These days I’m deep into THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM by Nelson Algren.
An eon ago characters like junkie-dealer Frankie Machine and his wife Sophie stirred the popular imagination, winning the National Book Award for Algren in 1950. Five years later an Otto Preminger movie starred Frank Sinatra (natch) in the title role; Frankie was nominated but failed to win the best actor Oscar. (It went to Ernest Borgnine for his role in “Marty.”)
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM is a standout of literary realism, a classic that mines the mean streets of Chicago through a Proust processor of observed delights and dangers. What Proust does in the Belle Epoque, Algren does for Division Street, Chicago, in the 1940s. How does the lace curtain move during the night in an apartment kept just this side of chaos by a superintendent named Jailer? Read it in Algren.
Take the Great Sandwich Battle in which unlike so much of modern fiction the mockery is bone-deep, not on the surface, so the effect registers on all the warriors: Vi, Stash and Sparrow sing like an opera rather than prance like a musical, in the latter’s case soon to be as forgotten as the outcome of table games or the content of get-through-the-night conversations, disposable as Poland Spring.
Next: Running for Your Life: Spring Goals
Running for Your Life: I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place
So much of good writing comes from careful listening. I was
struck this week (March 18) by the fragment of a line in my daily reading of
the London Review of Books … “As [the author] remarks in one of the few aesthetically
pleasing sentences in the book . . .” Good writing is like good music; it
demands an ear. I like to take time when I write sentences, especially when
telling a story. A story well told is a gift that nourishes the soul.
Howard Norman, an author I admire, wrote an essay from the
above line, “I hate to leave this beautiful place.” I read it a week ago and it
has stayed with me. Outside of love and the rare friendship I find few things
in life have the staying power of a story well told.
“I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place” is a personal essay
that mines what matters to me these days. A search for wisdom and understanding
through events long gone but not forgotten, a different sort of the faraway
nearby. And like the memoir by Rebecca Solnit of that name (see previous post),
I picked up an advance copy of Howard Norman’s memoir (of the same title, “I Hate
to Leave This Beautiful Place,”) this month at The Post. It, too, has arrived
at a propitious time.
“IHTLTBP” is for old souls. Topics range from superstitious
bush pilots, Eskimo rock’n’ rollers, John Lennon’s killing, a god-like radio
announcer, a hint of murder, cannibalism and snow globes. In short, a wise folk
tale for the modern age crafted by a writer with the ear of a poet.
As winter wanes here in New York, “IHTLTBP” has warmed my heart.
Next: Running for Your Life: Spring Goals
Running for Your Life: The Faraway Nearby
In part because I don’t run while listening to music, my mind on the road wanders with the sights and sounds, which often, especially on a long run, lead to reverie, to what Mary Ruefle, in her poem, “Voyager,” cheers-laments, “still strewn with miracles,” a line I read this month (March 13) on my way into work at The Post, which is how it is with me these days, Passover and Easter approaching, deep in thought about the past and family, my parents, in their eighties now, my sister and my brother all in Canada, and my daughter, K, who we learned only a few days ago, much to our excitement, that she would be home for part of the holidays.
So it was beshert, Yiddish for something meant to be, that I picked up an advance reading book of essays at The Post this month, titled, “The Faraway Nearby” by Rebecca Solnit http://amzn.to/YCyTa1. I recognized the name as the writer of a cogent, insightful DIARY essay published recently about how the San Francisco street and local economy vibe has morphed into the Google Republic http://bit.ly/WvvyN1.
As Solnit reports in “The Faraway Nearby,” when Georgia O’Keefe quit New York for New Mexico, her landscape muse, she left behind friends and loved ones, who would receive letters from her that carried those words – from the faraway nearby – as part of her salutation.
It strikes me that that is the most healthy and wise observation of a state of mind necessary to hold those who are absent during those times when you are missing family and friends. That your loved ones may not be at home but they are not simply faraway, either. Their presence, how we love them by honoring them, our memories are as alive as those among us whose family is not faraway nearby but simply nearby.
