Books in Northport

The Brief Time We Are Here

2012-01-28T18:35:00.000-08:00

Back home with snow to shovel

I’ve been meaning to read The Hunger Games but somehow haven’t gotten around to it yet. Thought of taking it on a recent overnight trip...decided to take something else. The occasion for the trip was very sad, and dystopian literature didn’t seem like what I’d want for bedtime reading at the late end of a long, physically and emotional exhausting day. For some unknown reason—most likely its size, the small, slim volume easily tucked into a bag—I took along Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell. I know, I know! But I did not open it once during the two days we were away from home.

Branches bearing snow burden

It isn’t easy to be young. YA novels and classic modern poetry both have a point when they put their protagonist in nightmarish scenarios. I was young and anguished once myself (and for longer than I had youth as an excuse) but am glad to say that’s over and given up as a way of life. Nihilism? Not interested. Cynicism? No, thank you. Tragedy and heartache? Life brings quite enough in the natural course of events, but the long view of that same course of events shows a multifaceted reality, with happiness as well as misery, contentment more long-lasting for most of us than boredom or anger.

So the book I opened to read over morning coffee on Friday, far from home, was Wendell Berry’s A Place on Earth, and when we were safely home again in our own bed and David asked me to read to him before we went to sleep, it was the Wendell Berry book I opened again.

The Catletts, the Coulters, and the Feltners, Joe and Nettie Banion, Jayber Crow, and all the others in Berry’s fictional Port William, Kentucky, have known each other for a long, long time, as most of them have known the land around their homes for a lifetime. Death and heartache and tragedy come to Port William, as they come everywhere on earth, but here is how Burley Coulter writes to his nephew, Nathan, away fighting in World War II, telling him that Mat and Margaret Feltner and their daughter-in-law, Virgil’s young, pregnant wife, have had word that Virgil is now listed as Missing in Action. Burley is explaining why the preacher’s visit to the Feltners seemed so irrelevant and inappropriate.

I do say that some people’s knack is for the Here. Anyhow, that’s the talent I’m stuck with. For us it’s important to keep in mind who Tom was. And for Mat and them I judge it’s important to know who is meant when they speak of Virgil. We don’t forget them after somebody who never knew them has said “Dead in the service of his country” and “Rest in peace.” That’s not the way these accounts are kept. We don’t rest in peace. The life of a good man who has died belongs to the people who cared about him, and ought to, and maybe itself is as much comfort as ought to be asked or offered. And surely the talk of a reunion in Heaven is thin comfort to people who need each other here as much as we do.

David and I had driven south to Barry County on Thursday, had gone to a funeral home visitation, stayed overnight with friends in Hastings, had breakfast on Friday with friends on their farm out in the country, and we drove back that same Friday. It was a “quick trip” in one sense. In another sense we covered over forty years. We retraced roads traveled many times in former lifetimes, vaguely familiar now though almost forgotten, too. Our path on Thursday had lain through bright fog, out of which frost-painted trees resolved themselves into stark lines and shapes. We gathered with friends in bright rooms that evening as the darkness pressed around outside. Friday morning the sky was blue, sunshine bright, and our friend Michael dug parsnips from his garden for us, and his wife Barbara gave us jars of honey to bring home.

Last summer’s nut-brown oak leaves hung in glossy bunches along the roads and rivers and lakes of Barry County. Crossing the flat Dutch fields around Grand Rapids, we eventually re-entered the North, pines standing in snow, trembling tawny beech leaves so much smaller and lighter than the oak leaves to the south, apple and cherry orchards taking the place of dairy herds.

Looking north to the winter willows

Wendell Berry’s place on earth, also the place of his fictional characters, is south of the Ohio River. Here are some of Mat Feltner’s thoughts as he goes about his farm chores:

Around Mat, the country throbs with the singing of frogs. Too high in the dusk to be seen, a flock of wild geese passes, a kind of conversation muttering among them. They will go on talking and talking that way all night, flying into new daylight far off. That they do not think of him, that they go on, comforts Mat. He thinks of those wild things feeding along lake edges way to the north with a stockman’s pleasure in the feeding of anything, and with something more.

What name can be given to the “something more”? For Mat Feltner, for Wendell Berry, for the reader in tune both with Port William, with the old Barry County days and now solidly home in Leelanau Township, no further naming is necessary. We hold onto our former lives, onto our old friends, onto those who have passed away from us. And when the wild geese fly over, we notice their passing, too. And then we turn to the next job at hand.

Big, heavy snow here on Friday night. Images in today’s post show what the countryside looked like near my home late Saturday afternoon.

Across the orchard, past the pines, to the wooded hills beyond....

Visiting the Past Yet Again

2012-01-24T19:11:00.000-08:00

David had an appointment in Traverse City, so we drove in early and went downtown. I wanted to pick up some tickets at the Opera House for a couple of the National Writers Series events. We parked back behind Front Street along the Boardman River and reminisced about the old Ray’s Coffee House days as we strolled this charming passage to Front Street. I recalled even earlier days, back when Thompson News Agency occupied the space that has been Kilwin’s Chocolates ever since. We walked down the block to the building that used to be called the “Arcade” and visited my friend Gloria in her bookstore, So Many Books, So Little Time. I want to add, “So true!” The next time I visit that shop, I won’t have to rush off somewhere else so soon, and Gloria and I will have more time to catch up on each other’s lives. I’ll have time to look at more books, too.

Earlier David and I had ventured south of downtown for coffee. Does anyone recognize this building on Union Street? To pose a more unlikely question, does anyone remember when it housed Dog Ears Books? That was back in 1994-1996. I met a lot of wonderful people there and loved the Old Town neighborhood, but after commuting for a couple of years I was happy to move my bookstore back to Leelanau County. (There’s no place like home!) Coffee at Old Town Coffee was really good. We’ll go back there again, too, on a more leisurely day, and we;ll have a bagel or muffin with our coffee.

Appointment successfully concluded, we made a trip to Oryana Food Co-op. I hadn’t planned that stop and didn’t have a bag with me, but today the co-op was giving away a free bag with each purchase! That worked out well!

But what did I buy at Gloria’s store? Because you might guess I would find something, rushed as I was, and you would be right. America Today, published by the Macmillan Company in 1938, was a school textbook written by Roy F. Nichols, William C. Bagley, and Charles A. Beard. The name Beard got my attention, but what really caught my eye—and the reason I bought the book—were the illustrations by George M. Richards. Yes, I bought it for the pictures!

It turns out, however, that the text is interesting, too—interesting to me for reasons most likely not intended by the authors. The book, you see, is a history of our country following the Civil War. The first chapter is entitled “Greater Wealth and Bigger Business,” the first section is headed “The New America,” and here is the first paragraph of that first section:

The United States has changed continuously since it was founded. Every few years has seen such great alterations that people have been constantly talking about a New America. The greatest changes, however, really occurred after the War Between the States and were so important that we can speak with accuracy of the nation thereafter as a New America.

One notices instantly the name given to the conflict: not the Civil War, but the War Between the States. Having read that paragraph, I must read on. The second paragraph in the section dispenses quickly with a description of the country before the war, a nation characterized by smallness—small farms, small towns, small businesses and small railroads. Then the third paragraph:

In politics as in business local activity was the most important [before the war]. There were national elections and voters were interested in the government at Washington, but that was far away. They knew more about state government and local interests. They talked of states’ rights and the interests of the South and in many communities they thought more of local rights than they did of national development. In fact the North and South had quarreled over this question when the South thought that the North was trying to injure her prosperity and power. The War Between the States was the result.

And so we brush off our hands and move on quickly to the new industrialism. Well, I am fascinated and amazed. The word slavery never appears! Nor does the word slave. There is no mention of the “peculiar institution” whatsoever. A passing reference to “cheaper labor” in the cotton fields of the South is brought in so as not to leave that region out of the story of industrialization, but nothing more is said of those laborers. In fairness, nothing is said of the laborers in the New England mill towns, either. The authors have other fish to fry.

They are eager to Go West! That’s where the (Big) New America really lies—in the Westward Expansion, in the stories of railroads, cowboys, miners...

...and Indians. The reticent curtain drawn over slavery is not brought into play in the saga of the West. Chapter II, Section III is frankly titled “Conquering the Indians.” Here the authors admit that the white man was naturally viewed as an enemy by the Indians:

He took their land, he killed their buffaloes, he wanted to force them to live on small ranges of poor land....

To make matters worse, the government bungled. The affairs of the Indians were looked after by government agents, who were all too often interested in getting rich. These agents cheated the red men. They sometimes let the Indians have liquor [authors do not say that agents ever sold liquor to the Indians] although this was strictly forbidden by the government, and sometimes they let them have guns and ammunition which later were used against United States soldiers. This ill-treatment gained the Indians many friends in the East who felt that the Indian wars were caused by persecution....

Treaties made, treaties broken, warfare and reservations.

In fifteen years, between 1865 and 1880, the government spent $22,000,000 to fight the Indians and suffered the loss of some 600 officers and men. How many Indians were killed we do not know [my emphasis added].

It will be interesting to read on to see how the writers of this textbook narrate the rest of the story, which they could only give through the Great Depression and the New Deal, the Second World War not yet having arrived, but here in the opening chapters I am struck by two features: the description of the Civil War as the War Between the States, completely omitting any mention of slavery; and the very different treatment given to the warfare carried out against the Indians in the West. I suspect that the textbook authors were wary of offending white school boards in the South but had no reason to feel concern for the feelings either of black Americans or Indians. The story of slavery could not be told without embarrassment to white Southerners, while the story of “Conquering the Indians” carried no such political danger, but neither former slaves nor Indians on reservations play a part in the story of America Today as it marches forward.

The book does not present a completely sugarcoated history of the United States. It acknowledges resentment of immigrants, the ugliness of poverty and tastelessness of the newly rich, political corruption, and the indifference of the major political parties to the very real problems caused by widespread financial collapse in 1893.

Strange as it may seem, these grave problems were not given the attention they needed by the leading politicians of the day. Neither the President nor Congress did much of importance to help the people who suffered most when depressions came. To these only the minor parties tried to give serious attention. The Republicans and the Democrats fought against each other in the elections, but the questions they agued about had nothing to do with improving the conditions in the country which caused panics and hurt the farmers and laborers.

Interesting? Yes. All too familiar, also. But I keep going back in my mind to the nineteen-century wars, the one between the states and the prolonged war against the Native Americans. Anyone knowing nothing of American history could read this book and have no idea that Africans were brought here as slaves. The reader with no knowledge of our country would have no idea that there even were--and are--black Americans. As for Native Americans, the “Indians” of the glamorous Wild West, the reader from another planet could only conclude that they retreated to their reservations and played no more part in national life.

Did children of color have this textbook in their schools? I can’t help wondering.

Loving the Present Participle

2012-01-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

Snow sliding off the roof

Of course any reader or lover of books, like any writer, will also love words. That would seem to go without saying. (Obviously, it doesn't, judging from the number of writers who say it in interviews.) I’ve been thinking morespecifically of late about different parts of speech and my feelings forthem. Mathematicians sometimes admit to loving certain numbers. Is thisstrange? Oh, well! If I be strange, let me be unashamed!

Nouns. The fascination of naming. So many human beings beginspeech with names. Not all—a few are phrase learners, and I wonder what otherdifferences, if any, divide these two groups of learners—but most of us, whenwe uttered our first words, spoke names. Mama. Dada. Ball. Dog. My son spoke thesewords, adding towel, toast and other names quickly to the list. When we went toa theatre, and there was a fire scene in the movie, he identified it as“Hot!” Was that for him anadjective or a noun? Obviously, it was neither, but it may well have been a name.

Verbs. One little boy I took care of for a while was aphrase-learner. “Throw it!” “Get it!” “Jump!” Verbs were his thing. He was all action!

Adjectives and Adverbs. Oh, the love affair young writers embarkupon when first they learn to modify their nouns and verbs! How intoxicating the sense of power, adding detail upon detail to a world beingrecreated with words! Learning to say more with less requires reining in the power so as not to let words run away with the writing, but adjectives andadverbs will always have a place, since the world itself is modified and modifyingitself every moment.

I could go on here to say something about pronouns and aboutconjunctions, seemingly indispensable in the minds of English speakers,although some languages manage without them. If, for instance, a verb isalready conjugated to “agree” with a particular pronoun, why is the pronounneeded? It is redundant. Americans love their pronouns, however, especially thefirst-person singular! And conjunctions. No one can ever study formal logic andsee conjunctions naively again. Two statements can be made one after the other. Conjoining them adds nothing. (Either separate or conjoined, in either speaking or in writing, one must come before the other.) And it is such a shock to be told that and and but are logicallyequivalent! The choice between the two is more an editorial commenton a truth claim than part of a bare statement.

But I want to cut short my survey of parts of speech and get tomy main point for today, which is that I have realized only recently (perhapsbecause it has been true only recently?) that I have an inordinate fondness forthe presentparticiple. I was looking back over titles I’d given various posts on thisblog and found these words: racing; percolating; beginning, singing, ringing,resolving and hoping; reading; wrapping [up]; getting [back in touch];remembering; etc., etc., etc. Even before making that discovery I had beenreading and thinking about poetry, and it struck me that the present participleis vital to modern poetry, because it is vital to capturing a momentaryimpression. And suddenly I realized how much I love this part of speech!

Naming is irresistible. We human beings love to give names toobjects, to places, to babies, and to each other. There are names we love tosay, names that evoke memories or mystery. At the same time, names can lead usastray. When we know something’s name, we are tempted to think we know moreabout it than we do. When we give an abstract name, we think we have tidilyboxed up an idea and can now put it, with its label, on its “proper” place onthe idea shelf. Do you think you know who I am as a person or what I think onany particular topic because you have labeled me a “liberal”? Or because I havea “business”? Or because I’m a “philosopher”?

The world is not static; the world is complex and perpetually influx. Nouns represent pieces of the world by oversimplifying. They take piecesout of context and freeze them in time. Most suspicion of language, when youread it closely, is suspicion of nouns.

No part of speech, however, is propaganda-proof. Verbs, like nouns,adjectives, and/or [!] conjunctions can slant a report one way or another. Didsomeone boast something or admit it? Did someoneelse retreat or flee? Did the candidate grin, smile, or smirk? So too the present participle can be used for otherwise unstated editorial purposes:“Puffing out his chest and tilting his chin upward, to a distant corner of theroom, the uninvited guest replied....” Don’t you just want to kick him outyourself?

Winter sun shining

Still, I love this part of speech. The past tense tells us whatis supposedly over and done with (as if anything ever is); the present tenseholds forth an artificially static snapshot, a “state” of events; and thefuture tense makes claims that can be redeemed only when the future arrives.The present participle, by contrast, gives us a moment still in motion, as it’ssliding by, tumbling forward, and the word doesn’t try to hide or deny themovement, the slip-sliding.

“The nearer your destination, the more you’re slip-slidingaway,” sang Paul Simon, and we heard him and sang along and said, “Yeah!”

PoetJim Harrison used a present participle for the title of his poetry collection, SavingDaylight. There is a poem with that title in the book, another called“Becoming,” another called “Adding It Up.”

Who can ever forget the first line of the poem that begins,

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer...

- William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Do you need more than that? Loving the present participle, Irest my case and relax in the weeds.

Clouds drifting, floating, sighing

I Am Not in Louisiana or Florida

2012-01-20T13:49:00.000-08:00

The pictures on the wall do not really curve like a tropical horizon!

I am in and around Northport, Michigan, commuting between homeand my bookstore in the village. Others are in warmer places.

Robert Gray, who writes for the trade newsletter, “ShelfAwareness,” is in New Orleans. Matt Norcross of McLean and Eakin Booksellers inPetoskey, Michigan, is there, too, and so is best-selling author and novicebookseller Ann Patchett. The occasion for the gathering in the Big Easy is the Winter Instituteof the American Booksellers Association. “Could we have gone?” David asked onThursday evening, as temperatures dropped into single digits and the windhowled fiercely around our old northern Michigan farmhouse. Yes, if money wereno object, we could have gone, but that’s always a mighty big “if” in ourlives.

Only one coloring book left!

Today’s mail brought a postcard announcing the FloridaAntiquarian Book Fair in St. Petersburg, March 9-11. More than 115 book dealerswill participate. We attended this fair a few years ago when we were in Floridafor the winter. Both of us had secret misgivings about going to “the Coliseum,”picturing an enormous football stadium and many square miles of parking lot,but we had agreed to meet friends, and so we hit the road for the Tampa Bayarea. What a lovely surprise! The Coliseum is an old, Spanish-style dance hall,with beautiful dark woodwork inside, and strings of lights added a festivenote. It is beautiful and small enough in scale that it fits perfectly into thesurrounding residential neighborhood. We even found a close parking space onthe street with shade! (I don’t remember if Sarah went with us, but travelingwith a dog makes one very conscious of the importance of shady parking spaces.)The books at the fair were wonderful, too, so we had a great time and were veryglad to have gone. –But not this year.

Here at home for the winter, though, the days pass quickly, asDavid noted when we huddled under the covers for our nightly movie, after hepried himself away from Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken and I put asideCarol Gilligan’s Joining the Resistance, our respective after-dinner reading. Weekspass quickly, too. With the bookstore closed Sunday through Tuesday and loyalBruce at the desk on Wednesday, my only regular days are Thursday throughSaturday, and that’s a short week. Not that I don’t do any bookselling work onthe other days, but the hours are more flexible, and my leash is longer, too.

The table by the door is focused on nature this month.

Last week was an unusual whirlwind in the winter life ofbookseller and artist: We had a dinner out with friends on Friday and theopening of a big area art show in Traverse City on Saturday, and I had abreakfast gathering of friends on Saturday morning, one of my book clubs onSunday evening, the media launch of the 2012 season of the National WritersSeason for Tuesday lunch, and another book club meeting (Dante) on Wednesdayevening. During any given week, there are books to read and blog posts and bookreviews to write, not to mention getting outside with my healthy, young,born-to-run little dog.

Then there are my bookstore days. They may be short (only fourhours long, 11-3), but somehow I keep busy and the hours fly. Making, taking,and returning phone calls takes time, as does rearranging furniture, making upbook orders, visiting with friends who drop in, and reading book catalogs andreviews--all of which has to wait until after the snow is cleared from thesidewalk.

Paperback beach books to leatherbound treasures--

All images in this post are from my bookstore, and all, as youmay have noticed, are of books because I want to remind my readers that buyinga book from an independent bookstore is never just “buying a book.” Wheneveryou “shop local,” whenever you make purchases in your local communitybusinesses, you are participating in a community and doing your part to keepthat community alive. We are all connected, in more ways than are obvious atfirst glance.

Very new to very old, we cover all the bases.

I remind myself of how many people remain Up North all winter(or most of the winter), and I don’t mind at all clearing the snow from thesidewalk in front of my bookstore. This is my little place in the frozen north,and I’m happy to be here.

Was this an advertisement? At least it wasn't spam e-mail or a telephone robo-call.

Tools for a Snowy Day

2012-01-19T06:09:00.000-08:00

Don't look for snow shovels on today's post! The blizzard is raging, but my focus is still on books.

There is no such thing, in the abstract, as “too many books.”Can a poet have too many books of poetry, a chef too many cookbooks, aphilosopher too many works of philosophy? Not if the books are serving the purposesof the various readers, whether that purpose is served daily, weekly or onlyonce every few years.

