The other morning, as I often do, I got up early. It was getting close to 5 a.m. and, at my latitude, dawn wasn't far away. But it still was dark in my backyard, at least until my motion-sensitive light flashed on. I walked to my kitchen window. Outside was a doe, scorning grass, munching lilac leaves as though they were the finest caviar, the most exquisite pheasant-under-glass, the best cheeseburger, the world had ever known.
Then, suddenly, the deer quit eating. She looked out into the night, ears alert, then walked toward my fence, took a little run, and hopped it. She disappeared into the dark.
I was reminded of a day or two earlier, when another doe - the same one? - wandered into my front yard in daylight and fed on an overgrown bush beside my front door. Thin branches swayed as she grabbed spring-time leaves. Off to the south, two doors down, another deer fed on grass in another front yard.
My deer, stomach apparently full, glanced at her friend down the street and apparently made a decision. She took off across the road (repeatedly looking both ways) and vanished behind a neighbor's house.
Somehow, I'm beginning to think that deer don't visit my place because of my winning personality.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
When to say no
Late today a rather obvious thought occurred to me: In English, it is "yes;" in Spanish, it is "si." So why in English is it "no," and in Spanish it also is "no?" I mean, English is a Germanic language. Spanish is a romance language. What the hey?
My first though had to do with "n" words. (No, not that one.) After all, "no" in Russian is "nyet." In German it is something like "nein." In French (I think) (at least sometimes) it is "non." I know absolutely no other languages - like how they say "no" in Portuguese or Italian - hell, I don't know any other languages, period - but I grabbed a dictionary and learned that in both Latin and Greek, "no" seems to come from one or another pronunciation of "ne."
Which doesn't help much - except that some root from Proto-Indo-European starting with "n" must be involved - but it reminded me how languages change, often when they brush up against another language. Which in turn reminded me about a book I've just read called "Maid as Muse: How Servants Changed Emily Dickinson's Life and Language."
For the last nearly 20 years of her life, Emily Dickinson's maid was an immigrant Irish lass named Maggie Maher, and before that there were other Irish servants. Emily may have cloistered herself from much of New England society, and she may have been filled with the New England prejudices against the immigrants that were so much a part of her time, but it was the Irish immigrants' speech she continued to hear as she baked bread and made cakes in her kitchen alongside Maggie. And the sounds of Maggie's language spoke to her. Her "slant" rhymes may well have rhymed perfectly - in an English-as-second-language Irish dialect. Better than anyone in her century, Emily had an ear.
She didn't care what about seemed proper to her fellow New England types. She cared what spoke.
And it turns out that Maggie had guts. The author of "Maid as Muse," Aife Murray, is convinced that both the maid, Maggie, and Emily's sister, Vinnie, had been asked by the poet to burn all her papers upon her death. Vinnie, who had the letters written to Emily by her friends, did so. Maggie, who had kept the poems in her trunk for so many years, did not. She knew better. She had to say no.
In whatever language, I think I love her,
My first though had to do with "n" words. (No, not that one.) After all, "no" in Russian is "nyet." In German it is something like "nein." In French (I think) (at least sometimes) it is "non." I know absolutely no other languages - like how they say "no" in Portuguese or Italian - hell, I don't know any other languages, period - but I grabbed a dictionary and learned that in both Latin and Greek, "no" seems to come from one or another pronunciation of "ne."
Which doesn't help much - except that some root from Proto-Indo-European starting with "n" must be involved - but it reminded me how languages change, often when they brush up against another language. Which in turn reminded me about a book I've just read called "Maid as Muse: How Servants Changed Emily Dickinson's Life and Language."
For the last nearly 20 years of her life, Emily Dickinson's maid was an immigrant Irish lass named Maggie Maher, and before that there were other Irish servants. Emily may have cloistered herself from much of New England society, and she may have been filled with the New England prejudices against the immigrants that were so much a part of her time, but it was the Irish immigrants' speech she continued to hear as she baked bread and made cakes in her kitchen alongside Maggie. And the sounds of Maggie's language spoke to her. Her "slant" rhymes may well have rhymed perfectly - in an English-as-second-language Irish dialect. Better than anyone in her century, Emily had an ear.
