Staring out the window and dreaming of dreaming.

People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball.
I'll tell you...
I stare out the window and wait for spring.

--Rogers Hornsby.

Staring out the window: malady or magic?

I think staring out the window is part of the magic of humankind. Staring out the window, or at the fireplace, or at the surf or the back lawn...it's all the same: fertile terrain for the imagination. (That's why staring at the television doesn't do it: there's no room for the imagination, we are the passive recipients of sound and images conjured up by others' imaginings!)

I think there should be 15 minutes a day  devoted to staring out the window...for every schoolroom, office, factory, hospital or home. Our brains need time to muse, digest, reflect, and to create--time to take facts apart and reassemble them in day-dreamy disorder, then reorder. Then, it's time bring in something else from another realm: stir, taste, repeat!

Look what happens when we dream--some is rehash, but some is strange, new, alien--I dream of faces and places I know I've never seen, of events that never occurred, of magical transformations, and of possibilities that would be inconceivable (yes, that word does mean what I think it means!) in the waking state. I'm reminded of the famous solution to the structure of the six-carbon molecule called benzene: there was no explanation for how six carbon atoms could occur together with only six hydrogen atoms. The chemist Kekule was baffled. No way. Didn't add up. Period. Until...a dream, of a snake with its tail in its mouth, a dream that worked its way into his waking thoughts--sha-zaam! The benzene molecule is a ring! (Okay, it's a geeky illustration. Tough! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Kekul%C3%A9 )

Once I dreamed of an Englishwoman who spoke fluent Latin; no, effort-less Latin. She was a regal lass with dark hair, tall and slender and beautiful and utterly unaware of the power of her presence. This lady WILL appear in a story, but, thus far, she's only appeared in a dream. But, she is going to come to life and speak in the story that I shall pen. It'll be new, alien, and--buh-bye, gotta go write her into existence.

From dream to reality--10% inspiration. 90% perspiration.

On reading Homer's ILIAD.

On reading Homer's ILIAD

I take some small pride in having read

   a tale that speaks of doom and dread,

a tale of warfare, love, and death

   tale of gasping, dying breath.

I traveled back in time, you see

   to Grecian warfare, breathlessly

describing gore with all due diligence

   and though some fought with innocence

the Gods descending, meddling

   their selfish agendas peddling;

heroes dying, some surviving

   mankind's lot: ever striving

Fighting fate, fighting doom

   all within my living room

I shut the book, pent breath release

   I'm back home, and all's at peace.

----(dls...if you hadnae guessed.)

Okay, that's my take on the Iliad. I found it repetitive and dull, breathless and flowery, overblown and underplotted. I found it tedious to read and exciting to look back at--I just read a story that's some 2,700 years old!

I feel enriched and wiser, more in touch with some of the deeper roots of western culture. Hmm, I guess the doc was right--I swallowed the tart-tasting medicine and it really was good for me.

Here's Robert Browing's take on THE ILIAD:

robert browning "development"

http://www.telelib.com/authors/B/BrowningRobert/verse/asolando/development.html


After reading Browning's poem, I'm all the more pleased to have read this epic tale, since the Iliad plays a part of our history and culture, on which modern literary roots feed. To whit: the movie TROY, 2006, was a retake on the Iliad.

Thinking as a writer--hmm...I looked at the book first of all from a modern viewpoint: hence, my harsh critique above. However, if I step outside our modern context and try to view it in its own context, as much as is possible from a distance of 2,700 yrs...well, it's epic! In the original Greek, it had meter but did not rhyme, yet, the mark of an educated man was the ability to recite the Iliad (and its sequel, the 400 page Odyssey) from memory!

Boring analysis, perhaps, but that's what I'm learning. And, doggone...it's fun!

=-=-=-=

"It was Homer who formed the character of the Greek nation. No poet has ever, as a poet, exercised a similar influence over his countrymen. Prophets, lawgivers, and sages have formed the character of other nations; it was reserved to a poet to form that of the Greeks."

