Of Meter and Meteors

Ah, when worlds collide - Literature and Astronomy! This fascinating article will appeal to both the science junky and the Whitman enthusiast. Enjoy.

Forensic Astronomer Solves Walt Whitman Mystery

CultureLab is a great blog, too.

A Book for Earth Day

While I recommend that everyone "just get out there" today and connect with Nature, here's a recent addition to my bookshelf that is worthy of note, today of all days.
If you get a chance, read it.

The term "secular enchantment" really resonates with me, as I have always believed that our capacity to be in awe of the natural world is something deeply spiritual, older than religion ... and probably a lot saner.

So read this to dispel misconceptions about Darwin and Darwinism, and to take a wonderful journey back to your own "origins" of wonder, that capacity you had as a child to take delight in the world around you. After reading this, you realize that Darwin never lost it.

In the Beginning was the Word

Watching the Charlie Rose segment last week about Apple's new iPad and then watching the documentary Empire of the Word, which is airing again on TVO this spring, got me thinking about that hotly debated subject, the future of reading, and about books in general.

I don’t belong to the sect that is moaning about the end of the written word or the end of the book, because frankly I don’t think writing and reading are doomed; if anything, this crazy 21st century thus far is showing us a world culture that is more addicted to the word than ever before. The rise of texting (yes, I know they're not using grammar), the proliferation of platforms and accessibility to content is increasing, not diminishing. The "word" is not going away any time soon. We will always need to communicate, and we will always need good communicators.

What is changing is how content is delivered. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. We don't write on stone tablets anymore (thank goodness for that because it's bad enough having carpal tunnel let alone back problems) and we don't fill little wooden boxes with molten lead, either. Our methods of producing and disseminating content have evolved. Not a surprise, surely. Everything has changed: locomotion, housing, work, manners and mores. Welcome to the human race. (And there's something about the race to achieve, change or improve that defines us as a species, isn't there?)

Yet, despite the progression from papyrus to digital publishing, what remains and is ever constant is the Word. It's just the format that is changing. Of course, the medium will affect the message (see that texting reference), but in the end it is the continuing flow of communication and information that keeps the world going 'round. (Indeed, don't physicists tell us that perhaps our universe is more a great thought than a machine? All life is encoded information — DNA, chemicals, atoms.)

If I have any concern, it is mainly this: I hope that the great works of literature and even the obscure but extraordinarily wonderful works of literature get distribution on these new platforms. How wonderful would that be! Can I read any text I want, say from the great library in Alexandria? Or the work of an unknown but brilliant poet whose manuscripts were only recently discovered? Can I read Plato? Sappho? Montale? Kundera? Cervantes and Bellow? And Whitman? Taking my iPad to the woods and reading "these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life" suddenly takes on an entirely new and wondrous meaning. Whitman truly can go with me anywhere now, and not just the dog-earred yellowing pocketbook that gets stuffed in bags and coat pockets and will one day fall apart entirely.

The ancient Latin words "vade mecum" have a new context entirely.

So that is what would excite me: to know that I will not be limited to reading the latest mindless celebrity gossip or entertainment drivel, but that I will still be able to access the Word as given to us down through the centuries of human thought. Then that really will be a giant leap for mankind.

I like the idea of iPad. I think this will change things enormously. It is not just a toy. If it gets more people reading and accessing the papers and the newsfeeds so that they stay informed, and if it keeps children enthused about books and reading, I say great. There will always be a place for the books you hold in your hand, but if we can stop the destruction of forests to produce towers of paper books, then I say, let's …

The point is not what you are holding open in your hand to read from, what matters is that your mind is open to receive what you are reading.

More about that wonderful documentary, Empire of the Word, in another post.

Exhibit Commemorates the Work of Ivan Kocsis

Ivan Kocsis was a Hungarian artist who came to Canada in 1956 and promptly fell in love with his new country for its natural, wild beauty. He took to heart the story of the First Nations and devoted the rest of his life to painting and drawing the history of this continent's indigenous people. An amateur archaeologist and historian as well, Kocsis collected thousands of artifacts and made hundreds of pages of drawings. He visited the Six Nations Indian Reserve often and became friends with Chief Jacob Thomas and Walter Cooke at the Hamilton Regional Indian Centre. Ivan was made an Honorary Member of the Mohawk tribe. His works are in private and public collections across Canada and the United States, notably, the Smithsonian, the Museum of Man in Ottawa and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.

Now, some of these works can be seen in this special exhibit in his honour, an exhibit mounted by my friend and client, Frank Spezzano, dramatist and author of Bressani.

Sadly, Ivan Kocsis passed away in October, 2008. This is a great opportunity to see some of his fine work held in private collections.

