Rage Against the Art Gene

Are the 2,500 people who have declared themselves Schönberg fans on Facebook committing some kind of crime against esthetic nature?

(clever lead-in.... read the Newsweek article concerning art development here)

Darwin revolutionized our understanding of mankind's origins. Now scientists think they can apply his theories to the source of our creativity without it sounding like a lot of monkey business.

The Women

by TC Boyle

The genius of Frank Lloyd Wright was both magnetic and cruel, as evidenced by the succession of failed marriages and hot-blooded affairs depicted in this biographic reimagining that drills into Wright mythology and the dark shadows of the American dream. The narrative moves backwards in time through the accounts of four women in Wrights life: Olgivanna, the steely, grounded dancer from Montenegro; Miriam, the drug-addled narcissist from the South; Kitty, the devoted first wife; and Mamah, the beloved and murdered soul mate and intellectual companion. But the novels centerpiece is Taliesin, Wrights Oz-like Wisconsin home. The tragedies that befall Taliesin—fires, brutality—serve as proxy for Wrights inner turmoil; his deeper stirrings surface only occasionally from behind Boyles oft-overbearing depiction of Wrights women. The most engaging person is Tadashi Sato, the Japanese-American apprentice and narrator who emerges via his frequent footnotes as a complex reflection of Wrieto-san and, with his inability to remain objective and his evolving view of Wright and Wrights image, becomes the books most dynamic character. Its a lush, dense and hyperliterate book—in other words, vintage Boyle.

My husband is a big Boyle fan - now I am too. A fictitious account, and yet close enough to history to be interesting for those of us who know the true stories of Wright.

New Seeds of Contemplation

by Thomas Merton

"It can become almost a magic word," Thomas Merton says of contemplation; "or if not magic, then inspirational, which is almost as bad." With these words, Merton takes us through the reality of contemplation, which is, the author says, "life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder." Above all, contemplation is "awareness of the reality" of the Source, "with a certitude that goes beyond reason and beyond simple faith."

Great book. 'Nuf said! =)

Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love

by Myron Uhlberg

It's hard sometimes to get into the perspective of another's experience - this was a fascinating tale for me of a family that is a little different, but also is the same as all of us. Great read.

synopsis:
In this memoir about growing up the son of deaf parents in 1940s Brooklyn, Uhlberg recalls the time his uncle told him he saw his nephew as cleaved into two parts, half hearing, half deaf, forever joined together. These worlds come together in this work, his first for adults, as Uhlberg, who has written several children's books (including Dad, Jackie, and Me, which won a 2006 Patterson Prize) effortlessly weaves his way through a childhood of trying to interpret the speaking world for his parents while trying to learn the lessons of life from the richly executed Technicolor language of his father's hands. With the interconnection of two different worlds, there is bound to be humor, and Uhlberg is able to laugh at himself and his family's situation. He recounts unsuccessfully trying to reinterpret his teacher's constructive criticism for his parents and finding himself pressed into duty interpreting the Joe Louis prize fights for his dad. There are, of course, more poignant moments, as Uhlberg tries to explain the sound of waves for his curious father or when he finds himself in charge of caring for his epileptic baby brother because his parents can't hear the seizures. As Uhlberg grows up through the polio epidemic, WWII and Jackie Robinson's arrival in Brooklyn, he also grows out of his insecurities about his family and the way they are viewed as outsiders. Instead, looking back, he gives readers a well-crafted, heartwarming tale of family love and understanding. (Apr.)

Dancing at the River's Edge: A Patient and Her Doctor Negotiate Life with Chronic Illness

by Alida Brill

Chronic illness is always in the background of whatever I do. I don't let it make my decisions, but it does interfere. In my older years I am realizing that it is a part of me, and must be considered.

This book touched me deeply, as I felt it was an accurate portrayal of my own experiences. A good read for anyone who lives with chronic illness, or with anyone who struggles with chronic illness.

Spring!

I have been gone from the blog for awhile - but very busy. Good music conferences, excellent friends, and outstanding family time. We seem to have a thing for butterflies these days!