Besides fiction, field guides and a lot of philosophy, I have alot of books on drawing. It all started one year when David gave me such acomplete beginner’s set of art equipment that I only had enough nerve tosharpen the pencils and try out pencils and eraser in the black-bound book ofsmooth, white, empty pages. We went to Florida that winter and the next, andwith delight and dedication I took up my pencils and sketchbook to draw—myfoot! David’s foot! An empty shoe! A palm tree! The second year I was braverand attempted entire scenes. Other than shopping and cooking, there were fewdemands on my time, and drawing helped me settle into a strange new place.

Then came two years without Florida, and here at home inMichigan I passed those winter months like the summer, without making a singlesketch. Next, two Florida winters and an entire sketchbook filled. But this issilly! Michigan is my home, and it’s where I should be taking the time toabsorb and record the world around me. My stillness project this year is aboutdoing just that. So out come the books—not all those borrowed from libraries inFlorida, of course, but certainly those I have collected for my own privatelibrary over the last half-dozen years.

One of the first I fell in love with, loving trees as I do, was DrawingTrees,by Henry C. Pitz (NY: Watson-Guptill, 1964). Here are the first sentences ofthe author’s preface:

As this introduction is being written, outside the studio window afirst fall of wet snow has covered the ground and clings to the branches of thebarren trees. With an overcast sky, the scene is essentially a black-and-whitepicture, in which the tracery of the trees is enhanced by this change innature’s cycle.

- Henry C. Pitz, Drawing Trees

Certainly appropriate to the season, all that talk of snow! Well, it’s been two years since I’ve looked at Pike's book, and itcaptivates me anew with its straightforward lessons and clear illustrations, but the author is obviously addressing serious art students, not amateurs anddilettantes. For instance,

The exploring of new media and techniques is an exhilerating [sic]experience for the true artist and should be indulged in by the student freelyand naturally, unmindful of any comment that technique spells death for thecreative impulse. The creative spirit that is killed by technical investigationis a piddling thing that will not be missed.

I have never thought anyone would miss my "piddling" sketches were I to turn my back forever on the attempts! Drybrush,pen, carbon pencil, charcoal—I study the author’s drawings,noting appreciatively the effects he achieves with various media, and then I pick up onceagain my soft lead pencil and sharpen it to a new point. Time later for more ambitiousexperiments. Everything in good time. Don't rush me!

Books that speak to me more personally are those byClare Walker Leslie.

In fact, her advice is so perfectly aimed at my interests that itis as if she had me in mind when she wrote. Here is what her introduction saysto the reader:

I find drawing to be the simplest, the most direct, and the leastexpensive art medium for studying nature. We have so encumbered ourselves todaythrough sports, recreation, and hunting with an abundance of tools for “beingin nature” that we have lost the greatest tool of all: simply sitting andwatching. Drawing allows for this. We have also lost the ability to learn onour own and to trust our own learning. Nature drawing is a solitary pursuit.The experience is between ourselves and the object. Often it becomes moresketching than drawing, using the pencil more as a tool for taking notes ofobservations than for creating a lovely drawing.

- Clare Walker Leslie, Nature Drawing (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice Hall, 1980)

Lesliealso recommends different media and different kinds of paper andexperimentation with different techniques, but early in her chapter on “Methodsand techniques” comes these refreshing and encouraging lines:

...Above all, enjoy your study. Use it as a time to be in full contactwith nature without the distractions and worries that so flood our everydayhuman lives. If a day’s drawing results in nothing but torn-up pages but wasfully enjoyed otherwise by being outdoors watching birds courting, studyingvarious plant forms, or observing the wind blowing ripple patterns across apond, then consider your day a success. Drawing should bring you to nature, notback you away from it. So be patient. Your way of drawing will change, evolve,and mature, as will your study of nature.

TheArt of Field Sketching (Layton, UT: Peregrine Smith Books, 1993) continues in the same vein.For this author, drawing and nature are of equal importance, and one learnsboth together by sketching in the field. These books renew my acquaintance withterms I had forgotten, e.g., contour drawing, gesture sketch, and detaileddrawing. The gesture sketch is important to me at this beginning stage of mylearning, not only because it is a way to catch subjects that move quickly(dogs, squirrels, birds, etc.) but also because it must be done quickly andloosely, not with a nervous concern for results.

GiovanniCivardi’s Complete to Drawing (Tunbridge Wells, Kent: 2010; originally published inMilan, Italy) on the other hand, tells me so much more than I can take in thatit’s overwhelming. There are pages and pages on drawing the human figure—pagesof anatomically correct hands alone, in various poses. My solution is to turnto a section late in the book (pp. 279-80) where the author shows tonaldrawings in four different stages. Yes, yes, I see! After studying those twopages for only a few minutes, I see the landscape from the car window verydifferently, composed into areas of light and dark, and I feel I have learnedsomething. Every book on drawing gives me something, whether it's pages of examples, paragraphs of encouragement, or one new idea.

I havewritten before about Frederick Franck’s TheZen of Seeing andZen Seeing, Zen Drawing. Franck was my earliest inspiration, in that he inspired me with the longing to draw, many years before I found thecourage to try. The nature side of my study is excited by Paul Rezendes’s The Art of Tracking& Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks & Sign (Charlotte, VT: 1992) and an old,oft-reprinted Michigan Department of Natural Resources booklet, MichiganWildlife Sketches.

There aretoo many relevant books to list, and I know there are many more that have yet to come myway. One more I want to mention from my currently active stack these days mayseem only peripherally a nature book. Certainly not intended as a drawing book,the translation of Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, with photographyby Jane English and calligraphy by Gia-Fu Feng, does have many illustrations oftrees on its pages, but the thoughts fit my stillness project as well as theimages. “In dwelling, be close to the land,” this book tells me. There isalso an injunction to “Magnify the small.” Close to the land, with attention tosmall details, my studies fill me with contentment. Seeing a cold, cold week in the forecast, I did my outdoor hour on what looked like it would be the warmest day, and now I can only hope that next week will have at least one not-brutal hour for outdoor meditation with sketchbook and pencil. Another day I'll write about keeping while sitting still outdoors. People have wondered about that, and it's a crucial topic.

In Literary Terms, “National” Means Northern Michigan

2012-01-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

View of Front Street from Opera House, Upstairs

Indoors and outdoors could not have been more different today indowntown Traverse City. On the streets, in trucks and cars, white knucklesgripped steering wheels, while windblown pedestrians on the sidewalks bentforward and made themselves into tight bundles, conserving as much body heat aspossible. At the same time, inside the Traverse City Opera House, the mood wascelebratory as the National Writers Series unveiled its fourth season, openingthis year (for the first time) with a media launch luncheon. I was pleased tobe invited, to say the least.

The Opera House is beautiful. Whenever I’m there, I can’t helplooking up. The Traverse City Pie Company did a stellar job with the buffetlunch, too. The focus of the event, however—and justly so—was theannouncement of this season’s guest authors. What a line-up! You can (andshould) link to the NWS website for the full schedule, but I can’t help sayinghow thrilled I am that there is a philosopher coming this year:Michael Sandel, communitarian ethicist from Harvard. Among fiction writers, theone who stands out most sharply for me is Geraldine Brooks, author of fournovels, because I have read three of the four.

Doug Stanton, a Traverse City native and a nationallybest-selling author himself, was clearly very happy to share the history of theseries, its mission statement, and plans for the future, particularly the 2012schedule. Doug and Anne Stanton (she a dedicated journalist whose features wehave missed ever since she left Northern Express to team up and workwith her husband) are a powerhouse pair of writers. They write with passion,not with ego, and they work like bricklayers at their craft. Over the years,the more I have gotten to know the Stantons, the more I admire them. This is abit of a digression from news of the NWS, but I can’t help it. Doug and Annedon’t blow their own horns, so this is my salute to them for all the wonderful workthey do, their writing and everything else they do for the greater TraverseCity community and all of northern Michigan. Bringing nationally recognizedauthors to our region—what a fabulous idea! And then they went on and made it happen!

The mission of the NWS is twofold, focusing on students andcommunity. After expenses for the series are paid, every penny earned goes intocollege scholarships. Another wrinkle on the community side is that book clubsof five or more members can get a 10% discount on tickets when orderingtogether.

It was good to see old friends and reconnect with people I’vemet only recently, and afterward I didn’t mind at all going out into theblizzard and making my way down Front Street to meet David at Horizon Books,taking in the wintry urban scene along the way.
Even the marquee letters on theState Theatre held snow, and trees on the north side of the street looked as ifthey had been coated bottom to top, every last twig, with spray starch. It wasquite a day.

P.S. Maybe my headline wasn't clear. What I meant is that the National Writers Series has put northern Michigan on the national literary map.

Racing Through Pages

2012-01-15T07:40:00.000-08:00

The frost on the porch windows yesterday morning was still therein the afternoon and later on, in the evening, when we returned from our secondnight out in a row, this time to the Northwest Michigan Regional JuriedExhibition at the Dennos Museum in Traverse City, where David scored anhonorable mention, a result that pleased us both. It was a huge field of work,with all kinds of media represented. We saw many old friends, as well as a seaof strangers.

Tonight will be the third night out in a row for me, and I mustspend the day getting ready for it. Preparations will not involve extensivewardrobe considerations or experiments with hair or makeup. No, I’ll be readingall day. Four of us (one will be absent—and greatly missed!) will be gettingtogether to discuss Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, and I have onlyreached Chapter 8 so far!

So, time to lay Dante aside and postpone further getting intoCarol Gilligan’s new book (more of that in the near future) as I return toWorld War II and the life of Louis Zamperini. Not a moment to lose! I am onlyon page 82! I will only take time to note that on page 40, as runners all overAmerica are straining to run a 4-minute mile, the author makes theseobservations:

His coach predicted Louie would take that record [4.06.04] down.The only runner who could beat him, the coach said, was Seabiscuit.

It tickled me that Hillenbrand was able to get in that casualand certainly appropriate reference to the subject of her own formerbest-selling nonfiction book.

No more dilly-dallying now, however: it is time to read, read,read! Outdoor fun in the snow must wait, too, Sarah!

Dante and My Nemesis, Nietzsche, Come Face to Face

2012-01-12T15:19:00.000-08:00

A friend e-mailed last week tocongratulate me on reading Dante's Inferno, a classic of the Western canon, and then went on toexcoriate the poet and his work!, confessing her “long hatred” of both, “mostof all, the savage imagination that reveled in that so political andscore-settling Hell.” There is no denying the joy the poet takes in giving “savage”punishments to those of his own time and country in the other political camp.Take that out of the work, and not much would remain. So I thought of my friend's reaction as I continued my reading.

It isn’t as if I hadn’t already had my doubts about Dante.The whole Beatrice thing—somewhere I heard or read that he practically stalked the poor girl--andhe did have a wife and children, after all, none of whom are mentioned at all,let alone glorified (beatified!) in his poetry! My friend who hates Danterefers to her feminst outrage over his use of the term mulierculae, “little women,”“womanlets,” or “mere women,” indicating the lowbrow audience he hoped to reach, “whileof course knowing,” she adds, “ that his writing occupied a very high plane.”

But I need to shift gears for a moment now and introduce a phrase much bandiedabout in academic philosophy: the principle of charity, which has to do with the way a philosopher is supposed to interpret the work of another. If, forexample, I am reading something in Kant that initially makes no sense to me, Iam to remind myself that Kant was no fool but a highly intelligent man, andthat it is therefore unlikely that what he wrote was nonsense. I then look for aninterpretation in which it would make sense. Okay, that’s the principle. Got it?

In practice, the principle is applied very selectively. My use of Kant as an example is a casein point. Kant's status is legendary! He could not be talking through his hat! And who am I to criticize one of his stature? Insimilar fashion, as I have written elsewhere, we are urged by his defenders tostretch our powers of understanding when dealing with the writings ofNietzsche. Hence my observation:

If a writer is (a) famous and (b) dead, the principle of charityis almost always invoked.

Philosophers tend to be much less charitable when criticizingtheir contemporaries, and any undergraduate knows that a professor rarelyappeals to the principle of charity when readinga student paper. Yes, students are quite often guilty of sloppy thinking, hasty generalization and ahost of informal errors, but occasionally, I feel certain, there is a kernel ofthought not yet fully blossomed, a seed that could use nourishing, something“vague and inarticulate” (in the words of the immortal William James, aphilosopher who had unusual sympathy for the vagueness of ordinary humanthought) that simply has not yet found its most felicitous expression. Anddidn’t the immortal Henri Bergson (can you tell that these are two of myfavorite philosophers?) write somewhere that every philosopher really only says onething—or, rather, spends his life trying to say it, in the best cases circlingever nearer and nearer the elusive goal?

So now, having appealed to James and Bergson, allow me to bring inAristotle, my “main man” among the ancients, for the purpose of asking thefollowing question: If charity in interpretation is the virtuous mean, what arethe corresponding vices of deficiency and excess? Deficiency would obviously bea lack of charity, i.e., assuming the writer or to be a fool scribblingnonsense, but what would an excess of charity be? Perhaps putting the writer on apedestal? Treating his work as equivalent to the Ten Commandments, not to bequestioned or criticized at all but only revered? Reverence?

This, it seems to me, is too often the fate of any workdesignated as a classic: When a work enters the canon, its author is canonized. Now the writer isbeyond criticism, above reproach, and the work can have no faults. At thisjuncture, let’s hear from my critical friend again:

Eachtime I've read it I've been more appalled, until I no longer care how beautifulit is. "Wild notions" [here she is quoting my earlier blog post] are agentle way to see some of these descriptions of physical pain. I'vebecome a complete literalist about it. I've come to think it isn't enoughto read The Inferno in a critic's ‘enlightened’ way, passing quickly to thebeautiful language after a chuckle at the man's (absolutely serious)convictions. What a cruel long life they've had in our history....

When I re-read that she thinks “it isn’t enoughto read The Inferno in a critic’s ‘enlightened’ way,” I am reminded forcibly ofmy anguished struggle with Nietzsche, Part II of which I have yet to write upfor “Books in Northport.” There seemed no rush, as philosophy more oftendrives away readers rather than drawing them in, and Part I was a case in point, but Part II, if I ever writeit, will tell in detail just how hard I tried to read Nietzsche in theenlightened manner, “bracketing” (i.e., setting aside) his most appallingpassages and focusing narrowly on questions that seemed amenable to lessrepulsive conclusions. My conclusion--in a nutshell, unadorned--was that the task could not be accomplished. With the leastoffensive passages, on the most innocuous of subjects, the same monsters stillreared their heads. The poison penetrated every corner.

So I know what my friend means when she tells me she hatesDante, and perhaps for each of us there is one nemesis, and Nietzsche is mine,Dante hers. I fear that philosophers' ideas are more easily adopted and adapted by ideologues, but perhaps literature has a different but equal power to effect thought. Actually—this occurs to me only now, slogging through my vague,subterranean responses to both—there is something peculiar shared by both thesecanonized giants. --I need a new paragraph here. I want this point to stand out.

Neither was a giant in his own time—not rich, not powerful,not heralded throughout the world as a genius. When Nietzsche chose ressentiment as the ugliest ofhuman motives, surely he knew firsthand whereof he spoke. How could he havefailed to resent the honors granted to toadying academics, while he, thegenius, was passed over? Dante’s gloating over his enemies’ suffering is butthinly veiled in the pity he claims to feel for them. Do we believe his pity is real? After all, it is he whoinvented the macabre punishments of his literary vision, so how sorry can he befor the sinners? And why is he so eager to publish their names among the living, if not to punish them himself?

My friend hates Dante. Maybe because philosophy rather than literature is myfield, or maybe because the role of Nemesis in my life is already filledby Nietzsche—or maybe because I was not raised Catholic, which myfriend seems to think is important to her response—but I cannot find it in me to hate Dante. The descriptions in bloodyCanto XXVIII of bodies being torn and carved to pieces, bleeding, entrailsexposed did not entertain me at all, as had some of the more fanciful punishments ofearlier Circles; they are too easily imaginable, too realistic, too much what happens to human beings at war on earth. I would remind my friend, however, that neither the Bible northe Catholic Church threatened believers (or unbelievers) with the dreadfulfates Dante images. It all came out of his head! His head! Mandelbaum pointsout in a note that the punishment Dante imagined for Fra Alberigo did notconform to orthodox Christian doctrine, and the history Dante attributes to Ulysses is much different from what we get from Homer.

It is only in writing that Dante could getrevenge, as only in writing could he be united with his love object, asonly in writing could Nietzsche claim to be so far in advance of the rest ofhumanity in his thinking that no one born could yet understand him. Nietzschedied mute, insane, possibly as a result of syphilis. (No one knows for sure.)Dante, condemned to death in absentia, died in exile. Both lives came tounhappy ends. Little wonder they felt resentment, scorn, anger and hatred for so many of their contemporaries. Only in their imaginations and their brilliantly fevered writingscould they dream of triumph. In real life, both weredefeated, except that they "got their work done" (as a professor of mine noted) and left that work behind.

Having only read The Inferno, I cannot yetaddress the place of Beatrice in Dante’s thought and writing. In defense of my earlier hypothesis that sins of language are punished most gravely in TheInferno,I note that the giant Nimrod in Canto XXXI is assigned to the Ninth Circle ofHell for having splintered humanity into a multitude of languages, and hispunishment is that he is cursed with what we might call a “private language”(cf. Wittgenstein) that no one else can understand.

But the snow has arrived. Forecast for 10 a.m., it did not beginuntil almost 4 p.m., but now it falls, gently, thickly. Lentils simmer, Davidreads, Sarah works over a rawhide bone, and towels slosh in the washingmachine. We are not in hell. Far from it.

David Is Doing My Homework!

2012-01-11T15:53:00.000-08:00

Upright, angled, falling and on the ground

Book clubs, reading groups—call them what you will, they tend tobecome (especially the smaller ones, I’m sure) very tight-knit littlefellowships as years go by. The reading group I’ve been in the longest—I’d sayit’s been at least six years, maybe more, that we’ve been getting together astime permits—meets only five times a year. There are five of us in it (allwomen), and busy schedules make even our five meetings difficult to schedule,but we persevere, and so it happens that sometimes we meet even when all fiveof us have not completed the book under discussion. Not reading the whole book?Isn’t that heresy?

Here I must say, not so much boasting of a virtue as admittingto a compulsion, that so far in our history I have always come to meetingshaving started at the beginning and made my way completely through the book inquestion, but my perfect record is headed for the dustbin this month. I havebeen so busy with Dante and with book reviews and with proof-reading and withbeing outdoors (both with Sarah and without), keeping up with multiple blogsand wrapping up year-end bookkeeping, that when, of three possible dates for usto meet, the very earliest was fixed upon (not my preference, you maybe sure!), my heart sank. “I’ll do my best” was all I could promise.

My outdoor companion, always ready to go

Then on Monday, having read only the first three pages, I handedDavid the book so he would have something to read while I visited a friend inthe hospital. I told him he would find the story “gripping.” Understatement!When I got back to the car I don’t think he’d even realized I’d been gone, andhe has been engrossed in his reading ever since. Now and then he puts down the book to give me a report on what is happening “now” to the main character. He has alsobeen telling all his friends about this fabulous book.

