The Ladder Herald

I Love Nick Hornby

More from the Polysyllabic Spree:

"Anyone and everyone taking a writing class knows that the secret of good writing is to cut it back, pare it down, winnow, chop, hack, prune and trim, remove every superfluous word, compress, compress, compress. [...] You can't read a review of, say, a Coetzee book without coming across the word "spare," used invariably with approval; I just Googled "J.M. Coetzee + spare" and got 907 hits, almost all of them different. "Coetzee's spare but multi-layered language," "detached in tone and spare in style," "spare, exquisite sentances" [...] Get it? Spare is good.

Coetzee, of course, is a great novelist, so I don't think it's snarky to point out that he's not the funniest writer in the world. Actually, when you think about it, not many novels in the Spare tradition are terribly cheerful. Jokes you can usually pluck out whole, by the roots, so if you're doing some heavy-duty prose-weeding, they're the first things to go. And there's some stuff about the whole winnowing process that I just don't get. Why does it always stop when the work in question has been reduced to sixty or seventy thousand words—entirely coincidentally, I'm sure, the minimum length for a publishable novel? I'm sure you could get it down to twenty or thirty, if you tried hard enough. In fact, why stop at twenty or thirty? Why write at all? Why not just jot the plot and a couple of themes down on the back of an envelope and leave it at that?"

Great Headlines from Today's Chronicle

"Cabbie Who Ran For Mayor Arrested for Public Nudity"

"Police Must Return Medical Marijuana If Drug Charges Are Dropped, Court Says"

"Skipper of Oil Spill Response to Retire" "Timing unfortunate, Coast Guard says"

"Cop Told Woman to Get Gun" (domestic violence case)

"Rodney King Shot"

Nick Hornby on Writing

"Every time I read a biography of a novelist, I discover that the novels in question are autobiographical to an almost horrifying degree. [...] In Nigel Jones' Through a Glass Darkly we learn that Patrick Hamilton had a disastrous crush on a prostitute, and that, like Bone in Hamilton's Hangover Square, his obsession with a young actress was deranged, although he stopped short of murdering her. And, of course, like all of his characters, Hamilton was a drunk. I'm sure that a biography of Tolkien would reveal that The Lord of the Rings was autobiographical, too—that Tolkien actually fell down a hole and found a place called Central Earth, where there were a whole bunch of Bobbits. Some people—critics, mostly—would argue that this diminishes the achivement somehow, but it's the writing that's hard, not the invention."

—From the Polysyllabic Spree (his book review column from "The Believer")

Ever Look at the "Best of" Craigslist Category?

I just did, for some reason. It is amazing. Here is just one incredible example:

Subj: We met for a date and you caught me making out with a man

I'm sorry. You were taking so long in the bathroom and this guy was looking at me. Next thing I knew we were making out and you came back and stormed out of the bar. I just want you to know that I really liked you and I'm not gay, I just have gay experiences sometimes. You are a beautiful girl and I'm glad that you came on date with me. I would like very much to try again. This time I will give all my love to you.

Feeling Tired

Year after year
on the monkey's face
a monkey face.

Basho

A Few Recent Ideas from Psychodynamics Class

Some things I want to remember:

"What all pathologies have in common is secrets from the self."

"There is a kind of pleasure in and attachment to symptoms. There is a gain from the symptom to the patient."

Ask: "What comes to the surface when you relax?"

"Freud counseled therapists not to count on our love or our pity to help a patient. He advised us to be more humble than that. And he warns against the idea of 'curing' a patient. He insists that the craving to 'be of help' that therapists will feel blinds us to the constructive, positive suffering that people must do to grow and mature."

Sylvia Plath on her son

Nick and the Candlestick

I am a miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears

The earthen womb
Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs

Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.

Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,

Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish -
Christ! they are panes of ice,

A vice of knives,
A piranha
Religion, drinking

Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,

Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo

Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean

In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.

Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses,
With soft rugs -

The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,

Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,

You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.

Freud's Invention

From Leston Havens' A Safe Place: Laying the Groundwork of Psychotherapy:

"Freud invented, in the silences of psychoanalysis, a method of correcting a particular human problem so specific and effective as to defy any substitution or even alteration. A great invention is like a piece of great wit: it seems in retrospect the only answer. Recall G.K. Chesterton's reply to the question, What book would you most like with you on a desert island? "Huntingon's Guide to Practical Shipbuilding." Freud's invention is like that."

Thoughts Before Bed, From Jonah

1) Thoughts on Aging

Aba/Gabriel: You know you can't keep that big furniture box in the kitchen forever. We're going to have to recycle it sometime.

