Rereading Hemingway

One goes back to Hemingway as one might look up an old friend, or an old girl-friend--warily. Perhaps the old magic will be gone. Maybe she will have gotten fat. Perhaps the time will be awkward, strained. You have heard so many stories about your friend since you last saw her. Maybe some of the them are true.

Thomas Cahill and History. June 4, 2010

At the Clay Jenkinson event, I picked up a copy of a book by Thomas Cahill. We read two of his books ("How the Irish Saved Civilization," and "The Gift of the Jews") in our book club. Those are the first two books of a four-book series called The Making of the Ancient World. The third book in that series--Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus-- a good book about the historical setting of the New Testament. A fourth book in that series, Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter, I have not read, but I'll read anything about the Greeks.

Now he is beginning another series, called The Making of the Modern World. I just bought the first volume, called The Mysteries of the Middle Ages. Two more volumes are promised. The whole seven-volume series has a title: The Hinges of History.

I both admire and resist “grand schemes.” There’s a tendency to rush individual pieces, hoping, perhaps, that the larger structure will make up the difference. That seems to be the case with Mysteries.

Clay Jenkinson & The Prairies. June 4, 2010

Last night we attended a wonderful event: a book signing by Clay Jenkinson, followed by a taping of an interview about Eric Sevarid, which turned into a spirited discussion of living in ND. If memory serves, the tape will be broadcast on PP Radio on June 13 at 5, right after book club, actually. It begins as a tribute to Eric Sevarid (born in Velva), but turns into a spirited discussion of what it means to live in ND,in what Jeninkson calls "the sacred corridor" by which he means a region roughly 300-400 miles west of the 100th meridian--from here to say, Billings. I picked up a copy of Jenkinson essays, called Message on the Wind--lyrical autobiographical pieces along the lines of Ivan Doig, but more readable for my money--more informed by history, less densely metaphorical.

Heard from your hands lately? June 3, 2010

Here's a simple experiment: close your eyes and hold your hands about two feet apart and then bring your forefingers together. How close did you get? Closer, I would bet, than I do. On a first try, I often miss altogether. When I would try to do some simple task in junior high, my friends would say (not altogether joking), "Have you heard from your hands lately?" I dropped typing in high school to save myself the embarrassment of failing, though the computer allows me to make as many mistakes as I please without anyone knowing it.

So why would I take up guitar?