What can I say in my own defense? David is not writing a paperfor me. (If he wrote anything I would publish it here under his name, notmine.) He won’t be taking a test for me. (There is no test, or I would bereading the book right this minute!) And, really, would it not be unkind to separate himfrom a story he is enjoying so very much, just so I can complete an “assignment”?

Don’t you want to know what the book is? It is Laura Hillenbrand’sUnbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. And there’sanother copy at my bookstore in Northport, if Bruce didn’t make off with it today afterDavid’s rave review!

Sarah in the late afternoon sunshine

Down into Darkness, Up into Light: A January Paradox

2012-01-08T12:03:00.000-08:00

In that part of the young year when the sun

begins to warm its locks beneath Aquarius

and nights grow shorter, equaling the days,

whenhoarfrost mimes the image of his white

sister upon the ground—but not for long,

because the pen he uses is not sharp—

thefarmer who is short of fodder rises

and looks and sees the fields all white, at which

he slaps his thigh, turns back into the house,

andhere and there complains like some poor wretch

who doesn’t know what can be done, and then

goes out again and gathers up new hope

onseeing that the world has changed its face

in so few hours, and he takes his staff

and hurries out his flock of sheep to pasture.

Dante, The Inferno, Canto XXIV

We are indeed in January, with cold nights and slowlylengthening days, so in that sense we are coming into the light. Toread The Inferno, however, is to descend ever deeper intodarkness and misery, visiting sinners in their abode of eternal punishment. Andas Dante’s descent was supposed to have begun on Good Friday (1300 CE), hisjourney partook of a similar paradox.

With Canto XXIV, we are still in the Eighth Circle of theInferno, the place of torment for men who were deceivers of other men. Inpreceding “pouches” of this Circle (and I have not written before of anyparticulars of this work, so did not explore earlier Circles in detail) weencountered panderers, seducers and flatterers (those guilty of “ordinaryfraud”); simonists (corrupt churchmen); corrupt politicians; diviners, magiciansand astrologists; grafters; and hypocrites. In Canto XXIV we shall pass fromhypocrites to thieves, and as this passage begins Dante seems a poor,frightened sheep, soothed by his shepherd guide, Virgil, who capably leads himdown a craggy, treacherous path.

It is interesting that sins of violence—whether against one’sown self, against others or against God—are punished less severely by Dante’simagination than sins of fraud. So too lust and gluttony, “deadly” sins by thereckonings of the Church, occupy only the mildly punished Second and ThirdCircles, just below Limbo (Limbo that First Circle occupied by otherwise goodpeople who unfortunately died without baptism or lived prior to its Christianpossibility). Frauds, grafters and hypocrites, behold your place in Dante’sscheme of things! Your sins are worse than murder and suicide! Worse than thepunishment meted out to heretics is your fate! Why did Dante seeit (or wish to see it) so?

My first thought was that a blasphemer, a murderer or a suicide, like a lustful person, may have been taken by momentary passion, whereas fraudrequires steady, cold-blooded intent, but the friend I tried out this answer on(another reader in our group and more studious than I by far when it comes to secondaryliterature) objected that murder also may be planned and executed in coldblood. True. And so my first speculation fell to ground.

Can it be that flatterers, seducers, corrupt churchman and lyingpoliticians, grafters and hypocrites and the like spreadtheir harms more widely because their use of language to deceive undermines thevery possibility of truth, which is itself the necessary condition of justice? This is my newhypothesis—a philosopher’s hypothesis, to be sure--and I’ll be watching to seeif it holds up as I descend to the Ninth Circle.

Meanwhile, strange as it seems, I don’t mind lingering a while inthe Eighth Circle, since at this depth I seem to have broken through morecompletely than before to the wonders of the poet’s invention. The diviners,astrologers and magicians, for instance, because they “wanted so much to seeahead,” to tell the future, are punished by having their headsfixed on backwards, “...so awry that tears, drawn from the eyes,/bathed thebuttocks, running down the cleft”! Tears running down their butts! What a wildnotion! Introducing the fifth pouch of this Circle, in Canto XXI, Dante begins with adescription of an Italian shipyard in winter--

Asin the arsenal of the Venetians,

all winter long a stew of sticky pitch

boils up to patch their sick and tattered ships

thatcannot sail (instead of voyaging,

some build new keels, some tow and tar the ribs

of hulls worn out by too much journeying;

somehammer at the prow, some at the stern,

and some make oars, and some braid ropes and cords;

one mends the jib, another, the mainsail)...

--to set the stage for the punishment given to politicians whotook bribes: they are submerged in boiling pitch, and if they so much as dareto lift a hair above the level of the pitch, their tormenters push them backdown under, like cooks “...force the meat with hooks/deep down into the pot,that it not float”! And don’t you think they deserve it, too? And can youwonder now that I am tempted, when at last I reach the end of this book, toturn back to the beginning and spend more time on the analogies, some given ina word, others in a phrase, still others in long, multi-stanza passages ofdescription?

Phew! It’s hot down there!

Shall I Look Back, Too?

2012-01-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

I’d already removed “Books Read 2009” and was happy with lessclutter on the page, so I also removed “Books Read 2010” (I have my “BooksRead” lists elsewhere: they don’t all have to be on the blog forever), and that’swhen I started thinking about the year just past in terms of the books I readfrom January to December. Down there at the bottom of the 2011 list you’ll seethe first book I finished reading last year. It was As Always, Julie, and I will alwaysassociate it with my own correspondence, conducted by e-mail and beginning theprevious November, with a new friend in New South Wales, Australia, because AsAlways, Julia was one of the first books we read “together,” discussing it inour messages back and forth. Since then we have often been inspired by eachother’s enjoyment of particular books and movies to look out for thoseourselves and have even sent each other physical books in the mail—an expensiveproposition between Australia and North America, but there is such excitementin sending and receiving the packages!

On up the book list is South of Superior, the seventh book Iread in 2011, which appears only once in the list, but the truth is that I readit completely through three times last year! Today I talked to a good friend inthe hospital and was happy to learn that her husband took South of Superior to her today. Ican’t think of a better choice. By contrast, The Help was not a favoritebook of mine, but it generated a lot of fascinating discussion, crossing linesof race, age, gender and culture, so for that reason I’m glad I read it. Butno, I didn’t see the movie.

A string of memorable nonfiction also enlivened my reading year.Unspeakable: The Story of Junius Wilson told of a man caught up by mistakein institutionalized life; once inside, everyone assumes that’s where hebelongs, and so his life is narrowly circumscribed, year after year. As avicarious experience, The Honey Trail: In Pursuit of Liquid Gold andVanishing Bees, was almost the diametrical opposite of life in an institution,as the author traveled the world over, learning about one of the planet’s mostfascinating insects. Then there was In the Basement of the Ivory Tower, with a critique ofhigher education comparing the selling of college loans to the selling of homemortgages, both products overvalued.

Back on the fiction front, I was very taken with How to Readthe Air, a complex fictional narrative of immigrant experience. AnnaKarenina and The Art of Racing in the Rain both re-reads, eachof them for a different reading group, were both--as different as theyare--well worth the time to read again.

As I move on up the list, I see books recommended by friends,books read with different group of people, most new but several re-read.Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life I first encounteredas a young person; reading them again at this stage of life was richlyrewarding. --Is it even possible, I wonder, to read the “same” book twice?Memories of the first reading mix with life lived between readings to produce avery different soup. In fact, the more I look at the list, the more I see that tracing evenone year’s reading involves endless backtracking in my book life, along withmany new and noteworthy adventures, and I doubt I have the energy to relive it alland write about it, too--not to mention (but here I go) that I doubt many blogreaders would have the patience to read my rambling thoughts on that impossiblyhuge subject, anyway. So?

So, time to start skipping bigger chunks and only touch downlightly on a few standouts. Once Upon a River: Definitely astandout. Some Horses: McGuane grown up. The Full Cupboard of Life: Title alone makesthe book worth buying and having, but there’s also the irresistible MmaRamotwse. Tattoos on the Heart: Everyone in the country should read it. PrairieEvers:Can’t wait for its release! The Windward Shore: Put me in the moodfor winter! (Now, when will it get here?) Bait and Switch: Love BarbaraEhrenreich! Songs of Unreason: Thank you, Jim! Half of a Yellow Sun: Took my wholeheart. Wild Comfort and Incident at Hawk’s Hill: Kathy (not inAustralia but closer to home), you were right about these.

I thought at the beginning of this post that I would insertlinks to previous posts discussing various books on the list at length and indetail. Changed my mind. Too much work. Lazy me. You’ll just have to use thatsearch bar at the top of the page if you’re dying for more about anythingmentioned here. But really, wouldn’t you rather read the books for yourself? Orthe books that are waiting on your nightstand?

I Catch Sight of a Small Seasonal Resident

2012-01-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

Near-sighted eyes are not ideal bird-watching equipment, andeven with the best of field guides identification can be difficult, owing to theplain fact that birds generally do not hold still for long. (Trees and wildflowers are so much more cooperative!) Here is where a digital camera doubles as binoculars and recording device: Havingspotted a bird too faraway or high up to see clearly, I zoom in as close aspossible and click the shutter, after which I can zoom again onscreen to notemarkings at my leisure, there in the field and later, at home with my fieldguides.

That invisible bird near the barn in the morning? Having caughthim on camera in the afternoon, over by the edge of the woods, I am at last able to identify the Eastern Tree Sparrow, Spizellaarborea arborea (nice name!), otherwise known as the “winter chippy” (cutenickname!). Roger Tory Peterson leaves no doubt in my mind: “The single roundblack spot or ‘stickpin’ in the center of the breast, and the bright red-browncap arethe only marks necessary to identify the ‘Winter Chippy.’” Peterson makes itsound so easy, and so it is with a good, long look at the little bird. He givesits note as “a distinct tseet,” which is how I link the invisible bird bythe barn to the visible bird my camera found in the brush between orchard and woods.

I tell a birding friend about my success, prefacing my story bysaying that it won’t be a very exciting bird to him who has seen so many, onvarious continents, in his lifetime. He laughed. “They’re all exciting to me,”he admitted.

It got better. He hadn’t seen any tree sparrows yet this winterand had been concerned over their late arrival, so what I told him about seeing the tree sparrow he took as "good news." These birds breed and summer up inCanada and come down to our area in winter, staying until spring returns.

Can you see my new little friend?

I'm happy to think that my little friend will be around all winter. I look forward to seeing more of him.

Quiet and Slow but Percolating Beneath the Surface

2012-01-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is quiet now in Northport and environs. It’s thepost-holiday season, the beginning of our long slog through winter. Another way is to think that every day now is longer than the one before andthat we are racing forward to the arrival of spring, whether we see theprogress outside our windows or not.

As Gerry Sell has noted, it’s been a strange winter so far. I spent the first day of my year-long adventure outdoors on oneof the coldest days of the week. (Not absolutely the coldest day,because Sunday and Monday were impossibly cold, with fierce, brutal, punishingwinds that even Sarah did not want to linger outside in. Tuesday morning wasstill cold but not impossible.) I lasted the full hour. “What happened?” Davidasked when I came back inside. “I want to hear all about it!” The truth is thatnothing much happened at all, as you can read on my entry for the day. It probably makes boring reading, but the blog is only intended as arecord, and I imagine there will be a lot of variety in my experiences over thefull year. And I'm not looking for a lot to "happen." That's not the idea....

Omena’s scenery looked Arctic on Tuesday afternoon. I like theArctic look myself.

Wednesday found me back in the bookstore. That's the back of Bruce's head you see there (above) through the window. Bruce had opened (weare on winter hours now, Wednesday through Saturday, 11-3) and was on deck for the day, so I was able toduck in and out and get a few other things done. It was good to catch upwith him on our first business day of the new year. We shared holiday tales, talked about the new issue of BookSource Magazine, and caught up on many small details of bookstore life. We looked impatiently (I speak for myself here) for the UPS truck, too, but I guess the new book order will arrive on Thursday.

Another thing I did today was make copies to post around town of a couple magazine pages to which I attached the announcement of Benjamin Busch’s visit to Northport on March 23. The date seems farin the future, but I know from (many years of) experience how quickly timepasses, and I want people to know about this event in plenty of time, especially before they schedule spring travel away from Leelanau County. Dog Ears Books will be the first Up North bookstoreBusch visits on his book tour, which will begin in Ann Arbor and work its wayup to us before he branches out to the rest of the country. “How did you gethim to come to Northport?” one friend asked when I showed her Ben’s essay in Newsweekmagazine.It’s because I was lucky enough to stumble upon an essay two years ago, writing about it on my blog, and Benhas not forgotten. Later that year he appeared at Dog Ears Books with Anne-Marie Oomen, another wonderful Michigan writer, and that's a day I have not forgotten.

So yes, the holidays are over, and yes, this is the quiet time of year, but there's still a lot going on, and it's good to have some time to catch up on loose ends, look back at where we've been and launch preparations for spring and summer. Seed catalogs? Don't even let me get started on seed catalogs and garden plans!

Guest Blogger on Life and Death

2012-01-03T04:06:00.000-08:00

Dawn King regularlywrites her own blog, on topics ranging from her dog Katie to interstate highwaytruck safety. As this year’s first guest blogger on Books in Northport, she isallowing me to repost something she wrote shortly before Christmas. No furtherintroduction should be necessary: everything is explained below:

You may have heard that the FAA (Federal AviationAdministration, part of the Department of Transportation) issued a new rulethis week on the hours that a pilot is allowed to work before having torest. They lowered the number of hours by one and made some otherchanges. It’s not enough, letting them fly one hour less, but it’s astart. This change was prompted by the crash more than a year ago of acommuter plane in New York state, where the pilots had been flying long hoursand were fatigued.

Well, what you probably haven’t heard is that the FMCSA (FederalMotor Carrier SAFETY Administration) also a part of the DOT (Department ofTransportation) just issued a new rule regarding the hours of service (HOS) fortruck drivers. We’ve been working for over a year with them,hoping to get the 11 consecutive hours they’re allowed to drive reduced to10. Even 10 is too many; most of us work a 40 hour week and we’re exhausted. Drivers can (under this new rule) drive 70 hours a week, 30 hours over anormal work week.

The ‘new’ HOS rule was issued late today. Though they madesome changes geared toward safety – they reduced the total number of drivinghours per week from 82 to 70, they mandate that drivers get some sleepovernight – they left the 11 hours of consecutive driving in the rule. This is the most dangerous part of the rule, and the part we worked very hardto get reduced.

Tonight I wrote a letter to Anne Ferro, the Administrator of theFMSCA, the woman I’ve met with on several occasions, to express mydispleasure. I’m sharing it with you now:

Dear Anne,

With tears in my eyes and a tremendous ache in my heart Iread tonight, on the eve of the 7th anniversary of my father’s death atthe hands of a fatigued semi driver, the new HOS rule. You and I havemet. You’ve looked at Dad’s photo, the picture of the car, heard hisstory. You listened when I spoke about how he fixed dangerous things, nodded inagreement when I said that fatigued driving could be fixed. You hugged meand said you knew your work wasn’t fast enough for me. I thought yourecognized the opportunity you had to make a difference, to save lives, to putsafety ahead of commercial profit.

But you left the most dangerous part of the HOS ruleintact. You are continuing to allow drivers to drive eleven hours in arow. Your own agency studies indicate that driving eleven hourscontributes to fatigue related crashes. Your own surveys tell you that driversreport driving fatigued, report falling asleep while driving. Your ownresearch tells you the truth. Yet you allowed pressure from wealthy andprofit oriented organizations to convince you that profit is more importantthan the public’s safety. Ensuring safety on our roads is your number onejob. Safety is your number one responsibility.

In the same week that the FAA responded to the problem offatigued airline pilots and lowered the number of hours pilots can work beforethey must rest, you ignored the fact that fatigued truck drivers are just asdangerous. If even 1% of last year’s 3,675 semi related deaths werecaused by fatigued semi drivers, the 367 people killed should cause nationaloutrage. An agency such as the FMCSA should sit up and takenotice. Two people died last year in fatigue related airlinecrashes and the FAA responded. Critics of the FAA ruling say it didn’t gofar enough, and I agree, but at least they are moving in the right direction.

How many more people have to die before our governmentrecognizes that profits can not come before the safety of the innocentpublic? Don’t you think that we’d all be willing to pay a few moredollars for that microwave it we knew that we could save lives by getting it tothe store just a bit later? Under this ‘new’ rule people will continue todie because of fatigued truck drivers. Regardless of the once a weekrestart rule and the mandated overnight sleep, the fact is that driving elevenhours is fatiguing. So more people die, more families get that call, morelives are shattered. Profit wins, but the public pays theprice. It’s just so wrong.

Dad was killed seven years ago tomorrow. I promised himthat I’d make a difference and I’m not giving up. But I have to say thattonight I feel more than a little discouraged. You and I sat in ameeting, with other family members who have suffered terrible loss, and I toldyou then that of all of us in that room, you were the only one with the powerto make our roads safer. I don’t think you understood what a graveresponsibility you had.

You were our best hope for change. And tonight I feelsaddened, betrayed, confused and angry.

-Dawn King

So. Tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of Dad’sdeath. What has really changed in the world of truck safety? I’mworking now with two families that have suffered loss this past year. They’re going through the initial stages of pain and outrage and fear andconfusion and grief that we went through. They want it fixed. Sodid we. So DO we. It’s just so hard, sometimes, in the face of suchoverwhelming opposition, to keep fighting the fight.

But we can’t let them win. Because if we do we alllose. Every last one of us. So tomorrow, on a day when Dad will beon my mind even more than usual I will begin the fight again. We’re notgoing away. One step forward, two steps back doesn’t mean we won’tprevail. They want us to be quiet and go away.

Not going to happen.

It is little enough I can do by reposting Dawn’s letter andcommentary here. I ask anyone who reads this post to send a link to friends andfamily. Let’s see if we can help Dawn and her cause. We’ll be helping ourselvesand everyone in the country if we can make our roads safer in this new year. Thank you, Dawn.

Beginning, Somewhat Confusedly, in a Dark Wood with Robert Burns

2012-01-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

When I had journeyed half of our life’s way,
Ifound myself within a shadowed forest,
forI had lost the path that does not stray.

Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was,
thatsavage forest, dense and difficult,

whicheven in recall renews my fear:

so bitter—death is hardly more severe!

Butto retell the good discovered there,

I’llalso tell the other things I saw.

- Dante Alighieri, The DivineComedy

Yes,I began the new year this morning by preparing to descend into Dante’s“Inferno,” as our small, intrepid band will be discussing this section of TheDivine Comedy in less than three weeks. We are reading Allen Mandelbaum’stranslation, and he dedicates this first book to “Elisa Jane Mandelbaum and hergeneration,” with the epigraph: A RIVEDER LE STELLE (“And beheld once again the stars”). My apologies to poet and translator for my difficulties with formating stanzas and indentations.

EugenioMontale, whose essay introduces the volume, gives a complicated argument concluding, “Dante cannot be repeated.” Who would attempt to refute such a statement? I can’t help wondering, however, if any great writer or artist or work of artcan be "repeated." Emulated, borrowed from, etc., but repeated? Surely not. Another question is posed as to whether or not the poem may beconsidered an epic, though it strays from the epic form by mixing styles andnot maintaining a tragic tone throughout, and there are many questions about thehistoricity of the work. Finally, Montale approaches the possibility ofmiracles. Might not Beatrice actually have appeared after death to the poet?Might not the work itself constitute a miracle? Montale has no problem allowingthese possibilities.

