Memorial Day Weekend 1933

May 26, 2013 — Leave a comment

What are your plans for the summer? Mine include spending more time on the Hattie Project, now that the school year is nearly finished (a decision prompted in part by a recent comment by my father that began, “If you ever finish the book on Hattie…”).

I can no longer think of Memorial Day without thinking of what happened to my great aunt on this holiday in 1933. Read about it in this series of posts, first published two years ago:

Part I: “A Nice, Bright Day”

Part II: “Cracklings”

Part III: “Down She Went” (a guest post on Christi Craig’s blog)

Hattie and Will

Hattie and Will, 1933

In Aunt Hattie, flash narrative, historical diaries
 permalink

Coffee and Oranges: Sunday Links for Readers and Writers

May 12, 2013 — Leave a comment

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair…

“Sunday Morning,” by Wallace Stevens

David Foster Wallace’s Advice to College Graduates

If you read or watch nothing else in this week’s list of links, devote ten minutes to this 2005 speech given by David Foster Wallace to Kenyon College graduates, newly edited and illustrated by The Glossary:

Sunny Orange

Carl Sagan’s Undergrad Reading List: 40 Essential Texts for a Well-Rounded Thinker

From Open Culture: “There are some heady scientific texts here, to be sure. But also some great works from the Western philosophical and literary tradition. We’re talking Plato’s Republic, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, The Bible, Gide’s The Immoralist, and Huxley’s Young Archimedes. It’s just the kind of texts you’d expect a true humanist like Sagan — let alone a UChicago grad — to be fully immersed in.” Read More

Brain, Interrupted

From the New York Times: “Clifford Nass, a Stanford sociologist who conducted some of the first tests on multitasking, has said that those who can’t resist the lure of doing two things at once are ‘suckers for irrelevancy.’ There is some evidence that we’re not just suckers for that new text message, or addicted to it; it’s actually robbing us of brain power, too. Tweet about this at your own risk.” Read More

CuppaDaily Rituals of the World’s Most Creative People

From Fast Company: “You can’t just work constantly on something that requires a high degree of focus and creative energy, whether it’s writing or composing or painting. No one can do it nonstop for hours on end. Taking a nap and drinking coffee were typical. Igor Stravinsky would do a headstand. Thomas Wolfe had the weird fondling-himself habit. Walking seems the most common, especially among composers. Composers all seemed to take a long walk every day.”  Read More

Wooden ChairGeorge Saunders: My Desktop

From The Guardian: “I’m not easily distracted, as a rule. Especially where writing is concerned. But I have noticed, over the last few years, the very real (what feels like) neurological effect of the computer and the iPhone and texting and so on – it feels like I’ve re-programmed myself to become discontent with whatever I’m doing faster. So I’m trying to work against this by checking emails less often, etc etc. It’s a little scary, actually, to observe oneself getting more and more skittish, attention-wise.  Read More

In Links for Writers, reading as a writer, writing ,
 permalink

Recommended Reading on Relationships and Life: Harriet Lerner

April 28, 2013 — 2 Comments

In this week’s New York Times Sunday Book Review‘s brief interview with Jonathan Franzen, Franzen recommends in the “self-help book” category Harriet Lerner’s Dance of Anger, which he says “acknowledges the true difficulty of helping the self.”

I was grateful for the reminder of how much I enjoy Harriet Lerner’s work, from her many books (read excerpts HERE) to her “Dance of Connection” blog at Psychology Today. Her candid sharing of experiences and knowledge are insightful for both our personal lives and the lives we create for fictional characters.

Consider this excerpt from a blog post about how anxiety blocks our thinking and how it may apply to periods of writer’s block or how it might be used to add depth to a nervous protagonist:

“When you’re really anxious, your thinking center may shrink to the size of a pinto bean. It’s obviously hard to feel good about yourself when anxiety disrupts your memory and concentration, leaving you unable to read, write, study, analyze, or take in new information.

I am quite familiar with the experience of anxiety turning the brain to mush. I’ll bring someone along to any important medical appointment because I know that my mind is apt to race, go blank, flood or freeze. Also, my sense of direction, shaky in the best of circumstances, is especially vulnerable to the brain-numbing effects of anxiety.”

