finicky.

Once I got my ticket and was on the train, someone told me that service on the Orange Line was out between Roosevelt and Halsted, which meant taking a bus between stations. That sounded like a headache. This person said he'd show me how it worked, but when we came out of the station, the bus he was getting on, which he said was going to Halsted, looked like an ordinary city bus. I could see Orange Line buses lined up behind it, so I walked over and got on one. Once I got to Midway, I printed my boarding pass and went through security, still under the magical protection of my pre-authorized status. I kept trying to find out more about why I had this status. I told one security officer that I'd had some strange experiences in past travels that made me question anything out of the ordinary; he just smiled. I told another officer that the ease of the whole thing was freaking me out; she said I should just be happy about it. She was probably right.

So, time to relax, get a sandwich, and read a little before the flight was called. Once on the plane, I rested all the way home, thankful when we arrived a few minutes early, since I still had to drive back to Lexington. I got to my car, unlocked the driver's side door, and uh, oh -- what's this? The rear door on the driver's side, which was definitely locked when I left it, was now most definitely unlocked. This is travel as I've come to know it; I suspected I wouldn't get home without at least one incident (not that it couldn't have been worse). I mentioned what happened to the person at the exit booth, who said she'd report it to the Louisville Police.

There's nothing about my modest little car that would suggest it has anything worth taking, and in case you were in doubt, a glance inside would show as much. Nothing was broken; the lock had not been forced. Once I got home, I was able to take a closer look and couldn't find anything else awry, but I followed up with airport security to let them know what happened. I had doubts that anything in the way of a police report would have been made on the basis of my mentioning it to the exit booth attendant, so I took it to a higher authority.

So, a trip, a return, a mystery, and thankfulness that I have nowhere else to go in the foreseeable future. This would seem a rather poor attitude if it didn't coincide with my budget, which makes it actually a convenient outlook to have at present. If you're wondering whether I, as a mythologist, make anything of the door incident, the answer is not really. I don't suspect Mercury in retrograde, or sunspots, or leprechauns but rather a more pedestrian explanation, which may even come to light via the airport's security cameras. You never know.

Looking for Wisdom, I Encounter Jimi

I arrived in Chicago yesterday for a conference and have spent the last day and a half going up and down stairs between rooms, consulting a schedule book the size of Great Expectations, figuring out where the free food is, and processing a variety of ideas. This is my first time at this conference, and though I thought I'd been to some large conventions, this one is the biggest by far, at least judging by the staggering number of sessions.

By its nature, it's also more protean than some of the more discipline-focused conferences I've attended before. Popular culture is a natural home for a mythologist, but due to the tremendous variety of subjects included, it's broadly based, making it difficult to get your bearings. This actually supports what I said in my presentation today about the maze of knowledge and competing truths in the modern world. Traveling the halls here is a little like negotiating a maze. In one room, they're talking Tolkien; in the next room, they're discussing the Affordable Health Care Act; down the hall, it's feminist readings of fairy tales, punk rock culture, and fan fiction.

Planning one's strategy in advance may not result in smooth sailing, since cancellations can produce dropped sessions or alterations in panels you were considering. Not only is the gathering a maze, but it's a moving maze, seeming to reform itself as it goes along, like a starfish constantly shedding and growing new arms. Not only that, but I'd argue that there actually is no center to it except the one you impose yourself.

I've been surprised a couple of times, though I shouldn't have been, at reactions I've seen to what seemed to me fairly sensible questions and positions. One understands that people have a lot invested personally and academically in their ideas -- but still. From someone who was rather vehemently opposed to the idea of teaching information literacy across the curriculum to people on a panel who seemed uncomfortable about delving into politics in a discussion of Hollywood and propaganda, I've encountered some attitudes that were the opposite of what I'd expect.

Still, there are small epiphanies. A couple of sessions I've walked into that were second choices turned out to be excellent: one on special collections and one on the goals that shape educational planning in the United States. Sometimes accidents lead you to the right place. I left one session yesterday in a bit of a daze, disoriented by the direction the discussion had taken, and wandered into the exhibit hall, where academic publishers have their best books on display. What do you suppose I saw there, first thing? Nothing but a life of Jimi Hendrix, written by the man himself, bearing a cover photo of its subject wearing a sweet, slightly bemused expression.

I know it was an accident, but it was one that happened at just the right time. Girl, his expression seemed to say, the only thing that's wrong with you is being shut up in those rooms too long with all those smart-acting people. Get yourself outside and breathe a while. And don't pay too much mind to what goes on; take what you can and don't bother about the rest. When it's your turn to talk, get up there and say your piece. Then see if there's a free buffet around.

OK, that was me channeling Jimi, but maybe he would have said something like that. At any rate, a sweetly tricksterish quality somehow communicated itself to me from the cover of that book and activated my own inner rebel. Would you want to let Jimi Hendrix down? Me neither. Jimi, I said in my mind, I think I see your point.

Good, I imagine him saying. And I'm serious about that buffet. Get out there now and find something that'll keep body and soul together.

I'm not sure they have that, Jimi. These are academics, so it's probably more like crudites and cheese. With a side of condescension.

No kidding? Well, whatever they've got, pile it high.

When Basketball Was Postmodern

Well, March Madness is behind us, the NCAA tournament has come and gone, and spring rolls on. I'm sure you're wondering what postmodernism has to do with basketball and why people with degrees come up with such silly ideas anyway, but in this post I'm going to show you how it's done.

I was reminiscing about springs of years past and my freshman year in college in my last post, and I guess one thing leads to another. I'm now remembering my sophomore year, which was dominated by a long and snowy winter not unlike the one we've just had, only worse. The Eagles were singing "Hotel California," but we weren't having any of that dark desert highway business here. We got walloped by a late January storm and an accompanying deep snow that seemed to last for weeks. I had just gotten contact lenses and could hardly see for the glare; south campus resembled the Antarctic more than the Bluegrass. It was a year when spring could not have come too soon.

It was also the year our school won its fifth NCAA basketball title. I was a big basketball fan back then and still remember how disappointing it had been when Kentucky lost to North Carolina in the East Regional the year before. It's strange how vividly I remember that, but of course, it was a time of new experiences for me. The night we did win, in March of 1978, everyone poured out of the dorms in a spontaneous Dionysian outburst that involved yelling, dancing around, and jumping up and down and seemed to combine basketball frenzy with a sort of spring ecstasy. At one point, a random boy appeared next to us and lifted my roommate (who was not a small girl) off her feet and into the air. I still remember her expression, wavering between smiling and shocked. People were climbing the lamp posts, or trying to.

There was something akin to Botticelli's "Allegory of Spring," with its pagan energy, going on that night, though for sheer pandemonium the scene may have had more in common with Hieronymous Bosch. I didn't see any destructive acts, but there were some gravity-defying ones.

As it happened, I was taking a music appreciation course that semester (I think there may even have been a basketball player in the class). We had listened to things as varied as medieval chant, Henry VIII's "Pastime With Good Company," and Janis Joplin, but the most memorable recording was the one our instructor -- a good-natured sort who didn't seem to mind explaining polyphony to undergraduates -- played for us at the end of the year. We had been studying modern composers, and he played a piece and asked us to try to identify what it was. The dissonance and unsettled energy made me think of Stravinsky, and I was sure that's what it was. Our professor surprised us by explaining that it was a recording he had made of "you people" while standing outside his apartment the night UK won the tournament.

The sounds of celebration had resolved into a cacophony in which human voices and car horns and goodness knows what else were indistinguishable from the strings, horns, and percussion of an orchestra playing something postmodern and daringly experimental, with the spirit of "The Rite of Spring." You'd never have believed it, but it was terribly avant-garde.

I guess this says something about archetypal energy that manifests itself both naturally and in artistic productions; also something about how we are often a part of something without fully recognizing what it looks like from the outside. I'm grateful for that music instructor who had the wit to record what he heard, giving me, all these years later, an explanation as to why March is the perfect time for basketball tournaments. I've come to realize how often there's mythology inside the most ordinary things, something that never would have occurred to me that long-ago night, in my fish out of water days, united with my cohorts for a little while when basketball brought down the house.

April, and Time

I've been focusing on a paper I'm writing on libraries as labyrinths, and it's taking a lot of my attention, so the blog is a little late in coming. I've been immersed in the life of Jorge Luis Borges for the last few days, and engrossing as it is, that hasn't stopped me from indulging in my other current preoccupation: keeping a weather eye out for new signs of spring.

