Who was Cassandra?
In the Iliad, she is described as the loveliest of the daughters
of Priam (King of Troy), and gifted with prophecy. The god Apollo
loved her, but she spurned him. As a punishment, he decreed
that no one would ever believe her. So when she told her fellow
Trojans that the Greeks were hiding inside the wooden horse...well,
you know what happened.
the cassandra pages
words, pictures, and a life
Saturday, April 17, 2004 Shoes in a New York window
WELCOME...to the new commenters who have written over the past week. Not only am I delighted to have your articulate, thoughtful voices here -- I got to find your blogs! That is a real gift to me and to others. I hope people read the comments, because a lot of the best stuff at Cassandra goes on there; that has certainly been true this week.
Sometimes, I think, readers are reluctant or nervous about commenting, especially on blogs that are thought of as "literary" or "intellectual", or where there seems to be a community of articulate commenters already. I remember feeling very nervous about making my first comments on other people's blogs, not much more than a year ago, thinking "nobody will talk to me, my comments will lie there like rocks, all these people already know and like each other." I also felt outside the loop because I didn't yet have a blog of my own. It took a while, but now, of course, I realize the latter is not important at all, and that bloggers - at least the ones I know - are a very accepting, kind, appreciative, and hospitable bunch. In other words, this is not high school.
I want to do everything I can to encourage dialogue here and everywhere on the web. It's good for all of us, and frankly, it is an antidote to what goes on in the world of daily life where rejection, disappointment, despair and loneliness are too often the dominant emotions. My only sadness about having a blog that is read by quite a few people is that I cannot enter into an extended conversation with everybody. Yet, there is a lot of exchange, genuine friendship, and a loose, ever-changing, and vibrant community that truly feels like a moveable feast. It's changed my life.
10:40 AM
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Thursday, April 15, 2004
THANK YOU
...for all the insightful and helpful comments that have been coming in on yesterday's post. I quote only one of many here, this by butuki:
If there is one criterium I have for my own blog it is that I present the best of what I am able to create: the best of my words, the best of my thoughts, the best pictures, the best interaction with others... even if to others that "best" is only mediocre. I've had enough of mediocre daily life. The blog is one opportunity to make a moment in the day shine and speak for the reason of my existence, however small. 1:37 PM
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CONSUMER REPORTS? WHAT'S THAT?
Last night, we watched a movie in the luxury of our bedroom home theater - which we set up for the price of a digital projector (needed for our business anyway), a screen that folds up and stores under our bed, a $47 DVD player from a discount store, and a $77 home surround-sound system with five small speakers and an amplifier. It's not fancy, and it won't impress our friends, but let me tell you, it's a great way to watch movies.
Thus I was interested to read, in today's NY Times, an article entitled "Finding Glamour in the Gadget" about Sony's plans to launch a luxury brand of electronics - and how they plan to market it to Americans:
Initially anchored by a $3,900 miniature digital camera, a $15,000 stereo system, a $12,000 television and a $30,000 home-theater projector, the product line, called Qualia, is intended to compete with (and complement) fancy cars, furs and rare wines, rather than the rows of anonymous boxes at Best Buy or Circuit City. From the nature film to the products’ oblique numbering system (the projector is formally known as Qualia 004, for instance) to the by appointment-only showroom under construction in Midtown Manhattan, Sony is meticulously calibrating every aspect to exploit and influence the psychology of consumerism.
“We want Qualia to change the way that people relate, emotionally, to these technologies,” said Ken Sugawara, head of the United States Qualia team..."
Sony seems to have it all figured out, from the demographics of the likely buyers (affluent, childless couples in their 40's), to the way their customers -oh, excuse me, "guests" - want to be treated. I had a definite emotional reaction, but it wasn't exactly the one Sony is looking for.
I admit that sexy gadgets are sexy and cool, but does anyone need diamond-encrusted cell phones, or a mini-camera that comes in a scientific-instrument case? I'm writing here on my sleek little Dell Inspiron laptop - and I love it - but I love it because of its functionality. What emotional need are we feeding here? I'm interested in what drives this partnership of over-the-top capitalistic exploitation and consumer desire: do you buy in? If so, why? If not, why not?
