Tanuki story

My friend Gary Mawyer and I were corresponding, and he mentioned tanuki, which are magical creatures in Japanese folklore. He recalled this tale from Lafcadio Hearn.

A forest hunter sees at midnight the Buddha in his astral form surrounded by a host of angels drifting through the sky toward him. He fires an arrow into the Buddha, and the scene vanishes. The next morning he finds a dead tanuki with his arrow through it. That night the tanuki appears in his dreams and asks, “How did you know?”
“I am a hunter,” he replied, “and I handle hides and meat for a living. The Buddha will never appear to me.”

One reason I was so moved by this story is that Gary Chang, whose book cover I designed, had been a hunter for several years and was still deeply affected by his hunting and killing experiences. Many of the poems in his book Nowhere near Moloka‘i describe those times. When he was in high school, he was a member of the rifle team at McKinley, our alma mater. He later became a hunting guide and a member of the group hired by the federal government to eradicate goats and pigs on national park land. He shared his stories with me and once said, "I have blood in my blood."

A willing world

Wind rose, an image from Wikimedia Commons (click to view at full size).

Questions from my friend Trevor Carolan:

My editor chum, do we
1. Simply permit ourselves to shut up and be ignored?
2. Write, then be read and ignored?
3. Be read, combed for good ideas and acted upon by readers who somehow, some way find their way to our work?
4. If the latter, what does the world need? Want?

My answers:

Writers can't shut up. They can only be forced to be quiet. Therefore, yes, they must write and, inevitably, suffer being ignored by many people. A few individuals—so few they don't even constitute a minority—will embrace the ideas of writers and act on them. 

In a field of red flowers, these individuals constitute the occasional orange or pink flower.

While having lunch a few days ago with Tom Farber, he made the point that none of what we do—writing, editing, publishing, helping other authors—is done in a "willing world." That is, a world that wants or needs us to do these things. 

 

Writers of the wave

The following paragraph is from a proposal I submitted to the organizers of the 2014 annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (see the Talks page for details). The ideas are those of Steve Heller, past president of AWP and the chair of the MFA in creative writing at the LA campus of Antioch University.

This panel challenges the traditional model of writing as building a house, replacing it with a more fluid conception of the writing process. This alternative conception sees the writer not as an architect or carpenter but as a freer agent in a more fluid medium—and regards the work not as a fixed, unchanging structure but one constantly being rebuilt.  

Heller was the first to conceive of the wave as a metaphor for the work of fiction writers, poets, and essayists. In the paper he presented at this year's Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, he said

[T]he analogy of creative writing (in the very broad sense I mentioned earlier, which includes the reader) as wave riding can apply to all genres. The essence of poetry, for example, is the artificially broken line. A poetic line can be regular, metrical, its rhythm fixed. A line of verse can also be as free and risky as a rogue wave that rises behind your back and threatens to trample you in its wake.

Prose rhythms are more difficult to see but just as easy to hear—or feel—on the page.  Their undulations are usually much longer, demanding more stamina from writer and reader, just like the rides we take on them, until at last they climactically break around or perhaps over us near the distant shore.  Along the way, like the ocean itself, stories breathe.

The power of an image

Photographer Wayne Levin sent me the URL for his new website. The structure of the site is simple, allowing the photographs to exert their full force on the viewer. Looking over the site, I decided to read his biography. I wasn't expecting to be caught up in the narrative, but there was no hope for me once I started.

Here are an excerpt

Wayne was invited by Dr. Randal Kosaki to accompany the August 2009 research cruise of the NOAA vessel Hi’ialakai to the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. He felt extremely privileged to be allowed to visit and photograph in a place that so few people are able to go. As he journeyed through these islands and atolls, Wayne came to feel he was in an extraordinary place. It is a place of both awesome natural power, and extreme fragility. Many of the unique species are critically endangered, and the pollution from the entire pacific threatens this pristine environment.

and a screenshot of the Papahanaumokuakea opening page:

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

As a person deeply affected by sexism and gender inequality, I was very glad to learn that Lieutenant General David Morrison, chief of the Australian army, has spoken out for women. This morning, I watched an interview with Elizabeth Broderick, Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner, in which she said that many men need to take leadership roles in combating sexism.

An interesting statistic cited in the interview was Lt Gen Morrison's goal of increasing the percentage of women in the Australian army to 12 percent (it is now at 10.8). Broderick said that such an increase would help assure women of more equality and less victimization. 

Big Mac attack

I had last night, as Yoda might say. 

