The Ellstrom Award for Literature—2008

Dear World of Literature,

I have been thinking about the 2008 non-cash, no notoriety award that is the Ellstrom Award for Literature. Named after JJ Ellstrom, see picture below, I feel compelled to make the right decision, if for no other reason than that I named the thing for my grandfather.



As I pointed out several days ago, I am considering a stiff field of books. I was quite impressed by them all. Think about Percy's Last Gentleman. It contains, to my way of thinking one of the greatest scenes in literature. The last 5th of the book is pretty spectacular. However, it also contains some skewed thinking, including subtle views of women and blacks that are hurdles I can't get over when naming my winner. Sorry Walker. (I'll write.)

Then, how about that book, Sand Child, by Tahar Ben Jelloun. It stuck in my mind for weeks. I still haven't figured it out. And that is the problem. A little too obscure. Great, but obscure. Perhaps I will read this book again and then I can consider it again next year.

Then there is that great book by Richard Wright, Black Boy and American Hunger. I think Wright painted an amazing self portrait on top of a canvas filled with revelations of culture and politics. I am not sure why this book didn't rise to the top of my list. It just didn't, perhaps writing style.

The last two books are about equal in my esteem. Vladimir Nabakov created two amazing characters in his book, Lolita. This work was not an easy one for me to even want to read. The subject matter seemed too much for me--a man molesting a child over and over again. Yet, Nabakov handled the subject matter so sensitively, delicately, completely, yet not more than necessary, that it is hard to say the book was anything but masterful. One would expect to come out on the other side of such a book either desensitized or perhaps hating Humbert Humbert, the man who stole Lolita's childhood. Yet the reader is not forced to become hardened, nor are they left without empathy for Humbert. And because of that we are able to see ourselves better, understand our own obsessions, and perhaps be more compassionate toward those who we normally would neither see nor value. This book is truly one of the classics of twentieth century writing.

But it is The Plague by Albert Camus that wins the 2008 Ellstrom Award for Literature.

JJ Ellstrom and Albert Camus, whose book The Plague won the 2008 Ellstrom Award

Why, this book, you ask? I think it is that it faces death and suffering with grace, courage, and compassion, and hope. It is not an easy book, but it is a good one. And it is the one I chose.


Congratulations Albert and The Plague. Congratulations World.

brd

The Ellstrom Award for Literature—2007

Dear JJ aka PapPap,

I have named an award after you. The Jan Josef (Joseph) Ellstrom Award for Literature. I guess we could less formally call it Joe's Award. I remember Nana calling you Joe, but your friends from the Swedish Lodge called you JJ, didn't they.

In my adulthood I have learned that life with you was not all peaceful. So, I will not call this a peace prize; I shall save that for the prize I name for Nana. However, my remembrance of you is very good. I remember the sizzling smell of your blacksmith shop and the sweet smell of your pipe from which you let us take clandestine puffs when sitting at your feet on the front porch of the green house on 27th Street. I remember your gruff reprimands when we escaped that porch, not via the steps, but over the front banister, climbing like spiderpeople onto window ledges and down to the front sidewalk.

I remember you in your "easy chair" near the highback piano, calling for each of us to bring to you our report cards, signs of the work we had accomplished during school semesters. At the time, little Pennsylvania girl that I was, I did not sense your vision of the significance of those cards. I saw them with the eyes of a child playing bingo at the lodge, here a winning, there a losing. You saw them as a passport like the one you had earned with hard labor at eighteen in Varmland and that could take us as far from a smithy shop as yours had taken you from Ternskog.

So, I named my literature award after you, for you valued learning and education. I have come to value them, too.

I have decided to award a 2007 prize before I move on to 2008. I got thinking about the things I read in 2006 and decided that this had to be done. Plus I still can't decide about 2008 yet. I'm stymied on 2008, but not on 2007.

The 2007 Ellstrom Award for Literature goes, hands down, to Beloved by Toni Morrison.

2006 was the year that I immersed myself in the books of Toni Morrison. I still have a few to read, but I've read enough to know that I consider her the premiere living American author. So, I think it appropriate that the first Ellstrom award goes to her. Her passport has been stamped by much hard work, and shows the signs of overcoming the kind of obstacles that you, my immigrant ancestor faced and overcame.

And the story of Beloved and her family has all the marks of migration and the high price of that flight. You paid that price too, arriving by boat at Ellis Island with $11.00 and and an address of a relative in Altoona, Pennsylvania. So, I believe, you might agree with my first choice.


Betsy

The Ellstrom Award for Literature

Dear Alfred Nobel,

I recently ran across this quote:

My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world
conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies
can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.
~Alfred Nobel

Didn't they say that later about the atomic bomb, too? I think your later endeavor, the one that kind of got kicked off after you did, has done more than dynamite to foster the peace process. At least once a year it gets us to think about peace again and who is contributing to it.

Sometimes I wonder about how the folks who snag the Nobel Prize for Literature are contributing to peace. Excellent writing does not necessarily encourage peace. Some writers seem determined to just write, and they, embracing Heidegger's thinking "language speaks man," perhaps don't vie for the peacemaking consequences of their words. But some authors do embrace the connection I think. Are those the ones who get the prize?

