Archive for July, 2007

Johnny in the Bluegrass

Monday, July 30th, 2007

With Norton Center so close at hand, it’s never been unusual around Danville to hear stories of visiting celebrities. Not that long ago, I even got to meet Jamie Farr in the green room, and to personally present him an OHIOANS poster. Eddie Montgomery is a typical presence in the area, and who knows what kind of visitors come and go out at the Rick Dees estate. As far as the entertainment industry is concerned, this community is really not that far off the beaten trail. And that’s why I was intrigued, but not entirely surprised, when I learned that Kim Darby was coming to Danville to star in “A Jarful of Fireflies” at Pioneer Playhouse, as part of the Raintree County 50th Anniversary Festival. I’ve always had ample respect for her talent, but now, based on Jennifer B’s article in the Sunday paper, the word is out that her beau, Johnny Crawford, is hanging around Boyle County these days, and that’s enough to activate the old fascination with my favorite TV stars. You see, I had a lot of Oldenday heroic idols back in the 60s, but there were two young guys a bit older than me that I considered the coolest teens to emulate: Don Grady (Robbie Douglas on My Three Sons) and Johnny Crawford (Mark McCain on The Rifleman). What was not to admire about Johnny Crawford? He could ride, rope, sing, play guitar, and, as an actor, hold his own on the tube next to Chuck Connors! Sure, as he matured, he became a “manufactured” heartthrob, but there was something genuine about him I could relate to, in contrast to a Vic Morrow or a Robert Conrad or a David McCallum. Hey, he was even cooler than Mark Vagedes! I hope he makes some sort of connection this summer that brings him back to town with his big-band dance orchestra for a future performance.

TV Guide with Johnny Crawford and Chuck Connors of “The Rifleman”

Silver lining…

Saturday, July 28th, 2007

Here are follow-up articles in the Courier-Journal.

Positive results often come at too great a cost.

p s – – We’re on our way to the Seitz Reunion.

Various & Sundry, part fifty-eight

Friday, July 27th, 2007

— I just had my first meeting with Maurice the Poet about my wood engraving, and it’s such a privilege to be collaborating with someone of his intense perceptions and literary abilities. Not surprisingly, I’m battling those silly old currents of inadequacy. In a moment of weakness, I told Gray I hadn’t expected to be invited in at this level for my first Larkspur commission. He let out his characteristic laugh and said, “John, there’s only one level around here!”

— Brendan must be very busy getting ready to come back to the States, but he took time to send me a cool link about Haruo Suekichi, the Japanese timepiece artist. If, like me, you’re fascinated by the creative process, the interview is full of insights. You can form your own judgments about his watches. Brendan knew I would agree with him that they’re awesome. These are watches a mad villain from The Wild Wild West would wear with sinister pride while defiantly counting off the final seconds of Jim and Artie’s lives.

— After my presentation last night before the Boyle County Planning and Zoning Commission, I believe there’s significantly better than a 50-50 chance that the authority will adopt stronger language in its Comprehensive Plan Update to acknowledge the future needs of bicyclists and pedestrians. If nothing else, the level of public awareness had been raised another big notch, and our group, B.I.K.E. | Boyle County, received a “thumbs up” from the Advocate-Messenger editorial page today.

— Anyone who knows me, knows my affection for cycling, and appreciates how much time I swipe from other activities to advocate for a more bike-accommodating Kentucky… Well, you have to read this article about a recent tragic loss in Louisville. That’s all I can write about it.

— Discovery’s Contador is now wearing the yellow jersey, leading a dispirited corps of the world’s top cyclists. It may take years for the Tour to recover from the scandalous developments of the past week. The Spaniard says he’s clean, but that’s what they all say, whether they are or not. Tomorrow’s time trial will determine the winner, but Evans and Leipheimer both are now in a position to challenge. Unfortunately, whoever wins will stand at the pinnacle of a tarnished sport. It’s nearly impossible to remain an exuberant fan of pro cycling. On the other hand, ask yourself this: What other professional sport would be willing to undergo such zero-tolerance scrutiny, and, if it were, could emerge any less ruined in the eyes of the spectator public?

17thStage.jpg

V & S

Now we see who has what it takes in 2007…

Friday, July 20th, 2007

Belgium’s Tom Boonen won the 12th leg today, and afterwards he hit the nail on the head. “The Tour’s a horrible race,” he said. “You have to be masochistic to ride in a race like this.”

