You Make Me Smile

Well, knock me over with a feather. Drowsey Monkey has honored me with a You Make Me Smile award. Remember DM? She introduced me to Kiva, which I posted about back in August.

Drowsey's blog is subtitled: Do something good today ~ Or don't do something bad ~ As long as you do it with humour. She's not a saint, which is what is refreshing about her. She spurs you on to help where you can, but she's honest about her own foibles. She writes very well, entertains, and makes you aware of ways to better the world around you. Being thought provoking and funny, now that's worthy of an award these days.

Drowsey Monkey YOU make me smile. Thank you for that, and for the award!

I am going to pass this You Make Me Smile award on to my daughter, Lesley, and her blog Elle in New York. She astonishes me with her ingenuity and creative expression. And she's just so DARN CUTE! How can you help but smile?

Lesley is an interior designer in NYC who also creates hand crafted items for sale and for gifts. I have received many such lovelies myself, including this AMAZING handwoven shawl. I haven't worn it yet, it decorates the arm of our sofa.

On top of her many talents and sweetnesses, Lesley is one of my best friends. Weswey, I bestow upon you the You Make Me Smile award!

and did you get what you wanted?

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

- Raymond Carver

(from 'Last Fragment')

WWYD?

What would you do?

We saw this little electric car (the Volt) at the Detroit auto show in January, and of course it was my favorite. I dragged Don out into the frigid cold to downtown Detroit because I wanted to see cars with alternative fuel sources, I thought it would be a big year for cars like this in the news. (And I had the East Lansing Daily Photo blog to keep going.)

Well this little guy is one of the reasons the GM United Auto Workers union has gone on national strike for the first time in 37 years: They want GM to build this car in the US, not in Asia. They want job security: 73,000 workers nationally, over 5,000 locally here around Lansing.

So many issues! I've been supporting foreign cars for years because the quality is better. (However I currently drive a Chevy Aveo.) But I don't want 73,000 American workers out of work. I have to see "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and get angrier at the auto company executives for killing the technology of this alternative car energy in the 1970s.

Yes, auto execs at GM asked that their salary be halved earlier this year to help the struggling auto company (or at least to help how they look). Only $2.5 million for the CEO Rick Wagoner, not $5 million. And no bonuses this year. But their compensation packages still doubled! (Stocks, etc.)

Even auto workers are finally disgusted with auto execs and the choices they've made in the past few decades. Detroit could have been, should have been, the leader in alternative fuel-burning car development! Detroit could have been Paris by now. This could have been the Riviera. But no, they let Japan take the lead in developing hybrid cars. Our execs were greedy for the high price tags and profits of SUVs. Don't misunderstand me, I want all countries, all economies to do well. I'm not waving the American flag for dominance, believe me. I just want this powerful country of ours to take a lead IN THE RIGHT THINGS.

-

This also raises the question of unions. We recently watched the folksinger Woody Guthrie's story in the film "Bound for Glory" which is also about the start of unions in the US. Back in the 1930s, unions were an important way for poor workers to obtain and maintain their rights. Wiki has a history of the United Auto Workers. And here is a UAW timeline.

But what do unions do for many of us now? I don't belong to a union, but Don does. But because his is for public school employees, it's against the law to strike. So what power do they have for the $800 per annum they pay per person? And auto plant workers make $26 an hour now. How times have changed.

So many questions, so little time.

Anyway, if you were the CEO of GM, what would you do?

First poem

If you can't read it, click on the image to enlarge it (hope it works)

One of the reasons I want to memorize poems is to understand allusions when I hear or read them. For this reason, I'm going to start with poems that are in the western poetry "canon." Old English is beautiful, so melodic. So I'm going to start with Robert Herrick's "Upon Julia's Clothes," (above) a sensual, lyrical poem that is SHORT!

The bookmark I'm using is a postcard of Picasso's 1919 painting Les Amoureux on display at le Musée National Picasso, Paris.

Waiting

Audrey and Asher couldn't come for the weekend because their dad got sick. The bears are disappointed.