Anyhow, thinking about all this has led me to set up my own award for literature, The Ellstrom Award. There is no cash prize for this. It is just my own little tip of a hat to what I think is fine. I named it the Ellstrom Award because my grandfather Ellstrom came from Sweden and your nordic influence played into my decision. I am making this award to the book not the author. I am choosing from a slim field, just the books I read this year, a list of which you will find at:
Books I Read This Year—2007.

I'm wondering if this should be the 2007 award or the 2008 award?

Here are the books that are in contention:

The Last Gentleman—Walker Percy
The Plague—Albert Camus
The Sand Child—Tahar Ben Jelloun
Black Boy—Richard Wright
Lolita—by Vladimir Nabokov

As you can see, this isn't an obscure list. Who could say I'm not making a good choice, whichever one I choose? They all are really fine works. In fact, I'm going to have to think some more about this. If you have an opinion to express on this, I'll take it into consideration.

Betsy

Books and Music in 2008

Dear Me,

This is the spot where I'm keeping a list of reading and watching and listening. Mostly it will be books and CDs. I could include movies, but only if they are really important.

Books
Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
Transparent Things by Vladimir Nabokov
The Black Monk and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
Run by Ann Patchett
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo
Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Burning Plain: and Other Stories by Juan Rulfo
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Leguin
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery by David G. Benner

The Pearl by John Steinbeck
20th Century American Fiction (Course Part I) taught by Arnold Weinstein
The Body Artist by Don DeLillo
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Tamborines to Glory by Langston Hughes

Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States by Zora Neale Hurston

Curses by Kevin Huizenga
The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

Pushing the Bear by Diane Glancy

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
George Eliot: A Light and Enlightening Look by Elliot Engel
Jazz by Toni Morrison
Flight by Sherman Alexie

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Dubliners by James Joyce

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Music
Faure's Requiem performed by the Monteverdi Choir with other compositions by Saint-Saens, Ravel, Debussy, etc.
Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem
Distant Future by Flight of the Conchords
Howells Requiem with Vaughan Williams Mass in G Minor
Requiem for Adam by Terry Riley
Takemitsu: Visions November Steps By Toru Takemitsu
Selected Works by Einojuhani Rautavaara, Including Cantus Arcticus and A Requiem in Our Time
Requiem in C Minor by Luigi Cherubini
Requiem by Frei Manuel Cardoso
Messa Da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi
The Russian Album with soprano Anna Netrebko and conductor Valery Gergiev
Forgotten Songs: Dawn Upshaw Sings Debussy
Passion sung by Jose Carreras
Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian Carlo Menotti
Faure: Cello Sonata No. 2 by Gabriel Faure with Steven Isserlis

The Faure Album with Gil Shaham, violin

Elgar from EMI Classics with Sir Adrian Boult

Wings in the Night: Swedish Songs sung by Anna Sofie von Otter

Sadko an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass with Godfrey Reggio
Francesca da Rimini by Riccardo Zandonai
Polyphony: Requiem and Other Sacred Music by John Rutter
Powaqqatsi by Philip Glass with Godfrey Reggio
Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff

Rachmaninov Piano Concertos 1-4 by Sergei Rachmaninov with Vladimir Ashkenazy and Andre Previn

The Magic of Satie by Erik Satie with Jean-Yves Thibaudet

Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances & Suites for 2 Pianos with Emanuel Ax & Yefim Bronfman

Rachmaninov I with Andrew Litton

The Beheading—Nabokov; The Requiem—Andrew Lloyd Webber

Dear Vladimir and Andrew,

In 1794, a group of sixteen nuns were convicted and found, on the lists of Robespierre, guilty of crimes against the. . . but it doesn't matter against who, does it?. . . and taken to the guillotine of Paris, the Barriere de Vincennes. They are the subject of this prayer, spoken first by St. Terese of Lisieux:

How beautiful the [beatification] ceremony of our Blesseds [of Compiègne] must have been, and how you must have given thanks to God, who has led me onto this mountain of Carmel, in this Order made famous by so many saints and martyrs. Oh! how happy I would be if my Master also wanted me to pour out my blood for Him! But what I ask of Him especially is that martyrdom of love which consumed my holy Mother Teresa, whom the Church proclaims a victim of charity.

My husband, who has been teaching a class on the writings and thoughts of the early church mystics read me a story from one woman, Ste. Teresa of Avila, who like, Sister Helen Prejean of Susan Sarandon fame, walked with the dead to the scaffold. The story is of the beatific vision experienced by the dear saint who would not leave the head of her condemned and whose labor would not suffer the final humiliation of a decapitated bounce in a basket but whose arms became a bloody cradle and whose spirit joined his for some moments in beatified ascent to the arms of Jesus.

As I stroked the blade of the final page of Invitation to a Beheading, I was prepared for the end, for I had read Azar Nafisi's analysis of the work and knew, if not the book, the conclusion of the book. I had been waiting for this, anticipating this Nabokovian beatification.

