have you no eyes – rouse
your soul to frenzy – love to
daily distraction

In one of the last works published by Jim Harrison (I won’t say last written work as I understand Mr. Harrison wrote until the moment he died and was found slumped at his desk with an arm hanging down, fingers open and a pencil on the floor where it dropped), Mr. Harrison wrote, “After 55 years of marriage, it might occur to you that it was the best idea of a lifetime.”

Mr. Harrison died in 2016.

It has taken me this long to get around to reading this last book.

I am very conflicted about his writing.

I was first aware of Jim Harrison when I worked in a bookstore in Michigan.

One Christmas I was chatting with some nice lady about books.

She commented how much impact Jim Harrison had made on her thinking.

I pointed to a stack of his latest book, it may have been Sundog and told her we had just got this in today.

She turned a looked at the stack.

Then she reached over and took the entire stack and said, “I just finished my Christmas shopping.”

There might be something to this guy I thought.

Right after that I happened to catch part of an interview with him at his cabin in Michigan’s Upper Pennisula.

The clip started with a view of the cabin and focused on a sign that said something like, “GO AWAY I MIGHT BE WORKING.”

I later read an interview where Mr. Harrison claimed he once retyped a 300 page manuscript because he found he had used a certain adjective twice.

This comment from a two finger typer read by a two finger typer in the pre-word processor era carried a great deal of weight.

So I read Sundog for the first time.

Powerful and profane, I was proud at getting the inside references to the UP and the Mackinac Bridge.

And I was hooked.

There are now around 24 Jim Harrison books of novels, novellas, essays and poetry on my shelf.

These books have made the many many moves and library reductions I have experienced over the last 40 years.

I enjoyed them all.

They all challenged me.

They all made me think.

Then that last one.

Then that last one before this very last, well, I thought went too far.

Hard to say exactly why but suffice it to say it was too far.

Which raised the question for me, does this misstep color the entire body of work?

My training is in history.

I had to study historiography or writing in the field of history along with writing critical essays of historical writing.

The professors I studied under had little room for writers who made errors.

I would ask really, was getting a city or a date or an address that bad.

YES I would be told.

IF YOU can find one error in a historical work, HOW MANY MORE ERRORS are there that aren’t smart enough to catch?

One bad apple did ruin the whole bunch.

There was no grace at all for errors or those who made errors in the eyes of my professors.

To this day I can no longer read Stephen Ambrose.

When it came out that one of his books contained complete passages lifted from other books, his claim of BAD EDITIING by my EDITOR (his daughter) just didn’t cut it and the dozen or so books I owned by Mr. Ambrose did not make the trip to Georgia.

As a side note the recent revelations on Mr. Ambrose and his now disputed claims of a working relationship with General Eisenhower now more less closed the lid on this discussion.

And yes Ms. Doris Kearns Goodwin, I am tottering on you (and you too Ms. Tuchman).

And don’t bother calling me Mr. Ken Burns, everyone saw what you did.

Also if you read history, notice the number of citations that are now woven into the narrative instead of hidden away in footnotes (IE: As Douglas Hofstader said in his book … etc etc etc)

ANYWAY back to Mr. Harrison.

I am slowly coming to terms with Mr. Harrison.

I can’t say he ever flew a false flag that his characters were NOT rogues, cads and all around awful people.

Hard to argue that I might be able accept terrible people, up to a point.

I finally got around to reading this last autobiographical essay in Ancient Minstral.

The last line was, as quoted above, “After 55 years of marriage, it might occur to you that it was the best idea of a lifetime.”

And while the line made me think many things it also made me laugh.

In Mr. Harrison’s novel, The Road Home, the companion novel to Dalva, the hero/villain John Northbridge (one of the tricks of Mr. Harrision is that his characters are both the hero and the villain, often at the same time) is reading his own 50 year old journals.

Northbridge, now in is 70’s, has forgotten much of what happened when he was in his 20’s and as he reads his own journals he keeps shouting out loud, “My God what will this fool do next?”

That is where I was for the last couple of years wondering about Mr. Harrison.

My God, what will this fool do next?

