86. This is just to say...

Today's poetry group prompt involved parodying an existing poem. One of the examples was William Carlos William's "This Is Just to Say." 

I have eaten 
the plums 
that were in 
the icebox

and which 
you were probably 
saving 
for breakfast

Forgive me 
they were delicious 
so sweet 
and so cold

And here's a representative parody:

Variations on a Theme

Kenneth Koch

1

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2

We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3

I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4

Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

Our prompter today, Karla, also mentioned that way back when, Garrison Keillor hosted the poet Billy Collins on his Prairie Home Companion, and they had fun with this very same poem. Here is one of the some thirty-four parodies they offered up:

BC: Listen to this poem—

I stand by the window,
Listening to dogs
Barking in the cold rain
That falls like vinegar.
A brown leaf reminds me of my grandmother.
And eating gooseberries in the Piazza Navona
That summer of our first love.

—It's a poem written by a computer!

GK: How can you tell?

BC: By the little sprocket holes on both sides.

(Mind you, this was performed in 2002. But still: AI anyone?)

It (by which I mean WCW's original) is a perfect poem, really. Parody it all you like—you can't defeat it.

But finally, here's a short film about Williams (1883–1963). You really can't help but love him. At least, I can't.

85. Michael Pollan, conscious human being

My title is a little tongue in cheek, but not much. Michael Pollan, of course, is an author, starting with Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (1991) and including most famously The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World (2001), The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), and This Is Your Mind on Plants (2021), about psychedelics. As his interests have evolved he's become a philosopher, and lately has been delving into the question of consciousness—as in his brand-new book A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness. Because of this book, he's been popping up in interviews, on podcasts and on TV. So I thought I'd feature a few of those here, plus a couple of ancillary references.

Stephen Colbert spoke with Pollan last week:

He was also Terry Gross's guest recently on Fresh Air, and the guest of David Marchese on the New York Times's "The Interview":

In the first video above, Pollan mentions a 1974 essay by Thomas Nagel titled "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" which I happily found online, and you too can read it here.

But finally, what really brought me here was the poem by e.e. cummings that Colbert recites in the second video, which a FB friend of mine, Leslie, mentioned in her daily post. She also quotes a different poem of cummings's. So I will end with both those. You're welcome!

[since feeling is first]

since feeling is first

who pays any attention 

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate 

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry

—the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

[you shall above all things be glad and young]

you shall above all things be glad and young

For if you’re young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad

whatever’s living will yourself become.

Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:

i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man’s

flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid

and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:

for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave

called progress,and negation’s dead undoom.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing

than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

84. Pantoums

Thursday is my poetry day: every week, a number of us from all over the country, plus Peru, meet in the afternoon to read some prompt poems, write for half an hour, and share. These past few weeks too, Thursday mornings at 9, I've been meeting with six others, led by Kathryn Petruccelli (who has various outlets: the blog Poet Roar, the Substack Ask the Poet, and recently a podcast, Melody or Witchcraft), in a generative workshop that she calls Small Observances, Big Ideas, or SOBI. 

Today, coincidentally, both groups ended up focusing on a poetic form, originally devised in 15th-century Malaya, known as the pantoum. The basic idea is that in each four-line stanza (after the first), you take the second and fourth lines of the preceding stanza, and they become the first and third lines of the next. The new second and fourth lines are fresh. And on and on you go, until the end, when the third and first lines of the very first stanza become the second and last lines of that final stanza. Clear as mud? 

Here's the poem we used as our guide in the SOBI group this morning, with the lines numbered so you can see the pattern:

Naturalization

Leah Silvieus

1     When I came to this country, I was reborn
2     with a pistol in my palm.
3     They called me a natural:
4     That bullseye, gorgeous!

2     With a pistol in my palm
5     the weight like a future son,
4     that bullseye gorgeous
6     like summer sunlight on stainless steel.

5     The weight like a future son
7     dreaming blood on my hands—
6     like summer sunlight on stainless steel,
8     bright like Christ.

7     Dreaming blood on my hands,
3     they called me. A natural,
8     right? Like Christ,
1     when I came to: This country I was, reborn.

Here's another one. As the poet River Dandelion says, the pantoum is a powerful vehicle for exploring intergenerational stories. 

Halcyon Kitchen

Kiandra Jimenez

Granma cautioned in a kitchen off Century and Hoover:
Never throw your hair away. Burn it. Till yellow
cornbread bakes and greens release pot liquor,
her garnet-polished fingers unraveled each cornrow.

Never throw your hair away, burn it till yellow
flames flick up and turn orange, blue. Overhead,
her garnet-polished fingers unraveled each cornrow,
wrestling. I reminisce, standing over her deathbed.