"Of course you're a writer."

I recently overheard a published novelist badgering his friend, "You have to write: it's the only way to express yourself and work through your emotions!"

I later found out that the recipient of the hassling was an excellent water-color artist and a decent saxophone player...as if he couldn't express himself through art AND music? Surely, the writer was a bit stuck in his own world...making me wonder how often we look at others but only see what our own field of view permits us to see?

Now, that's a nice twist to use in a story: the flawed character, the narcissist who cannot really see anyone else with clarity--he superimposes his own image and experience. Sadly true: we fail to see others for lack of looking beyond the end of our own nose!

How do you get inside someone else's life? Their experiences, their feelings?

Part of the answer, of course, (duh,) is to be a good listener: don't solve their problems, don't criticize their actions, don't reprove their emotions--just listen.

Here's another part of the answer, one I'll bet you didn't expect--be a good reader.

Didja expect that? Ha! It's not really my own idea (really, how many truly original ideas are invented every year? Not many!)...but I sorta synthesized it from thinking about Stephen King's dictum that to be a good writer one needs to both read a lot and to write a lot!

My point is...the well-read person has a great breadth of (second-hand) experience. The reader is more likely to have met a similar person or problem in print, and can truly better understand their friend's plight.

That's what I think...what are your thoughts?

Poetry, it's good for me! Or, is it?

Poetry is the hallmark of exalted life--it is our intended/natural speech. It is because we are broken that we must speak prose.

 

-G.K. Chesterton

 

=- =- =- =- =- =

Well, do you agree with old GK?

Why?...or, why not?

As for me...I'll let ya know tomorrow.



comments below.

(altho the Smothers Brothers sang, "Let's fuggetabout tomorrow, for...tomorrow never comes...here we are!)


Clearly, GK Chesterton had either a high view of poetry or a low view of humankind's current status...or both!

When I read good poetry, that is, something that's polished to a high sheen, not merely an ensemble of words that rhyme...it does beat prose all to pieces. Here's a fav:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

  by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

Something that's got more than one layer of meaning, something where not only the words but the thoughts rhyme, now THAT is poetry.

I think of the scene in Lewis' THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH where the various eidola are descending into Ransom's house, and the humans are swept up into ecstatic utterance beyond their own capacity to utter or (previously) to even understand--now, that was poetry. "They all agreed that it was the most, the best..." if only they could have written down those words.

So, I agree with Chesterton...if our words flowed like those of the great poets, we'd need to be renewed, rejuvenated, somehow rebooted ... hmmm, sounds nigh-theological.

Happy New Year.

So what?

What's new about it? Have you tried anything, done anything, mastered/read/studied/disciplined yrself for anything yet?

If not, why not? Get off yer duff and go and DO!

What? Whattabout me? yer asks?

Unfair--I'm playing the role of Mr. Interlocutor! Really.

Oh, phooey. Well, since you insist:

This is the yr when I study in much greater depth the fascinating world of investing. This is the yr that I sit back and re-evaluate myself as a writer. This is the yr that I--wha? What am I doing now, today, this week?

Okay, I'm making lists go away: I'm doing or consolidating, acting and/or discarding...fewer potentials and more actuals. Today I threw out several pages that needed transcribing, several scrids of paper after actually performing the prescribed action, and prioritized what remains. I'm tracking things in my email by using draft copies--I can update and save the draft and it's right there at hand, easily edited and saved...nice.

Oh, and my resolution to do a poem a day? Doing it.

My annual read thru the Bible? Yep...on track with this plan, which is a new one to me:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-reading-plan/thematic.html

My next goal is to start reading more serious works and less fluff...just copied down a great-books list and hope to get going on that soon. Inspired after reading A MIND FOR GOD by James Emery White...a brief but compelling book about the need to train the brain.

Howzabout you? Where are you at in this "new" year? Anything truly newly happening? Lemme know, below, ya know?