But after I closed the book, I popped into my car, and flipped on the cheap little mp3 player that I got for Christmas. It's no iPOD. Every time I turn it on is a surprise, no screen, no log, just random musics. But I had loaded, on the third day of Christmas, the Requiem mass that Andrew composed and produced in 1985 with Lorin Maazel and starring (there is no other way to say it) Placido Domingo, with notable performances by Sarah Brightman and Paul Miles-Kingston, the young treble soprano, and backed by the Winchester Cathedral Choir. The Requiem can also be found on Gold: The Definitive Hits Collection.

In my continuing search for the perfect requiem mass, I found yours, Andrew. Unfortunately, it is not perfect, except for the Pie Jesu which is, as sung by then little Paul, as sweet a musical rendering of these words as has ever been composed. (Check out the one minute sample on the above link.)

Pie, Jesu, qui tollis peccata mundi dona eis requiem.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi dona eis requiem sempiternam.

This is the music I would like to accompany my ascent with the Blessed Martyrs of Compiègne (who were, I believe, singing Salve Regina), and Cincinnatus, and Robespierre, when I too have been beheaded.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Blessings,

BRD

PS: A note to Andrew

Mostly, Webber, I think you had best stick with song and dance, but you, like George Gershwin before you, have reached into your soul and found something more for us here. The initial requiem theme is wonderful, though you rush (as I guess we are all wont to do) to the statement of the Kyrie eleison. Then quick as a bunny we are into the Dies Irae. There are wonderful moments throughout and I wouldn't want to discourage you. The Hosanna could stand some work—at the benedictus I'm picturing a high school musical dance troop. And please, please get rid of the Phantom's organ solo during the final Libera Me. Otherwise, thanks for a beautiful rendition.

Invitation to an End—Letter two to Vladimir Nabokov

Dear Vladimir,

My index rolling along the edge of Invitation to a Beheading finds now just a slim margin of pages left for me to read. It is like facing a death and my reading self is softening, getting ready for the final crunch of the executioners blade, that last sharp leaf, punctuated with "Fin."

And as Cincinnatus wrote in his letter to Marthe, I want someone to embrace the gravity of that, to "just grow afraid like a child that they are going to do something terrible to me, a vile thing that makes you sick, and you scream so in the middle of the night that even when you already hear nurse approaching with her 'hush, hush,' you still keep on screaming, that is how you must be afraid. . ."

Well, ok. I'm being dramatic. It is after all just the beheading of a book, not really a "Fin" of a life.

But facing ends is like that. Last week I sat face to face with my 86 something parents and talked about ends. I fear I did not express enough of my realization that this is, to me, a vile and terrible thing. Should I say it to them? They are such good and faithful people. Yet even father, whose normal patina is fairly flat, was enlivened by the discussion. He insisted on a new battery for his hearing aid. He would not miss a word of this conversation. What was he listening for? Perhaps, for my Munchian scream.

We folk, believing ourselves to be on the outside, play odd games, (Shall we play at anchors?) trying to beat the odds, but no. We walk polyhedron passageways, find microphones and speak, "Testing, 1, 2, 3," and end up back where we began. But we don't scream enough, I think.

Not that the scream is the fear. No, it is something else, for, as Dickenson says,

Forever-is composed of Nows-
'Tis not a different time-
Except for Infiniteness-
And Latitude of Home-From this-experienced Here

And that is good. And death is not so much an extraction from life as a movement to a fourth dimensional latitude of existence, perhaps, so we believe, and so my parents believe quite well—So much so that we would do well to imitate their style and grace.

But perhaps I should scream. Too.

Betsy

Invitation to a Beheading

Dear Vladimir Nabokov,

I have had some trouble finding your classic novel. Finally, the University of Kentucky library systems provided a lovely pencil-annotated version of Invitation to a Beheading, copyright 1959, (Presented, a book nameplate explains, by J. Wesley Littlefield of the Class of 1933).

I haven't finished the book yet. As I read, my right index finger strokes the pages that remain, relieved to find, still, a good two-thirds of the whole waiting.

This is my first letter to you, and I feel a little shy. I feel, perhaps, like Cincinnatus, a lone dark obstacle (pg. 24) who will be unable to maintain control of cunningly established illusion. Perhaps you will wrinkle your eyes—you might remove your spectacles and with a tissue from a rectangular cardboard box, huff and swipe at a singular fingerprint, replace them—and confirm my opacity. Your Cincinnatus could at such moments take hold and remove himself to a psychologically safe place. I think that I did not learn, early enough, the trick of such mental transportation.

Self is such an odd containment. We hover about the stark cell that is the heart of ourselves. It is a tiny habitat, really, with just a few rules, a nearly unreachable glint of sunlight, and, if we are fortunate, a writing desk.

I wonder whether all of us, early or late, come to recognize the imprisonment we enjoy. And, if we are fortunate enough . . . believe me, I do not for a minute disrespect the miraculous in this . . . if we are fortunate enough to be loved by some—mother? father? sister? brother? friend? dog?—we will without doubt be the victim of some—mother? father? son? aunt? butcher? baker? Someone complains about "our basic illegality" and we are undone.