Rain picks up and turns ocher, blue. Unsaid
were simple things. Oxtail stew and yam
recipes I recollect, standing over her deathbed.
She smoked Mores leaning in the kitchen doorjamb,

when simple things — oxtail stew and yam
recipes — were not measured nor written. Cooking while
she smoked Mores leaning in the kitchen doorjamb,
her left hand in the profound curve of her hip. She’d say, Chile,

ma recipes are not measured nor written. Cooking while
I sat alongside the stove waiting for the hot comb, meantime
her left hand in the profound curve of her hip, she’d say, Chile,
I may be dead and gone, but you mark my words. Sometimes

I sat alongside the stove waiting for the hot comb, meantime
I loved watching her smoking, cooking, talking with More fingers,
I may be dead and gone, but you’ll mark my words. This time,
she is quiet. I hold maroon-polished hands as her soul lifts, waits, lingers.

I loved watching her smoking, cooking, talking with More fingers.
Halcyon rain picks up, soaks me blue. Nothing unsaid.
She is quiet. I hold maroon-polished hands as her soul lifts, waits, lingers,
restful. I’m remembering — standing over her deathbed.

It seems to be a good vehicle for grief as well, with its obsessive circling. That was the subject of one of the two I wrote today, which I'll share here. It adheres to the strict form, by which I mean no monkeying with wording (though monkeying with punctuation is perfectly okay). For my second assay, I took a lot of liberties with the form. But I'll leave that one for another day.

Grief

Fragile solace of memories.
You are a ghost now,
here, not here,
wavering shadow in bright sunlight.

You are a ghost now,
sadness a sheer blanket:
wavering shadow in bright sunlight,
salt sponge of tears—

sadness a sheer blanket
to be lifted, somehow—
salt sponge of tears
urging the heart to recall,

to be lifted somehow,
here, not here,
urging the heart to recall
(fragile solace of) memories.

Book Report: Notes from No Man's Land

5. Eula Biss, Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays (2009) (2/22/26)

I'm not even sure what to say about this eclectic collection of essays. They explore geography, and race, and identity in America—Biss writing as a white woman, but also imagining, considering, other identities. 

The book comprises five sections. "Before" begins the volume, about Alexander Graham Bell and his telephone, which led to telephone poles that studded this country, from which Black men were eventually—conveniently—hung. In "New York" Biss explores various aspects of race from a personal viewpoint—through stories of her mother, who embraced African culture and married more than one Black man; through the story of an in vitro pregnancy that resulted in twins, one white, one Black, and the grandmother who wished to have a relationship with her Black grandchild; through her own experiences as a young teacher in Harlem; and in an examination of her relationship to New York City, through the lens of Joan Didion's "Goodbye to All That." In "California" she discusses her experience covering "Black news" in San Diego, an extended stay living and learning Spanish in Mexico, and the "fantasy" that is California. "Midwest" takes us to the "utopia" town of Buxton, a model of amicable race relations built in 1900, a ghost town by 1920; the college town of Iowa City; the metaphorical no-man's land, a place (or time) betwixt and between; and an exploration of identity via the vehicle (inherited and yet also somewhat arbitrary) that is our name. In "After" she takes on being sorry, both on a personal level and as a national attempt to right wrongs.

In "Three Songs of Salvage" she writes of being taken by her mother 

to the bembés where the orishas were called down. We watched the drummers sweat and the dancers shake, and we ate salty beans and rice with the other kids. We listened to the dancers sing and we sang, when we sang, in a language we did not understand. The more distance my mother put between herself and what she knew, between her mind and the words it understood, the closer she felt to the imponderable.
     The smell of cigar smoke came up through the floorboards every night in those days. I closed the red metal grate in the floor, but the smell at night was not as bad as in the afternoons, which stank of goat skin stretched on the barn to dry. I fell asleep to the distant sound of drums, which I was not always entirely sure was the distant sound of drums. Rain, blood in the body, explosions in the quarry, and frogs are all drums.
    . . . I know now that I left home and I left the drums but I didn't leave home and I didn't leave the drums. Sewer plates, jackhammers, subway trains, cars on the bridge, and basketballs are all drums.

Biss explores complex ideas and associations with great intelligence. And now that I've looked for her more recent books, I realize I read—and very much enjoyed—another, Having and Being Had, about (loosely) capitalism. I wonder what she's exploring now. I'll keep a lookout.

83. February 19ths past

A few photos from my Flickr archive (long since abandoned, though I've recently reemerged there with a new Project 365, my fifth). Just some memories, from February 19ths long ago (2008–2011). I was hoping Milo would show up, and there he was! I want to keep remembering him here. 