Jonah: Well then the last day before I die and get buried in the ground, I'll recycle it.

G: You're going to live a long time, and be an Aba yourself and have your own kids.

J: And will I still be your son?

G: Yes, you'll always be my son, even after you have kids of your own.

J: After I have kids, who will I be?

G: You will still be you, and I will still be me, but I'll be an old guy.

J: Like who?

G: Like Grandpa Evan.

J: Well, ok. that's kind of old, but not like a homeless guy.

2) Thoughts on Kindergarten

J: I'm almost going to Kindergarten but it'll be a long time. But I have to get shots.

G: Yeah, sometimes we get shots so we don't get too sick.

J: Well I don't want to get sick anymore, so I want infinity shots... Kindergarten is kind of fun, but it's kind of boring.

[Later.] The reason it's hard to pick me up is that soon I'm going to Kindergarten and Kindergarten kids are huge, so they have to pick their parents up!

"A State of Mine" Trailer

This is from the wonderful Maureen Futtner, otherwise known as "Aunt Bean":

Dear Friends,

As some of you know, "A State of Mine," a documentary about secession in the west, has been in production for the last three years. We are finally in post-production on the film and plan to have it completed this spring. We'll also be holding an "invitation-only" preview screening (and fundraiser!) of the film this winter.

I invite you to view the trailer on youtube -
A State of Mine Trailer

You're also welcome to visit the website - A State of Mine website  

Thanks to all those who have been involved in the project! I look forward to sharing the completed film with you very soon.

Onward!
Maureen Futtner

Feeling Blue

A few days of feeling low. Maybe from after-birthday let down, or after-holiday sadness. Everything was delightful, though it's not as if depression is rational. Maybe hormones, as Rye seems to be nursing less and I am making less milk. (And I feel sad about that too.) Maybe the grey sky, or the cold in our apartment.

But then, a good talk with my therapist today. And, somehow, just the simple perspective that I am "having a hard day or two" instead of seeing everything through the dingy lens of depressed feelings, helps. (That and playing with Orion Gabriel on the floor all day. His dazzling smile cuts through all anhedonia.)

When I am in a bad place I do not yet know how to tell myself, "look out! you are sad/crabby/depressed" and instead I think I am seeing clearly. I suck, my life is messed up, I am unrecognized, victimized, etc etc...

It is so nice to have someone help me with my perspective-taking. I should lay low, take care, and not make decisions or start fights. Too late for this time but maybe next time. (Sorry, everyone in my family!)

Umberto Eco in the New York Times Magazine "Questions For" Column

I love Umberto Eco. I actually just finished "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" a few weeks ago—it was wonderful. All about memory and books and comics and Italian personalities.

Here he is putting Deborah Solomon in her place:

DS: I am wondering if you read Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" which some critics see as the pop version of your "Name of the Rose."

UE: I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of my characters in my novel "Foucault's Pendulum," which is about people who start believing in occult stuff. [...] Dan Brown is one of my creatures.

Nor Cal

Went to the beach today. It was so mild and pretty. A nice calm morning after a wild Thanksgiving weekend.

We saw: dolphins, herons, horses, and pirate ships! Can you see this silly picture?

And we tried to fly our new kite (but there was no wind!)

Guess who?

Thanksgiving, 2007

Was amazing. Our last year with a baby in our family smaller than the turkey (baby: 17.5 pounds, turkey: 19)

Julia and the squash:

This became soup:

This became hysterical:

Music under the table, with Dylan.

It was loverly.

And the music was good, too.

Non-Conformity

Jonah: What's a vegetarian?

Elizabeth: A person who doesn't eat meat. Why?

J: Maxie said he's a vegetarian. I want to be one too.

E: You can be one, but do you know what meat is? Meat is sausage, hamburgers, hot dogs, turkey, chicken, steak...

J: Well, vegetarians are all the same, and they don't eat meat, except me, I'm a vegetarian who eats meat.

Cryogenic Freeze

Sometimes I want a break from my kids. But sometimes Gabe and I say, "if only we could put them in a cryogenic freeze!" Meaning, we want to do grown-up things, and we want rest, but we don't want to miss anything with the boys, and we don't want to send them off to anyone else.

Rye woke up at 5AM, bit me on both sides while nursing, and we started the day. We were all lying around on the living room couch (which is the place G and I are sleeping these days, due to bizarre nighttime logistics) and Gabe asked me what I'd do if I could have the kids in the cryogenic freeze. I said:

Sleep.
Sex.
More sleep.
Movies.
Go to Paris, all of Europe.
Sleep.

