2.3.2022 – got more yesterday

got more yesterday
than anybody we need some
kind of tomorrow

Toni Morrison writes in her book, Beloved, “Sethe,” he says, “‘me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”

He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. “You your best thing, Sethe. You are.” His holding fingers are holding hers.

The very next passage in the book is:

There is a loneliness that can be rocked.

Arms crossed, knees drawn up; holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship’s, smooths and contains the rocker.

It’s an inside kind – wrapped tight like skin.

Then there is a loneliness that roams.

No rocking can hold it down.

It is alive, on its own.

A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one’s own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.

It is difficult to try and say anything based on the the book Beloved that does not from me, seem trivialize the writing of Ms. Morrison.

I mean to try and put myself in a place where anything I write should even be allowed on the same page as Ms. Morrison is a tremendous amount of cheek.

Mr. Hemingway writes something along the lines that if you can write about a something in a way that it becomes part of the consciousness of the reader, then you are, indeed, a writer.

By that standard, Ms. Morrison is indeed a writer, understanding that it is me applying Mr. Hemingway’s standard as I have no standing to make such a statement.

Using Mr. Hemingway’s standard, I put it out there that no one, NO ONE, could read Beloved and not be changed somehow.

I don’t know who could read this book and not have the scenes become part of their consciousness.

Seemingly a life changing book.

But the book was written back in 1988 and life goes on.

The discussion in Wikipedia states: To heal and humanize, one must constitute it in a language, reorganize the painful events, and retell the painful memories.

Who among us does not have their own yesterdays.

Yesterdays, when examined or remembered, are filled just as much with all the events and emotions and trials as Ms. Morrison chronicles in Beloved.

Wikipedia also states: Morrison may be emphasizing that heroism is defined not by supernatural powers or acts of unparalleled valor, but by the courageous intent to overcome the assertive preconceptions of society in order to ensure the greater good and positively influence on others in the process.

The courageous intent to overcome the assertive preconceptions of society in order to ensure the greater good.

We, all of us, are hero’s, as well deal with our own stories.

The next passage in the book is:

Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name.

Disremembered and unaccounted for, she cannot be lost because no one is looking for her, and even if they were, how can they call her if they don’t know her name?

Although she has claim, she is not claimed.

Who is she?

She is all of us.

As Ms. Morrison writes, maybe It was not a story to pass on.

2.2.2022 – imaginative

imaginative
hilarious ludicrous
daft ridiculous

Sometime somewhere I read that if you like eating, you like reading about food.

Some of my favorite passages in my reading involved the planning, cooking and eating of fabulous dinners.

Small wonder that Jim Harrison, the author of A Really Big Lunch is one of my favorite writers.

Through Mr. Harrison I also read John Thorne’s wonderful essays on eating and cooking.

But it is the scenes in books not about cooking that talking about cooking that I look for.

CS Forester’s food scenes in his Hornblower Series or even the snatched meals on the bridge that Mr. Forester described in “The Good Shephard.”

The Whale Steak scene in Mr. Melville’s Moby Dick.

The King-eats-with-the-poor-people scene in Mr. Twain’s Connecticut Yankee.

The diner scene in Mr. Thurber’s A Couple of Hamburgers.

With this in mind I clicked on the article, Top 10 cooks in fiction.

The article was in a British Newspaper so I guess I should not be surprised that I wasn’t familiar with any of the books.

The description of the last book listed caught me eye.

The writer writes about the book, Cooking With Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson, that “The plot is fast-paced but daft, the characters ludicrous but hilarious, and the recipes imaginative but ridiculous.”

For me, any book that can be described with all those wonderful words in one sentence is worth a look-see.

I got my copy this morning out of archive.org so I will add an update soon.

I offer the first paragraph as a window.

If you will insist on arriving at Pisa airport in the summer you will probably have to fight your way out of the terminal building past incoming sun-reddened Brits, snappish with clinking luggage. They are twenty minutes late for their Ryanair cheapo return to Stansted (“I said carry your sister’s bloody bag, Crispin, not drag it. If we miss this flight your life won’t be worth living… “). Ignoring them and once safely outside, you can retrieve your car in leisurely fashion from the long-term park and hit the northbound motorway following the “Genova” signs. Within a mere twenty minutes you are off again at the Viareggio exit. Don’t panic: you are not destined for the beach which stretches its tottering crop of sun umbrel¬ las like poison-hued mushrooms for miles of unexciting coast¬ line. No. You are heading safely inland through the little town of Camaiore.

So promise I think.

2.1.2022 – sat upon the shore

sat upon the shore
Fishing, Shall at least set
my lands in order?

Part of the series of Haiku inspired by The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot and the article, ‘It takes your hand off the panic button’: TS Eliot’s The Waste Land 100 years on by Andrew Dickson.

Mr. Dickson asks, ‘Is it genuinely one of the greatest works in the language, or – as the poet once claimed – just “a piece of rhythmical grumbling“?’

Readers of this blog may remember that from time to time I struggle with the weight of effort of producing a daily Haiku and any thoughts I may have about the words and time that went in the Haiku that day.

This daily schedule of missing a day can bring on a personal mental paralysis wherein writing these entries becomes impossible.

I learned to deal with this by not dealing with it and let it go.

Then when I look at my register of entries and see blank days with no post, I will grab a topic or book or poem for a source and produce a series of Haiku to fill in those blank dates.

This is one of the great benefits of this effort being my blog and my blog, my rules.

It IS cricket because I say it is.

It is ‘according to Hoyle’ because I say it is.

Thus I have this series based on ‘The Wasteland.’

A thoroughly enjoyable connection of wordplay and source of endless discussion in the search for meaning.

For myself, I like that bit about a piece of rhythmical grumbling by Mr. Eliot so said Mr. Eliot.

I have remembered this story before in these posts, but it reminds me of a story told by the actor Rex Harrison.

Mr. Harrison recounted rehearsing a play by George Bernard-Shaw and that the company was having a difficult time with a certain scene when, wonder of wonder, Bernard-Shaw himself dropped by to watch rehearsal.

Mr. Harrison tells how great this was as they went to the play write and asked how did he see this scene – what was he striving for?

Bernard-Shaw asked for a script and read over the scene, read it over again and a third time, then looked up and said, “This is rather bad isn’t it.”