Dance of AngerOr this on the importance of self-observation from Dance of Anger:

“Sometimes, however, even when we are ready to risk change, we still keep participating in the same old familiar fights that go nowhere. Human nature is such that when we are angry, we tend to become so emotionally reactive to what the other person is doing to us that we lose our ability to observe our own part in the interaction. Self-observation is not at all the same as self-blame, at which some women are experts. Rather, self-observation is the process of seeing the interaction of ourselves and others, and recognizing that the ways other people behave with us has something to do with the way we behave with them. We cannot make another person be different, but when we do something different ourselves, the old dance can no longer continue as usual.”

What self-help or other non-fiction books help you to be a better writer, person, or artist?

In psychology ,
 permalink

Flash Friday: I Nearly Went the Trip

April 26, 2013 — Leave a comment

This week’s Flash Narrative is based on Harriet “Hattie” Whitcher’s diary entries from April of 1923 and is excerpted from her words (read the full entries here). At the time, she and Will lived on a farm about a mile from Spencer, Nebraska. This snapshot of their life shows us their daily activities and simple joys, all through Hattie’s unique way with words. Before getting married, Hattie had worked as a dress-maker, and you will note that she spent much of her time making clothes for herself and Will. Lazzes, 3 Legs, Biddy and Duke were the Whitchers’ horses. Read more Flash Narratives based on Hattie’s Diaries.

I Nearly Went the Trip

Near Spencer, Nebraska, April 1923

Harriet1. Easter Sunday. I just read and did a little work after.

2. Cloudy and cold north wind all day and a few drops rain. The men butchered in a hurry.

3. A bright warm day. Will cut hog so I could handle. I put up curtains in south room and started to render lard.

4. Was cloudy in night and early morning but bright day and cold, so I started to cook meat but didn’t have to worry, also baked bread.

5. I washed clothes and finished canning meat and mince meat. Mrs. John died at Norfolk Monday morning of pneumonia.

6. I ironed in morning and in afternoon mended Will’s overalls and in evening felt bad and so tired.

7. The men cut poles and wood and I was so sick, stayed in bed all the afternoon.

8. Lazzes threw Will, skinned his face, hurt finger and shoulder and hip. Billy Knoll came for Lazzes and he got away again, but Will rode peaceably in evening.

9. Will went to Spencer to see Doctor about finger, and his little finger on right hand is broken. He took eggs, got 21 cents per dozen.

10. I sewed on suit all day and got so much finished, as I didn’t get dinner.

11. I still sewed on suit this day.

12. I baked bread, churned butter and took jars to basement and in afternoon started a waist.

13. Dr. Hines came to see if Biddy was stifled. Will drove 3 Legs alone in evening on disc. I put hooks and eyes and buttons on suit.

14. A dust storm during midday, could hardly face it and quite cold, but evening better. I finished jacket and made petticoat and hemmed skirt.

15. We went to William Dreher funeral. He died at Dallas, South Dakota, very suddenly.

16. Will harrowed then went to feed yard to see about buying heifers, but nothing doing.

17. Charles got water for me to wash clothes. They dried in a hurry on account of dry wind.

18. Charles had runaway with Biddy and Duke, but jumped so O.K. The men hauled poles in afternoon. I sewed a little, made bread and butter.

19. Wind blew so hard from southwest, Will got plow ready and started to plow on B.’s but it wouldn’t work.

20. Will did up chores and got alfalfa for cows and some fox tail to cover the corn, also took cows over the river, as was cold towards evening and damp, different than last couple of nights, for was so warm had to put sheets on and used oil stove yesterday.

21. Will did up chores, got cows over the river and some alfalfa, then wagon ready. He helped Ableidinger haul hogs to Bristow, and came back at 5 p.m. and went to Spencer. I cleaned a little wood work in kitchen and put part curtains back.

22. Sun shone at rising and a couple of times early morning but cloudy all day and cold and sprinkle in afternoon.

23. Charles dug closet hole partly and Will plowed. They got trees to set out in yard. I sewed buttons and fixed a little mending, wasn’t very pert.

24. Charles got south of house ready for Will to plow, which he did all day, and Charles set out trees. I fixed things a little and cleaned stove.

25. A regular rain until evening, first of season, and I caught enough water to wash clothes. Will after supper sat down to read. I looked over his shoulder. He turned quick and knocked my chin with his shoulder. I nearly went the trip as couldn’t breathe, talk or swallow.