A Terrific First Novel

When I first read the draft of Spiderbones in 2007, I wrote:

“Exceptional is the way in which the writer has established mood and setting, largely through the use of the main characters’ dialogues and the location references. The story is grim, dark, gritty, unrelenting. This is one of the great strengths of the book—its atmosphere. The reader is keenly aware at all times of the world in which the author requires us to inhabit: a tough, uneasy landscape, both physically and psychologically. The characters are equally tough, rendered perfectly through their dialogue and their actions. And the town of Castle Dawn becomes not just a backdrop for the action but, eerily, a living presence as well, quite nearly a character in its own right."

I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Jeff a few years back, and I was stunned by the raw poetry of this first novel. Evocative, haunting imagery, descriptions, strong dialogue that captures the world of his young characters—we are drawn into their lives, and into the haunted mind of his protagonist, Peter, who struggles to make sense of what he sees. Visions? Hallucinations? Madness?

Here’s a passage from the novel:

There was no witness when the bat nailed the back of his head. He curled into a ball to protect himself, tossing his arms in front of his face. He saw his left arm block the wallop meant for his nose. It didn’t creak or snap. Instead, his veins filled with blistering water, heat that allowed his bones to twist as if it were jelly fitting a mould, until a bat-shaped groove was pounded into the limb.

The pain could only be described by a hallucination. Blinking, he saw a giant spider, the size of a van. She trailed a strand of rope-like material behind her as stepped away from his arm. He stared at the odd mix of grey and white leaking from her spinneret; her web was neither as shiny nor as thin as silk. Perhaps an inch thick, it proved to be easily categorized.

She was secreting bones that were digging into his arm, yoking his skeleton to her web. Unable to escape, he noticed a throbbing sac just above his arm. The silky package burst open before he screamed, unleashing dozens of hungry arachnids. The baby spiders covered his limb, filling it with stinging venom as they ate it, a thousand tiny bites that destroyed his appendage far more efficiently than a bat.

Blinking again, he watched bone turn to blood and spiders turn to kicking feet. Yet pain remained pain. Returned to the beating, he stayed curled in a ball, pinned not by a web but by his own failing limbs. This observation would do little to save his life. Without a—

“Cop!” yelled someone who couldn’t be older than Peter.

Six pairs of feet dressed in combat boots suddenly pointed their toes away from the man they would’ve killed with three more blows. Unable to remember any of their faces, even the colour of their bandanas, he passed out. He used his last thought to make a guess: without a description, or a police force fast enough to outrun juvenile delinquents, the punks who hurt him would never be caught.

He was right.

Spiderbones is available from Trafford.

A Few Good Words

There is a passage in the famous preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass that I read every now and then, usually at the beginning of each new year. While I realize that we're already well into 2010, coming across these words the other day prompted me to post them.

Over the years this passage has become both creed and mantra for me, so these are good words to share. Across time, Whitman is calling upon each and every one of us, not just poets, to rise up to the challenge of being the very best we can be—compassionate, loving, wise and open-minded.

This is what you shall do:

Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body. . . .

Artists for Peace and Justice: On the Ground Help in Haiti

I haven't been blogging for some time. Mostly because I feel that I don't have much to say these days. Some despondency has been creeping into my pysche since the end of 2009, a defiantly difficult year, not just for me but for a lot of people I know and love. But my own personal angst as a small business owner about unpaid invoices and the precariousness of sole proprietorship gets sharply snapped into focus when one sees real suffering, deprivation and death - and on such a large scale.

Haiti should be in everyone's thoughts now. And it does seem that the world is responding generously and compassionately. It is quite remarkable really. Give, give, give cash is the rallying cry now. Charitable organizations large and small are seeking funds to get aid out to desperate Haitians - food, water, medicine. They need the basics.

They need everything.

I gave it some thought before I rushed to the phones or the Internet. I wanted to find an organization that could put the funds to good use immediately and would be so "hands on" that I could donate with peace of mind, knowing that even my meagre contribution would translate into something tangible for a Haitian in need. As soon as possible. Right away. Maybe hydrate a child, or prevent a baby from dying needlessly.

Well, I found that organization and I want to spread the word.

I am so proud to call Paul Haggis a fellow Londoner. (I was born in London, Ontario, Canada.) Last year he started an organization called Artists for Peace and Justice. Please follow the link and watch the video. And donate. This money will go directly into the hands of Father Frechette so that he can provide emergency aid to the children of Haiti. While all people in Haiti right now need help, regardless of their age, it is the children who are so vulnerable, so fragile. So many are orphans - were orphans even before the quake struck.

Just visit the website and see for yourself, because quite frankly I don't feel very eloquent these days. Let the images speak for themselves. The video is not easy to watch. But watch it you should.