On Mother’s Day May 8, 2016

Sitting on my bed with you

  Discussing why-we-are-here.

You, so certain.

I, less so.

Your personal convictions are your religion

   Along with your smorgasbord version of

   Catholicism.

I am here, you say,

   To leave this world just a little bit better

      By being kind,

      By listening to those who need to be understood,

      By refraining from judging others…

Even though I might worry about

   The path they are taking,

      Where they might be lost,

   Their inner struggles,

   Their outward trials.

I listened. I tucked your convictions

   Away in my heart, Mom.

And I try—oh I try!

   To be this kind of woman,

   This kind of mother.

  

   

Camellia sinensis

A day dawns.
The aroma of steeping Assam
Raises my sense of peace
At the start of the day.

Astringent, assertive,
Bold, beautiful,
Citrussy...
Compared with Ceylon?

There is an inspiration
In black teas.
They launch us into the day
Without the insistence of
Black coffee…
But an insistence nonetheless.

Literary Noise in the Twenty-First Century

I recently read again Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. This is a novel (or collection of short stories, however you want to label it) that had a profound impact on revered 20^th-century writers such as Hemingway and Faulkner. Literary critics say that this book evolved (I won’t go so far as to say “revolutionized”) literary fiction and, in so doing, inspired other American authors, in particular, to adopt and adapt Anderson's contribution in their own writing.

What does this have to do with “literary noise”?

There is very little literary noise in Anderson’s novel, if you forgive the propensity of prior literary generations in using way more adjectives and adverbs than we are “supposed” to use today. In the intervening decades since Anderson’s book was published, we have moved to worshiping “show don’t tell” in literary fiction and creative nonfiction. Some editors even state that the adverb is or should be dead in literary fiction and that adjectives and adverbs should be replaced by evocative descriptions of what characters are doing, implying what the adjective would have declared.

With the human predilection to believe that if some is good, more is better, we now find writing that is so stripped of modifiers that it requires long passages just to get at what the characters are doing or what can be expressed viscerally about the scene.

"Moderation in all things" would urge that neither the use of modifiers nor of passages that replace them be used to an extreme. I believe the writer needs further latitude. In some stories and styles, multi-paragraph scene descriptions evoke and even reinforce the actions and feelings of the characters.  In Anderson's novel, the colors and weather conditions even substitute for direct descriptions and statements of characters' thoughts and feelings. For me, this is what makes a novel rich and aesthetically pleasing. It is not evocative writing in the minimalist-description sense but in the somewhat indirect way it speaks to the reader. It also, I believe, enhances. 

However, I know avid readers who pass over or skim these passages to get back to the "action." For them, all but action is noise that interferes and stalls the momentum of the story. 

In literature, is what constitutes noise only in the eye of the beholder?

Poetry as Remembrance

John Keats wrote, “Poetry should [...] strike the reader as words from his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.” He elucidates in another text, “The excellency of every art is its intensity.”

Keats’ observations are timeless. The distillation of feeling and “story” is still vivid in the best of contemporary fine arts, performing arts, and literary arts, much as it was thousands of years ago. We need only think of the Epic of Gilgamesh to know that poetry and storytelling were strong within the human race long before written stories came into being. Even a long epic has intensity and distillation of feeling and story. This is literature at its finest and stands abreast of the finest poetry (and prose) today.

What is different from ancient epics is Keats’ notion of poetry as the work of a single poet, a single mind remembering. In past times, poetry was the vehicle for oral history as well as an art form. Epic poetry was created and evolved (a poem is never done, after all) through a community rather than a single person. In that sense this community creation is a much more profound “remembrance” because it is a shared remembrance that contributed to the very culture that carried the poetic story with them over time and place. It is the entire culture that is the poet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a poet that I honor as an inspiration for poets like Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth, …, Angelou, Boland, Glück, …, a commitment to taut language, evocative imagery, intensity, remembrance, cadence.

In this sense, the quote from Keats is his own rewriting of the responsibility of poetry that is a contemporary remembrance of poetry’s role since time immemorial.

Light on Darkness

Winter Solstice

Shines on barren boughs.

Soon, longer days of sunlight

A promise we cling to

Impatiently.

Twenty-five thousand years

Or more

Celebrating the evergreen

The warmth-giving Yule log

Joyously.

Was peace among the hopes

For the coming year?

Or did Yuletide chants

Echo life’s endless repetition

Darkly?

The Beauty of Experiencing Science in Our Lives

I think of scientific properties of the cooking process. Isn't it a delight to see the beauty of scientific (and mathematical) concepts in the world around us? The physical properties of liquids like water when they near their freezing/solid point or steaming/gaseous point. The way that salt acts as an emulsifier for a perfect vinaigrette. The way that leavening agents change the behavior of wheat flour. The way that the flavors of herbs are released with the use of oil. And what great good fortune that a well-balanced meal can be described as one in which there are many different colors. How did that come about? How is it that sauteed tomatoes, yellow squash, green bell pepper, and red (purple) onion, combined with a little oregano and basil, can make such a delicious, nutritious, and pretty dish? What in the evolution of food and humans led to this reality of good nutrition as a color palette?

I live near mountains, a salt-water bay, and an ocean. Major Pacific Coast earthquake fault lines form a dense network here. The mountains are all the more beautiful because I can see how the movement of those faults gave rise to pressure that gave rise to the mountains. I marvel that scientists say, we know less about our oceans than we know about outer space. How is this possible? This makes the oceans mysterious, but they are more beautiful to me to the extent that I can appreciate their "scientific" properties. The pressure at great depths, the utter lack of light, the (delicate) ecosystems, the way that evolution demonstrates its randomness in the adaptations of sea life to its environment. 

The analogies to understanding science for me are the way that those with a background in the fine arts can see so much more in any painting and the way that those with a background in music can hear so much more in any musical performance. We all have access to feelings about the food we smell and eat, the artwork we see, and the music we hear. But each of us brings the potential of a special delight when we also have domain-specific knowledge of the theories and concepts and techniques that apply to each.

Not everyone wants to apply what they've learned to their everyday experience. They prefer to read a novel for the action in the story, not the themes and metaphors they learn to understand in literature studies. Not everyone who studied geometry appreciates the geometry of nature and everyday objects. In fact, not everyone with the means to do so even attempts a multi-color meal on a regular basis. Amazing!

I'm whether it's nature or nurture that makes us curious and observant, draws us apply our existing knowledge of biology or literary criticism, critical thinking or music to the world we are experiencing. I'm a scientist.