CHOP WOOD, CARRY WATER

CONVERSATIONS with a Hypoxic Dog (CwHD) is a weblog about words and language and other inanities.  CwHD began May 1, 2017. Besides thematic essays, the site provides a vehicle for sharing my own words and language. In July, 2017, I opened The Bookstore. This page provides an overview of my published work. Print and ebook copies are available through my publishing website majikwoids. A link is provided below and in the sidebar. 

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CwHD 91

A glossary of archaic or uncommon words is added at the end of the essay.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Sir Isaac Newton is noted for his concise descriptions of the physical world. His three laws of motion are well known and the third law is so often cited that it has become something of a cliche. The third law states that for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. If object A exerts a force on object B, then object B also exerts an equal force on object A. The lift generated by a wing exemplifies this principle as does the game of billiards, the martial arts of aikido and judo, tsunamis, marbles, walking, and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

While this exchange of forces is quite predictable for inanimate objects and the autonomic movement of animate objects, any attempt to apply the principle to human behavior is far more problematic.

How does one respond to an upraised middle finger (action)? Certainly, context is critical to any informed decision. However, the phallus finger seems to trigger such an emotional, visceral response (reaction) that informed reasoning is short circuited, adrenaline surges, and before we can say oh fooie one's middle digit is raised in return, the arm outthrusted, jaw clenched.

Thus the conundrum. Controlling one's emotional reactions is often beyond reason.

Neville Chamberlain is often reviled for his vain attempt to appease Adolf Hitler. Appeasement, of course, is most often considered a form of flight. In order to avoid confrontation, one attempts to pacify and conciliate one's opponent. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, is often lauded for his famous speech to Parliament in June of 1940 that proclaimed " ... we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the fields and streets, we shall fight in the hills ..." Two of the Bible's most often quoted anecdotes suggest either course as correct: One can passively turn the other cheek or vengefully take an eye for an eye.

The United States Supreme Court, that once august body, has given this opinion on unbridled responses: "fighting words," speech and actions that incite others to imminent lawless actions, obscenities that might do the same, as well as certain types of defamatory speech and specific types of threat are not protected by the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment and so can be regulated and even punished by the legal entity involved (the state of Pennsylvania in this case). Laws that have been upheld as constitutional are laws which range from a simple summary offense of Disorderly Conduct to felonies such as Terroristic Threats.

Controlling one's limbic system, it seems, might well be imperative in order to remain at large and free from the capricious nature of some hanging judge. No simple matter apparently. Statistics from the Bureau of Justice from the year 2012 give the total of federal, state and local expenditures on prisons, jails and the like at just over $80 billion.

So consider the movement of water which is, of course, a body of knowledge encompassed in the science of hydrology. Moving water offers an analogy that might serve to untie the Gordian knot that is the feedback from one's limbic system. If one embarks on a river of some size, or a coastal voyage in a small boat whose motive power is the wind or one's muscles, the analogy becomes more apt.

The Columbia River does not need much encouragement to run at four or five knots. If the main channel is narrow or the flow is constricted by islands, the water will crown and carry away the less than intrepid sailor or paddler. Head on confrontations with currents, however they may arise, rarely profit the small boat sailor, paddler or rower. Flight is the order of the day. Back eddies, slack water and the lee side of some prominence provide the means to tame the aggressive current (might such current be labeled the aqueous world's limbic system?).

Flight, unfortunately, carries a connotation of cowardice. So euphemisms are in order.

Flight can mean simply running away; but the word surely connotes more than that. In terms of the working analogy, both back eddies and lee sides can equate with avoidance, a more complicated form of flight which involves keen awareness of one's environment as well as an astute awareness of human nature. Slack water, my personal favorite, at first glance appears to be merely indifference. The following anecdote implies much more.

Morihei Ueshiba, the man who put aikido on the map, often traveled by train. As a slight seemingly frail old man, eighty-something, he had his students carry the luggage. No matter how crowded the platform Ueshiba was able to walk sprightly along, parting the waters as it were, with his students hustling along behind in his wake. Committed to neutrality, focused, the old man lived upon slack water. He gave no thought to fight or flight. His only concern, to add an old Chinese analogy, was to chop wood and carry water.

Concentrating on one thing at a time seems beyond possibility in this digital age. Focus is wanting generally. But there is this: Sick with flu, prostrate on the couch, wallowing in self-pity, the cell phone rings (vibrates, chortles, clangs, dingdings, whatever) and reluctantly the call is answered. A long lost friend has reached out. Smiles and laughter and hail-fellow-well-mets blossom and flourish. And the flu? Well, one's illness is apparently in remission for the moment. Similar focused moments are common experience, if one but considers. And it is such moments that I label slack water: the disconnected haven between Scylla and Charybdis. And if moments are possible, why not hours or days or a lifetime.

Asians seem better at this mindset than western folk. Two prominent individuals who attained neutrality (centrality?) were Mahatma Gandhi and the Dali Lama. In an interview with Bill Moyers (still available on YouTube), the Dalai Lama was asked a question that cut to the core of the issue. How did he deal with insect pests like mosquitoes. The Dalai Lama laughed (a very happy fellow this fellow) and said at first he would gently wave a hand. And if that didn't work? asked Moyers. Ah, then perhaps a puff of air. And ... The Dalai Lama laughed his laugh, and then smack, he slapped his forearm. Chop wood, he said. Ha ha ha.

