Nick Hornby on Growing Up and Developing a Critical Faculty

“A critical faculty is a terrible thing.”

“When I was eleven there were no bad films, just films that I didn’t want to see, there was no bad food, just Brussel sprouts and cabbage, and there were no bad books—everything that I read was great.”

“Then suddenly, I woke up in the morning and all that had changed. How could my sister not hear that David Cassidy was not in the same class as Black Sabbath? Why on earth would my English teacher think that The History of Mr. Polly was better than Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie?”

“And from that moment on, enjoyment has been a much more elusive quality.”

Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch (London: Victor Gollancz, 1992), 29.

Image: “there was no bad food, just Brussel sprouts and cabbage…”

Joyce Oates on ‘What is a Family?’

In her novel, We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Oates reflects on families:

“Always it seemed, hard as I tried I could never hope to catch up with all their good times, secrets, jokes—their memories. What is a family, after all except memories?—haphazard and precious as the contents of a catchall drawer in the kitchen (called the ‘junk drawer’ in our household, for good reason)….

“For the Mulvaneys were a family in which everything that happened to them was precious and everything that was precious was stored in memory and everyone had a history.”

Joyce Carol Oates, We Were the Mulvaneys (New York: Plume, 1997), 4, 5.

Image: “Precious as the contents of a catchall drawer in the kitchen.”

P D James: On Being a Privileged Spectator of life

The writer, P D James, describes in her autobiographical fragment, Time to Be in Earnest, a day with her friends exploring the natural world:

“One of the delights of being with [friends] Tom and Mary [Norman] is their knowledge of natural history. There isn’t a bird, butterfly, flower or tree which they can’t name. They spend much time traveling, often in some discomfort, in remote areas of Asia searching for and photographing rare orchids. One, which Tom was the first to discover and describe, is named after him.”

“At Covehithe we saw a butterfly that Tom said was called the Holly Blue and which he recognized as female because of the darker hue round its wings. It lives for just three days, and I wondered whether ours were the only human eyes that had actually seen it during that brief span.”

“As Tom and Mary moved through the gate leading to the abbey ruin, the butterfly fluttered to a leaf close to me and rested motionless. It was one of those rare moments in which a fugitive beauty, briefly contemplated, untouchable, is experienced with a peculiar intensity, the sense of being a privileged spectator of life which, however brief, is part of a mysterious whole.”

P D James, Time to Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography (London: Faber & Faber, 1999), 22.

Image: The Holly Blue

Mark Haddon on Timetables and France

Christopher Boone, the fifteen year old narrator in Mark Haddon’s novel, The Curious Incident, has these things to say about timetables:

“When I used to play with my train set I made a train timetable because I like timetables. And I like timetables because I like to know when everything is going to happen.”

“And this is why I like timetables because they make sure you don’t get lost in time.”

“And at the weekend I made up my own timetable and I write it down on a piece of cardboard and I put it up on the wall… And that is one of the other reasons why I don’t like France because when people are on holiday they don’t have a timetable and I had to get Mother and Father to tell me every morning exactly what we were going to do that day to make me feel better.”

Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (London: Vintage, 2004), 192, 195, 193.

Image: Train timetable.

George Schaller: 'In the Mountains … life has a new importance'

“In the immensity of these ranges, at the limit of existence where people may visit but cannot dwell, life has a new importance…. But mountains are not chivalrous; one forgets their violence. Indifferently they lash those who venture among them with snow, rock, wind, cold.”

Source: George Schaller in Stones of Silence. Cited in Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 108.

Image: “the immensity of these ranges..” (Mt Cook, NZ)

Paul McCartney: “Music is a great healer”

Former Beatle Paul McCartney has compared his divorce from former model Heather Mills to going through hell in a recently published interview.

Wanting to keep his dignity he remained tight-lipped about the proceedings but he did say the experience was "a very painful thing".

Recognizing the difficulty of going through a public divorce McCartney indicated where he looked for solace:

"But music is a great healer. Music is the therapy for me. In fact, going through difficulties has only concentrated my desire to make good music."

‘McCartney talks of Divorce Hell’, The Age, 16 October 2007.

Image: Paul McCartney

Why Didn’t I Encourage My Kids to Paint More When They were Toddlers?

An article in the LA Times has caused me to kick myself for not giving my children an easel, some brushes and a box of paints for their birthdays when they were toddlers.