With tomorrow’s individual time trial and the coming mountain stages, we are likely to see the eventual winner emerge from top contenders to take the yellow jersey and attempt to keep it through the last time trial on July 28th. If he does, he will certainly ride into Paris for the victory.

My prediction? Anything can happen at this point in the premier cycling event, but I’ll pin my hopes on Australia’s Cadel Evans or Levi Leipheimer, now riding for the Discovery Channel team.

12thStage.jpg

Various & Sundry, part fifty-seven

Thursday, July 19th, 2007

Brandon (not Brendan)
— Brandon mentioned me in his CAC Director’s Blog, so I seized my opportunity to yap a bit about Kurt Schwitters. I appreciate the job Brandon is doing here in Downtown Danville and I like him a lot—not because he really does understand collage, but because he’s just cool. Many moons ago, I taught a Saturday art class for children in Willmette called WeakEnds. The center there was managed by someone Joan introduced me to, a young guy named George, who was probably about the same age Brandon is now. I thought George was cool, too.

Where’s the buzz?
— Pretending like I know how to juggle, I do my best to keep as many balls as possible in the air at all times. This means continuing to promote cycling on a local, regional, and state-wide level (painfully aware that it has nothing to do with earning a living). In addition to circulating our KBBC Recommendations for 2007, I made public remarks at a local hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission, as they prepare to adopt an updated Comprehensive Plan. I also followed up with written material to their director. To keep the community in step with emerging trends, and to boost opportunities for grants and development funding, the comp-plan requires stronger language to acknowledge the future needs of bicyclists, walkers, runners, and multi-modal users. I was told that my recommended language to beef up the transportation section has been included in the revised draft. I also used the WordPress site to set up a public forum for local advocates called B.I.K.E. buzz. It’s intended as a space to promote new ideas and stimulate communication within our community of cycling enthusiasts. So far, nobody else has made comments or posted any topics for discussion.

Brendan (not Brandon)
— Although I was a reader of Anacrusis from the beginning, I understood how great an admirer of Brendan’s prose I’d become by the end of December, 2005. Now, as a devoted follower of his remarkable site, I can witness to the progressive improvement that’s taken place over hundreds of constrained exercises. Like a literary bodybuilder, he can flex this or that and make it look too easy—make you forget the 1000+ trips to the weight room. That’s why The Implicit (a long way from The Explicit) is such a huge deal, and why I’m flattered about my small contribution to the celebration. Don’t stop. They say it all turns to flab if you stop…

Speaking of good writers…
— I feel like I’m in the middle of something much bigger than I can fully comprehend. Being asked by Gray to illustrate a Manning poem without realizing who he was or that he’d grown up in Danville. Having his mother stop me on the street and awkwardly admitting to her I hadn’t read the book of verse that won his prize from Yale. Finding myself immersed in his vivid literary visions while knowing that my deadline was looming, the remaining time relentlessly ticking away. But, on the other hand, I know things are going to work out. Engraving wood has never been about labor or struggle. It’s always been about convincing myself to trust in the outcome. Acknowledging to myself that everything I’ve learned about the essence of graphic interpretation will find its own way to fruition when I make that first mark…

V & S

Various & Sundry, part fifty-six

Monday, July 16th, 2007

Tales of the Graybeard Prospector XXII
— The grizzled one prospected for both types of precious ore on the same day. He staked the first claim early in Marion County, searching for evidence of silver in the applied arts. By the end of the day, he was panning for gold at a gallery opening, with at least one promising nugget to his credit with a personal invitation to visit the big city from one of Lexington’s most prominent fine-arts administrators.

“How is it with stains?”
— I stopped by the Motor Mall to match a truck color for Pike Valley Farm. I was walking across the lot with a salesman when I made the mistake of stepping into his blind spot and I was nearly hit by a stream of saliva. He apologized by saying he’d been a catcher in college. The only reply I could think of was, “Well, I suppose that baseball is the last bastion of spitters.”

