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I Don’t Know How She Does It

August 5, 2008 – 8:19 am

Kate Reddy still remembers The Look her mother and another mum exchanged when a mother “who didn’t make the effort” tried to bring canned fruit to a school function.

“The look was unforgettable. It said, What kind of sorry slattern has popped down to the Spar on the corner to celebrate God’s bounty when what the good Lord clearly requires is a fruit medley in a basket with cellophane wrap? Or a plaited bread?”

One brand of humor requires being British. Another Southern. So I feel left-out that I was born in the North where it’s harder to write funny. Anyway, I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson was not only funny but poignant when all I expected was a good summer read. In an interview with the author, Pearson said she wrote an article on working mothers in the London Evening Standard that drew so many letters, she knew she had hit a cord. And so Pearson’s first novel was born. It has been labeled “chick lit” but there’s so much more to it and, besides, is well written. It was a best-seller in both America and England.

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Dog Days of Summer

August 4, 2008 – 11:05 am

August’s hot weather was once believed to be a time “when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies.” (Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813) That’s too dramatic for how the heat makes me feel today – which is lazy!

These hot sultry days are full of swimming lessons, water balloons, iced tea, sweet corn at the produce stand and plans to be outside early rather than at the sun’s peak. I have the need to capture it all before summer fades… Carpe Diem!

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Weekend Words: Volcano Vineyards

August 2, 2008 – 8:38 am

“The high-toned sweet plum and raspberry fruit tastes almost jaunty on the tongue despite the weighty mouthfeel.”

Jaunty? What a fun word to use (meaning lively or sprightly) in reference to wine. The language of wine can be so entertaining. Yes, some people attempt to impress with overbearing descriptions… but for most of us, the language of wine adds to the pleasure of drinking it.

That sentence is from Northwest Palate Magazine about Volcano Vineyards Gold Medal winning Syrah (2007 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition). Volcano is a micro winery in Bend, Oregon, making wonderful Rhone varietals, many of which have won awards. Worth seeking out in Oregon’s restaurants and wine shops. Or if you’re lucky enough to be in downtown Bend, you can enjoy Volcano’s tasting room.

Enjoy their wine and talking about it. As Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Wine is bottled poetry.”

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A Book Lover at 101

August 1, 2008 – 8:29 am

“A lifelong lover of books, Ms. Goodyear lost her sight about four years ago, but in its place has acquired a roster of readers who stop by regularly, bringing with them dogs, gifts from their international travels and offerings of dark chocolate, the elixir she has savored daily since she was 3.”

Elizabeth Goodyear just celebrated her 101st birthday. She is a lover of books and has friends who visit her regularly to read to her, including books by her favorite novelist Rumor Godden. A popular New York Times article titled In Strangers, Centenarian Finds Literary Lifeline profiles this lady who exclaims she didn’t think much would be happening at her age but is happy to have daily visitors. Goodyear’s one-bedroom apartment sounds like a lively place; as she says “usually there’s something going on here.”

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When I Was Young in the Mountains

July 31, 2008 – 10:25 am

“When I was young in the mountains, grandfather came home in the evening covered with the black dust of a coal mine. Only his lips were clean, and he used them to kiss the top of my head.”

Would you know reading these sentences that they were written for children ages four to eight? Cynthia Rylant’s Caldecott Honor book, When I Was Young in the Mountains, was the first book this prolific author wrote and was based on her own childhood. Rylant has the gift for simple sentences full of meaning and warmth. Some of her children’s series are funny too — Mr. Putter and Tabby is our favorite.

There’s a common myth that children’s books are easy to write. Not so. Much harder to use words and sentence structure at the right level for children and yet imbue all the meaning their growing minds are capable of understanding. Rylant is a master at it.

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Kipling’s King

July 30, 2008 – 9:53 am

One hot day in India, “what was left of a man” came to visit a British newspaper man to tell him a wild story.

“He was bent into a circle, his head was sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled – this rag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he was come back.”

Rudyard Kipling packs a lot of adventure into his short story The Man Who Would be King. This description is so vivid, I can see the character shuffling along. Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865 and spent an unhappy childhood in England. Later he returned to India as a journalist and traveled frequently, so he comes by the exotic settings in his stories from experience. Kipling serves as the narrator of The Man Who Would be King. His story was adapted to the 1975 movie with Sean Connery and Michael Caine playing the roles of the adventurers.

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Cabinet of Natural Curiosities

July 29, 2008 – 7:48 am

“Seba’s scenic illustrations, often mixing plants and animals in a single plate, were unusual even for the time. Many of the stranger and more peculiar creatures from Seba’s collection, some of which are now extinct, were as curious to those in Seba’s day as they are to us now.”

The vivid images from this huge book are more stunning than this sentence – this is a book to see more than read. Albertus Seba (1665 – 1736) was a Dutch pharmacist, zoologist and collector who has become known for his large and beautiful book Cabinet of Natural Curiosities. He was passionate about collecting and went to the docks when ships came in to get new specimens from sailors. The illustrations in Cabinet of Natural Curiosities show Seba’s specimens, from shells and snakes, artfully arranged. Each could be framed and hung as art. The cover image of red coral has “crossed over” and can now be found on objects in home decorating stores (and even the file folders on my desk). This prized natural history book costs around $200.

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A Tiny Space of My Own

July 28, 2008 – 7:43 am

“All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point—a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved.”

A Room of One’s Own is a long essay by Virginia Woolf, first given as lectures then published in 1929. As you see left, I have a spot under the stairs. This is where I blog, write, pay the bills etc — from the creative to the mundane. It’s a little spot where I’m surrounded by my favorite things… yet it’s also central to the house and right in the children’s path. Chris Casson Madden wrote a book titled A Room of Her Own showing the spaces where women create and call their own. I think one’s environment has a great impact on creativity. Do you like to write at the coffee house, sitting by a river, quietly at your desk?

Fans of Woolf’s can read more about A Room and learn about Woolf-based events at this site.

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Weekend Words: Jarrett’s Music

July 26, 2008 – 8:10 am

Language without words (almost) by pianist Keith Jarrett…

I recently heard Jarrett’s solo recording The Melody at Night, With You – a beautiful jazz album with standards such as Someone to Watch Over Me and I Loves You Porgy. On other recordings over his long musical career, Jarrett extends beyond jazz and plays classical and gospel piano. A prodigy with perfect pitch, he began piano lessons at age three. I wrote there are almost no words in his music since he is known for his grunts and moans as he plays. So happy to discover more of Jarrett’s brilliant music!

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Gogol’s Farm Tales

July 24, 2008 – 7:38 pm

“How luxuriously warm the hours when midday glitters in stillness and sultry heat and the blue fathomless ocean covering the plain like a dome seems to be slumbering, bathed in languor, clasping the fair earth and holding it close in its ethereal embrace!”

I was smitten by the first paragraph. Nikolai Gogol was born in the Ukraine in 1809 and lived to 1852. When he published his first volume of Evenings on a Farm in Dikanka (here as edited by Leonard J. Kent), it was met with success. In this sentence, I see the hot blue dome and feel the heat of a summer afternoon. The word choices contribute to the heat. Of course, with any foreign writer the translator matters so much to understanding the true intent of the author.

I read that this author mingles humor with horror… we shall see. I don’t know much about Russian literature. Have you read Gogol?

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