Even before Marla reached her second birthday, her father, Mark Olmstead set up an easel for her so she’d be occupied while he painted (he was a manager of a business but dabbled in art in his spare time).

When Marla began producing some colorful creations, her proud parents got permission to hang one of them on the wall of a local coffee shop in Binghamton, New York. The painting was displayed and promptly sold for $250! Since her first takings Marla had her first solo exhibition in 2004, which was a sell out and 18 months later she scooped $20,000 for a single painting.

The money doesn’t seem to be the motivator for young Marla for while many are debating her prodigy status, she applies the paint for the sheer enjoyment of the craft.

Yes, I got distracted by a lost dream of my children making millions for their poor parents but how many gifts and talents might we discover if we gave our children, our friends and ourselves some brushes, paints, an easel (or their equivalents in other spheres) and oodles of encouragement?

For the entire story, here is the link:
Meghan Daum, ‘Art as Child’s Play’, LA Times, 13 October 2007.

Image: Marla Olmstead.

John Howard: The Advantages of Being Average

In an interview on national television shortly before his election as prime minister for the first time, Howard described himself as “an average Australian bloke”.
“I can’t think of a nobler description of anybody than to be called an average Australian bloke,” he added.

That line is crucial to understanding the success of the less than charismatic former suburban solicitor ridiculed by cartoonists for his small stature, bushy eyebrows and imperfect teeth, analysts say.

“The key to Howard’s appeal lies in his very lack of charisma,” political commentator Hugh Mackay wrote on the 10th anniversary of his election as prime minister.

“His appearance of ordinariness is perhaps his greatest political asset: he looks and sounds like ‘an ordinary bloke’ and that triggers the almost instinctive feeling that he must be ‘a decent bloke’ as well.

“Even his harshest critics, people who believe he has actually lied to them, remark that he does it so convincingly and appears so sincere, it’s hard not to be seduced.”

Howard’s detractors say he has damaged his credibility by bending the truth to ensure political success or reneging on promises, giving rise to the mocking use of yet another nickname—‘Honest John’.

‘An “average, cunning, man of steel’”, Associated Foreign Press, 14 October 2007.

Image: John Howard

Cards to Send to Prisoners: Finding the Words to Say It

Journalist, Sandy Banks, writes of discovering a new range of greeting card—cards to send someone who has been arrested or incarcerated and cards to be used by those on the inside to thank people for their support.

A couple of them read:

“SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR ARREST.”

“NOT YOU!”

The messages inside are blunt and to the point. The article goes on to tell how these cards were created. The idea came when a lawyer’s brother-in-law was imprisoned and the woman picked up her pen but didn’t know what to write.

The article tells how this new range is selling. Not very well it seems at the local card and gift shops. It is a big hurdle purchasing one of these arresting cards when the shop assistant may think your family is a bad lot. Perhaps they will sell better online.

This story illustrates the difficulty we all have in such circumstances, finding the words to say something that is true, real and devoid of sentimental piety.

To check out some of the range of cards and read the entire interesting article see:
Sandy Banks, ‘Cards for Inmates Say it all for you’, LA Times, 13 October 2007 [LA Times does require a free sign in for first time online readers]

Image: A card from the arresting range [click to magnify]

Parents Giving Time to their Children

Henry Porter tells this story in today’s Observer:

In July, during the worst of the summer rain, I saw something that struck me as quite rare. A family of five had paused on their walk along a country lane so that the three children could scramble up a bank where there was a surprisingly good crop of wild strawberries. The children were wet and caked in mud. They were made to share out the strawberries like precious sweets. Then they went on their way, the parents oblivious to their children disappearing into the woods and ambushing each other with handfuls of mud. I haven't seen three happier children for a long time.

On that Saturday afternoon expedition in the rain, you have nearly everything that children need - exercise, attention from their parents, but not undue fussing, a feeling of security and of family, simplicity of entertainment, natural surroundings and a chance for the two sisters and their brother to relate to one another away from TV, their friends and Facebook. The only thing required from the parents was time.

To read the rest of this interesting comment on the political and personal challenges facing children and parents see:

Henry Porter, ‘Turn Off the TV. Forget Facebook. Just Give Your Kids Some Time.’ The Observer, 14 October 2007.

