Wilderness House Literary Review Volune 5 number 2

For those of you not otherwise on one of the many mailing lists I broadcast on - Wilderness House Literary Review - Summer 2010 issue is out. I hope you like it.

a blog for Kathleen Spivack

I just finished setting up a blog for Kathleen Spivack at http://kathleenspivack.blogspot.com/
If you know her work check it out.

The Old Man

His tired body falls heavily on the stool. The unlit stub of a cigarette hangs limply from his lips while his eyes stare distantly into a small makeup mirror hinged on a makeup box. An aspirin swallowed with half a shot of fortification to ease the pain of arthritic bones.

He studies the forced smile reflected in the mirror, moving his head back and forth. Outlines in greasepaint aging smile-cracks on reflected image, titanium white, ruby red and lampblack. “Curtain call, 5 minutes.” He takes a deep breath, stands up, stretches, shaking pain from his joints and memory.

At the edge of the curtain he takes his place with the others; to bury, for a time, ego and age. It’s Show time! A thespians pride in performance, a flawless ballet performed for the ten thousandth time. No adjustment necessary, none needed. Applause! He glows. Fulfilled for a brief moment, he retires from the stage after 3, no 4 curtain calls.

Tired, his body falls limply on the stool in front of the small mirror. He stares into the distance and smiles, recalling the applause, the bows and the hurried “good job” from the ring master as he swiftly moved the troupe off stage. He smiles and re-lights the stub of a cigarette. Two heavy puffs, deeply inhaled.

Old tattered terry cloth wipes the night from a skin deeply pored and cracked from a lifetime of greasepaint and sweat. Lukewarm water and rose scented soap, a gift from a Carney girl, clean all but the deepest pores leaving the suggestion of a mask of permanent happiness. Some fortification for the night to come.

Alone now, a small tear runs swiftly down a cheek rejected by traces of a thespians mask. The age of regrets. He shakes it off, closes the mirrored box and walks into the night. Tents to take down, lions, tigers and bears to feed and elephants too and 150 miles to drive before sleep in a shanty built with pride on the back of a pickup truck, home for now.

He pauses before sleep to gaze upon the breath of another sleeping town. Smoke curls from chimneys. Here will be the life he always dreamed of, here will be happiness, here will be one last performance before the mirrored box closes for good. It will be a great performance tomorrow but tonight it’s cold. More fortification for the night to come.

Life in a minor chord

I used to wonder why I wasn’t Jewish, almost everyone in the building was. I asked my mother why we didn’t go to temple and why we didn’t have a menorah in the house and why our neighbors laughed at Santa Clause and why we called Chanukah, Christmas. I thought that maybe we came from a different country where Chanukah was called Christmas. I tried to imagine one word morphing linguistically into the other.

My mother explained that Jesus was a Jew and that in some places they thought he was the son of God and in other places they thought he was a pretty good prophet and in other places they thought he was just an overly reformed Jewish rabbi. All that sounded important so I sat there nodding, it was a lot for a four year old to think about.

Our neighbor was named Sophie. She spoke mostly Yiddish and what English she knew my mother had taught her in our Kitchen. On the Sabbath, Shabbos – which I figured must have come from our word Saturday, or the other way around – Sophie would have me fetch the newspaper and her mail from the doorman and follow her around her apartment following her orders, issued mostly in Yiddish. Working for Sophie was fun, turning on lights, turning off lights, picking this or that up and placing it here or there and even turning the oven on just before I went home for supper. The final thrill of Shabbos was watching the blue flame of the gas stove explode just inches from my nose when I set her teapot on the stove and turned it on. I was her Shabbos goy and a real mensch she said patting me on the head. I took it as a complement and told my mother with pride that I was a mensch because Sophie said so. My mother would laugh and say, “You are indeed my little mensch.” I told the doorman that I was a mensch, he laughed, shook his head and said, “Oy, look at him kvelling so much.”

When I was in High School in a town known for its WASP occupants, it suddenly became fashionable to be “ethnic” and some of my school friends suddenly discovered their Jewish heritage. We formed the Yiddish Club and since I was the only one who could speak any Yiddish I was elected president. “Oy, Got in Himmel,” was the only thing Sammy Silverberg at the cigar store could say when I told him. Sammy’s wife, also named Sophie, rolled her eyes heavenward and gave me another token for the pinball machine.