26. A bright day but a little cool on account of dampness but breeze dried clothes I washed with first rain water of season, it frosts every night.

27. Will plowed all day. I didn’t do much as was tired from washing.

28. A nice day. Chas plowed where Will couldn’t with gang plow.

29. Was a beautiful day. We went to Wards for water and posts, and had dinner, rested, did part chores, drove up to McDuffees, stayed until 9 p.m.

30. A bright day but southeast wind started to blow hard about 10:30 a.m. and a regular dust storm in afternoon, that is dust would come in streaks and towards evening began to cloud. Will got smoke-meat in for me from hole and I wrapped it. Mr. C. Johnson was buried at Spencer this afternoon.

In Aunt Hattie, flash fiction, flash narrative, writing
 permalink

Next year’s a big one, Mr. Shakespeare!

April 23, 2013 — Leave a comment

“You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.” ~ Chancellor Gorkon

20100611173056!Shakespeare

To celebrate the day traditionally marked as Shakespeare’s birthday, below are some informative, fun, and unusual websites on the Bard.

First, watch Ian McKellen talk about how to read and perform the famous “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech from Macbeth (as one commenter wrote, “Ian McKellen could read Twilight and make it sound good”):

The Talk Like Shakespeare page offers much more than elocution lessons. Download a printable poster with the 10 top tips for speaking like the bard, watch videos, browse Renaissance recipes, even follow Will on Twitter.

Grand Avenue

From PBS, In Search of Shakespeare offers detailed information about their series by the same name, lesson plans (such as comparing film adaptations of Hamlet), using primary sources in the classroom, and a choose-your-own-adventure style Playwright Game. Also from PBS is the Which Words Are Will’s Words? Game. More recently, PBS’s series Shakespeare Uncovered is a wealth of online videos and lesson plans. The following excerpt features Jeremy Irons discussing the power of Shakespeare’s language:

Watch Jeremy Irons on Shakespeare Uncovered on PBS. See more from Shakespeare Uncovered.

If you are a glutton for punishment, take a look at the Shakespeare Insulter. The same site offers a Shakespeare Insult Kit for when you care enough to send the very best insults.

This Shakespeare biography quiz and a link to a site about Shakespeare in American Sign Language are just two of many resources available on Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet.

Whether you teach in a classroom, homeschool, or just want to learn more about Shakespeare, take a look at Surfing with the Bard, “Your Shakespeare Classroom on the Internet.” Serious Shakespeare Geeks will appreciate the Folger Shakespeare Library (as well designed as it is informative). If this doesn’t satisfy your scholarly urges, check out the Horace Howard Furness Shakespeare Library, which houses scanned images of 38 rare Shakespeare texts.

Reality Check

Mel Ryane’s blog, Teaching Will: The Shakespeare Club is subtitled “What school kids give me that Hollywood can’t.” What a treat! As someone who once was co-leader of a Shakespeare group for middle-school children and teens, I was excited to read about Mel’s experience with teaching Shakespeare to even younger children. She writes, “As a volunteer, I created The Shakespeare Club, an after-school program for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. Together we grapple with the Bard, life and each other. These are the tales.”

TV Tropes shows Shakespeare’s continued influence in and on popular culture. Have you heard of Shakespeare’s lost play, The Tragedie of Frodo Baggins? Read an excerpt here.

Finally, from Brian Rivera, Klingon Hamlet (‘taH pagh taHbe’—To be or not to be):

Fare thee well!

Comics courtesy of http://comics.com/. This post was originally on Everyday Intensity and has been updated for 2013.

In reading as a writer
 permalink

Whom do you surround yourself with?

April 21, 2013 — Leave a comment

“While some people might find my directness and my dry sense of humor to be offensive and intimidating, there are others who find it refreshing and entertaining. The trick is to surround myself with the latter.” ~ Anna, a 30-year-old from Seattle

Two Parrots

I was blown away recently by the wisdom of the above thoughts from a friend, and it made me think about the power of our choice of association.

It’s a choice we don’t often realize we have.

  • Who finds you refreshing and entertaining?
  • Who laughs at your jokes?
  • Who makes you laugh?
  • who appreciates your efforts?
  • Who notices your strengths?
  • Who listens to your worries and fears without judgment?
  • Who encourages your hopes and dreams?
  • Who applauds your efforts?
  • Who enjoys your company and tells you so?
  • Who trusts you enough to be authentic in your presence?
  • Who likes you for who you are rather than who you are capable of being?
  • Who makes you feel better rather than worse about yourself, your life, your world?