Image: “Strawberries like precious sweets.”

Greg Mortensen on Faith and Religion

Mountaineer and school builder, Greg Mortensen, reflects on the influence that his parents had on him when he was growing up in Tanzania:

“With both Dempsey and Jerene wearing their faith lightly, the Mortensen home became more of a community than a religious center. Dempsey taught Sunday School. But he also laid out a softball diamond with the trunk of the peppertree as a backstop.” (p36)

With that beautiful phrase, “wearing their faith lightly”, I don't think that Mortensen is meaning that the faith of his parents was not real or was superficial. He seems to be referring to the holistic expression of their faith as it took flesh in their lives and their community.

Mortensen does not write a lot about religion in his book, ‘Three Cups’, apart from pointing up the dangers of fundamentalism and the way such an approach opposed his goal to provide an open education, especially for girls.

He does, however, write about religious leadership:

“I came to respect and depend on the vision of Syed Abbas,” [Greg] Mortensen says. “He’s the type of religious leader I admire most. He is about compassion in action, not talk. He doesn’t just lock himself up with his books. Syed Abbas believes in rolling up his sleeves and making the world a better place.” (p201).

Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time (New York: Penguin Books, 2006).

A review of this book can be found at Reviewing Books and Movies.

Image: Tea in triplicate.

E L Doctorow: Tasting God on The March

As the American Civil War wound towards its conclusion, General Sherman marched 60,000 Union troops through the southern states, leaving a sixty mile trail of destruction, rape, looting and death.

The story of The March is retold by novelist E L Doctorow who specializes in writing cameos to personalize the impact of the long trudge as experienced by farm owners, soldiers and slaves.

In one chapter that deals with the plight of the deserters, Doctorow records the conversations of two who are in prison.

Arly, says to a young boy:

“Are you for religion, young Will?”
“I never did countenance it.”
“Well I look at it this way. God has raised his hand to give us respite. It could be that he has something more in mind for us. With this time on our hands, we should try to figure what it is. Because he don’t do pointless acts of charity.”

Some time later these two come across the dead bodies of some Union soldiers and they decide to take their uniforms, escape and join the march. Changing uniforms, they try to remember what the word was for the next thing down from ‘deserter’. With new uniforms they get themselves a horse. In their new dress, new allegiance, new transport and new spirit the strongly religious conversation continues:

“We are rich men with that horse,” Arly said. Patting his tunic, he found a flask of bourbon in his pocket. He unscrewed the cap and took a swig. “Whoeee! Taste this, young Will. Go on. If you had any doubts God meant us to survive, just you have a taste of this!”

E L Doctorow, The March (London: Random House, 2005).

Image: Front cover of The March.

Eric Clapton: Creativity out of the Crucible of Suffering

Eric Clapton’s new book, ‘Clapton: The Autobiography’, is a warts and all account of the author’s rollercoaster ride to rock and rock divinity and his decline into drug-taking decadence and darkness.

It is fascinating to see the way that Clapton’s songs were often written when he was in the pits. Like the song Layla (written by Clapton and Jim Gordon). The musician had fallen for a woman by the name of Pattie Boyd. The only trouble was that Pattie was the wife of the Beatle, George Harrison. Clapton said, “I also coveted Pattie because she belonged to a powerful man who seemed to have everything I wanted—amazing cars, an incredible career, and a beautiful wife.” His dilemma inspired the song ‘Layla’. These words take on a new meaning with the background information supplied:

What’ll you do when you get lonely
No one waiting by your side?
You’ve been running and hiding much too long.
You know it's just your foolish pride.

Layla, you’ve got me on my knees.
Layla, I’m begging, darling please.
Layla, darling wont you ease my worried mind.

After getting in the grip of heroin and drinking heavily Clapton descended to the depths when his four year old son, Conor, fell to his death from an apartment building. This incident, however, marked a spiritual awakening and this song that honours the memory of his son:

Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?

Would you feel the same if I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong and carry on

'Cause I know I don't belong here in heaven...

Would you hold my hand if I saw you in heaven?

Would you help me stand if I saw you in heaven?

I'll find my way through night and day

'Cause I know I just can't stay here in heaven...

Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees

Time can break your heart, have you begging please..
Beyond the door there's peace I'm sure

And I know there'll be no more tears in heaven....

Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?