I've linked the years to the associated Flickr page, for description and comments.

2008

2009

2010

2011

82. Fear: a lexicon

I'm taking a six-session writing class with the effervescent Priscilla Long (author of The Writer's Portable Mentor, Dancing with the Muse in Old Age [Priscilla is 83, and happily so], and others, including her just-out collection of poems, Cartographies of Home). Our task is to write three essays/short stories, do daily writing-in-place (practicing observation), imitate certain sentence types, compile a scrapbook, and create a lexicon based on one of our pieces. 

This time I am going to try to finish an abecedarian I started ages ago, but gaps remain. I will fill the gaps! Plus, the essay is about fear, and my whole attitude toward fear has shifted since I began the essay—what with my husband's cancer diagnosis, what with the second coming of Trump. Fear has more of a presence now in my life than when I first tackled this ABC . . .

I just now sat down and came up with 100 entries related to the notion of fear. I present it here. If I missed anything (how could I not?), please let me know! (Can you match this image with its listing below?)

1. Dread
2. Terror
3. Panic
4. Trepidation
5. Anxiety
6. Alarm
7. Worry
8. Horror
9. Dismay
10. Apprehension
11. Phobia
12. Snakes (ophidiophobia)
13. Bees (apiphobia, melissophobia)
14. Clowns (coulrophobia)
15. Thunder and lightning (astraphobia)
16. Dogs (cynophobia)
17. Fight
18. Flight
19. Fear of failure
20. Dementia
21. Insects (entomophobia)
21. Sharks (galeophobia)
22. The dark (nyctophobia)
23. Becoming old and infirm
24. Debilitation
25. Abandonment
26. Rejection
27. Water (aquaphobia)
28. Loud sounds (ligyrophobia, phonophobia)
29. Amygdala
30. Hypothalamus
31. Prefrontal cortex
32. Chemistry
33. Hippocampus
34. Periaqueductal gray (PAG)
35. Glutamate
36. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)
37. Endocannabinoids
38. PTSD
39. Neurotransmitters
40. Dopamine
41. Neuroscience
42. Treatment
43. Psychotherapy
44. Unpleasant subjective emotional state
55. Pain
56. Agitation
57. Spiders (arachnophobia)
58. Enclosed spaces (claustrophobia)
59. Heights (acrophobia)
60. Injections and needles (trypanophobia)
61. Germs and dirt (mysophobia)
62. Crowds (agoraphobia)
63. Flying (aerophobia)
64. Deep breathing
65. Mindfulness
66. Visualization
67. Anatidaephobia (fear of a duck or goose watching you)
68. Meavehiclutintinnabulaphobia (fear of car alarm)
69. Derivatiapostcalvinaphobia (fear of someone using your idea first)
70. Arachibutyrophobia (fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth
71. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (fear of long words)
72. No fear, no death (Thich Nhat Hanh)
73. No mud, no lotus (TNH)
74. Forget Everything And Run
75. Face Everything And Rise
76. “Life is a daring adventure or nothing” (Helen Keller)
77. “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” (Winston Churchill)
78. Half Dome
79. Perfection
80. Madness
81. Bankruptcy
82. Debt
83. Pennilessness
84. Being without love
85. Being alone/lonely (monophobia)
86. Megalohydrothalassophobia (fear of large underwater creatures, rather than of the water itself)
87. Airports
88. Ballpoint/fountain pens (stylophobia)
89. Hedgehogs (skatzochoirophobia)
90. Trauma
91. Injury
92. Dragonflies (dragoferophobia)
93. Yellow (xanthophobia)
94. Fish (ichthyophobia)
95. Nature (thalassophobia)
96. Falling (basophobia)
97. Snow (chionophobia)
98. Heat (thermophobia)
99. The number 8 (octophobia)
100. Death (thanatophobia)

You know this list could go on and on and on. Besides xanthophobia, for instance, there's erythrophobia, melanophobia, chrysophobia, cyanophobia, rhodophobia, kastanophobia, prasinophobia, leukophobia, and porphyrophobia—fear of red, black, gold, blue, pink, brown, green, white, and purple—never mind general chrom(at)ophobia, fear of colors altogether. What? I can see being afraid of snakes and sharks, but colors? What did they ever do to a person? But, mine is not to reason why these irrational fears exist. Mine is just to explore them. From my own point of view, limited as it is. That's what essays are all about.

81. Octavio Paz, poet

I decided to kick off today's Wordle post in my little FB group, and so I went in search of a poem. I thought, in the spirit of Bad Bunny's halftime show the other day, what about something in Spanish? So I googled Octavio Paz, and found this (notated as "for Roger Caillois"; translated by Eliot Weinberger):

Wind, Water, Stone

Water hollows stone,
wind scatters water,
stone stops the wind.
Water, wind, stone.