By hook or by crook, we will.
— Constructive thought is about making connections. Acquisition of information provides little, unless it helps me draw associations, which I have a natural tendency to do, even without sound data. It seems as though bits and pieces of knowledge, plus a variety of external influences, are continually converging in my daily awareness, and I can look at this as random static, coincidence, synchronicity, or divine guidance, but, fundamentally, it’s just the way I think, and I’m used to it. Perhaps that’s why, as a creative person, I find the process of collage so interesting and often develop visual ideas with a montage approach. Perhaps it’s also why I find it difficult sometimes to concentrate. Achieving any type of perceptual breakthrough invariably requires me to severely limit interruptions and drain a pernicious swamp of festering “to-do’s” and internal distractions. I haven’t had a decent creative rhythm lately, but something will shake out soon—I can feel it coming.

All jigged out? For shame!
— It was a full weekend. Marty and I got an early start on Saturday and hauled one load of blacktop to the fill on our way to Richmond. We helped clean out the garage at Fourth Street House and brought back a load of bricks that almost broke Ned’s butt. I nearly broke my own trying to help get that stone bench from the back yard into the bed of Mighty Manfred. Dropped Marty off after we unloaded the bricks at the Town House and headed to Blue Bank. Nothing going on, but I was glad I hung out, because Joan turned me on to Mhing, a conversion of Mah Jong to playing cards. Dadbo became enamored with it when he visited the Thomas cabin, and now I’m hooked, too! Sunday morning brought a nice 34-miler. Dan’s front cable broke, which continued the run of bad luck from Wednesday night, when a young guy went down on the bridge before Sand Knob (near Carpenter’s Creek) and broke his elbow. Most of Sunday afternoon was devoted to our Clan Council meeting, and we took another portrait afterwards (this time I did it right—35mm film in the shade). We moved the stone bench to a temporary spot in the cemetery. Michelle and Godson Nic announced their wedding date in summer 2008, but no “jumpin’ jig” erupted. Jay killed a pair of copperheads with a shovel. Jerusha gave me five “Pirate” Hot Wheels. I committed to completing the rock flue next month, so Marty and I need to reserve a couple days to finish the job together. All-in-all, it was a good Clan weekend. Mombo is gradually doing better, Terie’s new job is going well, J & J are counting down the days until “Bay-bo Hour,” and the Loft-mates have both quit smoking! I’m probably forgetting other news, but it’s time to call it quits.

V & S

After-Silence Rerun

Monday, July 9th, 2007

Milton felt positively enough about my Easter morning words at the cabin to reschedule them for this past Sunday. There were a lot more people there, thanks to his endorsement, including Bruce, Lee, and David. Keeping in mind that some of my talk refers specifically to the “Shared Silence” community, I publish it here in its entirety (full credit to my best buddy Mike for the heart of this essay).
 
 

ON DEXTERITY AND THE WISDOM OF HANDS
(After Silence: 4-8-07 and 7-8-07)

Like many of you, I have retained great friendships from childhood, young adulthood, and middle life. The concept of this talk originates with my best friend from college years, James Michael Menke, a behavioral scientist who earned a doctorate in chiropractic and currently serves on the faculty of the Program for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, where he is at work on a Ph.D. in experimental methodology. Mike is the resident chiropractic authority at AndrewWeil.com and, in addition to his scientific publishing, contributes articles to “Dynamic Chiropractic,” the largest circulation periodical for his profession. I must give due credit to him for many of the facts, observations, and speculations that I include in my words.

* * *

It’s been four and a half years since I offered words after silence, when I reflected on my 50-mile birthday run, an event now overshadowed in memory by an occurrence that took place two days before—a present from Dana, an extraordinary celebration with friends and a retrospective exhibition of my greeting cards. Hundreds of these “miniatures” carried my dexterity of hand through a period of relentless computerization in my chosen field, something I never could have anticipated in my youth, when I fully expected a lifetime of evolving manual craftsmanship as a commercial artist. Although I’ve cut back drastically on my card-making hours, I see it now as an essential bridge activity that has prepared me for an increasing dedication to the fine arts in later life. In short, I accidentally found a way to preserve the traditional hand skills which so many in my profession have lost, having bartered them away for a new fluency with software, mouse, and keyboard.