CHRONOLOGIUM ACADEMICUS

CHRONOLOGIUM ACADEMICUS
By Guy Cutrufo
$65 at www.chronaca.com

Review by Steve Glines

There was something about the Victorians you have to admire. They searched for the source of the Nile River; they built magnificent cast iron, filigreed suspension bridges; they published multi-volume novels and generally established what was meant by the word “Civilized.” If the project was enormous there was some crazy Brit or determined Yankee willing to try it. Although we still build enormous things like the Space Station or the Saturn V moon rocket or Boston’s “Big Dig.” Somehow they just don’t have the same magnificence, the same panache of their Victorian ancestors. Even the Channel Tunnel lacks the touches the Victorians would have embellished it with.

These are silly complaints of course, progress marches on. If projects on the scale of the Suez Canal aren’t done anymore then the progress in microelectronics and communications is just as astounding. Still it’s gratifying to find a humanistic project befitting of the highest Victorian standards. Chronologium Academicus is a project of this scope and perfection.

The Chronologium Academicus is an enormous poster that represents an intellectual timeline on a world wide scale. The Chronologium Academicus is to history and intellectual thought what a World Map is to geography. To quote from its website (www.chronaca.com):

“Just as a world map is a representation of the physical world, Chronologium Academicus is a representation of the academic landscape. Chronologium Academicus provides an overview of the “geographic” differentiations of academic areas, disciplines, and time that bound or computer-based references can not match. It presents the first visualization of the whole of history and academia, which effectively delimits and systematizes the scope, breadth, and parameters of academia.

The layout devised for Chronologium Academicus was of central importance to its development. Vertically, its 14 columns present the history of every major academic discipline from the development of language by Neanderthal man to the present, and it’s bordered by 700 portraits of the greatest contributors to that history. … its horizontal layout: at any point all the way across the columns, each row covers the same years. That feature places the isolated bits of information of every major discipline into the historical and academic context of every other discipline, which facilitates our ability to make linkages between events, individuals, and works that occurred during the same period.”

This is truly a monumental work. The poster itself is an enormous 53.25″ x 73.25″ which means it would take up far more space than anything but a “Jumbotron.” Unless you live in a barn or have an unusually large unused wall this poster is not for the amateur. We temporally mounted the Chronologium Academicus across a large glass sliding door (It still had to be curled up at one end) to get a good look at its breadth of information. We stood staring in awe until the spell was broken by a viewer who said, “I’d hate to have the fact checking job on this.”

A very spotty check of a dozen or so “facts” matched up with Wikipedia. That’s neither an endorsement or a condemnation of the data presented. Given the incredible volume of information presented it would be surprising not to find an error. However we will leave that onerous duty to others. In the mean time it will become a challenge to find a public wall in our little town that is unencumbered enough to do the Chronologium Academicus justice.

G.O.P. Considers a 'Purity' Resolution for Candidates

The Republicans have recently come up with a set of 10 positions that the faithful must take to be considered "pure". I wrote a rebuttal of these in an email to Paul Avella a Littleton Republican and a past and future candidate for State Rep. and a member of the Littleton Rotary Club.

----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Glines
To: Paul Avella
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 5:54:03 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: G.O.P. Considers 'Purity' Resolution for Candidates – The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

So now I know what you stand for. ;)

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/gop-considers-purity-resolution-for-candidates/

----- Reply Message -----

Paul Avella wrote:
And which of the ten do you disagree with?

Cheers,
PJ

----- Reply Message -----

Steve Glines wrote:

PJ - Here are MY thoughts:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

Calling it Obama's bill is a pushing it a bit. Everyone wanted it. If McCain had been elected he would have done exactly the same. Democrat and Republican economists gave exactly the same advice - pure Keynesian economics. Heck even Nixon once said, "We're all Keynesian now."

Obama was very conservative. Real Keynesian theory would have dictated almost $3 trillion in spending (the GDP deficit) but since the Fed created $3 trillion in new money to prop up friends of the Republican party (wall St.) Obama and friends restrained themselves. Besides it would have been hard to spend that much short of creating another war. Bush/Cheaney would have created another war (Pakistan? Korea?) which is one of the reasons why I think Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize.

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

Why not support the 1960's style Blue Cross/ Blue shield system (which worked very well) where each state had only one non-profit monopoly. More to the point I believe that it's the function of government to provide (or at least regulate) those things we can't provide for ourselves. I think government should run (or heavily regulate) our education system, our "Public Works" - water & sewage, our communications systems, our roads, railroads and even the airline industry, our defense (including police) and, yes, our health care system.