I couldn't restart or shut down my MacBook Pro or log out. Using Disk Utility, I tried to repair the permissions and verify the hard disk. Upon trying to perform the verification, I got a message saying that I needed to repair the disk. I didn't have the installation disk for the laptop's OS, but I had one for a slightly older OS. After several attempts at rebooting, I was unable to continue. The Apple icon would come on the screen, but the laptop would beep and the log-in window would not appear.

Using my Nook, I made a reservation at the Genius Bar for this morning. After I convinced the technician there was a problem that required his attention, he took the computer in back and opened it up. When he brought it back to me, the log-in window was on the screen, and he had me sign in to make sure the Finder window would appear. It did, accompanied by a message saying that the clock needed to be reset. I asked him what had caused the problem, and he explained that the OS was having trouble finding the RAM, probably due to a particle of dust or debris somehow getting inside

I have just reset the clock and reconnected to our wireless network, and all is right in my tiny corner of the universe.

Rereading what I've written above, I realize I made a mistake in trying to reboot from the installation disk for another computer. I now remember being told by an IT person that installation disks for iMacs cannot be used for MacBook Pros. 

Anyway, my thanks to Derek of the Genius Bar for putting a smile back on my Mac :-) 

 

Myths to live by

In his book On Moral Fiction, John Gardner says that our society needs modern myths to live by. I guess that is the reason I was so taken with The Matrix trilogy.

When Kurzweil asked why Neo doesn't simply run or fly away when confronted by Agent Smith and his multiples, I was reminded of my question. I too wondered about this, and I concluded that perhaps Neo needs to try until he realizes that one more effort will be useless. This question arises at the end of the trilogy, and the filmmakers' response is stunning.

More about The Matrix

A.M.

The image I posted shortly after midnight is from christianforums.com and will remind Matrix fans of the final scenes of The Matrix Revolutions. Portrayed is the archangel Michael, who cast Lucifer out of heaven.

I hasten to make clear that I am not a Christian, though I am very interested in spiritual matters. For me the word spiritual has little connection with the word religious. 

From a message I just sent to a few friends:

The site is almost three weeks old, and I've had a wonderful time adding to and changing it. Most of it remains the same, but I like to compose blogposts, and now that I've discovered how to insert images, videos, and audio files in my posts, I will probably be doing more of that. 
Most important, it has taught me many things. I reflect on it throughout the day, and like Neo in The Matrix, I find myself heading toward something important. I guess that thing is Some Perfect Future :-)

P.M.

I just read Ray Kurzweil's response to The Matrix Reloaded and found that I agree with a good portion of his criticism of the film. I too found the many protracted fight scenes tiresome and irrelevant, and the sex scene "gratuitous." And I agree that the story, so strong in The Matrix, languished in the sequel. The following statement by Kurzweil surprised me, though, because it expressed a feeling I had but didn't expect him to:

The Wachowski brothers’ notion of human celebration is also a bit weird as portrayed in the retro rave festivities on Zion to honor the return of the rebels.

That shots of gratuitous sex are interwoven with scenes of the "rave festivities" made me uncomfortable for the duration of the segment. The lovemaking of Neo and Trinity is paralleled by the rapture of the crowd, but neither seemed genuine enough to me to evoke anything but discomfort and bewilderment. Like the long fight scenes, they did not advance or illuminate the story. I am reminded of intimate scenes in two other science-fiction films: The Terminator and Cloud Atlas. In those cases, my reaction was quite different.

Though I agree with Kurzweil on several things and am impressed with his explication of the science in the film, I disagree strongly with his depiction of what he calls the dystopian, Luddite perspective. I find this offensive and, given the logic he prides himself on adhering to, quite illogical. In addition, I find his argument irresponsible to the degree that it simplifies interpretations and polarizes interpreters.

My responses:

  • Kurzweil is using dystopian and Luddite as categorical terms, creating and characterizing a group of people whose ideas and values conflict with his. By reducing their arguments and principles to these terms, he demeans them and turns them into straw men.
  • Morpheus and his comrades have a humanist perspective, and this humanism is their strength, not their weakness. They don't reject artificial intelligence and technology as tools of society. Rather, they reject choices that lead to corruption or erosion of the human spirit, which they regard as the building block of society. 

From New Oxford American Dictionary.

The Matrix Trilogy

At the advice of my friend Perle, I watched TM on Tuesday night. I'm not sure if she meant for me to see the trilogy, but I did: TM Reloaded last night and TM Revolutions tonight.

A very satisfying experience intellectually, spiritually, and artistically. 