Every time I go walking I see more patches of green on the lawns, more tiny flowers springing up; I saw my first daffodils of the season the other day near a coffeehouse I frequent. The buds are almost ready to burst on some of the trees, especially the redbuds, of which there are many in my neighborhood. I finally experienced that March day I was describing a couple of weeks ago, that prototypical day that's balmy and a little damp; it happened last Friday. It's still chilly at night, and though the temperatures have been variable, we are heading into a week of daytime highs in the 60s. Today was sunny and mild, and tomorrow should be the same.

If you want to see Kentucky at its prettiest, you couldn't do better than to arrive in April, though it's difficult to forecast the best time with precision, because many flowering trees seem to depend on warmth to bloom, and that never occurs predictably. Within a week or two, though, Lexington's streets should present a palette of various pink, violet, and white blossoms that will make the memory of winter grays seem a distant imagining.

I'm casting back in my own memory to figure out when the arrival of spring began to take on such significance. Not surprisingly, spring didn't really register when I was a kid in Florida, except to herald the arrival of Easter (the third best holiday in the pantheon). I don't remember having spring fever that much in junior high or high school, either; the chief thing back then was the beginning of summer. One day seemed much like another when I was in school, except for that electricity in the air that announced the approach of June.

The first time I ever fully appreciated how beautiful spring is in Kentucky was my first year in college. The campus has a variety of blooming trees, and though I must have been too engrossed in finals to notice it at first, I remember crossing Rose Street after my final exam in Western Literature From 1660 to the Present and suddenly becoming aware of a near wonderland of tulips and flowering trees. I was surprised that I had been too preoccupied to notice (though I must have had several term papers due in April and was also preparing to go home for the summer). At some point, while I was writing papers for Philosophy class, studying Spanish verbs, and thinking through my interpretation of Wordsworth's poem "Stepping Westward," the campus had transformed itself into a garden of great and delicate beauty. In succeeding years, I came to realize how fleeting that time of beauty is, and to look out for it.

Years of having to deal with ice and snow first thing in the morning before going to work did a great deal to destroy my enjoyment of winter, though I have to say I took those things in stride when I was in school and walked everywhere. One also falls into the habit of complaining, along with everyone else, about the short days and other pitfalls of the cold months. Beyond that, I have noticed in myself a keener awareness overall of the seasons, the holidays, and the rhythms that attach to different times of the year when time seems to move faster or slower. I don't know if this is something that comes with grower older or if it results simply from paying more attention.

The whole business of time has changed as I've gotten older. When I was young, I seemed to be living in an eternal now, probably because I didn't have much past to look back on. Now I'm more solidly situated as to past, present, and future, and of course the responsibilities of adult life require attention to such things as tax deadlines, the scheduling of appointments, and other duties that are time-dependent. I also live in a climate with distinct seasonal changes that constantly draw attention to the calendar. I'd actually like to go back to that eternal now of simply living in the moment, neither looking ahead, anticipating, or looking back, remembering. I wonder sometimes if living in more of a constant climate than the one I'm in would facilitate that, but I haven't had the opportunity to try it out.

Until I do, I guess I'll stick with looking forward to the redbuds and anticipating the azaleas. I don't know if it's Señor Borges or memories of life in Florida that have me thinking so much of sunshine and warm breezes . . . maybe it's both. But if I ever do relocate to a place in the sun, I may have to come back here for a couple of weeks out of the year, just for April. (Actually, summer is pretty nice here, too.)

Birth of Spring, Kentucky Style

Yesterday afternoon I took my camera when I went walking. I was looking for early signs of spring and wanted to document any I found. It was a bright, beautiful day, and I'd already noticed tufts of grass poking up in different places, so I knew there'd be other indications. It does seem to me that, like last year, spring is taking its sweet time about getting here. I can remember at least one instance (I'm not making it up) when spring was in full flower by April, weeping cherries, crabapples, and all. The forecast suggests that probably won't happen this year, but at least we're on the downhill side of March.

It felt so good to be out on a mild, sunny day that at first I was taking pictures of almost everything -- trees, flagpoles, buildings -- out of sheer good spirits. I saw a group of birds in a field and tried to photograph them, but they wouldn't sit still for it, so I had to give that up. On a residential street, I took pictures of clumps of new grass at the foot of a tree and the first flowers I've spotted this season, which turned out to be crocuses. Down the lane, I photographed branches almost ready to burst into bloom under a radiant blue sky. Seriously, I was

having thoughts about hopscotch; it was 

an e.e. cummings, little lame balloonman sort of day. 

This afternoon, I went for the same walk without my camera. It was a little warmer today, if breezier; more grass seems to have sprouted up over night, and I saw more crocuses. Someone was having a party on his back lawn, with croquet, a food table, and the works. A party for early spring! I haven't seen anyone playing outside since sometime last fall. It made me nostalgic for my grandmother's back yard, though that was really more of a June-July-August sort of thing. 

Uh oh, I'm getting ahead of myself! It's not even April yet. We haven't even seen any redbuds, and we don't want to miss that. But a polar vortex will do that to you.

How's it looking in your neck of the woods?

Dryads and Fauns of March

I don't know what March is like where you live, but around here it's very changeable. I remember one year when spring seemed to start at the end of February, so that early March brought warm breezes and blossoms; another year (possibly the very next one) we had a winter storm warning and blizzard conditions in the middle of the month. Sometimes, you're wearing short sleeves on St. Patrick's Day, but that may not prevent you from seeing snow flurries when it's almost April.

Last year, it seemed to take spring a long time to get here. I'd go out for walks, and it would be bright and sunny but rather cold. March seemed to go on forever in a not-quite-winter-not-quite-spring limbo, with a few breaks here and there. It seemed to me that the buds and flowers were later than usual, though I might have imagined that.

In my mind, despite the knowledge that March is predictably unpredictable, there is an archetypal March day. I have actually experienced these, often enough that they have come to sum up the entire month for me, though I think such days are relatively few and even absent altogether sometimes (I don't remember one last year, for example). It's a day that, out of nowhere almost, is suddenly mild and even slightly balmy. Winter seems to have disappeared into nothingness. The air is still and a bit damp, and you can smell the earth. It may be sunny, or it may be cloudy, but the main thing is the returning warmth that you haven't felt for months. You may have heard birds all winter, but suddenly their singing is sweeter and more eloquent and cuts through the stillness like crystal.

So far, I haven't experienced a day quite like that this year. We began the month with a snowstorm that left things looking more like January than March, except that the quality of the sunlight, when I went walking the next day, was too mellow for winter. Earlier this week, we had temperatures in the low 70s on a day that had people driving around town with their car tops down, windows open, and radios turned up. It was undeniably a beautiful spring afternoon but more emphatic than the type of day I'm talking about, which appears without fanfare as more of a subtle awakening.

As a child in Florida, I learned about the four seasons as something that occurred elsewhere, though we pretended they applied to us, too, just to be good sports. We dutifully colored autumn leaves, as first-graders, with our thick Crayolas, imagined winter wonderland at Christmas (though we might be wearing shorts), and celebrated the return of spring with pastels and Easter eggs almost as enthusiastically as if we'd been snowed in. At that time, in the simple shorthand of seasonal images, a March day would have been signified by wind blowing an umbrella sideways.

In that, at least, today was typical. It was quite windy when I went out for my walk in the late afternoon; I took a light jacket. There was a hazy sort of sunshine that was neither here nor there. Although it was a mild day, it had more of an end of winter than beginning of spring feel to it; it lacked the raw earthiness that signals true change, and there was little, if any, greenery in evidence.

If I were to imagine a presiding deity for today, it would be a minor goddess somewhat like the image I saw in the mirror when I got home, with hair completely askew. I hadn't realized it was quite that windy, but my hair said otherwise. It looked like a coiffure a headbanger's stylist would spend hours trying to achieve with mousse and special combs; the lift was unbelievable. Yes, that might be the proper divinity for today, a sort of dryad with long, wild hair and streaming drapery who causes the wind to blow by shaking the branches of her favorite tree.

With any luck, she'll soon be superseded by the divinities of damp earth and still air, who announce their presence gently, with a scattering of tufted grass and daffodils, the loamy smell of dirt, and a lilting quality to the birdsong that turns their notes into something nearly liquid.

Need Libraries? Ask Caesar.

This week I've been reading a book about the history of libraries. Even as a writer and librarian, there are a lot of things I didn't know, such as the difference between parchment and paper, the fact that philosopher David Hume was a librarian in Edinburgh, and the actual amount of destruction that took place in libraries when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1537 (apparently, some books were even sold as waste paper, according to Michael H. Harris, author of History of Libraries in the Western World).

