Carolina, dreams and nightmares

Lately I have been e-prodded and nudged and generally bothered for the crime of blog hibernation: reprove no more; here is the post! For the past nine days I have been on the road or else in Cullowhee ("the valley of the lilies") with my mother and two younger children, making forays outward to visit my eldest and to frolic in the mountains, so this will be a high-elevation post. In between two driving bouts of 888 miles, I managed to visit with a few people, haul my children to the Mountain Heritage Center, see "Coraline," take in a number of shows at the Western Carolina art gallery, and go to a concert. So that is what I'm mulling because here in Cooperstown I find that I have 700+ pages to sign and manuscript proofs to read for Val/Orson, as well as many mundane things to do. And there is not a lot to say about signing one's name 700+ times except that I am not bigheaded enough to find such an act fascinating! And it is still (still! and at this very moment) snowing in Cooperstown, just as though the crocuses and primroses and daffodils (most not quite popped, but even a green swollen stem is a welcome sight) and one anemone bud of last week in Cullowhee had been just a dream.

Artwise, my favorite things turned out to be--as usually happens when I go home to the mountains--crafts taken to a point of mastery. I especially liked a massive blackware pot by Joel Queen (one of the Bigmeat family of potters, Eastern Band of Cherokee). As his website declares, "They are tradition, true traditional Cherokee pots. They were created with hand-dug clay the same as thousands of years ago, sifted by hand, kneaded by hand, hand-coiled, stamped with hand carved wooden paddles, and fired in a traditional pit fire. They are created at the same sophisticated level of quality as the ancient Mississippian pots. They are created with a consistency of thickness, depth in the incisions, and fired at a precise temperature vitrifying the clay body, rendering the pots waterproof. These are skills learned only from a knowledge and mastery of the clay." I also admired a recent Norm Schulman vessel and a 2008 Mark Hewitt salt glaze vase donated by Joel Queen. I used to see Hewitt's work often when I lived in Chapel Hill and liked it, and his translation from Stoke-on-Trent and Spode, the traditional family business, to a role as independent art potter not far from the pottery center at Seagrove is a good Carolina pottery tale.

A woman-dominated show of jacquard and entrepreneurial textiles at Western Carolina University was interesting, though I'm afraid that "smart textiles" with electronic components woven into the fabric and "performance and interactive textiles" strike me as something of an abomination, rather like using plastic in a blooming garden. I imagine that I reacted to them in about the same way as William James on reading the complex, late Henry James: impressive, marvelously accomplished work, but why do it at all?

Some of my favorite pieces were white weavings by Pauline Verbeek-Cowart, although when I look at the description of her work at her home academic institution, I think she maligns herself and her fine achievements: "Most of her weavings span several feet in both directions and comment on the nature of woven surfaces. Through structure, material, image and/or surface treatments, she demonstrates that weaving is unique in building an image." Several feet in both directions: no doubt they got that right, although the ones I saw happened to be more than several. "Comment on the nature of woven surfaces": this is the sort of thing I dislike in arts and handicrafts commentary. The thing is itself. It is satisfying as a thing, a beautiful thing that is a special kind of experience. It does not comment. It does not write monographs. It does not need footnotes. It does not strain to understand its nature. To be so beautiful as to appear effortless is quite rare enough all on its own. "Unique in building an image": why say it? It's just academic justification for beauty, and that's not needed. Academic justification for beauty is, in fact, an offense against beauty.

I also admired the clothing of Leslie Armstrong and Anke Fox (Armstrong Fox Textiles, Canada), whose designs had lovely rich colors and weaving and draped beautifully. Most pilfer-worthy for the light-handed gallery-goer, so I hope the guard chihuahuas are out! The real thing is infinitely softer and more subtle in shade, but some pictures are here.