I loved the use of Christian symbolism, particularly the rendering of the fight near the end as a fight between angels.  

The king's day

Just started reading David Ulrich's latest blogpost and recommend it. I listened to David speak at the recent Hawaii Book & Music Festival and found what he had to say quite wonderful. I too am interested in the spiritual aspects of reading, learning, and creating. Read "In Defense of Books" and look at the rest of his blog. You will be rewarded.

The recent revelations by Ed Snowden remind me again of the ethical dimensions of our actions—a subject that Dag Hammarskjold returns to several times in his personal account Markings. Hammarskjold says, among other things, that our positions do not give us the right to order people to act; instead, they give us the responsibility to live in such a way that people can follow our orders without compromising themselves. He also says that the most dangerous thing is to conceal the truth so that it may one day emerge. 

Regarding the TED talk and radio interview I posted yesterday: a few comments. When I heard Andrew Stanton speak, it was some minutes into the interview. I didn't know who he was or what he was talking about, but I was taken by his words and wanted to continue listening. I had seen Toy Story 3 and Wall-E, so that allowed me to piece together his general subject and guess that he had a direct connection to the films' creation. His reference to John Carter confused me, though. Unlike the other two, John Carter is not an animated film and was not successful. I couldn't be sure that the film I had intermittently watched on a plane flight to Virginia was the one Stanton had made.

Doing some research last night, I uncovered an interview in which he talked about the film and his inability to make it successful. He said that he hoped people might one day appreciate it, just as audiences did with The Wizard of Oz years after it was released. 

Inherent in attempts to succeed is risk, and artists and writers being what they are, risk becomes constant companion and friend. Every once in a while, it becomes enemy, and then the temptation is to cast it off. Casting off risk is like wrestling with an angel, though: in the effort, one learns something about oneself, and that bit of wisdom is what's represented by the angel's name.

A tale of three writers…

The following are three women I’ve worked with. The first two are friends whom I developed professional relationships with, and the last is someone I met through my job.

Perle Besserman

For Perle, I am working as a publicist. She engaged me last November to help her promote Kabuki Boy. I had never been contracted to do publicity work, and what I did for her I did to save professional face and to not let her down—the latter being more important, of course. Working together, we succeeded, I think it is safe to say, and both of us are happy. I will be helping with two other books of hers coming out this year.

The time seemed right to promote KB. The timing, the content of the book, her writing style, her poise and ability to communicate—all these facilitated the success of our publicity plan. She was interviewed on the local public-radio station, was reviewed in the weekly independent newspaper (which has since ceased publishing, as I wrote in previous posts), participated in the 2013 Hawaii Book and Music Festival, did a video interview available on YouTube, and so forth.

Retired from teaching, Perle has had a long career as a fiction and nonfiction writer. She is prolific, and to me her site promotes not only what she has written but also what she is working on. That is, she is trying not only to sell books but also to find publishers for new work. (How she managed to get three books published in the same year is a feat that only she can explain.)

A member of the Authors Guild, she used one of its templates to build her site. I help her maintain it, adding pictures, writing captions, and inserting links. If you go to the site, you'll see a great picture of her with the governor, who attended the book launch she and her husband organized in late April. I’ve also posted a few pictures (taken by Tommaso Durante) of the book launch she just had in Australia and one (taken by Jennie Peterson) of her appearance at the festival.

Adele Ne Jame

As you can see from looking at Adele's site, she has a story to tell—a story of her family and country (Lebanon) and how their history is entwined with her writing. A professor at a local university, she wants her site to also promote her teaching skills and experience and to provide evidence of the quality of her work.

During the planning stage, she told me that she wanted her site to be simple and not incorporate things like slideshows or videos. We planned to make it twenty pages long, but when I received her text and images, it became clear that twenty was not enough. Eventually, the site took up about fifty pages.

I built the site in QuarkXPress, using both the program’s web-design tools and its print-design features. Each page was saved as an image and exported as an HTML file. A bit of work then had to be done in Dreamweaver to make the files ready for uploading to Godaddy’s server. 

Adele wrote all the text for the site. That amount of detail and degree of intensity—when combined with the structure of the site, the number of pages, and the typeset look of each page—creates the impression of something more like a book and less like a typical website.

I update the site a few times a year. Most recently, I worked on the Exhibitions/Press/Reviews page, adding links to a YouTube video and recent reviews and making minor changes to a few other pages.

Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Fiona's site promotes her music career as well as her writing one. (She is a fantastic musician, as her video shows.) Her site was designed for her by a small company, Tool Maven, and has a distinctive look reflective of her aesthetics and personal tastes.