* * *

Is it progress when we trade our ability to develop our hands for increasingly cerebral preoccupations? For most of our lives, American culture has equated handwork with unskilled work. “Manual” mostly means “menial”—or tasks no one else wants to do—and manual dexterity is associated with dullness. As those who work with their hands know at some level, hands work faster than eyes and minds can follow and quickly gain greater knowledge of objective reality. Phrases like “hands on” or “in touch” have come to mean being more connected with the way things really are, outside our frameworks of mental abstraction. Similarly, I often experience the way in which a captive idea is stuck on a mental spinning wheel until the hand is permitted to liberate it with a thumbnail sketch. Dana has told me it amuses her to see my hand moving unconsciously when she finds me deep in thought. There seems to be a direct link.

According to surgeon Frank R. Wilson, author of “The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture,” a pianist is the summit of human achievement because of his or her ability to direct 400 muscle contractions per second, all in a single, purposeful action to produce music. Dr. Wilson proposes that the evolutionary gift of the human hand over 3 million years ago forced our brains to grow to direct and control this remarkable tool. Language and reasoning were just byproducts of a brain designed for “handedness.”

Neither raccoons, monkeys, nor apes have hands like those of the human. The human hand was made to sense and assess, control and force, and then express, caress, and eventually—to heal. The human hand is the product of anatomy and innervations unique in biological life. Menke believes that the Wilson hypothesis also puts a minor dent in the popular notion of mind-body. American mind-body dualism assumes minds affect bodies, and largely ignores how bodies affect our minds. He thinks it is an ingrained bias we don’t even notice, stemming from an ongoing love affair with the brain as our main source of power and identity. We have bodies simply to lug around and protect our brains, right? He goes on to propose the intriguing possibility that the musculoskeletal system expresses our true identity, and that our glands, organs, and brains see to it we have the requisite stuff needed to accomplish our mission. Perhaps our brains are mere servants of the hands. Could it be our hands make us distinctively human, and not our brains?

Is it possible that Argentina’s piano virtuoso Martha Argerich represents the most recent leap in human evolution? Maybe the arrival of a Yo-Yo Ma advances our species more than a Bill Gates or a Susan Sontag—who can say?

* * *

Consider the progressive prejudice against manual in favor of mental expertise and how Western society has pushed dexterity to the bottom of the totem pole, since the decline of the great European guilds of the Middle Ages, to the point that we have a situation where the work “Americans won’t do,” is potentially leading us to the brink of social crisis. One could make the case it was wrong to advise mamas, “Don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.”

Consider how various health care professions that are more probative and that delve into problems with hand intelligence remain low on the occupational ladder or command less respect among elites. Jerome Dixon is a beloved clinician in his adopted home of Campbellsville, but he is also thought by many of his peers to be one of America’s outstanding hands-on osteopathic practitioners. When people, who already know my brother is a physician, learn that he is a D.O., I can detect the crestfallen look in their eyes. “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Skilled Musculoskeletal Diagnosticians.”

Why is there such a cultural emphasis on working with the head instead of the hand? Working with your hands—sometimes called making an honest living, because you can see and count your accomplishments—is on the decline, even though it is the most difficult American work to outsource. It’s impossible to fight a fire, massage a spasm, wax a floor, cuff a criminal, cleanse an injury, build a road, or fix your commode from a call center in Bombay.

Manual consciousness—the wisdom of hands— is too often dismissed in our head-centric culture. Problems can frequently be found and solved by hands without all the judgmental posturing of the mind. Hands can quickly know what our minds may never grip, manipulate, articulate, or ultimately grasp.

As Yale University researcher Paul Bloom has explained, an adaptive mistake in human development may have given us an inborn comfort with the idea of a consciousness as being separate and separable from bodies. Whereas, Dr. Bloom suggests we have built into our DNA an indifference for the physical body as a temporary vessel, and are predisposed by evolution to believe in the supernatural, since minds and bodies seem to have a separate existence, Menke finds a more basic and immediate interpretation of Bloom’s data—that breaking the body away from the mind only leads us to fragmented views of ourselves and others.

In his book on Harlan Hubbard, Wendell Berry describes how the Kentucky artist and individualist committed himself to “an authentic life in his consciousness.” He writes that Harlan’s genius was in how he gave “the body a significant life in the world,” an existence that was “dignifying and pleasing to itself.” Like his most constant mentor, Thoreau, Harlan Hubbard sought first to live well, and to him, this meant a certain mistrust of mental abstractions removed from the objects of thought and one’s affection for those objects. In Harlan’s own words, “The mind tries to live by the artificial structure of the world, but the body will have none of it, holding to primeval forces. People try to be all mind….this has gone so far that now….the earth itself is but an idea.” Berry concludes that fundamental to Hubbard’s character was his refusal to live by mind alone. In his unwillingness to put his body and his bodily life under the rule of abstract ideas or monetary values, he avoided contemporary man’s tendency to use the world and its goods without love or care, a denial of both the life of the body and of the spirit.

