My Writing Exercise: A Heavy Mule at the Pierian Spring

Some have at first for Wits, then Poets past,
Turn'd Critics next, and prov'd plain Fools at last.
Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pass,
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.

I was told by my teaching mentor, " If you plan to teach writing, you had better write for at least two hours before you come to teach."  That meant getting up well before "It's time to get up."

It also meant that I needed to steal myself to a habit of engaging my craft.  Aristotle wrote, " We are what we repeatedly do,"  The famously taciturn President Calvin Coolidge said, "  Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

A grammar school coach, Tom Spatz said, " Losers have potential."  He also, asked me if I had polio a few years earlier, when he saw me dribble a basketball.

I still dribble a basketball like an exceptionally challenged human being. All Up in here!

However, since signing my contract at Bishop Martin D. McNamara High School in May of 1975, I have written for two hours before I went to teach my students.

This habit did not make me a great writer, but it did help me become something of an effective teacher.

Reading, speaking and writing forces one to engage other human beings.  Reading introduces thoughts, deeds and manners of expression far beyond our immediate social circle.  Speaking helps us say what we mean.  Writing requires exactness.

I write whatever comes to mind and that is a mixed bag to be sure.  What I hope will happen by end of my scribbling and correcting and modifying will be short, satisfying defense of all the things have made my life fun, fruitful and favorable to someone who reads what I have written.

Lessons learned from good people, who have provided for other people as tradesmen, butchers, milkmen, nurses, police officers, firemen, coaches and teachers mean as much and often more than picked up from pages from Balzac, Turgenev, Gorky, Joyce, Tacitus, or Swift. The harmonies of sounds pulled from the din of a loud basement full of relatives and family friends at a Christmas Party among picnic tables lifted from the forest preserves covered in table cloth and loaded with potato salads, cold cuts, pots of Italian beef, corned beef, Kapusta, Mostaccioli, cakes and soad bread; with blaring accordions, fiddles, tin whistles played by Cuz Teahan, Jimmy Neary, Tom Masterson and Kate Neary, or a powerful HiFi loaded with Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Louis Prima and John Coltrane.  Cousin doing Irish step-dancing, or Sugar push and out back steps to Gene Krupa.  Then of course just free-form, white guy moves to This Old Heart of Mine by the Four Tops.

An uncle pulls you aside and tells you to knock off whatever the hell it is that you think you are doing.

Your aunt tells him to go and have another beer and mind his own business and to turn the car keys over - Now. 

Scores of kids scream with delight, or terror.  Several cry because they being picked on and comforted until they can go and pick on someone for themselves and all is good.

Words impact from everywhere.

The meanings of those words will be lost on the world, unless someone remembers what the hell was said.  Memory can often be very convenient.

Memory is the burden carried by one who writes and that burden only gets eased with writing down the words.

Sometimes words seem like leftovers from a party.

America's Montaigne -Joseph Epstein Baffles BS in Biography

"I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself." --Essays Montaigne

Learning to write sound, interesting, sometimes elegant prose is the work of a lifetime. The only way I know to do it is to read a vast deal of the best writing available, prose and poetry, with keen attention, and find a way to make use of this reading in one’s own writing. The first step is to become a slow reader. No good writer is a fast reader, at least not of work with the standing of literature. Writers perforce read differently from everyone else.  Heavy Sentences -Joseph Epstein New Criterion

Mr. Epstein's ability to capture a subject in a memorable 3,000 words should be the envy of biographers, who write at greater length but sometimes with no greater effect. Biographies are vats of facts that take patience to digest; Mr. Epstein's essays are brilliant distillations. Biographers are rarely as nimble and pithy as he can be, and they labor under constraints he would surely chafe at. Indeed, the author once returned the advance for a biography of John Dos Passos that he had agreed to write, an enterprise that would surely have taxed his desire to say what he really thinks. Wall Street Journal

Yesterday I placed my order with the good folks at Amazon.com for Joe Epstein's 23rd book Essays in Biography (Axios Press $24).

I have been reading Joe Epstein for decades.  I first learned of Mr. Epstein from a professor ( a tag Joe Epstein eschews -"You mean a piano player in a Kankakee Cat House?") at Loyola University in 1974.  Dr. William Hiebel taught American Literature and Prose.  Joe Epstein had a reputation for crafting brilliant and very readable prose, which he practiced upon the contributing authors to American Scholar. Dr. Hiebel introduced me to writers who wanted people to actually understand what they wanted to say and not build verbal labyrinths to themselves -writes like Joe Epstein, Mark Harris and the much too overlooked James Salter.

Joe Epstein writes with an invitingly genuine quality that makes the reader a comfortable guest in his home.  Charm is a lousy word. To call Joe Epstein charming is an affront to his honesty.  Mr. Epstein  is not charming - he is delightful.  Charming, where I come from, is an insult.   Joe comes from the same bungalow, two-flat, raised ranch helot dwelling environs up on the top of Chicago - Rogers Park.

A Charmer is a bullshitter - a charming Billy, a grifter, a sneak.

One who delights is a like a young Dad whose whispered  words to his six year old son elicit a wild display of little-man heroics and infantile wrestling moves in a crowded Mexican fast-food joint at 43rd & Wallace. " What kind of sides you want? "

" Masha Putatahs!"

" Masha Putatahs? This ain't Schallers."

" I want Masha Putatahs!"

Ready!  Wrestle! That is delight.  Dad and lad going at it over menu selection with squeals and giggles from both indicating their delight in one another and this precious time together alone. Joe Epstein does exactly that, he delights a crowd in lunch hour rush waiting for their orders in Mexican fast-food joint.

In his recent book of stories and essays Fabulous Small Jews Joe Epstein presents a variation on Irish Alzheimers Disease* - ''Psychotherapy is what Jews have instead of golf,'' one character says. ''Gentiles try to improve their backswing, Jews their past.'' 

Joe Epstein reads broadly and deeply, be it a Mexican menu or the canon of John Dos Passos and, as a result, gives back better than he gets within his capacity to be himself -monster and miracle.  All of us know the monsters we drag around and keep at bay, for most part, in the company of people.  We do our best to be more miracle worker than monster.  We all want to be Prospero, but manage to be more like Caliban - you should get a load of me in most waking hours.  Over whom do hold dominion, my monster, or my master?  The Monster ( appetites, follies, vanities and foibles) in two falls to a submission! Maybe not.  The more we read of others and the monster we be, perhaps the more we might master ourselves and serve others better. Maybe not.  Joe Epstein helps.

I believe Joseph Epstein to be America's Montaigne ( the Dad of the essay) and it was Montaigne who gave us Caliban and the assorted anthropophagi who dominate literature from Renaissance on. I too, sprout my head below my shoulders on some very bad days.

Joe Epstein succeeds where charlatans only become celebrities.  More people know of our Norman Mailers, Susan Sontags, Michael Eric Dysons, or Gore Vidals because they never question their own personal Caliban and promote Prospero Mailer on Dick Cavet, or Sara Prospero-Paretsky on the Oprah Show ( dec.).

Joe Epstein is the real deal.  He is America's Montaigne.

* Irish Alzheimer's Disease -You forget everything but the grudges!

Art Not Chance - Catholics Not Welcome Still

"I have hated the Church way before anyone else." Bill Maher


Alexander Pope's family was not allowed to live within 'ten miles of London or Windsor.' That was due to the very acceptable anti-Catholic sentiment that flourished in Britain and still is quite fashionable in the United States.

Bill Maher's whipping of the Pope's Dogs in America - all 60 million of us - gave him the Bulliest of Pulpits - TV. Maher goes unchallenged and unchecked and will continue to do so. He even has a movie out that no one I know has seen, but everyone has heard about - Buzzzzzzzz.

Boston College reviewed the movie:

Religulous is incredibly indicative of Maher's love to stir up trouble and surely offended those who identify with the Holy Land or creationist museum guests. Instead of striving to inspire religious questioning, Maher attacks beliefs that are dear to a huge demographic. Charles' style is reminiscent of his pervious work on Borat, as Religulous attempts to go over the heads of those at whom it pokes fun. Just like Borat, Charles takes the back seat and lets the lead (Maher) take the driver seat to craft his style of humor.

After his prolific talk show history, Maher takes his disregard for others' feelings to the big screen in Religulous. Although entertaining, Maher falls short of convincing many to question their beliefs; instead, he alienates those who might sympathize with his cause.

http://media.www.bcheights.com/media/storage/paper144/news/2009/02/19/TheScene/Mahers.religulous.Able.To.Stir.Up.Extremism.But.Not.Debate-3637016-page2.shtml

PC gave Maher carte blanche, but it failed to fuel the clown with talent or genuine insights - human much less divine. Maher tools for others who hate Catholics in particular and religion in general.

HBO gave the raving anti-Catholic Bill Maher a wonderful platform from which to insult sixty (60) million Americans. Renegade Catholics are lionized like George Carlin, Eugene O'Neill, or F. Scott Fitzgerald. America has no place for Catholics in text books ( try and find any reference to the Carrolls of Maryland; John Barry Father of the US Navy; or American Philosopher Orestes Brownson). Devout Catholics are dissected on a Procrustean rack by context critics and semiotic totalitarians and then tossed aside as slaves to the Vatican.

Like writing itself, this fashionable American bigotry is practised. Good writing requires continued practice. As Pope wrote," True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who have learned to dance"
In Essay on Criticism, Pope defended literary orthodoxies and savage attention to virtues, patriotism, and piety in Faith. Writers are not 'outside' themselves it seems. A writer who would attack a life-long friend in an attempt to curry favor with a patron, could not devote himself to the canons of taste that command all literary arts,

Likewise, trendy bigots can spew hate in fashionable epithets and sound bytes

But if in Noble Minds some Dregs remain,
Not yet purg'd off, of Spleen and sow'r Disdain,
Discharge that Rage on more Provoking Crimes,
Nor fear a Dearth in these Flagitious Times.
No Pardon vile Obscenity should find,
Tho' Wit and Art conspire to move your Mind;
But Dulness with Obscenity must prove
As Shameful sure as Importance in Love.
In the fat Age of Pleasure, Wealth, and Ease,
Sprung the rank Weed, and thriv'd with large Increase;
When Love was all an easie Monarch's Care;
Seldom at Council, never in a War:
Jilts rul'd the State, and Statesmen Farces writ;
Nay Wits had Pensions, and young Lords had Wit:
The Fair sate panting at a Courtier's Play,
And not a Mask went un-improv'd away:
The modest Fan was liked up no more,
And Virgins smil'd at what they blush'd before--
The following Licence of a Foreign Reign
Did all the Dregs of bold Socinus drain;
Then Unbelieving Priests reform'd the Nation,
And taught more Pleasant Methods of Salvation;
Where Heav'ns Free Subjects might their Rights dispute,
Lest God himself shou'd seem too Absolute.
Pulpits their Sacred Satire learn'd to spare,
And Vice admir'd to find a Flatt'rer there!
Encourag'd thus, Witt's Titans brav'd the Skies,
And the Press groan'd with Licenc'd Blasphemies--
These Monsters, Criticks! with your Darts engage,
Here point your Thunder, and exhaust your Rage!
Yet shun their Fault, who, Scandalously nice,
Will needs mistake an Author into Vice;All seems Infected that th' Infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the Jaundic'd Eye.

LEARN then what MORALS Criticks ought to show,
For 'tis but half a Judge's Task, to Know.
'Tis not enough, Taste, Judgment, Learning, join;
In all you speak, let Truth and Candor shine:
That not alone what to your Sense is due,
All may allow; but seek your Friendship too.

Be silent always when you doubt your Sense;
And speak, tho' sure, with seeming Diffidence:
Some positive persisting Fops we know,
Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so;
But you, with Pleasure own your Errors past,
An make each Day a Critick on the last.

'Tis not enough your Counsel still be true,
Blunt Truths more Mischief than nice Falsehood do;
Men must be taught as if you taught them not;
And Things unknown propos'd as Things forgot:
Without Good Breeding, Truth is disapprov'd;
That only makes Superior Sense belov'd.

Be Niggards of Advice on no Pretence;
For the worst Avarice is that of Sense:
With mean Complacence ne'er betray your Trust,
Nor be so Civil as to prove Unjust;
Fear not the Anger of the Wise to raise;
Those best can bear Reproof, who merit Praise.

'Twere well, might Criticks still this Freedom take;
But Appius reddens at each Word you speak,
And stares, Tremendous! with a threatning Eye
Like some fierce Tyrant in Old Tapestry!
Fear most to tax an Honourable Fool,
Whose Right it is, uncensur'd to be dull;
Such without Wit are Poets when they please.
As without Learning they can take Degrees.
Leave dang'rous Truths to unsuccessful Satyrs,
And Flattery to fulsome Dedicators,
Whom, when they Praise, the World believes no more,
Than when they promise to give Scribling o'er.
'Tis best sometimes your Censure to restrain,
And charitably let the Dull be vain:
Your Silence there is better than your Spite,
For who can rail so long as they can write?
Still humming on, their drowzy Course they keep,
And lash'd so long, like Tops, are lash'd asleep.
False Steps but help them to renew the Race,
As after Stumbling, Jades will mend their Pace.
What Crouds of these, impenitently bold,
In Sounds and jingling Syllables grown old,
Still run on Poets in a raging Vein,
Ev'n to the Dregs and Squeezings of the Brain;
Strain out the last, dull droppings of their Sense,
And Rhyme with all the Rage of Impotence!

From Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Clowns like Maher get the job done for their masters. Their Masters are the people who have eliminated the canons of taste in all of the Arts, in Politics, and in common societal discourse. I call them The Who's To Say-ers: 'Who's to say Lesbianism at the Grammies is not what Americans demand; that humorless PC gelds literature and art.' I do not find Maher clever or funny. He lacks depth of thought and practiced attention to the canons of humor. He is an outrageous loudmouth.

Pope had it right. 'Tis best sometimes your Censure to restrain,
And charitably let the Dull be vain:
Your Silence there is better than your Spite,
For who can rail so long as they can write?