They'll be waiting for next time.

Committing to Memory

Last year I went to dinner with a teacher from Don’s school who has since retired from grade school resource room teaching and now teaches at the University. Thank goodness she’s being utilized this way, because Marilyn has a mind that astonishes.

Sitting at Sultan’s eating schwarma before going to a lecture at the University, we discussed poetry, among other things. She knew I was a writer. She asked what poems I’ve memorized written by other poets. I looked at her, “um, well, maybe a couple.”

“Why!” she asked. And she proceeded to praise the benefits of memorizing and reciting poems.

Well, John Hollander, at the request of the Academy of American Poets, has compiled an anthology of over 100 poems for memorization: Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize. The poems were chosen mostly for younger readers. They are short, but not too short. Many have rhyme, because free verse is harder to remember/memorize.

Don has taught his 4th graders to memorize Carl Sandberg’s “Fog” and Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” I learned them with him during those times. (Those are the “couple” I told Marilyn I know.)

Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

- Carl Sandberg


Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

*

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

*

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

*

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

- Robert Frost


Hollander’s anthology includes sonnets (such as Shakespeare’s #18 “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”), songs (such as Blake’s “The Tyger”), counsels (such as “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas), tales (such as “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll), and meditations (such as “To Autumn” by Keats).

This anthology is of poems written in English. I would like to add poems written in other languages that have been translated well, if I’m going to memorize poems. I'll have to figure out which ones these will be, need to read more.

The benefits of memorizing poetry are maintaining oral traditions, hearing the melodies of the words, not just reading them, using and challening your brain in ways other activities don’t. And reciting poems together with someone you like is a treat.

Will you join me?

Still Lifes - for my girl

Like the waves in your hair, the curls
of your plant “Harley” are spreading
wide into summer, joining the wind
that skims across the farm.




And on your piano, Beethoven
relaxes with Clementi,
waiting quietly for any Italian
phrases that might be carried in
on the current.

Although you are not here,
these scenes bring you to me
every morning, like the lapping tide
from the big ocean far away.

freedom of speech, Constitution Day, and Turkishness

Sorry, this is a little long.

(When I started writing this post a couple days ago, I had no clue September 17 is Constitution Day in the US. You can see the Bill of Rights (amendments added to the constitution in 1791) here, including the First Amendment involving freedom of speech.)

I’ve written here about Orhan Pamuk, and I’ll write about him again soon, because I’ll hear him speak October 1 when he visits East Lansing.

Pamuk is the Turkish author who won the 2006 Nobel prize for literature. His life is threatened, he feels, after he was arrested last year for breaking Turkish Article 301 , the law against “denigrating Turkishness,” when he publicly criticized the Turks for their part in the WWI-era mass killings of one million Armenians as well as 30,000 Kurds in the 20th c. (which Turkey officially denies). Merely mentioning the “genocide” is against this Turkish law. To not be offensive, you’re supposed to call it the “Armenian question.” Charges were dropped against Pamuk in January last year, and sometime this year he moved to New York in self exile.

He moved partly because of the January 19, 2007 murder of Hrant Dink, an Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor, for his frank writing on the same topic. Pamuk felt threatened by the same Turkish nationalist group to which the 17-year-old who killed Dink belonged.

So, the other day I bought a Glamour magazine in line at the grocery store, and after I got home and stared at some revenge dressing and tummy flattening photos, I found an article about Elif Şafak (or Shafak), another Turkish author whose life has been threatened by the same Turkish nationalist group that killed her friend Hrant Dink and threatened Orhan Pamuk. (Look here for some stories about other inspiring women. I’ve also added the Global Diary link to my sidebar.)

Like Dink, Şafak wants Turks and Armenians to reconcile, but she understands it won’t happen until Turkey acknowledges what happened in 1915.