* * *

And so, when I reflect on the particular abilities of my own body, it is with humility that I must appreciate each one’s distinctive integration of dedicated practice, mindful habit, and genetic heritage. This is painfully obvious when I presume my hand dexterity might cross over or be successfully interchanged. In other words, don’t let me transplant a seedling, touch a leaky pipe, or pick up a musical instrument. What of the untold wealth of dexterity that may exist within the group of unique individuals who frequent this cabin? What can I ever know of it? What do I know of the personal dexterity of Karen, Mary Ann, Leslie, or Sara Jane? What products of accomplished hands lie beyond my limited awareness?

Nevertheless, I won’t forget my sense of admiration when I first saw Lester run his fingers over a selected piece of lumber. How many times have I marveled as Ernst leaves the saddle to apply his deft touch to a shifter assembly, correcting a malfunction within seconds? What of the other familiar pairs of hands I know only when they hold a cup of hot coffee in the chilly air on a Sunday morning, never having witnessed their most articulate performances? What of Jim’s nuanced grip of the reins, Elizabeth’s green thumb, Dan’s expert trigger squeeze, or Victoria’s compassionate caress? What will I ever know of these? If I haven’t understood the hands, how can I hope to ever know the real person?

Having said that, I believe I can state without fear of contradiction that the most awe-inspiring pair of hands among us is forever gone from our physical circle. They belonged to someone I think of when I read what Harlan Hubbard wrote in 1932:

“There is but one great man. That is he who makes a masterpiece of his life. No accomplishment can offset bad living.’’

When in my friend’s presence, I failed to fully regard either of those immensely capable hands, preferring instead his characteristic twinkle of eye. Who else among our circle could demonstrate to his extent the genius of handedness—to execute a graceful brush stroke, to throw a well-proportioned pot, to compose in limestone with incomparable decisiveness, to improvise jazz melodies by intuitive fingering, or to repair the living tissue of a damaged joint? Even now, the thought of it nearly takes my breath away. These were not hands in mere service to the intellect, but a mind and heart in service to the world—properly and definitively through his magnificent hands.

How grateful am I for the good fortune to have encountered those hands, and the rich depth of human character they shaped in order to empower their creative potential! His world will continue to possess their diverse manifestations—animate and inanimate, evidence of the spirit they energized—long after the hands have left us for a place filled with new activities for the hands of a soul—the unimaginable creative pursuits of Life Everlasting.

“May your Mission: be Possible”

Saturday, July 7th, 2007

Three weeks ago, Peter Lupus planned to break his own world records for weight lifting. The event was planned for his 75th birthday, and so far I haven’t been able to dig up any news. This concerns me more than you might realize, because Peter is one of the coolest Americans alive, and, as many of you know, I’ve carried well into middle life the “hero worship” I began for him at age 14.

Best known for his successful run on the original “Mission: Impossible” series, Lupus holds the world record for oldest person to bench-press over 300 pounds, which I think he first established at age 65 and then broke at 70. He has a record for lifting a total of 76,280 pounds in 27 minutes, which he also set at age 70. He planned on breaking both records again on June 17th.

One of the great spokesmen for natural fitness in the past half century, he’s still married to his wife Sharon, who he met in the 1950s before he became a television star. Actually, I really don’t care if he was able to attempt the weight-lifting feat. I just want to know “Willy” is doing fine and is able to continue his long performance as an impressive role model for natural aging and a dynamic later life.

peterlupusiscool.jpg

“I want everyone to get fit and stay healthy. The second half of your life starts at 50. Will you be prepared to have the best time of your life like I’m having?”
— Peter Lupus

Cabin Porch Musings

Friday, July 6th, 2007

The rain everyone has been yearning for,
Hours of steady, windless, perfect precipitation—
A cistern-replenishing pattern of sound above,
While gravity drums the pond surface
with its soft patter of life-giving noise,
As audible nourishment strikes every leaf,
And the random “glug” of a frog the only other
Sonic
Element.