She didn't care what about seemed proper to her fellow New England types. She cared what spoke.
And it turns out that Maggie had guts. The author of "Maid as Muse," Aife Murray, is convinced that both the maid, Maggie, and Emily's sister, Vinnie, had been asked by the poet to burn all her papers upon her death. Vinnie, who had the letters written to Emily by her friends, did so. Maggie, who had kept the poems in her trunk for so many years, did not. She knew better. She had to say no.
In whatever language, I think I love her,
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Peculiar, peppery men
Columnists, as William Safire once observed, like to write in circles. They like to start with one topic, raise another, and then bring them together into a whole.
That, frankly, is more easily said than done. But I do something similar, in my head, with things like poetry and music lyrics, which are the same thing. For instance, there is the Simon and Garfunkel song "A Most Peculiar Man." It's about a loner who committed suicide with gas.
"And all the people said, 'What a shame
that he's dead,
But wasn't he a most peculiar man?' "
Somehow, that lyric popped into my head as I was listening to lines sung by Natalie Merchant (in her new double album "Leave Your Sleep") and written as silly poetry called "The Peppery Man" by the American poet Arthur Macy (1842-1904). In part:
"His ugly temper was so sour
He often scolded for an hour;
He gnashed his teeth and stormed and scowled,
He snapped and snarled and yelled and howled."
Parts clanged together in my brain like 19th Century industrial cogs. What did a lonely suicide and a noisy crank have in common but an inability to get along and prosper in a modern world, be it 1965 in Paul Simon's world or Macy's world sometime in the late 19th Century? Their problems mesh, somehow, in a way that certainly hasn't gone away. When, as the world keeps changing, will we ever have a shortage of peculiar, peppery men?
That, frankly, is more easily said than done. But I do something similar, in my head, with things like poetry and music lyrics, which are the same thing. For instance, there is the Simon and Garfunkel song "A Most Peculiar Man." It's about a loner who committed suicide with gas.
"And all the people said, 'What a shame
that he's dead,
But wasn't he a most peculiar man?' "
Somehow, that lyric popped into my head as I was listening to lines sung by Natalie Merchant (in her new double album "Leave Your Sleep") and written as silly poetry called "The Peppery Man" by the American poet Arthur Macy (1842-1904). In part:
"His ugly temper was so sour
He often scolded for an hour;
He gnashed his teeth and stormed and scowled,
He snapped and snarled and yelled and howled."
Parts clanged together in my brain like 19th Century industrial cogs. What did a lonely suicide and a noisy crank have in common but an inability to get along and prosper in a modern world, be it 1965 in Paul Simon's world or Macy's world sometime in the late 19th Century? Their problems mesh, somehow, in a way that certainly hasn't gone away. When, as the world keeps changing, will we ever have a shortage of peculiar, peppery men?
Monday, June 7, 2010
Global dumbness
I recently read some objections to the concept of human-caused global warming that were too empty-headed to bear repeating, but that got me thinking. How to get through?
The first thing is to say, yes, the geological history of the Earth is filled with great temperature fluctuations. Far greater than anything being experienced now. Huge cooling came from gigantic volcanoes or hits from sizable asteroids that darkened the skies, causing ice ages, and warming came from a lack of such things, coupled with earthly orbit wobbles and variations in solar output. But all that misses the point.
The point is that every civilization on this planet arose well after the last ice age. Changes in climate prior to that time simply aren't part of the argument. (To be sure, early man was affected by the last ice age. And surely hunter-gatherer clans retreating from a colder north had conflicts with those to the south. Many must have died. But there was no global civilization to fall apart.)
Now, of course, there is. And we haven't had any giant volcanoes, huge asteroid hits, (or nuclear wars), to cool things, nor any reasons to think that orbit wobbles or solar variations are to blame for any warming. It is happening way too quickly.
Instead, the obvious culprit is none other than human-caused changes to the make-up of the atmosphere. It's a no-brainer.