In spite of the mind-numbing frequency with which priceless manuscripts and books have been lost through the ages to invasions, war, disaster, and neglect, the story of libraries is fascinating. Certainly they have been magical places for me, especially the ones I recall from childhood. I clearly remember my first visit to the elementary school library, a place that exuded the mystique of an inner sanctum, largely because of a rule that you had to be in the second grade before you could borrow books. I know some librarians might object to such a policy, but in my case, the effect of the prohibition was to make the library a place of fabulous allure. My first visit took on the character of an initiation: I couldn't have been more thrilled if that quiet second-floor room had contained the Holy Grail (and maybe it did).

Lately, libraries, like many other institutions, have fallen on tough times. I read last week about the difficulties the Los Angeles school district is having in keeping its school libraries open. Funding shortfalls have forced half the district's elementary and middle schools to do without librarians or library aides. Yesterday morning, I read an op-ed piece by the president of the Kentucky Association of School Librarians describing a plan to reduce the number of librarians in the local public high schools from two to one, a plan she believes will hurt students, greatly reducing their opportunities to get help with assignments, college applications, and other needs.

In hard times, granted, belt tightening is necessary, and even so, almost no one believes his/her own department or favorite cause should be subject to cuts. Still, there is something about the idea of reducing students' access to books (and librarians) that seems fundamentally wrong. Don't libraries and education go hand in hand?

I can't imagine my own childhood and youth without the libraries, both school and public, that I haunted like a hungry ghost. No trip to the inner sanctum to pick out my first library book, The Princess and the Woodcutter's Daughter? No one to help me learn how to use the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature? No Nine Coaches Waiting or Pride and Prejudice, discovered for the first time by browsing in the library of my Catholic school? No mind-blowing journey into Of Human Bondage, a reading experience that helped me see there were other points of view besides the one in my catechism class?

I'm not privy to the amount of soul searching and agony required to hammer out a budget in either the Los Angeles or the Fayette County schools. I assume that only a massive amount of both could lead to a decision to cut library services. Frustration with the administrators and decision-makers in these particular cases may be misplaced, since the tale of how we arrived at such a pass is a long and tangled one that begins far from the halls of the schools or the offices of the school boards.

The real and terrible irony is that, here in the Information Age, with more need than ever for people to learn effective ways to find, evaluate, and use information, the processes by which they gain these skills are, in many cases, not supported. Information literacy is at the heart of critical thinking, crucial for effective citizenship as well as scholastic success. One sometimes gets the impression that, as far as some government officials are concerned, the less people know, the better, but I disagree. The basis for an open, democratic society is an informed citizenship. Besides that, future advances in technology, science, arts and letters, and business depend on an educated workforce with problem-solving abilities, a flair for innovative thinking, and a high degree of information savvy.

Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, along with her daughters, the Muses, presides over the work of libraries. The accumulated knowledge of what has gone before, combined with the inspiration that gives birth to new ideas, allows societies to move ahead. In the history of libraries, we read of the loss of much that was worthy and beautiful, and of the ways in which the learning of the classical world was kept alive--though hanging by the barest thread at times--in the libraries of Byzantium, the studies of Arabic scholars, and the monasteries of the Middle Ages. Many civilizations, having attained a high degree of advancement, were undone not only by invaders but also by the loss of their culture.

This seems a dire fate to imagine for our society based on budget restrictions in education, which we all hope are temporary and subject to amelioration. But it's possible many of the great cultures of the past never imagined the fates that befell them, either. I'm optimistic that we, as Americans, can figure out ways to support schools, libraries, and literacy, even during an economic downturn, if we set our minds to it. I'm a little concerned about the political will to support such efforts, but on that point I hope to be proved wrong.

Demeter's in the Kitchen, and She Has a Blender

I seem to be preoccupied, in my recent Facebook postings, with food. I think there are several reasons for this. For one, it's winter, and most of us are in hibernation, especially with the kind of deep freeze we've had this year. You can't always hit the sidewalks for a carefree stroll in the sun (especially when they're covered with ice), but you can always put a casserole in or bake some bread.

In just the last month, I've written posts about baking bread and cinnamon rolls, cooking chicken stew with escarole, making marinara and Bechamel sauce for lasagna, fixing Spanish rice, baking chocolate Valentine's cookies, re-creating a ravioli and broccoli dish I had years ago in Somerville, Mass., and trying to figure out how my grandmother made cornbread. Unlike other things that might eat up your day, a well-prepared meal can rarely be considered a waste of time. My only regret is that my circle of college friends, whom I used to enjoy cooking with, is now too far-flung to make group dinners possible.

OK, so it's winter, but I believe there's more to my food-mindedness than that. In addition to my own birthday, both my mother's and my father's birthdays occur in midwinter, so I've naturally been thinking more about the two of them than usual. Inextricably tied up with memories of childhood are memories of foodways and family meals. How I regret not finding out how my mother made certain things, like pancakes and meatloaf! How I wish I could be in my grandmother's kitchen again, eating her fried chicken. How well I remember the taste of a grilled cheese sandwich and Campbell's Tomato Soup, a common childhood lunch. How much fun it would be to prank my dad on his birthday one more time by putting hot pepper in the Jello!

If I were to self-analyze, I'd say that many of my kitchen adventures represent self-mothering, an attempt to take care of myself through culinary means. Gridlock in Washington? That's OK, here's a blueberry smoothie. Emperor has no clothes? Never mind, have some stew. Yet another inane conversation overheard in Starbucks? Time to make biscuits. Snarky relative? There's a recipe for Chicken Piccata around here somewhere.

I can tell that it really is self-nurturing and not self-indulgence by the judiciousness with which I (usually) weigh what I'd like to have with what seems most nutritious. I grew up in the meat and potatoes era, but I've branched out: I'm always looking for new ways to fix vegetables, including some I'm not used to using. I think I shocked some old friends the other day when I announced I making the potato soup I've been making for 30 years with celery instead of leaving it out as I've always done. "But you hate celery!" I heard, almost immediately. It's true, I always did; but then I vacationed in New Orleans, where the food was so divine and sometimes had celery in it, and there was that yummy tuna dill sandwich they used to have at the library that included celery, and so . . . there I was at the grocery store on Tuesday, eyeing celery on sale for $.77 and wondering why the bunches had to be quite so big. (The soup experiment hasn't gone down yet, but I can't imagine it will use more than a couple of stalks, which could mean ants on logs in my near future.)

You may not believe it, but I also have less of a tendency toward snacking and unrestrained dessert foraging than I used to have. That's not to say I've dropped it altogether, but I'll give you an example. I heard about a new type of Ben & Jerry's ice cream yesterday that apparently includes two different flavors in a single pint along with a core of something delectable like raspberry jam or fudge. My most immediate thought was, "Wow, that's extreme!" instead of "I have to see if Kroger has it!" (I will have to see if Kroger has it, but it wasn't my very first thought. See what I mean?)

So I can't, at the moment, do anything about unemployment, political intransigence, ignorance, incivility, dishonesty, or the rampant failure of so many schools to teach information literacy, but I can at least try to feed myself, which is saying a lot in a world where way too many people still go to bed hungry. We could all use an infusion of Demeter, which is probably why I'm so preoccupied with her. When I think about my parents, I think they'd be pleased that I invested the money a couple of years ago in all the kitchen basics I'd never bothered with before. Fake it till you make it, I can hear them saying. Fake it till you make it. And by the way, your biscuits are better than they used to be.

In the Heartland, an Autumn Night

Sometimes it's hard to know what to write about when the time for doing the blog comes around. It's been an adventurous week. I've had home maintenance, a stuffy nose, a change of coffeehouse scenes, walks in the sun, and earlier this evening, a talk with two underemployed twenty-somethings who are just as frustrated with the economy as the rest of us. The perception about all the jobs going to the newly graduated? That's not really true, it seems. It's equal parts enlightening and sad to hear young people sound so disillusioned that early in their careers, though I remember being in a similar position once. Plus ça change.

So I was trying to decide on my topic and have been thinking about the events of the week. But having just had a long political discussion, my energy for current events is spent for now. You can only talk about the same thing for so long without getting bored, and I write the blog to have fun, after all.

What to do, what to do. Rather than write about anything tiresome, I find myself seeking a place of tranquillity. I know exactly where it is. I am thinking now about something that happened years ago, quite unexpectedly, at the end of what had been a very frustrating period, and it's there that I'll come to rest for the evening.

