Goldberg Variations

No, this post has nothing to do with Bach. Though the subject is on the same creative level as composing music. In the book, Writing Down the Bones, Zen Master writer, Natalie Goldberg, walks both amateur and aged writer through the process of...well, writing down the bones. Which is to say, putting every inch of ones' self into writing.

In the second part of this book, many things stuck out to me. One of which being the section on Obsessions. I can relate completely with being obsessed with writing. There was a solid three months last year when every day a friend and I would go back and forth, writing a story. We would post a response to the previous chapter and just build and build. I usually replied in the morning and she replied at night. I wouldn't be able to sleep until she wrote back. After reading her chapter, I would lay in bed, planning the chapter that I would write in the morning with anticipation. My heart would beat and sometimes I wouldn't be able to fall asleep unless I wrote down some nice sentences I had thought out, in fear of forgetting them overnight. If, for some reason, I wasn't able to write out my chapter in the morning, I would pine all day until I was able to get home and get the story out of my head and into word. I was obsessed. Going back and re-reading the pages of intricate little plots and funny one-liners made me fill accomplished and proud. I felt like I was doing what I was meant to do. I understand what Goldberg meant when she wrote, "There is freedom in being a writer and writing. It is fulfilling your function." pg. 70

On page 81, Goldberg quotes Katagiri Roshi. "Literature will tell you what life is, but it won't tell you how to get out of it." I really like this quote. It is enveloped nicely between paragraphs stating the importance of detail. As writers what we reveal truths about the world using detailed accuracy. We are like a mirror. But when a person looks into a mirror and sees something, the mirror can do nothing to change the appearance of the person that looks into it. If he or she does not like what they are seeing, then they have to actively change it by stepping away from the mirror and acting. If hair is messy, it can be easily brushed. Things like being overweight is slightly harder and takes time and effort to change. In the same way, reading can tell us truths about the world, things that we don't like, but it is up to us to take action. The reader can learn from books, but we must act upon it if we truly want to learn.

Other things Goldberg taught me:
~Writing is listening
~Learn specific names of flowers, animals, and basically everything (even that rock!)
~Everything is both ordinary and extraordinary
 ~Indefinite modifiers= a big no-no. Points to doubt in writing.
~"And what great writers actually pass on is not so much their words, but they hand on their breath at their moments of inspiration."
~I want to do a snake dance!
~Show, Don't Tell
~It's okay to be weird

In conclusion, here's a clip from Silence of the Lambs that features The Goldberg Variations.

The Tocqueville Perspective

The poem, "Tocqueville", contained within the book with the same title, has many difficult and heavy themes that most people don't tend to talk about. The topics make us feel uncomfortable, disheartened, or just angry at our society as it reflects all of the wretched things that oppress us. As a nation, we like to think of ourselves as one united body held by the values of liberty, equality, and freedom. When we read this poem, it is an introspection of who we are as "The United States" and how our values are sometimes compromised in the midst of a power struggle with our leaders (which at times is the government, and other times economical powers, or sometimes one in the same).

Before reading the poem, I wanted to learn a little bit more about the title. The fact that the entire book has the same title as the poem draws my attention to it. At first, I thought "Tocqueville" would be a name of a place. Maybe an ideal, fictional utopia that Mattawa would contrast with the world. To my surprise, it is a name of a person. After doing some research, and reading the links provided on the class blog page (http://223winter2015.blogspot.com/), I learned that Alexis de Tocqueville was a great French political thinker and historian. In the 1800s, he traveled from a Revolutionary French to America in search of understanding of a democracy, in hopes of being able to establish it back home. What he found had both pros and cons.

The pros Tocqueville saw were equality and individuality. Without the traditions of monarchy, America was able to start anew and create a system without an aristocracy, allowing upward mobility for those who are poor and the downward mobility for those who rich. This is the defining features of democracy, which ultimately creates equality. This is a form of individuality because it strives each person to try their hardest to achieve. Unfortunately the cons are also created because of this. People who strive for their own well-being over those of others hinder equality. It turns into a tyranny. Tocqueville noted that without checks on all levels of government, then a tyrannical society will emerge with the majority oppressing the minority. When we read the poem, "Tocqueville", we can keep this in mind. Mattawa seems to be suggesting that this is what happened to America. The white people are the tyrannical majority while the "brown/yellow folks" are the minority.