Next: Running for Your Life: I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place
So it was beshert, Yiddish for something meant to be, that I picked up an advance reading book of essays at The Post this month, titled, “The Faraway Nearby” by Rebecca Solnit http://amzn.to/YCyTa1. I recognized the name as the writer of a cogent, insightful DIARY essay published recently about how the San Francisco street and local economy vibe has morphed into the Google Republic http://bit.ly/WvvyN1.
As Solnit reports in “The Faraway Nearby,” when Georgia O’Keefe quit New York for New Mexico, her landscape muse, she left behind friends and loved ones, who would receive letters from her that carried those words – from the faraway nearby – as part of her salutation.
It strikes me that that is the most healthy and wise observation of a state of mind necessary to hold those who are absent during those times when you are missing family and friends. That your loved ones may not be at home but they are not simply faraway, either. Their presence, how we love them by honoring them, our memories are as alive as those among us whose family is not faraway nearby but simply nearby.
Next: Running for Your Life: I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place
Running for Your Life: Chicago or No Chicago?
It was pretty much two years ago to the day that I thought my running days were over. I’d blown out a hamstring to such an extent that a surgeon (who didn’t operate!) said the damage was so bad that I’d never race again. You can always cycle, or walk, he said. Lots of men your age walk for exercise.
Well, suffice to say, I didn’t take these words to heart, so to speak. Instead, a little over a year later I ran my first Boston Marathon, the second hottest on record (the weather, not my foot speed), in just over four hours and I’m now champing at the bit to register for my seventh marathon.
Alas, though, it won’t be in Chicago, as I first reported here.
Time was when you could just register to run the Chicago Marathon. Now, though, it’s a smartphone contest. On the assigned day I’d tried numerous times to register online, but each time the marathon site froze, suggesting a server problem. There was: smartphone samurai swooped in, locking up sixty percent of the open slots.
Beats me, how they did it, but register they did, while I sat before the frozen site for the umpteenth time, scratching my head. Eventually the organizers in their wisdom chose to fill the remaining 15,000 race slots by random lottery. This week (March 12) those who won the lottery and the right to pay a $150 entry fee and run the Chicago Marathon in October were informed. I was not among them.
I’ll be running, but it won’t be in the Winded City. Three years ago I ran a personal record of 3:33:08 in the Steamtown Marathon in Scranton, PA. In that race, I’d managed to run fast enough to qualify for Boston, a standard that was good for two years, which was how I was able to compete in Boston last year.
Do that again and I’d be eligible to run Boston again as late as 2015, my sixtieth year. Chicago’s gone for this year, but Boston beckons!
Next: Running for Your Life: The Faraway Nearby
Well, suffice to say, I didn’t take these words to heart, so to speak. Instead, a little over a year later I ran my first Boston Marathon, the second hottest on record (the weather, not my foot speed), in just over four hours and I’m now champing at the bit to register for my seventh marathon.
Alas, though, it won’t be in Chicago, as I first reported here.
Time was when you could just register to run the Chicago Marathon. Now, though, it’s a smartphone contest. On the assigned day I’d tried numerous times to register online, but each time the marathon site froze, suggesting a server problem. There was: smartphone samurai swooped in, locking up sixty percent of the open slots.
Beats me, how they did it, but register they did, while I sat before the frozen site for the umpteenth time, scratching my head. Eventually the organizers in their wisdom chose to fill the remaining 15,000 race slots by random lottery. This week (March 12) those who won the lottery and the right to pay a $150 entry fee and run the Chicago Marathon in October were informed. I was not among them.
I’ll be running, but it won’t be in the Winded City. Three years ago I ran a personal record of 3:33:08 in the Steamtown Marathon in Scranton, PA. In that race, I’d managed to run fast enough to qualify for Boston, a standard that was good for two years, which was how I was able to compete in Boston last year.
Do that again and I’d be eligible to run Boston again as late as 2015, my sixtieth year. Chicago’s gone for this year, but Boston beckons!
Next: Running for Your Life: The Faraway Nearby
Running for Your Life: Man’s Brain
A Canadian in March, a week after a winter storm dumped a foot of snow and ice on Brooklyn, and what am I thinking about?
Hockey hockey hockey hockey.
In that order.
Next: Running for Your Life: Chicago or No Chicago?
Hockey hockey hockey hockey.
In that order.