I think I'd like about three weeks. but I could not stand to leave them for three weeks. Maybe not even one week, unless it was leaving them with Gabriel, and the whole point is I want him with me!

Sidewalk Chalk Walk and Talk

Love on the Rocks

According to the New York Times, the U.S. divorce rate is just over 40%.

Here's a quote from a book I'm reading for Human Development:

"[In this study] More women got a psychological divorce than a legal divorce. This finding highlights a broader issue: some people deal with an oppressive situation (in marriage, job, career, religion, community, or whatever) by leaving or making a drastic change. A larger number who are in the same situation resign themselves to it and go into a psychological retirement—doing a minimum, giving little of themselves, and obtaining little in return. The incidence of legal divorce is thus not an accurate indicator of the extent of marital conflict or distress in a population. The divorce rate underestimates the degree and depth of the actual severity of marital problems, just as the number of patients receiving psychological and psychiatric treatment underestimates the extent of severe emotional distress."
Daniel J. Levinson, The Seasons of a Woman's Life, Ballantine Press, 1996

This makes it seem like the instances of good marriage must be under 10%, no?

Boys in the Christiana

I heart them:

Owl Family

Jonah's so into making paper figures: bears, robots, penguins, superheros, and owls. They all must come in a family:

Aba Owl (you can tell by the goatee!):

Birthday Rooftop

Hard to see in this photo, but the view was the bridges, the fog, and all fourteen hills.

Had pomegranite mojitos with seven lovely ladies on the roof of Medjool for my bday last night--it was heavenly. The view from up there makes you love San Francsico, even Leah and I could admit.

I got all of these tiny, sweet little presents, handmade magnets, earrings, tiny cards, flowers, organic dark chocolate (health food!) and the coolest book from Maureen and Kate: The Visionary State: A Journey Through California's Spiritual Landscape.

Powell's Books

My birthday wish? It comes in three parts:

1. To accept my "bigness"—the large scope of my dreaming, thinking, feeling and doing. And to worry less about overwhelming other people.

2. To see myself the way my friends see me. With that love, celebration, acceptance and admiration.

3. To look at my "competitiveness" (this is the word that came to me though I am not sure about it) but basically, I'd like to bring my desires above ground and have them more integrated into my everyday person. I wrote about this some earlier in the fall related to "jealousy" of other cool women as a positive spur to my own activity...

I think there is something here about integrating darkness into my self—not trying to be good and please others as much. I'm trying to write a poem about it because I saw a rat on a rooftop after I made my wishes, and it seemed to be this disgusting little symbol of the underworld—the darkness in us.

But I'm glad I was born into this beautiful world!

Rock Band

All the grown up men I know wish they were in a rock band. I just counseled a man about this, actually--his intense wish to "rock". I loved it--it was so fresh and true.

I feel tenderly towards men for having this wish (I have it too!). It seems to be partly about being an artist, being free, making something amazing. (I know it's also about getting girls to pay attention to them, but it's the same for women who rock, of course!)

This is Jonah and I:

E: What will you be when you grow up?

J: I'll be in a rock band.

E: What kind of songs will you sing?

J: You'll just have to come to my shows and listen!

E: Ok!

J: But...you might not like it because it will be SO LOUD.

Touring Schools

We have started the process of finding an elementary school for Jonah--he'll be in Kindergarten next year. It's like getting an additional part time job because of all the research required, plus tours, appointments, and applications. I am anxious anxious anxious.

We were rejected from every preschool we applied to (about six) two years ago and only got in through a fluke at the last minute off the waiting list of one, so we are trying to apply to many many schools and have a lot of options.

I've been on two school tours so far, Creative Arts Public Charter and French-American. Gabe's been to Live Oak and Synergy--they take about 2-3 hours each. All have been beautiful, warm, creative, fun and organized.

Today I sat down to call the 12 public schools we've finally figured out we're interested in. My first four calls went like this: 1. no answer; 2. a "volunteer" who answered didn't know if there were tours or how to apply ("Can you call back tomorrow?"); 3. I was asked to hold and then hung up on; 4. I had to spell "Sullivan" for the person three distinct times (still unclear if she got it). I am scared about how dysfunctional public schools seem, just from trying to get on a tour.