Boston Children's Museum

What a fun day! We will return soon. Lots to do, and it was big enough so it did not seem crowded. We found a close parking garage, and spent part of the nice warm day outside watching the seagulls as well.

Quaker Education for a Socially Just World

I was very interested in people's views on the selection of a Quaker school for the Obamas. This is from Marketwatch.


Pulitzer Prize Winners Anthony Shadid and Caroline Elkins; Dean of Harvard College Evelynn Hammonds; Former Chair of Quaker UN Committee Don McNemar; MIT Professor Helen Elaine Lee Explore Social Justice in Quaker Education

CAMBRIDGE, MA, Dec 09, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- By selecting Sidwell Friends as their daughters' new school, the Obamas have touched off a flurry of questions -- and editorials -- on their choice of educational institution. Founded by religious dissenter George Fox in 1652, Quakers (members of The Religious Society of Friends) have long advocated for peace and social justice across race and culture, religion and gender. Actively engaged in the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements of the 17th-20th centuries, the Quakers' involvement in education is another extension of their commitment to seeing "the light within each person." From Washington Post Foreign Correspondent Anthony Shadid, whose book about the Iraqis' perspective of the war in Iraq earned him international acclaim, to Harvard College Professor Caroline Elkins, whose research on genocide in Kenya led to an award-winning book and a BBC documentary film, many educators and authors who are deeply committed to social justice have chosen a Quaker education for their children.


Anthony Shadid, a Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and author of the book, "Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War," addressed the connection between Quaker education and social justice: "If there was one lesson I learned from reporting in Iraq, it was that differences in culture, traditions and even history paled before our commonly held values. Like Americans, the people I interviewed there want their children to eat well, to be safe, to be educated and to live in a just world. More draws us together than keeps us apart. I chose a Quaker school for my daughter because I wanted her to understand that there are principles that join us as citizens of the world, and those principles -- justice, tolerance and equality -- matter."


Caroline Elkins, Associate Professor of African Studies at Harvard College and author of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya," shared her opinion: "I can only believe that if more schools were guided by Quaker philosophy, that there would be far less intolerance in our culture -- and far fewer atrocities in our past and present. If we can teach our children to understand that difference is not the same as inferiority, we will be far less likely to demonize any population which is not a carbon copy of our own."


A leading scholar on the history of race in science, Evelynn Hammonds, Dean of Harvard College, offered her view of Quaker education: "We chose a Quaker school for our son because the environment stimulates students' intellect and creativity but also engenders an awareness of the larger world, encourages personal responsibility, and celebrates human difference while affirming the dignity and value of each human being."


Don McNemar, Board Member, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), former president of Guilford College and former Head of Phillips Academy at Andover, described the Quaker philosophy of education: "Quakers sometimes talk about the role of education as 'awakening the inner teacher,' encouraging the student's curiosity about his or her own spiritual and social values. That approach to education is good for children from all different families, religious backgrounds and social outlooks. Like the vast majority of families who send their children to a Quaker school, the Obamas are not Quakers -- and yet they value this approach to education."


Helen Elaine Lee, Associate Professor of Writing and Humanistic Studies at M.I.T. and a member of PEN New England's Freedom To Write Committee, recently completed the manuscript of her third novel, "Life Without," about the lives of a group of people who are incarcerated in two neighboring American prisons. Professor Lee described the experiences of her son, now in his fifth year at a Quaker school:

"I come from a long line of people who worked to transcend and demolish barriers to full participation in American society. My great grandfather was born a slave and became a university president. As a writer and teacher I create narratives of African American experience which criticize and resist social injustice, and celebrate culture and identity. For the last seven years I have been writing about and working with prisoners because the crisis of incarceration is one of the most pressing issues of social justice before our society. I chose CFS for my son because it is academically rigorous while embedding social criticism in its curriculum and instilling engagement, activism and leadership in its students. CFS develops students into critical thinkers and provides an outlook which they would not get anywhere else."