What does it mean to be Turkish anyway? In 1985-88 when we lived in Istanbul our lives straddled Asia and Europe: we lived in Asia and Lesley crossed the Bosphorus bridge every day to her British school on the European side of Istanbul, and Don did much of his export business from the European side. Turkey’s culture straddles Asia and Europe philosophically too, as there is a constant tension between conservative Muslim traditions and modern European trends as Turkey tries to become part of the European Union. I’m currently reading Snow by Orhan Pamuk (still, I know, I know, I started it in July), a novel about Turkish women who are torn between traditional Islam and modern Western womanhood, represented by wearing, or not wearing, head scarves, which have been banned in some public Turkish places.

Şafak’s 2006 novel Bastard of Istanbul is on my list of books to read. It’s about gender and cultural identity of Turkish, Armenian and Turkish-American and Armenian-American women, and the violence of their past. The world is changing fast, and books like this help me understand some of it.

Şafak, Dink and Pamuk risked their lives to tell the truth as they understand it.

My freedoms and lifestyle cost many people a lot. And yes, I know our rights as US citizens have been in question, especially since 9/11. But for the most part, we don’t get arrested for speaking our minds. I think Constitution Day is a good day to remember that.

Netflix & "Best of Youth"

Netflix


We are on a Netflix plan in which we pay $15.99 monthly and have unlimited access to 3 movies at a time. Plans range from $4.99 a month for two movies a month one-at-a-time, to 8-at-a-time for 47.99. I’ve never searched a movie I couldn’t find on their list. Now, you know that isn’t true of local video stores.

If you live in the US, and you haven’t started Netflix yet, why not? We have a chance to offer friends and family a free 30-day trial until 9/30/07. If you leave a comment that you’re interested in trying it out, I’ll forward you the email offer. There are no late fees. If you don’t have time to watch a movie you’ve received for a couple of weeks, no worries.

Ok, that’s one.

* * * *


“Best of Youth” (Italian, “La Meglio gioventù”)


I had queued this long film (2 DVDs) weeks ago, and it’s been sitting unwatched next to the TV a long time. Summer is not the best time to watch lots of movies, if you ask me.

Marco Tullio Giordana directed this 2003 six-hour epic. We finished the first 3-hour DVD last night, and I’m already ready to talk about it. Even though Don slept through a few minutes here and there, he still liked it. (Hey, it was a Friday night after a long week.)

It’s about two brothers in Italy, starting in the 1960s then spanning four decades. I’m not much into epics for their own sake, because I don’t trust that the characters will be developed well enough. It’s a big commitment to watch 6 hours of one movie. But, if you like seeing modern cultural history, good-looking actors in well developed roles, people conflicted with normal issues of love, friendship and social justice, I highly recommend adding this to your queue, or asking your local video store to get it for you. The story telling and acting are perfectly executed if you ask me. I’m guessing you can get it in other parts of the world too, because it was part of the Singapore Film Festival.

I’ve read that the second half of the movie is better than the first, so I’m looking forward to watching another 3 hours tonight.

Grapes

Hours planting: 0

Hours weeding: 0 (Don did weed once, but it wasn’t for an hour.)

Hours tending: 0 (I think. Don, did you tend?)

Hours picking: 1 (two people together)

Hours washing and stemming: 1 (times two people again)

Hours cooking, squishing, squeezing, draining, straining, canning and sweating: 4
(These 4 hours: all Don. I washed up pans, dishes, utensils, whoohoo.)

Quarts of grape juice: 13

Jars of grape jelly to come: 150 (hours expected to make the jelly: 4?)

We won’t eat enough toast or peanut butter & jelly sandwiches to consume it all ourselves. Want some? We'll gladly give you some.

We might also sell some at our upcoming yard sale in October. What would you pay for a jar of home grown organic homemade grape jelly? At this Web site it’s $5 for a 10 oz. jar. We don’t expect to get rich, but the empty jars cost about $1 each, and sugar and pectin another 50¢ each. We were thinking $3?

Maybe we'll have our first roadside farm stand! If you stick with us, this might turn into a little farm economics lesson.

