In which we have an adventure--

Although this blog is a books blog, I can't resist talking about the occasional ridiculous event. Yesterday my husband and I and our eldest went out of town to look for a used car, as Ben is moving back to North Carolina. I had researched places in the region and picked one I thought was especially informative and had prices that seemed quite fair. My husband has a great sense of direction, so I didn't pay much attention to where we were going...

We get there; I mention my surprise at finding that the online cars were already sold. There's one that's in the right price range. I don't feel that it looks quite as substantial as I thought that price range would look. In fact, it looks like a little blue tin can and reminds me of my family's Opel Kadett from a zillion years ago, when I was a mere sprat of 15. I have never even heard of the model. The brand is vaguely familiar. We chat with the salesman, and Mike tells a funny story about his grandfather buying a Cadillac, and how it caught on fire on the way home.

We get in with the friendly, large salesman. We head out, accompanied by the noise of several lawnmowers. We go a mile or so and then veer toward the interstate. I always find it a wee bit disconcerting to be driven about by anyone whose diapers I recall changing, and so I jumped a bit at a loud, ratcheting noise when we moved vigorously to the left.

A wisp of smoke passed my window. More wisps. Or was it steam? I write DUBIOUS on my printout of cars and show it to be husband. He looks at the word for a moment as though considering and then looks at me. He is wearing sunglasses so I can't see his eyes, but I know what he means. Then more and more wisps sprout from the hood, and I start to wonder if we should stop, and all leap from the little blue car. I wonder how quickly the salesman can leap, as he is wedged into the rather small passenger seat with little space to spare.

But we putter on with the not-terribly-musical noise of lawnmowers, the right side of the car streaming with smoke or steam. I am glad Ben cannot see all that whatever-it-is too well from the driver's seat. In the distance, I make out the car lot. Finally we are back! The car dies halfway into the parking spot and will not budge.

How'd you make out, the manager begins to say as we are enveloped in clouds. The little blue dragon car steams--it is steam, not smoke--mightily, oozing scarves all along the hood's edge. I start to laugh but manage to control myself. Then we all laugh, taking turns and trying to be polite in between. Mike says he must have jinxed it with the Cadillac story. Then they drag open the hood, and whoosh! steam geysers into the sky. Ah. It's the water pump, snapped right off.

We are all very friendly, but Mike and Ben and I pile into my little Corolla and zip off. We stop at the next car dealer, just to walk around and stare at the cars, even though it's too late to talk to a salesman. As we are walking, I begin to grasp what happened. The thought creeps into my head that there was a reason none of the cars were on the lot--that the place we went was entirely the wrong spot, that this is not the right road. I laugh. And I laugh some more. I hold hands with my husband and laugh it all out. Nearly. Every now and then I laugh again.

I feel absurdly happy.

We survived!

We find the right place at the very start of twilight, somewhere in the country and surrounded by fields, and there are most of the cars that I had looked at online. We like an Accord and an Alero, which Ben likes especially because . . . well, it is red. This morning we go back and test drive them both and then put down a deposit on the silver Honda.

The words, the world, the birthday--

Today my mother is 82. I know that I said she would be 83, but it turns out that she is a mere sprat of 82. Math was never my strong suit, I fear. She is hosting my eldest son for his spring break and weaving on her big new loom and doing I-don't-know-what. Probably she has been spending a good deal of time cooking for Ben.

In her honor I have written a Precious Wentletrap poem, "The Fool Thinks of Precious Wentletrap as Morpho." Shocking: this is my 132nd The Book of the Red King poem. Who would have thought when I wrote the first one exactly five months ago?

But now I must hie me from the e-felicity of the web and drudge in the flesh because tomorrow we are fetching and then hosting Lauren, Jin, and Rebecca from Bard College. For ten days. And the house upstairs is something akin to the wreck of the Hesperus. Welcome to my little disaster, dear young women!

Nevertheless, I am feeling irrationally joyful. Which is madness.

My heart is broken into little shiny pieces by what is unfolding in Japan and Libya and many other places. I just read a story about one group of human beings murdering another group (a large family, mostly children) in their beds and then setting off fireworks and giving out sweetmeats in celebration. I read another story about one group of human beings who murdered some families under cover of an inspiring and supposedly peaceful revolution. All these groups were divided by the way they worship God, and I am wondering where the love is in all these terrible acts of persecution that go endlessly on. When will the family of humanity learn to love?