Mr. Shadid, Professor Elkins, Dean Hammonds and Professor Lee are all parents of children attending Cambridge Friends School. Mr. McNemar is chair of the Cambridge Friends School Board of Trustees.

Great Job Honor Band!

There's really no way to describe the wonderful job of these wonderful kids. This project involved a lot of trust, risk, and letting go of preconceptions for me - and it WORKED!

The Mariner did a nice write-up and slide-show.

Book Round-up: Interactions Between Us

These three books I read all in the past few weeks, they are all unrealted, but carry the common theme of how we interact with our environment, each other, and ourselves. All written with careful thought and wisdom.

Turning To One Another
Simple Conversations To Restore Hope In The Future
BY MARGARET WHEATLEY

"I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again. Not mediation negotiation, problem solving, debate or public meetings just Simple truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard and we each listen well." This book is a selection of One Book, One Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

Plain Living
A Quaker Path To Simplicity
BY CATHERINE WHITMIRE

This book is a collection of the sayings of Friends (ranging from Margaret Fell and Isaac Penington to Jan Hoffman and Patricia Loring) which speak to every aspect of living a spiritually centered and simple life. Topics explored include work, plain speech, money and resources, committed relationships, grief, fear, leadings, community, practicing non-violence, spirit-led service and inward simplicity. Each section is followed by queries. An excellent resource for study groups. "Plain Living will be a well-loved, well-thumbed book, touching on every aspect of our personal choices, as ... we try to walk the challenging walk of holy simplicity." - Elise Boulding

Radical Presence
Teaching As Contemplative Practice
BY MARY ROSE O'REILLEY, FOREWORD BY PARKER PALMER

This book is about our lives as well as our work, suggesting that the "secrets" of good teaching are the same as the secrets of good living: seeing one's self without blinking, offering hospitality to the alien other, having compassion for suffering, speaking truth to power, being present and being real. These are secrets hidden in plain sight. But it takes the clear sight and courage of someone like Friend O'Reilly to call secrets of this sort to our attention.

The Quakers in America

The Quakers In America - Paperback
BY THOMAS HAMM

This multifaceted book is a concise history of the Religious Society of Friends, an introduction to Quaker beliefs and practices and a vivid picture of the culture and controversies of the Friends today. The book opens with lively vignettes of Conservative, Evangelical, Friends General Conference, and Friends United Meetings, reflecting Friends' diversity in the wake of the sectarian splintering of the nineteenth century. "There has long been a need for a study of American Quakers in the twentieth century. With meticulous scholarship and a graceful style, Thomas Hamm has filled this need admirably." -Margaret Hope Bacon

This was a good introductory book for me - available at the Amesbury Library!

3 Marriages

David Whyte knows there are three crucial relationships, or marriages, in our lives: the marriage or partnership with a significant other, the commitment we have to our work, and the vows, spoken or unspoken, we make to an inner, constantly developing self. In The Three Marriages, the bestselling author, poet, and speaker argues that it is not possible to sacrifice one relationship for the others without causing deep psychological damage. Too often, he says, we fracture our lives and split our energies foolishly, so that one or more of these marriages is sacrificed and may wither and die, in the process impoverishing them all. Whyte looks to a different way of seeing and connecting these relationships and prompts us to examine each marriage with a fierce but affectionate eye as he shows us the importance of cherishing all three equally.

Drawing from his own struggles to achieve this goal as well as exploring the lives of some of the world’s great writers and activists—from Dante to Joan of Arc, from Austen to Dickinson—Whyte reveals that our core commitments are irrevocably connected. Only by understanding the simultaneously robust and delicate nature of the three marriages and the stages of their maturation, he maintains, can we create a real portrait of what makes us tick and a real sense of finding a place in the world.

In prose that’s at once lyrical and inviting, Whyte investigates captivating ideas for bringing a deeper satisfaction to our lives, one that goes beyond our previously held ideas of balance.