Glossary

autonomic, involuntary or unconscious, relating to the autonomic nervous system which includes heartbeat and breathing among other less obvious examples (cellular homeostasis, e.g.).

conundrum, a confusing and difficult question or problem.

limbic system, that part of the brain involved in our behavioral and emotional responses, especially when it comes to behaviors one needs for survival: feeding, reproduction and caring for one's young, and fight or flight responses.

Scylla and Charybdis, in Greek mythology, Scyylla was a rather nasty six-headed monster who lived on a rock on one side of a narrow strait (said to be the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily), and Charybdis was a whirlpool on the other side.

summary offense, the least serious type of crime. Felonies are most serious and misdemeanors less so. Summary offenses can be decided without jury trial.

The Folly Of Personal Pronouns

CONVERSATIONS with a HYPOXIC DOG (CwHD) is a weblog about words and language and other inanities. CwHD began May 1, 2017. Besides thematic essays, the site provides a vehicle for sharing my own words and language. In July, 2017, I opened The Bookstore. This page provides an overview of my published work. Print and ebook copies are available through my publishing website majikwoids. A link is provided below and in the sidebar.

Visit majikwoids for editorial services, free reads and my latest stories.

Subscribe to receive this weblog when new content is available.

A glossary of archaic or uncommon words is added at the end of this essay.

The Folly Of Personal Pronouns

Leuthold's Couloir does not belong to Joe Leuthold. The couloir is a gully decidedly vertical rather than horizontal which splits the southwest face of Mt Hood. Like other geological features throughout the known universe, the couloir was named for the man (far less often are places and things named for women) who first climbed the route, and does not signify possession. The apostrophe 's' can, at times, indicate ownership; but the construct is far more ambiguous than the personal pronoun.

from the base of Leuthold's Couloir, lookinng NNW

photo by gv simoni

'My dog' is more specific, and certainly indicates possession. Dogs are usually rather affectionate creatures and not wont to complain. Some dogs, however, are not the least bit impressed with that 'my', and will blatantly disregard their master's wishes, making their escape, jumping fences, tunneling, chewing through leads, doing whatever is necessary to go gallivanting about the neighborhood. Inorganic creatures, like pickup trucks, are more easily 'owned'; although internal combustion engines are notoriously finicky, and perhaps this is due, in part, to the tyranny of ownership.

Rarely will someone claim ownership of, say, a doorknob. In the grand scheme of things, doorknobs have little importance. The value of an object seems to be proportional to the desire to own that object. Old boats, more often than not made of glass reinforced plastic, are rarely claimed. They languish in backyards and boat yards gathering dirt and mold. A Weldcraft Cuddy King 300 with twin inboard diesels will make hardhearted landlubbers salivate. That's my boat, they'll say. Ain't she a beauty. 20 years of water under the bridge and that same boat will likely be scrap, the victim of electrolysis and neglect.

The folly of personal pronouns? Ownership is a dubious concept. Man's tenure on planet earth is something less than a burp. If you build it, nature will, sooner or later, reclaim it. Mountains, though majestic and seemingly eternal, come and go like governments. So one argument against this penchant for acquisitions surely must be life's brief passing. Does one have time to spend foolishly trying to own things? Like Hitler and other megalomaniacs (saying you have the DTs takes on a whole new meaning these days), is it the 1000 year Reich you are after?

Curiously, folly has a second meaning. The word denotes an edifice that costs far more to build than it is worth, one that has no practical purpose, is merely ornamental, and is commonly found in the hidden reaches of a garden. Many of our 'possessions' are much like follies. They are expensive, impractical, and end up rusting in the yard or gathering dust in the closet.

Possessiveness, the desire to own more than we need, goes hand in glove with domination. Greed seems a likely root cause of this wayward desire. Advertising does nothing but feed these desires. The American educational folly (in both sense of the word) does little to ameliorate the problem. An argument can be made that public education exacerbates the issue. Well educated, intelligent people are often badly and sadly disconnected from reality. They want the American Dream, however transmogrified that fleeting apparition has become. Does happiness come with a six figure income? Not likely.

Emotions are not easily controlled. Reason is often elusive. Homo sapiens are not reasonable creatures. The ability to think clearly must be acquired. Mathematics affords an excellent opportunity to hone this skill. The answers are clear; the process is straightforward though sometimes complex. Aerobic exercise, music and other arts, and various crafts also work well to eliminate the extraneous and focus one's mind on the specific. It is not coincidental that those whose culture focuses their thoughts produce outstanding crafts.

Commonly, knowledge is divided into two general types. Explicit knowledge can be written down, verbalized, and taught. For example, 2 + 2 = 4 is a bit of explicit knowledge. Or: The capital of Oregon is Salem. Or: the jointed rock in the Columbia River Gorge is columnar basalt Tacit knowledge is implicit. Largely subjective. Understanding comes intuitively. What one knows implicitly cannot be verbalized or taught. Most arts and crafts are imbued with tacit knowledge. One can learn the chords on a guitar and even strum a song; but to play well involves mastering sounds emitted from the vibration of strings which require precise plucking with flesh, nails or plectrum, various pressures and positions, equally precise fretting, and a host of other details which one cannot express verbally. Sheet music is, at best, a skeletal outline of the composers intentions. Interpretation, using all the tacit knowledge at his or her command, is the responsibility of the artist.