Some 25 years ago or more, when the concept of global warming was being born, I was asked by my editor to write a story about how warming would effect our country. Of course I knew the assignment was stupid. Nobody knew, the variables were endless, etc. But back then there wasn't even a Google to turn to. I went to the library, found a book with a bunch of wavy lines across the country denoting equal temperatures in a given season, boosted them by a few degrees, and wrote a story. (Hey, you have to choose your battles.)
Now, a quarter-century later, we know that by the time our grandkids or great grandkids are around, huge spaces now occupied by people are likely to be either deserts or under water, causing gigantic migrations of a billion or more people. Conflicts, anyone?
Sorry, kids, but we felt we had to listen to Rush Limbaugh.
The first thing is to say, yes, the geological history of the Earth is filled with great temperature fluctuations. Far greater than anything being experienced now. Huge cooling came from gigantic volcanoes or hits from sizable asteroids that darkened the skies, causing ice ages, and warming came from a lack of such things, coupled with earthly orbit wobbles and variations in solar output. But all that misses the point.
The point is that every civilization on this planet arose well after the last ice age. Changes in climate prior to that time simply aren't part of the argument. (To be sure, early man was affected by the last ice age. And surely hunter-gatherer clans retreating from a colder north had conflicts with those to the south. Many must have died. But there was no global civilization to fall apart.)
Now, of course, there is. And we haven't had any giant volcanoes, huge asteroid hits, (or nuclear wars), to cool things, nor any reasons to think that orbit wobbles or solar variations are to blame for any warming. It is happening way too quickly.
Instead, the obvious culprit is none other than human-caused changes to the make-up of the atmosphere. It's a no-brainer.
Some 25 years ago or more, when the concept of global warming was being born, I was asked by my editor to write a story about how warming would effect our country. Of course I knew the assignment was stupid. Nobody knew, the variables were endless, etc. But back then there wasn't even a Google to turn to. I went to the library, found a book with a bunch of wavy lines across the country denoting equal temperatures in a given season, boosted them by a few degrees, and wrote a story. (Hey, you have to choose your battles.)
Now, a quarter-century later, we know that by the time our grandkids or great grandkids are around, huge spaces now occupied by people are likely to be either deserts or under water, causing gigantic migrations of a billion or more people. Conflicts, anyone?
Sorry, kids, but we felt we had to listen to Rush Limbaugh.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Learning from silliness
There's something to be learned about writing well - not from clever use of political talking points, or perfectly grammatical and logically pristine paragraphs (semicolons and colons all used to perfection), or the capture and squeezing of nuances and figures of speech until they squeal - but in pure sound.
Once again I call on a poem found by Natalie Merchant, this one by a British writer named Marvyn Peake (1911-1968). He called it "It Makes a Change":
There's nothing makes a Greenland whale
Feel half so high and mighty
As sitting on a mantelpiece
In Aunty Mabel's nighty.
It makes a change from Freezing Seas,
(Of which a whale can tire),
To warm his weary tail at ease
Before an English fire.
For this delight he leaves the seas
(Unknown to Aunty Mabel),
Returning only when the dawn
Lights up the Breakfast Table.
Of course the poem is silly. A whale dropping by to perch on a mantel to enjoy the fire's warmth (and a nighty), then disappearing near dawn? But you can see little children grinning as they listen. Grinning at the silliness, sure. But grinning, more deeply, at the sounds. As so are we.
Once again I call on a poem found by Natalie Merchant, this one by a British writer named Marvyn Peake (1911-1968). He called it "It Makes a Change":
There's nothing makes a Greenland whale
Feel half so high and mighty
As sitting on a mantelpiece
In Aunty Mabel's nighty.
It makes a change from Freezing Seas,
(Of which a whale can tire),
To warm his weary tail at ease
Before an English fire.
For this delight he leaves the seas
(Unknown to Aunty Mabel),
Returning only when the dawn
Lights up the Breakfast Table.
Of course the poem is silly. A whale dropping by to perch on a mantel to enjoy the fire's warmth (and a nighty), then disappearing near dawn? But you can see little children grinning as they listen. Grinning at the silliness, sure. But grinning, more deeply, at the sounds. As so are we.