Historicalquestions are inevitable when dealing with Dante, as they are with ShakespeareMy own preference is to meet the work on its own ground, and by “its own ground” Imean not only (but not excluding, either) the ground which gave it forthbut also that on which it has lived through the ages and continues to livetoday, part of a universal human experience, anchored firmly—despite theallegorical title of the entire work and of its three books—in life on thisearth, both sensual and cultural, social and individual. Who “of a certain age” has not been metaphorically lost at least once in a shadowedforest, a dark wood?

Ourdiscussion group host has asked each of us to examine the successive rings ofthe Inferno and determine where we might be currently headed, on the basis of how we have lived and are living our lives--then, how in the comingyear we might change course to avoid such a grim fate! This is one question wewill be keeping in mind as we read. Another thought assignment is to reflectas we read on why Dante undertook the work. What was his aim?

Another“thick” midwinter book I pulled out for reading at this turning time is Wing-TsitChan’s A Source Book in Chinese History, turning first to Mencius (371-289? BCE), manyof whose ideas put me in mind of Aristotle, but I'll save reflecting on that for another day.

Before closing, though, can I possibly turn from the old year to the new without Robert Burns? That (ç) was, of course, a rhetorical question,as is this (è): “Should auld acquaintance be forgot,/And neverbrought to min’?” You know the answer. Nay, lassie, nay, laddie, we’ll no’forget!

Forauld lang syne, my dear,

Forauld lang syne,

We’lltak a cup o’ kindness yet,

Forauld lang syne.

Mylittle book of the poems of Robert Burns lost its cover long before it cameinto my hands. The front hinge is completely destroyed. I wrote the name myselfwith ballpoint pen on the remains of the front board. A “reading” copy is allit is, i.e., without any value as an object, valuable only for its contents.But oh, what contents! And seriously? I wouldna gie it up for ony bright, new book!

Shining, Ringing, Resolving and Hoping

2011-12-31T08:17:00.000-08:00

Last Morning of 2012

We couldn't have asked for a prettier, more cheerful morning here in Leelanau on this last day of the year. The sun was bright, the air balmy, positively inviting a little dog to run down a snowy two-track road. I've already posted my resolutions, so today I will only send everyone wishes for a happy, healthy, productive and loving new year from Sarah and her pack.

It's almost time! Count the hours! Ring out the old year, ring in the new. Ring joyfully, if you possibly can. Please ring safely!

Thank you for your visits to Books in Northport and to Dog Ears Books in 2011. Please come again in 2012. Happy new year to one and all!

Ring the bell!

Reading Books and Nature at Year’s End

2011-12-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

Edge of the Woods

“Thick clothes, thick books,” I thought this morning as Ibundled up like a sausage for a morning walk with Sarah. The books I had inmind were The Divine Comedy and The Portable Thoreau. After collectingnew e-mail, I had begun the reading day with Thoreau’s essay, “A Winter Walk,”suggested by a friend’s message.

As the day advances, the heat of the sun is reflected by thehillsides, and we hear a faint but sweet music, where flows the rill releasedfrom its fetters, and the icicles are melting on the trees; and the nuthatchand partridge are heard and seen. The south wind melts the snow at noon, andthe bare ground appears with its withered grass and leaves, and we areinvigorated by the perfume which exhales from it....

There was no sun visible as Sarah and I approached the woods, butit was a warmer morning than I had anticipated when adding layers of clothingindoors.

Holes made by snow on branches melting and falling to ground

Old edge marked by line of mature trees

Overnight wind from southeast?

Someone tiny passed this way

My anticipation this December 30 is not for the last day of the year(tomorrow) or the first day of the next (Sunday) but for the first of my outdoorsitting hours. Already thinking ahead to the beginning of my year-long adventure, sounds of thiswarm December morning seemed more sharply in focus. Crows nearby. Barking dogs at the kennel a couple milesto the east. A little bird in a bush, not singing but uttering a simplecheet-cheet-cheet. What was that bird? I couldn’t catch a glimpse of it.

Later, as I was driving into town, in a yard on the edge ofNorthport was a large flock of wild turkeys. That, I decided, was worth goingback to see. A few hardy bird-souls were starting to cross the road, but theyturned back as I pulled onto the shoulder.

Hesitant, wondering if it's safe to cross...

Back to safety! How many can you see?

Wild turkeys make themselves at home

It would be charming to sit in the midst of a flock of feedingwild turkeys sometime. As they relax and go back to their meal, they make sweetlittle sounds somewhere between chirping and mewing. Very comfortable,comforting, homey little sounds. After all, they are at home out in the snow.They are on their own home ground. I am looking forward to getting closer tomy own, to learning it more intimately.

Two Resolutions This Time Around

2011-12-28T17:45:00.000-08:00

Already I’ve forgotten if I made anyresolutions last year. This time around, as today’s headline indicates, I’vecome up with a couple, both easily quantifiable and thus measurable. That is to say that ifI flub either one, I’ll know it. And since I'm announcing them here, the flubbing will be public. Okay, semi-public. All right, at least quasi-public. But enough stalling--here they are:

Plan for a Day: My firstresolution has to do with a one-time event I’ve thought about hosting yearafter year, and year after year I’ve let the date slip past without getting myact together, but this year is going to be different, and here is my officialannouncement: On Sunday, February 5, 2012 (please let me know if I’ve got thedate wrong, which would not do at all! I did check it several times over but amstill nervous), Dog Ears Books will be open for anyone who wants to attend aSuper Bowl Escape Party! That’s right, if you’re not a football fan, or if youneed a break from the excitement of the Big Game—whatever the reason, you canstop in at Dog Ears and be assured that there will be no wide-screen TV boomingat you. We’ll have snacks. Maybe we’ll have games. I haven’t worked out all thedetails yet and am open to suggestions. After all, we have over a month tofigure it out. ESCAPE THE SUPER BOWL! And if YOU want to escape while someoneyou love does not, I have it on good authority that the Garage Bar & Grillnext door will have the game on....

Project for a Year: My secondresolution will demand a more sustained effort. Inspired by several booksread during 2011, as well as by a conviction that the woods and hills around medeserve more attention than I routinely give them, I have resolved to spendtime outdoors, not walking or driving but sitting still, looking and listening,once every week in the coming year. On these weekly expeditions, the camera andthe dog will stay home. Sarah will still have her daily outdoor adventures withme, and the camera will doubtless be with me most of the rest of the time, butthis one hour a week will be dedicated to stillness. My weekly report will bemade on a new blog called “Home Ground,” where I have already posted more about this year-long project.

What else? Those are my only twoformal resolutions. This blog will continue, as will “A Shot in the Light.” I’mless certain about the fate of “Without a Clear Focus” but don’t see any needto decide one way or the other by any specific date. Then there is reading. It was only today, December 28, 2011, that it struck me that my “Books Read 2011” list will beending soon! As it’s getting cumbersome to have so many long lists here on theblog, I’ll probably remove 2009 and 2010 soon.

And that’s about it. Those are my plans.As for the bookstore, winter hours are posted in the right-hand column. Wehaven’t had much winter yet, but there’s no telling what January will bring UpNorth. Or any month or year, for that matter! But I will be keeping you posted, wherever in the world you are.

Book Review: DRIVE: THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT WHAT MOTIVATES US

2011-12-26T06:11:00.000-08:00

What motivates you? Do youthink you know? For a long time, everyone thought motivation was obvious.

Just like dogs, according tothe popular belief, people want to gain rewards and avoid punishment, and theywill work harder if rewarded or if threatened with punishment. Do youthink that’s how human beings are motivated? Do you think it’s how dogs andhorses or monkeys or rats are motivated?

Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive: TheSurprising Truth About What Motivates Us,draws on a wealth of experimental research which points in a very differentdirection, and what researchers in motivation have been putting together isn’tesoteric knowledge. It pertains to our everyday world and is practicalknowledge in a very immediate sense, because it has to do with how we raise andeducate children, how we treat employees, coworkers and friends--even how wenurture successful behavior in ourselves.

Harry F. Harlow,psychologist, stumbled by accident in the 1940s on a phenomenon he identifiedas a third biological drive. Besides basic drives urging them toward food andsex, it seemed that monkeys were also motivated by a challenge: they liked tosolve puzzles even without rewards. “The joy of the task was it own reward,” asPink puts it. The reward was intrinsic to the activity. The finding surprisedHarlow. What followed, however, was so surprising and went so strongly againstentrenched belief that no one would even touch it. The radical finding was thatwhen food rewards were introduced into the experiment, the monkeys’performances went downhill. They made more mistakes and did not solve thepuzzles as often.

(Think about the usualrationale for inflated CEO salaries and the performance of overpaid banking andfinance CEOs.)

Not until almost 1970 didanother researcher, Edward Deci, pick up the dropped ball and design furtherexperiments in motivation and rewards.

In an echo of whatHarlow discovered two decades earlier, Deci revealed that human motivationseemed to operate by laws that ran counter to what most scientists and citizensbelieved. From the office to the playing field, we knew what got people going.Rewards—esp;ecially cold, hard cash—intensified interest and enhancedperformance. What Deci found ... was almost the opposite. “When money is usedas an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest....”Rewards can deliver a short-term boost—just as jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a fewmore hours. But the effect wears off—and, worse, can reduce a person’slong-term motivation to continue the project. [My emphases added.]

There’s more to the story.Only contingent extrinsic rewardseroded motivation—that is, rewards given on an if-then basis, i.e., “If you dox, you will receive y.” What seems to go on in such cases is that what waspleasure becomes paid work. An unexpected reward does not have the sameeffect. If an unannounced reward isroutinely given afterward, however, it becomes expected and then functions likeany contingent extrinsic reward, lowering interest and performance.

The lesson to be learned hereis not that extrinsic rewards are always bad. For routine, boring, repetitivetasks, if presented in the right way (acknowledging that the task is boring butmaking clear that it is necessary and giving workers the latitude to completethe task in their own way), they can be effective. For any kind of creativework, however, an extrinsic reward scheme is a deadly recipe. Moreover, givingemployees “clear goals” in the form of minimum production levels to be met, forexample, or demands for compulsive time-keeping, guarantee low performance,because when extrinsic rewards are the "...only destinationthat matters...[,] some people will choose the quickest route there, even if itmeans taking the low road."

Autonomy, mastery andpurpose: these are intrinsicmotivators in both personal and professional life. Children early in life showconcern for purpose, as well as with autonomy and mastery. The last section ofPink’s book includes a “toolkit” for motivating yourself and others.

I think about classrooms I’vebeen in, both in a student chair and at the front of the room; about jobs I’vehad and which ones felt good and which were living nightmares; and about thisodd, financially marginal life I’ve put together here in Up North. My personalexperience is confirmation of everything in this book.

If you want to hear this straight from the horse's mouth, click here.

Are you still skeptical? Whydo so many retired people work so hard at volunteering and hobbies? Whatmotivates armies of unpaid writers to devote themselves to their blogs? Whatwill you be doing today—and why? As the new year approaches,many of us are forming resolutions. What are those all about?

The research does not saythat money doesn’t matter. It does. We all need to make a living. But we alsoneed satisfactions that money can’t buy, and woe to anyone who offers to buythe best that’s in us. Behaviorism is (or should be)dead! Long live self-determining individuals!

Merry Christmas to All

2011-12-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

From Sarah and her pack
Up North,
with love,

to you and yours
wherever you are--

We Got a Little Snow

2011-12-23T16:24:00.000-08:00

Orchard, barn, Lake Michigan

At last there was snow on the ground! Sarah needed to get out and run, too, before our long day at the bookstore. I wanted her to be able to settle down and not be romping all around during guest author John Mitchell's visit.

Sarah sniffs

She ran. She explored. She sniffed. We both had a wonderful time. Next time, though, I'm wearing snowshoes. Barn boots are great for rainy days but not so good on icy hills.

Between two firs

Wrapping Up in My Grandmother

2011-12-22T06:16:00.000-08:00

...To the sensing body allphenomena are animate, actively soliciting the participation of our senses, orelse withdrawing from our focus and repelling our involvement. Things disclosethemselves to our immediate perception ... as styles of unfolding—not asfinished chunks of matter given once and for all, but as dynamic ways ofengaging the senses and modulating the body. Each thing, each phenomenon, hasthe power to reach us and influence us.....

- David Abram, The Spell ofthe Sensuous

A rare find

Good, old-fashioned clothespin

On Wednesday afternoon (Brucewas minding the bookstore) we were visiting our favorite thrift shop close tohome, where I was delighted to find a little plastic tub of old clothespins.‘Clothes pegs,’ you could call them, each carved from a single piece of wood,some with a wire band and some without—but no springs and no way the singlewooden piece could flip apart. In case you use only an indoor clothes-dryingmachine and haven’t followed the changes in clothesline technology, I will tell you that newerclothespins (all imported from China) are made of two pieces of wood heldtogether with a spring. They are flimsy, and on the slightest excuse one of the woodenpieces will flip out and be lost forever in the weeds at the edge of the grass,the remaining bits useless. Hanging laundry outdoors is one of my summermorning meditations. These new/old clothespins will help keep me focused, so Iwas more than happy to carry them away.

An old quilted jacket temptedme. It wasn’t beautiful, in any stylish, modern sense, and it was sadly frayed,not only at the ends of the sleeves but pretty much all over. One would neverdare put it in a washing machine (and it looked like it could use a washing,too).

Old handmade quilted jacket

“Why don’t you get it?” Davidurged. Sometimes he amazes me! The “Mussolini of Fashion” (as a friend calledhim long ago, hitting the nail directly on the head) encouraging me to buy anold, worn-out house jacket that my mother would never have looked at twice?

“Oh, it’s just silly,” I saidwith a reluctant sigh, trying to be sensible. “It’s practically falling apart.”I held it up more closely, feeling, being drawn by and trying to resist its silent Take-me-home plea. “But look at these little stitches! It’s allhand-stitched! Someone’s grandma made it, you just know.”

I thought of my owngrandmother and remembered sitting in the backyard with her on the glider,pushing the long green metal seat back and forth with our feet on the groundwhile we used our hands to string beans. (Yes, Virginia, beans came with prettytough strings in those days.) But my grandmother has been gone for well over 30years, the old house gone long before that....

It was silly! Sensibly, I put the jacket back on the rack. Found an attractive ivory pullover. Much more reasonable--something I could actually wear in public!

Waiting for me out in thecar, David asked, “You didn’t get it? Why not?” “Oh, it was just silly.” “Youshould get it if you want it.” “It was all hand-stitched!” I said again, as if arguing with myself. That was what kept coming back to me, that vision of patient, gnarled fingers taking stitchafter tiny stitch, and then the old woman wearing the jacket for years and years. It hadspoken to me. It wanted to go home with me. It needed a new home with someone who would see it for what it was.

Yes, of course! Can you doubtfor a minute? (If you recognized the yellow chair already, you knew the end of the story right from the beginning.) “After all,” I told David, finding a way at last to rationalizethe impulsive, emotional purchase, “it goes with the clothespins.”

Back Home

In Which Sarah and I Are Visited By Mister Scrooge

2011-12-21T14:35:00.000-08:00

December--But No Snow!

No kidding, it must have been Ebenezer Scrooge who stopped by the bookstore early this week. He had a huge smile on his face, but why?Because there is no snow! “This is the best winter ever!” heexclaimed happily. Then, as he paused to scratchSarah behind the ears, he observed that dogs don’t recognize holidays, and so,he went on to proclaim, “Dogs are part of the war on Christmas!” That idea madehim as happy as the snowless landscape. He was nearly turning inside-out with glee.

NOT a Dog of War!

I didn't want to argue. No one should be required to celebrate a holiday if it holds no meaning for him. But involving my dog in his stance? Look at that sweet face! Can you imagine?

So "Sorry," I told Scrooge, "but Sarah loves the world and everyone and everything in it. Why, she even loves cats! Notto chase, either, but just to be around in a companionable way. Sarah isnot a dog of war but a dog of peace, love and good puppy fun. It’s true thatshe doesn’t care what the good times are called, but shewould never oppose them!"

Dog Friends: Kona, Sarah, Brandy (and stick)

It was okay. I hadn't put a dent in the caller's glee, but he hadn't made me unhappy, either. Mr. Scrooge went on his way,still delighted that there was no snow on the ground and leaving me still content to bein my very own bookstore, with my very own dog, and the lights on my very ownreal tree twinkling away. I guess each of us finds happiness in our ownparticular way.

Sarah at Work

Friends in Omena tonight willbe shouting away the darkness, celebrating the turn toward the light andlengthening days. Happy solstice, everyone!

Light a Candle Tonight

2011-12-20T12:40:00.000-08:00

Tonight at sunset begins thefestival of Hanukkah, or Chanukah. Here is an article that appeared in theTraverse City Record-Eagle in 2004, which I chose over others because it quotesour own Rabbi Bahle of Suttons Bay. She tells us that the word for the holidaymeans dedication and suggests that it’s a good time of year todedicate ourselves to important, positive ways of treating one another. Whocould argue against that? Another man quoted in the article (in case you don’tfollow the link and read the whole thing, I’m telling you) says the story ofHanukkah is “one ofhope, prevailing against difficult odds, and sticking together.” That’s good,too, yes?

One of the new books Iordered this season after combing through various catalogs and lists was The BorrowedHanukkah Latkes, by Linda Glaser,illustrated by Nancy Cote. The story actually takes place on the last night ofHanukkah, when Rachel’s mother is making latkes and gets a call that more relativesare coming. There won’t be enough latkes, and there aren’t enough potatoes tomake more, so Rachel volunteers to borrow more potatoes from a neighbor. Rachelwants Mrs. Greenberg to join them for dinner, but Rachel’s mother says Mrs.Greenberg will say no. “She thinks she’d be a bother. She’s as stubborn as anox.” Sure enough, Rachel’s mother was right.

But then Mama needs eggs, andagain Rachel runs next door to borrow and to invite. “Borrow? Don’t borrow. Usethem in good health,” Mrs. Greenberg says generously. But she still won’t cometo dinner.

Even when Rachel goes back toborrow chairs, she can’t persuade Mrs. Greenberg to come to dinner. But Rachelis stubborn, too—and clever. I won’t spoil the surprise by giving away thehappy conclusion.

May your candle and anymitzvah you perform tonight shine brightly against the darkness.

Getting Back in Touch

2011-12-19T16:27:00.000-08:00

The Spell of the Sensuous is a book by a philosopher who is also a sleight-of-hand artist. Right away that puts the book in a class by itself, no? David Abram's argument--and the book is couched as very careful, philosophical argument, with citations and support throughout--is that people in oral cultures did/do not feel themselves separate from the earth, trees, mountains, plants, other animals. The surrounding world speaks to them; the relationship is reciprocal. Lots about stories.... David Abram sees a huge shift having taken place with the Hebrew aleph-beth, a phonetic form of writing in which letters correspond to speech sounds rather than (as in pictographs and ideograms) symbols corresponding to aspects of the sensuous, surrounding life-world. There are many references to Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger.

