№ 816. Lessons from Lord of the Rings

 

 

A Harvard University Law professor stood at a podium last week and told the graduating class that their credentials were not their qualification. He did it without saying the sentence. He picked a hobbit instead.

The story most people will tell about Benjamin Sachs’s last lecture is that a professor surprised his audience by quoting Tolkien instead of Rawls. That is the charming version. The actual version is that a senior labor scholar at Harvard Law School chose, in front of the next generation of corporate attorneys, to hand them the smallest character in the trilogy as their model. He could have given them Aragorn. He gave them Frodo. The choice was the whole sermon.

 

№ 754. Para Kay G - September 11, 2009

№ 729. Creative Writing

With his customary wisdom and wit, Vonnegut put forth 8 basics of what he calls Creative Writing 101:


1.  Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2.  Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3.  Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4.  Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

5.  Start as close to the end as possible.

6.  Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7.  Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8.  Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

№ 721. Rilke & Kafka

Poets

№ 704. Best Children's Books of 2023

Here are the year’s most notable picture, chapter and middle grade books, selected by our children’s books editor:

• “An American Story,” by Kwame Alexander. Illustrated by Dare Coulter.
• “Big,” by Vashti Harrison
• “Do You Remember?,” by Sydney Smith
• “Kozo the Sparrow,” by Allen Say
• “There Was a Party for Langston: King O’ Letters,” by Jason Reynolds. Illustrated by Jerome and Jarrett Pumphrey.
• “A Walk in the Woods,” by Nikki Grimes. Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney and Brian Pinkney.
• “What If One Day…,” by Bruce Handy. Illustrated by Ashleigh Corrin.
• “The Skull,” by Jon Klassen
• “Who Will Make the Snow?” by Taras and Marjana Prokhasko. Translated by Boris Dralyuk and Jennifer Croft.
• “Alebrijes,” by Donna Barba Higuera. Illustrated by David Álvarez.
• “Big Tree,” by Brian Selznick
• “The Eyes & the Impossible,” by Dave Eggers. Illustrated by Shawn Harris.
• “Glowrushes,” by Roberto Piumini. Translated by Leah Janeczko.
• “Mexikid,” by Pedro Martín
• “Remember Us,” by Jacqueline Woodson

№ 634. Robert Fulghum

Searching for Laugh

Fulghum, a voracious reader, is the first to admit that ''Kindergarten'' is not great literature. Some of it, he freely admits, is the ''worst kind of heart-rending daddy drivel imaginable,'' the literary equivalent of happy-face buttons - cheery conversational revelries on such diverse subjects as hide-and-seek, spider webs, Crayola crayons, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Ty Cobb's batting average. Not without charm, the essays seem to appeal to the same instinct that makes the proprietor of a 24-hour grille in Moab decorate the walls of her restaurant with perky sayings like ''Square meals make round people'' and ''Is there life before coffee?''

Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, whose own book of reflective essays, ''When Bad Things Happen to Good People,'' was also a phenomenal best seller, believes that Fulghum's popularity can be explained thus: ''In a world of complex ethical decisions, he cuts through the details and says 'at the heart are a few simple rules. You can be a moral person; it's not as complicated as it seems.' ''

FULGHUM'S ESSAYS REAFFIRM THE SANCTITY OF THE ordinary. He does not preach, and rarely mentions God, but his book has a strong spiritual component. He focuses on the transcendental stuff of everyday life - shoe repair men, raking leaves and emptying the sink strainer. Not quite preacher, not quite regional humorist, he is a hybrid folk fabulist - a sort of Norman Vincent Bombeck.

 

The Ohio State University

 

OUTSIDE THE Edmonds Unitarian Church, in Seattle, where Fulghum served as part-time minister from 1966 until 1985, is a stretch of lawn littered with hundreds of dandelions. The congregation dedicated this patch of ground in Fulghum's honor upon his retirement in 1985, at 48. ''I was speechless beyond belief,'' he said one afternoon at the church. ''It said they heard me. I take this ground very seriously.''

More than anything else, it is Robert Fulghum's years as a minister and teacher that give his stories resonance. ''Being human and alive is a pretty lonely deal,'' he said, ''no matter how intimate or lovely your relationships are.''

His perspectives on the commonality of human experience have been gleaned from hundreds of weddings, funerals, hospital rooms and mortuaries. All that birth, death, and renewal makes for prime storytelling fodder. Distributing someone's remains from 2,000 feet over Bellingham Bay, Wash., in a Cessna, Fulghum had the ashes fly back in his face. ''How do you brush off those ashes?'' he asks with mock seriousness. ''Do you go like this?'' (polite dusting gestures) ''Or like this?'' (frantic pawing).

 

Cartoonist Group

 

№ 543. Then A Bit of Validation

Incidental Comics

 

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of ‘getting to know you’ questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

“And he went wow. That’s amazing! And I said, ‘Oh no, but I’m not any good at any of them.’

“And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: ‘I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.’

“And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could ‘win’ at them.”

№ 541. Be kind, be patient, help others

Agencia Balcells

 

"Ultimately, A Long Petal of the Sea is a story about finding joy and love in a time of chaos and anxiety. What are some lessons you think readers can take away to navigate this current climate of global uncertainty?