Wind carves stone,
stone's a cup of water,
water escapes and is wind.
Stone, wind, water.

Wind sings in its whirling,
water murmurs going by,
unmoving stone keeps still.
Wind, water, stone.

Each is another and no other:
crossing and vanishing
through their empty names:
water, stone, wind.

As for the Spanish, a little more searching, and it came:

Viento, Agua, Piedra

El agua horada la piedra,
el viento dispersa el agua,
la piedra detiene al viento.
Agua, viento, piedra.

El viento esculpe la piedra,
la piedra es copa del agua,
el agua escapa y es viento.
Piedra, viento, agua.

El viento en sus giros canta,
el agua al andar murmura,
la piedra inmóvil se calla.
Viento, agua, piedra.

Uno es otro y es ninguno:
entre sus nombres vacíos
pasan y se desvanecen
agua, piedra, viento.

How beautiful. A reminder of how everything, always, is moving, changing, vanishing, becoming.

Book Report: Rubbernecker

4. Belinda Bauer, Rubbernecker (2013) (2/9/26)

My sister-in-law recommended this book to me, and since I failed at my N book (a brief comment on that below), I decided this time it was okay to break protocol and read a random letter of the alphabet, to wit, R. 

The book, set in Cardiff, Wales, is a mystery—there are murders—but it's much more than that, as it delves into what's in our hearts, what we want to understand about life, and possibilities for connection. It follows several threads, beginning with a car crash whose driver (we soon learn) ends up on the "coma ward" of the local hospital. As traffic inches past the scene of the crash, a young man leaves the car his mother is driving to get a closer look. This is Patrick, who has Asperger's syndrome. Ten years before, he lost his father in a hit-and-run accident, caused in part by Patrick refusing to hold his hand while crossing the road (he can't stand to be touched, and his father knew it). Now, Patrick wants to understand what happened when his father died, where he went, and he thinks the key may be learning about human anatomy—so he enrolls in the anatomy lab of the nearby medical school. Here, he and four fellow students spend 22 weeks disassembling a cadaver, Number 19. Meanwhile, we sometimes flash to the coma ward, where we are made privy to the thoughts and feelings of one of the patients—who as things progress begins to "emerge" from his disability.  

In the course of the cadaver disarticulation, Patrick finds evidence (in 19's throat) that suggests he might have been murdered. By now Patrick has abandoned the notion that he might understand death, but he figures he can solve this mystery. He also finds out (through a bit of B&E) who 19 was (you will probably not be surprised to learn that he's the original crash victim, also the patient whose thoughts we've been privy to on the ward). Why would someone murder him? Patrick finds accomplices of sorts in one of his fellow students and in 19's daughter, whom he seeks out. And yes, he does figure out who is culpable—and almost gets killed himself as a result.

What makes the story so compelling is Patrick's condition—his awkwardness with other people but also the clarity of his thinking. He doesn't get bogged down in sentimentality and unreality. In this, Bauer combines various material and behavioral quirks to give Patrick substance. He makes for an interesting mirror to the ways in which those around him interact. In the course of the book, Patrick makes some progress in learning how to get along with others. Which makes it a story about relationship as well.

I enjoyed the book, though it took me a while to understand how the various plot elements wove together. One, about an unserious nurse, never quite did, except (I decided) to illustrate how blind "normal" people can be to what's right in front of them—something you can't accuse Patrick of. 

As for the abandoned N book—it was Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which I know people love, but I guess I just wasn't in the mood for a flight of magical fantasy into below-parts regions of London. Or I wasn't in the mood for Gaiman's cleverness: his writing felt a little (or a lot) too self-satisfied, and far too two-dimensional. I only got a quarter of the way in, but it just wasn't picking up. So: another abandoned book. It's getting to be a habit. But better to realize I just don't care for a book than suffer through it. Right?

Now, I'll scan my shelves for another N book. Back to the alphabet

80. Ashley M. Jones and Mary Szybist, poets

We howlers met today, as we do more or less weekly, to discuss a poem from the anthology You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World (Milkweed Editions, 2024). The poem that rose up for discussion was this one, by Ashley M. Jones.

Lullaby for the Grieving

at the Sipsey River

make small steps.
in this wild place
there are signs of life
everywhere.
sharp spaces, too:
the slip of a rain-glazed rock
against my searching feet.
small steps, like prayers—
each one a hope exhaled
into the trees. please,
let me enter. please, let me
leave whole.
there are, too, the tiny sounds
of faraway birds. the safety
in their promise of song.
the puddle forming, finally,
after summer rain.
the golden butterfly
against the cave-dark.
maybe there are angels here, too—
what else can i call the crown of light
atop the leaves?
what else can i call
my footsteps forward,
small, small, sure?