One aspect of sacred existence and correspondence remained for the Hebrews, however, according to Abram: because their language lacked vowels, breath was necessary to make writing come alive, and no text alone could be definitive, as all required contextual interpretation. But then along came the Greeks, who added vowels, and the separation of writer from the natural world was complete.

Now instead of an environment of which a speaker or singer is part, writers conceptualize abstract time, distinguish it from abstract space, and see themselves as separate from everything else in existence. A member of an oral culture sees himself or herself as residing within the world's mind; the Cartesian or Kantian autonomous individual sees his or her mind as separate from the world. What was all, at one time, both natural and spiritual, has now been separated into material and immaterial.

It was only with the plugging of these last pores--with the insertion of visible letters for the vowels themselves--that the perceptual boundary established by the common language was effectively sealed, and what had once been a porous membrane became an impenetrable barrier, a hall of mirrors. ... With the addition of written wowels ... human language became a largely self-referential system closed off from the larger world that once engendered it....

I can't tell if the author is aware of the irony involved. He is, after all, writing a book, using a phonetic language (English) and proceeding to argue, in quite classic Western European philosophical ways, for the perspective he wants us to adopt. I don't mind. He is using our common language to reach us. What he wants us to do is become aware of what we lost and how we lost it and, as far as is possible, recover, repossess and be repossessed by preliterate meanings. It is no less than becoming responsive to and taking responsibility for our natural world, each of us acknowledging our particular place in it, rather than pretending to inhabit some abstract realm above and beyond the earth.

Since I am a pantheist at heart. this argument--or call it a plea--speaks to me in a very immediate fashion, and I find the argument very convincing. In fact, it has inspired me to set out on a new project for the year ahead. But more on that when we turn the page and begin a new year....

Remembering Today--Books in Paris

2011-12-15T17:22:00.000-08:00

The poster of Shakespeare and Company on my wall on DogEars Books was purchased for me from a friend on his first trip to Paris,and he went to a great deal of trouble to get it back to Northport. Only whenwe took it out of the tube and inspected it thoroughly did the two of us seethat the poster had been printed in someplace like Wichita, Kansas. (I’m nottaking it off the wall to check, but it was definitely “someplace like”Wichita.) It didn’t matter. It was Paris, it was an iconic bookstore, and the poster was alovely gift that I still enjoy on a daily basis.

Every American who visitsParis must pay respects to Shakespeare and Company. Many of those who do so areunder the illusion that they are visiting Sylvia Beach’s historic bookstore,famous before World War II for welcoming the likes of James Joyce, GertrudeStein, Hemingway, Ezra Pound and others. George Whitman’s store, opened in1948, took its name from that of its illustrious predecessor (on a differentstreet in the Left Bank); more importantly, Whitman followed in the traditionof Beach, welcoming writers and readers of English from all over the world.Many a hopeful, struggling writer spent the night—or even several weeks—on asofa tucked away somewhere in Shakespeare and Company, and many well-known Beatwriters, including Ted Joans, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and AllenGinsberg, were associated at one time or another with George Whitman.

Whitman’s bookshop was notone of my regular Paris hangouts. Since English is my native language and notsomething I have to seek out, when in Paris (it’s been over eleven years now sincemy last visit) or francophone Canada, I can never get enough of hearing andspeaking and reading French, and immersion in that language is my firstpriority. Still--of course!--I had to see what Shakespeare and Company was allabout.

Picture a perfect May day, the bookshop door standing open to the morning sun and just inside, tables piled high with books. Theproprietor and a young Asian woman were deep in conversation, in French, and Ilingered beside one of the tables, picking up and leafing through books, unobtrusively (I hoped) eavesdropping on their conversation. She wanted to be awriter, had written some stories, wanted him to read them--could he possiblytake the time? She would appreciate it so much! What he really wanted, he toldher, was for her to keep a journal for him, to confide to its pages all thedetails of her life, particularly her love life, omitting nothing. In that way,he said, he could judge whether or not she had it in her to become a writer. The conversation held me like a spell. The young woman objected. She resisted. Her words are etched in my memory:“C’est un peu—exigeant, n’est-ce pas?” Yes, I too thought he was asking abit much! Did he ever read any of her work? Did she begin a journal to satisfyhim? Who knows?

My artist husband also visitedShakespeare and Company on his first trip to Paris. It may have been there thathe met poet Ted Joans, who invited David to come visit him at home in Timbuktu. --Okay, I checked with David onthis, and it was George Whitman who introduced him to Ted Joans but notactually in the bookstore—George steered David down the street to a little park, saying there was someone he had to meet. They met a few times afterwardat tea in George’s apartment and got together at a cafe once or twice, too, butDavid never made the trip to Timbuktu.

George Whitman died on December 14 at the age of 98 in his apartment above the bookstore. Sixty yearsof bookselling in Paris, France--quite a life for a boy from Massachusetts. Hisdaughter, Sylvia Whitman (31), carries on. Thank heaven! It would be a tragedy if the iconic nameShakespeare and Company were ever to vanish from the City of Light.

P.S. I drafted this post last night at home but waited to get to the bookstore this morning and snap the poster before uploading. I mention this because it means I'm hitting the "publish" while enjoying a flaky Four Bean Rows almond croissant from Brew North across Waukazoo Street, my croissant the perfect accompaniment to memories of Paris.

Books Around the Tree

2011-12-15T07:02:00.000-08:00

Still no snow here! Sigh! General disappointment is balanced by relief at nothaving to shovel or plow and by thoughts of fuel supplies (wood, oil, propane)stretching further into the future, due to present unseasonably warm weather.The first guided snowshoe hike at Sleeping Bear is scheduled for December 29,and the official site says you can borrow snowshoes if you don’t have your own,but they don’t say what will happen if there is no snow. Surely we will havesnow by then, right?

Even without snow, however, wedon’t lack reasons and ways to be cozy indoors. Hike in the rain? I don’t thinkso! Much better to be inside, warm and dry, curled up with a good book! Wereyou too busy earlier in the year to read Ellen Airgood’s South of Superior or Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Once Upon a River? These are a couple of strong Michigan novels you’llwant to read again and again once you’ve given yourself the initial pleasure.Have you yet to discover John Mitchell’s Grand Traverse: The Civil War Era, an engaging look at what was happening in our ownpart of the country while battles raged elsewhere? Or have you thus farpostponed taking the imaginary 1922 road trip from Chicago to the Straits ofMackinac in VintageViews of the West Michigan Pike? Nowmight be just the time to make that armchair travel drive.

There are exciting new looksat history beyond the boundaries of our state, too. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt, and The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, by David McCullough, are a couple I look forward toexploring.

Simple, happy holiday storiesto share with children are perfect for this time of year. BorrowedHanukkah Latkes and The NightBefore Christmas are both a lot of fun.

Perennial favorites torediscover (holidays are a time to indulge yourself) include Wind in theWillows; The PhantomTollbooth; The LittlePrince; and The SecretGarden. Are you ever too old forthese books? (That is a rhetorical question, and I hope no one gets the wronganswer.)

Books, as any booksellerwould remind you, are gifts that can be opened again and again. Bill Coohon ofNorthport shared a wonderful article with me the other day from his PopularScience magazine that put the matterin even warmer terms. Lawrence Weschler, in his article entitled “And Yet...AndYet,” writes of books this way:

They have a spine,which in turn implies a pair of outstretched arms and an enfolding embrace, orat the very least a dance.

My bedtime reading for thelast few nights has been TheSpell of the Sensuous, by DavidAbram, a prose joining of wild nature experience to phenomenology, all in theservice of ecological commitment, by an author who is both a philosopher and asleight-of-hand artist. Here is an example of what results from his point ofview:

From themagician’s, or the phenomenologist’s, perspective, that which we call imagination is from the first an attribute of thesenses themselves; imagination is not a separate mental faculty (as we so oftenassume) but is rather the way the senses themselves have of throwing themselvesbeyond what is immediately given, in order to make tentative contact with theother sides of things that we do not sense directly, with the hidden ofinvisible aspets of the sensible.

Too philosophical for you?Nonetheless, you are doing it all the time, and the sensuous feel of a book inyour hands, opening to invite you into another world, those lines of typepresenting themselves to your imagination not as symbols on paper but as mentalimages and voices—oh, this is magic for any day of the year!

More Small Town Seasonal Warmth

2011-12-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

Dolls and SO Much More!

Colorful Indoor Vista

From the moment that Sally’sstore opens in the morning, even before her customers begin to pour in,evidence of activity is everywhere, along with bright colors and a dazzlingvariety of materials and textures. The name of her shop is Dolls and More, withan accent on the More.

Do you knowwhat you’re looking in the pictures below? Luckily, I can now add captions.

Teddy Bear Pieces

Ready to Repaint an Old Doll

About the time I was leaving, Sally’s first customers had come for potluck lunch and a class in handmade greeting cards. A congenial proprietor and welcoming atmosphere make 102 Nagonaba (annex entrance on Mill Street) a magnet for local crafters and shoppers. In Northport, friends are customers, and customers become friends.

Coming Together at Sally's Shop

Bright Pools of Happiness on Rainy December Days

2011-12-13T10:19:00.000-08:00

Here’s a story that began aweek ago Saturday. The “Best for Kids” sale at the Willowbrook was over, andDavid and I were moving boxes of books back to the car to return to thebookstore. As we walked across Mill Street in the rain, David saw something onthe wet pavement and bent to pick it up. “It’s someone’s credit card,” he said.We looked at the name. “I know those people,” I told him. “They’re customers ofmine.”

Back at the bookstore Ilooked in my files and found a card with their name on it in my trade credit file (they bring in used booksand get a 50% discount on used books they buy from my store as long as theircredit lasts), but there was no phone number on the card. They weren’t in the phonebook, either. Their credit card from Huntington bank, so David said he’d drop it in theHuntington night deposit box.

But I kept thinking that Ishould know their neighborhood and some of their neighbors. Were they CatheadBay people or Omena people? I decided to try Omena and called a friend to leavea message, along these lines: “Do you know these people? Do they live near you?If you have their phone number, would you please tell them that we found theircredit card and they can pick it up at the bank?”

Late in the evening the manwhose name was on the credit card called our house. Had he gotten the messagefrom Judy? Yes, he said, and from Joan, also. (Judy had called Joan to pass italong.) He and his wife were laughing happily, and he said, “This is what I love aboutliving in a small town!”

Today I came to Northport tofind a little package and a card on the counter, dropped off yesterday when Bruce was at the store. The card reads, “It’s wonderful living in asmall town where people not only know but care about their neighbors. Yourkindness means so much!”

I haven’t opened the packageyet. It’s to David and me. It is fun living and working in a small town!

The Crucial Aspect That Always Slips My Mind

2011-12-12T17:36:00.000-08:00

I was so dissatisfied withthe outcome of the debate on whether or not the world would be better offwithout religion. As my friend Ruth pointed out, it’s a moot point, since onehas to imagine not only a different present and future but also a completelydifferent history leading up to the present. Still, for the sake of theargument, I can accept the thought experiment.

What bothered me was thateven in this fairly high-level discussion, most of the time the teams seemed tobe talking past each other, although I have to say that this was truer, in myopinion, of the atheist team than of the religion team, and on that score,therefore, I would have given the religion team more points. The religion team,as I heard the debate, had the better listeners and spoke more directly inresponse to what the opposition put forth. I also thought they offered betterhistorical evidence for their case, while allowing that every human institutionis a mixed bag of good and bad and that religion is no exception. I only caughtone example of what I considered name-calling. It came from the atheist side, andon my mental scorecard their score was lowered for the lapse in civility.

But I always forget. Never adebater myself, I want genuine conversation and open discussion and honest give-and-take, and what I forget is that a debate is, first and foremost, a contest. Like a wrestling match or a chess game, it is notabout mutual education or understanding but about winning! Alas, in that sense it is also very much like acourtroom trial. The hopeful idea is that in a debate or a trial, the adversarial proceeding will bring out enough pieces of truth that anaudience or a jury will be able to put it together. Does that happen in adebate? Some audience members changed their minds, but why? What were theirreasons?

So much of what’s reallyimportant, it seems, never gets said at all, while what we’ve all heard ahundred times gets said yet again, maybe with a clever line to win laughs fromthe audience. Well, I like a laugh as well as anyone, but when a subject is asserious as this one and the debaters seriously wedded to their positions, notmerely assuming them to entertain us for an hour, I want more.

We so seldom these days in this country hear high-level, real debate, butI realize now that the best debate wouldn’t satisfy me. It isn't debate I want. I want realconversation. In that regard, I can make better sense of what I felt at the end of the NPR debate. These were only four men. I am not taking one side to be representative of all religious people or the other side to be representative of all atheists. As far as these four men went in this debate, however, the team that officially lost had done a better job in my eyes because I heard them more often addressing the other side in ways showing they had been listening and were making direct responses to the other side's concerns. The atheist team, in my opinion, was not only condescending but given to making sweeping generalizations and setting up straw men (arguing as if all religious people are fundamentalists). They were also, as I heard them, fatally close-minded. Obviously, others heard the speakers very differently and judged them by other standards than mine.

I wonder, though. Can a win-or-lose contest possibly hope to further a search for mutual understanding, let alone the search for truth?

* * * *

The forecast this week is for highs in the 40s. It doesn't feel like December. Where is our snow? Snow or no snow, I promise more of a holiday mood in the days ahead. There will be holiday ornaments, holiday books, a decked-out dog and any other surprises I can find in my bag of tricks. It's time to lighten the mood, and don't think I don't know it!

Without Religion, What Would We Have to Fight About?

2011-12-11T16:28:00.001-08:00

The resolution to be debated on NPR last Sunday (a week ago today) was that the world would be better off without religion. That is, theaffirmative side wanted to be rid of religion, while the opposition defended religion. Debaters were: for the resolution (against religion), Matthew Chapman & A. C. Grayling;against the resolution (defending religion), Rabbi David Wolpe & Dinesh D’Souza. You can read or listen to theentire debate here, and I wish you would, because I’m wondering if anyone elseheard what I heard.

I won’t give my critique of the debate yet but will saythat the criteria by which I award points (my point system could be formalizedbut wasn’t when I heard the debate on the car radio) include speakers listeningto one another, demonstrating that they have heard the other side’s argumentsand making direct, serious response to those arguments. I mentally deductpoints for name-calling, straw men and the like.

For now (and I realize thisgives away the position I would take on the debate, but do not mistake myposition for my judgment of the arguments presented; these are two separatematters, insofar as I can separate them, and I try hard), I’d simply like tooffer a list of all the things human beings would hate each other for and makewar over if tomorrow, by the wave of a sorcerer’s wand, religion were todisappear from the face of the earth. Imagine what follows voiced by deadlyfoes.

“We don’t need your kindaround here!”
“Go back to where you camefrom!”
“Your ancestors stole thisland from my ancestors!”
“You are crowding us out!”
“We’re taking over thisplace, like it or not!”
“This land should have beenmine/ours!”
“I will not dishonor mygrandfather’s name by resolving the feud he and your grandfather began!”
“Everyone here sharesequally, in good times and bad.”
“We believe everyone shouldaccumulate as much as he can, winner take all.”
“Old ways are best. We holdto tradition.”
“Times are changing, sochange or get out of the way.”
“We must take care of our natural surroundings. They are the basis of life.”
“We should either send ourgarbage into space or colonize other planets ourselves when this one gets toopolluted.”
“Blood is thicker than water, and family is the paramount value.”
“Nepotism in any form is acrime, and meritocracy is the only just basis for inequality."
"There is no justice without complete equality."
“We need more water for ourcrops...for our livestock...for our industry.”
“You’re taking too much ofour water and polluting our land, too.”
“Our leader is better,stronger, more inspired than yours.”
“We are bigger and stronger,so why shouldn’t we steal everything you’ve got?”
"Science should be the only value."
"Science is one value among several."
“What you have, you stolefrom us, and we will never forgive you.”
"You are not using your resources to maximum effect and don't deserve to keep what you have."
"Your values are squalid, low-life and disgusting."
"You people are selfish and greedy, and you only care about money."
"The only value is land."
"The only value is labor."
"The only real value is happiness."
"The only thing that matters is money...and power."

Obviously, the list could go on and on and on.Human beings fight over territory, resources and wealth; they fight for material gain, for personal power, for power over others and for glory and honor; they fight out of fear and envy, from greed and in their own and others' self-defense. In my opinion, religion is not the cause of wars, although it is a frequent rationalization given for them. What do you think?

I'm coming back to add a Monday morning postscript, having received e-mail from a friend concerned, after reading this post, that I was exhausted, angry and depressed. Not at all. It is my philosophical turn of mind, along with many years of graduate school in philosophy. Argument fascinates me. Debate fascinates me. Unlike one of my sisters, I never got into formal debate exercises, but all week since hearing the radio discussion I've been wondering what criteria, if any, ordinary people (in the audience) use to judge winners and losers. Beyond that, the question of the truth of the matter nags at anyone who listens to the news and thinks about history, doesn't it?

Another postscript: The rest of my thoughts on this were posted the following day.

For a more carefree post, see my other blog.

A Good Time, with Only Minor Controversy

2011-12-10T05:34:00.001-08:00

Books!

Tree and refreshment table

Tree was decorated long in advance. Books were delivered in plenty of time. All was in readiness for Susan Newhof's reading and book signing on Friday.

The author arrives!

It's always a relief to the bookseller when the guest of honor arrives before the crowd, especially when, as in this case, the author and her husband were driving down from Manistique after a book tour of several days in the U.P. Fortunately, weather was not a problem (one never knows what to expect at this time of year), and here she is, looking lovely.

More people arrive

Other people began to arrive--and kept arriving. This is good! The more, the merrier at an author event, always!

All chairs were taken--a pleasure to see!

The audience came prepared to be entertained. Did they expect that the author would begin by asking them a question? "How many of you here believe in ghosts?" Only one hand was raised, and everyone stared. It was the only moment that controversy reared its head during the evening, however, and everyone took it in good--spirit!

Documentary evidence that I met the author

I even remembered to have David take a picture of me with the author, something I often forget to do.

{Now if only I can master the intricacies of the new Blogger platform and figure out how to arrange my photos the way I'd like them to appear, everything will be fine. Please take note: this is the first time I have added captions to my photos. I have long been envious of bloggers on other platforms who could add captions to their photos. Now I can, too! But I wanted my first paragraph to begin in that big blank white space to the right of the tree picture. Obviously, I need more practice and must search out solutions to problems I'm still having.}

Thank you, Susan Newhof, and thanks also to Doug and Merilee Scripps, to Bruce Balas, to Marjorie Farrell (the cookie lady) and to all who came to our book party. We had fun, didn't we? Yes, we did!

Why Should I Be Surprised?

2011-12-08T04:38:00.001-08:00

I’d say it’s the last straw,but I’m sure it isn’t. It never is. There’s always another outrage coming. Whatis it this morning?

My stepdaughter posted onFacebook a link to the latest murderous move by the online behemoth booksellerwhose name I do not include here because they already get enough free publicityday and night from news media, and this is my blog, thank you very much, so please respect me and don't put their name in any comments, either! What’s their deal now? This is it: You, the buyer of books, can go to your local bookstore,scan an item, walk out without making a purchase, order the item from Behemoth,and they will pay you five dollars! I’m sure Behemoth will have takers on thisone, but this is not my world, and it’s not a world I want any part ofcreating. We are involved, you know, in co-creating the world, by every choicewe make, every action we take. Five dollars. Are you for sale that cheap?