And yet, and yet . . . I look out the window at the light on the snow and the gazebo covered with dried Dutchman's pipe vines and the blue sky: I see the world and that it is good. Only we human beings pry and shift it from the axis of what is right. All the same, whoever you are, I wish you a glad St. Patrick's Day, with an imaginary card showing the saint whirling about, chasing the snakes out of Ireland, blessing the world with his love. May all the metaphorical snakes be chased out of your country or be changed to something higher--little winged dragons that lift and fly against the sunset, singing words of great sweetness.

I am thankful that my mother was born on this day and that I was given the lovely gifts of consciousness, the desire to make, and words. And that, despite all, streaks of joy like burning arrows pass through me.

***
Want Morpho? Start here with Wikipedia, where the image was found. (Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License.)

News & Sillies & Confession & Praise

WHERE I'D LIKE TO BE

Mako Fujimura does the most interesting collaborations. I had the fun of doing one with him not long ago, and here is a new one that sounds especially attractive. If you're in New York City, this just might be something wonderful to do:

Fujimura Studio Announces: Makoto Fujimura to become first visual artist ever to paint live at Carnegie Hall in his collaboration with Susie Ibarra, composer.

World-renown percussionist and composer Susie Ibarra will premiere her new work, Pintados Dream (The Painted's Dream), a concerto for percussion and orchestra, in collaboration with visual artist Makoto Fujimura and American Composers Orchestra, at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on October 19th. Tickets are available at http://www.carnegiehall.org/ or by calling (212) 247-7800.

While Fujimura and Ibarra have collaborated and experimented with live performance art several times in the past three years, this premiere will represent a first for Carnegie Hall: never before has an artist painted on stage during a performance there. Fujimura's technique, heavily influenced by Japanese Nihonga as well as American abstract art, provides a visual complement to Ibarra's largely improvised percussion sounds, underscored by the American Composers Orchestra.

Fujimura, founder of International Arts Movement, uses all natural materials in his art. "I am more and more convinced that the imperfections are more important to define humanity than perfected products. Acrylic and synthetic mediums can accomplish great feats in design and other plastic applications, but in direct painting, I believe that natural mediums.... have 'memory imprints' of the past, and Japanese materials in particular (reflect) a collaboration with nature, heritage crafts and art."

Educated bi-culturally between the US and Japan, Makoto Fujimura's paintings have been exhibited all over the world. He was honored in 1992 as the youngest artist ever to have had a piece acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. He was also the youngest person ever to be given a Presidential appointment to the National Council on the Arts, the highest arts position in the United States.

Susie Ibarra's Pintados Dream (The Painted's Dream), a collaboration with visual artist Makoto Fujimura and American Composers Orchestra, will premiere at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on October 19th. Tickets are available at http://www.carnegiehall.org/ or by calling (212) 247-7800. The performance will be repeated in Philadelphia on Sunday, October 21 at 7:30 p.m. in the Harold Prince Theatre of the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, University of Pennsylvania. Details can be found at http://pennpresents.org/press/?item=2007-09-25a.

International Arts Movement will host a fund raising event to commemorate the event. "Evening with Fujimura and Ibarra" will feature a studio tour, premier seating for the October 19th event, and buffet meal at IAM's brand new Space 3839, as well as invitation to the reception with Susie Ibarra and Makoto Fujimura. Please contact Christy Tennant at Christy@iamny.org for more information. Photo credit: IAM press release.

***
HOME FROLICS WITH SLAPPING

N: Hey, what do you think this?

(Slaps torso wildly)

N, in a silly but fierce voice: The Macarella!

*

R (15) and N (10) are cutting up on the way back from North Carolina. R slaps N playfully.

R: How dare you!

N, in an obscure and romantic foreign accent: Oh, what a beautiful lady. But so dangerous!

*

N calls out as the car passes River St. at night: Guys! Penguins! Go back!

The penguins turn out to be a crowd of orange cones nesting on the sidewalk and in the street.

