Exposition: I work at a university library in the South. There are certain areas in this library that are dedicated quiet zones for studying. There are certain areas where food and cell phones are allowed. And ne'er the twain shall meet.
(As I am sitting behind the desk on desk duty, two patrons approach)
Patron 1: There are some people in the group study room that are being loud and disruptive. Cracking jokes and talking on cell phones. People are leaving because of the noise.
Me: Is this one of the small group study rooms?
Patron 2: No, this is on the fourth floor in the stacks, with the big signs that say "Quiet Area." There are, like, four tables with chairs around them. People are looking down from the fifth floor and shushing them.
P1: After you get off the elevator, they're at the front table when you walk through the double doors. Is there anything you could do?
Me: Absolutely.
P1: (As I get up and walk toward the elevator)I don't want to be racist, but we have a grad test tomorrow, and we can't study with all of the noise.
(!)
Upon entering the room, I saw one table with a group at it and the two farthest away tables had one person each seated at them. The group was 5 people, of whom 3 were African American, 1 was Latino, and 1 was Caucasian. I addressed the entire room, letting it be known that there had been complaints about noise, that this area was a quiet area and that there were areas of the library where groups could meet and discuss things more loudly.
How ridiculous is it that a library patron would fear a charge of racism for complaining about noise in THE LIBRARY?! I see a rampant fear in the South of the taint of accusation of racism. I don't pretend that prejudice does not exist and that ignorant individuals do not still hold to racial inequality. But I do know that these two patrons had no rational reason to fear any sort of accusation of racism when their complaint was based solely upon the rules of the library.
It kind of burns me up.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Kubla Khan
OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.
A FRAGMENT.
________________________________________
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
-----------------------------
The lit-critical world has pretty much determined that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was lying in his preface about the visitor from Porlock. But I think that it is less a lie than an invitation for the reader to extend the vision.
What a magnificent image of the Writer-Creator at the end. You can see him. And that is what good writing does.
Kubla Khan
OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.
A FRAGMENT.
________________________________________
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
-----------------------------
The lit-critical world has pretty much determined that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was lying in his preface about the visitor from Porlock. But I think that it is less a lie than an invitation for the reader to extend the vision.
What a magnificent image of the Writer-Creator at the end. You can see him. And that is what good writing does.
I just finished reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson last night, a fabulous book, highly recommended. And I was absolutely dumbfounded to find that I had wasted the two previous weeks working on one character for the Dusty Stories to find him fantastically fleshed out, albeit in some slightly different ways. Oddly enough, my character's name is Father Jack, and the character in Gilead is a pastor/Father? named John. A nickname for John being Jack, the story really threw me for a loop.
How do I continue writing my story without comparing (stealing), even subconsciously?
How do I continue writing my story without comparing (stealing), even subconsciously?
Oh my.
I don't know how much of the article is reprinted in Harper's, so I went and found the original article in the Seneca Review, Fall 2007, 37-42 (one of the benefits of working in a library). I encourage everyone to look up the original if possible.
via Editorial Ass
via Bookninja
If you enjoy this, you might also enjoy Postmodern Pooh and The Pooh Perplex by Frederick Crews. Preview them on google books.
I don't know how much of the article is reprinted in Harper's, so I went and found the original article in the Seneca Review, Fall 2007, 37-42 (one of the benefits of working in a library). I encourage everyone to look up the original if possible.
via Editorial Ass
via Bookninja
If you enjoy this, you might also enjoy Postmodern Pooh and The Pooh Perplex by Frederick Crews. Preview them on google books.
Writing these Stories has taken me back to a dilemma that I faced a few years ago; What is the right way to write? I believe the dichotomy is most visible in Alexander Pope v. William Wordsworth.
Pope is famous (most recently) for "Eloisa to Abelard," the source of the title for the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He wrote constantly, revision after revision, laboring relentlessly. And his work is awesome. In my mind, he stands for rewrite, revise, consider, revise, rewrite. I picture him in the corner of a room at something like a roll-top desk or a secretary with dozens of pigeonholes, everything tidy and functional and studious.