I was born during the Second World War, during the Holocaust, the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and many other terrible events. I am 78 years old. In my lifetime I have experienced times of uncertainty several times. When that happens, I always remember that everything is temporary, everything changes, the nature of life is impermanence and uncertainty.

We control very little, but we can control how we react to our circumstances. This global crisis will also pass. The definition of crisis is danger plus opportunity. I hope that this danger will give us the opportunity to create a better world and a brighter future for everybody, not just the privileged.

How to navigate? Be kind, be patient, help others."

 

№ 475. Lost in Translation

The Stranger

For the modern American reader, few lines in French literature are as famous as the opening of Albert Camus’s “L’Étranger”: “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.” Nitty-gritty tense issues aside, the first sentence of “The Stranger” is so elementary that even a schoolboy with a base knowledge of French could adequately translate it. So why do the pros keep getting it wrong?

№ 467. Crayons

№ 433. Experience, Observation and Imagination

"A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination — any two of which, at times any one of which — can supply the lack of the others."

--- William Faulkner

And everyone thinks he/she/they is/are a writer today. Imagination.

№ 427. The Art of Stringing Facts

"We all have one life, but books make that life richer by letting us experience the lives of others - real or imagined.... Lists are often boring, but stories strings facts together with an underlying logic that makes them both interesting and memorable.... I appreciate the logic that makes for a great scientific idea, as well as the art of thought that produces a great story.... Book makes the one life we live that much richer. Life isn't always beautiful and enjoyable, but good writing always is." --- Lisa Randall, theoretical physicist and writer.

№ 424. The Crown

What, exactly, is the point of the royal family? Why, in a time of boisterous populism and expanding social consciousness, do the British continue to tolerate this emblem of entitlement and reaction? No one seems to know the answer, least of all the royals themselves, and herein lies the fundamental irony of Morgan’s show, which returns Nov. 17 for a third season. Constitutionally, the role of the monarch is to keep his or her mouth shut, to abjure what Elizabeth, in “The Queen,” calls “the sheer joy of being partial.” This sphinxlike silence is, in turn, conducive to a second, more intangible function: to serve as a conduit for mass emotion, a projection screen for national yearning or catharsis. In other words, the royals are celebrities. For about a thousand years, they were the only celebrities. As that began to change, around the midpoint of the last century, the House of Windsor found itself fumbling for a fresh raison d’être.

№ 418. Ad Astra

When we dream about
our future, we plunder scenes,
plots and peoples. Like

mobius loops wrung taut,
we fuse words, knives and prayers.
We build sand castles,

kites plastered on sticks,
and tin men to slay terrors.
Then wake up consumed.


 

№ 410. Books

"Books are borrowed minds, and because they capture the soul of a people, they explore and celebrate all it means to be human. Long live their indelible magic." --- Diane Ackerman

Long overdue and much anticipated,
the book arrived as promised.

№ 406. The F Word and the Orange Skull

Hail Hydra!

"A revealing story serendipitously showed up in my news feed this week. I learned that the billionaire chairman and former CEO of Marvel Entertainment, Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, is a longtime friend of Donald Trump’s, an unofficial and influential adviser and a member of the president’s elite Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. And Perlmutter and his wife have each recently donated $360,000 (the maximum allowed) to the Orange Skull’s “Trump Victory Joint Fundraising Committee” for 2020. I’ve also had to learn, yet again, that everything is political... just like Captain America socking Hitler on the jaw."

№ 397. Contemplating the Cosmos

"Nothing in the physical world seems to be constant or permanent. Stars burn out. Atoms disintegrate. Species evolve. Motion is relative. Even other universes might exist, many without life. Unity has given way to multiplicity....

№ 395. Literature and Politics

“The place for literature is built by writers and readers. It’s a fragile place in some ways, but an indestructible one. When it’s broken, we rebuild it. Because we need shelter.” --- Arundhati Roy

Student art from paper cranes at the
Hiroshima Peace Memorial

№ 340.Throwback Wednesday

I haven't seen this movie in ages. Still charming and funny. There's a poem by Auden too. What's not to like?

As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,
  Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
  Were fields of harvest wheat.

№ 337. Love in November, in the Time of Diarrhea or After Ragnarok

"Para kay B is the first novel of scriptwriter par excellence Ricky Lee, published by the Writers’ Studio and launched in a grand bash last December. Subtitled “O kung paano dinevastate ng pag-ibig ang 4 out of 5 sa atin,” the novel deals with love and its wreckages. True to form, Lee conveys his insights in a manner that shatters the usual realistic narrative mode of Philippine literature in Filipino. For in the end, he lets the author of the novel within the novel question not just the nature of love, but the nature of narrative itself. Who, in the end, gives meaning to a story? It also mirrors the novel’s central point: who, in the end, benefits from love? And if love is so melodramatic and so sad, why do we even need it?"

I read Para kay B after Ondoy. It was one of the promised dry lands after that flood of end-of-the-world proportions. That--- meaning the flood, I swear, is not an exaggeration. It was Biblical. Or to borrow from another mythology: Ragnarok.

After Ondoy, the wreckage and the materials recovery, came the forced perspective of fragility and a whole lot of Beta --- that's uncertainty in finance.