Imagination

   Yesterday I was conversing with a catbird. She was being a bit shy, until her mother swept out of the bushes and cuffed her smartly, muttering something about talking to strangers. How did Mumsy know I was strange?
   Stranger things have happened. While I was basking in the warm sunlight, book in hand (THE BOOK OF MISCHIEF, by Stern, a collection of short stories--zany!) a complete stranger came up to me. Asking what I was reading, he riposted with not one but two books he'd recently devoured. How strangely delightful, to talk about books with someone whose name I don't even know! We wished one another good day, and as he toddled off with his curiously silent companion, I wondered if she was not a reader, or was she simply aware that there was no dishonor in surrendering to silence in the presence of two lads with the gift of the blarney?

   I love this graphic...almost as much as I love the punchy intent of the caption. Turn off that clamoring small screen and step onto this bookstrewn path--let your own imagination paint pictures for you rather than being force-fed pablum by the writers/producers/directors and advertisers.

   I typo-ed the above ppg to read, "I live this graphic..." Hmmm, I hope so!

   What are you reading now? I just started ESSAYS OF E. B. WHITE, 1977. These are delightful glimpses of a gone-by world whose echoes yet linger...but are fading with my generation. The writing seems effortless and fluid, which of course means that he polished his phrases in loving labor. The topics are whimsical and homey. Get your hands on this book if you like reminiscences that are both personal yet universal, drawing on life from NYC to small-town Maine.

   I'm also reading the afore-mentioned BOOK OF MISCHIEF, where dreams come true and whimsy turns to tragedy. Plus, I'm plugging through THE FIELD GUIDE TO BIRDS AND WILDFLOWERS OF CASCO BAY AND PEAKS ISLAND...which describes the view out my front window! I'm also plugging away at the Great Books, which is a topic to be revisited anon.

   Elizabeth thinks I'm nutso to read two or three books at once, but I like to have something whimsical or fluffy to counter-balance a "chew-thoroughly-before-swallowing" book like the ESSAYS. (I think she's nutso to read the last page of a book before its turn, so, we're even!)

I Imagine, therefore, something is!

PHANTASY

"Remarkably, in the ancient traditions, the imagination or "phantasy" was considered a sense. In that psychology, in the detailed summary of Robert Burton's 1620 Anatomy of Melancholy, in addition to the outward senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch,
we have three inward senses: the Common Sense, Memory, and Phantasy. Burton stated:

Phantasy, or imagination...is an inward sense which doth more fully examine the species perceived by common sense, of things present or absent, and keeps them longer, recalling them to mind again, or making new of his own.

This old idea of imagination as a sense that produces "monstrous and prodigious things by recombining and re-forming the more orderly perceptions of memory and the other senses. As in dreams, the ingredients are familiar but the new reality is not."

--from: Robert Pinsky's SINGING SCHOOL: Learning to Write (and Read) Poetry by Studying with the Masters. 2013. pg 148.

. . . . . . .

I like "monstruous and prodigious things" --guess that's why I write fiction and poetry and am a Stephen King fan...and a Dean Koontz fan...and CSLewis and Tolkien and Asimov and...you get the drift.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I traveled far and wide today

   I did not take a cab

I took neither bus nor car

   nor trip on substance from a lab.

I rode in comfort, but not by train,

   nor boat nor aeroplane.

Departure...arrival--by seconds parted:

   Yes, I got there, as soon as I started.

No luggage, no seatbelt,

   and no need for "security,"

I arrived by conveyance

   of eld, not futurity.

Yes, book in my lap

   and others beside

I tip my cap

   to my magical ride.

--DLS 11/9/13



The Story Behind the Story, part 1: INSPIRATION--DON'T SQUELCH IT.

     Once upon a time, there were grandchildren, young and innocent. Their exposure to books--sweeping; to television--sparse.

     They were invited to be part of the Christmas pageant at church.

     "What animals would you like to be?" they were asked.

     Being well-read youngsters, they instantly replied, "Sloths!"

     Now, I don't know what the pageant director's response was--but I think the reply would reflect a great deal about the character of the adult, don't you?

     How badly we all need what I like to call the "edit function," where there's a little pause for rumination before blurting out, "Sloths weren't there. I need sheep and goats, or you could be a donkey," ...squelching the child's delightfully-imagined attendees at Christ's Nativity!

