Celestial Harmony
‘Great conjunction’ Saturn and Jupiter December 21
Closest alignment of largest planets in our solar system since 1623
October Haiku
This odd, even year
Date: 10102020
Delight in balance
by Ruth Ann Howden
Mixed Media on Paper
I’ve spent a lot of time this fall with Federico Fellini and Emily Dickinson. They have a lot to say about the mystery and absurdity of life.
Voice of the Moon, Fellini's last film from 1990, ends saying if we'd all be a bit more quiet we might hear something.
My feeling is that writing is a form of listening. I write (listen) every day, but have very little to say. What I want to do is share some thoughts gleaned from my reading this year:
Charles Mackey, The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
“ Don’t measure how valuable you are by the way you are treated.”
I’ve wondered about the value of my art/life and am aware that a mass produced car (vintage or new) is more valuable than all the art I’ve ever produced.
But then one of my favorite New Yorker writers, Adam Gopnik, sees a kind of lesson in Van Gogh's fate. "It is the moral luck of making something that no one wants in the belief that someone someday will. It is a long shot in a society of sure things. But this moral luck of van Gogh remains at odds with our own liberal civilization that always, and usually intelligently, prefers compromise to courage."
Line from Fellini film “It is only curiosity that makes me get up in the morning.“
So I also get up and look for answers, which lead to more and more questions, and leads to delight in the mystery of it all. Remember to beware of answers you can’t question!
American philosopher Eric Hoffer, “Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.” It is a good reminder that propaganda often is more personal than we realize, and it might be one of the reasons it is so hard to recognize for many. (From Hyperallergic, online arts newsletter)
And then there is the wisdom of Marilynne Robinson in What Are We Doing Here, 2018,
“Early American historiography is for the most part a toxic compound of cynicism and cliche, so false that it falsifies by implication the history of the western world. To create a history answerable to the truth would be a gift of clarity, sanity, and purpose. The great freedom of conscience would be its liberation from our own cynicism, conventionalism, and narrowness of vision.”
And of course, James Baldwin, reminds us that the United States continues to be in chaos as long as it won’t face the truth of our past. He is certainly still relevant today, Black Lives Matter. Look up the Resistance Revival Chorus on YouTube – – they are inspiring. I love Ella’s Song, and they cover Woody Guthrie.
Getting back to Emily Dickinson, I highly recommend A Loaded Gun, Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century by Jerome Charyn, published 2016, an excellent book on her life and poetry. I chose to read it because it has the same title as a wonderful film made in 2002, Loaded Gun: Life Death and Dickinson, by Jim Wolpaw and Steve Gentile. A trailer can be viewed at:
These lines are by Emily Dickinson
“The brain is wider than the sky“… “The brain is deeper than the sea. ..The brain is just the weight of God,/ For, lift them, pound for pound,/and they will differ, if they do,/as syllable from sound.”
A few more (unusual) book notes:
Activist Odyssey by Silvia Hart Wright
2020 publication by Eugene Oregon author. After reading I went to put a review on Amazon but was rejected because I have not spent at least $50 on Amazon this year. I don’t intend to either. My books come from the library, friends, and Powell’s Books in Portland Oregon.
The Elements of Style by Strunk, White, illustrated by Maira Kalyan, forward by Roger Angel ( E.B. Whites stepson). A delight, a gem, puts all how-to-write books to shame.
The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley
2018 — novel based on Beowulf - contemporary telling
Old In Art School by Nell Painter
2018 — history professor and author always wanted to paint; does so when retired. I was curious about her academic work and next read her textbook The History of White People
The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnakova
2020 — starting with question of how much is luck and how much is skill, evolved into the depth of self knowledge and analysis of decision making
I started the year with An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo, Poet Laureate of USA (member of Muskogee Creek Nation, and she plays saxophone too) — imaginative truth teller, musical and compelling, must read again and again! Here is a taste of her work:
“These lands aren’t our lands. These lands aren’t your lands. We are this land.”
Song 6.
Let ‘Em Eat Grass
What we speak always returns
With a spike of barbs
Or the sweet taste of berries in summer
And the last book I completed was Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Schapiro
2020 — analysis of Shakespeare Plays in America as a reflection of the culture wars going on.
Scholarly yet easy to read/follow; the importance of the play topics are relevant and cause intense partisan and political implications. Subtitle: what his plays tell us about our past and future.