(from Amazon)

GREAT BOOK. Interspersed with Whyte's poetry, and that of others, this work resonated with me deeply today. I feel like the human relationships and interactions are understood - I am focusing on my relationship to my work these days, trying to find a balance. This book feel into my hands in a quiet moment just when I needed it.

Holy as A Day is Spent

For many years, this was my favorite song. It has only recently come to "light" to me why that might be (inside Quaker humor - tee hee)


Holy As A Day Is Spent

Holy is the dish and drain
The soap and sink, the cup and plate
And the warm wool socks, and the cold white tile
Showerheads and good dry towels
And frying eggs sound like psalms
With a bit of salt measured in my palm
It’s all a part of a sacrament
As holy as a day is spent

Holy is the busy street
And cars that boom with passion’s beat
And the check out girl, Counting change
And the hands that shook my hands today
Hymns of geese fly overhead
And stretch their wings like their parents did
Blessed be the dog
That runs in her sleep
The catch that wild and elusive thing

Holy is a familiar room and the quiet moments in the afternoon
And folding sheets like folding hands
To pray as only laundry can
I’m letting go of all I fear
Like autumn leaves of earth and air
For summer came and summer went
As holy as a day is spent

Holy is the place I stand
To give whatever small good I can
The empty page, the open book
Redemption everywhere I look
Unknowingly we slow our pace
In the shade of unexpected grace
With grateful smiles and sad lament
As holy as a day is spent

And morning light sings “providence”
As holy as a day is spent
Carrie Newcomer

A Poem.

Everything is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.


-- David Whyte from Everything is Waiting for You ©2003 Many Rivers Press

Clearness Committee

From Parker Palmer (Courage and Renewal)...

I want to describe a method invented by the Quakers, a method that protects individual identity and integrity while drawing on the wisdom of other people. It is called a "Clearness Committee." If that name sounds like it is from the sixties, it is—the 1660's! From their beginnings over three hundred years ago, Quakers needed a way to draw on both inner and communal resources to deal with personal problems because they had no clerical leaders to "solve" their problems for them. The Clearness Committee is testimony to the fact that there are no external authorities on life's deepest issues, not clergy or therapists or scholars; there is only the authority that lies within each of us waiting to be heard.

I'm doing a little reading about this process today, as I am participating in a clearness committee tomorrow. I was involved in one earlier in my life, at the NE Courage to Teach program, but this one holds more value for me, and is truly a Quaker process.

I reflect on how we so often need need a special process to remind us to get out of our own way, get out of everyone else's way, and let solutions and peace come to light. How contrary to the "debate and win" methodology I find myself in. And often, even "winning" an argument, "convincing" someone else how to "fix" a problem does not work long term.

Finding safe space to rest on a long journey!

In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth

From The NY Times

One idea that elite universities like Yale, sprawling public systems like Wisconsin and smaller private colleges like Lewis and Clark have shared for generations is that a traditional liberal arts education is, by definition, not intended to prepare students for a specific vocation. Rather, the critical thinking, civic and historical knowledge and ethical reasoning that the humanities develop have a different purpose: They are prerequisites for personal growth and participation in a free democracy, regardless of career choice.........

Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard and the author of several books on higher education, argues, “The humanities has a lot to contribute to the preparation of students for their vocational lives.” He said he was referring not only to writing and analytical skills but also to the type of ethical issues raised by new technology like stem-cell research. But he added: “There’s a lot more to a liberal education than improving the economy. I think that is one of the worst mistakes that policy makers often make — not being able to see beyond that.”




There used to be a trend, still around, that we could "justify" arts in the public schools by saying "studying music will make you better at math", etc. I used it myself to get funding and promote "interdisciplinary education" and the like. I'm wary of doing that now, for the same reasons that Derek Bok implies. When do I get to say "study math - it'll make you a better musician?"

The arts will help us to improve the economy in the "adult" world just like the arts will improve the academic performance of kids. More importantly, long term, maybe the arts will just teach us how to be HUMAN - in the highest idealistic sense of the word. And maybe a little more of that will get us out of our current cultural messes. I certainly hope so!