Jones is the poet laureate of Alabama, 35 years old, author of three poetry collections. Two poems of hers are featured on the Poetry Foundation website, including this one:

Hymn of Our Jesus & the Holy Tow Truck

after Mary Szybist

And yes, of course, I next had to investigate Mary Szybist. This poem of hers delighted me, partly because it's an abecedarian, partly because it's about jigsaw puzzles, partly because it's about girls chatting.

Girls Overheard While Assembling a Puzzle

Are you sure this blue is the same as the
blue over there? This wall’s like the
bottom of a pool, its
color I mean. I need a
darker two-piece this summer, the kind with
elastic at the waist so it actually
fits. I can’t
find her hands. Where does this gold
go? It’s like the angel’s giving
her a little piece of honeycomb to eat.
I don’t see why God doesn’t
just come down and
kiss her himself. This is the red of that
lipstick we saw at the
mall. This piece of her
neck could fit into the light part
of the sky. I think this is a
piece of water. What kind of
queen? You mean
right here? And are we supposed to believe
she can suddenly
talk angel? Who thought this stuff
up? I wish I had a
velvet bikini. That flower’s the color of the
veins in my grandmother’s hands. I
wish we could
walk into that garden and pick an
X-ray to float on.
Yeah. I do too. I’d say a
zillion yeses to anyone for that.

Finally, Ashley M. Jones had this to say about her "Lullaby": "I wrote this poem at the Sipsey Wilderness near that same river in Alabama. I didn’t expect to write about my grief process, but it seemed the Wilderness was showing me that my grief for my father was very similar to the difficult hiking path to the river. I’m not an experienced hiker. I was afraid of ticks and injury. This large, all-encompassing grief is new to me, too. I’m afraid, constantly, of its prick and haunt. But there are angels and carriers of light, and I know my dad is one of them now."

I love discovering new writers, whether of poetry or prose. These two please me no end.

79. Goodbye Milo

And so this evening we bade farewell to our beautiful boy Milo. A mobile vet, Carrie Nagel, came at half past six, and we sat on the floor next to him and talked for quite a while about what might be going on, about potential options, but slowly we circled into the clear fact that he's just not thriving. And so David and I gave her the go-ahead.

Here are a few last photos (all from today) of our sweet sweet boy. We will miss him so so so very much.

Thanks to Carrie for taking such good caring care of all of us.

And I will finish with Ted Kooser, a poem I've posted here before, but this time it's real.

Death of a Dog

The next morning I felt that our house

had been lifted away from its foundation

during the night, and was now adrift,

though so heavy it drew a foot or more

of whatever was buoying it up, not water

but something cold and thin and clear,

silence riffling its surface as the house

began to turn on a strengthening current,

leaving, taking my wife and me with it,

and though it had never occurred

to me until that moment, for fifteen years

our dog had held down what we had

by pressing his belly to the floors,

his front paws, too, and with him gone

the house had begun to float out onto

emptiness, no solid ground in sight.

We'll always love you, Milo. Always and forever. This is how I will remember you: flying free, full of joy!

Not really a book report: Land of the Blind

I won't number this, because it's (as I say in the heading) not really a book report—because I didn't finish it. Heck, I barely started it.

I love Jess Walter. The various books of his that I've read—most recently the 2025 So Far Gone—have been 100 percent enjoyable. I ordered this book with great anticipation.

So yeah, I was disappointed to start this one and, early on, find myself completely uninterested. 

It's the story of a man who's arrested after he's climbed high on a landmark hotel in Spokane, Washington. As he talks with the interrogating detective, he says he wishes to confess. A murder, it seems.

The book (as far as I can tell) then switches between his confession as he writes it out and the detective's detectiving.

I fell out of the story at the start of his confession, which is (a) written in a tediously formal legalese (he fancies himself a lawyer) and (b) harks back to childhood in excrutiating detail. Excrutiating.

I fell out, and then skipped forward, finally, to the end of the book, where the confessor and the detective find themselves again high on the originating hotel. Both alive. Both, apparently, with stuff to consider. 

I guess I'm patting myself on the back for abandoning a book that just doesn't grab me. So many books, so little time! But I'm sorry this one didn't draw me in. 