The poem is like a loud room filled with people who are having different conversations. They intersect and weave in and out. Some are overtly about the government, while some are subtle. Some are foreigners, thinking about their homes. The whole book is like this as well. While Tocqueville, a stranger to America, came and wrote a book about America, defining it, the people, the culture with all of its' beauties and flaws, Mattawa did the same. The troubles that Mattawa defines are exactly what Tocqueville predicted.

Tocqueville coined the term, "soft despotism". This means a country that rules over people with small, complicated laws that degrade the people, though it may not be obvious to the people. It gives people the illusion that they are in control, but they actually have little power. Mattawa states that this is the current state of the US. He writes on page 28, "It just doesn't look like racism. What do you call it then? A kind of mould, software, bedrock. You can make all sorts of people buy into it. Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Asiatics, Arabs, Indians. That's what happens to them when they're on your side. There's already fear that makes all kinds of violence legitimate, or a desire to kill that rationalizes itself as fear of violence. In the end, it doesn't matter which."

Bread, bread, bread, lock

Please enjoy some warm Bread while I talk about bread. (aka press play)

Now I'm going to respond to the poem, "Bread & Butter", written by Khaled Mattawa in the book, Tocqueville:

I once worked in a bread bakery called, "The Art of Bread". Having a background in baking (formerly bagels), I figured when I was hired that they would put me at the oven to monitor the rising, golden loaves. Before starting, I imagined myself standing in front of the window facing a rising sun that I could lasso to myself. I could feel its' warmth; the life energy of the Earth. 

When I finally went in, they had me make the dough. The warmth left my daydreams as I was faced with the reality of cold ingredients. Though...the life energy that I imagined was very present. After mixing the ingredients (flour, wheat, water, salt, sometimes a little honey) and adding the yeast, it came alive. I made so much that it covered two tables and the longer it sat naked before me, the larger it became, like a ballooning zeppelin about to take flight.

As I kneaded the dough in my hands, forming it into a bread-like shape, I knew that what I was doing was transforming one thing into another. I had become an alchemist. The one thing I was deprived of was the bread.

The only time I brought a loaf home was for a Christmas party with my family. I hollowed out the innards and filled it with spinach dip, surrounding it with store bought pita.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now I'm going to respond to the poem in a less obscure way. Time to analyze!

"What lies beyond sorrow belongs to feet, automobiles, and the distances they cover." This is the first line of the poem, "Bread & Butter". Beyond sorrow is a place that we must travel to. It is not something that comes to us, rather we must move forward (infinitely, Mattawa suggests) to find it. This implies that he plans on combining the concepts of sorrow and the pursuit of happiness with time (and time with inevitable death).

"It's the old argument about progress, how today's bakers deprive us of the dialectics of tooth and grain, earth and tongue, so that in kneading only the palm is happy meeting one of its own." The ingredients which the baker uses to make the dough is all organic and from the Earth. Human too, is organic. According to the Bible, we were made from dust. And so, when we come in contact with grain and wheat, in a way, we are touching out brothers of the ground.  By the time the bread it removed from the oven, it is no longer a product of the Earth. It becomes a product of human, given as sustenance. The life is missing from it, yet it gives life to the eater. Because the bakers are so close to the Earth, they must know something about the nature of mankind. They are like the philosophers of the world. (Or preachers?)

Mattawa continues his poem overtly reflecting on time and death.

"There is no escaping the white rose, the wish for shade on hot summer days." A yearning for relief. From life? In a way it reminds me of Jonah, who after preaching to the Ninevites complained about the death of the plant that gave him shade.

Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. ⁶ Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. ⁷ But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. ⁸ When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.” (Jonah 4:5-9)

"Some of us die before asking questions." is followed by 'we' turning to bakers and asking what they are deprived of. Since their answer has nothing to do with their powers to transform one thing into another, 'you' say "this is the stamp of distance, or that we live by the apotheosis of pleasures and sufferings". Which is to say, if the great philosophers of the world don't understand what they are doing, then what is the point? If that's the case, we're living only to experience a meaningless pendulum of up and downs. Mattawa believes that the people who feel that way want to die, but also want to be saved by the 'bakers'.