In my world, Leelanau County,bookselling has always been a collegial affair. From Glen Arbor to Northport,those of us in little bookshops see and treat one another as colleagues. We send each other customers. We believe every town deserves a bookstore, and we want all county bookstores to succeed.

Obviously, we are living inLa-La Land, wouldn't you say? The new bookselling model isnot cooperation but warfare. Exterminate the “enemy” in every city and smalltown across America! Again, not a world I want any part in creating.

Have you noticed that there isno link in this post to the fabulous online deal? Again, why would I advertisefor someone intent on exterminating me?

Don’tforget tomorrow’s event at Dog Ears Books in Northport. Come at 5 p.m. for areading by and discussion with Susan Newhof, author of Spirits and Wine. Wewill have fun! But please don’t bring a scanner and don’t mention that hated name tome! Susan is coming to help me sell books in my bookstore! My little corner of the world!

I'm sorry. I'm still having trouble believing it. It's so hard to believe that people in the business of selling books, of all things, would be so intent on total world domination. Selling books/promoting reading + total world domination: can you put those two pieces together in any coherent way. I just can't.

Sing Along If You Feel It in Your Heart

2011-12-06T17:10:00.001-08:00

How many of you are oldenough to remember “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got/Until You Lose It”? It was aheart-breaker of a song. I had remembered it (incorrectly) as Elvis Presley, but Del Shannon was the recording artist who had the hit, and Ral Donner--not a name I ever remember hearing but another singer of the era--wrote the song. [I'm coming back in to recommend listening to both versions of the song. You tell me--doesn't Ray Donner sound like Elvis?] Today, though, I’m not talking about romantic lyricsand melody but about the United States Postal Service. Why is thepost office going the way of rotary dial, “land line” telephones? Hint: The answer hasnothing to do with unions.

(1) E-mail has taken the place of writing and mailingletters.

(2) Paying bills online has taken the place of putting acheck in a stamped envelope.

(3) The government is out to slaughter the post office.

The government? Wait aminute! Doesn’t the government run thepost office? Isn’t that what’s “wrong” with it? Well, besides that pesky onlinecompetition, so easily forgotten in the rush to pillory the union....

--I need to interject my opinion here, which is that not much is wrong with our postal service in this country other than declining use, and that is not a cause but the effect of otherfactors (see above). In my business I’ve been shipping books for almost twodecades and have never lost a single one. Prices, both media rate and priority,are a bargain, compared to any other country. Sure, once in a while, you’llfind a grumpy postal employee (one in Florida was my nemesis), but in almostevery American post office I’ve ever used, the clerks and postmasters have beencourteous, friendly, helpful and informative. I have always approached them asmy friends, and they have generally responded to me in kind.

Howmany Americans realize that while the USPS is mandated by government, itreceives no government funds for its operation? Like the Soil ConservationDistrict offices and services, the USPS has only the income it can generatefrom the public buying its services. At the same time, however, it must operatewithin rules made for it by the government. Think that one over: It’s up to youto generate the income to run your business but not to determine changes toimprove its profitability. How about we tie your hands behind your back, sewyou up in a sack, throw you overboard and see if you can make it to shore? Ifnot, good riddance! That seems to be the way the government is treating thepostal service these days. I'm not going to tax anyone's patience with quoted material, but if you're interested you can go here and here and any number of other places. Take a look around.

I don’t want to pay billsonline. I don’t want to have to ship every little package via private carrier.Recently someone in Queensland, Australia, send an e-mail query about a book I hadfor sale on my website. The customer (yes, we did figure out the logistics eventually) first suggested a private carrier which I won’tname here, but when I investigated I found that the cost to ship the $50book by that method would be over $100. Back at my trusty local postoffice, on the other hand, I was given a price of under $50, packaging the book in a flat-ratebox, with no waiting for the private carrier’s truck to pick up the package,either. I just boxed up the book and carried it in. Picture me as onehappy, satisfied postal customer!

Our little post office inNorthport is, I admit, outstanding, as was shown recently when our postmaster, John Weber, received an award as postmaster of the #1 post officein the district for the fourth quarter of 2011. Northport, #1 in the districtstretching from the U.P. to Ohio! Good work, John! But I was always happy withthe service in Leland, Lake Leelanau and Kalamazoo, Michigan, and was happy in Champaign, Illinois, and Cincinnati,Ohio, too.

Yes, sometimes we’refrustrated at the post office. Customs forms are longer and more complicatedthan they used to be. Stamps are a little more expensive. (They’re still cheap,compared to other countries!) Having mail forwarded invites mixups andheadaches, and vendors and other senders don’t always package as carefully asone might wish. But who catches the flak for whatever problems come up? No onebut the man or woman behind the counter, the only face you see, the only humanbeing to whom the public can express frustration. And in what infinitesimalpercentage of cases is that person to blame? Postal employees do not make the rules, do not set prices and do not determine hours of operation. I've heard complaints that our little p.o. is only open for an hour on Saturday morning. We have Saturday delivery, people! We have an hour with the counter open for service on Saturday! Plenty of places in the country don't have what we have, but keep those complaints rolling in, by all means, if you want to pound another nail in the coffin.

How to wrap up this post?Maybe with a childhood memory.

When my sisters and I werelittle, my father was an officer for a while of some organization that received mail at apost office box, so every Sunday after church one of our stops was the maindowntown post office. A post office in those days, like banks in those days,was an imposing place. The floors were marble. The boxes were brass. Everythingwas substantial and seemingly designed for the ages. There were two otherstops on the way home--the drugstore, where my father bought the big Sundaynewspaper, and a donut shop, where there were giant pretzels in a jar for anickel apiece. Three stops, three daughters. How did we decide which girl gotto go into which place each week? The pretzels were a treat, the drugstore fullof interesting things to look at, but the post office stood out above the other choiceslike a cathedral over thatched-roof huts.

The first letters I evermailed bore 4-cent magenta Lincoln stamps. Next to me on the table this eveningare “Forever” stamps depicting ocean-going ships. What miracles these beautifulstamps promise—and deliver!

"Forever"! Can it be, David andI ask one another in horror, that our country will one day no longer have a governmentpostal service? Some people think that would be best. Some people think thegovernment should do nothing but wither away. Funny, that was the dream andpromise of communism, wasn’t it? The government would wither away, and thepeople would live in happy, perfect anarchy. Seems to me that libertarians andcommunists have a lot in common in dreaming of society without government rulesor services. As is so often the case, I find myself on the shrinking middleground, an island fast diminishing in size as political currents eat away at itfrom both sides.

You won’t know what you’vegot until you lose it. Give that some serious thought. Maybe the first letters we write and mail today should go to representatives in Congress to tell them we love the United States Postal Service.

Stealing Reading Time (Again)

2011-12-04T17:41:00.001-08:00

For the unemployed jobseekers in Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bait and Switch, keeping busy became an end in itself. For businessowners and employees of all stripes, at all levels—from the tiniest to the mostmonstrous in size—being too busy can be more a problem than a solution. I heardit again on Saturday from the man who paused long enough in front of my bookdisplay at the Best for Kids Bake Sale and Bazaar to tell me, “I don’t havetime to read books.” Really? I could as easily say that I don’t have time tobake cookies or join a yoga class. For most of us, though, the truth is that wefind time for the things we really want to do. We all make different choices,that’s all.

It was a rainy weekend. Itwould have been a perfect weekend to stay at home in bed with a pile of books,on retreat from the world! There was, however, the sale on Saturday, and wealso had very welcome visitors to our home overnight. So after a full day onSaturday, our whole crowd going to the Happy Hour for dinner, and thenbreakfast to be gotten for all on Sunday, my weekend reading time had to bestolen. And steal it I certainly did.

First, I took a book with meto the sale. My feeling (and I could be wrong about this) is that too many idlevendors standing eagerly in front of their displays often frighten offpotential buyers. I don’t want to be unfriendly and aloof, of course, so I’dstand for a while, smile at those passing, greet people I knew, welcome thosewho stopped, ask them (if they began looking at books in earnest) if there wasa particular age they were shopping for, etc. But during those times during theday when it seemed that vendors and volunteers (sadly) outnumbered shoppers, Igave my feet a break and escaped into Tony Judt’s memoir essays. Can’t say Igot a lot of reading done, but even a paragraph of Judt’sexquisite prose is as refreshing as a poem. I even managed to inspire in oneshopper a desire for the book I was reading!

(“Would I like it?” sheasked. “Do you like trains?” I asked her. She loved trains. Yes, she will lovethis book, though she’ll be reading it on a plane to California.)

One of my successfulstrategies for stealing time is to get up before daylight. As I say, we wentout for dinner with our houseful of company on Saturday evening. After we camehome and sat around sociably until bedtime (ours, that is), they went outagain. This meant a quiet house in the morning when I got up to make coffee andget cozy with my book. Having promised myself Spirits and Wine as a Sunday treat (doesn’t that sound just perfect?),I had a nice, long stretch with the novel before I had to lay it aside to startoatmeal and mix pancake batter. Then later in the day I got back to it and shutthe world out again.

Sarah the Dog always needs togo outside for a run. Laundry is a never-ending task. Grocery shopping the waywe do it (the European method, i.e., almost daily) takes a bite after bite outof one’s life. But like my friends who wouldn’t dream of going a week withoutan aerobic workout and/or a session with weights, I find it hard to imagine anysignificant stretch of days without the pleasure of reading books—and if I haveto steal the time to read, that’s what I’ll do.

What I won’t do is tell you much more about the story line of Spiritsand Wine. You already know there’s aghost and a mystery. You know the story takes place in a little town on LakeMichigan. You know there’s a connection with wine. Beyond that, I am going tokeep mum, so as not to spoil a single surprising twist in the story as itunreels for you, the eager reader!

You do remember, I hope, thatSusan will be at Dog Ears Books on Friday? That’s at 5 p.m. And if you’re bothan early riser and a television watcher, you can catch an interview with her onTV 7&4 on Tuesday morning. The show is “Writer’s Minute,” and it airs at6:25 a.m., though the interview should actually run about three minutes.

My calendar shows me that Ihave a 9 a.m. meeting on Monday. Looks like I’ll have to get up pretty early toget in reading time and dog walk.

Book Review: BAIT AND SWITCH

2011-12-03T03:34:00.001-08:00

Bait and Switch: The(Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream,by Barbara Ehrenreich. NY: Metropolitan Books (HenryHolt & Co.), 2005

I love pretty much anythingBarbara Ehrenreich writes. I love the way she picks up some bit of modern“wisdom” and, instead of just smiling and nodding and passing it on, holds itup for a long, close, questioning look. For instance, do people really (as many say) create their lives, in every aspect and every event, from nothing more than their own positive or negative thinking? Is reality thatinsubstantial? And how is this belief working for those who buy into it?

She’s funny, too. The humorhelps when the subject matter is as depressing as some of hers is, such as thesurvival challenges of people on unskilled, minimum-wage jobs (Nickeled andDimed: On (Not) Getting By in America)or the insults-added-to-injury when a person with cancer is made to feel thatshe’s sick because she has a bad attitude (Bright-sided: How the RelentlessPromotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America).

As she did in those two books, for Baitand Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream the author researched a world joining it. Well, actually, she set out to join the corporate world,pulling together a plausible cover identity and job history based on (thoughnot strictly representing) her own, expecting that she would go through theregular search channels, land a halfway decent job, stay with it long enough tofulfill her self-assigned timeline, and then resign and return home to writeher book in her jammies (or gym clothes), but the plan didn’t quite work outthat way. The world of white-collar unemployment was a much sadder, bleaker,pointless place than she had ever imagined.

There were thecoaches, for one thing. Unemployed or underemployed themselves, operating outof coffee houses or (less often) small, drab, cramped offices, the coachesoffered individual sessions that seemed designed to go on as long as a client’smoney might last. The resume was never quite ready to send out, the attitude justnot yet peppy enough.Since Ehrenreich was entering the job market as a research project, she triedthree different coaches, one of whom she felt should hire her to improve his image (he didn’t, despite her confidentself-sales pitch) and another she couldn’t help outright hating.

“I want you todesign me as your best coach,” she says, perhaps forgetting that she hasalready been not only designed but “branded.” If I were “designing” her, I’dthrow in a major serotonin antagonist to damp down the perkiness.... Thesession has left me drained and her more excited than ever....

That was thecoach who thought Barbara would need three months of “co-active” work, for atotal of $1,200.

Then there werethe networking events, billed as opportunities to “get out there,” meetpeople, and hand out business cards. Unfortunately, theonly people Ehrenreich met at the events were other job-hunters, and they hadno interest in getting to know her or each other.

No matter howcrowded the room, the networker prowls alone, scavenging to meet his or herindividual needs.

Why go ifnothing ever results? Networking seems to be a way for the unemployed, orpeople “in transition,” as they are called in the lingo of the corporate job search world, to“keep busy,” to give themselves the illusion that they are “doing something.”Coaching and networking constitute the “transition industry,” a social-economicphenomenon that, Ehrenreich ultimately concludes, “narrows the range of thethinkable and forecloses the possibility of collective action.”

But I'm getting ahead of myself. There Ihave given you one of the conclusions of the book, but it was at the beginning, way back in thefirst chapter, “Finding a Coach in the Land of Oz,” that I began to laugh outloud. Hate me if you will for this, but I was delighted beyond measure when theauthor skewered the Myers-Briggs and Enneagram tests, “variously said to bederived from Sufism, Buddhism, Jesuit philosophy, and Celtic lore—with agenerous undergirding of numerology.” These tests, routinely given to jobseekers and applicants, focus on personality rather than experience and skills,a fact which raised a red flag right away for our skeptical social researcher.The “types” assigned by the test have not been found to have any validity orreliability.

So why is thecorporate world [she asks], which we think of as so fixated on empirical, infact, quantifiable, measures of achievement like the “bottom line,” so attachedto these meaningless personality tests? One attraction must be that the testslend a superficial rationality to the matching of people with jobs. No one,after all, wants a sadistic personnel director or a morbidly shy publicist; andif you failed at one job, it is probably comforting to be told that it wassimply not a good “fit” for your inner nature.

Back on thepersonality packaging redesign board, the author went for an image makeover,acknowledging that dressing for success is not one of her strongest suits.

Mainly, as awriter, I have no need to dress for work in anything other than gym clothes, orno clothes at all for that matter, and when writers do try to “dress up,” theyare generally granted a lot of leeway. I remember attending a banquet with thepoet and short-story writer Grace Paley, who appeared in a loose pink floral dress.When I complimented her, she confessed it was a nightgown, which was obvious oncloser inspection.

Shespare does not spare herself, either. (I love this part!) When her wardrobe and makeup consultant tells her she must neverwear black or grey because they wash out her skin, we can almost her shock.

This pretty muchcondemns me to nudity, since my entire wardrobe is black and grey, and notbecause I’m striving for New York City-style coolness, circa 1995. The truth isI spill on everything, so no peach or yellow item has ever survived more thantwo or three wearings.

Leaving nostone unturned, however, our intrepid author-researcher-corporate-jobseeker went tocoaching “boot camp” and church-sponsored “networking” sessions, rewrote herresume countless times and finally, in resignation, lowered her careersights--all to no avail. Resumes sent out brought no replies. Job fairs broughtno interviews. E-mail queries went unanswered. The only “jobs” she was everoffered were not corporate positions but commission-only sales “opportunities,”one selling insurance, the other selling cosmetics. In the end,

...after almostseven months of job searching, an image makeover, an expensively refined andlater upgraded resume, and networking in four cities, I have gotten exactly twooffers: from AFLAC and Mary Kay....

No one, apparently,is willing to take a risk on me.

Because that’s what a hiringemployer does, she notes, and that’s what makes it a real job.

...Surely there areplenty of actual sales jobs offering a salary and benefits in addition tocommissions, but a real job involves some risk-taking on the part of theemployer, who must make an investment in order to acquire your labor. In realestate, franchising, and commission-only sales, the only risk undertaken is bythe job seeker, who has to put out money up front and commit days or weeks tounpaid training.

Did she really try? I don’tblame anyone who asks, and the author answers the question in detail. The truthis, remember, that she did find and hold jobs in her earlier research project, doing hard work as a waitress and as a hotel maid. It isn’t as if she is lazy orthought the corporate world not glamorous enough for her. Maybe it was her age.Maybe it was the “stink of academia” in her resume or the lack of corporatereferences. But she had a lot of company from people with corporate credentialsand experience, and they weren’t getting interviews, either. Downsized, right-sized and outsourced, the corporate world doesn't need them and doesn't want them. Experience is not an asset but a handicap. Youth, "passion" and the willingness to work weekends and pull overnighters rather than having a life--these may get you on the fast track, but even then you'd better keep watching over your shoulder while you're running as fast as you can.

An older corporateimperative, she says, used to be generating jobs, but since the 1990s adifferent trend has become clear: “CEOs who laid off large numbers of employeeswere paid better than those who didn’t.”

Put in bluntbiological terms, the corporation has become a site for internal predation,where one person can advance by eliminating another one’s job.

The unemployedformer-corporate job seekers, Ehrenreich notes at the end of her book, haveplenty of time to spare. They “drift through their shadowy world of Internetjob searches, lonely networking events, and costly coaching sessions” but couldbe doing much more, namely lobbying for social change. They have the time andneed only to move “from solitary desperation to collective action.”

Hmmm. I wonder. This book came out in2005. Then the bubble burst. Now we have the Occupy Wall Street movement. Isthe political force Ehrenreich envisioned for the beleaguered middle classbeginning to take shape?

There were many more hilarious bits in this book, and I have hardly done justice, either, to the author's penetrating eye. This is one principled, thorough, hard-working human being I'd love to have for a friend. Actually, she reminds me very much of a dear friend of mine. I picture the naked emperor parading down the thoroughfare to the cheers of the crowd, while both Barbaras stand back watching from afar, shaking their heads and saying, "I don't think so!" It's a cold world out there, but I'm cheered by the existence of Barbaras in it.

Reading Group Going to HELL!

2011-12-01T17:03:00.001-08:00

I mean it. No kidding. Six of us met the other evening and came to a momentous decision: the next bookwe read together will be Dante’s Inferno.

Our merry band originallyformed to read James Joyce’s Ulysses,which a couple members said they could never hope to get through withoutsupport, and we were emboldened by our success (due largely to Steve’sleadership) to go on to read plays by Shakespeare, Molière and Beckett, thenTolstoy’s novel AnnaKarenina. I was the wimp on the lastround, sitting out Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, pleading too many other commitments for the fallseason.

But now—Dante! We launchedourselves into the mood by looking at Steve and Lauran’s photo albums of theirtrip to Italy and by hearing about Marilyn’s more recent Rome-to-Florenceadventure. The rest of us were nonplussed when Marilyn said that Dante’s namewas originally Durante. Like Jimmy? Imagine that!