Last, I attended a recital by composer and percussionist Mario Gaetano, particularly Ney Rosauro's "Brasiliana" for wooden idiophones ("Eldorado" for metal idiophones being slightly less magical but also good) and Gareth Farr's "Bali," "Japan," and "South India" from "Kembung Suling." And I liked Gaetano's "Music for Two Doumbeks," played with his daughter. In fact, I liked it all, even the marimba with tape piece that now seemed so dated. Perhaps my in-house percussionist, age 11, saw some reason for that annoying activity, practice...

I had a grand time in Cullowhee and the mountains, although my heart was riven for the nth time by the utter dearth of zoning and thoughtfulness about development in western North Carolina, particularly the area around Sylva (so un-sylvan these days) but extending on to Asheville. The descendants of the so-called "Ulster Irish" (many of them northern English and Scots Protestant borderers transplanted to Ireland for "planting" in the 1600's) are still just as stubborn and independent as ever, but what they never seem to grasp is that their birthright is being sold for a mess of cold porridge. Strangers (wake up! the Yankees are here!) have come in and seized the inheritance. Natives have valued the greeny pile of dollars over the mountains that their ancestors felt were God's blue walkways to the sky. Now it's lift up thine eyes to the hills and find a dratted chain hotel or chain fast-food joint, or else lift them up and find the mountain missing entirely. To bulldoze a mountain is a crime against nature and against the future, whose children will blame those who failed to zone with hard words. It is also a stupid thing to do in a region of landslides and mudslides--one sees butchered half-mountains everywhere, held up by braces of stone and wood so that a big box store or some other pernicious piece of real estate can be erected. (Walmart, of course, removed "their" mountain quite completely, and threw up a massive store and even more massive parking lot.) Moreover, those lucky souls who live in the mountains completely lack foresight even about their money interest--destroy the glory of the mountains, and what tourist will come to spend their dratted dollars? The blight of what was the most beautiful land on the east coast of North America for the sake of human greed is an ongoing tragedy. As William James nailed it in a letter to H. G. Wells a century ago, "The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That — with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease."

Photograph credit: Image of Crabtree Falls, courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu/ and photographer Greg Pinkston of Oklahoma, U.S. Crabtree is a pretty waterfall, about a .25 mile walk from Crabtree Recreation Area, Blue Ridge Parkway (milepoint 339.5).

Poems in "Mezzo Cammin" winter issue

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The winter issue of Mezzo Cammin is up. It includes some short poems by me and my sequence, "The Throne of Psyche."

I'd love to get feedback on this group, so please fire away!

Look below for titles and the first two lines of each poem or section--a bite of the meal.



THE FOLIATE HEAD

Peering from medieval churches,
Dressed in leaves of ash and birches,

ARTIFACT

To me, the Magical Museum's prize
Looked made from barley-twists of glass, not horn,

THE THRONE OF PSYCHE

A soul's mysterious as any tree--
It drives a root as deadly low as hell,

I. HER GIRLHOOD

You see the limestone wall that catches light--
Those olive trees inside the circuit of stone?

II. ZEPHYR

A wind-horse or a man with wings of air,
A scent of resin and the greening earth. . .

III. THE MARRIAGE-BED

And if the palace seemed enchanted, how
Much more the bed, a marvel of the gods--

IV. TWO INCIDENTS OF CURIOSITY

My sisters armed me with a blade and fright
And oil-fire in an alabaster lamp

V. SYRINX SONG

A dazzle like a star that hid in stars,
Love flew away from me--he let me drop

VI. PSYCHE IN HELL

My former life was but a shade that drank
The blood of memory to speak the past;

VII. PSYCHE ENTHRONED

Beside my throne there stands a changing tree
Cleverly branched with winter icicles

THE GOOD-BYE

Good-bye, my borrowed bits of loveliness,
You necklaces of pomegranate seeds,

New anthology, soon-to-be-new book

WE THINK, THEREFORE WE ARE

Somehow I neglected to mention that Pete Crowther's anthology of stories centered around artificial intelligence(Penguin/DAW) is out, including--oddly enough--a story by me. Note the interesting male-to-female numbers here.

