19.
Once at Cold Mountain [or Mount Aire], troubles cease –
No more tangled, hung up mind.
I idly scribble poems on the rock cliff,
Taking whatever comes, like a drifting boat.
Karen
Posts by Karen Kaminski:
(From Han Shan, the Cold Mountain Poems, translated by Gary Snyder)
Peace out, nature.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. Happy birthday to my favorite novelist of tragedy and despair and horses, Cormac McCarthy.
2. From my friend Jason’s blog, here’s a picture of Papa Hemingway at home in Cuba in 1947. Nice slippers, Hem.
Frodo Lives
The Writer’s Almanac tells me that it’s the anniversary of the 1954 publishing of The Fellowship of the Ring. The trilogy started as a sequel to The Hobbit, took 17 years to write, was interrupted by WWII, and ended up over half a million words long.
Then some people made it into movies, which gave us the source of this gif.
What Elizabeth Bishop Thinks
“We write for the same reason we read or look at paintings…for the total immersion of the experience, the narrowing and intensification of focus to the right here, right now, the deep joy of bringing the entire soul to bear upon a single act of concentration.”
Tuesday Project Roundup In Action
Goals? What Goals?
Hey, remember the 3+2 Things I wanted to accomplish for my 32nd year? Yeah, I do, too (vaguely). How about a halfway report?
The first two of the three quantitative goals were:
1. Take a fiction writing class
2. Write 3 short stories
Earlier this year I signed up for a class on plots (not the evil villain kind; the novelistic kind) but it was canceled due to lack of registrants. I still want to see what’s offered in the fall and try to make this happen.
I thought the third thing would be the easiest:
3. Read a new book a month
But it’s been seven months and as far as new fiction goes, I’ve read parts of Brideshead Revisited and 1984 and two Jeeves & Wooster short stories. I’m still hopeful that I can get some more reading time in by the pool this summer.
As for the “+2” qualitative goals
+1. Be happier in my work
Um, this is coming along, kinda sorta maybe. I have to remind myself of this hippie quote.
+2. Less judgment, more compassion
Finally, something I feel like I’ve actually been working on for the year. I won’t say I’ve “accomplished” this, as there are moments every day with people or traffic or any other trigger, but I’ve found that repeating this saying from The Dharma Bums really helps:
I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like, “Equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha.”
(I think it also helps I’ve been around someone pretty regularly for a few months–nothing like having someone to be nice to to show you the ways you’re not.)
So that’s where the goals for the year stand. As my inner hippie says, it’s all about the journey, right?
Friday Unrelated Information
1. I was really excited to hear about a new Oz movie in the works, since I’m pretty sure between the ages of 7 and 10 I read every word Baum wrote about it, but the trailer is a disappointment. If you have 14 books to pull from, why make up a plot?
2. I’m still not done with the long dress, but the two parts are sewn together now and I did get the zipper in last night. Baby steps…
Old Rock Stars
The Writer’s Almanac tells me that 50 years ago today, the Rolling Stones played their first gig. (I have no idea what this news has to do with writers. I think it has more to do with that site’s demographic.)
My parents were always in the Beatles camp and so I was, too, but when I saw Gimme Shelter in my 20s I suddenly got what all the excitement over Jagger was about. And any band who loves and promotes the blues is ok by me (even if they are awfully old to be rock stars).
Here’s an early performance of “Little Red Rooster”:
Is This Why Hippies Are Mellow?
This is the latest quote I’m trying to adopt during the Summer of Uncertainty, via Mystic Mamma (of course).
“…the search for security and certainty is actually an attachment to the known. And what’s the known? The known is our past. The known is nothing other than the prison of past conditioning. There’s no evolution in that.When you experience uncertainty, you are on the right path – so don’t give it up. You don’t need to have a complete and rigid idea of what you’ll be doing next week or next year, because if you have a very clear idea of what’s going to happen and you get rigidly attached to it, then you shut out the whole range of possibilities.”