The trick is to surround ourselves with them more rather than less often.

Photo credit: Vjeran Lisjak

In motivation
 permalink

Finding Creative Inspiration in Unexpected Places

April 19, 2013 — Leave a comment

UN Secretariat BuildingIt’s time to wrap up the short series of posts I’d begun about found “Artist Dates” in New York City. Julia Cameron describes Artist Dates as “assigned play,” and while she provides specific guidelines, I use the idea in a looser way. What is important is finding time and opportunities for—or just noticing—creative inspiration in our daily lives, whether at home or away.

The last couple of examples of creative inspiration that I want to share have to do with seeing something familiar in a new way and the importance of making time for sustained reading.

On the final day of our weekend in New York, my son and I once again were going to try to catch the free Game of Thrones exhibition, but, on our way, we decided to walk past the United Nations. Our son is a political science major who will be entering law school in the fall, and he’s always been interested in the history of the UN. It was a sunny, crisp Monday morning, and as we got closer to the UN complex, I suddenly realized that we might be able to go inside and get a tour, which we did in lieu of standing in line for GoT.

Our Italian tour guide, Francesca, couldn’t have been more welcoming and informative, and our group was itself a mini-UN of several nationalities. I was expecting to enjoy myself and exercise my brain a little, which I did, but I wasn’t expecting to be inspired creatively until we came to a wall where each article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has its own artistic space, written in an innocent child’s font and simply illustrated:

Human Rights Wall

Declaration of Human Rights

I’ve read these articles before and even once indexed a book about their creation, but the display drew us all in to linger on one or two individually rather than as part a long list of words. It was a gift of attention and focus as, to use Dan Pink’s terms, we switched from linear, textual L-directed thinking to a more design-centered and meaningful  R-directed thinking.

We never did make it to that Game of Thrones exhibition, but I got my Song of Ice and Fire fix nonetheless as I made substantial progress in reading the fourth book in the series, A Feast for Crows. It’s the kind of book that I need to read in long stretches, not short bursts, because my middle-age brain quickly forgets the many characters and settings, and the long, relaxing evenings in our hotel room and hours spent both on planes and in airports were the perfect opportunity turn page after page after page. Like Susan Cain’s family, ours is a family for whom reading is a “primary group activity,” where “you have the animal warmth of your family sitting right next to you, but you are also free to go roaming around the adventureland inside your own mind.” Nothing recharges my creative batteries faster.

Where have you found creative inspiration lately?

Photos of Universal Declaration of Human Rights wall made available by Jordan Lewin under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

 

In creativity , , , , ,
 permalink

Flash Fiction Friday

April 19, 2013 — Leave a comment

Waiting Room Word Search

Word SearchWe met when I was thirteen, and we were married and had an apartment of our own when I was fifteen. My husband went into the army as a sergeant, that’s how well he did on that test they gave him. We are looking to move to Mississippi. He can be on the police force there without the crime and danger we have here. There will be the heat, of course. That is one thing. But we’ll have air conditioning. Then there are the bugs. Mosquitoes as big as flies and cockroaches as big as waterbugs.

One thing I won’t miss is the snow.

Our younger son wants so much to go into the military like his father, but they won’t let him in because of his learning disability. My other son was killed by a drunk driver, 25 years ago on the first day of spring. You heard of Tougaloo College? In Jackson? He was there, in his first year. But it was a blessing. I thank God every day for the blessing. There were five in the accident. The drunk driver and his two friends were okay. My son’s roommate pulled my son from the car. He thought he was just unconscious, you see. Even with two broken knees himself, he pulled my son from that car before it exploded, and he told me later he was sure he had saved him. He didn’t know he was already dead. But it was a blessing. He didn’t suffer. My grandson came in April, and he’s the spitting image of his father, just like him, tall and lanky and slow talking, and that baby was a blessing to me.

It’s that grandson who got me to doing these puzzles. He told me to do five a day, so I got this book at the dollar store, and I do two in the morning and two at night and one in the afternoon. I like them easy. Two of my aunts were just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, both at the same time, so I made an appointment with my doctor to see if there’s a test I can get to see if I have it. But my grandson said these puzzles will keep my brain clear. He’s a good boy, just graduated from college and taking an online class on the computer, to learn something else. I forget what.