Fiona not only writes but also gives readings, translates the work of Chinese authors, and edits for Cerise Press and Vif Éditions. This fall, she will be visiting Hawai‘i in connection with the translation and editorial work she’s done for Manoa Journal.

 

Gone now

Still thinking about the consequences of not having The Honolulu Weekly anymore. Gone now are the summer and winter books issues. This is a screen shot of Bob Green's review of Manoa Journal's winter 2012 issue.

TGIF

Actually, I wish I could say, "Thank goodness, all is right in the world."

Just posted this on my work and personal Facebook pages: 

Very sobering to read in THE HONOLULU WEEKLY issue I just picked up that it is closing after twenty-three years of publishing. I had feared for some time that this would happen and always felt encouraged when I saw a new issue on the stands. Our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to THW for all it's done for Honolulu, the state of Hawai‘i, communities, and journalism publishing. We will miss your presence in our lives. Aloha pumehana, P.M, Managing Editor

Here is the link to the farewell of Laurie Carlson, Honolulu Weekly publisher. 

Monday revised

Nothing like the passage of time to compel you to revise your words… 

Looking at the PDF file for the issue yesterday, I saw that the title page was in fact not set correctly. That caused me to take a look at the rest of the pages, and I found about five that needed revision (incorrect text box for the title; incorrect placement of captions). We had to submit a new CD to UHP.

Re my comment on Monday about the reduction of typefaces, here are a few more thoughts. Several languages appear in the issue, which made the typesetting a challenge.  Among them are Greek, Chinese, and languages of the First Nations. When we were looking at the Greek text, Frank said, "Any typeface that has Greek characters should have the full complement." Rather than introduce a new family (Times), he said to try Minion. As it turned out, Minion Pro had the full complement and its typographic design was superior to that of Times. See Adobe's type page on Minion.

 

Monday, Monday

A.M.

Last week was grueling. ​Not only were we rushing to get the issue out of the office, but we also had trouble getting one of the cover images, our final project report for SFCA was due, and we had a farewell party. Stayed up till midnight last night working on corrections to the issue. Was difficult to fall asleep. Today will be very busy, but I'm hoping we can finally finish Cascadia: The Life and Breath of the World.

Dear life, what challenges you pose me!​

​P.M.

An important phase of our work this afternoon was the reduction of typefaces used in the issue. With Frank's wise guidance, ​we eliminated all Times and Times New Roman fonts, replacing them with Minion Pro ones. We also checked on all the images, making sure they were high-res and grayscale (easily accomplished with QXP's Utilities function).

A few hours were spent resolving consistency issues and tightening loose lines, sometimes editorially. In the process, we found this helpful page on terminology.

​Late in the afternoon, our designer sent us a PDF file for the title page, and we successfully set that page. 

At the end of the day, we prepared a package for delivery to UH Press. ​The computer file for each issue must be saved not only in the native format but also in PDF and postscript ones. Of course, all fonts and images must accompany the files.

Frank will deliver the package to UHP tomorrow morning.

​P.S. I have erased what I wrote earlier about figuring out the printer. As it turned out, I did not have the key to unlocking the Samsung printer universe. Its secrets are safe from me—for now.

​

Saturday in the park

Stress and fatigue prevented me from writing a suitable post yesterday.

This morning I walked with my sister at the Manoa Recreation Center. It had been some years since we'd done this, and I was happy to see that most of the area had remained the same. A Little League team was practicing on one of the baseball diamonds, and my sister and I were amazed by the strength and skill of the boys, the oldest of whom looked to be ten or so. She and I walked for about thirty-five minutes, then sprinted up the hill to the parking area. 

Last night I dreamt I was going the wrong way on a highway and ended up in the past. Most of the dream was pleasant, and I remember kissing someone. Ah, the dream kiss: one of the subjects covered in My Dinner with Eden, ​a play I wrote for my good friend Alex. 

Just posted Frank Stewart's great photo of Nelson on his last day. See the journal's Facebook page.​

Mokuyobi (Japanese for "Thursday")

My Virginia writer friend Gary Mawyer follows the Japanese news. Thanks to him, I read about the project to develop a national restoration park. See the Friends of Hawaii Trees blog for the post.​

Reading the letters and cards in the folder Frank Stewart made for The Fish Catcher, I was overcome by feelings of nostalgia and loss. ​The letter from Jim Houston (whom I quote on the Books page) affected me strongly. What a wonderful man and writer he was. If you didn't know him, be sure to look at this page.