Such is life and it is, often, to the pain if not to the guillotine. So we begin to look to the end with an odd fixation, either in fear and trembling or with mild obsessions, or with resolute faith in something higher, better, bigger, other than our little cell selves.

"The compensation for a death sentence is knowledge of the exact hour when one is to die," believes Cincinnatus? But how senseless a belief is that, for we have all heard the whispered sentence, "Prisoner, in this solemn hour. . . " with soft breath tickling our ears.

"So we are nearing the end. The right hand, still untasted part of the novel, which, during our delectable reading, we would lightly feel, mechanically testing whether there were still plenty left (and our fingers were always gladdened by the placid, faithful thickness) has suddenly, for no reason at all, become quite meager."

I am anxious to discover what else your have to say in your book before my index digit plucks and turns the final leaf.

Betsy

P.S. I found this butterfly you drew for Vera. How nice.

Socrates to Caesar, Then Your Light Came

Note to readers: The following is a thought poem that my sister wrote during this holiday season. I was fascinated by how her thoughts dovetailed so closely with my own, published here, during the advent season.

Dear Deb,

Thanks for sharing these thoughts with me. It is interesting that there continues such a synchronicity in our thinking over the miles, the years, and the experience. Having friends is most wonderful; we are agreed on that I know. Having a sister is amazing!

With my love,

Betsy

Thoughts arising from thinking about the darkness during the intertestamental period and awaiting the Light.

How long ago it was said that the "sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings", yet it is still dark.(Malachi 4:2) And so we continue to light our candles behind dark veils not knowing where the Light will come from. One to six we light and chant brave words of freedom, freedom from our captors. And yet one we light and secretly breath words of hope. Hope in the truth of what the ancient prophet Isaiah spoke. Hope of one who would come, and in His very person offer freedom of soul, freedom from the darkness that has invaded our souls and sickened us. The One through Whose wounds we can be healed, the One who would take our infirmities, carry our sorrows and deal with our transgressions. (Isaiah 53:4,5)

And yet we have waited so long, and the poor light of our candle flickers. Long ages ago the prophets voices were stilled by those who preferred their darkness. We seem to wander alone in the dim light of our candles waiting, hoping and fighting our battles against those stronger than we. And always comes the temptation to wonder, do we wait in vain, will the light always be dim, will our sight always be veiled and our way be confused by the darkness.

"Therefore the night will come over you, without visions, and darkness, without divination. The sun will set for the prophets, and the day will go dark for them. The seers will be ashamed and the diviners disgraced. They will cover their faces because there is no answer from God." (Micah 3:6,7)

One night on a hillside all was dark. The shadows were deep and through the increasing darkness the sheep could barely be seen. Then suddenly, without warning, without thoughts or actions being prepared, came The Light shining with greater intensity than could be imagined. Prophet Isaiah's "Light" had come, the glory of the Lord rose upon us. (Isaiah 60:1) The curtain of darkness was torn and we were invited to that Light, that Light that is the Light of men, the One that would shine in the darkness and but the darkness would not understand it. (John 1:4,5)

And so the Light shone with an intensity that certainly was not understood. Once again men tried to put the light out, but they could not. From the darkness on another hill the Light shone cutting through that darkness, ripping it apart. Three days later its kingdom was broken apart and its power to hold us was destroyed. Then something happened that had never happened before, something that the prophets spoke of , but we little understood, and still we little understand. Yet we have partaken of it, that Light, which freed us from the power of the darkness, entered us. The Light took up residence within our spirits. Everything was different , no longer were we alone.

Marching down long ages that Light shines. Through our frail frames the Light shines on, continuing to bring freedom from the darkness that tries, without hope, to quench Him. And we still wait, and sometimes the Light seems dim, and sometimes bright. But now our waiting has a sense of expectancy, because the promises that once were kept continue to ring in our hearts, He came and is coming again! One day we shall look up and the Light will blind our eyes, but our hearts will cry "Come Lord Jesus." We shall see His face, the shining light of the Son.

--Debby Rupe

Christmas

Dear John Rutter,

Last night we sat in church as it became Christmas. And our little church choir, which is really quite dedicated and good, sang your Candlelight Carol. It was lovely and I wanted to tell you so.

How do you capture
The wind on the water?
How do you count all the stars in the sky?
How can you measure
The love of a mother
Or how can you write down
A baby’s first cry?

Candlelight, angel-light
Firelight and star glow
Shine on his cradle till breaking of dawn
Gloria, Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Angels are singing
The Christ child is born.

Shepherds and wise men
Will kneel and adore him
Seraphim round him their vigil will keep
Nations proclaim him
Their Lord and their Saviour
But Mary will hold him
And sing him to sleep.

Find him at Bethlehem laid in a manger
Christ our Redeemer asleep in the hay
Godhead incarnate and hope of salvation
A child with his mother
That first Christmas Day.

--John Rutter



And as I sat listening in a little church in Loudon, TN, people all over the world like these singers in London, England, singing your carol in Chinese, were celebrating light and life through the birth of Jesus and what we can see because of the light he brought.

