4.1.2022 – read for enjoyment

read for enjoyment
that reading is a pleasure
one of the greatest

Adapted from the line, “I must remind you here of something that I have already insisted upon, namely that I am very strongly of opinion that you should read for enjoyment. To my mind it is very ill-advised to look upon reading as a task; reading is a pleasure, one of the greatest that life affords, and if these books of which I am now going to speak to you do not move, interest or amuse you, there is no possible reason for you to read them.” from the essay, Books and You: A Dissertation Upon Reading by W. Somerset Maugham.

3.31.2022 – much lucubration

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.

3.30.2022 – just ‘not right’ you know?

just ‘not right’ you know?
touch of the flu, a slight sprain
a tad overwhelmed

I am not sure how bad a ‘touch’ of the flu is.

I am not sure how bad a ‘slight sprain’ is.

How much overwhelmed is a ‘tad overwhelmed’?

You got the flu or you don’t.

It’s sprained or it’s not.

If things get worse, are you more overwhelmed?

Then just ‘not right’ does seem to work.

It is not right.

It is not what I would choose.

Is it not all the way to being wrong, well, gee whiz.

Then I think of this line from Wobegon Days, by Garrison Keillor.

When I was a boy, if I came around looking glum and mopey, [my mom would say], “What’s the matter? Did the dog pee on your cinnamon toast?” and the thought of our old black mutt raising his hind leg in the pas de dog and peeing on toast made me giggle.

Well it might be just ‘not right’ but no dog climbed up on the table and peed on my toast.

And the picture does make you laugh.

And I don’t feel so fluish.

My ankle doesn’t hurt.

And I seem to hold off the incoming tide for a bit.

And I’ll go make some toast.

Growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in a family of 11 kids, we all had our days and we all had our favorite things to do.

My little brother Pete loved to have toast for a snack, morning, noon and night.

We could be watching TV and Pete was gone soon to return with a plate of two pieces of cinnamon toast.

It could be late at night.

Middle of the afternoon.

For some reason it was those moments when our family would return from being somewhere, anyway, the store, a family party, church or anything where we were all gone and we would pile out of the car in fall into the house and Pete would make a beeline for the bread box and the toaster that stick in my mind.

We all knew about his habit.

And we all knew when he made toast.

We all knew because Pete never ever, so far as I know and I will have to check with his kids, learned how to operate a toaster.

Or, Pete like burned toast.

For him, the smell of burning toast was the signal the toast was done.

I don’t know what you remember about your home as a kid but in the days before people started burning popcorn in a microwave, there was few household smells worse than burning toast.

I came to hate and still hate that smell.

I would see Pete get up with the ‘I need toast’ look in his eye and start feeling just ‘not right’ right then.

It made me sick though I am not sure if it was the smell or worrying that I would have to smell it the rest of the night.

And then Pete would get up and burn some more toast.

He would come back to the TV room with his plate of charcoal and I would ask him, why, why do have to burn it.

I think I even offered to make toast for him.

I can smell it to this day.

The next time I am feeling just ‘not right’ you know? A touch of the flu, a slight sprain or a tad overwhelmed, I am going to think of a dog coming in a peeing on Pete’s toast.

Not sure what good it will do but I bet it will sure make me feel better.

3.29.2022 – find the relation

find the relation
between incompatible
and affinity

Adapted from A Letter to a Young Poet by Virginia Woolf Published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, 52 Tavistock Square, London, W.C.1 1932

That perhaps is your task—to find the relation between things that seem incompatible yet have a mysterious affinity, to absorb every experience that comes your way fearlessly and saturate it completely so that your poem is a whole, not a fragment; to re-think human life into poetry and so give us tragedy again and comedy by means of characters not spun out at length in the novelist’s way, but condensed and synthesised in the poet’s way—that is what we look to you to do now.

3.28.2022 – one small step for man

one small step for man
one giant leap for mankind
did step on the moon

What did Neil Armstrong say when he landed on the Moon?

I mean okay, after he said Houston …

What did he say when he first stepped on the Moon?

The writers at NASA crafted this great line that he memorized but when he said it there was a buzz of static and the world remembers that he said, “one small step for man …’ and then said, “one giant leap for mankind.”

The goofy thing is I was 9 and I distincly heard FOR MAN and wondered what the difference was between MAN and MANKIND.

But NASA issued the press release that said Mr. Armstrong said, “A MAN.”

Mr. Armstrong said he said, “A MAN”

As in “One small step for A man.”

Which works much better with “One giant leap for mankind.”

What is funnier is that the third man on the moon, Pete Conrad, the mission commander of Apollo 12, who was shorter than Mr. Armstrong, said, “That might have been one small step for Neil, BUT WHOOOEEEEE.”

I guess in a way it IS more important that Mr. Armstrong steps were out on to the moon.

And he was the first to do it and that isn’t going to change.

But I came across another Neil Armstrong footnote yesterday that I was not aware of and I read a lot of these ‘early days of NASA’ books.

Yesterday I went in pursuit of the song, Fly Me to the Moon.

The information I came across again and again referred to the the fact that NASA had adopted the tune as a sort of theme song for the entire space program.

I thought that was interesting but not worth mentioning.

Not worth mentioning until I went search for a you tube video of the song.

I said yesterday I found lots and lots of videos of different recordings of Fly Me to the Moon.

One of them was of Jazz Great Diana Krall.

Well gee whiz, a LOT of them were of Jazz Great Diana Krall.

But one had a very odd thumbnail graphic.

I would swear it showed, a piano and Ms. Krall set up … in a church??

I had to click on it and there it was.

At the memorial service for Neil Armstrong, Commander of Apollo 11 and first man to set foot on the moon, Diana Krall performed Fly Me to Moon.

And you know what?

That is just pretty darn cool any way you present it.

Entirely appropriate.

Such a very right thing to do.

So entirely unexpected.

Commander of Apollo 11 and first man to set foot on the moon and Diana Krall performed Fly Me to Moon at your funeral.

That’s a trifecta in any book.

ps – anyone making notes for when the time comes and my ashes are scattered in the out going tide, you can ask Diana Krall to come sing and she can choose the song.