EthicalDative

Dear Mother… I’m continuing

Posted on July 21, 2018 by JMN

Mother Pensive With Huge Glasses, JMN, photo. (C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

“I’m continuing to read Jacques Barzun’s “Teacher in America,” written in the forties. He has a lot to say about what education really consists of (a lifelong endeavor), and I imagine a lot of his ideas would be sympathetic to the Grammarian. The current chapter is about the “classics.” He recommends that Shakespeare not be read until college, and says that more of the plays (not two, but six or eight) should be read at a faster pace, focusing on ideas and not dwelling on niceties of versification and the historical trivia that make the plays seem so foreign and “difficult” to the young modern reader. He doesn’t deny that such works, the “best sellers” of their time, are difficult when read centuries later, but justifies the effort. I haven’t finished the chapter, so can’t really summarize the whole argument.”

[JMN, Correspondence, 1987]

Posted in Anthology | Tagged correspondence, personal | Leave a comment

“Madame Declines”

Posted on July 21, 2018 by JMN

Leonardo caricature2

Madame Declines

She revels in how much she couldn’t eat,
And favors guests with bite-by-bite accounts
Of steaks foregone and casseroles’ defeat,
Sweets unsavored, succulence renounced,
Salads, fruits, and relishes galore
Spurned with a disdainful “Nevermore!”

She weighs in mightily on hearty eaters:
“My God, look how much food that man choked down!”
A simple piece of pie gives her the jitters.
She glares at it and sternly says, “Be gone!”
Fair Madame goes religiously to church,
But leaves religious suppers in the lurch.

If you are smart you’ll keep her portion spare.
“I’ll have a tiny bit of that,” she’ll quibble.
“No, no, you’ve given me too much by far!”
She’ll suck her fork and venture not a nibble.
She’d rather push a pea around her plate
Than deign to do right by a piece of meat.

Suppose she scored supper in Paradise,
A smorgasbord from the divine menu?
Looking around, she’d purse her lips and grouse,
“There’s too much pigging out in this venue.”
No doubt she’d up and leave with haughty grace,
And take her business to the Other Place.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged doggerel, writing | 7 Comments

Belle’s Interview by the “Horn & Haggler”

Posted on July 19, 2018 by JMN

If you’re gonna put this in the newspaper, hon, I want you to get it right. My name is Garnet Belle — Belle with an ‘e.’ I was a Brumbacher before I married Montgomery Clyde Hatch. My granddaddy Willibald Urqhardt Brumbacher was mayor of the town when they built the railroad.

Monty and I had thirty-two years of bliss before his accident. Our children are Longhorn Clyde Hatch, Juneau Clyde Hatch, and Trojan Clyde Hatch. Yes, people ask about the names. “Clyde” was a family name, you see. Declan Clyde, Monty’s granddad, came from Humpty Doo, Australia with his brother Maynard. It’s on the road to Darwin from the Cackadoodle Park. Declan and Maynard bought land between here and Calvin for sorghum and hogs.

Longhorn, Juneau, and Trojan are donating seven acres to Stag City to honor their Daddy on the tenth anniversary of his passing. They want a piece of the Hatch Estate to be made into a recreational facility for our youth. It’ll be named the Montgomery Clyde Hatch Antique Playtime Palisade. The thinking is, our children need exposure to the pastimes of the past.

Sure, they’ve got their football and baseball and softball and basketball and volleyball and weightlifting and track-and-field and cross-country and wrestling and tennis and golf and what have you. But what are they supposed to do in their spare time? An idle body is Cupid’s playground. We want the MCHAPP to show our youth how their ancestors distracted themselves with innocent pastimes like mud pies and whittlin’ and rock-skippin’ and mumblety-peg and fart-lightin’….

Repeat what, darlin’?

Posted in Anthology | Tagged writing | Leave a comment

Dear Mother… By the way

Posted on July 19, 2018 by JMN

By the way, I meant to mention that Charles and I have had it round about “regional” writers. The introduction to the book he gave me starts by making a big point that the three writers featured are “Texas writers.” I told him that this approach reminds me of courses devoted to 19th-century “regional” Spanish writers whose writings reeked of nostalgic, loving evocations of local “customs” and “traditions” full of picturesqueness and sentimental narratives incorporating local turns of speech, utensils and paraphernalia of local trades, place names of areas within a 12-mile radius of the author’s birthplace, and so forth. This genre of writing was called “costumbrismo,” which translates as something like “customism.” I know that every writer has to write about what he knows, and that someone like William Faulkner could qualify as a “regional” writer; but I’m not aware that he ever pursued the label of “Mississippi writer” or that Flannery O’Connor wanted to be remembered as a “Georgia writer.” It may be that the urge to write something of interest to a broad number of readers gets confused with the impulse to “celebrate” a locale and to “record” how people act and talk in a particular environment.
[JMN, Correspondence, 1987]

Posted in Anthology | Tagged correspondence, writing | Leave a comment

Shed Down by the River

Posted on July 18, 2018 by JMN

Fireplace, JMN, photo. (c) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

From the street it’s nondescript: long and low, homely brickwork giving way to corrugated metal, no windows. Flat, pedestrian, a second-rate, seedy, industrial-looking structure on a humble side of town.