"In Him was life, and that life was the light of humanity. The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not comprehended it. . . The true light that gives light to everyone has come into the world." John 1.

Merry Christmas
BRD

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Dear Jesus,

On the First Sunday of Advent we heard these words read in church;
"With each new candle that is lighted, may the flame of Christ's coming grow brighter and brighter so that this Christmas may see a fresh coming of the Lord of Light into each of our hearts and into the whole world."

The Fourth Sunday of Advent we emerge from our awed and horrible silence and begin the celebration. Twelve days of celebration. On Sunday, or maybe we'll wait until Christmas Eve, we light the Christ Candle. The light of the candle at the front of a church in the morning is barely visible.

T.S. Eliot expresses an idea, though. . . and my dark self hears it before I'm swept into the light of Christmas Day. . . we need darkness to reveal the light. If we are to study, not the things that light exposes but the light itself, it must be dark.

Dark reveals the light.

In Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral he puts these words in the voices of a chorus in the last scene while a Te Deum is being sung in the background.

"We praise Thee, O God, for Thy glory displayed in all the creatures of the earth, . . . For all things exist only as seen by Thee, only as known by Thee, all things exist Only in Thy light, and Thy glory is declared even in that which denies Thee; the darkness declares the glory of light."

(For you lovers of Eliot, I know there are many other passages of this flavor that I could quote, but this is the one I found most quickly. Survey: What is your favorite light/dark quote from Eliot?)

Eliot poses a hard idea. It is hard for us scrubbers and sweepers of Canterbury, and Morgantown, and Knoxville, and Chicago, and Cut Off, and Oneonta, whose backs are bent by toil and whose knees are bent under sin, whose hands are to the face under fear. We live in a glow-starved world and we long for the dawn. It is hard to embrace the darkness that you have given us as our gift at Christmas, topped with only a tiny flame of light.


Star of the East, oh Bethlehem star,
Guiding us on to heaven afar
Sorrow and grief and lull'd by the light
Thou hope of each mortal, in death's lonely night

Fearless and tranquil, we look up to Thee
Knowing thou beam'st through eternity
Help us to follow where Thou still dost guide
Pilgrims of earth so wise

Star of the East, thou hope of the soul
While round us here the dark billows roll
Lead us from sin to glory afar
Thou star of the East, thou sweet Bethlehem's star

Star of the East, oh Bethlehem's star,
What tho' the storms of grief gather loud
Faithful and pure thy rays beam to save
And bright o'er the grave

Smile of a Saviour are mirror'd in Thee
Glimpses of Heav'n in thy light we see
Guide us still onward to that blessed shore
After earth toil is o'er

Star of the East, thou hope of the soul
Oh star that leads to God above
Whose rays are peace and joy and love
Watch o'er us still till life hath ceased
Beam on, bright star, sweet Bethlehem star

This is a song that is another of my strong Christmas memories. My mother practiced it once a year, at Christmas, picking out chords and melodies that slightly exceeded her normal-level piano-playing capabilities. And she sang it with whoever would join her in front of the cherry spinet. It is a song that echoes the understandings of Eliot.

"Forgive us, O Lord, we acknowledge ourselves as type of the common person, Of the men and women who shut the door and sit by the fire; Who fear the blessing of God, the loneliness of the night of God, the surrender required, the deprivation inflicted; Who fear the injustice of men less than the justice of God; Who fear the hand at the window, the fire in the thatch, the fist in the tavern, the push into the canal, Less than we fear the love of God. Christ, have mercy upon us."
So, this last Sunday, before the celebration begins, I'm reminded by you and Eliot, and Stanislaus de Lubienietski-1666 artist of the comet, and the unknown composer of an old carol of the darkness that reveals the light. Jesus, have mercy.

Betsy

A New Carol for an Old City

Christmas 2007
by Jim Burklo


O little town of Bethlehem
A wall thee now divides
Above thy concertina wire
The silent stars go by
Beyond the wall the soldiers
Aim rifles toward the sky
Militias roaming streets inside
Ignore the baby's cry


The settlements and suicides
Injustice, greed and hate,
O little town, you seem to drown
In tears for your hapless fate
But hear the choir of angels
Their great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!


Dead dogma burdens Bethlehem
With grudges from the past
Muslims, Jews, and Christians, too
Say their claims are the last
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.


The baby's voice is calling us
To Bethlehem again,
Where walls divide may grace abide
Forgiveness enter in
The morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises ring, for Love we sing
And peace to all on earth!

Part II--The Third Sunday of Advent--Night Visitors

Dear Gustav Dore, T.S. Eliot, and Gian Carlo Mennotti,

Our imaginations are set in our child's hood by this and that. Christmas, the premier Christian holiday holds much in my mind that is set already by what Dicken's would call Christmas Past. For me that "set" includes a Swedish Lodge, a house and Christmas Eve on 13th St., Rye Bread and Egg Salad. . .

