On Your Mark, Get Set, NaNo!

It’s heeeeerrrrreeee. November. Time to dust off that half-baked plot and try to mold it into a culinary masterpiece. Or at least force it to cough up a bunch of words that form coherent paragraphs.

I’ll be doing NaNo Light this year. I have family obligations and a week long mandatory training for work I can’t weasel out of. I know the spirit of NaNo, according to its founders, is to write no matter what, but you also have to know your limitations. After eight mind-numbing hours of learning a new computer system that isn’t working right yet, coupled with rah-rah sessions extolling the virtues of the latest strategic plan, believe me, I won’t want to write. At least not anything but bloody battle scenes involving Admin vs. Fiscal.

Since I did NaNo last year, I know what I’m capable of, along with the limitations. I’ve set my goal to complete the novel I’ve been working on instead of starting anything new. I’ve spent the past two months tap dancing around the ending and getting nowhere. It finally dawned on me I had a logical inconsistency that had to be addressed before I could move on. Identifying it and figuring out how to handle it opened up a few new possibilities, made things consistent, and gave me my ending. Mostly. (The thuds you hear are from the “Know the ending before you write the book” crowd, fainting in horror.) I knew the ending before I started. But that was before the book mutated along a much more interesting path. So it goes.

So I will NaNo along the best I can, and bull my way through to the End That Remains Elusive In The Light Of Day. I’ll be chopping down those logical inconsistencies one at a time until I’m through the Irrational Jungle.

And here “Anonymous” thought my philosophy degree was a waste of time.

If you need me, I’ll be off NaNo-ing my ending, and thinking deep thoughts about being underemployed.*



*For a bonus Gnome, named the philosopher whose quote I ripped off and blatantly rearranged.

No Cookies for Gabriele

But... here, have a Roman. He's not quite done being painted yet, but a half-baked Roman is better than no Roman.

One For The Horse Lovers

OR: Another Reason I Stunk At The Three Day Event.

To be successful at the Three Day Event, (Dressage, Cross-country, Show Jumping) you needed to have one really big weapon in your arsenal. A good horse. Considering the two main horses I rode were Lemon, a palomino-Appaloosa cross that often lived up to his name, and Fun City, a Standardbred cross with feet the size of dinner platters, a heart of gold but a ‘fraidy cat disposition, was it any wonder I often crashed and burned the first day?

In dressage, you have to look good. The horse has to look good. Together, you have to look damn good. Try looking impressive on the equivalent of a Lemony bleach blonde.

(Me on the infamous "Lemon Drop")

Fun City was a big handsome bay, but I am short legged and we looked mismatched. Not to mention getting a horse with dinner platter feet to do a half pass without tripping over himself. Which he did, once. I could sympathize. Dressage wasn’t our forté. But the big boy could jump. In the arena, out in the fields, over picnic tables and parked cars… ahem.

Lemon could jump, but hated to work at all, resulting in me spending my riding time wondering when the sneak was going to duck a shoulder and plant me face first into a jump. And I’m sure having a horse heave a monumental sigh of boredom then a monumental blast of gas in the middle of the dressage competition didn’t impress the judges either.

But some people do it right. The video shows how the combination of great rider and great horse results in magic. The horse loves her work, without a doubt. This is Danish rider Andreas Helgstrand and his mount Blue Hors Matine. Try and ignore the commentators, who didn’t know when to shut up and just let us watch this horse practically dance to the music. (Video discovered courtesy of Donna G.)

Gratuitous Corgi Pics

Leaves on the ground, dead things to roll in. Leaves to run through, piles of leaves to scatter, select leaves to munch on. Fall. It's a lip-smacking, nose-licking good season.

We've got a lot to grin about. We're outside, playing fetch with a brand-spankin' new tennis ball, We peed on every tree in the yard, chased the cat-dog, and we know the Human Slave has biscuits in her pocket and will dispense them at the drop of a Corgi Smile ™. It's good to be the doG!

Corgis. An explosion of Cute in every fur ball.

Poetry Day Pick - Louise Glück

October 15th is Poetry Day. In honor of the day and the slow slide into winter, I choose to feature poet Louise Glück. She served as US Poet Laureate from 2003-2004, won a Pulitzer Prize, and has a boatload of other awards, but that’s not why I like her. Glück often bases her poetry on mythic figures and ideas, addressing topics like betrayal, mortality, love and loss, body and spirit. The language of her poems appears simple, almost basic, but it is an illusion. Her poetry contains complex emotions that make for repeated readings. Of all her collections, The Triumph of Achilles is one of my favorites for its exploration of myth and biblical ideas, although her recent collection, Averno runs a close second for the same reasons. In both I find myself attracted to the austere phrasing that lets the power of the poem sneak up on you.


The Triumph Of Achilles
Louise Glück

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted--
their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal.


From Triumph of Achilles by Louise Glück
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Pub. Date: September 1985
ISBN-13: 9780880010818


Glück is at her finest when tossing out a line that appears a monumental understatement, but upon reflection, hits you like a punch in the stomach.
"though the legends cannot be trusted-- their source is the survivor, the one who has been abandoned."