I was in a small midwestern town for a festival of world music. It was one of those events where you move around from place to place, hearing a Celtic band from the north of Spain in a church, a Cuban ensemble in a meadow, French cabaret in a theater, and an Afro-pop sensation in a bar. I was sitting in a small arts center somewhere off the main drag, having just been entertained by a flamenco performance (I can still see the dancer's flaming red dress and remember the drama of the singer's delivery). I took out my contacts between acts and had just put on some lipstick, who knows why, because we were all sitting in semidarkness. Reflex, I suppose.

There followed an Americana songwriter with whom I was not familiar at all. I had read the description of his music in the program, and he sounded interesting. When he took the stage, he did so with authority. During his opening banter, my anticipation was piqued even more. Something in his voice made you take notice.

His first number was a folk tune about love and betrayal, a grim traditional song, arranged by the artist, that I had never heard before. If you had been there, you would have seen my jaw drop and continue dropping until it hit the floor. Literally, I believe, my mouth was hanging open. My previous taste in music, while eclectic, had definitely tended toward the safer end of the pool. I had discovered a liking for the blues after a breakup with my first serious boyfriend years previously, but many blues songs seemed to deflect the harsh realities they revealed with humor. This was something else entirely, something so raw and honest it was almost painful to hear.

Song after song that night spoke of heartache, irretrievable loss, dreams that never came true, dangerous attractions, and loneliness. It sounds bleak, but strangely it wasn't. It was so human. Where you might have feared to wade into such waters with someone less capable, in this case you felt that you could go in there with him and come back out again and somehow be glad you had done it. I'm not going to get fancy with Aristotle on catharsis or anything because I'm not sure that's what it was. But talk about transformative! I could almost hear the people around me holding their breath. I have rarely, if ever, felt the same kind of hush take over a room. An unexpected thought came into my head: I seemed to sense angels hanging about. I now understand that something sacred actually was occurring, and that that was what I and no doubt everyone else was experiencing.

Amid all the seriousness, there were humorous songs (one of which might even have offended me fifteen minutes earlier), more banter, and a sense of direct connection between performer and audience. It was as if we were sitting around in someone's living room. The artist had blue eyes and a very direct gaze; if you happened to find it trained on you it was rather electrifying. I knew from past experience with this festival that the people around me were undoubtedly well-versed in not only the genre but the artist's entire repertoire, but it was all new to me. I couldn't believe I had never heard of him before. I guess the answer to that is that some things only come to you when you're able to hear them.

I read a review of the performance afterwards in which someone noted the rapt attention in the crowd that I had noticed, mentioning that a few silly people actually chose to leave early. I was one of the people who left, though as the performance was so truly remarkable, that may sound surprising. I did, however, have a plan to catch as many acts as possible during the festival, and at a certain juncture, listened to an internal imperative to get up and move. I slipped out and made my way to Main Street, thinking distractedly of the other acts I intended to hear and where I might find dinner. And so it was, fifteen minutes later, that I was standing in the middle of a crowded festival street, munching on something spicy, and realizing that whatever else the festival held in store, for me, at least, it had peaked. I was also wondering just what in the hell had happened in there, a question that has never been answered to my satisfaction.

As a mythologist, I can venture some good explanations, but as I said before, I'm not doing that. I sometimes think back to that night, though, and can feel myself once again in that room. I recall the sensation of thinking, wow, we're getting in pretty deep here, but somehow it only seems right. It was the experience of seeing sadness and pain turned into art that then had the power to change you. It was artistic honesty, not someone trying to sanitize messy things or make them seem better than they are. And yet, at the end of it, you felt more hopeful. I felt more hopeful. It was such a paradox, and so it remains. And I think about it still.

The Slippery Slopes of Sochi

"What are you going to do? Dice me, slice me, or peel me? There are so many choices!" --Jim Carrey, The Truman Show

It's wintertime in Kentucky, and this year we haven't had to travel to have a bit of the Olympic experience. In my back parking lot we've been plagued by black Avalanches with dark windows and fast-moving vehicles with unfriendly drivers in just the last week alone. When I'm not skating across a slippery lot to move my car, I'm pushing the recycling bin down an icy incline while hoping not to get brained, like the hockey coach who was recently hit by a puck, by something falling from the fire escape (I'm told it had a loose bolt a while back).

To give the Olympics their due, watching on TV is almost as hair-raising at times as real life. I've been a little less immersed in the Games this time than I sometimes am, and I'll tell you why. I usually enjoy the Olympics for the sportsmanship, the sheer athletic ability, and the sight of competitors coming from all over the world to participate. Pierre de Coubertin promoted the modern Olympics as a "festival of human unity," hoping to imbue them with some of the sacred purpose they originally served in ancient Greece. While one strains at times to detect qualities of brotherhood, sisterhood, and unity amid the commercialism and hype of today's Games, it's still there in the sincere efforts of athletes who push themselves to achieve more than they thought possible. It's there in the sight of competitors applauding others who have won honestly, appreciating their accomplishments in a sportsmanlike way. It's there in the human interest stories.

This year, though, I seem to detect even more politics than usual swirling about the Games. There's also a bit more showboating, many oddly dramatic costumes, mannerisms, and speeches, and a stilted quality to some of the commentary. Huh? Say what? All I want to do is enjoy athletic feats, not feel like I'm being asked to figure out what someone is trying to sell. I'm reminded of the scene in The Truman Show (in its own right a hilarious commentary on the blurring of real life, entertainment, and marketing) in which Truman's wife stops in the middle of a scripted conversation, looks at the camera, and pitches a particular brand of cocoa.

Is this the future of product placement? Is it mass hysteria? Something in the water? It's as much like watching Kabuki theatre or opera as it is an athletic competition, and the Olympics don't need that, in my opinion. The things skilled athletes can do on skies, sleds, boards, and skates don't need enhancement, which just gets in the way. The crux of the problem is that--to borrow John MacAloon's performance categories once again--there seems to be much less ritual and festival and much more spectacle and gamesmanship this time around. Just an impression on my part.

So my enjoyment has fallen off, and I've found my attention straying at times. I've even watched some of the competition with the sound turned down. When I can forget all the histrionics and distractions and become absorbed in the sheer mechanics of the athleticism, I'm still amazed at what people can do. The scenery is gorgeous and provides more than enough drama as a backdrop to all the action. I have to think the atmosphere of hyperreality surrounding the Games must be terribly trying to the competitors, who have enough to do to keep their concentration focused. Possibly they're used it.

The charm of the Winter Olympics lies in watching someone careen down an icy mountain at top speed, or twirl through the air and land gracefully on skates, without having to do it yourself. It's largely a vicarious thrill; I'm content to tune in from the relative safety of my couch. I've even been known to drink a mug of hot cocoa while watching, but it's usually not the brand someone else is selling. I like to reserve those decisions for myself.

Film Noir, Cars, and the Super Bowl

Sometimes January and February usher in a feeling of boredom, a letdown after all the holiday activity. Not this year. What with the Golden Globes and other awards shows, my birthday, and the Super Bowl, on top of the build-up to the Olympics, there's hardly been a minute to spare. That's what happens to mythologists trying to keep their ear to the ground without falling prey to background noise. You may have run into the same thing.

My birthday? Oh, thanks, for asking. There was an unexplained visitation from someone who appeared, despite a locked outer door, to knock on my own personal door at the same time as a scheduled but cancelled appointment that morning, but as we (or at least, I) like to say around here, whatever. I got some work accomplished and enjoyed an evening out; at or around midnight, I was eating Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie with a friend, and I call that a success.

Social media has presented its own challenges this week, on top of the usual cultural churn. I had the intriguing experience of seeing a comment I'd posted to someone else's Facebook page disappear not only from her page but also from my own activity log, as if it had never been (actually, the entire thread disappeared). I'm not sure how that happened, and neither was the page's moderator. It smacks a little of Hermes, the god of communications, commerce, and tricks -- or it could be gremlins. I'm not sure whether Mercury is in retrograde at the moment or not, so perhaps we can't blame him.

As for the Super Bowl, I actually am not a great football fan, but after hearing about the game and its commercials from others who were watching, I decided to stick my toe in the water and at least check out the advertisements. (I recognize the Super Bowl as an important cultural ritual -- I just don't enjoy football.) I didn't see all the commercials, but of the humorous ones, my favorite was the Radio Shack spot with the '80s icons clearing out the store as Loverboy wails in the background. I commend Radio Shack for its sense of humor.

