Salon Des Geeks

Long ago, back in the mists of time, we had a salon at which the discussion turned at one point to one of my favorite comic poems, An Overworked Elocutionist by Carolyn Wells. As you know, the poem is about a little boy named Robert Reese who has memorized so many poems that one day he just can’t keep them straight, and recites bits and pieces of over twenty of them — in rhyming iambic heptameter, natch. Wouldn’t it be cool, we said, to make an online version with in-line links to each of the poems it quotes?

Well, here it is at last, friends. Putting this together was a delight as only the geeky pursuits we love best can be. I sleuthed out some truly hard-to-find poetry, followed some false leads, and got to revisit some dear old classics. So much of the energy and emotion and melodrama that first drew me to poetry as a kid is in here. There are husky whispers, dying words, tender goodbyes, lingering by shingly bars and babbling on the pebbles, escape via death from fates worse than, and deep life-lessons such as “blind obedience to authority is a good way to get dead,” not to mention “be nice to trees and horses.”

Thank you for inspiring and encouraging me to do this project. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Despite the mundane salutation, I am happy to be posting. This is a test. I tried last week with little success so here goes. Donna

Here is a link to the poem I read at the Salon:

A Nauseous Nocturne by Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes)

Enjoy!

As requested, this is the “grace” that I read before dinner at the last salon. I miss you all!

A Ritual to Read to Each Other
by William Stafford

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider -
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give - yes or no, or maybe -
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

I was asked recently if I had a motto. That prompted me to make the following list:

1. Qui aime juste s’attire un destin
2. I never look at you but there is some new virtue born in me, some new courage
3. A comma not an exclamation mark
4. Dulcius ex asperis
5. Nemo me impune lacessit

It made me think of the Salon. If you were to pick a motto what would it be? Is it more importnat that it capture the essence of your being, or should it be something that you strive to attain?

Discussing this with Natarajan, we came up with a game. For a given motto, what sort of person would have that motto? (’I would buy your book’) Could that be the center of a collaborative short story?

One of the many NPR programs that I enjoy is “This I Believe.” The program, which is based on the original series started by Edward R. Murrow in the 1950’s, invites people to share their deeply-held beliefs in the form of essays of 350-500 words. Selected essays are read aloud on the air by the authors.

Recently I found myself in the emergency situation of running out of reading material in the airport on a business trip to Kentucky. Since this violates one of my core beliefs (”Never be in Kentucky without a book”), I was lucky to run across the book version of “This I Believe” in the airport book store. The book includes essays by such famous lights as Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Leonard Bernstein, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as many by ordinary folk. A concentrated shot of the thought-provoking material I normally hear in three-minute increments once a week on NPR, the book inspired me to work on my own belief essay.

I wondered if anyone on the salon might be interested in reading this book with me and discussing it. If there is a lot of interest, perhaps we might take it up as a topic at our next meeting. If only a few are interested, I would love to chat about it over e-mail.

It’s high time to start planning for the next Salon again. I understand Kiri’s speaking engagement at Juniata, originally a perfect excuse for a spring Salon, has been pushed back to the fall. I would be happy to organize one around my new digs in San Francisco, and Elizabeth and Donna have both graciously offered to host one as well. Time for a little poll. Which do you prefer?

* Aprilish, East Coast
* (Aprilish, West Coast won’t work for Donna, if I understand correctly)
* Julyish, East Coast
* Julyish, West Coast
* Or suggest something not on the list…

It’s odd and delightful to me when I discover an intersection between two of my interests that I had thought of as disparate. In this case, the interests were reading great novels and politics, as I discovered that my favorite living writer has written an op-ed for the Washington Post in favor of Obama. I was already an Obama supporter, but even if I weren’t, Michael Chabon’s astonishing writing skill would make me take another look. No one will ever accuse him of being wishy-washy:

“So I have nodded and looked into their eyes and hummed sympathetically as people gave their reasons and made their excuses and generally offered up, as if they were golden ingots of profound wisdom, the handful of two-penny nails with which they plan to board up the windows of their hopes for themselves, their families, their country and the world.”

Yeah, what he said! The article is here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/03/AR2008020302526.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

(Drop me an email if you would like to use my Washington Post login.)

My only question is…umm…Mr. Chabon, can I vote for you?

David Pogue is the [excellent] technology reviewer for the New York Times. This was recently on his blog. The first response was that this is a vague haiku.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/airlines-and-punctuation/index.html?hp

Airlines and Punctuation

As long-time Pogue’s Postians are aware, I’m obsessed with the signs in airplanes.

Now I’ve got another one for you, from an American jet I just flew to California:

CAUTION OPEN DOOR
SLOWLY DOOR OPENS
INTO AISLE

It’s 2008. Do they really still not have any punctuation available in those fonts?

My high school friend, the incomparable Tess Thompson, posted the following thought-provoking question on her blog : What advice would you give to your younger self?

I found it a really meaningful exercise to sort through what I’ve learned and distill it into a piece of advice that might have helped me (as opposed to lessons I wouldn’t have understood or wanted to follow because I hadn’t yet had the experiences from which I learned them). It’s also tempting to want to shelter my younger self from the very experiences that taught me the most (”Don’t date that guy!” “Don’t take that job!”). What I came up with for Younger Elizabeth is this: Expect More. I think a lot of the choices in my life that have made me unhappy have come from the limiting belief that I was somehow not allowed to have everything I want. I’ve discovered that when I begin with the assumption that I can and go from there, I find that life has this terrific capacity to exceed my expectations.

I’d love to hear what each of you would tell your younger self.