Wordsworth is known for the Lyrical Ballads that he and S.T. Coleridge published. Together they explored the commonplace and the Sublime, at the same time. Wordsworth seems to be surprised by his poems, and gloriously engaged in the moment. Wordsworth (with the help of Coleridge's "Aeolian Harp") stands for inspiration and on-the-spot composition. I picture him at the apex of a hill overlooking a lake, declaiming extemporaneously "AGE! twine thy brows with fresh spring flowers".
Now I know that Wordsworth made revisions (check out all the revisions of the Prolouge to LB) and that Pope had inspirations. But I like to set them in my mind as archetypes of styles of literary creation, not just writing. And for a while, I really wanted to be Wordsworth. In the first blush of this heady presumption, I considered the clumsiest drivel of my pen to be spun gold. For it was inspired.
And pretty awful stuff.
So, yes, I do know that you have to take both roads. That the best works are admixtures of the styles. I know that. I just like to wonder that, if there were a Literary Celebrity Death Match, who would win?
Pope is famous (most recently) for "Eloisa to Abelard," the source of the title for the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He wrote constantly, revision after revision, laboring relentlessly. And his work is awesome. In my mind, he stands for rewrite, revise, consider, revise, rewrite. I picture him in the corner of a room at something like a roll-top desk or a secretary with dozens of pigeonholes, everything tidy and functional and studious.
Wordsworth is known for the Lyrical Ballads that he and S.T. Coleridge published. Together they explored the commonplace and the Sublime, at the same time. Wordsworth seems to be surprised by his poems, and gloriously engaged in the moment. Wordsworth (with the help of Coleridge's "Aeolian Harp") stands for inspiration and on-the-spot composition. I picture him at the apex of a hill overlooking a lake, declaiming extemporaneously "AGE! twine thy brows with fresh spring flowers".
Now I know that Wordsworth made revisions (check out all the revisions of the Prolouge to LB) and that Pope had inspirations. But I like to set them in my mind as archetypes of styles of literary creation, not just writing. And for a while, I really wanted to be Wordsworth. In the first blush of this heady presumption, I considered the clumsiest drivel of my pen to be spun gold. For it was inspired.
And pretty awful stuff.
So, yes, I do know that you have to take both roads. That the best works are admixtures of the styles. I know that. I just like to wonder that, if there were a Literary Celebrity Death Match, who would win?
That means that, even if my first drafts are flawless, I need to write at least 2 pages a day starting now. And flaws are inevitable. As is revision. The presence of Damocles's gun is strangely comforting in its encouragement.
Are among the most inconvenient, inconsiderate, irrespective forces known to man. Running close behind, gravity. But honestly, inspiration is inconvenient. There are times when it would behoove me to put down the pen/pencil/keyboard/scissors and engage in constructive dialogue that I run roughshod over b/c "I might forget this if I don't get it down right now." As Woodrow Wilson might have said, being the staunch Presbyterian fatalist that he was, "It will happen if it is supposed to happen." That is to say, if the idea is worth writing about, it will be. Of the utmost importance is relationship, followed distantly, several places back, by creative projects.
Ok. It's not really that exciting. But I have a story about a character that has a beginning, a middle and an (eh) end. Heck yes. I'm sure that I have a fatally flawed first draft, but it is a draft that I can hold in my hand and crow to the clouds RE: Progress.
I found this meme over at In Search of Giants. It is a list of the 115 most banned books (and not by Sarah Palin).