And who else showed up but Bob Dylan? Weren't we just talking about him? I've not only watched his spot several times, I've also read reviews of it, including a couple from The New Yorker, which, it seems to me, royally missed the point ("Close Read" indeed). Some reviewers acknowledge Mr. Dylan's enigmatic nature but take the ad itself at face value, as a "jingoistic" (one reviewer's term) tribute to Detroit and American-built cars. On a simple reading, this might appear to be true, but I doubt that's all there is to it because, after all . . . Jingoistic? Bob Dylan? There's also the fact that, as of last month, Chrysler is wholly owned by Fiat, an Italian company, and Fiat Chrysler is soon to be tax resident in Great Britain, according to The Wall Street Journal. I thought I detected a slight British intonation in Mr. Dylan's final pronunciation of the word "car," though it could, of course, be accidental.

Wordplay finds itself traveling some interesting byways -- weren't we just talking about foreign acquisitions of American brands? With the above facts in mind, I'm wondering whether there isn't a certain amount of irony in Mr. Dylan's delivery of the Chrysler message. This is not to take away from the pride in American craftsmanship he refers to in the commercial; I judge that to be quite real enough. But taken with the film noirish darkness permeating some of the ad's scenes and the somber rendering of Mr. Dylan's "Things Have Changed" that forms the soundtrack, I sense something more complex at work.

What one reviewer took as a pastiche of typical scenes of Americana seems a bit more ambiguous to me. Someone peering through blinds at a darkened street . . . a pair of eyes seen in a rearview mirror . . . a person draped in a flag, at the ocean's edge . . . a diner customer whose smiling thanks looks a bit like a grimace . . . a rather anxious-looking baby in the arms of its mother . . . oh, look, there's Marilyn Monroe . . . a tattoo customer attempting to duplicate on her own skin the original Rosie the Riveter . . . a rather savage young woman, running wild along a ridgeline . . . a cowboy falling from a horse . . . fast traffic in a narrow tunnel, seen from two angles . . . scenes of the road (I've been out there. It does look like that.) . . . a city viewed from above . . . a partially thawed river.

And there's the finale, which features Mr. Dylan, in character as the auto spokesman, leaning on a pool table and declaring, with a group of workers behind him, that "We will build your car." One of the workers, nodding slightly, wears a big hat and bears a weird, blurry resemblance to an officiant in clerical garb as the background goes out of focus. Those scenes of baseball pitches and athletic cheerleaders might seem more innocent if it weren't for glimpses of characters and situations that seem to have strayed out of Double Indemnity, The Hustler, or The Road more than Norman Rockwell.

So while some reviewers seem dismayed at this commercial's "boosterism," which they see as shallow, I take it instead as a rather layered statement. The opening question, "What's more American than America?" Does it mean, simply, that many have imitated but none have duplicated the spirit of America? Or does it refer, more darkly, to something else? It's an open question, one I think the viewer is invited to actively consider. A commercial that makes you think? Apparently so, since viewing it merely as a simple attempt to sell cars creates some puzzling questions. It's really more like a poem, I think.

A Mythologist, a TV, and the State of the Union

The State of the Union address is a political ritual--or purports to be. I say "purports" because in a true ritual, what occurs is transformative. The ritual makes something happen. With the State of the Union, the idea is that the President outlines his views on where the country is and where it needs to go, thus galvanizing the troops to join him in creating change. The speech is incantatory, you might say.

While listening to the President speak on Tuesday, I found myself agreeing with a lot of his stated goals. He spoke forcefully and enthusiastically about environmental protection, helping the middle class, education, and other matters. I think he did a good job of striking a tone of optimism and creating the sense that America is in a good position, soon to be even better (whether or not it's true, he made a good case for it).

I've often been impressed with President Obama's intelligence and verbal ability; he is a quick thinker on his feet, a trait that's especially obvious during debates. Tuesday night's speech was largely the work of a speech writer, of course, which puts it in a different category than debating, but we know the President approved both wording and content. His style was evident in the address. I wouldn't put the President's rhetoric on the same level as that of, say, John F. Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln, but, truly, how many can aspire to that? That kind of eloquence is rarely seen.

What about the transformative power of the speech? Was this a true ritual? Well, we don't know yet. We heard the address, and now we await events. There has to be something genuine behind the words in order for them to have power. Certainly, there was a lot of energy in the House Chamber last night, and the assembled politicians and guests greeted most of the president's proposals enthusiastically.

I disagree with the President on some things. I was disappointed in his recent defense of the NSA data collection programs (which he only touched on Tuesday night), a position I find astonishing. His advocacy of those programs was very articulate, but seriously, are we supposed to believe, especially in light of recent data breaches like the one at Target, that yet more large collections of private data are a good idea? Some officials keep saying it's only metadata, not content. That may be true, but can no one envision ways in which even that information could be (and possibly is being) abused? If you're not involved in criminal activity, why should the government be able to find out who you've been talking to? Some analysts have said of 9/11 that it was not lack of intelligence that led to the attack, but failure to use intelligence already available. I have no doubt of the government's ability to track criminals and terrorists, but the average American is neither and has done nothing to forfeit the (by the way, constitutional) right to privacy.

I guess this issue of overreaching and secrecy overshadows, for me, a lot of the other (laudable) goals and achievements the President outlined. Take the Affordable Health Care Act, which was featured prominently in his speech. I see affordable health care as a positive thing and have heard people I know say they now have coverage for the first time in years. This is a big deal, despite all the snafus with the website and that oh-so-secure information applicants had to entrust to the government. On the other hand, I've been reading about negotiations the administration has tried to keep out of the press concerning the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. It would reportedly give foreign corporations the power to challenge laws and regulations that protect, among other things, food safety and environmental quality. As in our laws and regulations. Our food safety. Our air and water. If foreign corporations are granted the ability to challenge, in international court, laws designed to protect us, then you're going to need that Obamacare. (Many Democrats and some conservative Republicans alike oppose the TPP and/or the extreme lack of transparency surrounding it. I say, good for them.)

The President portrayed himself in his speech as willing to charge ahead and act on his own to accomplish his policies if Congress isn't willing to jump on board. A lot of political hay was made last year of Congressional intransigency. Naturally, the public is angered when the failure to reach agreements results in government shutdowns and lack of progress on important issues. However, I wonder if there isn't another side to the story, one involving Congress's frustration with an administration that shuts them out of decision-making in which they should be involved. Apparently, it even keeps tabs on who they've been talking to (a privilege not reserved just for the masses, it seems).

I'm suspicious of attempts to point the finger (or, as Jungians say, project the shadow), just as I'm suspicious of attempts to change the subject, do things secretly, or divide people. Ditto attempts to circumvent or lean on the press. I know there are good, hard-working people on both sides of the aisle in Congress. I suspect many of them would be glad to work with the President to achieve the goals he laid out Tuesday night. The question is, why isn't it happening? If they were candid--parties, partisanship, politics aside, just for one moment--I wonder what members of Congress would say about their views on the lack of progress. Maybe we should ask them.

So, you may be wondering, if, by chance, Tuesday night's speech wasn't ritual, wasn't transformative, what was it? There are other possibilities for what we saw, but I like the approach of anthropologist and historian John J. MacAloon, who has applied the categories of festival, spectacle, ritual, and game to no less an event than the Olympics. Ritual we've talked about. Spectacle is something designed to impress by reason of a powerful display; it's what the Olympics became in the hands of the Romans; it was Michelle Obama's odd appearance at last year's Oscars. A festival is a celebration, like a Fourth of July party. Games are, well, games. They, too, are a type of performance, one that requires roles, rules, and established goals.

The State of the Union address might have been more than one of these performance types. Certainly, it was impressive to watch, and I found it moving to see the mechanisms of our democracy laid bare in the House Chamber, with Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, and the President and members of his administration all coming together like that. It was a little like the Fourth of July, wasn't it? I hope it will give us reason to celebrate, but that remains to be seen. Words are powerful, but in politics, they too often seem to be merely that: words.

Rhetoric is nice, but sometimes homespun philosophy is more to the point. To put it another way, maybe what we need is, as Toby Keith says, a little less talk and a lot more action. Of the G-rated variety, of course.

Showing Up in Person at the County Clerk's

So, here we are, magically transported to Lapland, courtesy of a new mini-polar vortex, or bombogenesis, or whatever it is this week. Seriously, didn't I say you could never tell with these beckoning spirals? Instead of Coppertone and sand in our shoes, we're facing salt trucks and extra layers, at least where I live. So be it. Sometimes you just have to wait, relying on delayed gratification to deliver spring the same way it always does, by the calendar.

But a winter storm has its merits. I was thinking about that yesterday while warming up my car and knocking off the snow prior to a trip downtown. I could have mailed in my auto registration fee, but what fun would that be? Instead, I was multitasking: clearing my car and moving it off the street, getting some fresh air, saving the mail-in fee, beating the deadline, and, less prosaically, preparing to enjoy a walk in the snow.