It also includes my grandmother playing an old upright piano and singing carols, including one of my personal favorites, "We Three Kings." I liked that one, maybe because it was more like a ditty than a hymn, transferable in a moment to a ridiculous picture of men with crowns smoking rubber cigars. But it includes more serious settings too.

Gustav, your image is magical, depicting not a lonely troop of three, but a traveling carnival with not three camels, but a cavalry of them. This magic is part of my memory too.



Journey of the Magi
by T.S. Eliot

"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The was deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Eliot, your Magi are more like the ones I remember from my first experience of opera. I watched Gian Carlo's classic presentation of Amahl and the Night Visitors on television. I must have seen it around 1955 on a black and white tv with a screen not bigger than a small computer monitor. The enchantment of the story, the singing, and the three kings set my musical ear for a love of opera. Though the clip pictured below (click here) doesn't include the kings, but only Amahl and his mother, it does demonstrate some of the magic of that performance and what for me is a precious and early Christmas remembrance.



Thanks for all these memories.

BRD

The Third Sunday of Advent - Part I - And Wise Men from the East

Dear Kaspar, Melchior and Balthasar,

I received my first wise man card of the year yesterday. It is a nice one, fortunately, for it is that one which we must look at every day all year long above our doorframe. I didn't learn that tradition from my family, but from my mother-in-law, stepmother of my husband.


She was an odd duck. She lived by the grudge, holding fast to wrongs, real or imagined, committed against her by family members one-by-one. Were you related to her, Melchior, she might have found the perfume you presented too strong a scent and spitefully chosen, the myrrh a redundant gift (after all she just got plenty of frankincense) and, the cash, Kaspar, not quite enough.

But, lo, the grudge, formed predictably and nursed diligently, would disappear arbitrarily and in preparation for her attentions to be drawn to another hapless member of the family whose actions or non-actions were drawn into her focus.

Mom D was also a hospitable woman, a good friend to certain people, and the woman to whom we attribute the salvation of my husband's father from the clutches of Jack Daniels, so she remains ever sweet in our memories. And we think of her fondly at Christmas, wishing she were here for one last party, but she is gone now and did not go without the histrionics she found or created in life with her consecutive grudges. Her last Christmas was spent in California with her son, and on her return flight, she passed . . . not silently, not calmly, not hushed, but with drama and to do somewhere above Albuquerque.

But that is not exactly what I had started to say in this letter. I meant to talk about my family, for they are the ones for whom your names are most beloved. Each year they wait with bated breath for the gifts they might receive from Kaspar, Melchior, or the tasteful Balthasar.

But, perhaps, I must explain. My family gift tradition was most established by my paternal grandfather. He died at age 93 and apart from that last year (which was not completely pretty), he was a quiet, hard working, non-dramatic person. He made false teeth for a living, which, for those of you who cannot readily conceptualize the process, is a bit of art in porcelein and wax. It is accompanied by a memorable odor that is acrid and, for me, poignant. I say it is an art, because the final false product must adequately mimic the former teeth of the detoothelated patient. There is, and I have some knowledge of this, nothing more hideous than poorly sculpted false teeth.

So this man, my grandfather, sat day by day for 65 or 70 years, excepting when he was serving in Europe during World War I, artfully and quietly creating the future mouths of people across central Pennsylvania. But at Christmas, his quiet art was transformed into the chief entertainment of our Christmas afternoons. For his holiday preparation included writing poems for each of his children, their spouses, the grandchildren, and whoever else might be seated around the great dining room table. His poetry was always creative and funny and personal. It was also always signed with a flair. . .from "Old Nicky Boy," from "Old Jelly Belly," etc.

From this heritage I hail and so, when my children became old enough to read gift tags, I wished to somehow mimic the sense of Christmas art that Pap R had so generously demonstrated. I dispensed with the poems, but always chose some Christmas character from whom the gift was given. To wit, my children each year wait for the best gifts, the very special ones, chosen with love and particularity, which come from Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.

Thanks for always being part of our Christmas.

brd

Second Sunday of Advent

Dear King Wenceslaus,

When is it that a hush falls over the crowd?

In anticipation?

In awe and respect?

In loving recognition that silence is better than noise?

In horror?

Christian liturgy that tells us that in advent it is a time for quiet and waiting. We light candles one by one and the flickering glow should speak for us. We are in joyful anticipation of the Coming. O Come, O Come, Emanuel. And we, in our most childish of spirits, anticipate Christmas and all it's wondrous surprises and kindnesses which spring from the spirit you so beautifully demonstrated in your actions there in Bohemia in the early 900's on the feast of Stephen.

And the incarnation is awe inspiring. Uneducated shepherds, watching their flocks by night knew that much. But does it take a choir of the heavenly host to make us mum, or does the idea alone, that God, the ultimate instigator of existing, would assume human bodily form and could be found on earth in the most primitive of neonatal units, a manger. That should shut us up.

And does the love shown forth in the coming of the progeny of God, who so loved this world full of pitiful creatures that he extended a channel by which our offerings of belief might become eternal, bring us to rightful silence? Does it take the very need for words away? I think so.