But in case you were wondering, we’re not in it for the money.

green clothes

New blogs are started every few seconds, I'm sure. I contribute to the glut. But sometimes you find one that stands out.

Lesley introduced me to an AWESOME site called Confessions of a Closet Environmentalist by two students who are doing their best to live consciously on a student budget. I was so inspired by their "Green Clothes Part I - a long lasting wardrobe" post that I followed some of their advice last night. One tip is to wash your clothes less often and air garments outside to freshen them up. Sounds like something out of the 19th century. I like that, old fashioned as I am. For inspiration and encouragement, check out "The List" where they openly keep track of what they've changed, and haven't changed, in their lives.

Funny thing is that I hung our shirts out on the porch last night, and Don's poor shirt ended up on the floor of the porch with Bishop the cat sleeping on it this morning. (You just have to keep your sense of humor.)

Yes, so Lesley and I were excitedly talking about all this on our cell phones coming home from work today, brainstorming ways we could simplify and consume less.

At the end of the call Lesley told me why she called, to tell me that she met Elie Tahari today. I used to sell his high end expensive clothes. We laughed at the irony of our "let's consume less" conversation that ended with star-struck giddiness that she had shaken hands with one of the world's premiere designers. (You just have to keep your sense of humor.)

Tesseracts

Madeleine L’Engle died Thursday at age 88. She was born the year after my dad, two years after my mom. I read only one of her children’s books, the most famous, the science fiction A Wrinkle in Time, for which she won the Newberry Award in 1963.

The heroine of this book, Meg, is given time and space travel powers to rescue her scientist father on another planet via the tesseract.

I’ve been thinking about tesseracts for the last few days. Well, not exactly tesseracts. I’ve been thinking about doorways and pathways to be kept open.

I was talking yesterday with Inge about not being as interested in poetry as in photography. “Maybe I’ll stop going to Sapphos” (my poetry group), I said. And she said, “Why decide that? Why close the door? If you say, ‘I’ve stopped writing poetry’ on such-and-such a day, then a couple of weeks later, when you’re inspired to write one, you might say to yourself, ‘Oh, no, I decided I wasn’t going to write poetry any more.’”

Madeleine’s imagination kept doors open.

Douglas Martin in the NYT writes today that she called herself a French peasant cook, who drops a carrot in one pot, a piece of potato in another and an onion and a piece of meat in another.

"'At dinnertime, you look and see which pot smells best and pull it forward . . .The same is true with writing,' she continued. 'There are several pots on my backburners.'"

Thank you, Madeleine.

Herb bed full

Why does everything have to be so full at the end of summer? The nasturtium leaves are piled high like lily pads overlapped.

The purple pole beans have pulled down the weather vane. He's buried, I can't even show him to you, the little sawyer. But here is an old picture before the onslaught.

The dill is as high as me.

And poor Phoebe is drowning in basil.

What is there to do but make pesto and take some to Sapphos tomorrow night for pasta, place a nasturtium blossom on each plate for garnish, share the beauty and bounty with my lovely poetry writing friends?

Oh, and I'll freeze some too, pesto that is.

There is a satisfying sadness at the end of summer. I'm trying to write a poem about it, but it's difficult to put into words.

pumpkins

Don planted pumpkins back in June. You can see him and Lesley here examining the big leaves and little pumpkins Farm Day weekend in August. All these leaves are from just two plants! Vines can grow 6 inches in one day.



Some weeks after planting, flowers started appearing.


Each flower lasts one day.

By mid-day the flowers begin to fold in on themselves.



Every plant has two kinds of flowers, male and female. The male flowers don't become pumpkins, and there are far more of them than female flowers. Bees gather pollen from the male flowers and carry it to the female flowers.


The pollinated female flowers become pumpkins.




Don noticed this white film coating the leaves. It's a fungus, so he sprayed some organic fungicide today. I hope that does the trick.



In another week or two, we'll start cutting the stems and letting the pumpkins cure in the sun for several days. We'll decorate the farm with them and cut up a few for baking for pie, bread, muffins.