To thine own self be true

Samples–

Emily Dickinson:
(from 1890–early publication–Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by friends Todd and Higginson)

THE CHARIOT.
XXVI
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

(from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, the 1951 Harvard, Johnson ed. which reproduces the poet as she originally/actually wrote)

-712-
Because I could not stop for Death–
He kindly stopped for me–
The Carriage held but just Ourselves–
And Immortality.
………………………..
Uh, like, where’s the Chariot?
It only takes reading the titles and opening stanza side by-side to see the distortions, even with friends’ best intentions. The serious reading world is fortunate that Johnson resuscitated Dickinson’s unique, original voice, capitalization and punctuation use. Imagine being misrepresented for 61 years. Ironically, original published distorted versions continued to be published as much as the intended originals since the 1950s.

****************************************************

Walt Whitman

(common version from most modern editions of Leaves of Grass):

Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Here is what Whitman wrote and possibly finally preferred in the 1891 ‘Death-bed’ edition:

Very well, then, I contradict myself;
(I am large–I contain multitudes.)

But in the original 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, he wrote:

Very well then….I contradict myself;
I am large….I contain multitudes.

…………………………………………..

Today as I drive by all the misspelled advertising signs or watch the misspelled tv and Google news captions, I think of other inaccuracies and distortions of other basic facts, information, and details, as evidenced in the above. And I recall all the people–some in my former area of English teaching who told me or said to others–Spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar are not important or not as important as ideas. Communication of author meaning and purpose can be changed by something as apparently ‘slight’ as those 4 key elements.

Accuracy or correctness do matter. Details–particularly faithful detailing and attention to details do matter in reading and writing, as much as in publishing originals of authors’ works.

(The only Beethoven you need ever purchase; it has everything)

The usual dates given for the onset of his complete deafness are typically 1814-1815.

So, for his last 13ish years until his death in 1827, he was likely no longer (audibly)hearing the following great works which he wrote in that period:

Piano sonata in E minor (Op.90)

Cello sonatas (Op. 102)

Piano sonata in A (Op. 101)

Piano sonata in Bb “Hammerklavier” (Op. 106)

Piano sonata in E (Op. 109)

Piano sonata in Ab (Op. 110)

Piano sonata in C minor (Op. 111)

33 variations in C on waltz by Diabelli (Op. 120)

“Missa Solemnis” in D (Op. 123)

Symphony no. 9 in D minor (Op. 125)

String quartet in Eb (Op. 127)

String quartet in A minor (Op. 132)

String quartet in Bb (Op. 130)

“Grosse fugue” for string quartet (Op. 133)

String quartet in C# minor (Op. 131)

String quartet in F (Op. 135)

Amazing output; incredible, unique pieces!
………………………………….
This certainly gives a different spin, understanding, and appreciation when hearing the above works. We can safely say that Beethoven was writing purely, then, from his oral imagination, memory, and past experience. I believe he was deeply, intuitively, and instinctually writing Keats’ “ditties of no [audible] tone”–the music of his soul and spirit. He was writing that music that remained deep inside him. And he was writing the music that he really wanted to compose as in the case of his mass. In that, I believe he wrote both the misery and suffering of the human condition in the opening two sections and later concluded with the hopeful possibilities typically interpreted in and by the positive ending. Despite his previous suicide attempts and pessimism, Beethoven hoped for a higher state and salvation for humans. Unlike no other genius-composer, his work, attitudes, and approaches are a perfect balance of positive and negative, hope and pessimism, the ideal and the real.

can be limited, limiting, or liberating.

(One often pays a price for the inauthentic, false, limited, limited roles as well.)

Food for thought; talking and thinking points.

The following quotes are excerpted from the conclusion of my 1st year u History 1966 textbook, The Western Heritage—-second edition, a truly admirable, noble accomplishment by Stewart C. Easton. Enjoy and ponder!

“Almost none of the writers and philosophers of stature in [the 20th] century have been optimistic about the condition of man.”

“To them material progress is meaningless.”

(On moral improvement from the 19th to the 20th centuries) “The present epoch has witnessed an awareness on the part of human beings that they are indeed ‘their brother’s keepers.”

“Today in Western civilization almost everyone seeks to be loved and appreciated, and is willing to love and appreciate in turn according to the best of his abilities.”