     How much better to say, "[Pause...hmm, why not?] Great idea! I bet this will be the best Christmas pageant ever, since no one has ever had the sloth family come visit the baby Jesus!"

     Now, I'll bet we've all been on the receiving end of the "skwellllchhh"...and, sadly, we've probably all been on the giving end, too. Alas. Let's vow to not stomp someone else's notions just cuz theirs don't conform to our own, preconceived answers! Oh, and, by the way--Thou Shalt Not Squelch Thyself! I think we're our own worst enemy when comes to stomping out our own eccentricities, non-conformities, and other CREATIVE answers!

     Back to the story behind the story--it was this little incident that gave birth to the first story I wrote for THE ANIMALS OF CHRISTMAS. The Sloths of Christmas were out in the boonies where the angels were announcing the birth of the baby Jesus. After hearing that wonderful new, the sloths just had to go to Bethlehem, but, being sloths, well...they met up with some difficulties along the way.

     What inspired the other stories? The sloths, of course! Frankly, the other animals just wandered on-stage and ker-plunked into place: camels, mourning doves, dogs, goats, and mice. Where would they have been w/o the germ of that idea, that little anecdote? Unborn. Squelched--an idea that never saw the light, the tragedy of an untold good story! Glad that I noticed that quiet little nudge of the Spirit.

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     Thou Shalt Not Squelch Thyself. Or anyone else.

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(Earlier blog posts may be accessed by clicking on the right-hand column...you may need to scroll down a bit. )

DREAMING.

It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one.

Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)

 

 

 

It is easy to dream, both day and night. In fact, to this writer, I'd file dreaming under "play" rather than under the heading of "work."

 

Work comes when we try to make a dream a reality. So, that cutesy saying, "Dare to dream" or "Dare to dream big!" is just that--cute, but without putting some oomph into it, it only a dream.

Now, some dreams are pure pie-in-the-sky; others, more realistic. Some dreams may be attributed to a whisper from the divine, and others attributed to too many anchovies on your midnight pizza!

 

Seriously, I think dreams should be examined in light of one's personality, gifts/skills/desires/training. Some dreams are just the brain piling and filing...some dreams are just plain entertaining...and I think some are the serious outcry of the heart and mind and soul, and had best be heeded.

 

Had any of that third kind lately? I had one of a fictional character--I'd never met her, but she was crystal clear in speech and in looks and behavior. She strode into the dream like a queen before her underlings. Her speech was posh British. Her sense of humor--well, what can I say...she punned...in Latin.

 

Now, maybe this was just a simply entertaining dream...goodness, where it came from is beyond me (hah!) as I hadn't read or seen anything that at all resembled this character. Read any Brit-lit lately? No. Any strong females in any of the books I'd read recently? Not really. No midnight pizza, not of any flavor!

 

So, what to do, what to do? I wrote her down--I figger she'll be useful as a character is some story, someday.

 

But, to make the dream come true, I would be better off to ask meself:

--what story?

--when you starting it?

--why haven't you started it while the dream is still vivid?

--all right, shut up, I'm going to start right now.

P.S. I did start, and she is hilarious in her role. Now, to decide how big to grow her!



Inspiration, Recognition, and the Proper Use of the Club.

“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
Jack London

Dear Jack,

You took me to new places, places that I saw through different eyes. I felt brave, daring, adventurous. In short, you inspired me.

Odd, that--I wasn't out hunting with a club...your stories rather clubbed me, in fact. Same for the inspiration to write my own book of animal stories. (Next to yours, mine are tame, but to compare our writings isn't why I'm writing to you today.) No, the inspiration came to me, as most ideas do, a little eddy current that swirled amid the mild hurly-burly of ordinary, non-linear-thinking life.

So, I am writing because I mostly disagree with you--I think inspiration often ambles on by, unremarked and unremembered. However, those who are aware, who are thinking, who are using their senses for more than just animal-level pleasures or survival, for them the inspiration is seen/heard/felt/grabbed/tamed/used....or, in your terminology--the inspiration was out there, and I grabbed it, clubbed it into submission, and brung that sucker home.

Hmmm, I guess, after all that, we are in complete agreement.

Happy clubbing,

David