Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann is not going to be for everybody -- and one can't help but think it doesn't hurt to be a member of a global literary royalty (her father Richard is author of the revered biographies of both James Joyce and Oscar Wilde), but whoa! I can't wait to read it.
Jon Day's review in the London Review of Books, Dec. 5, sold me with this line:
"Ellmann endows her narrator with a language entirely appropriate to her personality: polite and self-consciously self-doubting."
More than most anything else that's what I want from a book these days ... to remove myself for however long it takes into the mind of a narrator who is seen as "polite and self-consciously self-doubting."
Next: Running for Your Life: Christmas Pineapple
Running for Your Life: Bear Truth
When it comes to a wonderful piece of bear nonfiction by
David Trotter (London Review of Books, Nov. 7), which refers to North American grizzlies, aka “Moby-Dick with Claws,” it's understandable the blood gets stirred to write a letter in response.
And so, a letter appears in the Dec. 5 LRB, courtesy of Jane Campbell of Oxford.
And so, a letter appears in the Dec. 5 LRB, courtesy of Jane Campbell of Oxford.
Ms. Campbell adds to the conversation started by Trotter's essay. She writes of a passage in “The Biography of a
Grizzly,” by Ernest Thompson Seton, that recounts the aftermath felt by a bear cub survivor,
injured in his hind leg, from a hunter’s bullet after the man had shot and
killed his mother and three siblings:
“As cold night came down, he (Wahb by name) missed (his
mother) more and more again, and he whimpered as he limped along, a miserable,
lonely, little motherless bear … not lost in the mountains, for he had no home
to seek, but so sick and lonely, and with such pain in his foot, and in his
stomach a craving for a drink that would never more be his. That night he found
a hollow log, and crawling in, he tried to dream that his mother’s great furry
arms were around him, and he snuffled himself to sleep.”
Ms. Campbell’s letter continues:
… Wahb survives to be the biggest, fiercest grizzly in the
region but never has a mate or exacts revenge on hunters. He dies of old age.
Next: Running for
Your Life: How’s About “Ducks, Newburyport”?
Running for Your Life: Ginkgo Dreams
Jill Jonnes’ “Urban Forests” throws some uncommon love on
the ginkgo biloba.
We’ve been blessed with more than a few ginkgos in our
Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope.
It has a wonderful history, with a punk yellow color of Sex
Pistols splendor.
Here’s the “nut” graf:
“An abundance of fossils record that the ginkgo tree was
among the fauna and flora of North America that were glaciated out and
effectively driven into extinction on the continent by the Ice Age. (Talk about
a native tree!) … Scientists now know that the ginkgo biloba tree or its
ancestors have existed on earth for 250 million years, longer than any other
tree now living.”
They aren’t everywhere, the ginkgos … But next time you see
one, bow down. Not only have they outlived everything else on earth, individual
trees have been know to live for centuries … (Two famous 18th
century ginkgos – one in Utrech, the other in Kew Gardens, are still alive
today.)
Next: Running for
Your Life: How’s About “Ducks, Newburyport”?
Running for Your Life: Dawn Times
Two years ago I had an idea.
I had spent months that year -- the centennial of the passing of the Canadian artist Tom Thomson -- researching and writing a book of letters. Thomson grew up in my hometown, Owen Sound, Ontario, and his life and times -- especially his final days because his demise remains shrouded in mystery to this day -- have always fascinated me.
On American Thanksgiving, 2017, I finished a woodland painting of my own -- in part inspired by my Owen Sounder forebear. A image of the painting can be found attached to my Twitter page.
The 2017 Dawn Times panel lies in the back of this image; in the foreground, is Dawn Times II.
A third panel is due, yes, in 2021... Perhaps just in time for the Tom Thomson book? Let's just see!
Next: Running for Your Life: Ginkgo Dreams
I had spent months that year -- the centennial of the passing of the Canadian artist Tom Thomson -- researching and writing a book of letters. Thomson grew up in my hometown, Owen Sound, Ontario, and his life and times -- especially his final days because his demise remains shrouded in mystery to this day -- have always fascinated me.
On American Thanksgiving, 2017, I finished a woodland painting of my own -- in part inspired by my Owen Sounder forebear. A image of the painting can be found attached to my Twitter page.
The 2017 Dawn Times panel lies in the back of this image; in the foreground, is Dawn Times II.
A third panel is due, yes, in 2021... Perhaps just in time for the Tom Thomson book? Let's just see!
Next: Running for Your Life: Ginkgo Dreams
Running for Your Life: On Loving the Cold
OK, not exactly loving it.
Or is it?
What did Kierkegaard say about love?
“When one has once fully entered
the realm of love, the world — no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and
beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.”
That’s what he said.
So, it is about love, isn’t it?
No matter how cold it is, I’ve stepped out the door for a
run every other of my adult life.
The truth is, severe cold gets to me in ways it never did,
say, 30 or 40 years ago. But I head out the door (the realm of love?) and start
to run, regardless of the temperature, the rain, snow.
Running for your love … Corny but, effective.
Next: Running for
Your Life: Dawn Times
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