Book Report: Man's Search for Meaning

3. Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (1959, 2014) (1/22/26)

I've had this book forever, and when I arrived at M in my alphabetical approach to reading, I figured it was about time—but of course I couldn't find it. It's around here somewhere! But an online search of the library holdings said they had it, and it was in. When I got there, however, it wasn't on the shelf; as I was about to leave, feeling dejected, I decided to ask the checkout person, and she went and rummaged around among the recently returned books, and there it was! Another of those small miracles of life . . . which I suppose is appropriate for this particular book. You can find meaning in many things.

And so now I've finally read it. For some reason, I wasn't as impressed as I thought I might be. I guess I thought Frankl had an answer to the question of meaning (silly me). But I got something from it, and that's enough.

The edition I read features what I believe are the original two constituent essays, "Experiences in a Concentration Camp" and "Logotherapy in a Nutshell," as well as a few shorter pieces—a 1984 postscript, "The Case for a Tragic Optimism," and selected letters, speeches and essays. The book was originally published in German in 1946 as Trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager (Saying yes to life in spite of everything: A psychologist experiences the concentration camp) and in English in 1959 as From Death-Camp to Existentialism: A Psychiatrist's Path to a New Therapy. 

The section on life in a concentration camp—Frankl spent three years in four camps: Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Kaufering, and Türkheim, part of the Dachau complex—was, needless to say, harrowing. He speaks of the suffering, the uncertainty, the deaths, matter-of-factly, always pointing to the importance of a responsible, responsive, positive attitude. As he puts it in the logotherapy section (logotherapy being an approach that he created, focused not on the psyche but on the mind), 

We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves. 

And later he writes:

Man is not fully conditioned and determined [by external conditions] but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. . . . Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.

He gives examples, including in his own experience, and throughout I marveled at his stoicism. Could I be so strong? So positive? I don't know, but surely such strength and positivity are imperative if one is to survive soul-deadening events—such as so many are experiencing right now, in my very own country, as they are being torn from their homes and deported to prisons far far away.

A key to all this is being able to get out of one's own mind, and orient toward others with love; to balance freedom with responsibility; to do one's best to be "decent"; to approach the world with "tragic optimism." By which he may have meant, as he put it at one point, "The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs." 

I confess I did not finish the last few little essays. They were getting rather repetitive and didn't seem to add anything new. I did enjoy the ten-page afterword, by philosopher, lawyer, and psychoanalyst William Winslade, who gave us a short biography of Frankl, for context. He led a full and inspiring life. A worthy man indeed.

78. Milo

We're losing our boy. He's fifteen, and he's done. We took him to the vet today, and she gave us some appetite stimulant, but really . . . he's done. I'm not ready. He's our boy.

Whew. Anyway. I searched through the archives and found nine mentions of Milo. Here:

2016: Meeting Milo
2016: Teflon dog
2017: Sleeping Milo
2017: Milo!
2017: Milo! Again!
2023: Milo
2023: Milo!
2023: Milo's bindi dot
2025: Milo

And that's where we stand. I am taking pictures of Milo still, of course. It's hard to imagine him not being in our life, our lives. He's the best boy ever. 

Book Report: Logicomix

2. Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitrou, Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, with art by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna (2009) (1/9/26)

I've had this book quite a long time, so when I began searching for an L book, it jumped out and said, me me me! I'm entertaining, and since I'm mostly drawings, I'll be quick! 

Well, yes: quick, but also weighty, because this book covers some confounding mathematical—or rather, logical—foundations. It begins on September 9, 1939, three days after Hitler invaded Poland and on the day Britain declared war on Germany, with a lecture the philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell gave on "the role of logic in human affairs." Though as he explains at the end, in the Q&A, in fact it's not a lecture so much as a story, "a story of a man who hoped to find a way of getting absolutely right answers." It includes meetings and conversations with major mathematical innovators, such as Gottlob Frege, the greatest logician since Aristotle, and Georg Cantor, the creator of the mathematical theory of infinity. He recounts the clash between Henri Poincaré and the German David Hilbert on the relative power of intuition vs. proof in mathematical thought. Wittgenstein and Gödel make appearances. It is also a story of madness, of conflict, of frustration, and ultimately, Russell said, of failure. And yet. 

It's a heady mix that I am ill-equipped to summarize here. The narrative also includes the very making of this book, in a wink at self-referentiality—the discussions the authors had as they walked around Athens hashing out the themes; and there's also a framing story involving Aeschylus's drama Oresteia, for a humanitarian twist. 

Doxiadis explains the project better than I can:

And here's a video about the making of the book:

It's a book I may pick up again—and slow down to really consider the philosophical components. I believe they're well explained. But this time, I just wanted to find out "what happened," and to admire the wonderful graphics. 

In this scene, Russell and a younger Wittgenstein compare takes on the world:

For me, for sure, Logicomix is better than reading Russell himself, who took 362 pages to prove that 1+1 = 2!