“The modern parent really cares whether his children have a good opinion of him.”

“”He regards his child as having a personality, a moral being of his own.”

“The businessman wants his customers to like him, to call him by his first name; he does not want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and he expects them to have a care for his feelings.”

“Rich nations feel they have an obligation to help others less fortunate.”

“Slavery has been legally abolished for a century and a half.”

“”It is socially respectable today for a man to detest tyranny and discrimination, and socially disreputable to approve them.”

“It seems to this historian that man has acquired his freedom and self-consciousness, but that he does not as yet know what to do with them.”

“But [man] is not happy; in part because of the worries attendant on his economic and social position, but also in very large part because of a lack of a sense of direction, a certain emptiness of soul.”

“Sociologists inform us that the majority of men are inclined to estimate themselves by the criterion of the approval by others, that their very choice of actions is dependent upon their presumed effect on other men. The ‘inner-directed’ men, we are told, are becoming rarer, and may perhaps even become extinct.”

“But it remains true that, if the human being finds time to reflect in the midst of the twentieth-century world, he knows, from his own personal knowledge, that he is an individual separate from others, that he is born alone, lives alone, and dies alone; that if he is stripped of all his worldly good and his whole civilization is destroyed around him, there are inner resources on which he can draw for his survival. All those things told him by scientists and sociologists are mere spinnings of thoughts, in comparison with the intuited reality.”

I generally find most of Easton’s opinions still relevant or true today. There are exceptions, of course; slavery for one. I am sure you will have an opinion yourself on each of these quotations by Easton.

(the very highly recommended entertaining tv series DVD boxset by UK’s Acorn; Suchet resembles my late Dad minus the turn-ups on the end of his moustache)

Five Little Pigs. A tale of darkest domestica, romance, love, and cross purposes. Wonderfully acted, written, set-designed, scored, and directed. Every second of it. Brilliantly done and very satisfying right down to climax 2. All of Suchet’s Poirots have to be measured against this one on a perfection basis.

I immediately recognized, at age 18, the factual truth of the above . Some 50 years later, I find this truism even truer and more relevant than ever as a way to explain/metaphorize Life and the events of the day, the people you meet, the behaviors you see in public everywhere all the time, and the bizarre stories you read or see regularly non-stop in the media.

Although I could give you a zillion examples until the end of time to support this personal belief, I will be brief and simply say that “Yes, Life is largely Theatre of the Absurd. There is a non-stop, steady, daily offering of crazy, stupid, irrational events, people, and behaviors out there. Period.”

(A busy record vendor at the fall Edm. Music Collectors’ show)

(A non-busy garage sale entertainer drawing in the customers with sixties oldies)

(A rather self-satisfied author at leisure in his Victoria Inn at Laurel Park hotel room overlooking the harbour about to partake of a room-service breakfast)

(Hard at work with the grandkids instilling a love of language and reading)

Around 2000 till 2002, I was teaching half-time, working at AB Film Classification half-time, and writing and editing several textbooks to meet curricular deadlines. Talk about OD-ing. No wonder I left teaching, retiring ‘early’ in 2002 after 30 years.

Things stayed busy after that for 3 more years with Film Classification full-time, doing more book projects, doing projects for Edmonton Public and AB Ed.

After that, there were to be 2 more book projects and the annual teacher convention workshops. I had a little more leisure time till I stopped the ed book projects and teacher convention stuff in 2010. Then I got a surfeit of leisure till about 2015 when life became much busier. From 2013 on, I started doing 2 blogs, which has kept the writing and poetry going.

Every day the past 2 years has been fully booked with the latter plus other stuff to do with house, health stuff, and family. I really don’t know how I managed to eke out whatever life while teaching all those years. It was pretty clear in 2002, though, that, financially, I didn’t need to teach anymore. Freedom 52 big-time for real. Even now I still get royalties from books going back to the earliest (1980) books. So I have been luckier than most people and even most Canadian authors of any stripe.

Yes, it remains very busy, but each day I accomplish several things and continue to move forward with different levels and ‘worlds’.

At this point, I have a poetry manuscript being reviewed by a big university, the two blogs still in operation, a third featuring my poetry in the works, a strong poem entered in the retired teachers’ magazine contest, a workshop on Emily Dickinson for the Edmonton Stroll of Poets in the wings.