1. The Bible ***
2. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain ***
3. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
4. The Koran
5. Arabian Nights
6. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain ***
7. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift ***
8. Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer ***
9. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
10. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
11. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
12. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
13. Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
14. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
15. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
16. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo ***
17. Dracula by Bram Stoker
18. Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
19. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
20. Essays by Michel de Montaigne
21. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
22. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
23. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
24. Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
25. Ulysses by James Joyce
26. Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
27. Animal Farm by George Orwell
28. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
29. Candide by Voltaire
30. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ***
31. Analects by Confucius
32. Dubliners by James Joyce
33. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
34. Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
35. Red and the Black by Stendhal
36. Das Capital by Karl Marx
37. Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
38. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ***
39. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
40. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley ***
41. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
42. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
43. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
44. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
45. Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
46. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
47. Diary by Samuel Pepys
48. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
49. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
50. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
51. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
52. Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
53. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
54. Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
55. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
56. Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
57. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
58. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
59. Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
60. Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
61. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
62. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
63. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
64. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
65. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
66. Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
67. Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
68. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
69. The Talmud
70. Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
71. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
72. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
73. American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
74. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
75. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
76. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
77. Red Pony by John Steinbeck
78. Popol Vuh
79. Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
80. Satyricon by Petronius
81. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
82. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
83. Black Boy by Richard Wright
84. Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
85. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
86. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
87. Metaphysics by Aristotle
88. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
89. Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
90. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
91. Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
92. Sanctuary by William Faulkner
93. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
94. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
95. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
96. Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
97. General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
98. Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
99. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
100. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
101. Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
102. Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
103. Nana by Émile Zola
104. Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
105. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
106. Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
107. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
108. Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
109. Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
110. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
111. Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
112. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling ***
113. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare ***
114. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
115. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatly Snyder
The idea is to bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you have read part of, and add ***'s next to the ones you own.
1. The Bible ***
2. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain ***
3. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
4. The Koran
5. Arabian Nights
6. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain ***
7. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift ***
8. Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer ***
9. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
10. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
11. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
12. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
13. Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
14. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
15. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
16. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo ***
17. Dracula by Bram Stoker
18. Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
19. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
20. Essays by Michel de Montaigne
21. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
22. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
23. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
24. Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
25. Ulysses by James Joyce
26. Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
27. Animal Farm by George Orwell
28. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
29. Candide by Voltaire
30. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ***
31. Analects by Confucius
32. Dubliners by James Joyce
33. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
34. Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
35. Red and the Black by Stendhal
36. Das Capital by Karl Marx
37. Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
38. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ***
39. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
40. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley ***
41. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
42. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
43. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
44. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
45. Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
46. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
47. Diary by Samuel Pepys
48. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
49. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
50. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
51. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
52. Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
53. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
54. Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
55. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
56. Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
57. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
58. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
59. Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
60. Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
61. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
62. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
63. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
64. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
65. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
66. Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
67. Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
68. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
69. The Talmud
70. Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
71. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
72. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
73. American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
74. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
75. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
76. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
77. Red Pony by John Steinbeck
78. Popol Vuh
79. Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
80. Satyricon by Petronius
81. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
82. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
83. Black Boy by Richard Wright
84. Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
85. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
86. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
87. Metaphysics by Aristotle
88. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
89. Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
90. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
91. Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
92. Sanctuary by William Faulkner
93. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
94. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
95. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
96. Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
97. General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
98. Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
99. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
100. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
101. Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
102. Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
103. Nana by Émile Zola
104. Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
105. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
106. Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
107. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
108. Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
109. Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
110. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
111. Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
112. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling ***
113. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare ***
114. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
115. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatly Snyder
Oh, I guess I said it all in the title.
It is so much easier to write as an adult than as a child. I suppose that I thought I should start with the little girl's story because it was clearest in my head, but the execution is killer. How does a writer who is male and 24 write as a girl who is 8-10 and trying to cope with traumas peculiar to her age and situation without sounding stilted and crappy?. According to my wife, I don't.
So, I'm moving to a different story in the set. I know what I want to say with Cora and the kitty. I am just not good at saying it, especially as a pre-teen girl in the 1950's.
Now I am exploring the firebrand Catholic priest, Fr. Peter. He's a character. I think he might be certifiable.
Currently listening to: Overexposed - Dogwood, Scars that Save - Kids in the Way, Salmarnir - Underoath
So, I'm moving to a different story in the set. I know what I want to say with Cora and the kitty. I am just not good at saying it, especially as a pre-teen girl in the 1950's.
Now I am exploring the firebrand Catholic priest, Fr. Peter. He's a character. I think he might be certifiable.
Currently listening to: Overexposed - Dogwood, Scars that Save - Kids in the Way, Salmarnir - Underoath
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