Not a Fop: Defending Polonius

This morning, for some reason, the famous speech from Polonius to his son, Laertes, from Hamlet, was on repeat in my skull. I thought to write about my notion that people misinterpret it. Here's the whole thing, in case it has been awhile for you. Laertes is about to return to college and Polonius, his seemingly foppish father, gives him this parting advice. (By the way, I say "seemingly foppish" because it is hard to have spent a career as the closest advisor to a powerful monarch and to have been a fool). To his son, he says:

Pigasus

I have said before, on here, and also when I was writing the column "Artistic Unknowns" for When Falls the Coliseum, that I don't believe in THE creative process. People speak of it as if there is one way to do things. Not only do I know that different artists and writers have different procedures, but I also know that I don't have a set procedure for myself. And I love that.

I am officially ready to start recording my second CD. This one will be an instrumental CD -- a collection of songs on which (among other goals) I can have a little fun on the drums; flex the chops a little. The tunes carry a concoction of influences from everyone from Rush to Ravel. Seriously eclectic.  The working title is Pigasus, taken from a character John Steinbeck used to draw on letters to Pat Covici: the pig, trying to fly, that was meant to be a humorous self-deprecation on Steinbeck's part: "earthbound but aspiring.... A lumbering soul but trying to fly...(with)...not enough wingspread but plenty of intention." In short: me.

As it stands, the songs are in the form of MIDI (computer) mock-ups. The arrangements were done on the computer, including the drum parts. What I need to figure out now is how to humanize things. I have no idea, yet, as to how I am going to do this. I do know it will involve guest musicians, recording of the real drums and, likely, a replaying of all of the other parts.

Perils of a Keyword Culture

I had a thing in mind to write about today, but something happened.

In my post from Wednesday, I wrote, in part, about my distaste for e-readers, like the Nook and Kindles. As is my usual practice, I "tweeted" that article for my Twitter and my Facebook H&R followers on my blog's "off" day. Of course, Tweets are public, unless you set them not to be so. I hash-tagged my "tweet" (good God, it feels ridiculous using this terminology) with "#kindle"; therefore, it was seen by "Kindle Review" --  a Twitter account that, it seems, promotes and reviews Kindle products.

Well, the Kindle Review "favorited" my post.

Did they read it? Or, did they just see #kindle as a hash tag and "favorite" it automatically? I think we both know the answer to that.

If they had read my piece, they would have known that if more people like me were in the world, their site would have no raison d'etre. Nope. It is all about sharing, these days -- all about networking with the community. [insert robot movements here]

And, maybe, here lies is the key to a paradox I have been feeling ever since I started chirping my anti-community sentiments. I speak, all of the time, about individualism and against the compulsive need people seem to feel for "community" and "sharing" everything, yet I write a blog. Let's face it: every writer of a blog is trying to gather a "community" about him. But this little Twitter incident helped my to unravel the paradox.

"You Can't Sniff a Kindle"

Sorry I'm late. I'm recovering from a depressing night at the bookstore.

We went to Barnes and Noble. While I prefer the dusty old shops of New York and Philly to the crispy-clean rows and coffee corners of the mega stores, it was still always nice to know I could get what I needed when I needed it with a short car trip. Now, not so much...

We needed books for my sons' summer reading projects and I needed a new escape.

Time was, my wife and sons and I would accrue a pile of books and spend way too much money every time we went to the bookstore. Now, not so much...

Karen couldn't find a book she was looking for, even though it was listed as "in stock." They had none of the  Lloyd Alexander books (!?) that I really wanted my older son to consider reading (somewhere along the line I lost or gave away my first volume of the Prydain series...)

Rain, rain, don't go away...

The other day, while I was at work, a summer storm rolled in -- the kind of rain that creates an instant lake wherever there is open space; the kind of rain that pounds like millions of tinfoil feet on roads and roofs. The sky went nearly black.

The kids are done school for the year. I spend my days in the old building where I have an office made of real plaster walls. There is a peace in school with the kids gone. Sure, things are better with them around, because I get to teach, but the pressure level seriously decreases when the halls are silent.

Monet -- "Morning in the Rain on the Seine."

I spend my days with no tie on. (I despise wearing a tie. "Despise" is not a strong enough word, unless accompanied by an expletive, the likes of which I try to avoid on this blog.) And, tieless, I work on scheduling issues some of the time. The rest of the time, I prepare and study for the classes of the coming year. This year, it is advanced English and "College Composition."

I have a separate table I use for my teaching work (I feel like the purity and the creativity of my teaching will be somehow "infected" if I set the associated materials on my administrative desk) and I was sitting there absorbed in a poem by Stephen Dunn when the deluge started. I went to the window to watch, Dunn still playing in my head like underscore.