More serious considerationon our first Dante evening was to decide which edition to read and whose translation.In the end we agreed that we didn’t need to worry much about everyone readingthe same English words with this particular work, as we can refer to a canto by Romannumeral and, within cantos, to numbered lines. So it is that four of us arecommitted to Mandelbaum’s translation, while Steve will be using his trustyBinyon, which features a synopsis of each canto immediately preceding it,rather than endnotes, and the sixth member will rely on an audio version. It will be interesting to experience more than one version of the work in our discussion.

If all goes well when we meet in January, we may proceed to the other sections of The Divine Comedy in the spring. But maybe not, too. As someone scrawled in the back of my paperback copy of Paradiso:

Is it easier to describe sin, horror and death? Satan in Milton the most interesting angel--the tortures in Inferno very creative, graphic, in terms of earthly bodies that we would understand--Paradise just a bunch of lights.

Well, that's one person's anonymous opinion. How do you see it? Are sinners most interesting than angels? And where would you put saints on that continuum?

If Your Dream Home Were a Haunted House

2011-12-01T04:14:00.001-08:00

Sometimeswe just get lucky.

Nothingbut luck explains a late-in-the-year addition to the Dog Ears author eventcalendar. Susan Newhof just happens to have in-laws in Northport and alsohappens to have a book tour scheduled in the U.P., so she’ll be stoppingovernight to visit her in-laws on the way back home. Would I like to host areading and book signing at Dog Ears Books while she’s in town? Ya, sure, youbetcha. (That's how a Yooper--or, closer to home, a Norwegian bachelor farmer would say it, right? But I digress....)

Newhof’snovel, recently released by University of Michigan Press, is called Spirits and Wine. That’s right, a novel—not a nonfiction book on what drinks to serve withdinner, although you'll understand the allusion to wine early in your reading. But no, not that kind of spirits.

Here's the setup: a couple finds their dreamhouse in a little lakeshore town in west Michigan, the old house all decoratedfor Christmas in midsummer. Peculiar--but they decide to buy it. Then they discover that they are not living there alone! The house is hauntedby the spirit of a previous inhabitant, and the new residents resolve to findanswers to the questions the haunting raises.

When asked about her own life experiences, the author acknowledges that “many of thethings that happened in the story are based on events that happened in ourlives, and based on things that happened in the house. For example, in the story, John andAnna bought a house that was completely decorated for Christmas and they boughtit in July. That comes directlyout of the old house that my husband and I bought, which was decorated fromfirst floor to second floor for Christmas and we bought it in July. And much like Margaret in the story, itwas decorated for Christmas just because the owner loved Christmas. So things like that came directly outof our life, but the story is fiction.”

Another question readers will have is about the townwhere the haunted house is located. Is there really a Carlston, Michigan?“Carlston is a made-up town,” Newhof says, “but many of the little towns alongthe lakeshore have a part of Carlston in them.”

How much do Carlston and Northport have in common? We’llall have to read the book to find out. Author Susan Newhof says she wants herreaders to get “so engrossed in this book that they completely lose track oftime.” Isn’t that the best kind of fiction-reading experience and just what weall as readers love?

Come hear Susan Newhof talk about her book and read a short selection on Friday, December 9. The event will begin at 5 p.m.

All Over the (Site) Map

2011-11-30T01:01:00.000-08:00

Reader, beware! You never know what you’ll find on this blog from one day to the next. Is forewarned forearmed? Here are a few of the more obvious possibilities:

Announcements of coming bookstore events: These comes under the heading of shameless self-promotion, but if I am not for me, who will be for me?

Book reviews: That’s self-explanatory, isn’t it? And kind of what you’d expect on a blog called “Books in Northport.” If you want to hunt reviews out specifically, use the search tool at the top of the page and ask for "book reviews."

Other book chat: Sometimes I ramble on about what I’m reading, giving samples and snippets without doing a full-blown review. This winter I may give an informal tour through my private library.

Bookstore and community news: Again, self-explanatory and unsurprising, right?

Dog stuff: Who doesn’t love pictures of Sarah? Sometimes there are pictures of Sarah and friends!

Gardening and cooking notes: News from the garden is seasonal, of course, as is news from the kitchen, but the kitchen operates year-round. Occasionally a recipe might sneak in.

Travel notes: Whenever I’m fortunate enough to have an adventure to share, I’ll share it, even if it’s only a drive down to Cedar to shop at Bunting’s Market.

Political rants: Who can help it? Once in a while the steam builds up and needs to be released.

Economic rants: Well, I’m not alone here, either, am I?

Grammar rants: I try not to go overboard with these, but occasionally one or more of my pet peeves itches so badly it needs to be scratched.

Philosophy: I keep this to a minimum, as doesn’t interest too many people, but it interests me greatly, so sometimes it muscles its way in. No, let’s be honest—I invite it in. I just don’t expect a lot of comments on those posts.

There. This doesn’t cover all the ground but hits major high points of ground I may touch on here. There are usually photos, too, but for those who want more pictures and less talk, see my photo blog, “A Shot in the Light.”

There. Now don’t say you weren’t given fair warning.

Today is the last day of firearm hunting season. I hope all who needed the meat got their deer. Sarah isn't watching the calendar, but I keep an eye on it for her, and we will enjoy the return of our outdoor freedom and safety.

Book Review: AND SHE WAS

2011-11-28T10:02:00.000-08:00

And She Was, by Alison Gaylin (HarperCollins, 2012)
978-0-06-187820-6
$7.99 paper

Nelson Wentz contacts Brenna Spector, private investigator, because his wife has disappeared, and he can’t get the police to believe that Carol isn’t simply another runaway wife. Long before Brenna discovers that Carol herself had been pursuing another missing person, she encounters numerous memory triggers to scenes from her own past. For one thing, there was the disappearance of her own older sister, a mystery that still remains unsolved, another case of police dismissing a vanishing as a standard runaway. And because younger Brenna felt somehow, at least in part, culpable for the hole in her family, she took note of the later disappearance of six-year-old Iris Neff, one for which Carol Wentz felt responsible.

Where are all these missing people? Carol Wentz, Iris Neff, Iris’s mother, Lydia, and Brenna’s sister, Clea? What has become of them, and are the only connections in Brenna’s head?

Brenna, you see, has an unusual condition: its name is hyperthymestic syndrome. She forgets nothing. Name a date, and she can tell you where she was, what she was doing, and she’ll be seeing and hearing everything as it happened then, as if the distant day were the present. If she saw a face or a number or an address once, it’s in her memory forever. Such a condition has obvious advantages for someone in her line of work, but the remembered images don’t automatically add up to infallible answers. As Brenna puts it, “Just because I remember everything, it doesn’t mean I’m right about everything.” Like the rest of us, Brenna is capable of drawing false conclusions from insufficient evidence.

In fact, Brenna Spector often experiences her peculiar memory as a kind of curse, since anything can serve as an association that triggers a recurrence of the past, often at inconvenient moments. Eruptions of the past can distract her from work or a conversation with her daughter or simply take her out of the present when she would rather remain there. Almost every reader of this novel will be without Brenna’s gift or curse--the condition is extremely rare--but will feel sympathy and admiration for the character. She is a hard-working, caring, vulnerable but strong woman, lonely without being pitiful, the brave, competent woman other women want to be. It is because we don’t want to see her remain lonely and in danger that we accompany Brenna so eagerly along the difficult and confusing trajectory of her story.

Other interesting characters enliven the scenes. Brenna’s assistant is a young techno-geek who frequents nightclubs and decks out in see-through fashion and body piercings. Trent’s slang is so current that it sometimes his boss without a clue to his meaning. He’s always on her case to upgrade to a more complicated cell phone, too. A younger character still is Brenna’s daughter, Maya. There is just enough of Maya, her father (Brenna’s ex-) and her stepmother, along with flashbacks to Brenna’s vanished sister and a glancing allusion or two to her mother, to give a sense of the treacherous family shoals our private P.I. has to navigate when she’s not immersed in an investigation.

And then there is Detective Nick Morasco. He’s a cop, but he and Brenna are, she thinks, on the “same side.” He smells comfortingly of Ivory soap. If only he had paid some attention years before when she called the police station to volunteer information following up a lead in Iris Neff’s disappearance!

In any novel of suspense, it’s up to the author to give readers a satisfying explanation in the end. Alison Gaylin does that and more. She left this reader satisfied with the conclusion of this complicated, convoluted case but also wanting more--wanting to continue vicariously enjoying Brenna Spector’s adventures and victories, wanting to go forward into her future to see how her family relationships will evolve and what possible remedy may present itself for her loneliness.

The sale date for And She Was is February 28, 2012. That date appears on the back of the ARC. Following the author’s note following the text of the novel I was happy to find the welcome announcement of a sequel due out in the fall of 2012. I’m hoping for a whole series. I’m already hooked on this gutsy P.I.

The Anguish of Readiness

2011-11-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

Getting ready for an event can be nerve-wracking, it can be exciting, it can be fun or full of anxiety or all of the foregoing. One thing must be said about getting ready: it gives you something to do. Sometimes too much to do, but even that can be good. Being ready, on the other hand, with time to spare--that can be frustrating. You want to yell to the stage manager, "What are we waiting for? Curtain up, already!"

Ask Sarah. She'll tell you. When friends begin to arrive, human and canine, that's when we can relax and enjoy ourselves.

At last! Here is Sarah with Fergus and MacDuff, two new friends:

So yes, the audience does arrive, the curtain does go up, the show does go on. And then, suddenly, it's over! Saturday, so long anticipated, was quickly over. The Village Band and Village Voices and townsfolk gathered by the Big Tree. There was music and cheer. And then, at a signal, the lights went on! Good work, Jamie! (Jamie Covert of the Northport Bay Dog and Cat Company organized the day's events.) Good work, musicians! Another day for the archives now....

Do NOT Come at Midnight (or You’ll Have a Long Wait)

2011-11-24T19:13:00.001-08:00

Dog Ears Books will be open for business the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving during our usual fall business hours, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Will there be anyone on the streets and sidewalks of Northport on Friday, or will all have camped outside the Big Box Stores in Traverse City, storming the doors at midnight, engaging in wild, frenzied orgies of shopping hours before daylight? It doesn't matter. Come what may, come who may, we'll be open our usual hours.

Wednesday before Thanksgiving was a busy day getting the bookstore tree decorated. It isn't even done yet, but the rest will be icing on the cake. Anyone who shows up on Friday is welcome to help.

Saturday will be a lively day, with headline author John Mitchell, who has been getting unanimous rave reviews for Grand Traverse: The Civil War Era, kicking off the day at 11 a.m. Come meet him, chat him up, purchase his book, and he’ll add a personal inscription to his signature, if you like. He’ll be with us until 1 p.m.

We’ll have Children’s Story Hour from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, and then at 3:30 Santa will be across the street to welcome children of all ages at Brew North until 5:30.

The village Christmas tree will be lighted at 6 p.m. Saturday evening, with the Village Voices there to lead carol singing. Lights will shine in the darkness of our little village. The scene will be festive but not at all crazy. You won’t have to worry about losing your friends in an out-of-control mob.

A sense of proportion. A sense of scale. And yes, an air of cheerful sanity. Who's voting for it? Northport's got it.

Gratitude and Grief

2011-11-24T05:25:00.000-08:00

No, I am not grieving today, but I can’t stop thinking about those who are. I'm thinking of those who have recently lost family members and friends, who are out of work, whose lives have been disrupted by life-threatening and/or painful illness or injury, etc. I don’t usually think of such things on Thanksgiving Day but was reminded by a visit to the bookstore by someone who has lived through multiple traumatic events this past year how difficult holidays are for those in pain.

Gratitude and grief—does either one occupy so much space that there is no room left for the other? How easy it is for me or anyone else whose life is full and happy to remind others to be thankful, but I wonder--if my life had been torn apart, would the reminders to be grateful help me, or would they be yet another blow, meaningless noise from an uncaring world? I don’t know. It probably depends on the person hearing the message and how it’s delivered and any number of other seemingly inconsequential circumstances.

To everyone celebrating and giving thanks today I send warm greetings, To those in grief and pain I can’t think of anything to say, but I send you hugs. What can that possibly mean? Hugs can’t feel very warm coming through a blog rather than in person, can they? I just want you to know you are not forgotten, and the whole world is not uncaring, though it sometimes feels that way. Sometimes when people are happy they don’t know what to say to others in pain, but we can still listen, so call someone if you need to! Reach out if you can! We do care, however wordlessly and helplessly. And if you don’t have the energy to deal with anyone face to face today, this link may help a little bit.

I know. This seems like a strange post for Thanksgiving. But it felt important to me, too, so here it is.

Santa’s Helpers Helped Me, Too

2011-11-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

My son’s visit was wonderful, but I’m going to put those photos on my other blog, “A Shot i the Light,” since he and Sarah and I got out for an adventure that deserves pictures not reduced in size. Meanwhile, here at Dog Ears Books I’ve had a lot of help getting ready for the holidays.

First the Von Voightlander family offered free Christmas trees to downtown businesses. Kathy Walraven went around taking “orders.” Bruce, my year-round bookstore helper--I appreciate him too much to call him an “elf”--was here on Monday for tree delivery, and he chose a very tall tree, so tall that when it was brought indoors, even before going in the stand, its top was bent over by the ceiling. What to do? Get a saw and take a foot off the trunk? Elizabeth Gallo stopped in Tuesday morning as I was contemplating the project and proposed an alternative: “Cut a bit off the top instead. No one will ever know [well, no one would have known if I hadn't spilled the beans here], and you won’t lose all the fullness of the lower branches." Great idea, Liz!
Just as I was about to suit action to words, in came Ken Wylie, who helped me lay the Green Giant on its side on the floor to facilitate surgery and then join tree and stand and get the tree not only upright but close to vertical.

So many friends to thank! And yes, those are sweepings and trimmings on the floor. I couldn’t stop to sweep before taking a picture of this year’s glorious bookstore tree!

The larger bits of cut-off branches I can never bear to throw out, and this year I was inspired to add them to the basket that holds the bookstore cat. Not a live cat. This one doesn’t catch mice but doesn’t need a litter box, either (nice!). Okay, a Christmas cat seems nice, but something’s still missing. A red bow for its neck? Maybe a bell? Who will bell the cat? I guess I can handle that bit alone. My friends have already given me an awful lot of help.

Steve Went Swerving—Will You?

2011-11-20T08:35:00.000-08:00

My friend Steve asked me to order a book for him, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt, but I already had it in stock. Then another friend called for it. “It’s here, and I’ll set a copy aside for you.” Makes me feel good that I recognized from a review, before it won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, that this would be one very interesting book. Here’s what Steve (who is now recommending the book to others) has to say about it:

The Swerve is a book for book-lovers--and not just any book-lovers but lovers of used books. For me it was less about Epicurean philosophy [Epicurus is Steve’s main philosophical man], than about the humanist search for, and preservation of, ancient texts. The commitment that Poggio Bracciolini (February 11, 1380 – October 30, 1459) had to rescuing the thoughts of Cicero, Plato, Aristotle and many, many more is a remarkable story. It takes us to Florence and Rome, showing us the politics and culture of the day. We find ourselves in rooms full of monks bent over their desks, completely silent for hours, except for the scratching of their pens on parchment, as they save book after book from being lost to humanity. Poggio knew that he had made a great discovery in 1417 when found Lucretius' poem "On the Nature of Things." He had seen references to it in other works that he had copied and although he was not an Epicurean he saved the book. It's a book that, when plunked down in the middle of a Christendom, opened up a new way of seeing things, a way that Thomas Jefferson ultimately embraced. It was a real page-turner for me.

Thanks, Steve, for reviewing and sharing your enthusiasm for this new book and for saving me the trouble of writing a blog post during my son's visit! Friends and family are a great combination....

Good Things in My Life Today

2011-11-18T09:07:00.001-08:00

The snow came yesterday, starting early in the morning and continuing on and off through the day. The ground was never completely covered, and we got no accumulation, but there was a festive dusting. There was snow in our yard at home...

snow in the meadow...
.
...and snow on the sidewalks in town, mingling with late-falling leaves.

The wind was bitterly cold all day, I admit. Still, snow is seasonal, right?

Now today the sun came out! I was paying a brief visit to the Leelanau Children’s Center in Northport when the sun broke through. Sunlight, combined with happy children at play and smells of a wholesome, nutritious lunch being prepared, made my heart sing with joy. The Children’s Center is really fabulous! We are so lucky to have it in our town, and I am proud of my new affiliation with it through the Leelanau Township Community Foundation.

Downtown, village workers were putting up decorations for winter holidays, swags of greenery and happy red lanterns. At least, the lanterms looked happy. (I know I was.) Here are the guys working on Waukazoo Street--yea!!!

Earlier this morning I received by e-mail today’s issue of “Shelf Awareness,” with a lengthy article by Robert Gray featuring Dog Ears Books and our new partnership with the LCC. That was pretty exciting for me (as is the partnership). My initial proposal was to the “Best for Kids” committee, rather than the LCC director, but Bob’s inference was natural and doesn’t affect the rest of the story. I was surprised and pleased that he included as much as he did of my reply to his question about what makes a community.

Finally, my son arrives tonight from Kalamazoo for a long weekend visit. So that’s snow, sunshine, children, holiday decorations, bookstore publicity and my own kid coming to see me. You’ll excuse me, I hope, for not writing anything about books today.

History on Waukazoo Street!

2011-11-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

It was an uncanny coincidence. Only Wednesday morning I had received e-mail from a friend with a Ph.D. in history who had reached page 195 of John Mitchell’s book, Grand Traverse: The Civil War Era and was overflowing with praise for the work. Then that very afternoon John called to see how I felt about having him come in to do a couple of book signings before the holidays. Yes, by all means!

If you look at the calendar in my right-hand column (where I am now directing your attention), you will see two different days you’ll be able to catch Mitchell at Dog Ears Books. The first chance will be the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which is also Merchants’ Open House day in Northport (and something like Shop Small Business nation-wide) when John will be with us from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. That same day from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. we’ll have Children’s Story Hour, as we did last year at this time, and the village Christmas tree lights will go on at five o’clock.

(There are fliers around town with a full list of special activities around town for November 26. I have some at the bookstore.)

It was our friend Dr. Kenneth Wylie, formerly of Michigan State University, who said of John’s book--

Grand Traverse: The Civil War Era (as I believe you suggested) is far more than a local history. I consider it superior to most leaden memorials to a particular regional or regimental history of the Civil War. John has dredged the abundant sources in anthropology (as far as the local Amerindians), into social and economic patterns, daily life and moreys. Like any trained historian, he manages to cobble the paths throught he greater story (death and mayhem in war) via an intricate tracing back through the core story, how did the diarirst (missionary) Smithsee it all; More important, John shares a popular historian's gift of narrative.

Ken has high standards, so this is high praise. But then, the book has already won a state history award, too.

Those of you who won’t be Up North until December will still have a chance to meet John and have him inscribe a book especially for you or someone on your holiday gift list, as he will make a return visit on the Friday before Christmas, December 23, again from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Two Poems by Spencer Grath Willits

2011-11-16T08:18:00.001-08:00

Our 13-year-old grandson, now in junior high, had the following English assignment: He was to write two completely different poems evoking one and the same feeling. Below is the work he turned in, which he has given me permission to publish here on "Books in Northport." We have always known that Spencer is smart and creative, but we are completely blown away by this latest evidence.