The pleasurable glow of yesterday among friends,
Celebrating Uncle Sam’s 231st birthday
With a salmon meal of grilled Lake Huron steaks
And the delayed flash of digital device,
Capturing our toast from the guest-room doorway—
Vessels with an Australian vintner’s liquid harvest
Suspended above hot bread and a splash of
Salad
Endowment.

An interlude of relaxation at the range—
The Enfield’s .303 British cartridges alternate
With Martini brass impressive to my eye,
To satisfy a double rifle’s twin digestive tracts,
And short-clip video to simulate an extra dose
Of firing-line pressure, like the buzz of competition,
Or a sub-continental feline’s unexpected flash of
Savage
Explosion.

The odors of black powder haze and gun oil,
With a mild numbness of eardrum
To match the right shoulder’s dull ache,
Linger in a montage of memories punctuated
By the solid “plinks” of steel swingers,
And, from a hundred yards away,
The precise punch of bullseye, surprising me with
Sudden
Effusion.

Ten “Favorite Books”

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

When Cheryl Truman of the Lexington Herald-Leader published her ten all-time favorite books and invited readers to submit their lists, it got me contemplating my bookshelf. It makes for tough culling, like picking your favorite foods or motion pictures, but it was an interesting activity for me, and—surprise—she included my choices in the ARTS & LIFE section on June 24th. (The lists were originally available at Kentucky.com for a time, but now one has to pay to see the archives.)

Unfortunately, there always seems to be a sour note in these things, and somebody took it upon himself to cite the wrong translation of the I Ching. It may not seem like a big deal, but I’ve never heard of Brian Browne Walker, and I’m not at all convinced his name deserves to appear in this context. I made plain to Ms Truman that the Wilhelm-Baynes translation is my preference. I’ve never seen another to compare, and it’s a big deal to me, because there have been far too many mediocre, commercially oriented versions of this classic of Chinese thought. Thank Goodness we have English as our native tongue, so we don’t have to face sorting out the various translations of Shakespeare or Emerson. Think about it. That’s why correctly making the Wilhelm-Baynes distinction is a BIG deal. You might ask yourself, is Shakespeare worth reading, except in English? Well, sure—that would be like saying one must learn Greek to read The Odyssey. One doesn’t, of course, because there was a Robert Fitzgerald. That’s why getting the Wilhelm-Baynes thing right is a FREAKIN’ HUGE deal!

SixWriters.jpg

The Creative Habit
Twyla Tharp’s thoughtful guide to artistic traction is the most practical book on creativity that I’ve yet encountered. The acclaimed choreographer reaches beyond her own craft to provide powerful keys to any dedicated artist.

Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work
Wendell Berry’s biography of the legendary individualist reveals much about himself, and therefore it offers penetrating insights for two of Kentucky’s most extraordinary artistic pioneers. This “double treasure” has made it one of my favorite companions for contemplative moments.

Stand Before Your God
Although Paul Watkins is clearly one of the most gifted novelists of his generation, my favorite among his books is this memoir about coming of age in English boarding schools, a pearl of introspection in today’s miasma of literary narcissism.

Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber
I’ll admit that, for various reasons, I’ve wept at the end of other books, but relinquishing my connection to David Gelernter’s mind and heart was an intense, unprecedented experience.

Shogun
I understood more about Islam after reading Whirlwind than from any nonfiction book, but his skill as a storyteller is what continues to set James Clavell apart for me. His “Asian Saga” is the benchmark achievement by which any series of historical novels can be compared, and this massive narrative of 17th-century Japan is his masterpiece.

Huckleberry Finn
The legacy of controversy shrivels when laid against its core of creative genius. I remain astonished each time I realize that no American had ever written fiction so modern. But even if someone had, I think Mark Twain’s towering novel would still have the power to stagger my imagination.

Invisible Man
More than a riveting story and keen take on American society, I think Ralph Ellison’s masterwork is perhaps the most prophetic piece of fiction in the past sixty years.

The Conduct of Life
For any American, this collection of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson is a rich vein of intellectual ore that’s impossible to exhaust.

