People who are far more dedicated writers than I am

I filed this story on journaling with this sidebar in response to an assignment. It ran on the cover of the Flair section in the Sunday, March 21, Richmond Times-Dispatch, which is why there aren't any men in the article.

I had a hard time finding a locally owned bookstore that sells journals, but discovered that Precious Memories on Idlewood Avenue both sells blank books and conducts journaling workshops. The shop is currently only open by appointment or for workshops (of various kinds) and I still haven't visited in person. I had seen signs for it, coming off the Downtown Expressway near the Kickers stadium, and had been curious about it despite the saccharine name.

I'm glad I called. It was an inspiring encounter with a woman who seems to be making her own way in the world, doing what she loves outside traditional models of success.

Before I made the call, however, I had asked the owner of another local bookshop--one not even a mile away--if she knew whether Precious Memories sold blank books. She had not heard of the store. This surprised me, and I was left to speculate why.

Richmond Symphony Names Director

It's Steven Smith.

Here's the link to my review of last week's Masterworks performance conducted by Smith. If I had had just a few more inches, I would have also mentioned the incredible pianissimos of the timpanist in every piece.

I had a few minutes on Wednesday and was near the downtown library, so I stopped in and wandered among the 800s of Mr. Dewey. My eye fell on a collection of letters written by the American poet Anne Sexton, so I picked it up and read here and there. This is one thing I learned:

In the early 1970s, Sexton convinced the Boston Globe to send her to review an Ella Fitzgerald-Count Basie concert on Cape Cod. Not only did the newspaper pay for tickets and a hotel room for her and a friend, they gave her 1200 words for the review.

Do you know how much easier it is to write 1200 words than 430 words?!

Why We Work

I bought this book at Narnia Children's Books yesterday. On the way home from school, my 6-year-old looked at it in the back seat. The first question she asked: "How much did it cost?"

"About $18" I said.

"Oh my gosh! That's a lot!" she said. There was a few moments of silence as she looked for the price on the slipcover to confirm that her mom wasn't lying.

"It's a hard cover," I said. "If it had been a paperback, it might have been around $8 or $10."

"Wow," she said, and then as if to herself, "Now I see why you need a job."

Alt Comix and Alt Characters

My report on the the appearance of R. Crumb and Françoise Mouly ran in today's Times-Dispatch.

I'm not a Crumb fan, but I still felt a little awed and odd to see, in person, the man responsible for this, for example. He voice is a mild tenor, his manner almost sweet. He actually said, "Awww" without affectation when some photos of his children and wife were shown overhead. He was a little shy-and-awkward, yes, but not reticent. Mouly guided the conversation through prompts and didn't have to ask very many direct questions; Crumb was willing to tell little stories and deliver wry aphorisms.

By the way, the post title does not refer to attendees at the event but to this exciting page that shows how to make ç and ü and £ and even ☺, if you're so inclined.

Jose Marti: I Grow a White Rose

One of the narrated poems in the "Son Corazon" performance (see previous post) was translated into English, alternating languages every two lines. I'm not a Spanish speaker, but I am a poet, and as I listened, I suspected the translation wasn't doing the original justice. Before we left at intermission, I glanced at someone else's program just long enough to see that the poem was by Jose Marti.

(Everything I know about Marti I learned from Pete Seeger's rendition of "Guantanamera.")

I looked around the Internet this morning and found that the almost-literal translation used at the performance is dismayingly common. But here's one that attempts to preserve the rhyme of the original.

I have a white rose to tend
In July* as in January;
I give it to the true friend
Who offers his frank hand to me.

And for the cruel one whose blows
Break the heart by which I live,
Thistle nor thorn do I give:
For him, too, I have a white rose.

CULTIVO UNA ROSA BLANCA... (Verso XXXIX)
Cultivo una rosa blanca,
En julio* como en enero,
Para el amigo sincero
Que me da su mano franca.

Y para el cruel que me arranca
El corazón con que vivo,
Cardo ni oruga cultivo:
Cultivo la rosa blanca.

*I think this should be "June," although "July" turns up in both Spanish and English versions on the Internet. It's amazing how mistakes turn into reality here. I need to find a reputable, actual book.

Here's another version. It seems, amazingly, to be from a publication called Military Review.

I GROW A WHITE ROSE
I grow a white rose,
In June as in January,
For my true friend
Who gives me his honest hand.

And for the cruel man who tears from me
The heart with which I live,
Thistle nor thorn do I grow:
I grow the white rose.

CULTIVO UNA ROSA BLANCA
Cultivo una rosa blanca,
en junio como en enero,
para el amigo sincero
que me da su mano franca.

Y para el cruel que me arranca
el corazon con que vivo,
cardo ni ortiga cultivo:
cultivo la rosa blanca.

Step right up, it's "Richmond in Ragtime"

The chapter is an underappreciated literary device. At least, I failed to appreciate chapters until I began to read a book without one; then I realized how humbly crucial they are for showing the forward trajectory of a narrative and clarifying the relative importance of events and characters.

I had been floundering through the fascinating, well-written, but chapterless "Richmond in Ragtime: Socialists, Suffragists, Sex and Murder," by Harry Kollatz, Jr., when I went to a reading by Mr. Kollatz-- a performance, to be accurate.

He read several vignettes from the book, at times to the accompaniment of the Happy Lucky Combo.(This is probably the riskiest thing an author can do: have live, unrehearsed musical back-up to his reading. But when it works, it's delightful, as this was. Note: I am related to the accordionist.) And Mr. Kollatz, also an actor, is an excellent reader.

As he described the attractions of the 1909 state fair (first airplane flight in Richmond, pink popcorn, "huchy-kuchy," distilled spirits, etc.) I began to understand that the book "Richmond in Ragtime" is itself a carnival, a lit-up, cacophonous, sweat-steeped scatterment of sideshows and flapping tent doors.

In this one!: a quartet of underage drinkers "offering to put down 15 cents and the promise of a dollar next weekend" to purchase gin rickies!
In that one!: a 3,000-year-old mummified Egyptian princess rescued from a blazing dormitory!
And here!: muckraking ex-Mennonite gadfly Adon Yoder, editor of that weekly scourge of City Hall, "The Idea"!
What have they to do with each other? Who knows?! Who cares?!! Lay your money down and snap the dice across the felt!

I know from peeking into later vignettes that "Richmond in Ragtime" does have recurring characters and a few threads of plot (not that the book claims to have one). I still wish Mr. Kollatz or his editors had formed chapters with his material. But whether or not there's a main attraction around the next dusty corner, it was helpful to think of book-as-carnival; somehow understanding the form of a thing inclines me to like the thing.