To read that last line, after 55 years of marriage, it might occur to you that it was the best idea of a lifetime, I like to think that in the end, he got it right.

This is my blog and I get to think what I want.

In that same last publisher essay Mr. Harrison also wrote the he loved his wife to daily distraction.

I like that.

On of the best things of Covid and working from home as I have seen more of my wife in the last year than I have in the last 20 years.

I enjoy seeing her every day.

I look forward to seeing her everyday

I am not seeing this adventure hasn’t had it sine curve of peaks and valleys but I can honestly say I love that lady to the point of daily distraction.

Lastly, Mr. Harrison quoted Boris Pasternak with a line from his poem, Sparrow Hills that goes, Rouse your soul to frenzy.

The stanza is:

Rouse your soul to frenzy. Let to-day come foaming.
It’s the world’s midday. Have you no eyes for it?

Have you no eyes for it?

Don’t wait for the last thing you publish to wake up and smell the coffee.

Rouse your soul to FRENZY.

So the haiku for today all came together.

have you no eyes – rouse
your soul to frenzy – love to
daily distraction

And at the end of the day, realize that that day you got married was the best idea of a lifetime.

---

Sparrow Hills by Boris Pasternak

Kisses on the breast, like water from a pitcher!
Not always, not ceaseless spurts the summer’s well.
Nor shall we raise up the hurdy-gurdy’s clamour
Each night from the dust with feet that stamp and trail.

I have heard of age, — those hideous forebodings!
When no wave will lift its hands up to the stars.
If they speak, you doubt it. No face in the meadows,
No heart in the pools, and no god in the firs.

Rouse your soul to frenzy. Let to-day come foaming.
It’s the world’s midday. Have you no eyes for it?
Look how in the heights thoughts seethe into white bubbles
Of fir-cones, woodpeckers, clouds, pine-needles, heat.

Here the rails are ended of the city tram-cars.
Further, pines must do. Further, trams cannot pass.
Further, it is Sunday. Plucking down the branches,
Skipping through the clearings, slipping on the grass.

Sifting midday light and Whitsunday and walking
Wodds would have us think the world is always so;
They’re so planned with thickets, so inspired with spaces,
Fallen from the clouds on us, like chintz below.

Борис Пастернак
Воробьевы горы
Грудь под поцелуи, как под рукомойник!
Ведь не век, не сряду, лето бьет ключом.
Ведь не ночь за ночью низкий рев гармоник
Подымаем с пыли, топчем и влечем.

Я слыхал про старость. Страшны прорицанья!
Рук к звездам не вскинет ни один бурун.
Говорят — не веришь. На лугах лица нет,
У прудов нет сердца, бога нет в бору.

Расколышь же душу! Bсю сегодня выпей.
Это полдень мира. Где глаза твои?
Видишь, в высях мысли сбились в белый кипень
Дятлов, туч и шишек, жара и хвои.

Здесь пресеклись рельсы городских трамваев.
Дальше служат сосны, дальше им нельзя.
Дальше — воскресенье, ветки отрывая,
Разбежится просека, по траве скользя.

Просевая полдень, тройцын день, гулянье,
Просит роща верить: мир всегда таков.
Так задуман чащей, так внушен поляне,
Так на нас, на ситцы пролит с облаков

old friends who one day
recede, disappear, never
to be seen again

The parade keeps moving, that’s why they call it a parade.

It was the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus who said or at least is credited with saying, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

It was Michigan’s own, the late great Jim Harrison who said you can’t enter the same stream once let alone twice.

The water keeps moving.

We live with change.

As the times change, we change with the times.

And old friends, as comfortable as old shoes, recede and disappear.

Change jobs.

Change locations.

Change situations and old friends, as comfortable as old shoes, recede and disappear.

Sad to say but it happens.

Friendships, relationships take a lot of work to keep those ships a float.

And sometimes the work just gets too hard.

“Conversely,” writes Julian Fellowes in his book, Snobs, “nothing is more agreeable than the renewal of such a friendship after several years’ interlude, as there is no need for the preamble to intimacy.

It is already in place.