Ownership is explicit and binding. One becomes territorial. Defensive. And, in turn, aggressively offensive. "I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands," is a slogan common among aficionados of firearms. One so often becomes a prisoner of what one possesses.

Wisdom is tacit knowledge. One cannot purchase wisdom on the installment plan. Freedom is tacit. People living through the Great Depression of the 1930s, acquired tacit knowledge. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a proverb attributed to Plato 2300 years ago; and is often rephrased in English as "having less, means knowing more." Conversely, having more, it seems, often means knowing less.

We have too much. Some have far too much. The wealthiest 1% of the world's population owns more than half of the world's wealth.¹ 10000 years of human greed has done the planet irreparable harm. And the material objects from cars to shoes seem to be poorly made: all sizzle and no steak. Often disposable. Gimcrack gimmicks.

Cultures that eschew materialism have a curious knack for producing exquisite crafts. The Navajo is one such. Their tradition maintains that one only needs enough to take care of one's family. Hozho is the Navajo belief system that delineates how one must stay in harmony and beauty with the world. A simple tenet is to own less. Though Hozho is a culturally specific aesthetic idea of the Navajo; many of its tenets are held by indigenous people everywhere. Doing more with less, for example. Respect for the natural world. A greater kinship with all living creatures. The Navajo, of course, are renown for their crafts, especially blankets, jewelry, and sand paintings

The Amish rely on a pragmatic code (though the source for their belief that separation from the modern world is essential to their salvation does come from a literal interpretation of their Bible) that severely restricts their behavior. The primary motive belief is akin to the vow of poverty taken in many monasteries east and west. They are farmers. They avoid contact with the outside world. The horse still provides their transportation. Theirs is a communal existence. Ownership, such as it is, is shared. And, of course, their skill at woodworking and cookery is widely admired and copied.

A simple means to achieve less is to recycle all the detritus in one's life. Redistribute assets. Give it all away. Both minimalism and living off the grid have their roots in a desire for shared communalism and respect for the natural world. Minimalist are known to be quite self-sufficient. Craftsmanship is part of the creed.

An addendum to all of the above is that once past possessiveness, personal pronouns can be useful. They often register a commitment. 'My dog' necessarily implies ownership; but the phrase can also suggest a determination to provide and care for the dog, a kinship quite apart from ownership.

GLOSSARY:

couloir, a French word, with the meaning of a passage or corridor, commonly used by climbers generally.

eschew, deliberately avoid using, to abstain from

gimcrack, flimsy or poorly made but deceptively attractive.

ilk, archaic Scottish, meaning type of people or things already referred to.

transmogrify, to change or alter greatly often with grotesque or humorous effect.

wont, in the habit of doing something, accustomed

1Credit Suisse report on global wealth. https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report.html

Meandering

CONVERSATIONS with a HYPOXIC DOG (CwHD) is a weblog about words and language and other inanities. CwHD began May 1, 2017. Besides thematic essays, the site provides a vehicle for sharing my own words and language. In July, 2017, I opened The Bookstore. This page provides an overview of my published work. Print and ebook copies are available through my publishing website majikwoids. A link is provided below and in the sidebar.

Visit majikwoids for editorial services, free reads and my latest stories.

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Meandering

Rivers are sinuous creatures, possessing tenacity, ingenuity, and supple grace. By definition, a river is a large body of water flowing in a channel to the sea, a lake, or another river. Most of the synonyms of the word describe rivers of various size or character: watercourse, stream, brook, rivulet, rill, freshet, creek, burn, billabong, beck, wadi, arroyo. The specific meaning of each of the terms changes with location. Local definitions can be quite different. A creek in Maine is not a creek in Oregon.

Upper Salmon River, photo by gv simoni

James Fenimore Cooper, noted author of The Last Of The Mohicans and many other novels, had this to say:

'Creek,' a word that signifies an inlet of the sea, or of a lake, is misapplied to running streams, and frequently to the outlets of lakes.

Cooper lived in upstate New York in the mid 19th century, well within the orbit of New England pedantry. The quote is from Cooper's book The American Democrat which was published in 1838.

By 1859 the definition had begun to broaden and generalize. The Dictionary Of The English Language defined creek as " ... a small inlet of the sea or of a river, a bay; a cove ... " This dictionary was the work of Joseph Worchester, the rival of Noah Webster, and the favorite son of Harvard English and the detractor of the English spoken further west and south. Mr Worchester did grant that " ... in the Middle, Southern, and Western states ..." the word might define a " ... small river; a rivulet."

The 1934 Webster, arguably the finest American dictionary --- the last hand-bound book allowing it to be as thick as the editors needed it to be and not subject to the dictates of machine binding --- explains creek as:

... a small inlet or bay, narrower and extending farther into the land than a cove; a narrow recess in the shore of the sea, a river, or a lake ... the estuary of a small river or a brook, emptying on a low coast or into the lower reaches of a wide river, together with the upper course of the small river or brook to its source.