Downsizing continues as “things” continue to be retired and sold off. I will be selling off my expensive, most valuable books on Kijiji in the spring.

2017 was an expensive year in a lot of ways: new garage door, unexpected new main water controls, a new Bathfitters shower, a spring trip to Victoria, a $2700 Rickenbacker 12 string dream-come-true, pre-paying for 2 funerals, bush trimming, and unexpected fallen tree removal, etc.

But new experience–playing music at my daughter’s staff luncheon in Gold Bar Park in the fall, doing an hour-long interview with music on the university’s CJSR, and developing a new poems-only website with a former Scona student-multi-talented webmeister-musician-filmmaker-friend James (The Man) Mireau.

All the usual good, sustaining, nourishing contacts and experiences continued as well including selling off musical items at the Edm. Music Collectors’ show, attending Symphony under the Sky in August, and participating in the Stroll of Poets: reading, hosting, and offering a workshop throughout the year.

Have I mentioned how busy I am these days? Health concerns are the next priority with the needed, impending (Jan.) eye surgery. I may have to give my kids the front-row Winspear tix for Bruce Cockburn about that time unfortunately, but won’t they have fun?

2018 is booking in/up fast already. Some other impending expenses include a new A/C for the upper house floor and a new water heater so I’m already ‘targeted’ for 2 thou! I do hope to get to my hometown Winnipeg for the 50th anniversary 1 year late after this year’s cancellation. The fun stuff with grandkids and granddog, and annual summer tri-family garage sale always are ongoing, of course. The perpetual downsizing.

Well, have I said I’m a lucky man? And as indicated above, very busy, too; in fact, even busier each day than ever before. I remain intact, happy, and hanging in.

16! No less than 16 complaints of harassment and assault against the President of the U.S. and nothing has happened to him! (This after Bill Clinton’s impeachment for consensual closet misbehaviour with Monica–i.e., 1 power victim). Truly amazing abuse of absolute power.
And then pushing the envelope even further by endorsing Roy Moore with his 8 charges on the basis of party politics alone!

And all the women victims (at least 24 of them if all proven true) in the jetstream wake of these liars, connivers, abusers and exploiters, reduced to dust, nothingness, and ignominy for speaking out against these powerful men. This is what America values, supports, and believes in: that powerful and absolutely powerful men can get away with whatever abuses of power and women, in particular. Women are not to be believed, respected, trusted, or supported by U.S. government. The ongoing tale of two worlds and two political sides. “You’ve come a long way baby”‘s limits have been clearly demarcated in the courts of CNN, U.S. government, and politics. The buck stops here for any women who become entangled in the sex lives of currently prominent, powerful g-men.

The Equifax fiasco, for instance. Millions duped by the company that their private info was safe, then willy-nilly hacked.
Today the revelation that 57 million Uber clients had been hacked without the company being upfront about this information.
On and on. Who can you trust?
The great Mondelez takeover of food products, followed by surreptitiously changing ingredients of old consumer favorites (sometimes dramatically, Christie fig newtons anyone?) in order to make more bucks.
Just a major betrayal of public trust and confidence, screwing around with consumers’ purchases and preferences.

Cave canem. More than ever you can’t trust the ads and the new major players with your money and info.

A female reporter on CBC News Network saying the dead David Cassidy was in “incredible condition” before he died yesterday. Uh, how could he have been in incredible condition with dementia and other various serious health problems?

On CNN, another female reporter saying the attack on Rand Paul was “from” Paul. How was that possible with Paul being blindsidedly hit from behind while he was sporting headphones peacefully mowing his lawn?

The continuing distortion of clear communication and meanings. What wrong messages and misunderstandings do the media create with this sloppiness and carelessness in their use of language?

Further:

Hacking is a bad thing. But now thanks to the ambiguous introduction of “hacks” as a good thing, there is suddenly no distinction on what the word “hack” means. “Nothing is but what is not”, “Fair is foul and foul is fair” (Macbeth). Is it any wonder that through the confuting of language and ambiguous meanings and usage, that people no longer know things clearly and for certain? That words can mean whatever you want them to mean? ( a la Trump and this Trumpian era)