if you don’t like it you can get on with it, others pick choose if you can’t
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.”
April cruellest month, lilacs out dead land, mixing memory desire
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.”
take time, understand once a week, moment to pause, reflect, consider
I happened to be reading the papers this morning off of my desktop computer instead of a tablet and came across the links at the bottom of the home page of The Guardian.
Readers of this blog will not be surprised that The Guardian (or Manchester Guardian) is my favorite source for news.
The stories are well written and for the most part adapted for Americans when it comes to spelling colour and theatre and centre.
And the history of the paper, that it was founded and endowed by a family back in 1850 or thereabouts so it would not have to depend on advertisers and could print the truth.
At least the truth as they saw it.
Across the bottom of the home page are links to other Guardian News options and one of the those options is the Guardian Weekly edition.
The blurb with the link states:
Take time to understand the week: Once a week, take a moment to pause, reflect and consider. In the Guardian Weekly we select the highlights from our newspapers to bring you a deeper, more rounded view of world events.
I thought about that.
And I thought that I should take time to understand my week.
And I thought that once a week, I should take a moment to pause, reflect and consider.
So I tried it.
I tried to understand my week.
I took a moment and paused, reflected and considered my week.
First thing that happened is that I threw up.
Then I got back in bed and pulled the covers up over my head.
I may stay there a while.
I am in zugzwang and I cannot get out.
Zugzwang, you might remember, is a term from chess.
You are in zugzwang when it is your turn and you have to make a move and every move you can make is a bad move.
The online dictionary defines zugzwang as “a situation in Chess in which the obligation to make a move in one’s turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage.”
I am reminded of the short story, “A Box to Hide In” by James Thurber.
The story ends with:
But I still have this overpowering urge to hide in a box.
Maybe it will go away.
Maybe I’ll be all right.
Maybe it will get worse.
It ‘s hard to say.
The story 1st appeared in print in The New Yorker in January 24, 1931.
90 years ago, 190 years ago, 1900 years ago.
As Mr. Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
As they say, I shall endeavor to persevere.
Here in a poorly formatted format is the story:
A Box to Hide In - James Thurber
I waited till the large woman with the awful hat took up her
sack of groceries and went out, peering at the tomatoes and
lettuce on her way. The clerk asked me what mIne was.
"Have you got a box," I asked, "a large box? I want a box to
hide in"
"You want a box?" he asked.
"I want a box to hide in," I said.
"Whatta you mean?" he said. "You mean a big box?"
I said I meant a big box, big enough to hold me. "I haven't
got any boxes," he said. "Only cartons that cans come in." I
tried several other groceries and none of them had a box big
enough for me to hide in. There was nothing for it but to
face life out. I didn't feel strong and I had this overpowering
desire to hide in a box for a long time.
"What do you mean, you want to hide in this box?", one
grocer asked me.
"It's a form of escape", I told him. "Hiding in a box, it
circumscribes your worries and the range of your anguish.
You don't see people, either".
"How in the hell do you eat when you're in this box?" ,
asked the grocer. "How in the hell do you get anything to
eat?".
I said I'd never been in a box and didn't know, but that
would take care of itself. "Well", he said finally, "I haven't
got any boxes, only some pasteboard cartons that cans come
in." It was the same every place. I gave up when it got dark
and the groceries closed, and hid in my room again. I turned
out the light and lay on the bed. You feel better when it gets
dark.
I could have hid in a closet, I suppose, but people are always
opening doors. Somebody would find you in a closet. They
would be startled and you'd have to tell them why you were
in the closet. Nobody pays any attention to a big box lying
on the floor. You could stay in it for days and nobody'd
think to look at it, not even the cleaning woman."
My cleaning woman came the next morning and woke me
up. I was still feeling bad. I asked her if she knew where I
could get a large box.
"How big a box you want?", she asked. "I want a box big
enough for me to get inside of", I said. She looked at me
with big, dim eyes. There's something wrong with her
glands. She's awful. But she has a big heart, which makes it
worse. She's unbearable, her husband is sick and her children
are sick and she is sick too. I got to thinking how pleasant it
would be if I were in a box now, and didn't have to see her
I'd be in a box right there in the room, and she wouldn't
know.
I wondered if you have a desire to bark or laugh when
someone who doesn't know walks by the box you're in.
Maybe she would have a spell with her heart if I did that and
would die right there. The officers and the elevator man and
Mr Grammage would find us.
"Funny, dog gone thing happened at the building last
night", the doorman would say to his wife. "I let in this
woman to clean up 10-F and she never came out, see? She
never there more than an hour. But she never came out,
see?" So when it get time for me to get off duty, I says to
Crimmack in the elevator, "I says what the hell you suppose
happened to the woman that cleans 10-F?" He says he didn't
know. He says he never seen her after he took her up. So I
spoke to Mr Grammage about it. "Sorry to bother you, Mr.
Grammage", I says, "but there's something funny about that
woman that cleans 10-F". So I told him - he said we better
have a look. And we all three goes up, knocks on the door,
rings the bell, see, and nobody answers
So he said we'd have to walk in. So Crimmack opened the
door and we walked in. And there was this woman, cleans
the apartment, dead as a herring on the floor, and the
gentleman that lives there was in a box.
The cleaning woman kept looking at me. It was hard for me
to realize she wasn't dead. "It's a form of escape", I
murmured. "What say?", she asked dully? "You don't know
of any large packing boxes, do you?", I asked. "No, I don't,
she said."
I haven't found one yet. But I still have this overpowering
urge to hide in a box. Maybe it will go away. Maybe I'll be
all right. Maybe it will get worse. It 's hard to say.
much lucubration, confused line of thought – this way of course, lies madness
Yes, I had to look it up.