This begs the question of when or if a 'creek' is also a 'crick.' Some people pronounce 'creek' as though it were spelled like 'crick.' Some people do not. Some people distinguish the difference between creek and crick by size. For example, a recent article on the Field & Stream website quoted a commenter from Texas who suggested that " ... if you can jump across it, it's a crick; if you have to wade across it, it's a creek."

Definitions, too, it seems, can be sinuous creatures, possessing tenacity, ingenuity, and, at times, even supple grace.

Lower Columbia, photo gv simoni

The length of a river is its measure from its source at its headwaters to its mouth where it debouches into another river, a lake, or the sea. Length is the sine qua non for determining the river's size and ranking. Generally, any tributaries feeding a river must be smaller both in size and volume. The Mississippi, reckoned the 2nd longest river in North America, becomes the 4th longest in the world if the Missouri River, which flows into the Mississippi just north of St Louis, is added to it. The Missouri, however, is considered a separate entity due to its size. The numbers suggest finagling: the Mississippi is most often listed as 2,348 miles long, though 2,320 is not an uncommon measurement; the Missouri is listed at 2,341 miles long, and is often granted the longest river in North America laurels. Three streams and many tributaries feed the upper Missouri with considerable opportunity for error. The Mississippi begins its southern journey in Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. Quibbles seem to be in order.

In terms of volume, generally measured in cubic feet per second (cfs --- think sugar cubes 12 inches square), the Mississippi heads the North American list with a discharge of 593,000 cfs. The Columbia River, the fabled River of the West, languishes at just seventh in length at 1,243 miles; but moves up to fourth in volume at 293,000 cfs. By comparison, the Amazon, the largest river in the world by volume (and by length, as well, depending on who is measuring) discharges 7,380,765 cfs.

The gravitational pull of the moon creates tides, and long sections of rivers that empty into the sea fluctuate accordingly. Tidal rivers rise and fall with the tides, and they flood and ebb as well. The fresh water of a river, less dense than the ocean's salt water, generally floats over the top of the heavier seawater. St Helens, Oregon, once a contender with Portland for major port honors, sees a three foot rise twice daily from the tide. Merriwther Lewis noted tidal water as far inland as Beacon Rock, 145 miles from the Columbia's mouth. The river's flow has considerable variations due to dam releases, wing dams, wind, and tidal currents. Data taken by NOAA suggests tidal flows are coincident with the rise and fall of tides and effect the river's current by up to two knots. No worries for tugs pushing barges which have bigger fish to fry. Kayakers, however, may be late for dinner if paddling against an adverse tide.

Rivers lend themselves to various metaphorical phrases. Most often, flowing water is used to describe life itself, or that other great abstraction, time. In literature, stream of consciousness is a major stylistic feature of many modern novels which attempt to duplicate in words a character's thought process. The phrase was coined by psychologist William James in his Principles Of Psychology of 1894. Though James thought of one's reactions to events as a continuous flow, novelist, with the limitations of the written word, may come closer to duplicating what to many is a rather herky-jerky, stop-and-go process. As one floats the river of life, a good deal of focus is required to maintain a continuous line of thought, to focus beyond distraction come hell or high water. Nonetheless, distractions are legion, and sooner or later one finds themselves up a creek without a paddle, in the proverbial chicken-wire canoe.

SMALL BOAT

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If Mr Einstein would have his way, everything is relative. Small is a relative term. A small child is a toddler or perhaps a five year old just off to kindergarten, or an undersized 10 year old. A small craft, as in small craft advisories issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, refers to a vessel less than sixty feet in length. And smalls are --- at least in Britain and Australia --- one's undergarments. Small, clearly, is relative.

photo by merrily simoni

A small boat, then, can be an 8' pram, a 24' sloop, a 50' ketch or any other of the many configurations of hulls and rigging as long as it is less than sixty feet in length. Despite NOAA's dictum, to the dapper gent on the upper deck of a 1000' foot cruise ship halfway to Hilo, a 100' yacht may seem dismally small. That is what relativity is all about. Eye of the beholder, you see. Point of reference and all that.

Small talk is the medium with which humans weave their social fabrics. How's the weather? Baked a cake today. The dog's got fleas. Some people are better chatting comfortably with their fellows than others. Darwin had no use for what he considered inanities. Serious fellow, this Darwin. Much too busy explicating evolution to natter away about a rainy day. Most talk at the bus stop, if any talk there be, is not about the speed of light in a vacuum.

Simplicity, it seems to me, is inversely proportional to size. Growth inevitably leads to complication. Detroit is far more complex than Winnemucca. This inverse proportion seems to hold true for everything from strawberries to planets. An amoeba makes an interesting study. Cancer cells offer frustration and endless deliberation.

This brings us to the relationship between elegance and simplicity. The pairing of these two --- simple elegance; elegant simplicity --- is well documented. Indeed, elegance is often defined as beauty marked by an unusual simplicity which is focused on one essential feature of a person, place or thing: one color, one shape, one sound. Cacaphonic music would never be labeled elegant. So we posit another inverse relationship: complexity, and thus size, must be the ruin of elegance. Complexity tends to stun one's cerebral cortex so that focus is lost and confusion reigns. Perhaps the redwood tree is an exception. Or whales. Nevertheless ...