Would you feel the same if I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong and carry on

'Cause I know I don't belong here in heaven...

Reflecting on the creative seasons as well as the dark periods of his life, Eric Clapton writes about the role of music to lift him and bring peace: “For me, the most trustworthy vehicle for spirituality has always proven to be music.”

Source: Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography (London: Century, 2007).

Image: Clapton on his cover.

Hirsi Ali: ‘Victim to the Intolerance of Tolerance’

Hirsi Ali fled to the Netherlands as a refugee from Somalia in 1992 after declining to submit to a forced marriage to a man she did not know. Ali is still running.

She has worked as a cleaning lady, a translator, an activist, a politician and an author.

Hirsi Ali has spoken publicly about the repression of women who have been abused and forced into sexual subjection and compulsory child bearing. She has been critical of Islam and as a consequence has received death threats.

Hirsi Ali’s story is retold and some important questions raised in today’s LA Times article:

Sam Harris and Salman Rushdie, ‘Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Abandoned to Fanatics’, LA Times, 9 October 2007.

Image: Cover of Hirsi Ali’s latest book, Infidel.

Comedians and Actors Protesting and Risking their Lives in Burma

There’s a good article in the Times today on the strategic role of comedians, satirists and actors in society and the danger that these people put themselves into in Burma:

Story: Kenneth Denby ‘The Burmese Jokers who laugh in the Face of Danger,’ Times Online, 9 October 2007.

Image: Some of the Burmese comedians.

The Zorba Diet Endorsed by Barbara Kingsolver: Stuff Yourself with Cherries

Writer, Barbara Kingsolver tells this story in her journal, written during her ‘food sabbatical’:

“In Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel, Zorba the Greek, the pallid narrator frets a lot about his weaknesses of the flesh. He lies awake at night worrying about the infinite varieties of lust that call to him from this world; for example, cherries. He’s way too fond of cherries. Zorba tells him, Well then, I’m afraid what you must do is stand under the tree, collect as big a bowl full, and stuff yourself. Eat cherries like they’re going out of season.”

Source: Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L Hopp & Camille Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating (London: Faber & Faber, 2007), 22.

A review of this book is found at Reviewing Books and Movies.

Image: “Eat cherries like they’re going out of season.”

Marion Jones: Power and Popularity alter Moral Compass

Athlete Marion Jones' admission of steroid use in a New York courtroom has sent shockwaves around the world of athletics.

In today’s LA Times article, John Hoberman, a University of Texas professor and expert on steroids in sports contended “that the Jones case testifies to how the pressure to excel alters moral compasses and drives a surprising number of elite athletes to performance-enhancing drugs.”

Michael A. Hiltzik and Lance Pugmire, ‘Jones; steroid case will affect all athletes’, LA Times, October 6, 2007.

Barbara Kingsolver: Who Wants to Eat Dirty Vegetables?

In her book in which she writes of her family’s experiment to try and grow enough vegetables and meat to support them, Barbara Kingsolver addresses a prevalent resistance among children and adults:

“I used to take my children’s friends out to the garden to warm them up to the idea of eating vegetables, but this strategy sometimes backfired: they’d back away slowly saying, ‘Oh, man, those things touched dirt!’”

“Adults do the same by pretending it all comes from the clean, well-lighted grocery store. We’re like petulant teenagers rejecting our mother. We know we came out of her but ee-ew.”

Source: Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L Hopp & Camille Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating (London: Faber & Faber, 2007), 29.

A review of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, is at Reviewing Books and Movies.

Image: Dirty veges.

Great Intercultural Faux Pas

Heard the one about a worldwide survey conducted by the UN? The only question asked was: “Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?”

The survey was a failure. In Africa they didn’t know what “food” meant; in India they didn’t know what “honest” meant; in Europe they didn’t know what “shortage” meant; in China they didn’t know what “opinion” meant; in the Middle East they didn’t know what “solution” meant; in South America they didn’t know what “please” meant; and in the USA they didn’t know what “the rest of the world” meant.

Source and to read more of this article: Mark McCrum, ‘Embarrassing Travel Gaffes’, The Sunday Times, 30 September 2007. Extracted from, Going Dutch in Beijing: The International Guide to Doing the Right Thing, Profile Books.

Image: Warm and intense cross-cultural fellowship.

Barbara Kingsolver: ‘Ridiculous or Reverent?’