Mattawa then turns to locksmiths. If bakers do not have the answers, then surely those who open doors for a living can. A key is usually associated with answers. But as the author states, people are suspicious of them. They are "regularly tested by the authorities". Divorces deny them access to safes. This shows that we often feel too guarded to let the answers of a locksmith penetrate our most valuable asset: our hearts. This could be a result of brokenness or torn relationships.

"A glass of wine limits their clientele to people locked out of their cars." This draws back to the first line. Instead of looking for answers, instead of trying to move forward, people are getting drunk and accidentally locking themselves out of their cars, unable to leave the place of sorrow. Those without keys cannot move forward, but they can reflect on the change around them. They find a sort of freedom in embracing hopelessness. They can taste the salt in their butter- bitter with sweet. They are "lonely and content". 

Mattawa does not condemn those who do not take the same path as him. Although he walks- "I begin with warm ground under my feet", seeking for a place beyond sorrow, he watches those who do not walk. They seem lonely, but by accepting sorrow, they are actually content.

My analysis was a little obscure too but oh well. K BAI!

(A Not So) Gray Room

This is a gray room.

Okay...technically it's a dungeon. But to be fair, it is gray and it is a room. I don't know about you, but when I hear someone say "gray room", this is what I think of.

This is the poem, Gray Room by Wallace Stevens (with added visuals)

Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,

And pick
At your pale white gown;

Or lift one of the green beads
Of your necklace,
To let it fall;

Or gaze at your green fan
Printed with the red branches of a red willow;

Or, with one finger,
Move the leaf in the bowl-
The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia

Besides you...

What is all this?
I know how furiously your heart is beating.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first line of this poem is pretty misleading. By having the protagonist sit in a gray room, you would expect this poem to be somber and have a sense of stillness. But almost immediately, the drab color of gray is evaded by a nice bright, silver. The poet uses verbs like "pick, lift, fall, gaze, move" to bring a wide range of movement into the poem. This helps the rhythm as it keeps the story in continuous motion. The pace starts off slow in the beginning, but by the end, something is beating furiously. Talk about action.

The color focus turns from gray, to silver, to white, to green, to green with red accents, to yellow. Though the color of the forsythia is not described, even if we do not know what a forsythia looks like, we can assume that it is a flower based on the "leaf" indicated in the text. Many people associate flowers with bright colors. As the poem progresses Stevens' canvas begins to burst with hues, growing brighter with each pen stroke.

What does all of this mean? The last two lines make it seem as if the narrator has an intimate connection with the woman. Could they be lovers? Is the white gown a wedding dress; is the wife-to-be getting nervous about her decision to spend her life with this man? Is she nervously picking at her dress and necklace and forsythia leaves because she's thinking about running away from a marriage? The man catches her contemplating these things in the end. "What is all this?" He asks, wondering why she is suddenly so apprehensive about moving forward with him. "I know how furiously your heart is beating." For him.

Another theory is that the narrator is looking into the mind of a woman who is depressed. She sees her world as dull and gray. She mindlessly interacts with all of the bright and beautiful things around her, yet she doesn't give them enough attention to appreciate them before trying to distract herself with something else a moment later. The narrator is trying to wake her from her apathy. "What is all this?" He dares to ask her. "I know how furiously your heart is beating." He says, trying to incite the passion within her.

Whelp, that's all I got. I was thinking about suggesting the white gown as being a white hospital gown- as in, she's in a mental institution...but that's just crazy!

Okay. Goodbye. Go away. Stop reading. Be gone.

Ted Berrigan? Okay. Let's talk about writing instead.

Here is a reading of Ted Berrigan's 16th Sonnet.

Click here for some craziness.

My first reaction:

Then I was like: "I think I like this..."

I'm still unsure. I'll re-re-re-read it later...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the coldest night of the year, I decide to take a hot bath. I have many friends who criticize me for taking baths. They say it's unhygienic and wasteful. I say that it's therapeutic and that's all that matters. When I'm stressed, I'm unproductive and unmotivated to do anything besides press play on Netflix. The real waste is apathy, and if swimming in a pool of my own germs can temporarily cure that, I don't really see the point in arguing about it.