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Contents:

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“Tempest 43″ by Stephen Baxter
“The Highway Code” by Brian Stableford
“Savlage Rights” by Eric Brown
“The Kamikaze Code” by James Lovegove
“Adam Robots” by Adam Roberts
“Seeds” by Tony Ballantyne
“Lost Places of the Earth” by Steven Utley
“The Chinese Room” by Marly Youmans
“Three Princesses” by Robert Reed
“The New Cyberiad” by Paul Di Filippo
“That Laugh” by Patrick O’Leary
“Alles in Ordnung” by Garry Kilworth
“Sweats” by Keith Brooke
“Some Fast Thinking Needed” by Ian Watson
“Dragon King of the Eastern Sea” by Chris Roberson

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Harriet Klausner, who is surely the quickest and most prolific reviewer on the face of the planet, already has a review and notes, "the compilation is superb as the authors contribute diverse tales with some seemingly weird like Marly Youmans' 'The Chinese Room' adding depth and variety." "Weird," eh? This was the last thing I wrote during my Yaddo stay, and when I fired it off to Pete, he did mention something about it being just a bit different.

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For those of you who are allergic to artificial intelligence, it may comfort you to know that there are no robots whatsoever in "The Chinese Room," though there is a computer. There are midgets and ex-jockeys and general commotion. There are sausages in bed. There is childbirth. There is pent-up love from here to China.

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The story is based on the "Chinese Room" thought experiment of John Searle. As our friend Wiki says, "The Chinese Room argument comprises a thought experiment and associated arguments by John Searle (Searle 1980), which attempts to show that a symbol-processing machine like a computer can never be properly described as having a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may behave." For more about the original Chinese room, go visit Wiki, right here.

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VAL/ORSON

“Flap copy” for spring’s book, Val/Orson, is up at last. As I am feeble and Milquetoastish when it comes to proper boasting, I enlisted help. And now the thing seems properly flappy and boastful. See here!

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The two limited editions (plain or signed and fancy, take your pick!) are available through the online catalogue at http://store.pspublishing.co.uk/. Thanks to bloggers and reviewers who have let me know they would like a pre-publication e-copy of the book to review or feature; if anyone else would like to sign on, write me or leave me a note here.

Catherynne Valente has written a lovely introduction as well, so that will go up some time closer to the spring pub date, along with a jacket image and other news.

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This book is also associated with publisher Pete Crowther because he and Nick Gevers were kind enough to ask for a short novel for their novella series (U.K.: P. S. Publishing). I love to be asked, as does every writer I know, and I love it when people read and like my work and want to see more. Thanks to both of them.

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CHILDHOOD & WRITING

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I was talking to my mother yesterday, and she mentioned that I knew in third grade that I was going to be a writer, and that it was perfectly clear to her what I would be. Interesting. I find that I have a rather soupish memory which renders much down to alphabet when I would like to have clear text.

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She was standing under the pear tree in our family home in Collins, Georgia. The blossoms were not quite open... This summer I canned pears off that tree. One of my childhood memories is of my Aunt Sara fishing a snake out of that tree with a hoe and killing it, chopchopchop.

Christmas-to-Epiphany

2009 WRITING RESOLUTIONS

Finally, finally, finally come up with a topic for the nonfiction book request because in the current Titanic-going-down publishing climate, one should be grateful for requests from a high-class house. Then work on it!

Don't be lazy. Send out those dratted little white envelopes now and then. I still hate submitting poetry and am glad some magazines have online submissions.

Work on collecting a book of stories.

Don't be lazy, no. 2; do something about What Sits on the Shelf.

Don't be lazy no. 3; do more readings.

Another long narrative poem? More poems, definitely and already.

Write a ghost tale worthy of M. R. James and Henry James. Perhaps a few other stories.

Commit surprise.


NEW YEAR'S EVE

I usually post our dinner menu (8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. this year), but I don't seem to have kept track of wines and champagne and drinks. Unless I extract them from my husband later, you'll just have to keep imagining the stars in the glass...