And if you want a real review of the book, I would send you to this one in the New York Times. 

77. Listening to podcasts while I walk Gen. Jim Moore Blvd. II

It poured rain this morning, but in the early afternoon the sun burst out—and so I had to go for a walk. As I do, I put in my earbuds, and headed down the street, up some stairs, and eventually onto the scrubland bordering straight-shot Gen. Jim Moore Blvd. I started by listening to Terry Gross talking with the actor Jeff Hiller, who's delightful in Somebody Somewhere, which was his first big role and earned him an Emmy. Then, just to stay current, I listened to the New York Times's Daily podcast, about the Venezuela incursion. And finally, it was on to Steve Levitt of Freakonomics, talking with linguist and philosopher Steven Pinker. 

I'd be hard-pressed to tell you just what I learned. I am so not good at listening. But I also enjoy listening. Go figure.

I took a few photos along the way.

A random pillow and... picture frame? along the sidewalk

A roadkill raccoon, not ten yards away from the pillow
(I apologize if this is too grisly for you, but... life is grisly)

One of the raccoon's paws (again I'm sorry, but I can't not look)

The Seaside cemetery (no raccoon graves here)

The view south from a small hill

Nearing home, and the eternal construction

Okay, I was being flip above. I did learn something today, while listening. About joy and hope, in the case of Jeff Hiller—he's such a delight. And the details of the Venezuela attack just hardened me even more (if that's possible) to the current "administration," with its utter lack of policy or plans, never mind interest in the American citizenry. What a travesty this country has become. But then Pinker reminded me that everything comes in waves and cycles, that change is constant, and what we need to continue to focus on is facts, and the scientific method, and not succumb to superstition and hearsay—because we now (as we did not a few centuries ago, before the Enlightenment) have that capacity, that understanding of the nature of things writ large. Obviously, not all of us have that capacity; but perhaps enough of us? We can only hope. 

Total steps for today: 14,320.

Book Report: Klara and the Sun

1. Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (2021) (1/4/26)

In 2017, Kazuo Ishiguro was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his banquet speech, he said:

The Nobel Prize, like many great ideas, is a simple one . . . and that is perhaps why it continues to have such a powerful hold on the world’s imagination. The pride we feel when someone from our nation wins a Nobel Prize is different from the one we feel witnessing one of our athletes winning an Olympic medal. We don’t feel the pride of our tribe demonstrating superiority over other tribes. Rather, it’s the pride that comes from knowing that one of us has made a significant contribution to our common human endeavour. The emotion aroused is a larger one, a unifying one.
     We live today in a time of growing tribal enmities, of communities fracturing into bitterly opposed groups. Like literature, my own field, the Nobel Prize is an idea that, in times like these, helps us to think beyond our dividing walls, that reminds us of what we must struggle for together as human beings. It’s the sort of idea mothers will tell their small children, as they always have, all around the world, to inspire them and to give themselves hope. 

These sentiments, in a reverse way, inform all three of the books by Ishiguro that I've read: Remains of the Day, many years ago; Never Let Me Go; and now Klara and the Sun—the latter two being futuristic, somewhat dystopian allegories.

In Klara, the various tribes include AFs, or artificial friends—androids—of which Klara is an exemplar, and in the human realm, "lifted" and "unlifted" people, the former—exclusively, though not universally, young people—having been subjected to (risky) genetic editing to enhance their academic ability and thus gain further benefits in society. Klara narrates, from her days in the shop where she and her fellow AFs display themselves in order to attract a potential buyer; to the time she spends with the sickly 14-year-old girl, Josie, who chooses her; to, ultimately, her time after Josie becomes well and goes off to college. Throughout all this, decisions are being made that affect Klara greatly, and of which she is only vaguely aware, or perhaps even wrong about.

Josie and her mother live on the edge of a prairie rather far from town, their only neighbors being Josie's good friend—and adolescent love—Rick, together with his mother. When they go into the city they encounter the strife of larger society: pollution, bigotry, fear; and they meet people from the mothers' pasts—so, memories, failed hopes, and the simple friction of different wills wanting different things. But everyone wants Josie to get better, to thrive. And Klara makes a deal with the Sun to ensure that happens. 

It's a simple story, really, and simply told, but here and there a keen observation or comment carries philosophical weight, about both "othering" and the universal and lingering connections of the human heart. When Klara says, "I believe I have many feelings. The more I observe, the more feelings become available to me," it makes me think of the necessity of travel, of wide experience, in becoming a more rounded human being—or, perhaps, of having a close family, for the same end. (I think of travel first perhaps because I don't have a close family. There are no doubt many ways to expand our awareness of this infinite existence.) 