Horror, yes, and there is horror hidden in the quiet of advent and horror is part and parcel of all that Christianity is. The horror is at our own inadequacy, sometimes called sin. But, we call it horrible and it leaves us dumbstruck whenever we see it under our own skins. This is perhaps the greatest of the reasons that we wait in quiet for Christmas. This is when the ice of our own goodnesses breaks under the weight of our own lack of pity. We are left shivering in icy horror hoping to find someone whose warm footprints can lead us home.

I think it is horror more than anthing that drives us back to the silent night, that holy night when shepherds and angels and tongue-tied folk like you and me shshed ourselves so the little Lord Jesus could sleep.

May Your Days of Quiet be Blessed,

Betsy

First Sunday of Advent

Dear Gustave Dore,

It is Advent and I am back to browsing through your delicious book of woodcuts, The Dore Bible Illustrations. Today I was quite taken by the one entitled The Annunciation. The part I liked best was the face of Mary. The angel had just said, "Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favour with God," but her eyes and body language are not reacting to that but to the enormous shimmering astro-being hovering above. Favour, she is saying to herself, does not come in this flavor.

Surely, this must be a mistake.

Annunciation. What an announcement!

Lately, my husband and I have been talking about cadavers. Morbid, yes, but I'm considering a surgery on my knee that may demand the cooperation of one, so we are looking into the subject. I'm looking because as one medical source says, the current situation is "not always sufficient, and may lead to recurrent episodes of instability--a sensation that the knee may 'give out.'" So to rectify this, one might 'harvest' the patellar tendon of a cadaver, or something, and put it into the knee in question. That would be my left knee. Conversations have arisen in our daily lives about such applications of the harvested parts of cadavers. One, with a young school secretary informed us that "Sometim's they replace those with the whole bones of a conniver!" Well, that was enough for me. Bad enough to get the tissue of a cadaver, but a conniving cadaver is too much.

Words do get mixed up. And so does the word annunciation. Tracking this one down I got bounced to another work of art under the description the Enunciation of Mary by El Greco. I guess that means that El Greco's angel took more time describing exactly how this favor thing might play out. Mary seems a bit more receptive to the idea here, her arms open and eyes less skeptical.



Not to blame Gabriel though, either way, just announced or fully enunciated, the news carried a double edge and I don't doubt that Mary took some time getting used to the idea.

Betsy

Let's, Indeed, Get This Party Started

Dear Pink,

I have been enjoying a rendition of your already famous song, Let's Get The Party Started. And, as you might imagine, I am struggling over the existential nature of the lyrics. Our vocalist, Anne GG, with her associates, Early GG and Margaret GG, have well interpreted the pathos, I think.



I'm coming up so you better get this party started
I'm coming up so you better get this party started

[Here immediately, we see the plight of the self, searching to affirm that there can be no, never be no party starting, unless that self comes up. And of course it begins with "up" not down. We don't hear the artist say that the integrated self goes down, hence starting the party, but up. That is a clever trick you pull right here at the beginning.]

Get this party started,
on a saturday night,
everybody's waiting for me to arrive
Sending out the message to all of my friends
we'll be looking flashy in my Mercedes Benz
I got lots of style with my gold diamond rings
I can go for miles if you know what I mean

["If you know what I mean." Friends, of course we know, our hearts pump with the rhythm of this desperate cry for release from the materialism of the age that equates the essence of the "me" we are waiting for with the arrival of gaudy, insubstantial replacements, a.k.a. a Mercedes Benz, gold, and diamonds. We surely do know what you mean, Pink my friend. You have sent us that message and we understand.]

I'm coming up so you better get this party started
I'm coming up so you better get this party started

Pumpin up the volume,
breaking down to the beat
cruisin' through the west side
I'll be checkin' the scene
Boulevard is freaking as I'm coming fast
I'll be burning rubber,
you'll be kissin my ass
Pull up to the bumper get out of the car
License plate says
Number One Superstar

[The heartbreak of this realization, that the present experience of soulishness is so very fleeting--"Boulevard is freaking as I'm coming fast," "burning rubber," et al--is pronounced here and particularly in this rendition of the song. Our 15 minutes of, not just fame, Number One Superstar, but existence at all, symbolized with the kiss of death and, of course the picture of the Gates of Hades itself, "Pull up to the bumper get out of the car," creates or, perhaps, reveals a rising angst that cannot be overstated.]

I'm coming up so you better get this party started
I'm coming up so you better get this party started

(get this party started)

Making my connection as I enter the room
everybody is chillin'

[Funeral parloresque, we see not just the self in this existential predicament, but everybody facing the same chillin' dilemna!]

as I set up the groove
Pumpin up the volume
with this brand new beat
everybody's dancin'
and they're dancin' for me
I'm the operator
you can call anytime
I'll be your connection to
the party line

[Finally, we see the Danse Macabre begin,

and our selves face the dance of death, not with the elegance we had hoped for, but a new uncertain beat, hammering. We turn in hopes of finding salvation from the other dancers, but see that they are all dancin' for me, with the only connection busy, because it is, after all a "party" line.]