I remember being bullied in my white suburban public elementary school. I remember being made fun of by a teacher for reading a lot. I remember having no drama or art or music some years, and the dull, bleak discipline and sitting in rows and filing in lines and being afraid to go into the bathroom. My parents are public school teachers and they sent me because they taught there and it is their values to send their kids to public school. But I can sometimes feel like, "well, I was sacrificed to that principle: I was bullied, miserable, bored and intellectually neglected, so maybe I don't have to sacrifice my kids." I would be so happy to give my kids the gift of knowing more than one language, of getting challenged academically, of being in a warm, non-bullying social atmosphere. I hope that this is possible in the public schools!

Right now Jonah loves school so much, and they seem to love him. He is making incredible art, he is friends with everyone, he can't wait to get there in the morning. I want school to be a creative friendly place for him. He deserves it, he is such a shining boy.

Fortitude. Quaalude. Interlude. Beatitude.

It's almost winter. My new coat came today in the mail.

Etudes

by Elaine Equi

Autumn is a solitude.
Winter is a fortitude.
Spring is an altitude.
Summer is an attitude.

Summer is a multitude.
Autumn is an aptitude.
Winter is a Quaalude.
Spring is a prelude.

Spring is a lassitude.
Summer is a longitude.
Autumn is a gratitude.
Winter is an interlude.

Winter is a beautitude.
Spring is a platitude.
Summer is a verisimilitude.
Autumn is a semi-nude.

from the tiny

The Brooklyn Aunties

Shout out to Brooklyn. Justine and Boo, some of the world's bestest aunties (tied of course with Bean and Cake) were here this past weekend. We had Elephant Thai and we made spiders out of water bottles, and we had Bi Rite ice cream and we practiced on our two wheelers and chalked up the sidewalk and admired the baby and drank at Nihon (just the grownups). It is so fun to have them around, those ladiez.

Didn't get enough photos of Justine. Were you hiding, girl?

And—

We miss you!!!!!!

O is for Octopus and Orion

Obsessed with the outrageous and overwhelming octopus, lately. And therefore, seeing them everywhere. This is from the Ferry Building:

A funny little part of the page on octopus from wikipedia:

"Octopuses are highly intelligent, probably more intelligent than any other order of invertebrates. The exact extent of their intelligence and learning capability is much debated among biologists,[1][2][3] but maze and problem-solving experiments have shown that they do have both short- and long-term memory. Their short lifespans limit the amount they can ultimately learn. There has been much speculation to the effect that almost all octopus behaviors are independently learned rather than instinct-based, although this remains largely unproven. They learn almost no behaviors from their parents, with whom young octopuses have very little contact. [...]

In laboratory experiments, octopuses can be readily trained to distinguish between different shapes and patterns. They have been reported to practice observational learning,[4] although the validity of these findings is widely contested on a number of grounds.[1][2] Octopuses have also been observed in what some have described as play: repeatedly releasing bottles or toys into a circular current in their aquariums and then catching them.[5] Octopuses often break out of their aquariums and sometimes into others in search of food. They have even boarded fishing boats and opened holds to eat crabs.[3]"

wikiOctopus

And just got this odd, outstanding t shirt for Rye, too (heard about it on some shopping blog, can't remember, so sorry!):

I love how the word is printed upside down so the kid can see it correctly when s/he looks down at it! So clever! (I hope they make grow-up ones soon.)

Find all the letters at—

Biome5

Gone Barfing!

That's what our bumper sticker would say. We've been a family that barfs together...yuk.

Days and days of sickness, all blending into one another: runny noses, stuffed-up noses, ear infection, barfing, the bad poop, shivers, sweats: it's like the plagues around here.

Sleep disturbances, crabbiness, missed school, missed work, behind behind behind...

Gotta get the flu shot—this can't happen anymore. One bout of sickness and I am monumentally out of step with life.

I remember staying home from school as this sleepy, dreamy, sweet little time. I would stay in my bed with my ginger ale and saltines on a plate, the little black and white tv on a chair and Sesame Street/Mr. Rogers/Zoom (after these two nothing was on and I slept some more). My Mom would come and check on me and put her cool hand on my forehead. I looked at books and colored with crayons. All from the coziness of my little bed with the Raggedy Anne sheets.

This is nothing like what happens when Jonah stays home from school. There is an inordinate amount of belligerent ordering me around, ultimatums, shrieking, tantrum-ing, whining, and a flat refusal to have any "quiet time" or "rest". I am completely sacked from dealing with him. And I feel some kind of silly disappointment that his days of staying home are so rough, instead of nurturing and calm, like they were for me. Why doesn't he want to lie quietly in bed looking at books? Why is he not me?

He is Jonah. And he has too much energy to be cozy in bed, even when he is sick.

It's Four in the Morning, the End of September...

That's just a Leonard Cohen song.