One may immediately pick it up, like a piece of unfinished tapestry, where one left off ten years ago.“

For me, one of the many pleasures of reading, is to come across a phrase like this and say to yourself, “I know just what he means.”

not the years, its the
mileage, those who remain
will be champions

“Not the years, its the mileage”, so said Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr who is better known as Indiana Jones.

And it was Glenn Edward Schembechler, better known as Bo, as in Bo Schembechler, as in Coach Bo at the University of Michigan who said “Those who remain will be champions.”

Both epigrams where on my mind after watching the 2021 Super Bowl, or Super Bowl 55.

I admit I like Tom Brady.

I admit had Tom Brady NOT PLAYED at Michigan, I would not have liked Tom Brady.

I cannot account for it but for me and I think of lot of folks (despite what George C. Scott said in the movie Patton “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser”), do not like winners or at least winners who win all the time.

Unless it is your team.

I understand that there are a lot of folks who just don’t like Tom Brady.

I am cool with that.

I never liked Roger Staubach or Michael Jordan.

But I also think no one can argue that what Mr. Brady has done as a football player, a limited field I admit, is without comparison.

Mr. Brady has played in more games than most players can imagine playing in.

Mr. Brady has won more games than most players play in.

Mr. Brady has played more games in the playoffs than most players play in the entire careers.

Mr. Brady has won more championships than you would think anyone could even want to win.

And I have to wonder what there is to Mr. Brady that makes this happen.

Believe it not, football is a mental sport.

I remember a night long long long ago when I had gone to local playground with my kids at a place called Briggs Park.

Along with a playground and a pool, Briggs Park also had a quarter mile running track and a football field complete with goalposts.

That night out on the field a semi-semi-semi pro football team was practicing.

They were the Grand Rapids Eagles or something like that.

Coached and quaterbacked by the ever popular Sparky McEwen, this was team of one time high school and college players who were playing for nothing more but a love of the game of football.

They were all out there on their own.

Drove themselves to the practice and to their games.

No locker rooms.

No team trainers or support of that kind.

It was organized football at it’s lowest possible level.

But those guys practiced hard.

I was amazed, stunned just watching a practice.

As practice wound down Sparky brought the team into a huddle.

On a hot summer night surrounded but a bunch of tired sweaty guys, Sparky launched in a Knute Rockne ‘win one for the gipper’ type of football speech.

It was all the tradition ciches.

WHO ARE WE?

WHO IS BETTER THAN WE ARE?

WHO ARE WE?

CAN WE WIN?

WILL WE WIN?

The response of the players was right out of the movies with loud mass barks.

The emotion of the response continued to build and build with each response.

These guys got motivated.

I got motivated.

It made me think.

It made me think, REALLY?

Then it made me think, WOW.

It made me think about motivation.

It made me think about how, even at this level, the players need this motivation.

It made me think about how, even at this level, the players WANTED this motivation.

They bought into it so to speak.

I remember a pre season interview with a Detroit Lions Quarterback who predicted 10 wins in the upcoming season.

I remember thinking what planet did this guy live on?

10 wins?

Then I thought about it?

Would I really want the quarterback of my team to be thinking, ‘gee whiz, we will be lucky to win a game or two this year.’

Of course not.

I wanted my Quarterback thinking we were going to win them all whether that made sense or not.

Another saying of Coach Schembechler was “what the mind can believe, the body can achieve.”

Maybe this is where Mr. Brady fits into the puzzle.

Maybe what makes Mr. Brady so valuable to a team, especially a football team, is the mental edge that with Mr. Brady on the team, the team is going to win.

A team that goes into an athletic contest already thinking they are going to win, not just motivated to think that way, but thinking that way before the game even starts is a team with an advantage.

Mr. Brady doesn’t win games without a team.

Mr. Brady’s records don’t win any games either.

But any team with Mr. Brady on it, a team full of players who HAVE looked at all those records and playing a team who has also looked at all those records has a real definite edge.

Mr. Brady is good.

Mr. Brady also makes the other players on his team better.

And as Coach Schembechler would say, those who remain, will be champions.