As I get everything ready for "tubby time", I spot the book, Writing Down the Bones sitting innocently on my desk. With a towel tucked under one arm and a portable boom box tucked under the other, I grab the book and take it with me into my lair. 

After putting everything in its' place, I lower myself into the hot water. My freezing toes cringe at the heat and send a painful response to my brain as punishment for not warning them in advance. I ignore the piggies' dislike for the warm intensity and continue my descent until I'm almost completely submerged. Ahhh..yes. Perfection. Damon Albarn's voice sings melancholic melodies in the background that tempts me to drift into the world of music. Instead, a world of writing beckons me.

I lean partially out of the tub to dry off my hands on the towel I threw earlier on the floor and wrap my fingers around the book. I crack open the spine of Writing Down the Bones and look inside to see the revealed bones of Natalie Goldberg. I dig my teeth into them and mercilessly gnaw on the bones until I am satisfied.

"First, consider the pen you write with. It should be a fast-writing pen because your thoughts are always much faster than your hand. You don't want to slow up your hand even more with a slow pen." pgs. 10-11

"Inspiration means 'breathing in.' Breathing in God. You actually become larger than yourself, and first thoughts are present." pg.19

"In writing, when you are truly on, there's no writer, no paper, no pen, no thoughts. Only writing does writing- everything else is gone." pg. 22

"The process teaches about sanity. We are trying to become sane along with our poems and stories." pg. 23

Who is this woman...? How is she reading my mind and how does she know my life? Just earlier this week I wrote a tweet saying, "Was up till 3am last night because stories were vividly running through my head with detailed descriptions/dialouge. Creativity is madness." For me, writing is a way to cure that madness. It is a form to retain sanity in the midst of stories flashing through my mind. Once I write it down, it's gone and I have peace.

I pull away from the book and realize that I'm sitting in cold water. My toes are pruning, and once again, scorning me for not paying them enough attention. I feel inspired to write- to hurry to the computer and write this very post in this very blog.

"If you are not afraid of the voices inside of you, you will not fear the critics outside you." pg. 33

Here's some bullets about stuff.

*Practice often.

*Writing a list of topics is a good idea.

*Ignore inner criticism.

*Ignore inner procrastinating demons.

*Use your perspective.

*Always find new insights.

*Writing has no limitations.

*Unicorns would be great in battle- I mean, they have a bayonet already equipped to their heads.

*Are you seriously still reading this?

Turns out I don't have much more to say. I really like this Natalie gal and look forward to finishing the book..possibly now in the warmth of my bed.

Oh shit! I forgot to talk about Shakespeare. Maybe next time.

"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

    If this be error, and upon me proved,

    I never writ, not no man ever loved."

~Sonnet 116, Shakespeare

Love of writing, that is.

Intro

Hello! My name is Michelle Stone and I am an English Major (said in a tone of someone who is in an AA meeting). I like long walks on the beach, cuddling up next to a fireplace with a nice book, and other cliche things. Since I don't live near a beach or own a fireplace, I end up just daydreaming most of the time. I suppose that's what describes me best. I am a daydreamer...and a bit of a night thinker.

This will be my very first attempt at a blog. It feels right since I spend most of my free time online anyway- usually to look at cat memes and to write Harry Potter roleplay (my greatest guilty pleasure). I have a feeling that it will feel quite strange to be doing something productive while being online.

A little over a year ago, I wanted to be a nun. Like, full-blown, habit and giant rosary, locked in a convent, nun. I thought this is what I wanted for three years and worked really hard to achieve that goal. But early in 2014, it was like God was saying, "Michelle...what are you thinking? You're too much of a heathen to be here." So I turned my eye to the career that all heathens pursue: Teaching.

Right now I work part-time at the Redford Township Library. I love it. I mean, what's there not to love about being surrounded by books all day (besides the silly people that come in to complain about a .25 cent fine that they owe because they don't pay attention to due dates)? It breaks my heart working there though because everyday they throw out boxes of books. I try to adopt as many as I can, but my bookcase can only hold so many books before it threatens to collapse. Many people have tried to persuade me into going into Library Science, but I like sharing what I know with people too much to ignore that talent.

In closing, here is an animated cat .gif that describes my day: