Filed under: Books, Commonplace Book, Cycling, Family, Writing | Tags: Dave, Moosefest, Northern Exposure, Poor Old Dirt Farmer
A lot has happened since last we met. Kate and I are not moving to Chico. We decided a few weeks ago to let the lease on our apartment lapse at the end of September. We are going to spend much of the next year traveling around the country. The purpose of this grand adventure is to travel along the highways and byways of America, visiting churches, meeting people, learning about their faith, and trying to better understand our own spiritual heritage. We are chronicling our journey on a new blog: http://onthenarrowroad.com. I will be writing a series of articles about our trip for one or more publications (specifics coming soon), and I hope the journey culminates in a book. This is a project we’ve been contemplating for three years, but with Molly starting preschool soon, and our deepening desire to buy a little acreage somewhere and put down roots, we feel like it’s now or never.
I think the Contours of a Country blog will take on at least three main themes. First, I will use it as a commonplace book. Second, I want to write more about what I’m reading, including a series I want to do with Poor Old Dirt Farmer called “Thirteen Books that Changed John and Dave,” inspired by Jay Parini’s book. Third, I want to write more about biking. This is right in line with the title of this blog – something I haven’t explained before – which comes from a quote from Ernest Hemingway: “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best…”
I hope you’ll follow us at On the Narrow Road. Even better, maybe we can meet you somewhere along our journey.
For the first entry in my commonplace book, I point you toward the latest post on Poor Old Dirt Farmer. Like PODF, I have been watching the show “Northern Exposure” on DVD. “Northern Exposure” was one of the few television shows my mom watched when I was growing up. My younger brother Dustin also liked the show, and he ended up marrying a girl who looks kind of like Maggie, the show’s female lead character. The setting for the show is the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska. (The show was filmed in the town of Roslyn, Washington, which holds an annual Northern Exposure Festival called Moosefest. Kate and I will try to work that into next year’s itinerary.)
Also like PODF, I feel like I have found a kindred spirit in the character of Chris, an artist and morning DJ on the local radio station. Chris is an ex-con who has found a home on the Alaskan frontier. He taught himself physics, theoretical mathematics, psychotherapy, and literature. His guiding lights include Carl Jung, Walt Whitman, Soren Kierkegaard, James Joyce, and Thomas Merton.
Anyway, PODF wrote a great post this morning that includes a clip from my favorite scene in the show – Chris at his best. I’ll go further and say it is one of the best scenes from any episode of any show. Read the post. Then Netflick the DVDs. “Northern Exposure” is a smart, funny program that you deserve to rediscover.
Filed under: Books, Music, Poetry, Writing | Tags: Jazz, Jazz Appreciation Month, Ken Burns, Kurt Elling, National Poetry Month, Poetry, Poor Old Dirt Farmer, Theodore Roethke
April is a month consecrated to two arts I wish were more prevalent in my life: poetry and jazz. Last year, I posted a poem a day on the Burnside Writers Collective blog in honor of National Poetry Month. I’ve enjoyed celebrating National Poetry Month this year on the Poor Old Dirt Farmer blog, which featured occasional poems from Wendell Berry, William Carlos Williams, C.K. Williams, and Walt Whitman, as well as some poets whose names don’t begin with W. But outside the month of April, poetry collections don’t often find their way into my book rotation. This is as good an explanation as any of why I haven’t written a poem since 2002.
April, it turns out, is also Jazz Appreciation Month. I like jazz in the way I must have first come to love language. Too young to comprehend the words being read out loud, there was nevertheless probably some intuitive recognition of pitch and structure; I was bewitched by the tone, tempo, and rhythm of the syllables. I’ve basically spent the last thirty years trying to understand that artistry, how words chosen with precision and arranged with care can reach inside of the reader a place beyond language. And so it is with jazz: I know that I enjoy listening – but I would like to know more about what I am listening to, would like to know why I enjoy it so much. When I finish “The Rest is Noise,” Alex Ross’s great book about 20th-century classical music, I want to find a good book about jazz (any recommendations?) and finally finish the Ken Burns documentary.
In honor of National Poetry and Jazz Appreciation Months, and as a kind of down payment on a more jazz- and poetry-inspired year, the soundtrack to the waning hours of April 2009 will be “The Waking,” jazz vocalist Kurt Elling’s fantastic take on the Pulitzer Prize-winning poem by Theodore Roethke.
The WakingI wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