Patio and doorways are on the opposite side facing inward to a landscaped city block. Walled and fenced. Graveled islands pocked with blooming sage and firebush. You pass through a high brick arch that Arturo Rodriguez built. He and wife Andrea were the first residents of the original cabin that‘s a rectangular ramble now. Andy would dandle my infant son on her jolly lap: “Let me see that fat baby!”

Inside, it’s a crepuscular cocoon, a Bohemian man-cave — rustic opulence, high ceilings, tile floors, monumental fireplace, a skylight over the easel.

A river runs nearby. I call it the Mighty Wadi Loopy.

I was the only foreigner in my class at the University of Barcelona. Three things there impressed me:

(1) Well-off Spaniards lived modestly compared to their U.S. counterparts. Their apartments nestled in old buildings that gave no external hint of luxury. Men wore the same blazer all week long. The Catalan haute bourgeoisie eschewed conspicuous consumption.

I’ll mention (2) and (3) another time.

My shed has a shoddy, disreputable face. You wouldn’t know it harbors a recluse of proud, lower-middle-class rank.

Posted in Commentary | Tagged personal | Leave a comment

Requiem for a Walking Stick

Posted on July 18, 2018 by JMN

Walking Stick, JMN, photo. (C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

You sweet bastard. Just two days ago I transferred you from the risky environs of the patio to the security of the Jatropha bush. Now I find you again on the patio inert, apparently expiring. What has hurt you? Or is it old age? You’re fairly large, that’s true. Have you reached the end of your cycle, and if so, did you leave lots of progeny behind? I hope so. You’re one of the most fragile-looking and beautiful critters I’ve stumbled upon. I may have seen three of your kind in my whole life thus far. I’ll monitor you on my work table here in the cool indoors. Make a globule of water available. Maybe you’ll revive. I doubt it. I’ll mourn your passing. If I have anything else to say to people like you, it’s this: If you’re going to come to my attention, be prepared to stick around a little longer. These partings are painful.

Posted in Commentary | Tagged miscellaneous | 1 Comment

Seduction by Menu

Posted on July 18, 2018 by JMN

King, an unassuming Soho restaurant owned by (from Left) Jess Shadbolt, Clare de Boer and Annie Shi, has won wide acclaim for its small menu, which changes every day — twice. Credit Sasha Arutyunova for the New York Times

“The menu should read like a poem,” Ms. de Boer said. “You should seduce the diner. People don’t know they want to eat deep-fried mackerel with aioli, so you’ve got to tell a story and get them on your wavelength.”

(Tejal Rao, “It Takes a Lot of Skill to Make a Restaurant Seem So Casual,” NYTimes)

Posted in Quotations | Tagged miscellaneous | Leave a comment

Make Someone Smile

Posted on July 18, 2018 by JMN

Artifacts left by American soldiers during World War I in underground stone quarries near the Chemin des Dames. Credit William Daniels for The New York Times

“Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing,” the street artist Banksy wrote in 2001. “And even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty, you can make someone smile while they’re having a piss.”

(Jonathan Bratten, “The History Behind the Graffiti of War,” NYTimes)

Posted in Quotations | Tagged painting | Leave a comment

Dear Mother… Charles

Posted on July 17, 2018 by JMN

Charles gave me a copy of his “translation” of Arthur Rimbaud’s “Le bateau ivre” (The Drunken Boat). I put “translation” in quotes because Charles readily admits that his version derives from other English versions of the poem, since he doesn’t know French. This is a common procedure with a lot of poets and has produced some really good English renderings of foreign poems. An example is Robert Lowell’s “Imitations.” He wants me to read his translation against the original French to see what we come to. Charles and I agree that you don’t have to know the original language in order to produce strong and viable versions in English. It’s an accepted maxim among good translators that the most important prerequisite is to be able to write well in the native language, not the “target” (or foreign) language. In other words, a good translator is foremost a good writer in his own language. This is what makes so many translations produced by “scholars” of the foreign language so worthy of neglect. They may be “accurate,” but they are also unreadable.

[JMN, Correspondence, 1987]

Posted in Anthology, Quotations | Tagged correspondence, language, personal, writing | Leave a comment

“Displeasing little man”

Posted on July 17, 2018 by JMN

Sincere Wishes, antique post card.

Soon Proust was disenchanted by his goddesses. As Weber notes, his “idealizing vision of his ladies changed over time into something darker.” To the Comtesse de Chevigné [Laure de Sade, great-granddaughter of the Marquis], he wrote, “What one used to love turns out to be very, very stupid.” She, he told a friend, was just “a tough old bird I mistook, long ago, for a bird of paradise.” No longer infatuated, he mocked even the divine Élisabeth [Comtesse Greffulhe] as superficial, pretentious and shallow. And in old age, she proved his point by remembering him as “a displeasing little man who was forever skulking about in doorways.”

(Elaine Showalter, “French High Society During the Belle Époque,” review of “Proust’s Duchess” by Caroline Weber, NYTimes)

Posted in Quotations | Tagged writing | Leave a comment

EthicalDative

Dear Mother… I’m continuing

“Madame Declines”

Belle’s Interview by the “Horn & Haggler”

Dear Mother… By the way

Shed Down by the River

Requiem for a Walking Stick

Seduction by Menu

Make Someone Smile

Dear Mother… Charles

“Displeasing little man”

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