In Averno, Glück returns to mythological underpinnings to examine a woman’s descent into hell, her fears of death and concerns about the unshakeable bonds between mother and daughter. It is a lament for things not yet lost and dead, but headed that way. It is not a pleasant collection, stark and straightforward about the mortality of not only our bodies, but our relationships. Despite this, Glück manages to evoke a rather Zen-like enlightenment in her poem “Telescope”.


Telescope
by Louise Glück

There is a moment after you move your eye away
when you forget where you are
because you've been living, it seems,
somewhere else, in the silence of the night sky.

You've been stopped being here in the world
You're in a different place
a place where human life has no meaning.

You're not a creature in a body.
You exist as the stars exist,
participating in their stillness, their immensity.

Then you're in the world again.
An night, on a cold hill,
taking the telescope apart.

You realize afterward
not that the image is false
but the relation is false.

You see again how far away
each thing is from every other thing.


from Averno by Louise Glück
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub. Date: February 2006
ISBN-13: 9780374107420


Readers seem to have a love-hate relationship with Glück. Some can’t stand to read her; she can be unrelenting and unapologetic, unusual in a modern Poet Laureate. But Glück also has the ability to point out the exact thing you’d been thinking- but never had the courage to voice out loud.


You die when your spirit dies.
Otherwise you live.
You may not do a good job of it, but you go on-
something you have no choice about.


from Averno by Louise Glück
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub. Date: February 2006
ISBN-13: 9780374107420

Tidal Wave

The Tidal Wave socks are finally done. Not that the pattern was that hard, it was just I got to knit them in little increments.

Unofficially they are known as the "Before Work" socks, since I did a great deal of the knitting of them in the twenty minutes between dropping child at H/S and sitting in the parking lot before going into work. Arriving at work 30 minutes early would show undue eagerness and a total lack of regard for upholding the reputation of state workers. Can't have that.

I had to finagle the pattern some, otherwise they would have been a touch too big around. Still and all, I moved the pattern into my favorites file. It was quick to knit, I really liked the wave effect, and I could change it without dire consequences. The calculations were easy enough for even the mathematically challenged. To me that makes it a winner. It is available for a free .pdf download from South West Trading Company. Tidal Wave Socks Pattern.

I'm going to try the pattern again with different color variations, I have a neat gray, navy and brown yarn in my stash that could look good all crumpled up in the wave pattern. I'm bored with self striping yarn and looking for things to do to make it a jumble rather than a stripe. I'll probably take the pattern and mutate it for a scarf or sleeve on a shirt. I also never cook the same thing the same way twice. You got a problem with that? Talk to the Obsfucation Gnome.

Yarn:

Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Tropical Storm colorway.

Done on two circulars- Knit Picks fixed circulars 2.75mm.

Tidal Wave Pattern from SWTC.

Poet as Dictator

Ever wonder why poets break up their poems the way they do? There are a bunch of reasons, but some of the more popular have to do with control. The poet isn’t always there to read the poem to you, complete with personal emphasis and breath-taking pauses. Rather than send his/her baby out all alone into the world to be misread and unappreciated, the poet puts cues in on how the piece was intended to be read. Of course there are those who work in rigid forms, their line breaks are mostly dictated by the form. Others let the lines fall where they may, and leave everything open to interpretation.

A majority of poets use time tested techniques to dictate the reader’s experience. Depending on how the lines and even words are stacked together, the pacing can be sped up or slowed down. Certain words lend themselves to the process. Compare the word “below” and “chick”. Same number of letters, but 'below' begs to be drawled out in slow motion. The letter ‘o’ is good at this. “Chick” is an impatient word, it wants to be spit out and proceed merrily on its way. "Pick a chick flick" snaps out with staccato rhythm. "Let's go below, Joe" takes a while to meander its way out.

The tempo of the poem can be changed by placing roadblocks like ‘below’ in a fast paced poem. “Chick” cuts off and emphatically ends the line. “Below” can be used to draw the line out and lead into the next one. Words can jar the reader from complacency, make them uncomfortable, or lull them into a trance. Some poets use stream of conscious writing, what is thought of is what you get. Others revise and tweak to tighten the poem to the exact meaning they had in mind. It's a personal choice, both methods lend themselves to exciting poetry.

Line breaks can also be used to enhance rhythm and sound. Line length and breaks work as road signs for the reader. Poems can resonate because they are rhythmic and easy to remember, the line breaks fall logically in a pattern.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Each of Frost’s lines is an independent thought, like a painter he builds the poem, layer by layer to the conclusion. The repetition of the final line seems a logical conclusion to the poem, drawing the reader to a gentle close that fits the depth of the poem.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Compare this to a short poem by Lucille Clifton. Her words are deceptively simple and straightforward, but they pack a punch. Carefully placed line breaks and word choice directs the reader and drives the point home in a poem where the power is in its simplicity – and resonance.



"why some people be mad at me sometimes"

they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and I keep on remembering
mine


© Lucille Clifton
Blessing The Boats (BOA Editions, 2000)