Etymology offers some insight.

Small comes from the Old English smael which is of Germanic origin and related to Dutch smal and German schmal. Latin for 'small' is, among other translations, parvus carrying the meaning 'short' as well as 'small'. Synonyms for 'small' are compact, little, and bijou. Bijou, by the bye (in the 1500s, this word 'bye' referred to a side path, down which we have wandered ...) is synonymous with small, little, compact, snug, cozy.

Simple comes from Middle English from Old French from the Latin simplus. The noun form of the word originally (mid 16th century) referred to a medicine made from one constituent, especially from one plant. Current synonyms are uncomplicated, without much decoration or ornamentation, composed of a single element, not compound.

Elegant originated in the late 15th century from French from the Latin elegans which is related to eligere, to chose or select. As an adjective, the word carries the definitions of pleasingly graceful, tasteful, discerning, refined, among others. When referring to a scientific theory or solution to a problem, the definition is pleasingly ingenious and simple.

photo by gv simoni

The relationship between the three words is, admittedly, rather convoluted; which is to say, alas, complicated and therefore not the least bit elegant. Both 'small' and 'simple' have multiple meanings and 'elegant' traces its origins to a different source entirely so the link is tenuous. One must reach for it. Perhaps it is a bit of a stretch, but a common thread does run through these concepts.

The connection comes from the definition 'one': one plant, one thing, etc. 'One' suggests an integrity, something that is not duplicit (two-faced, false). Integrity might well be the common thread to elegance; and, by extension, to simplicity and smallness as well.

So what difference does it all make? Most people of sense would find integrity an important concept. Elegance is, I fear, rarely considered. Americans are driven by size, the bigger the better. The fact of the matter is that small boats give far more pleasure than large boats. Most boats of any size spend their days tied up in the marina while dinghies, kayaks, and drift boats are out and about exploring the watery byes. Small boats get used. Cliches abound extolling the benefits of small: keep it simple stupid, walk before you run, brevity is the essence of wit, know when to stop. Even the Peter Principle has at its core the folly of increasing growth ( ... in management, one rises to his or her level of incompetence). And the classic philosophic principal, Occam's Razor, might be the last word on the subject: Entities should not be multiplied without necessity.

TREES AND TRILLIUMS

Over the last two years, Google data recorded 7536 views of CwHD. Most of those views lasted less than a minute which makes for a poor bounce rate. A bounce rate is the percentage of visits in which a person leaves a website from the landing page without browsing any further. No matter. Words and language are, like the complicated business of driving a vehicle, taken for granted by most people. Boring, in fact. Unless reckless. Or intoxicated. Or both.

I find this odd.

Odd, too, is the way many people go through life. Just browsing is what many seem to be doing, living without intention or direction. Or living impetuously. No doubt Google could put numbers on this generalization. For example, currently the population of the planet is 7.7 billion. The World Population Clock web page keeps ticking over with births and deaths. To the minute, 50,287 people have died today. 121, 276 have been born. 30% of the people on the planet are just trying to survive. They are not bored. Or impulsive. Dire straits focuses one's attention rather acutely.

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau wrote that "...the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation..." And that desperation might well be humdrum or horrific. For example, according to the Center For Disease Control website, over a billion people worldwide are without clean water or proper sanitation which leads directly or otherwise to the deaths of a million children each year. Bored with your job, are you? Having a midlife crisis? Credit cards maxed out, are they. Alas.

Webb Chiles is an intrepid fellow who has circumnavigated the globe six times. He has made these voyages, for the most part, alone. The greater part of one voyage was done in a small, open boat. Mr Chiles has insisted on living an epic life, as he puts it, traveling to the extremities of experience and then reporting back. He is rarely ever feckless or foolhardy. He is, in a word, a seaman. He is, as well, a wordsmith, a fellow who takes language seriously. He has written several books and maintains his own web log. Generally, he has little tolerance for the dreary, humdrum, often intolerable life ashore. He prefers the open sea and solitude.

Mr Chiles no doubt concurs with Thoreau, and so chooses to live his life with a fierce intention to be heroic. Though I, too, vote with Thoreau and Chiles, my point of view is slightly different. The distinction between us is but a hair's breadth, yet it is significant.

When Henry David went to Walden Pond, the small lake and its surrounding forest were wilderness. Now it is just a short drive from Boston; but in 1845 it was something of an epic trek. During the two years, two months, that he lived there, Thoreau began to write Walden, a classic of American literature. He wrote:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

Living deep requires intention and focus. Consciousness is not spontaneous, not instinctive, not autonomic. We must put some effort into our consciousness for it to function as we think consciousness does. Philosopher Dan Dennett in his TED Talk (2009), 'The Illusion of Consciousness', likens it to a conjuring trick. He points out that at any given moment our attention is focused entirely on a point the size of our thumb nail at arm's length. The background and foreground are filled in by our brains. Think pixels. Or dots of paint from an impressionist's brush. Our brain (or some combination of the 37 trillion cells comprising the human body) creates the bulk of the image. We really do not see what we are seeing. Or smelling. Or hearing.