Friday, June 4, 2010
I hate it when I poke my eye with this pencil
Like many of us, I've been watching this spring's internal GOP primary battles between moderate Republicans and the nut-case right. Surely many on the left are hoping for the far right to take over the party, but that's something I'd hate to have happen. I see little good coming from the end of the relatively balanced two-party system that has evolved in this country.
Spurring this worry today was the amusing painted cover of this week's "New Yorker" magazine. On it, in a congressional committee room, oil-covered fish, a dolphin, and several species of water birds sit behind the curve of congressional desks. In front of them, holding up his right hand to take the oath, is an older man wearing a gray suit, hair white except for a circle of baldness on the back of his head. No caption is necessary. We know who this man is. We can hear the dolphin, the oil-spattered "congressman" with its mouth open, asking: "Drill, baby, drill?"
Meanwhile, from this week's "Newsweek," comes the news that investigative reporter Joe McGinniss has moved in next to Sarah Palin in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who got where he is by freaking out about Big Government, screams that Big Government isn't saving his shorelines.
In my state of Montana, Republicans of different stripes have taken out their knives against each other. From knives, I fear, it isn't very far from tatters.
Back in my youth, the radical left really, really damaged the Democratic Party. I hate to say it, but welcome to a similar but opposite story in 2010.
Spurring this worry today was the amusing painted cover of this week's "New Yorker" magazine. On it, in a congressional committee room, oil-covered fish, a dolphin, and several species of water birds sit behind the curve of congressional desks. In front of them, holding up his right hand to take the oath, is an older man wearing a gray suit, hair white except for a circle of baldness on the back of his head. No caption is necessary. We know who this man is. We can hear the dolphin, the oil-spattered "congressman" with its mouth open, asking: "Drill, baby, drill?"
Meanwhile, from this week's "Newsweek," comes the news that investigative reporter Joe McGinniss has moved in next to Sarah Palin in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who got where he is by freaking out about Big Government, screams that Big Government isn't saving his shorelines.
In my state of Montana, Republicans of different stripes have taken out their knives against each other. From knives, I fear, it isn't very far from tatters.
Back in my youth, the radical left really, really damaged the Democratic Party. I hate to say it, but welcome to a similar but opposite story in 2010.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Little girl on the beach
When was young, I fell in love with the poetry of e.e. cummings (1894-1962). The dude didn't use capital letters, which I thought was delightfully bohemian. And irony dripped off his words. In an ironic lower-case sort of way.
I hadn't read him for years, and then I bought a double album by Natalie Merchant, who over five years wrote music for old pieces of poetry designed to ignite the imagination of children. The album, "Leave Your Sleep," is really cool. And here - something I'd never seen before - is the e.e. cummings poem she chose:
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea.
What a cool, insightful look at little gals discovering themselves in the incoming waves.
But Merchant dug deeper, discovering that e.e. cummings fathered a daughter, Nancy, born in 1919, that he never properly acknowledged. The woman didn't realized who her father was until she was a mother who was nearly 30. Father and daughter had a few strained meetings thereafter - at one point the poet asked her, "Did anyone anyone ever tell you I was your father?" - and he always forbade her to call him "father" instead of his middle name, "Estlin."
So which was Nancy ... Maggie or Milly, Molly or May? I imagine watching a little girl on the beach, and I think she was them all.
I hadn't read him for years, and then I bought a double album by Natalie Merchant, who over five years wrote music for old pieces of poetry designed to ignite the imagination of children. The album, "Leave Your Sleep," is really cool. And here - something I'd never seen before - is the e.e. cummings poem she chose:
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea.
What a cool, insightful look at little gals discovering themselves in the incoming waves.
But Merchant dug deeper, discovering that e.e. cummings fathered a daughter, Nancy, born in 1919, that he never properly acknowledged. The woman didn't realized who her father was until she was a mother who was nearly 30. Father and daughter had a few strained meetings thereafter - at one point the poet asked her, "Did anyone anyone ever tell you I was your father?" - and he always forbade her to call him "father" instead of his middle name, "Estlin."
So which was Nancy ... Maggie or Milly, Molly or May? I imagine watching a little girl on the beach, and I think she was them all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