People seemed to be driving cautiously, and I arrived downtown without incident, parking behind the old Carnegie Library. Gratz Park is pretty in any season, and swathed in snow, it looks like a Victorian Christmas card. On foot, I headed down Market Street, past the Gothic church with the pretty little hedge garden, and turned left on Short. I walked past the little clock shop, which doubles as a magic and novelties emporium, and encountered a parking lot attendant shoveling snow. I found myself in a wind tunnel, with icy air whipping around the buildings and hitting me head-on, the Lexington mini-version of Chicago. I was now thinking less about fresh air and more about getting warm and actually jogged around a slower moving pedestrian near the courthouse.

After a brief stop to warm my hands and get cash for the County Clerk's office, I was out again in a white world of big, swirling flakes. I was by no means the only person out; walking, while requiring more energy than usual, was not especially hazardous--just cold. Once inside the Clerk's office, I saw that my calculation had paid off and that the line for auto registration had only a few people. Waiting for my turn gave me a chance to warm up again. A few minutes later, new sticker in hand, I glided back into the snowstorm, doing my own version of the Waltz of the Snowflakes, minus the toe shoes and a little of the grace.

The park in front of the main library, on warm days, is full of people lounging; there was none of that yesterday, as anyone who was out was moving with purpose. I noticed the construction zone across from the park before I slipped across Main Street, sallied past the courthouse, and turned left. After seeing my reflection in a store window and deciding that I could pass for an extra in either Doctor Zhivago or The Snow Queen, I stopped under an overhang to brush off snow and stamp around a little. Pressing on, I turned right on a quiet, pedestrian-free Upper Street and enjoyed the fact that I was out of the wind.

Along the little street next to the church, past the brick wall and the perfume shop, and there was Market Street once again. I took a minute to notice the stateliness of the Carnegie Library as seen from the front, solid and elegant amid bare trees and snow, and reflected that if I were a visitor, I would be exclaiming over the loveliness of this town. What's commonplace often fails to impress because it's so familiar, but catch it from the corner of your eye, or from a different angle, or with the context slightly altered, and you see it anew. If I had been hoping for a moment of beauty on my little walk, this was it.

I glissaded the rest of the way to my parking spot thinking about the fact that I'm (unavoidably) always affixing a new license plate or sticker to the back of my car on a cold winter day, often an icy or snowy one, and this year would be no different. But now that I had walked and driven the snowy, bombogenesed streets of home, which took a little more work than usual, that chore in the parking lot would seem less of a burden. A little fresh air will do that for you.

Spirits of the Corn

I read a few days ago about the pending acquisition of Beam Inc. by the Japanese company Suntory Holdings. Beam is the producer of Jim Beam and Maker's Mark, both legendary Kentucky bourbons. (Jim Beam is made in Clermont, KY, and Maker's Mark in Loretto, KY.) But what, you might ask, does bourbon have to do with mythology?

Actually, a lot, especially when it comes to Kentucky. I don't know if all the stories you hear about bourbon are literally true, but they are certainly colorful, like the one about bourbon being invented by a Baptist preacher, Elijah Craig. If it isn't true, it ought to be. (What is a fact is that Heaven Hill Distilleries in Louisville and Bardstown produce a bourbon named for Elijah Craig.) Other facts about bourbon: it's made from a corn-based mash requiring a very painstaking distillation and aging process, and it's aged in charred oak barrels.

The history of bourbon-making in Kentucky goes back to the 1700s, with even George Washington playing a role. When his administration levied a tax on distilled liquor, farmers and producers in western Pennsylvania protested, and the Whiskey Rebellion was born. Many distillers moved west to Kentucky. Unlike their compatriots back east, Kentucky distillers used a mash based on corn rather than rye or wheat, thus creating the special type of whiskey called bourbon.

Many of the companies that make Kentucky bourbon have been doing it for a long time, and their websites are full of facts and lore. You learn about things like the Angel's Share and the Devil's Cut, barrel staves drying in the summer air, "Old Tub," and a lot more. According to the people at Maker's Mark, a previous company chief, Bill Samuels, Sr., ceremonially burned the family's original bourbon recipe and set the drapes on fire in the process. Heaven Hill was founded by five brothers after Prohibition ended. Jim Beam's site says that when Ulysses S. Grant, a bourbon aficionado, was called a drunk, Abraham Lincoln told the critics to "Find out what he drinks and send a case to my other generals." Woodford Reserve's current Master Distiller is only the seventh in Brown-Forman's 140-year history.

You find many recipes for bourbon drinks on these websites, including one for After Midnight in Kentucky, which gets my vote for "Best Name." There's also the famous Mint Julep, the traditional drink of the Kentucky Derby. I had a Mint Julep once and didn't like the combination of bourbon and mint, but bourbon does go well with other flavors, especially chocolate. Bourbon balls, which consist of a bourbon-laced cream candy coated with chocolate, are a specialty around here. A lot of home cooks make them for Christmas, and I've seen them on the dessert menu at a well-known Louisville restaurant. Also, you really haven't lived until you've had bread pudding with bourbon sauce. It's just that good.

As it is, the Beam corporate headquarters are in the Chicago area, not Kentucky. Although these acquisitions happen all the time in the global economy, the news that a company on the other side of the world is acquiring two such iconic Kentucky brands is still a little startling. Suntory is featured in the film Lost in Translation, in which Bill Murray portrays an American actor filming a commercial for Suntory's liquors. While in Japan, he meets Scarlett Johannson's character, and they develop an unusual friendship. As I remember it, the film explored the problems of communication between individuals against the larger backdrop of a cross-cultural adventure. It seemed to make the point that some of the worst misunderstandings occur between people who can't use language and cultural barriers as an excuse.

It's fascinating to think that an enterprise with such humble origins as bourbon is now a global commodity. One thing bourbon doesn't have and seems to need at this juncture is its own god. The gods of wine are Dionysus and Aphrodite, but they really don't jibe with bourbon, which has nothing to do with grapes or lofty elegance. I imagine someone like Elijah Craig. I don't know what the real Craig looked like, but my mythical one is fiery and bearded, with piercing eyes and a commanding voice. He cusses like a sailor but can explain the finer points of corn, winter wheat, barley, rye, and Kentucky spring water like nobody's business. He's like an Old Testament patriarch, except that when he strikes his staff on the rock, 90 proof comes out instead of milk and honey.

The Winter of Our Polar Vortex

Before this week, I'd never heard of a polar vortex, and now here we are in one. It's an interesting phrase. The words conjure up an image of swirling ice and snow, a gigantic moving whirlpool sucking polar bears, igloos, sleds, Olympic ice dancers, and anything else in the vicinity through a black hole into some alternate universe. I picture it working like the "Wood Between the Worlds" in Narnia, where jumping into a forest pool takes you straight to a different world. I might jump in it myself if I thought I would land in the tropics, but you never know with these magic portals.

The more mundane reality is that around here it hasn't been much different than any other cold spell, although you do have to bundle up excessively. If you go out only for a moment, to check the mail, you don't really notice it, but if you stay out any longer, like I did while deciding whether to put something in the recycling bin, you realize fast just how glacial the air is. People seem to be going about their business, though, and we were lucky not to get a lot of snow and ice. I've been at home, making the best of it, which for me means writing and spending time in the kitchen, both of which are safer than outdoor activities. (Of course, much depends on the kitchen and the writing; both are usually safe as practiced by me.) Spicy music on the stereo also helps.

It's nice to be able to escape to a warm climate if you can, although some of us cannot. When I was in grad school, winter breezed by me because I was commuting regularly to Southern California. I often had to change my clothes when I got there, tucking my coat into my suitcase and sometimes even changing my outfit. I also remember a couple of January trips to Florida that revealed just how wonderful it can be to trade a frozen landscape for an ocean the color of turquoise green. I once drove to the Keys for a writer's conference, going, unbelievably, from an overcast Kentucky winter to a humid tropical thunderstorm in the space of a day.

To everything, there is a season, though. I remember a monumental snowstorm of 20 years ago (for us, that means more than eight or nine inches), which was followed immediately by a precipitous temperature drop. We ended up with roads thickly covered in ice, on which it was possible to slide even while stopped at a light, as I discovered in my Toyota. The main thing I took away from this, aside from a new aesthetic appreciation for dry pavement, is a memory of a stuck car I saw on my way to work one morning. On a busy street, near downtown, this car was stranded on a hill, and a number of passersby had stopped to help. As I watched, the group pushed and rocked and strove until the car was finally free.

