progress 1

A dull but productive day. Did laundry.
Beau helped with the sorting.

Patches folded.

And Halloween could tell I was up to something, so he gave me "that look" and disappeared before I could suggest that he pitch in.

And I made good progress on the next quadrant of the "shoveling out the big room" project, but not enough
to brandish photos. Maybe tomorrow.

pop quiz.1

Ether buddy Katie Jane has posted a lovely photo of her home town in snow -- and the weather prognosticators here are saying we'll wake up tomorrow with snow on our ground as well . . . which, of course, got me thinking about the persistent "Eskimo words for snow" boondoggle . . . which always makes me think: I don't know why it's so remarkable to have different words for different things. Isn't it more interesting that, in American English, the eensy word "run" has more than 100 independent meanings -- and somehow we're never confused? The same word for more than 100 ideas. I think that's remarkable -- yet no one remarks on it. How come?

[image from amazon]

all together now: waes hael!

I was reading one of my favorites blogs, for the garden at the Cloisters, where they discussed making their decorations
for the Christmas season and said that they used songs, carols, and "wassails" as reference for which plants would be in keeping with the Medieval focus of the museum. That got me wondering -- what is "wassail" anyway and what does it mean to "go a-wassailing"?

Over at Wikipedia (I know, but it's so darn convenient) I learned that there are two kinds of wassailing. One is a solicitation of charity which can be benign (serfs reminding the lord of his christian duty to provide alms) or more like the kind of hardcore treat-or-treating that merges with vandalism (feed me or I'll trash your house, tra-la).

The other wassail is a ceremony of sorts that involves serenading apple trees -- yes, you heard that correctly -- serenading apple trees to drive out bad spirits and encourage a good crop. And having the Wassail Queen decorate the trees with cider-soaked toast for the robins "who represent the good spirits of the tree." And banging on pots and pans, and -- oh, yes -- the drinking of cider until the whole crowd is "merry and gay." This formal portion of the ritual ends with a bang: either a single rifle shot or a volley of rifle fire depending on which article you read. Then the cheer-full gaggle moves on to the next orchard. Rest, rinse, repeat. Clearly these folks in the cider-producing West Country of England are people who know how to mix business with pleasure. Except for the rifle part, I could really get into this.

So, this holiday season, remember to bid your neighbors waes hael (good health), feed the birds, and sing to the trees. It's traditional.

Old Apple tree, old apple tree;
We've come to wassail thee;
To bear and to bow apples enow;
Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full;
Barn floors full and a little heap under the stairs.

[images from the Cloisters "The Medieval Garden Enclosed" blog and Wikipedia: apple]

too short

As in "life is too short to spend time reading bad books." Recently, and twice, I've been suckered into reading things that "everybody's reading." Both books had a spiritual bent - the first is Eat Love Pray, which I found so completely tiresome that I gave up not even halfway through the first part. The second is not The Alchemist, but The Witch of Portobello by the same author -- Paulo Coehlo. I tried The Alchemist and couldn't get past the first chapter. I thought I'd try Witch because it purports to be about "the feminine side of divinity." If so, the feminine face is tedious when not irritating. Maybe a good deal is lost in translation, but the book is larded with the worst kind of pretentious claptrap that I've encountered in along time.

Which led me to wonder: Why is it so difficult to write persuasively about spirituality and the inner life of spiritual people? The best book I know about a spiritual conversion is The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham. I think I like it because Maugham doesn't tell the story from the point of view of the converted, a man named Larry, but rather tells a story about how Larry's faith affects the people around him for good and for ill. It's not a treacly, hectoring lecture from A Teacher or The Sage or My Protector filled with hoary exhortations about "unconditional love" and "being true to yourSelf" disguised as a novel. It's a real novel about believable people dealing as best they can with an untenable situation -- and the reader gets it. Why is that so hard?

inspirations

About a fortnight ago one of the blogs that I read offered the opportunity to participate in a shared poem day. Wouldn't it be cool, the suggestion went, if we all posted a poem with words that "pulse in our blood" and posted links so we could blog-hop and read all this great stuff? Yes. It would be. And I expect that it was, but I learned about it too late to chime in. Nevertheless, here is one of my favorite poems. It was published in the New York Review of Books, a few years ago.

Basho
by Cees Nooteboom (translated from the Dutch by J.M. Coetzee)

We know poetic poetry the common dangers
of moonstruckness, bel canto. Embalsamed air, that is all,
unless you turn it into pebbles that flash and hurt.
You, old master, polish the pebbles
that you fling to bring down a thrush.
Out of the world you cut an image that bears your name.
Seventeen pebbles for arrows a school of deathly singers.
See by the waterside the track of the poet
on his way to the innermost snowland. See how the water erases it
how the man with the hat inscribes it again
preserves water and footprint, capturing the movement that has passed,
so that what vanished is still there as something that vanished.

I love that last line: "so that what vanished is still there as something that vanished"

a bit much, even for me

There's a skunk in the yard.
It's very beautiful. Mostly white, all fluffy like a persian cat, with a sleek alert pointed face. And, no, it's not a cat. It's most definitely a skunk. This is the second time I've seen it. No fool, it shows up on the night the trash goes to the curb. I'm glad of the local wildlife and try to support and encourage it as much as possible. But life in the Bronx is not a Disney movie, especially for small cute fluffy mammals with good hearing, poor eyesight, and a bad reputation. What to do? What to do? (Although . . . the issue may have just resolved itself. My cat, Halloween, came in with me after I took the trash out and he smells faintly -- if you can imagine "faintly" -- of skunk.) Helloooo, parks department.
[image from I-love-Disney.com]

words to live by

One of my college professors -- this was back in the early 1970s -- was famous for his rambling lectures. I was in his office one day before class and he started jotting down notes. I asked what he was doing. He said: "Making a lesson plan." And I blurted out: "What are you doing that for?" And he smiled and said:

"You can't have total chaos.
You must have something from which to depart."

God bless you, Professor Young, wherever you are.