The Next Morning

(Much teasing from older siblings over breakfast.)

N's salvo: Why would there be so many if they're not penguins in disguise?

**
Teenagers, arguing about whether one of them is a midget or not.

Small classmate turns to R: Well, what do you think? Am I a midget or not?

R: Only a little.

**
Meanwhile B is a senior of 18 and still plans to be a general (he has been deeply, deeply obsessed with military history since first grade) and President. Dear reader of these words, my advice is that you immediately put on your boots and tremble. Trembling in boots is a time-honored mode of dealing with fearsome prospects, and it's as good as anything as a way to get ready for the Dominion of B.

***

MARLY'S LOUSY WEBSITE

Yes, I now confess my utter laziness in not checking for Firefox, Safari, Utnostifelque, Opera, Rosti, Snitter, Lear, and other browsers in re-making my simple, primitive website at http://www.marlyyoumans.com/. However, as the planet has whirled around the sun once more and time has thus come round for the famous 2-day birthday bash of R, I simply have time for nothing else than the usual events plus the approaching extravaganza of drama, gustatory piggishness, songs (some mocking), detection, sleeplessness, costume changes, charades, etc. You will just have to put up with the darn ignorant thing as is, at least for a while. I'm just too busy. Also, some of us are web morons and not even properly ashamed.

TEACHERS

I am now officially expressing my gratitude to teachers of small children. Do you know how hard it is to teach the same dratted material four times in a row to hordes of children packed full to bursting with questions?

It wore me out.

Let's pay the teachers more, or at least give them a good lie-down and a cup of tea.

2.) Little Mary

Mary Morris

Here is my mother, standing near the soft sand street at the foot of her house in Collins, Georgia. Her brother James, already a young man, later dug a strange, Asian-looking pine from the swamp and planted it in the corner by that stone she's standing on, and by the time I can remember the yard, the tree was towering. But not long after this picture, my mama liked to jump the little swamp seedling. There she is, the miracle baby that nobody had the slightest reason to expect...

The Magnolia Bouquet

The wedding of my maternal grandparents, William Leicester Morris and Lila Eugenia Arnold, took place in the merry month of May almost a century ago--May 12, 1907.

The gown and veil are marvelous, but take a look at the magnolia blossom bouquet. This is one of my favorite pictures of my grandmother, right up there with the Japanese play and the Bible-and-pompadour photographs. I believe that she made the gown and headdress with veil.

W. L. Morris (January 10, 1869-September 22, 1955) was born in Washington Country, Georgia; he had a store in Collins, and he built public buildings and residences. The house he constructed for my grandmother is a major site in the world of my imagination and has appeared in a number of my stories. Fig trees, grape arbors, a towering persimmon tree, wonderful porches, raised house pillars, Queen Anne towers and porches, a well on a porch, outbuildings, and many other elements of that magical realm still are places to "go" in my mind.

He and my grandmother had nine children, eight of whom survived to adulthood. They could not have been more surprised by the last baby--my mother, the "miracle child." W. L. and Lila were old-fashioned pillars of their community, devout people who added a good deal of beauty to the world. They lived creative lives, my grandfather with his house-building and carpentry, my grandmother with her needlework and household arts. Her pantry was a wondrous thing. Their lives were very "dense" and full with labor, creation, gardening, child-rearing, and strong religious belief that gave shape and meaning to all else.

While the postwar era and depression meant that they lost much financially, what strikes me is that their acts and days were creative and fertile. What they made had usefulness and gave aesthetic pleasure. How much we came down when so many ordinary people gave up making things in the realm of "useful" and domestic arts--and after that came a time when we stripped away the beautiful and were left with the purely intellectual. And now we have the great effort to bring "a return to beauty" in the arts...

Lila Eugenia Arnold has already popped up on the Palace. She was born in Triplett, Georgia, August 17, 1883, and died February 13, 1968. She lived a long life, and although she was away on a visit at the time of her death, she was still living in the lovely house my grandfather built for her. Too many elderly ladies are toted off and stuffed into "homes." My grandparent's house began as a single room, where young Mrs. Morris would rock her first baby with a pistol on her lap. Times were wild in the south Georgia countryside, not so very long after the war.