the joy of imagination, shared

Hello!

This morning, my mind and hands take up a new task that feels very familiar: researching and writing a quiz. A literary quiz, to be precise. As I remain wrapped in the warm glow of Gabriel García Márquez’s words, from the last pages of Love in the Time of Cholera, I am suddenly pulled to the computer. Because I suddenly realized these quizzes are a joy–simple and cheap to procure–and you may like them too.

I hereby vow to share the monthly quizzes I’ve been creating for the “West Seattle Classic Novels (and Movies)” book club with you, here on this blog. (I’ll even post the answers too!)

In a little while after it’s written, I’ll start with today’s, and then work my way backwards, on a daily basis, through all the books listed below, which we read during the months of covid-19 plague fears and lockdowns, back to March 2020 when we first met.

Because if there is one thing the reader realizes in finishing Love in the Time of Cholera, it is that lockdowns, however tedious and frightening, may give rise to new pleasures …

and all pleasures, like love, are meant to be shared.

(Like the dandelion-blowing woman from the Larousse publishing company, above, je sème à tout vent – I’ll sow [or throw] wisdom to the wind.)

The sooner, the better. You never know who might be waiting. And it’s never too late to start anew!

West Seattle Classic Novels (and Movies) book club reading list, March 2020-July 2021, titles read:

Jane Austen, Emma [March 2020]

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

Daphne Dumaurier, Jamaica Inn.

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Washington Irving, “Rip van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Charlotte Brontë, Villette

Iris Murdoch, The Green Knight

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Nella Larsen, Passing

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, film, dir. George C. Wolfe, adapted from play by August Wilson

Clarice Lispector, Family Ties

and Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez, for July 25, 2021.

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Day 35, create your own merit, again and again

Hello,

Today is grey and rainy, and after reading Vanessa Friedman’s article about face masks in the style section of the New York Times, I was feeling like a loser. The prices I charge  are well below market, I realize (not to mention all the ones I give away for free), even though mine are made by hand with great care and the finest fabrics. I am not selling them on-line or paying for advertising, but getting the word out on local blogs, and focusing on the neighborhood where I live and my fellow Seattlelites. Some friends have sent in orders, and I was encouraged to submit a bid for 50 masks yesterday: I have so much business that I’ll be wrapped up in face-mask production well into the month of June! Yet I wonder how long I can or want to go on doing this?  (I have to admit it is tiring and hard on the back!) Thus the suspicion, awakened by Friedman’s comments on the fortunes being made during this crisis:  have my better intentions made me into a schmuck? Being a schmuck—a simpleton or dupe—about money is an anxiety shared by many; one of my articles targets this very topic: how people are ridiculed for such credulity by sarcastic French writers of the Enlightenment, and the American media today!*

However, after a bit of thought and a return to my bookshelf, peace has returned. I’ll copy it here for the pleasure of sharing and reflecting on the message, before heading out on my morning walk and another nice quiet day of sewing masks for people:

It’s from the great Stoic philosopher Epictetus, The Art of Living:

“Never depend on the admiration of others. There is no strength in it. Personal merit cannot be derived from an external source. It is not to be found in your personal associations, nor can it be found in the regard of other people. It is a fact of life that other people, even people who love you, will not necessarily agree with your ideas, understand you, or share your enthusiasms. Grow up! Who cares what other people think about you!

Create your own merit.

… Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don’t be concerned who is watching you. Do your own useful work without regard for the honor or admiration your efforts might win from others. There is no such thing as vicarious merit.

… Think about it. What is really your own? The use you make of the ideas, resources, and opportunities that come your way. Do you have books? Read them. Learn from them. Apply their wisdom. … Do you have tools? Get them out and build or repair things with them. Do you have a good idea? Follow up and follow through on it. Make the most of what you’ve got, what is actually yours.”

Epictetus, The Art of Living, pp. 12-13.

___

Yesterday’s face mask production, fyi

 

* Julia V. Douthwaite, Is Charity for Schmucks? The Legitimacy of Bienfaisance, ca. 1762-82 and ca. 2013-15”: available on academia.com.

 

 

 

day five: the Elliott Bay moat, new tool of social distancing, and other news from West Seattle

Wow, there is some crazy shit going down out here in Washington state. Last night Governor Inslee issued an official call for WA residents to Stay At Home as much as possible for the next two weeks. Just minutes before that, we learned that the long cement bridge linking the peninsula of West Seattle (where I live) to the mainland was shutting down indefinitely.  Structural damage “suddenly” came to light and the city closed the freeway in one day, giving people only three hours to get home. Apocalypse now!

It’s scary to think what would have happened—would the whole thing have come crashing down? Or just bits?  Perhaps one lane would crumble off and sink into the Duwamish River before pulling the others down after it, as unwitting motorists went hurtling into the deep? Phew! That is one disaster averted, at least.

But now the short distance—about 1.4 miles—from here to downtown looks different. It looms huge, impossible, inaccessible.  That is because there is (and always was) a very very deep body of very very cold water between us.  Huge ships can be seen now and then as they slowly power through to the Port of Seattle docks, the ferries plow back and forth, tugboats and barges crawl by, and the water taxi runs once an hour. Otherwise, people rarely venture into Elliott Bay.

There’s a radical new tool of social distancing: the moat.

West Seattle may become the best Seattle yet!  safest, at any rate.  We’ll just be over here slowly and silently losing our minds!

hahahahahaha!!!!

More news:  The new sign is up for Week 2!  And a new quilt. This one is the large “Alice in Wonderland” quilt.

How many books are you reading these days? I’m up to four at once now, in small bits or long luxurious sessions after lunch, or before bed, or anytime really….  (that feels strange to admit).

W. Bruce Cameron, A Dog’s Journey (surprisingly addictive sweet and mindless fun to imagine life as a dog sees it); Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (Oof, that is a long book; but I promised to read it and it’s really pretty fantastic!), Peter Ralston, The Principles of Effortless Power (bedtime table essential to calm the mind); and Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence (funny and sarcastic portrait of snotty New Yorkers vying for power amongst themselves in the late 19th century).

Sad that the bookstore where I was to discuss David Copperfield has just shut its doors.

😦     I bet it’s a sad day all around.  Hope you’re ok.  Hang in there and I’ll see you tomorrow.