Next: Running for Your Life: Chicago or No Chicago?
Running for Your Life: Mix It Up
Runners can be like farmers. Stubborn and independent. You can’t tell them anything. I know a bit about this because I was raised in farm country and have been both a regular recreational and a competitive runner for longer than most. Thirty-seven years this year, thrice a week running, more during marathon years (five; I’ve competed in six races but in 2010 I ran two in Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh and Scranton).
That’s about five thousand seven hundred seventy total runs; at a minimum average of five miles per run, we’re talking twenty-eight thousand eight hundred and fifty miles.
What’s surprising is that for most of those total miles I didn’t practice what I’ve been preaching on this blog. To mix it up. For years I never did. I just put on my running shoes and went out the door. But, heck, that’s not for every body.
And not for this body, either. Eventually it broke down. In February 2011 I tried to run through a strained hamstring like I always had – and suffered a severe hammy tear. It slowly healed, but afterward, for the past two years, I’ve been mixing it up, and thankfully that regimen has worked.
I’ve never felt as good as I do right now, and that’s after running close to thirty thousand miles, a milestone, so to speak, that I should be able to make in less than two years: thirty thousand miles before turning sixty: not Volvo numbers, by any means, but numbers you can live with.
Because it was my hamstring that broke down, that’s what I focus on. I don’t do much in the way of upper body conditioning. Except when I’m in marathon training (I adopt training techniques for 100 days before a race; otherwise I follow a strict pattern), I run one day, do a gym workout the next. In inclement weather, I use the gym treadmill, set at a higher incline and faster pace than I do outside as a means of strengthening (and also to keep alive my dream of improving on my marathon PR, which currently stands at 3:33:08).
As far as a gym workout is concerned, I predominantly stretch and strengthen in floor exercises: hammy, calf, groin and, most especially, core. A stronger core, it seems to me, has helped to soften my running gait so that I put even less strain on my hips and knees than I did when I wasn’t taking such precautions in the past.
It helps: I can’t stress it enough. In the beginning I found cross-training – especially stretching – to be the most excruciating waste of time. But as I run longer and with shorter and shorter periods of recovery time after long runs, I verge on the pedantic in my advocacy of a mix it up approach to running.
Wanna run for your life? Mix it up!
Next: Running for Your Life: Man’s Brain
That’s about five thousand seven hundred seventy total runs; at a minimum average of five miles per run, we’re talking twenty-eight thousand eight hundred and fifty miles.
What’s surprising is that for most of those total miles I didn’t practice what I’ve been preaching on this blog. To mix it up. For years I never did. I just put on my running shoes and went out the door. But, heck, that’s not for every body.
And not for this body, either. Eventually it broke down. In February 2011 I tried to run through a strained hamstring like I always had – and suffered a severe hammy tear. It slowly healed, but afterward, for the past two years, I’ve been mixing it up, and thankfully that regimen has worked.
I’ve never felt as good as I do right now, and that’s after running close to thirty thousand miles, a milestone, so to speak, that I should be able to make in less than two years: thirty thousand miles before turning sixty: not Volvo numbers, by any means, but numbers you can live with.
Because it was my hamstring that broke down, that’s what I focus on. I don’t do much in the way of upper body conditioning. Except when I’m in marathon training (I adopt training techniques for 100 days before a race; otherwise I follow a strict pattern), I run one day, do a gym workout the next. In inclement weather, I use the gym treadmill, set at a higher incline and faster pace than I do outside as a means of strengthening (and also to keep alive my dream of improving on my marathon PR, which currently stands at 3:33:08).
As far as a gym workout is concerned, I predominantly stretch and strengthen in floor exercises: hammy, calf, groin and, most especially, core. A stronger core, it seems to me, has helped to soften my running gait so that I put even less strain on my hips and knees than I did when I wasn’t taking such precautions in the past.
It helps: I can’t stress it enough. In the beginning I found cross-training – especially stretching – to be the most excruciating waste of time. But as I run longer and with shorter and shorter periods of recovery time after long runs, I verge on the pedantic in my advocacy of a mix it up approach to running.
Wanna run for your life? Mix it up!
Next: Running for Your Life: Man’s Brain
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