1:15 PM
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CLIMATE CHANGE HOTMAP A world map that shows climate change fingerprints (glacier melts, weather trends) and harbingers (such as species movement and population declines) along with written details, as well as a lot of other information about global warming. You can click anywhere on the map to zoom in and see detail for a particular continent or region. If you are someone who gets into conversations about this issue, here are facts down to a local level that will help you relate worldwide trends to the longterm impact likely for a particular place, and make a stronger argument.
12:46 PM
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Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Last night I had a conversation with an excellent writer who is working hard on her first book. "How's your writing going?" she asked, and, as writers do, I deflected the question back, "Oh, no, let's talk about how yours is going." The reason I did that is that mine is going damn slow, or so it feels to me. "If I didn't have to take care of Cassandra," I mused, "maybe I'd get more done on the book."
We talked for a while, a long, mutually-supportive conversation. One of the things she said was, “All writing needs to beget other writing”. I went to bed pondering that, and woke up thinking about it. And I’m not sure I buy it, at least not for me.
The forms of blogging and letter-writing are primary writing for me. They satisfy me just as much as a finished book would – I am quite sure of this now. We find time to do the things we really want to do, and I have found time to do this blog for a year with no sense of waning enthusiasm. I do these less formal forms of writing to get the stuff out – to write for writing's sake, for record, for memory, for joy and satisfaction – but also for the conversation. I love the communication, the relationships, the way one subject and one person feeds another. I like being known for my own quirky mind and way of expressing myself, and being loved anyway -- or even because of it. And I’m anxious to see what my friends have said and done last night, how they are doing, what is most important and most central to them right now, today, and how they have tried to express it. That never ceases to be interesting to me: frankly, it’s just as interesting and compelling as a good book.
Blogging is the most creative outlet I've ever had, and the most satisfying: here are real readers who comment and care, and come back for more - I mean, isn't that what we want? Maybe I'm just getting old and jaded, but walking down the street in New York, past bookstore windows filled with titles screaming for attention makes you realize that you and your precious book are probably not going to last very long in the public's attention; we are not that kind of society. Your book may affect someone deeply, and you may hear about it, and then again you may not. So we had better know why we're writing, and what we want to get out of it, and be pretty realistic about those reasons. Take a look at this piece from yesterday's NY Times if you are prone to romanticizing "getting published".
There's also another side to how we view creativity, and the way we put certain types of achievement up on a pedestal. If we insist on seeing creative work as heading toward specific public goals, and Art as being defined by these big monolithic accomplishments – the book, symphony, masterpiece painting – we will not only set ourselves up to fall short, but we run the risk of being blind to the art that exists in everyday creation, in the thoughts and creative acts that arise when we lift our eyes from a book, or making a meal, or stop to hear a bird song. All those things need to go into our “big art”, if that’s where we’re headed, but they are also important ends in themselves, as blogging and letter-writing remind us. I think we need to remember that, not only to validate what we are doing but because so many people are also doing this process -- of perceiving and thinking and expressing or remembering -- everyday, without ever writing anything down. It’s important to remember that their thoughts and perceptions also layer throughout life to create masterpieces: wise, perceptive, interesting people, without whom the world would be so impoverished.
Having said that, I'm still trying to write my book and also to publish my cycle of village poems, and a fascinating memoir written by my great-aunt about her childhood in rural upstate New York. Is all the above an excuse for my slow progress, if indeed it is slow? Should my blog be feeding my book more directly? If I were thirty would I feel different? Maybe I would if I were more invested in writing THIS book, or if it felt more like my own magnum opus rather than a history/biography that sort of fell into my lap and needs to be written, probably by me.
If I look back I can see that my ideas about Art and Accomplishment have changed over time: they're no less intense, but they're different now; I'm different. What hasn't changed is that I've never been very willing to play the game by somebody else's rules.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Saturday night was the traditional Easter Vigil. I was in church, reluctantly, because here at home was a vigil of a different sort: J. was developing an abscess at the site of a failed root-canal, and when I got home he was one sick puppy. That was a miserable night, made only moderately bearable by Percocet and a lot of hand-holding; Sunday was bad too, but by then we had some antibiotics. By today he's much better but still pretty knocked out. A major dental infection is not anything to fool around with, and although he's had others, this was the worst.