It was a bit like Epiphany, as we had three Kings from afar for dinner--one from Australia, one originally from Canada, and one who was born on runway nine at Heathrow, back when it was a village and not an airport. Peter King, the runway child of 86, is one of the funniest men of my acquaintance and gives me hope that elder ages can be joyful.

Appetizers

Tapanade

Seared ahi tuna kabobs marinated in soy sauce and sesame seed
with wasabi mayonaise dipping sauce

Soup

Eggplant and roast red pepper pother

Fish

Backfin Crab cakes

with Rutabaga Scratchbacks and mongolian fire oil

Salad

Candied Walnuts, Blackberries and smoked gouda
on greens with olive oil and vinegar

Main

Braised short ribs and rosemary-cabernet sauce
Gorgonzola, wild mushroom and shallot polenta

Dessert

Old-fashioned gingerbread cake with mango ice cream

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WHAT I'M READING IN THE NEW YEAR

I'm reading the Potter books to N at bedtime and finding that I've changed my mind about Rowling, so that's interesting. I'm reading an old Godine book that collects essays of William Plomer--right now I'm reading some about English and Welsh poets and wondering if I am related to all these Welsh poetry-committing Thomases, as I have a fiery Welsh Thomas in the bole of my tree. I just picked up a copy of Eudora Welty's "The Robber Bridegroom" illustrated by Barry Moser and thought I might reread it and see if it's still on my love-list. Lots of poetry. Some William Logan essays. An anthology of ghost stories edit by Brad Leithauser.

SOME QUOTES FROM ELECTRIC DELIGHTS BY WILLIAM PLOMER
The electric delight of admiring what is admirable. --Charlotte Bronte, Shirley

Plomer puts me to shame, genre-wise. In these days of uniform packaged goods, I am inconvenient because I don't stick to one thing but write lyric poetry, long narrative poetry, novellas, stories, and novels. But Plomer! Poetry, novels, stories, biographies, autobiographies, children's book, libretti (with the great Benjamin Britten), and diaries (as editor). What a time that was, when one could be anything!

Although he declares that "poetry is simply an art to which the special gifts of women, who excel in so many things, are not as rule adapted," he is clearly in love with Christina Rossetti's poems and biography: "We have seen what that experience was: it was the experience of a woman of deep feeling who was frustrated in love and continally oppressed by illness, and whose heart and mind were subjected to a religious discipline, but who could not help singing; her sensuousness, her playfulness, her longings and regrets, her dreams and fears and fantasies, all found expression in her poetry. She has been called morbid, and if it is morbid not to take an easy way out of one's difficulties, not to except life on the cheap and easy terms that are good enough for most people, not to compromise, not to be ashamed to be sad and admit it; if it is morbid to be oppressed by the vanity of human wishes and worldly shows, well, then, she was morbid, and morbid in good company. But in reading her, we do well never to lose sight of the religious discipline, which causes her to strike often a strong and stoic note."

"A poet is liable to be a kind of exile in his own country or time: the consciousness of difference, and the effort to communicate it, may provide his motive power as a poet."

"It is needful for a serious writer to try and measure his own limitations; it must be his hope and it may be his luck to transcend them. Much of the verse offered to editors and publishers, and some of the verse they cause to be printed, is deformed by the inability of its authors to harmonize what they intend to say with their way of saying it, or to convince even the well-disposed reader that it is worth saying. Looking for poetry, that reader is often confronted with feeble or facile or bardic posturings, empty rhetoric, strainings after effect, reach-me-down diction, turgidity, false simplicity or false complexity." That was a passage from a positive review of R. S. Thomas in 1956. I wonder how he would sum up poetry's weaknesses in our time. It seems to me that ours are far greater than these.

ILLUSTRATION
That's a quick doodle by R, a few years back. She must have been around 15. I'm on my husband's computer and found it in his collection of pictures... And today is a Snow Day, free of school.