You might think that after several arduous minutes of laboring in freezing cold and deep snow on a slippery hill to free a stranger's car, people would look a little worse for wear. After all, they had places to be, too, and might now be late getting wherever they had to go. Actually, they were all smiling and laughing. There was a great camaraderie about that scene and a lot of jubilation; I've thought about it many times since. Sometimes it takes a harsh spell of weather to show you how good people can be. Tough conditions give altruism a chance to shine.

I guess I would have missed that scene if I'd been in the tropics, so maybe it was good I didn't manage a winter vacation that year. It's good to have a few memories like that tucked away in your pockets for later viewing. Of course, I like tropical sunsets and sandy beaches as much as the next person, but if not for the contrast with all these winters, I might not appreciate them as well as I do.

Moss Could Never Grow on You

One of the more interesting 2013 media events I'm aware of is the release of the interactive Bob Dylan video for "Like a Rolling Stone." When I first came across it on author Neil Gaiman's Facebook page, I hadn't heard any of the pre-release buzz and had no preconceived ideas. The first time I watched, I didn't even realize there were 16 videos. By happenstance, the video from the Moviez channel was the one I caught, and it floored me.

All of the videos are alike in that each one features characters (in some cases, actual TV personalities) lip-synching to "Like a Rolling Stone." The Moviez video shows a couple coming out of their brownstone on a city street, engaged in a somewhat passive-aggressive dialogue consisting of the lyrics to the song. The peaceful morning street contrasts sharply with the malice in their expressions; the woman starts to walk away but comes back; the man smiles knowingly. I was reminded of Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit, in which hell is in the interaction between characters, and also of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage also comes to mind.

We see the couple walk through a park, enter a diner, and order food, while continuing to bicker via the song. At the end of the video, the couple are seated at the counter and have just begun to eat breakfast. She leans toward him and smiles in what might seem a friendly way if not for the vindictiveness of their previous interaction, which consisted entirely of mutual recriminations.

This plays out like an unpleasant (but humorous) send-up of romantic comedies and certainly works on that level. I might have left it at that, except for one thing. The waitress in the scene reminded me inexplicably of a friend who told me a story about the time she cooked dinner for a now-famous political couple. That reminded me that the video could be read as more than just a satire on marriage. You don't have to look far to see why bickering, accusations, and politics might come to mind in such a context.

In the other 15 videos, I was frequently reminded of events large and small that I've seen or heard about. Mythologists caution people about reading stories too literally, and I support that caution. Nevertheless, I was continually struck by resemblances to actual events. One of the videos, depicting a sports network's coverage of a tennis match, features two opponents, one a handsome, Kennedy-esque figure, and the other quite reminiscent of Lee Harvey Oswald. It's hard to escape the feeling that the video references an assassination, especially when you notice the names of the players: Diovesky and Plotnivich. Certainly, thoughts about JFK's assassination have been floating in the culture this year, with even John Kerry weighing in, so it isn't surprising that they emerge here as a theme.

A seemingly ordinary episode of The Price Is Right, until you notice the body language of the participants and audience members . . . an episode of Bachelor's Roses with several women interested in one desirable man . . . a cooking program with a remarkably dead-pan chef . . . the irrepressible Property Brothers and their clients, one of whom has a very red face . . . a radio personality dominating a less than amicable interview with a man in a striped shirt . . . rapper Danny Brown on the Music 1 Bass channel, innocent and childlike, at play on the neighborhood swings . . . a Pawn Stars exchange in which an owner seems to be of two minds about a valuable item . . .  a notably witchy fashion reporter (on Broome Street!) who doesn't seem to notice the effect she has on her interviewees . . . three wizened professors on the History Network (and who are those people in the upstairs window?) . . . a news anchor on a business desk who can't stop blinking . . . Mr. Dylan himself, in concert footage.

Bob Dylan has long had the stature of a prophet and soothsayer, albeit one who occasionally trades personas. I think this video, directed by Vania Heymann, has a lot of him in it. This is the first official video for "Like a Rolling Stone," one of Dylan's signature songs. The video reinterprets the song for our time, something that's bound to happen when a theme is archetypal to begin with. I doubt whether anyone has captured all the nuances of meaning in the video, but "Like a Rolling Stone" - Interactive, while parodying the channel-flipping experience, gives you a chance to "see through" what appears on the surface.

This collection of videos weaving in and out of a single theme or themes is very postmodern. I admit to having a mixed reaction to it; like the media experience it satirizes, it can produce vertigo and a feeling of the ground shifting under your feet. Ultimately, though, I think the video challenges us to both notice and question. Truth can emerge in surprising ways; often, it appears in popular culture, in movies, TV, and songs, before you see it anywhere else. It's not uncommon.

To me, the ultimate criteria for evaluating truth or falsehood, no matter who tells you something, are in your own mind and heart. Does what I'm seeing and hearing ring true? Does it fit in with the facts? Is it consistent with the rest of my experience of the world? Knowing that my knowledge is limited, can I imagine it being true?

I'm sure the video is even now being analyzed and hotly debated among music, video, and technology lovers everywhere. All of this makes me hope we can turn that same careful eye toward all the media we're exposed to. It takes close attention sometimes to sift through the gossip, sound bites, and misinformation of the day to discover what's true, even though the truth is always there. Sometimes we just don't see it.

A Dwarf, Not a Hobbit

Is any story a myth, or is a myth a special kind of story? I tend to think a story becomes more mythic as it becomes more universal, relying on themes everyone can relate to, but almost any story has mythic elements. We don't always see a contemporary story as mythic (or a mythic story as contemporary), especially if we think of myths as tales from the past. Once you look closely, you're often surprised to find mythic characters and plots hiding inside ordinary protagonists and story lines. Even current events can be read mythically.

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is easy to identify as myth because it's epic fantasy, a familiar form of myth. The director has been criticized for stretching Tolkien's book into three movies and adding material, but almost any myth with staying power has variations that diverge. There have been other versions of The Hobbit, and more undoubtedly will follow. Jackson has tied his Hobbit movies very closely to The Lord of the Rings, turning Tolkien's almost playful treasure hunt into a prelude to the War of the Rings that explains much of what happens there.

I wrote last year about how I had come over time to see people I knew in Tolkien's characters. I identified most with Bilbo in last year's movie but was surprised this time to see myself most clearly in one or two of the dwarves. I don't think of myself as dwarf-like as Tolkien portrays them, but Jackson's handling of characters and interpersonal dynamics opened up unexpected vistas. This story really belongs to the dwarves, and the more I looked, the more human their problems became.

Likewise, the film shows a different side of the elves, who were heroic and otherworldly in LOTR. In Smaug (as in Tolkien's original), they're actually rather scary and, selfishly intent on their own concerns, are not above manipulation and deceit. Legolas and his father, the woodland king Thranduil, are lordly and arrogant, not people you'd really want to fall in with if you could help it. (One surmises that Legolas's character was later improved by his association with others not of his kind, the Fellowship, etc.)

The exception to elvish hostility in Smaug is Tauriel, a character Jackson and Company added to create a strong female presence. Some have criticized the surprising love triangle between her, Legolas, and Kili; I thought it brought a new piquancy to the story, which is now about more than just power, birthright, heroism, and treasure. Attraction and jealousy have been added to the mix, complicating things in an edgy but not inconceivable way.

It's very Hillmanian (as in James Hillman) to see yourself inhabiting multiple roles and stories, and I think the shifting perspectives between not only LOTR and The Hobbit but also between the first and second Hobbit movies make it easy for viewers to imagine themselves as more than one character. This is an idea I believe Jackson would approve, since he has appeared in cameo roles in all of his Tolkien films, here a Corsair, there a dwarf, there a man eating a carrot. Even some of the characters within the movie seem to play more than one role; Beorn is a potential protector and at the same time a fearsome predator; Gandalf is both wise and foolish, powerful and powerless; Bard is a leader in the making disguised as a rough and cunning bargeman.

It will be interesting to see if perspectives shift again as the Hobbit trilogy draws to a close in the next film. The current movie does a good job of showing the effects of power on those who wield it: from Bilbo, who finds in Mirkwood that the ring is already driving his actions in ways he doesn't want; to the Master of Laketown, who seems to enjoy the trappings of power more than the actual exercise of leadership; to Thorin, whose quest for his birthright as King under the Mountain is fraught with questions of moral ambiguity and divided responsibilities. Then there's Smaug himself, a living emblem of "might makes right," shown at one point gilded in molten gold, which he shakes off like a dog shedding water before flying off to attack Laketown. More than just the continuation of a hero's journey, Jackson's second Hobbit film is rather acute in looking at the shadow side of the quest.