HEART OF THE FLAME

I am the heart of the flame,
Cackling with glee

To heat and fire I say stay,
To chill and ice, be gone

I am a blazing inferno
Burning the old forests,
Letting the new trees grow,
Bringing in new life

I can be controlled by none,
And contained in no cage

You may try to escape into water,
But you must eventually come onto land

I am chaos at its core
Following my own rules and nothing else
From a dying spark,
To a white hot supernova

I do what I please, not what pleases others
Doing what I need to survive

I stay, and I move on
there are those that love me,
And those that hate me,
For I am the heart of the flame

THE FIGHTER

I am the fighter, the warrior, the survivor. Did you know that I am the one who fights for all your quarrels?

I am the general, the master, the king, taking charge of the troops.

I am the trooper that fights to the death. Fire and storm come from me. They die, and I send more until my purpose is fulfilled.

I am the eye of the storm. I am the battle field that will bear blood. Terrible storms form around me. I forget. Battles tear my life apart. I forget. I welcome death. Bringing forth all of my innermost emotions. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl and fall short of myself. Then, I forget. When I, the fighter, accept the lessons of today, without forgetting the battles of last year, and those who fought against me, then there will be no speaker in the world who will say “The fighters,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice, or a far off smile of derision. The fighter, the warrior, the survivor, will arrive then.

- Spencer Grath Willits

Spencer, thank you so much for allowing me to share your work with "Books in Northport" readers! We love you TONS!

New Path for the Pack

2011-11-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

I should qualify that headline. Our dog, Sarah, continues on her old path, except for plaintive, questioning looks that say, “Where are the pork chops?” as she gazes up at our dinner table. The new path has been taken, the big change made, at David’s request (that’s the really astonishing part of the story), and it is—that he and I have recently embarked on a plant-based diet!

So far the change has not been at all painful. I haven’t photographed our exciting new meals, despite the fact that many of dishes have been very attractive visually, as well as tasty, but here’s the run-down so far:

Wednesday: collard soup, mixed wild rice, acorn squash with golden raisins and maple syrup, sauteed leeks

Thursday: sauteed mushroom caps, rice/collard/mushroom “pancakes,” baked yam, cold tofu salad with scallions, toasted sesame seeds and peanut dressing

Friday: red quinoa w/ golden raisins & green leek tops, chopped mango and red pepper with fresh ginger and Balsamic vinegar, steamed broccoli, cottage cheese

Saturday: pureed chestnut soup (no cream), veggie burgers (tofu, chopped walnuts, chopped parsley and scallions, egg white, bran flakes), mixed wild rice, tart cranberry-tangerine-mango relish

Sunday: leftovers from Saturday, along with leeks and red pepper sauteed in sauterne and Balsamic vinegar

Monday: French onion soup, steamed collards with garlic and sesame oil, baked acorn squash

My sister asked if the onions were cooked in butter. They were not. They were cooked, slowly, with many turnings, in olive oil, and the broth was made with Better Than Bouillon vegetable base (comes in jars in soup section of supermarket) and Worcestershire. The house smelled delicious. (The collards were like candy, too.) So you see we are not rabidly pure vegans, but we are tending toward that end of the vegetarian spectrum.

An odd coincidence is part of the story. A week ago Monday one of my customers e-mailed to ask me to order two books for her, Veganomicon: the ultimate vegan cookbook, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero, and The Joy of Vegan Baking: the compassionate cooks' traditional treats and sinful sweets, by Colleen Patricdk-Goudreau. My customer and her husband had just read The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell, and they had been converted by the book to veganism. “Never say never,” she remarked in her e-mail. I’d made a joke only the evening before, saying ostensibly to Sarah while she eyed our grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, “You better hope your dad never decides to become a vegan.” “Fat chance!” was David’s response.

But then fast forward to Tuesday evening. David had brought home from the library a documentary called “Forks Over Knives,” not knowing anything about the film, which we watched it after dinner, and as the final credits rolled he announced, “I’m ready!” Campbell’s cancer research was presented in the film, along with clinical results achieved heart patients changing to plant-based diets under the supervision of Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn.

Research results are not “noncontroversial.” (What is?) You can read the evidence pro and con for yourself. For now, we’ve decided to give this path a chance. We’re finding our meals very satisfying and at the same time not overly filling (no “stuffed” feeling afterward), and I imagine this is the way I might be eating at a health spa, except that someone else would be doing the planning, shopping, preparing and cleanup--I’m not complaining about the work involved, though. It’s actually pretty interesting and challenging, being “whacked” out of our old, dull routines, paying more attention to colors and textures.

As for which cookbooks I’m using, I’ve been consulting many, both at home and here at the bookstore, and including but not limited to vegan and vegetarian books. That gives me an idea: I should write a post sometime on my personal cookbook library. I keep it under control by having one small bookcase dedicated to cookbooks (and French dictionaries—don’t ask why!), so if I want to add a new one, an old one has to go. Yes, that will make an interesting post sometime this winter.

Meanwhile, we will be having a visit this coming weekend from my son, who is a Paleolitic Man in terms of diet. Meat and fat. Avoids grains and sweets. Well, we are avoiding sugars, too, so that’s not a problem, but does my son eat vegetables and fruits these days? There may be a lot of accommodation for a few days in the old farmhouse kitchen.

Studyin' War

2011-11-13T05:11:00.000-08:00

A novel set in 1960s Biafra: I I want to tell you about it but to come at it obliquely, from a distance that is temporal and cultural as well as geographic, in the way I’ve been thinking about it since reading the last heart-breaking page, looking for a historical context to connect it, somehow, to my own experience. How else to enter into another’s experience if not by means of connections? And yet, the distance always remains.

One friend of mine gets upset when people say that the American Civil War was “not about slavery,” but the other day a bookstore customer made the not-over-slavery claim, and another of my friends said that her very good friend, a black Southern professor, agrees with this view. Slavery or something else? What else? Preservation of the Union vs. two separate countries—but why did the South want to secede in the first? States’ rights, not slavery? But wasn’t it the right of states to allow slavery that was the key issue? “I’ve read that the causes were economic,” someone else remarks, and that reminds me of David R. Montgomery’s claim in Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations that growing crops with slave labor had already become unprofitable by the time of the Civil War because cotton had worn out the land, and so the only way owners of large numbers of slaves could continue to make money was by selling slaves, and that the only way to insure a continued market for slaves was to have new states in the West open to slavery. So, economic? Yes, but that involves slavery, too. I don’t see how economics or states’ rights or self-determination issues leading up to the Civil War can ever be separated from slavery at that time in American history.

Of course, I am a Northerner. And no historian....

I see clearly that from the personal point of view, whether it’s a private foot soldier or a general with an Academy background, the Civil War could well have been “not about slavery.” Individuals’ reasons for fighting, their personal values and ideals, are often very different from what emerges in the larger, impersonal picture history presents. How many soldiers ever go to war to secure a market, whether for slaves or silk or spices or oil or whatever? They go for love of king or love of country, out of a sense duty and gratitude for freedom, for honor and glory, for adventure, for family honor, to defend or free themselves or others—all manner of different reasons.

When the Civil War question comes up, I often want to object, “The war was over a century and a half ago! Why do we have to keep fighting it?” Yet I understand, too, that human beings have a hard time agreeing to disagree and that the truth of a nation’s history is something important to every citizen. Who are we as a country? Our history is a big part of how we answer that question.

This is a circuitous route to take to get to Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The time of the novel is the 1960s; its sections move back and forth between the early and the late Sixties. In the early Sixties, Biafran independence is a dream for certain of the characters, notably Odenigbo and his university colleagues. Odenigbo’s houseboy, Ugwu, can read and write, but his education takes leaps and bounds once he joins Master’s household. Beautiful Olanna comes from a privileged background and is much more concerned with her love affair than with politics, while her twin sister (not identical) Kainene is the practical one, absorbed in the family business, securing contracts and making money. Kainene is an irreverent cynic with little patience for Olanna’s romantic acquiescence. And finally there is Richard, a foreign white man who comes to call himself Biafran. Is he? Can he be?

Roughly two-thirds of the novel takes place with these characters living their day-to-day pre-war lives. They love each other, argue with each other, have affairs and hurt each other. There are problems with parents and in-laws and disagreements between friends. Ordinary life, in other words. For a while you might think the author is taking an easy way of presenting Sixties life in Nsukka and Port Harcourt, even while you marvel at her surprising, lovely turns of phrase. But then comes war, and with it comes fear, rumor and food shortages, horrible deaths, evacuation, repeated moves that bring ever-worsening conditions, refugee camps, starvation, and because you have had time to come to know the people involved, the violence and famine are no longer abstract concepts or news stories from far away but personal tragedies. The author has led you to the truth of war.

Who is telling the story? Which story or stories will be told? Why was this war fought? What is the official story today, and how does it differ from that of Adichie’s novel?

Asked why she chose the Nigeria-Biafra war for the subject of her novel, the author responds:

I wrote this novel because I wanted to write about love and war, because I grew up in the shadow of Biafra, because I lost both grandfathers in the Nigeria-Biafra war, because I wanted to engage with my history in order to make sense of my present, because many of the issues that led to the war remain unresolved in Nigeria today, because my father has tears in his eyes when he speaks of losing his father, because my mother still cannot speak at length about losing her father in a refugee camp, because the brutal bequests of colonialism make me angry, because the thought of the egos and indifference of men leading to the unnecessary deaths of men and women and children enrages me, because I don’t ever want to forget.

What is it that should be remembered—from any war? There could be so many answers, but here is a passage from Adichie’s novel that says a great deal about personal experience:

...The bombing was louder and closer. The ground pulsed. She felt nothing. She was floating away from inside herself. Another explosion came and the earth vibrated, and one of the naked children crawling after crickets giggled. Then the explosions stopped and the people around her began to move. If she had died, if Odenigbo and Baby and Ugwu had died, the bunker would still smell like a freshly tilled farm and the sun would still rise and the crickets would still hop around. The war would continue without them. Olanna exhaled, filled with a frothy rage. It was the very sense of being inconsequential that pushed her from extreme fear to extreme fury. She had to matter. She would no longer exist limply, waiting to die. Until Biafra won, the vandals would no longer dictate the terms of her life.

The individuals in this story take many different journeys, some parallel but each one unique, as in life. The ending left me shaken. And then, immediately following Half of a Yellow Sun, I read a book of nonfiction by a Norwegian Journalist, Åsne Seierstad’s A Hundred and One Days, a report on her time in Baghdad leading up to the arrival of American troops in 2003. What was happening on the ground before the Americans arrived? Did the population support Saddam Hussein? Once again, there are no easy answers and no one attitude shared by everyone Seierstad meets. Like the Adichie novel, most of the “action” comes late in the book, and one thing is clear: the cost of freedom was very high for the people who call this place home.

Northport had an unusual Veterans Day program this year. Retired Congregational minister Grafton “Mac” Thomas had the idea and wrote the script and was joined by three other local men. The four together made a presentation on peace for students and the general public. I only heard about it afterwards. Wish I’d been there. Northport is full of surprises.

It’s Official—It’s in the Enterprise!

2011-11-11T05:06:00.000-08:00

Dog Ears Books is offering a new local deal--and I have order forms in the bookstore now, but the forms are not necessary for participation, as I’ll be keeping track of all partners in a special notebook. Ready? Here it is:

When anyone who wants to participate in the new partnership program orders new books not already in stock at Dog Ears Books, Dog Ears will give 10% of the retail price of those purchases to the Leelanau Foundation, earmarked for the early child development fund, and one hundred percent (100%) of those donations will go to the Leelanau Children’s Center.

The Best for Kids committee, Maggie Spratt-Moran of the LCC and I are all excited about this new program. It’s good to be excited about something at this time of year. Naturally, I’m hoping for a boost to my winter business but am equally excited about the opportunity to benefit children in our community in an important way on a year-round basis.

Working together, interdependently—that’s what community is, after all, not just a collection of unrelated individuals who happen to sleep within a certain radius. Suddenly the winter ahead is starting to look a lot more interesting--and more connected.

If you’re interested in reading more on the rationale for shopping local and supporting community, click this link.

Wonderful Surprise and Surpassing Delight!

2011-11-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

Do you recognize the little creature on the left? I’ve written before about The Silver Nutmeg, by Palmer Brown, one of my all-time favorite and most beloved books from childhood and one I still love very much. It was a sequel to Beyond the Paw Paw Trees, a charming story in itself, and the animal in the illustration is a hedgehog, one of Anna Lavinia’s pets in both Palmer Brown stories.

I subscribe to the New York Review of Books and deeply appreciate the in-depth essays there. Often a review will address several books on the same subject, going into very helpful detail on how they cover the subject and, perhaps, what each one leaves out. There are also essays that are not book reviews, such as those by Tony Judt, published over a long period and at last, thank heaven, collected into a book. But book reviews are the stock in trade of the periodical, so it’s natural to find books advertised throughout each issue, and skimming through the publishers’ ads is part of my pleasure, as much as it is attention to my business.

Well, imagine my amazement and delight to find that NYRB itself has republished Beyond the Paw Paw Trees! Hurrying to place an order, I was even more amazed and delighted to see that The Silver Nutmeg will be re-released in April of 2012! My cup runneth over! And my son’s cup runneth over, too, because how could a reader have a child and not inflict her favorite books on him at an early age? I made a lot of mistakes as a mother, but Palmer Brown was not one of them!

If you followed the first link in this post and read my old one through the comments section, you found my synopsis of the setup for the action of The Silver Nutmeg, but I know not everyone follows links (I don’t always do it myself), so I’m going to insert my long comment on the story here:

What is THE SILVER NUTMEG about? Oh, my!

Well, things are not at their rosiest for Anna Lavinia. Life is never quite right when her father is away, and this time drought has even her pets drooping. The well is dry, and Anna Lavinia must make repeated trips to the spring for water as her mother puts up spicy green paw paw preserves so as not to waste the paw paws that fell from the tree before they could ripen.

Uncle Jeffrey’s visit is a pleasant diversion. His relationship to the family is a little vague, “twice removed,” though he won’t say from where, but he brings spices and songs and gifts.

Before he left on his trip, Anna Lavinia’s father had begun making a hole in the stone wall surrounding their garden. The purpose of the opening was to broaden Anna Lavinia’s horizon and give her a point of view. Through the opening she could see a small wooded hill. On top of the hill was a dew pond. How many hills have a dew pond on top? Her point of view was something special.

When Anna Lavinia visits the dew pond, she learns the truth of the old saying, “Still waters run deep.” There is another world on the other side of the still water! A boy on the other side invites her to jump, assuring her that if the water is still she can get through without getting wet. She jumps, and thus begin her adventures in a world without gravity, where people and objects are attached to earth by the tingle as long as they are touching the ground or something that is touching the ground.

But the workmen were going to drain the pond to irrigate the parsnip field! How will Anna Lavinia get home again? And who was Aunt Cornelia’s lover, and will he ever return?

This is the beginning of what the story is “about,” and I feel it tells nothing at all. The charm is in the very specific language, the songs and rhymes, the drawings, the faces of Anna Lavinia and the other characters, the details of the animals, and so on and so forth. It is truly a magical book.

(You’ll have to look at the old post if you want to see a picture of the cover of my copy of The Silver Nutmeg because it is currently on loan to a friend. Needless to say, she is a very good friend, tried and true, for me to let this precious book out of my house and into her hands.)

Well, I couldn’t wait to send the glad tidings about next year’s reprint availability of The Silver Nutmeg to my son, who thoroughly understood and shared my joy. He wondered if that would mean Beyond the Paw Paw Trees would be reprinted, too, and when I told him it’s already available he wondered if he could put in a request for a late birthday present. (I’m thinking it might be an early Christmas present, since he will be visiting soon.) Then he sent me a link to a wonderful blog post from Pittsburgh, which you should definitely follow if you love books, even if you’ve never heard of Palmer Brown, because the serendipity of this blogger’s story will make you smile happily and put a rainbow into your day.

Until you discover or rediscover the stories of Anna Lavinia for yourself, here at left is a little illustration of her precious book, “Songs From Nowhere,” and here below are the front and back of the lovely, lovely newly reprinted Beyond the Paw Paw Trees. Oh, lucky me, to be a bookseller! I can hardly wait to introduce people to these magical tales!

A Berry Obsession, Part II, or, Hawthorns, Continued

2011-11-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

(If you missed Part I, you can find it here.)

More like it! In the line drawing of hawthorn above, from Illustrated Guide to Trees and Shrubs, by Arthur Marmount Graves, published by the author in 1952, look at those leaf edges with their nicely rounded lobes! The fruits look flatter than mine, more like blueberries in form, but this is a generic drawing, not meant to represent exactly a particular species. Next, in Avril Rodway’s Wild Foods (1988), with illustrations by Zane Carey, I found another promising line drawing:

Wild Foods also has full-page color illustrations, and here are a couple details from the hawthorn page, looking very like my specimens.

Finally—wow!—Field Book of American Trees and Shrubs, by F. Schuyler Mathews, published by Putnam’s with an author’s copyright date of 1915, gives a dizzying array of hawthorns, beginning on page 211 and going through page 253, although this is only a sampling, according to Mathews, who begins his introduction to hawthorns as follows:

An extremely difficult and complex genus separated by botanists into many divisions comprehending about 200 species. The subtle distinctions of leaf-form, anther-color, number of stamens, and character of fruit, etc., are more or less precarious....

A visit from my botany guru, Chris Garthe of the Leelanau Conservation District, however, confirmed that my leaf and berry samples--and we can now refer to the berries as haws--are definitely hawthorn. I showed him my photo of the little tree, too, which nicely conforms to the description given by Mathews:

The Hawthorns are mostly flat-topped trees, irregular in limb and branch, the shrubby form generally showing ascending and the tree form spreading branches, but no rule is possible in this direction.

“No general rule” seems to be the general rule for hawthorns. Is this why I love them, other than their having been featured in the first volume of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past? That’s where my initial obsession with hawthorn trees began.

[Pause while bookseller combs house from stem to stern, searching for first volume of Proust. Does not find. Only final volume surfaces. Must go to press without relevant literary quote here. Rats!]

Hawthorns go back centuries in the Old Country, whether in France, England or Ireland. Sometimes fairies figure into the lore, but legends of all kinds abound. Here is a paragraph from Rodway:

The Holy Thorn . . . at Glastonbury in the west of England, which legend has it, sprang from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, blooms in winter – on Christmas Day, or near it – and cuttings from it flourish in both Britain and America. In fact, reverence for the hawthorn has crossed the Atlantic and many of the same feelings for the tree exist in both Britain and the United States.

(The reason for my ellipsis in the paragraph quoted above is that Carey writes of the "Crataegus family," and there is no such family. Crataegus is a genus within the family Rosaceae).

Now for the disappointing news. Chris and I tasted a couple of haws.

The texture is mealy, taste bland, and each little haw contains a big, hard pit. Turning to new books, I find in Tree & Shrub Gardening for Michigan, by Tim Wood & Alison Beck (Lone Pine, 2003), I find this notation:

Hawthorn fruits are edible but dry and seedy. Some people make jelly from them, or ferment them and mix them with brandy.

Before I tasted the haws, I had imagined making jelly, but now I think I’ll leave them for the wildlife. Anyway, I enjoyed the collecting, the mystery, the literature search and finding a solution. That was plenty of satisfaction for a November day.