Not having children, I haven't had years and years of training in bedside nursing and patient encouragement, but the skills are usually there when I need them. And when you love someone dearly you would do just about anything to spare them from suffering. This past year I think I've spent more days taking care of people I love than in all the previous years put together. It makes me tired, and at times discouraged and drained. But it has also snapped my priorities into crystal-clear perspective. Although there are things I very much want to do and accomplish, putting them aside in a crisis is such a quick decision as to be no decision at all. And there are moments I cherish, as I'm sure all parents do, of sitting up with someone you adore through a long night, with hours to think about that relationship and why it is so precious, and knowing that the touch of your hand, and the meaning of that touch, is being transmitted even through sleep. What I find hardest is maintaining my patience, steadiness, and cheerfulness after the immediate crisis, but during the days and weeks when I'm still needed. How did my mother do that for me? How do some people manage to be constant, selfless care-givers?
I sometimes think about the possibility that I, an only child without children of my own, could spend my last days not with people at my side, but alone. I'm trying to get strong enough so I could do that. I think about all the people out there, including some of you, who don't have a primary relationship in their lives, and are coping all the time with solitude and loneliness, often with pluck and humor despite the difficulties. This might be a good time to say I admire you, and try to learn from you.
Last night we watched "Burnt by the Sun", a Russian movie dedicated "to all who were burnt by Stalin's revolution". It was very good, human, often funny, often very sad, with a remarkable performance by a young child, a girl, who plays the protagonist's little daughter. Wheat fields, a dacha, peasants in kerchiefs and aristocrats in their summer white linens, tea with jam; eager troops of young, red-scarfed Pioneers; frightened young soldiers; and the constant undercurrent of fear and betrayal by one's closest intimates. Immersed as I am in Rybakov's endless trilogy about the years under Stalin, the movie added real images to the ones in my imagination. The waste of millions of lives was there, but also the spirit of people finding different ways and different philosophies for survival. I'd highly recommend the movie, some night when you're feeling resiliant. There isn't much violence, but sometimes not seeing the blood makes the unseen acts all the more terrible. This wasn't really a movie about death, but about relationship and loss, and in that way it transcended its specific time and place.
My evening and morning were spent in church, last night for the Easter Vigil and this morning for two services, complete with all the "smells and bells", as the incense and formal liturgy of a festival eucharist are affectionately called. It was a pretty dramatic morning - during the first service, the woman behind me, who is going to have a baby any day, uttered a loud "aaagh!" at one point, but in a few minutes decided, smiling, "I think it was just a cramp," so we didn't have a baby arrive in the middle of the choir. During the second service, just before communion, one of the lay people serving on the altar became faint and collapsed. This was an older man, red-faced and overweight, well-known to all of us for his fiery temper and strong opinions, for whom this church means just about everything. The priest called for a doctor from the congregation, and in a few minutes the man was stretched out behind the free-standing front altar, surrounded by doctors and other medical professionals. I was about two feet away, in the choir, holding my breath as I watched this friend, with whom I've served on the vestry, turn gray and become covered with profuse sweat. We were all sure he was having the heart attack we've feared during one of his near-apoplectic rants in various meetings. The ambulance arrived, he was taken to the hospital, given tests, and eventually pronounced all right - maybe it was the heat, maybe the clouds of incense and lily perfume - anyway, the service went on and we were all relieved to hear he was apparently all right.
In the midst of all of this, there was an encouaging and hopeful sermon. Its chief message, spun from a central theme of the Irish Easter Uprising, and brought forward into today's world of strife, was that we can choose to live in the shadow of death, or we can live as resurrected beings, choosing the path of love and fearlessness over darkness. Given by a priest who spent much of his clerical life in El Salvador, these were words full of authenticity.
If I weren't so tired, I'd try to weave all of this together into something profound, or at least more poetic, but tonight that's not to be. This was a day when I felt grateful and, for the most part, in the moment: happy today to be singing, happy to see the beautiful bouquets of pink tulips and white lilies on the altar and the narcissus adorning the windows, on a spring-like day that really felt like a victory over winter.