I'm coming up so you better get this party started
I'm coming up so you better get this party started
I'm coming up so you better get this party started
I'm coming up so you better get this party started

(get this party started)

(ooooh, get this party started right now)

(get this party started)

(get this party started, right now)

[Ending, of course, not with a bang, but a whimper.]



You have certainly "brought us down" with this one!

Sincerely,

brd

Survey: Do Raccoons Like Cheese Nips?

The question being investigated in this blog is one that has plagued the minds of humans since the rise of the raccoon in the United States and Germany.

Do Raccoons like Cheese Nips? And, if so, what brand do they prefer?

Some visual evidence is presented below.


However, other evidence is available. One female from British Columbia reports that:
"The raccoons came and took food from my hand with their weird hands and I had the squirrels climbing up my LEG to come get cheese nips."

Another Canadian (from Quebec) named Ross indicates that his research points to the fact that raccoons prefer American brand cheese nips.

A raccoon by the name of Higgins, who keeps a journal of these things, has reportedly been somewhat hostile when presented with cheese and nips.

If you do not believe the veracity of this research, please, check it for yourself. It is on the internet!

Any further evidence would be greatly appreciated.

brd (Wildlife Investigator)

Art Museum of Western Virginia

Dear Art and Architecture Lovers,

I was driving down the road in Roanoke, Va., minding my own business, just trying to find the Wonju exit so I could go see my dear friend from West Virginia days. Then, wow, I wanted to drive right off the road and see what was going on!


This my friends is the visual definition of supercalifragalisticexpialidocious. (sp?) I did not, due to the rush of traffic and an equivalent acceleration of good sense jump the concrete banister and land like a bundle of dropped groceries on Market Street, but I did, after a brief consort on Colonial Ave., demand a tour of the downtown construction.

I was photographically unarmed and disappointedly so. However, I have since discovered that both the city itself and other travelers have made the imagery quite available. The city has set up a delightful web cam, delivering desktop updates at intervals. I have set the one linked to my shortcut at 10 seconds so I can watch constructioneers do specific tasks and can be a traffic voyeur.

The source of a great tour, though, is Jennifer's Picasa site. She was obviously as enamoured as I was but armed, and with a photo weapon and skill unavailable to me anyway. Her site has a goodly number of tours, from New York City to Robin's wedding, but this one is stellar.

If you visit the web site of The Art Museum of Western Virginia, you will find that: "The Art Museum’s new 81,000 square foot facility has been designed by emerging Los Angeles architect Randall Stout, principal of Randall Stout Architects, Inc. and an internationally admired proponent of sustainable “green” architecture. The building is a dramatic composition of flowing, layered forms in steel, patinated zinc and high performance glass that pay sculptural tribute to the famous mountains that provide the city’s backdrop and shape the region's spirit. The new facility will be constructed on Salem Avenue, between Market Street and Williamson Road, at one of the most visible intersections in downtown Roanoke."

If you visit the web site of Randall Stout Architects, you'll find that the group is: "Known for its evocative design aesthetic, Randall Stout Architects consistently challenges architectural conventions, while transforming light, shadow, form and material into dynamic architecture." For those of Tennessee connection, they also designed Hunter Museum in Chattanooga.

Did I ever tell you that in my next life I want to be an architect?

Betsy

Analogies, Metaphors, and Typos

Dear Editors,

We are an odd breed. We care about the delicacies of spelling, grammar, and usage. Why? We don't know. It has something to do with our mothers and our second grade teacher I think.

My mother is a founding member of WIGS. That is the acronym for the Word Improvement Game Society. She and her best friend spend hours discussing the proper pronunciation of the word naive and whether the word adroit should be given full scoring credit in Boggle because it is closely derived from French.

No wonder I edit. I am still working through linguistic psychological neuroses developed in childhood, like the impulse to correct extraneous punctuation, bipolar adjectival disorder, and psychotic run-on delusions marked by paragraph anhedonia and feelings of excessive adverbial depression, accompanied by a lump in the throat and frequency of urination.

And no wonder we suffer. From the typographical error to the surfeit of metaphor, our lives are crowded with that which needs to be corrected.

For instance, who was responsible for editing the government publication delivered to private schools in the State of West Virginia, a bulletin for: "Non-Pubic Schools." Or, who could have interceded for that college freshman whose biographical paragraph claimed that: "In high school I was a baseball."

The following collection of analogies and metaphors from high school essays cry for red pen. I just cry.

—Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

—He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

—She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

—She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

—Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

—He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

—The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

—The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

—From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

—Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

—John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

—He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

—He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

—The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

—He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

—It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

Amazing.

BRD

Our Raccoon Friends

Important Update, with medium level believability due to bluriness of photo. A fox came to visit last night!!! I think we'll name him Xerox, no, Zerox.


Dear Zorro,

We are sorry you are no longer around. I fear the worst, but am glad I have not seen any raccoon tails flying from the bicycle bars of biking children or the from the seats of bandana bedecked motorcyclists in the neighborhood.

How nice that your son or daughter takes after you in friendliness and spirit. We call her/him Zero.



The mom and sibling are still around too, but a bit shyer, though they will pose for quick snaps.



Missing you,
brd