In the end, the book is perhaps about love, plain and simple. As Klara, in the final pages, "goes through her memories and places them in the right order," she comes to the conclusion that to truly know someone, it's not enough to know what's in that person's heart; one must also know what's in the hearts of those who surround them. Nothing—none of us—is separate. 

As with Never Let Me Go, I wasn't entirely sure where this book was going, or even whether I really liked it—Klara's voice, naive and childlike, gets tiresome. But having finished it, I feel richer. 

76. A walk (and dog) for peace

In October, nineteen monks who live in the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana in Fort Worth, Texas, began a 2,300-mile walk toward Washington, DC, their goal being to promote unity and compassion. The route will take them through ten states over the course of 110 days. In late December, they arrived in Atlanta. They expect to reach DC in February. You can follow their journey on Facebook and Instagram.

But the reason I mention them is that this morning we Howlers met, as we do each week, to discuss a poem. Somehow the subject of dogs came up, and with it the fact that early along their way the monks gained a fellow walker: a stray dog whom they named Aloka. Aloka is perhaps an Indian Pariah breed. He has (of course) his own Instagram page, "Aloka the Peace Dog." 

Here are a few photos:

And so it felt serendipitous when I opened the book that we work from, only to find the following poem, a sweet villanelle! It is dedicated to the author's goldendoodles:

Canine Superpowers

by Michael Kleber-Diggs

     Como Park, Woodland Outdoor Classroom—for Ziggy and Jasper

We stroll the grounds and stop at every tree,
at every chicken bone, each new coneflower.
Their noses lead to everything we see.

I'd be asleep if it were up to me.
Still slick with dew, this city park seems ours
as we stroll the grounds and stop at every tree.

Perils persist—real possibilities.
I scan the grass for things they can't devour;
their noses notice things that might harm me.

Sometimes we'll spot a fox, surprise a bee,
find trash, broken glass, have a sad encounter
on our daily rounds to check on every tree.

Three times we've come upon wild coyotes,
sensed before seen through canine superpowers.
All of them have smelled what I'm soon to see.

They stare. We stare. There's no anxiety.
Milliseconds transform into hours.
We stroll the grounds and stop at every tree.
Their noses lead to everything I see.

Here they are walking through Columbia, SC,
on January 11. They are attracting all the right
sort of attention, bringing peace.

75. Janet Fish, painter

A friend of mine on FB commented this morning, "Sometimes I find out about artists because they die. This is Janet Fish"—and a link to an LA Times obituary. Because I don't get the LAT, I went to the NY Times, and found their obit. And fell in love with this artist who painted still-lifes, and who became known for the exquisite way she captured light on glass. 

Fish was born in Boston in 1938, but lived from age ten in Bermuda, where she was surrounded by art and artists (her grandfather, who had a studio on the island, was Impressionist painter Clark Voorhees, her father was an art history professor, her mother was a potter and sculptor). After studying painting at Yale, Fish came to New York City in the 1960s when Abstract Expressionism was still going strong, but she wasn't interested in pursuing that direction—or the ensuing styles, Minimalism and Pop Art. Instead she headed into realism, painting the light as it moved over objects she arranged on a table near her window. As art historian Linda Nochlin put it in her 1988 book Women, Art, and Power, “She confers an unprecedented dignity upon the grouped jelly jars or wine bottles that she renders with such deference. The glassy fruit- or liquid-filled volumes confront us with the hypnotic solemnity of the processional mosaics at Ravenna, and a similar, faceted, surface sparkle.”

I tend to think of still lifes as being small, intimate, but Fish worked large. She was interested not so much in the "still life" itself, as in what it represented, energetically, connectively.  As she put it, "I see light as energy, and energy is always moving through us. I don’t see things as being separated—I don’t paint the objects, I paint one after the other. I paint through the painting."

Fish suffered a brain hemorrhage over ten years ago, which forced her to quit painting. She died on January 1, from another brain hemorrhage, at age 87. 

Here are just a few examples of her beautiful work. She was prolific. (Click to see them large.)

Bird's Nest/Apple Blossoms, 2004

Smucker's Jelly, 1973

Box of Four Red Applies, 1970

Yellow Glass Bowl with Tangerines, 2007

Fruit Juice Glasses, 2005

Five Tall Glasses, Afternoon, 1975

7 Glasses, 13 Pears, 2003

Painted Glasses, 1974

Basket of Shells, 2008

Mirror and Shell, 1981

Preserved Peaches, 1976

Bag of Tangerines, 2000

Here is a 2019 interview with Fish by a filmmaker interested in SOHO, the part of New York City where she once worked.