In her new book that details her ‘year of seasonal eating’, Barbara Kingsolver describes the time that it takes to grow asparagus. Then she says:

“Gardeners are widely known and mocked for this sort of fanaticism. But other people fast or walk long pilgrimages to honor the spirit of what they believe makes our world whole and lovely.”

“If we gardeners can, in the same spirit, put our heels to the shovel, kneel before a trench holding tender roots, and then wait three years for an edible incarnation of the spring equinox, who’s to make the call between ridiculous and reverent!”

Source: Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L Hopp & Camille Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating (London: Faber & Faber, 2007), 29.

A review of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, is at Reviewing Books and Movies.

Image: The Kingsolver clan harvesting and weeding.

P D James: ‘Women waiting for a Man to Give Status and Purpose to Their Lives’

P D James, in her novel, ‘The Skull Beneath the Skin’, writes of a group of people at Courcy island (off the Dorset coast) on tour.

As they passed along the gallery Roma said to Cordelia:

“There’s a William Dyce in my room called ‘The Shell Gatherers’. Not badly painted, rather good, in fact. A crinolined group of ladies examining their finds on a Kentish beach. But what’s the reality? A group of overfed, overclad, bored, and sexually frustrated upperclass females with nothing to do with their time but collect shells to make their useless shell boxes, paint insipid watercolors, entertain the gentlemen after dinner at the pianoforte, and wait for a man to give status and purpose to their lives.”

Source: P D James, The Skull Beneath the Skin (New York: Warner Books edit., 1982), 92-93.

Image: A William Dyce painting [I don’t think it is the one mentioned above!]

Greg Mortensen: Be Careful What You Read to Your Children

In his book Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortensen, pays tribute to his parents and reveals the secret to how he was inspired to be a mountaineer and then a builder of schools in the remote parts of Pakistan:

“As a child in Tanzania, my parents Dempsey and Jerene Mortensen, read fastidiously to us at bedtime by candlelight and, later, electricity. These stories filled us with curiosity about the world and other cultures. They inspired the humanitarian adventure that shaped my life.”

Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 334-335.

A review of this book is posted at Reviewing Books and Movies.

Image: Reading to your children.

Understanding Amish Forgiveness

A fascinating story by Donald Kraybill reveals why the Amish community in Elizabeth town, who suffered so painfully, was able to forgive so quickly.

Donald Kraybill, ‘Why the Amish Forgive so quickly’, 2 October 2007, CSM.

Other postings on the Amish on this site:
Deciding Not to Become Hostage to Hostility

Are You Qualified for What You’re Doing?

Image: Amish children.

Pilgrimage to Walden: ‘Living Deliberately’ with Nature & Thoreau

A reflective story about visiting Walden Pond to get in touch with nature and the thoughts and home of Henry Thoreau can be found at this link:

Tom O’Malley, ‘An Icy Plunge into Walden Pond is a Lesson on Savoring Nature’, 2 October 2007, CSM.

Image: Walden Pond.

Bill Clinton on His new Mission: ‘This picture says it all’

In the Introduction to his new book entitled ‘Giving’, author Bill Clinton sums up with one picture [posted here], why he is involved in many projects through the Clinton Foundation,

President Clinton writes:
“I’ve included one picture in this book, opposite the title page, that says it all. It captures the beautiful face and bright eyes of a Cambodian orphan born with HIV. Basil was ten months old when this photo was taken. His mother died when he was only one month old, and her doctor arranged for him to be taken in by New Hope for Cambodian Children, an organization that cares for HIV-positive orphans and other vulnerable children. When Basil arrived at the home, he was six weeks of age and had both HIV and tuberculosis. His doctor, a Clinton Foundation fellow, treated him for both conditions, giving Basil lifesaving pediatric AIDS medication through my foundation’s partnership with UNITAID, which funds our efforts to treat children across the globe. Basil responded well to the treatment, gained weight, and, as you can see, is now healthy. He has a chance. That’s often all one person can give another. But it can make all the difference.”

Image: Basil; photo courtesy of the Clinton Foundation web site.

Source: Bill Clinton, Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World (London: Hutchinson, 2007), xiv.

A full review of this book, entitled ‘Jon Stewart & Clinton Talk about Bill’s New Book’, can be found at my site: Reviewing Books and Movies.