Finding inspiration: writers to celebrate and/or discover
This
post is inspired by writers. After an
uncharacteristic 8 hours of sleep, this morning I biked over to my local
grocery to get the Sunday Times. Having
missed the special seniors-only hour of 7-8am, I was happy to find that the
store was not crowded, and the staff were wearing masks as was I. After using dilute bleach solution to wipe
down my packages of bacon, coffee, orange juice and half&half, I perused
the paper. As I often do, I turned to the Book Review section first, and leafed
thru the Sunday Magazine next. Therein was inspiration.
In
the early 1990’s, I discovered the writer Michael
Ventura. I think my first encounter
with his writing was a piece he wrote for his LA Weekly column Letters at 3
AM in January, 1991 just before the US started bombing Iraq after Saddam
Hussein invaded Kuwait. It was an essay
about the run-up to U.S. military action, and was entitled The Ghost of Randolph Bourne. Bourne was an early 20th Century journalist,
social critic and political activist, and was active in the faction of
progressives who opposed US entry into World War One. I have tried to track down that essay but so
far have been unable to. I only remember
that it was powerful and that I got some inspiration from it; it helped me deal
with the pain of that time. Here’s a
quote from Randolph Bourne:
“Really
to believe in human nature while striving to know the thousand forces that warp
it from its ideal development-to call for and expect much from men and women,
and not to be disappointed
and embittered if they fall short- to try to do good with people rather than to them- this is my religion on its human side. And if God exists, I think that he must be in the warm sun, in the kindly actions of the people we know and read of, in the beautiful things of art and nature, and in the closeness of friendships.”
and embittered if they fall short- to try to do good with people rather than to them- this is my religion on its human side. And if God exists, I think that he must be in the warm sun, in the kindly actions of the people we know and read of, in the beautiful things of art and nature, and in the closeness of friendships.”
Bourne
died at the age of 32, in December 1918 of the Spanish Flu. So powerful to recognize that the “Ghost of
Randolph Bourne” is with us as we struggle to find our way, as so many meet the
same fate he did just over 100 years later.
Below
is a link to an article on the website Antiwar.com,
which is a project of the Randolph Bourne Institute. The
article discusses the current pandemic and its potential impact on militarism,
leaving room for hope that we emerge on the other side with a deepened resolve to
“work together to solve our common problems”.
May it be so.
The Sunday Times
Magazine has writer Sam
Anderson’s article about Weird Al Yankovic, It’s
A Weird, Weird, Weird, Weird World (which is also read aloud on the most
recent episode of the NY Times podcast, The
Daily). I recently read Anderson’s book about
Oklahoma City, Boom Town. It was hugely entertaining and I love his
writing. I can’t wait to read about
Weird Al! I hope you can find time to
listen to it or read it as well, God knows we need to get weird from time to
time if at all possible.
Lots of people love Ann Pachett, sadly I haven’t read any of
her novels yet. I do know that in
addition to being a writer, she is the owner of a bookstore in Nashville (Parnassus). I hope they are finding ways to survive the
times as a small business. I for one
will be ordering “take out” from my local New Orleans bookstore Octavia Books. They put the books on a
small chair outside the door of the store when you come to pick up. I plan to
order a few books by Kate DiCamillo
on the basis of an essay
Patchett wrote for the New York Times Book Review. I will read them and pass them along. Sometimes I get a feeling and I just know it’s
right. I’ll let you know if it doesn’t
work out this time. Now, it’s time to
log onto Octavia and get busy ordering.
Hi Rob,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the article, as always. Jason Raimondo of Antiwar.com intrigued me with his writing, and I was sad when he died in 2019. I'm not sure how you remembered the specifics of Michael Ventura's article, but I think it can be found at https://michaelventura.org/category/la-weekly/page/3/. OK, now to log on to Octavia myself.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Mark. Yes, log on! Buy books! Send them out into the world! I did read "Possessed by War", the January 18 1991 essay by Michael Ventura that I found at the address you gave. It's worth reading, his view of things is always challenging and you get the feeling that he was present at the meeting when god and the devil worked out the compromise.
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