I Ching or Book of Changes
Who can deny 3,000 years of Chinese wisdom? It may well be the most profound distillation of human perception that exists. The Wilhelm-Baynes translation is my favorite, and its foreword by Carl Jung is the best essay about the Book of Changes I’ve ever read.

The Holy Bible
Beyond any doubt, it enshrines the greatest and most meaningful stories in world literature.

• • • • • •

March 6, 2017 — I am adding q note today after reading this page again. It would be difficult to take Shogun out of my top ten, but I no longer would cite James Clavell as the gold standard for historical fiction. Patrick O’Brian has recently eclipse his status in my regard, and that is saying a lot.

Various & Sundry, part fifty-five

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

— Month of June workout totals: Swim-0; Bike-11; Run-0; Lift-0; Yoga-0

— Easy to see that cycling is providing my only form of exercise these days, and I need to figure out what it will take to jump start my typical cross-training. In any case, I find myself thinking all the time about when I’ll saddle up for my next ride. In this part of the country, the lack of rain is creating a serious condition, but it’s made for some superb cycling weather this season, and I’m digging it. Speaking of digging, Marty and I removed another big section of old driveway at the Town House today and hauled it off in rusty Ned. I’m worn out, because six of us local cyclists went to Frankfort yesterday for the second annual Share the Road Ride and Rally. We completed a 53-mile loop through Woodford County, and the roads going in and out of Midway are the most scenic I’ve ever enjoyed on a bicycle. Talk about the heart of the Bluegrass! Just being there gave me the second wind I needed to log my new maximum single-ride mileage for the year (I’m ready for a 60-miler now). We arrived back at the Old Capitol in time for the noon rally. As the only Bike Commissioner there in riding attire, someone suggested I stand in front of a TV camera and say something. It was incoherent enough that I hope they never use it. As many know, I’m more of a rambler than a sound-bite guy when it comes to talking about “all things bicycle.”

— After a busy second quarter (with my solo exhibition, but on many levels), I’ve been looking forward to a “time out” over the next week or so. I need to be unavailable enough to get some things done that have been on the back-burner for way too long, such as finishing the reorganization of the conference room and popping the bonnet on my Mac G4 for a vital overhaul. This kind of a thing always sounds like a good idea until the target date is here. In my experience, clients are much better at taking a break than permitting us to do the same. We’ve wanted for some time to become “indispensable” again, so it will behoove us to stay accessible, but there are things I just have to do to prepare for when we are truly swamped again, and it’s only a matter of time. The Liberty/Casey account is picking up steam, the floodgate could open at any time with the new automotive client, and things are going well with the organic farm. The owners met with Whole Foods last week and picked up more orders for their organic meats, which triggers a need for new packaging graphics. The pendulum is swinging back for Dixon Design, and I must prepare our physical and virtual environment to cope with a heavier flow of business.

— Decades before the blogging culture became a fact of life, E. B. White wrote an introduction to a volume of his selected essays. For anyone who justifies writing words in a public log, his thoughts about the essayist are valuable reading. Most of us who carry on like this have no idea what we’re doing. White, by contrast, had no illusions about the nature of the format he mastered, and nearly all of us who excessively talk about ourselves in thousands of blogs (millions?) would benefit by taking his words to heart and by applying them to our peculiar practice.

The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest… Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays… The essayist arises in the morning and, if he has work to do, selects his garb from an unusually extensive wardrobe: he can pull on any sort of shirt, be any sort of person, according to his mood or his subject matter—philosopher, scold, jester, raconteur, confidant, pundit, devil’s advocate, enthusiast… leave the essayist to ramble about, content with living a free life and enjoying the satisfactions of a somewhat undisciplined existence. (Dr. Johnson called the essay “an irregular, undigested piece”; this happy practitioner has no wish to quarrel with the good doctor’s characterization.) There is one thing the essayist cannot do, though—he cannot indulge himself in deceit or in concealment, for he will be found out in no time… the essayist’s escape from discipline is only a partial escape: the essay, although a relaxed form, imposes its own disciplines, raises its own problems, and these disciplines and problems soon become apparent and (we all hope) act as deterrent to anyone wielding a pen merely because he entertains random thoughts or is in a happy or wandering mood.

— Jennifer B has a squirrel in her knickers about an insignificant reunion of entertainers. Well, there’s only one significant reunion that could get me excited, because I’m old enough to remember the Original Spice Girl

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V & S