My first boy, he goes and signs up for the army after high school so he’ll be able to go to college after, and they send him to Nicaragua and he comes back without a scratch. Then he goes to college and gets killed.

Photo made available from squeezeomatic under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

In flash fiction
 permalink

The To This Day Project

April 15, 2013 — 4 Comments

“We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog because we see ourselves in them.” ~ Shane Koyczan

If you haven’t yet seen poet Shane Koyczan’s spoken word “To This Day”—a poem about being young and different and ostracized—do set aside time today to watch and listen. His TED Talk and one of the many videos submitted by To This Day Project supporters are below.

This topic is always near the surface for me. I recently wrote about the lingering effects of childhood teasing (be sure to read the comments, especially this one).

A related resource is an excellent blog post by Barb Markway (The Self-Compassion Project) on being extremely sensitive:

“Anyone who has read this blog from the beginning, knows that I’m extremely sensitive. It’s a part of myself that I’ve often not liked and struggled to accept. One particular aspect of this sensitivity that I’ve HATED is that I cry easily. It can be very annoying to cry at inopportune moments, or to cry for so long and hard that your eyes are puffy and red for hours afterward…” Read More

In poetry, video , , ,
 permalink

Anniversary of FDR’s Funeral

April 14, 2013 — Leave a comment

Where were you and what were you doing when FDR died?

FDR Funeral Procession

FDR Funeral Procession

Few people can still answer this question, but for the generations that came of age and were adults during the Depression and World War II, the memory of the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt—his funeral took place 68 years ago today—was as indelible as that of JFK for later generations.

Robert Klara writes in FDR’s Funeral Train: A Betrayed Widow, a Soviet Spy, and a Presidency in the Balance of those who were waiting for the arrival the funeral train: “A father in the group turned to his younger son, who had been shivering in the cold, and spoke to him. ‘You’ve got to remember everything you see today,’ the man said firmly, but not unkindly.”

The nation did remember. Those unable to be eye witnesses to the funeral train kept vigil by their radios and remembered the events of that week in April for years to come. The following entries are from the diaries of my great aunt Harriet, who lived hundreds of miles west of the train route, on a ranch in South Dakota:

April 12, 1945: Bright, nice day, not as cold as it has been. I was playing solitaire between 5:30 and six o’clock when I turned Pierre radio on, and they were telling about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Death at Warm Springs, Georgia at 3:35 Central time. He finished his official business at noon and was sitting for an artist to paint his picture by the fireplace at his cottage on the hill, when at 1:15 p.m., he said that he had a terrible headache and fainted, so his colored valet and Filipino bell-boy lifted him to his bed and got the doctors, but he never gained consciousness and died at above time, so our President is gone. News to Washington, and at 7:09 Central time, Harry S. Truman, Vice Pres., had taken Oath of President and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt flew to Warm Springs. She was at Tea for some organization and was called home a few blocks from the White House. A shocked world this night is sending messages.

April 13, 1945: President Roosevelt’s body left Warm Springs, Georgia and the entire route going North was one of respect.

April 14, 1945: I listened a lot to all programs in respect to Departed Pres. Roosevelt and the funeral at 4 p.m., Eastern time. The Radio Station and about all business stopped for 1 minute to 5 minutes to 1 hour and some all day in his memory. The funeral is at White House, Washington, D. C., and the procession from the train was all Military. The Casket of Copper and Mahogany draped in the flag was placed, drawn by 7 white horses, and planes. Ranks of all the Navy and Army were represented. The Funeral Train left Washington for Hyde Park, New York this Saturday evening at 8 p.m., our time.

April 12, 1946: One year ago today Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, so on this day his old House at Hyde Park was turned over to the Government as a Memorial to him, and will be a Museum.

April 12, 1951: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 6 years since death.

April 12, 1955: Ex-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death 10 years ago.

April 12, 1956: Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed away on April 12 at his White House Georgia home, and our Nation is in sorrow untold, and all programs on the radio are in his memory.

Author’s Note: Diary entries have been edited slightly for issues of brevity and standard usage. Photo copyrighted April 24, 1945, under J37972 at U.S. Copyright Office.

In Aunt Hattie, historical diaries ,
 permalink