To be conscious, then, is not something to take for granted. Webb Chiles' desire to suck the marrow out of life led him to the sea. The impression given by the words he writes is that nothing less would do. So too with Thoreau. To put all that is not life to rout, it seems, requires a challenging environment. The high mountains might qualify, or the deserts of the world. Wildness. Little else. Certainly not Levittown.

My take is that Levittown would do just fine. Seclusion is a state of mind. If each moment of anyone's life is considered to be an epic occurrence, just where you are becomes irrelevant. And, as I have written before, we create those moments ourselves, that bit of reality. How is this done? I am fond of this quote from the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein: The world we see is the words we use. The world we create comes from the various and multitudinous synapses in the recesses of our brains, and the subsequent verbiage we use to describe what we create. Presto change-o: Reality. And Consciousness. Or Consciousness, then Reality. No matter.

As far as publishing one's experience to the world goes, that reporting back business, one can undertake the task or not. Certainly it seems to be true that the writer's job (or painter or musician or name your art) is to create work that reports back from wherever their fancy finds them. Warhol painted soup cans. Beethoven wrote symphonies. Wildness need not be part of the program.

Singer songwriter John Prine, an old geezer like Mr Chiles and myself, wrote a lyric that went: ... strangers had forced him to live in his head ...(from the song 'Donald and Lydia', album John Prine, 1971). We all live in our heads. Each of us does so uniquely. What one usually finds is that strangers have forced us out of our heads; and we become lost in a gray and threatening world, a place of confusion and dread.

Open ocean is a fine arena to regain one's perspective. Mountains and deserts, too. But a walk in the park might be all one needs. Or simply a quiet corner of the house. Solitude and simplicity are often necessary for introspection, but not requisite. Trees and trilliums would do. Cats and dogs. The one proviso I would add is this: Always remember what the Dormouse said. (Read the book, listen to the song: you decide.)

photo by gv simoni

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NOTES:

Find "Donald and Lydia", John Prine (1971) here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLfOs6MvBPM

Find the Dormouse in : ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Lewis Carroll [Random House, 1946]. p.134, and elsewhere.

Find 'White Rabbit' (Grace Slick, 1966) sung by Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRypJ2xgb7w

Find quote from Walden in essay by Elizabeth Witherall (and Elizabeth Dubrulle) in their essay on Walden (web page: The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau). Depending on your edition of the book, the quote is on p90.

RAYMOND CHANDLER

CONVERSATIONS (CwHD) is a weblog about words and language and other nonsense. CwHD began May 1, 2017. Besides thematic essays, the site provides a vehicle for sharing my own words and language. In July, 2017, I opened The Bookstore. This page provides an overview of my published work. Print and ebook copies are available through my publishing website (link in sidebar):

majikwoids

Previously, I listed the six most influential author's of detective stories. This week's post concludes the biographies of those writers.

Raymond Chandler

(1888 - 1959)

"Chandler wrote like a slumming angel ..."

The New Yorker

Raymond Thornton Chandler was born in Chicago on July 23, 1888. At seven, his divorced mother took him to live in England. He attended prep schools early on, then went to university in France and Germany. Like Rex Stout before him, Chandler cobbled together a career in business before failure there pushed him into a writing career. He developed a distinctive prose voice and a knack for pungent metaphor. Often quoted is this: It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.

On his return to England after his European studies, he set out on a writing career with mixed results. By 1912, frustration moved him to the United States. A variety of jobs followed: tennis racket stringer, creamery book keeper and others of that sort. In 1917, he joined the Canadian army and fought in France. After his discharge, Chandler returned to Los Angeles.

At 36 he married Pearl "Cissy" Pascal who was 18 years senior to Chandler, and already twice divorced. He worked as a bookkeeper for an Southern California oil syndicate despite what he believed to be a corrupt industry with disreputable executives. With the depression, the oil business, too, slumped. Cissy's health began to fail and Chandler began drinking and carousing with company secretaries. He was fired in 1932.

Unlike Stout, necessity pushed Chandler to writing. A growing market for detective fiction seemed the path to take. His first story was published in 1933, sold to Black Mask Magazine. The demands of the pulp fiction market---tight plots, word length, subject matter---gave him a template to work within and he soon mastered the medium. He excelled at creating an emotional climate through apt description and original dialogue.

His first novel was published in 1939. The Big Sleep introduced a tough, cynical, sharp tongued Los Angeles gumshoe named Philip Marlowe. Chandler's prose was an artful combination of English prep school grammar and the rough street talk of 1930s. More lucrative work followed. As a scriptwriter, he earned Oscar nominations for Double Indemnity and The Blue Dahlia.

Amidst this success, his wife Cissy struggled with fibrosis of the lungs. She died in 1956. Her death devastated Chandler. His self-described 'long mourning' produced bouts of destructive drinking and at least one suicide attempt. His biographer, Frank McShane, remarked that " ... the emotional sensitivity that made [Chandler's] literary achievement possible also made him miserable as a human being."

Despite his 'long mourning' Chandler managed to write six more Marlowe novels as well as a number of short stories. Two of the books, Farewell My Lovely and The Long Goodbye, are regarded as classics of the genre.

His legacy as an artist contributed to the careers of many writers. Those that followed --- Robert Parker, Michael Connelly, Timothy Harris, Arthur Lyons, Max Allan Collins, Robert Crais, Walter Mosley, Sara Paretsky and many others --- all built the edifice of their work on Chandler's foundation.