Lucubration means study or mediation or a piece of writing, typically a pedantic or overelaborate one.
Like some blogs I know.
I seem to be stuck in rut quoting James Thurber lately.
His book on the founder of the New Yorker Magazine, The Years with Ross, is a trip to the dictionary waiting to happen.
I cannot vouch for its content or the stories told in the book except to mention that the White’s. EB and Katherine Angell, did not care for the book and thought the portrayal of Ross by Thurber was unnecessarily unkind.
The writing.
The contruction.
The play of words against each other.
It is fun to read for the writing.
Then with the discussion of how Harold Ross edited short stories.
Well, like I said, I have been dipping in and out of it over and again since I was able to get a copy in ebook form.
The passage in particular dealt with how long a certain story took to write.
Thurber is quoting another managing editor, Stanley Walker, who said about Harold Ross (Thurber wrote):
“He thought such a story should have required at least a week’s work and painful lucubration. Then, following this confusing line of thought, he wondered if he were not being cheated by the writers who took too much time. This way, of course, lies madness.”
It must have been crazy wonderful to work in that environment I think.
Most of my working career has been spent working in ‘Creative’ Deaprtments.
I have had great bosses who understood that the last thing you want to do is creative people is force them into a system and take away the thing that makes them creative.
I have had bosses who believed in the system and did not care a fig about the output so long as all the check marks were checked.
This way, of course, lies madness.
Thurber ends these couple of pages with one last quote from Mr. Walker on his time at the New Yorker.
“. . . it was like fighting a revolving door in a blizzard. You can’t win, but anger doesn’t get you anywhere either. “
I guess.
So long as there is generous time available for much lucubration.
here with little on my mind and going nowhere in particular
Growing up in West Michigan with an eye on reading, I was aware of the writing of Niles, Michigan native, Ring Lardner.
Mr. Lardner was a sportswriter who also wrote short stories, many of which, “Alibi Ike” and “You Know Me, Al” were short stories based on sport.
If you happened to see the 1988 (1988???) movie, “8 Men Out” about the Chicago Black Sox scandal, Ring Lardner is the sportswriter the movie follows to tell the story.
When the movie was made, Lardner’s son, Ring, Jr., was on the set as a consultant and Ring, Jr. said he could not be on the set when the director, John Sayles, who also played the part of Ring, Sr. was in costume as he looked so much like his father.
Like I said, I have always been aware of Mr. Lardner’s writing.
It was said that no one wrote dialogue like Mr. Lardner or as one person put it, his mastery of idiosyncratic vernacular.
If you grew up in West Michigan and you knew of Mr. Lardner and you read anything he wrote that wasn’t about baseball, you most likely read the short story, The Golden Honeymoon, the story that takes place in the 1920’s about a couple from West Michigan that celebrates their 50th wedding anniversary with a month long trip to Florida.
It is written is a way that you can hear the man narrating the trip and telling the entire story – and its quite a story – all in one sitting without taking a breathe.
In a bizarre magical way it starts out rolling and the words don’t stop and all of sudden it is over and you have spent the last 30 minutes of your life in real time on a month long trip to Florida.
Here is a snippet –
I felt sorry for Hartsell one morning. The women folks both had an engagement down to the chiropodist’s and I run across Hartsell in the Park and he foolishly offered to play me checkers. It was him that suggested it, not me, and I guess he repented himself before we had played one game. But he was too stubborn to give up and set there while I beat him game after game and the worst part of it was that a crowd of folks had got in the habit of watching me play and there they all was, looking on, and finally they seen what a fool Frank was making of himself, and they began to chafe him and pass remarks. Like one of them said: “Who ever told you you was a checker player!” And: “You might maybe be good for tiddle-de-winks, but not checkers!” I almost felt like letting him beat me a couple games. But the crowd would of knowed it was a put up job. Well, the women folks joined us in the Park and I wasn’t going to mention our little game, but Hartsell told about it himself and admitted he wasn’t no match for me. “Well,” said Mrs. Hartsell, “checkers ain’t much of a game anyway, is it?” She said: “It’s more of a children’s game, ain’t it? At least, I know my boy’s children used to play it a good deal.” “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “It’s a children’s game the way your husband plays it, too.”
It colored my view of making any trip to Florida to this day!
So why was I thinking about Ring Lardner this morning?
I was thumbing through another book by James Thurber titled the Years with Ross, about the operation of the New Yorker Magazine and its founder, Harold Ross.
Ross claimed, so Thurber wrote, that [Ross] “asked Lardner the other day how he writes his short stories, and he said he wrote a few widely separated words or phrases on a piece of paper and then went back and filled in the spaces.“
And I came across this passage.
The 1933 scroll was charged with all kinds of things for H. W. Ross. The Depression, which had been aimed directly at him, was still holding on, though getting better (1934 was to be one of the New Yorker’s best financial years). Hitler had risen to power, the banks had closed, Prohibition was soon to become a sorry memory, and the Roosevelt family had come to Washington, thus supplying “Talk of the Town” with dozens of anecdotes and the art department with dozens of idea drawings. In 1933 Ring Lardner died, and the morning World came to an end – major sorrows that saddened Ross and all of us.
It struck me that Thurber, recounting the good and bad that happened in 1933, the fact that Ring Lardner died was enough to make it bad year.
And I thought about that a good long while.
If nothing else it made want to dig out and read Mr. Larder over again.
With little on my mind and going nowhere in particular, its a great day to read.
Doing so I came across the line of words that I assembled into today’s Haiku.
As Frank Lloyd Wright might have said, “there you are.”
No Haiku For You 