You can respond to Smaug on many levels. The kids in the audience seemed to enjoy it as an adventure story, which it is. Tolkien fans are kept busy with comparisons between the book and the film (personally, I think most of Jackson's choices fall in with the spirit of Tolkien, if not the letter). Lovers of special effects and spectacle have a great deal to chew on, and the mythologists among us (and I hope we're all mythologists to some extent) are invited to find themselves and the world around them in the quest of 13 dwarves and a hobbit for treasure. On none of these levels is the filmgoer likely to come up empty. One of the characteristics of myth is its multilayered capacity to say several things at once.

Greetings of the Season

Wordplay - Writing & Life wishes you a very merry Christmas/holiday season and a bright and happy New Year. I'll be in the kitchen, but more later. Maybe a movie review?

Nights of Wonder and Magic

The clear skies on these sharp winter nights are spectacular. A couple of nights ago, I was out walking before sunset, and the sun, instead of being mired in haze, was distinctly visible as an orange ball, fiery and tremendous. Last night, I noticed a very bright and beautiful planet high in the sky after sundown, which must have been Venus, and on the way home from the coffeehouse, I was lucky to witness the rising of the Full Snow Moon, or Long Night Moon, or Oak Moon, whichever you prefer to call it.

I hadn't heard the December moon referred to as the "Oak Moon" until the other night. I was reading about this and about the Druids marking this moon by performing some of their special magic; the oak tree, of course, was sacred to them. Nights in early winter, according to this lore, are fraught with magic and mysterious events. Stack that on top of December's association with Saturnalia, and you really have the makings of a wild winter carnival.

Hecate, let the games begin. Your cell phone disappears. Your walls are suddenly alive with snapping noises in the predawn hours. Heavy footsteps overhead awaken you at 3:15 a.m. A mysterious current tinkles your wind chime in an enclosed room. People begin speaking loudly, as if they're confident they're making sense, while you're wondering what in the world they could possibly be smoking.

It seems to fit. I've known Decembers as peaceful as "Silent Night" and as surreal as anything by Hieronymus Bosch. It's partly the short days and long nights that set the spirits loose. Apollo, the god of reason and science, who's associated with the sun, is less prominent at this time of year, opening the door for other deities to have a go. I read an evocative description one time about what life was like before the days of gas and electrical lighting, when night was really night, dark and impenetrable, and the imagination gave birth to not only goblins but also fairies and sprites. The long nights of winter, with their bitter cold, howling wolves, and long shadows, still alive as an ancestral memory (unless we're from the tropics), were especially conducive to a free reign of fancy. Some of the dangers were real, and some were imagined, but which was which?

Of course we have the holidays, with all their glitter and cheer, songs, lights, and merriment, to chase away the shadows, or at least to remind us that in the midst of the darkest hours, life still thrives. At the Northern Hemisphere's darkest hour, the sun is actually making its turn (or we are, more precisely), and from that point on, the days grow gradually longer again.

In times past, people celebrated the holidays and survived winter by sitting around the hearth together. Many people still do, and I think they've got the right idea. One problem with modern life is a tendency for people to go their own way a little too much. We vaunt our independence, but at heart we're social creatures, and if we remember holidays from the past with a misty eye, it's because we remember the warmth and good feeling that come from being with family and friends. Companionship and good cheer completely transform cold December nights from a time of darkness to a time of celebration. It's what Scrooge found out the hard way, but, fortunately, not too late.

December is a time of battle between forces of light and darkness. Easy to give way to the doldrums, or to sadness, or to let the goblins in. But tweak your attitude a little, extend your hand to a loved one, light a candle, wrap a gift, or turn the shadows of a winter night toward a narrative that celebrates darkness and light (and gives both their due), and the spirit of the whole enterprise changes. I like Chris Van Allsburg's story The Polar Express for just that reason, because it honors both light and dark and sees the magic in their interplay.

For years I tried to write my own version of a solstice story that involved a forest, a snowy night, animals gathering, and festivities overturning the usual order of things -- sort of a Midwinter Night's Dream -- but I could never get it quite right. I had the atmosphere and the setting, but it seemed more of a tone poem than an actual plot. As I think about it now, I usually experience the magic of the season in just that way, as moments here and there, a fireplace, a favorite ornament, a perfect, unexpected gift, a midnight Mass, the taste of eggnog, the sound of a children's choir in the mall, or the face of a loved one, either near at hand or long absent and suddenly returning. It's only when you put them all together that you realize there's a story in them after all.

I'm trying to celebrate this season by looking for those kinds of moments as well as the little light that's always burning, even during (and perhaps especially during) the long nights of December. I hope you can find your own way to do the same, but remember . . . go easy on the eggnog.

The Kitchen Ballet

This year I wanted to shake Thanksgiving dinner up a bit, so I combined old standbys with a few new recipes. The hardest part for me is to having everything ready at the same time, so I made dessert the night before and planned ahead more than usual. This would have been the first time in history that my schedule was perfectly coordinated, if it had been perfectly coordinated, which it wasn't. But it came close. And I do have to say I enjoyed myself more than usual. The novelty of new dishes added extra spice to things.

I like pumpkin but have too many memories of trying to finish off most of a pie by myself. I didn't want anything too rich, so I tried a recipe for pumpkin doughnuts that converted easily to cake. I have a metal pan with an autumn design stamped in so that when you turn the cake out, it has raised leaves and vines on top. The effect was muted by the lemon-yogurt icing I drizzled over it, but the result was just what I was looking for: not-too-fancy, not-too-heavy, but just special enough.

On Thanksgiving Day, the biggest hassle was the turkey. Even though I had moved it from the freezer to the refrigerator the day before, it hadn't thawed, so I had to cook it longer. I cooked it in a clay pot, which added an antique touch, but I'm not really sure it tasted any better than if I had used an ordinary pan. Once it was in the oven, I started on the cranberry relish. I had never fixed it at home and didn't think I liked it that much, but I found out what a difference cooking it yourself makes. I didn't know how simple it is: just three ingredients and a little bit of stirring, and the flavor just pops.

I had found myself thinking about saucepans the night before -- how many I had and which ones I should use for what. So there they were, all lined up on the burners. So far, so good, and I started to think I might even be able to manage some gravy, which I usually skip due to lack of stovetop real estate. Things only got tricky when I got to the mashed potato stage. The potatoes were done a little early, so I had to move them to a different burner and keep them warm until I was ready to mash them. Shuffling of pans ensued. Dressing is easy, so I put those ingredients to one side and started the winter spinach with raisins and nuts. Once you start this it goes really fast, I found. The only mishap was a partially melted tip on a plastic spoon, but it was a small price to pay for something delicious. The oil and garlic and the sweetness of the raisins cut the bitterness of the spinach, and it was a nice change from green bean casserole.

The action was fast and furious after the spinach was done. I had to take the turkey out and get it on a plate, make the dressing, mash the potatoes, and set the table (which I would have done earlier if I hadn't forgotten, due to the general atmosphere of gourmet excitement). And oh, yes, the gravy -- I used my smallest saucepan for that, and it only boiled over once. I mashed the potatoes with butter and milk, having decided that this was the place to spend calories. Plain potatoes go totally against the spirit of Thanksgiving, I feel.

It occurred to me while pivoting around from the counter to the refrigerator to the table to the stove that I felt like a dancer. It started out like a country dance, sort of slow and measured, and heated up into something more like hot jazz. I was working all four burners and hadn't scorched a single pan, and nothing had fallen on the floor yet either.

Well, finally, the potatoes were mashed, the relish had cooled, the turkey was ready to carve, and I started spooning things out on the plate, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I wish you could have seen it. I think the mistake I made in the past was going too much toward the casserole end of things. Having a couple of lighter items brightened up the menu, since I knew I wouldn't be in carbohydrate overload afterwards. I looked at that plate, with its sliced turkey resting delicately under a silky gravy, cranberry relish a beautiful shade of red, the old familiar dressing and potatoes, and winter spinach a deep green that totally (I must say) complemented the red, and thought two things: 1. It's a shame I'm not showing this off to someone else and 2. I forgot to put ice in the glass for my tea.

When I sat down to give thanks, I became thoughtful. I realized that it was probably not the time for philosophy but for staying in the moment. My main thought was that I was thankful for being able to put that beautiful meal on the table, a gift I gave to myself compounded of a little artistry and the many gifts life gives us. OK, I guess that was a little philosophical, but I started eating before it could drift into the mind/body problem or something else.

Oh yes, dessert! I can't forget about that! The cake was very good, and here's a hint if you ever want to try it yourself: yogurt works just as well as sour cream for the icing. But it's that little hit of lemon that really sets things off.

The Lord of Misrule

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.

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.

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.