DASHIELL HAMMETT

CONVERSATIONS (CwHD) is a weblog about words and language and other nonsense. CwHD began May 1, 2017. Besides thematic essays, the site provides a vehicle for sharing my own words and language. In July, 2017, I opened The Bookstore. This page provides an overview of my published work. Print and ebook copies are available through my publishing website (link in sidebar):

majikwoids

Previously, I listed the six most influential author's of detective stories. This week's post continues the biographies of those writers.

Dashiell Hammett

(1894 - 1961)

Samuel Dashiell Hammett was born near Baltimore, Maryland, on May 27,1894. His family was plagued with poverty. At 14 he left school and began working to help support the household. At 18 he wrangled a job with Pinkerton's Detective Agency. Eventually, he was sent to Montana to help mine owners suppress striking workers. He found his sympathies were with the miners. He had served briefly in the ambulance corps during the first world war, but was discharged due to tuberculosis. This disease and his childhood poverty would haunt the remainder of his life.

He wrote only four novels, the last in 1936. The Glass Key was considered his best work, though The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man were more successful commercially. Hollywood purchased the rights to both of the latter novels, and Hammett moved to Los Angeles to work on the scripts.

The remainder of his life until his death in 1961 was a matter of drunkenness, bouts of tuberculosis, irresponsibility, some serious efforts to effect political change, and a spell in prison for his support of left wing and communist organizations. He contributed to the plays of his partner Lillian Hellman, did some movie and radio work, but no more books were forthcoming despite a consistent nagging from his publishers.

Sam Spade, the main character in The Maltese Falcon, would serve as the model for the hard boiled detective for decades to come. Hammett's journalistic style also became de rigueur. The protagonist in The Thin Man became associated autobiographically with Hammett himself. Ironically, the title referred to the murdered victim in the novel, not Nick Charles, the detective; but a series of films based on the novel fixed the notion that the thin man was the detective. The lifestyle of Nick and Nora Charles was taken wholesale from the lifestyle of Hammett and playwright Lillian Hellman.

In the end, Hammett came to regret his creation of Sam Spade. Writers of various abilities were churning out copy after copy. Few were as compelling as the original.

REX STOUT

CONVERSATIONS (CwHD) is a weblog about words and language and other nonsense. CwHD began May 1, 2017. Besides thematic essays, the site provides a vehicle for sharing my own words and language. In July, 2017, I opened The Bookstore. This page provides an overview of my published work. Print and ebook copies are available through my publishing website (link in sidebar):

majikwoids

Previously, I listed the six most influential author's of detective stories. This week's post continues the biographies of those writers.

Rex Stout

(1886 - 1975)

Rex Todhunter Stout, born in 1886 and a published writer by 1920, was best known for creating what are generally considered the most refined and sophisticated detective fiction of his time. Nero Wolfe, his reclusive sleuth, worked as hard on cultivating orchids and his palate as he did at solving murders. His foil, Archie Goodwin, served as Wolfe's factotum and more. No longer the somewhat obtuse friend as Conan Doyle and Christie had portrayed Watson and Hastings, Goodwin became an equal with the fat man.

And it is with Archie Goodwin that some first steps are taken towards the creation of the hard boiled detective to come. When Wolfe needs to circumvent the law, it is Goodwin who beaks and enters. It is Goodwin who carries the gun. It is Goodwin who throws the punch. He may be suave and witty, but the veneer is thin and beneath lurks the tough guy who doesn't hesitate to do what needs to be done.

Like Doyle and Collins, Stout worked a variety of jobs in order to support himself while he wrote. He stopped writing for several years as he found earning a living and writing too daunting. His decision was to work and save until he could support himself as a writer. Fortunately, he sold a banking system designed primarily for schools to various institutions, and the income from the sale freed him to resume his writing.

Stouts first four novels, not mysteries, found publishers and moderate sales. He had written several short detective stories, and in the early 1930s made the decision to concentrate on that genre. Fer-de-Lance, published in 1934, brought Nero Wolfe to the reading public. Stout, though not exactly a model for Wolfe---always rather thin and outgoing himself --- did imbue the detective with his passion for fine food and gardening. The top floor of Wolfe's fictional brownstone in New York City had been converted to a potting room, work room, and green house. Besides Goodman, the household consisted of Theodore, who looked after the 10,000 orchids, and Fritz Brenner, the master chef, who catered to Wolfe's appetite.

Fer-de-Lance sold well and Stout began churning out a new Wolfe story every year. He also found time for political activism, supporting various democratic organizations. He was a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and won numerous awards including a nomination by an international panel as the foremost writer of the genre.

He died at his home in Danbury, Connecticut.

AGATHA CHRISTIE

CONVERSATIONS (CwHD) is a weblog about words and language and other nonsense. CwHD began May 1, 2017. Besides thematic essays, the site provides a vehicle for sharing my own words and language. In July, 2017, I opened The Bookstore. This page provides an overview of my published work. Print and ebook copies are available through my publishing website (link in sidebar):

majikwoids

Previously, I listed the six most influential author's of detective stories. This week's post continues the biographies of those writers.