Second night awake with Rye, who has been literally climbing the walls of his crib. He hoists himself up and then cries when he gets stuck (and yes I've "shown" him how to get himself down). Some force in the universe is compelling him; the same bright force that he just channeled to learn to crawl. (He is now crawling so beautifully!) And this energy is waking him up (this is the second night starting at 3AM and ending God knows where) and saying, "Rye! Remember what we can do? Let's do it!"

My sleepy guy is being awakened by his own energy to be alive, to be moving. I can see how it is amazing, but, Energy, please, a little rest for us. A baby and a mama need sleep.

My Parents' Lives

Telemachus' Detachment

When I was a child looking
at my parents' lives, you know
what I thought? I thought
heartbreaking. Now I think
heatbreaking, but also
insane. Also
very funny.

—Louise Gluck

[Telemachus is the child of Odysseus and Penelope, in the Odyssey]

Mythweb Odyssey (the illustrations are stupid, but the content is well done)

Dr. Johnson—

"Only fools talk about the weather; most of them also like dogs."

The Photo Jonah Took

This earth—

"This earth is crammed with heaven." —Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Megan, Jonah's Music Teacher

I Really Don't Know Clouds, At All

Do You Know About...

Poetry Daily? Well, you will love it! It's a new poem every day at: Poetry Daily

Here's a recent one I liked (I hope the formatting comes through):

Black Stone on a White Stone

    I will die in Paris in a downpour,
a day which I can already remember.
I will die in Paris—and I don't budge—
maybe a Thursday, like today, in autumn.

    Thursday it will be, because today, Thursday,
as I prose these lines, I have forced on
my humeri and, never like today, have I turned,
with all my journey, to see myself alone.

    César Vallejo has died, they beat him,
all of them, without him doing anything to them;
they gave it to him hard with a stick and hard

    likewise with a rope; witnesses are
the Thursdays and the humerus bones,
the loneliness, the rain, the roads. . .

—Cesar Vallejo

translated from the Spanish by Clayton Eshleman

A few minutes with Jonah David

"Mipping and mopping and glipping and glopping and shlipping and shlopping and chipping and chopping and flipping and flopping and sbipping and sbopping and dipping and dopping and wipping and wopping and kipping and kopping

This fish is swimming out with its propeller and hat. It's going to the tidepools. Look at this swimming fish going swish-swosh. It's trying to get through this big old bridge that you're making with your legs. Swishing and shwopping and shwishing and swimming. Now I've got a light.

[It's time to go to music class! Let's go!]

I'm going to drive myself in my own car!

[But you can't drive a car! You're only four!]

No! I'm SEVEN...Mama, can I get a car when I'm seven?"

I love...

this:

Clarification and Disclosure

Robot Aba and Boy

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat

 

Trick or Treat

The Cave Painters, by Gregory Curtis (Anchor Books)

I just read this really fascinating book about Paleolithic art—an incredible introduction to the cave paintings of France and Spain. I loved the explanations of the paintings and engravings—the author made the reader understand why the art is sophisticated instead of primitive. It's astonishing to think it's 40,000 - 20,000 years old. My mind can barely get around the idea that there were people then. People co-existed with mastadons!

There is something I want to say about humans making this tender, beautiful art, it makes me feel appreciation for us. I know we are making our planet uninhabitable for mammals, and there are madmen in charge of our society, but people have this capacity to make beauty, to make meaning. It makes me a little hopeful when I think we've always had it, because maybe we always will, and maybe we can be creative enough to fix things.

I also bought a used book to see the paintings more closely--The Cave of Lascaux, by Mario Ruspoli. It's got some beautiful photographs...

Here is a website with some images:

The Cave of Lascaux

And here is a passage I love from Curtis: "It is impossible to see the art by merely looking at the wall. The intense concentration copying requires reveals signs and images that were invisible before. Michel Lorblanchet, a distinguished prehistorian with considerable artistic talent, made copies in a cave named Pergouset. He had visited the cave more than twenty times, often with colleagues, and thought he knew it well. But when he began making copies, he discovered numerous animals and signs that hadn't been seen before. Lorblanchet worked in the cave for three years making copies. His copies show twelve horses, three reindeer, three mountain goats, one stag, a bison, an auroch, four undetermined animals, sixteen signs, a woman, and twelve undetermined traces. Years earlier, when Leroi-Gourhan visited the cave, he saw only an isolated mountain goat, a horse, and a bison. What Lorblanchet was able to see compared to what Leroi-Gourhan saw is the difference between copying and merely looking." (page 203)