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

If global warning is real and CO2 is the problem then how would you propose solving the problem ... within a market economy of course? Cap and trade worked very well with CFC's in a market economy.

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

Absolutely so long as the ballot really is secret and organizers are allowed access to the employees and companies aren't allowed to manufacture artificial, temporary workers.

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

Well, they are here and they aren't going home. Since most of them are working, paying taxes and contributing to society (and we obviously need them as workers) why not acknowledge that fact and give those working to earn the American Dream a way into American Citizenship., After all most of us are immigrants and I'll bet not all of us started out as completely legal immigrants.

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

I may differ from most of my colleges in at least partially agreeing with you. The fact is we're there and we made a mess of Iraq so are honor bound to clean it up. As to Afghanistan I'm inclined to simply nuke it enough to get Bin Laden then declare victory and leave. If the Afghans can't get it together then to heck with them. Al qaeda is the enemy not a bunch of foolish religious nuts that are happy living in 1400. But then I'm not the president … thank god you're thinking.

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

Containment certainly but containment without engagement is a long term loosing proposition. Neither of the nut cases will be around forever and we must be in the position to take advantage of a change in leadership to bring those countries back into the international fold. Obama knows this but I get the impression that most Republicans don't. Bush and Chaney certainly didn't think that far ahead.

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

When I was running for school committee in Belmont a lady asked me what I thought of abortions. My answer was that it was none of my business. As far as I was concerned the abortion issue was a very private matter between a woman, her doctor and her conscience/religion and that since it was none of my business, by extension, it was none of the states business either. I would say the choice of domestic partner falls into the same category.

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion;

Yikes you've got to be kidding, health care is rationed today and not providing a public non-profit option is a death sentence to many. The health care ration available to the indigent, low income and unemployed is limited to the suggestion that they take an aspirin and the advise that they get a job. That's not acceptable. The health care bill working its way through congress is designed to insure that health care is available to all regardless of economic status. There will always be some kind of health care rationing lets just not define it by income.

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

I've always read both clauses as forming a single sentence. If there were two thoughts the use of a coma would have been replaced by a period. As a single thought the first phrase frames the rest:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

In other words each town is allowed to have and manage its own police force (militia) and there is nothing the state or the federal government can say about it. To me that also says that the police (the well regulated militia) as controlled by the local government has the right to regulate all private arms within its jurisdiction. Of course, all citizens are part of the militia by default whether they are armed or not. I suspect most police would not necessarily like my interpretation any more than they like the Republican interpretation which permits a greater chance of being shot at.

Cheers
Steve

Search for the Literary City on the hill

At least it wasn’t the Manhattan of my parents and grandparents’ world, a baron wasteland full of borsch belt comics turned ad men on Madison Ave. or literary dilatants turned journalists at the Times and the New Yorker. New York was a place of debutants and professors. A place where everyone was simply brilliant and everything was swell. Yes Manhattan was like that in the 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s 50’s and even into the 1960’s and I wanted no part of it.

I wanted red meat and New York City was nothing but honey. There was no room in that tight little society for a newcomer, a raw talent in need encouragement. No, the New York City literary society could grind you up and spit you out like so much meat through a sausage grinder.

I went to Boston. The idea was this: Find a town where I was likely to find smart people at roughly the same stage in their career as I was. That meant college students not afraid to scribble without an assignment. I found lots of them. Then they left when their school days were over. What was left were a bunch of shriveled academics that refused to engage in enlightened banter outside of their own hallowed halls. The academic world of Boston was not the literary hub it once was. The preferred attitude is to snub anyone of lesser stature in your own microscopic field and to ignore everyone else. I had better chats with plumbers than with Nobel laureates. I went underground, I had no choice there wasn’t anyone to talk to.

Later I realized that Boston was just a suburb of New York and that anyone seriously into a literary career was already in New York not Boston. Dorothy Parker was dead but someone took her place at the Algonquin even if they no longer talk of poetry and polemics there. In Boston it’s hard to find anyone that knows what polemics means save that old adjunct professor of Rhetoric still hoping to get tenure after all these years. Good luck buddy.

twitter entry

I just twittered:

I have an interview in the Somerville News - See http://tinyurl.com/p556kj