Agatha Christie

(1890 - 1976)

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller is arguably the best selling author of all time. Estimates of the sales of her 83 books stands at about 2 billion books. She created two detectives who are as recognized as most top film stars: Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. Poirot is a Belgian dandy whose methods were taken from Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Poirot relies on 'his little grey cells' and deductions follow. Marple is an observant elderly lady who is most often underestimated. She, too, relies on deduction.

Christie was the daughter of an American father and a British mother. Born in England in September of 1890, she was taught at home, learned to read at five, and grew up surrounded by a family that thoroughly enjoyed telling stories. At 24, she married a Colonel Archibald Christie.

Unfortunately, the marriage failed badly. The Colonel was a philanderer. Christie drove off one day in December of 1926 and disappeared. Stress induced amnesia of one sort or another was the diagnosis. She had checked herself into a resort hotel under her husband's mistress' name, and claimed to remember nothing of the intervening days.

Regaining her health --- divorcing the Colonel no doubt helped --- she resumed writing. She had already published five novels with some success. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, earlier in 1926, became a best seller, and launched the public acclaim for both Christie and her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. In her autobiography, Christie acknowledges that she was " ... still writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition --- eccentric detective, stooge assistant, and a stolid police man ..."

By 1934, Christie had found a new niche. Her novels began to feature unlikely scenarios in which her characters acted in the most likely manner. Miss Jane Marple, one of the author's favorites, first appears in Murder In The Vicarage. Marple, no doubt speaking Christie's mind as well, often remarks in the calm manner of your favorite grandmother, that all human beings are prey to their weaknesses and that some few are completely immoral. And it is the books of this period that Christie espouses the philosophy that to kill a killer is only justice.

For her exemplary career as a writer, Agatha Christie, age 81, was named a Dame of the British Empire, a woman's equivalent of knighthood.

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

CONVERSATIONS (CwHD) is a weblog about words and language and other nonsense. CwHD began May 1, 2017. Besides thematic essays, the site provides a vehicle for sharing my own words and language. In July, 2017, I opened The Bookstore. This page provides an overview of my published work. Print and ebook copies are available through my publishing website (link in sidebar):

majikwoids

Previously, I listed the six most influential author's of detective stories. This week's post continues the biographies of those writers.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

(1859 - 1930)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh on May 22, 1859, just a year after Wilkie Collins published The Woman In White. His family was impoverished largely due to an profligate father who gambled and drank. Nevertheless, Conan Doyle managed to receive a good education at a Jesuit school despite the sometimes brutal physical punishment that was meted out to the school's students. With an absent, errant father, mother and son formed a strong bond. From her he learned to appreciate the art of story telling, and managed to publish his first story while still a student.

Though he studied to be doctor, his medical practice was never on solid footing. While in London, writing stories rather than prescriptions, he managed to sell 'An American Tale'. "It was in this year," he later wrote, "that I first learned that shillings might be earned in other ways than by filling phials."

Well educated, well read, and soon to be well traveled, Doyle became a man of many interests. At twenty, he made a voyage to the arctic as a ship's doctor. While repulsed by the slaughter of seals, he relished the shipboard camaraderie. That voyage " ... awakened the soul of a born wanderer ... "

In 1886, he began a novel which would make him famous. Originally entitled A Tangled Skein, his protagonist was named Sheridan Hope. His crony was named Ormand Sacker. The book would be renamed A Study In Scarlet, and the characters would become Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

With the immediate success and celebrity of Holmes, Doyle faced a dilemma. The detective stories, as a genre, even then were considered "commercial" works; and Doyle wished to be considered a 'serious' writer, a literary man. So in spite of the financial rewards of the Holmes' stories and a now flourishing medical practice, Conan Doyle was restless.

He moved to Vienna with his wife and daughter and set up a practice, which failed rather badly. The inactivity, however, gave him a good deal of idle time to think. He made the decision to write a series of stories with the same characters. The Strand magazine agreed to publish, and Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson became the obvious protagonists for the stories. The collaboration between Doyle and The Strand became an immediate success, lasting for many decades.

In May, 1891, he suffered a severe bout of influenza; and Conan Doyle came to the realization that attempting to combine a medical career with a literary career was too daunting a task. His choice was easy: he gave up medicine and concentrated on writing.

Despite the success of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle began to feel oppressed by his character. By 1893, the demands to write more stories were constant. His solution to the problem was to kill the golden goose. In what was entitled 'The Final Problem', Holmes and his arch enemy Moriarty fight and both fall to their deaths into the Reichenbach Falls. Subsequently, 20,000 subscribers to The Strand magazine cancelled their subscriptions.

Relieved to be rid of this burden, Conan Doyle traveled and concentrated on his 'serious' writing. The death of his wife and son led him to the occult. As he grew older, more and more of his time and energy were spent delving into the mysteries of the afterlife and going off on what he termed 'psychic crusades.' It was estimated that he spent a million pounds ($30 million in today's money) on his esoteric studies.

Curiously, Holmes, too, had his 'afterlife.' Whenever Conan Doyle ran short of funds he would trot out another Holmes' story and replenish the coffers. Four novels were published as well as six short story collections. His 'science of deduction' became the standard for all other detectives until the 1930s when detection and detectives took on a darker cast.

sketch of Holmes by Sydney Paget