The Bastard Muses

     Way back in 1985, noted scholar  Cleanth Brooks despaired of the state of learning in America. He cited studies showing that 40% of 17-year-olds could not comprehend ordinary documents, and only 20% could write a coherent essay.  He concluded that we are an  illiterate nation, with a large section of our population who cannot read and many who can read do not read books. He believed that literature was valuable in that it focuses attention on the purposes of mankind, and on the values for which men and women lived and died. He was dismayed about the debasement of humanities, and the resultant devaluation of humankind's yearning for song, story and drama.

   When the true muses are no more, what he  calls the bastard muses are ready to take over. And those bastard muses, Propaganda, Sentimentality and Pornography, fed by trash literature, are bent on debasing and distorting the human dimension. 

   Bastard Muse  Propaganda  pleads  for a special agenda at the expense of the truth. 

Bastard Muse Pornography focuses on one powerful human drive at the expense of the total human persona. 

Bastard Muse Sentimentality works up emotional responses unwarranted by the occasion or event.

I suspect that if Scholar Brooks could witness today's society, in comparison to that of 1985, when he commented on the above, he would be totally disillusioned by what he'd evidently predicted or at least projected. 

As for the lack of book reading, we know that today's libraries still have books, but mostly cannot survive on books alone. Therefore, the internet and community activities and programs comprise the bulk of their offerings. I wonder how frequently the revered classics are read. How many of today's young adult generation have read Dickens, or Irving, or Austen or scores of others. Literature in high school may be a Shakespeare play, stretched out over weeks because it's realized reading would not occur outside class. Other readings consist of novelettes or short novels. Why else would Catcher in the Rye or To Kill A Mockingbird be almost universally the high school literature of choice. 

   As for the brilliance we so admire in Jeopardy contestants, we should realize most of their winning answers are accumulated facts, memorized by rote from the massive accumulations of questions, answers, and categories acquired online in condensed form, not by their own experiences in reading and comprehending the physical texts.  For example, when a contestant gives  an answer of Robert Frost instead of Walt Whitman, it's obvious he/she/they  lack /lacks even basic familiarity with either. Moreover, the measure of their  success, and the fame that follows, is based on the amount of money they've won, not by their mastery of knowledge. So much for the perpetuation of the values of mankind.

  So long-winded---I'll deal with the bastards later. Stay tuned. Hah.

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Part 11  Bastard Propaganda  Muse. As scholar Brooks noted that if Thomas Jefferson were alive today ( 1985),  he may well  be delighted by the machinery but dismayed by the neglect of literature and writing. It seems that Brooks would undergo the same feelings about the state of American learning, only compounded  many times over. For the machinery of today allows lightning fast dissemination of information, which also means disinformation, or blatant lies. The glory and value of education is its ability to focus attention on mankind's purpose, and upon the values for which many have lived and died. He thought, maybe too optimistically, that these human values could not be eliminated, but could be debased. Since there have been way too many examples of propaganda flooding  today's society, only 2 examples of how the search for knowledge and understanding  can be debased will be noted here.

   The first debasement of the value literature has of opening minds to the culture of the humanities and the value literature has of developing and expanding thoughts:  One who, aspiring to gain a position of national leadership, publicly announces that he wants the citizens to believe not what they see with their own eyes, or hear with their own ears, but to depend on him to tell them what to believe. "And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made." 

 And a columnist for an area newspaper, who apparently attempted to avoid most  controversy in his folksy column, cited as one of the reasons for ending his newspaper column was that he sensed a change in the mindset of his readership, that being that many of his readers, the outspoken ones,  only wanted to read the words that they agreed with. 

   In the past, nations who were under the leadership of demagoguery fought to the death for freedom. Could scholar Brooks have foreseen that the "functional illiteracy" he referenced is indeed putting our  independence on the line.

A Madeleine de Proust

    Not a sweet cake, but in this case the sight of a hammer: 

        The doors to the old garage are open, as is usual. The hinges are worn and perhaps for that reason, a hammer has been placed just inside the doorway; sometimes the hinges needed to be given a good whack to keep them in place. My sister is standing at the end of the garage building, near where our father has added on a chicken coop at the far end, near the stairs to the hayloft.  There are two barrels there, one of black  metal, the other of rust colored corrugated cardboard. She is eleven years old and is about to scoop out some scratchfeed or cracked corn to appease the flock. 

      He is a teenager, about 15 or 16, a friend of the family and a frequent visitor to the property.  It is a summer day, and also as usual, nothing much is happening, could be described as boring I suppose. He approaches the garage, and picks up the hammer. And as suddenly as he picked it up, he launches it with all his strength in the direction of my sister, shouting at the same moment for her to duck down. She did, and the hammer smashed into the barn wall right at the level where her head had been just seconds before.

  I see her face, ashen and scared, as she stands up and realizes what has taken place. I suppose he is relieved to see that she has not been harmed by his sudden impulse, but nothing further was ever said, as far as I recall. Sometimes  a violent act has consequences, other times not.

  

   

Sales Woes---Who knew?

First of all, the cause of diminishing eBay sales is that usps shipping costs have skyrocketed.  The exception is cost for media mail, which is restricted as per the category. Of the last 6 or 7 items, I've listed, and sold, about half have not paid when the  buyers realized the cost of shipping; I'm sympathetic if  need be. After all, why pay multiple times the price of an item just to have it shipped.  And almost all of the items are listed for $5 or less, just trying to find homes for items other than the dreaded dumpster.

  A few years ago, before the steep usps  increase, I had listed Valentine boxes, the frilly kind, which  were in demand. They sold but a few others, cardboard Russell Stover boxes, had not. But the listing stayed on, perpetually relisting, pretty much forgotten about. 

   The listing was brought to mind last week when a bid was placed, on 2 boxes with long-ago asking price of $2.00. And this buyer paid: the $2 plus $16 shipping for Priority Mail. Yegads, I thought who would pay that price for 2 empty boxes, and in July, no less. But I sent it, along with a $4.00 refund, and I included an extra smaller box which didn't affect the  shipping weight category. Done---I hoped.

Today I received an email from the buyer. Again YeGads a problem , I suspected the buyer had not realized the boxes were just plain heart-shaped boxes, albeit containing the inner candy trays .I opened the email with trepidation: it was a lovely thank you in appreciation for both the refund and the extra box. Turns out the buyer uses a rock tumbler to polish rocks which she places in the candy boxes and then sells as art.  

   She ended the thank you email with  a blessing for me. Added to the blessing from columnist John Gray, I should be doing okay for  a while.

   (I just hope there are no broken teeth from the Rock Candy.

 

Humor where i find it...

 Not much makes me laugh anymore, but that video of Josh Hawley making tracks down the hallway shown alongside Forrest Gump's cross country run is funny on many levels. Their gait is so much the same. 

Shopping Slips

 Three incidences, all within one week and at the local store. Ranked here in order of malcontentedness:

1) In the name of hospitality, I keep my vintage M&M Candy Dispenser stocked with M&M's.  For guests of course, and indeed I find it easy to resist plain M&M's in the same way as plain Oreo cookies. But Peanut Butter M&M's are a different story, so I'm very likely to choose that kind.  The other day I carelessly bought  Peanut M&M's instead. Now I like peanuts all right, though I seldom eat them anymore.  But I don't like the idea of a peanut covered in a hard candy coating any more than I like chocolate chips in ice cream. What's the point of hard tasteless chips in what should be a smooth dessert. But somebody will probably enjoy the peanut m&m's.

2) Every morning for the last definable time period, my breakfast consists of a Van's Frozen Waffle. They are available in several varieties, but I like the plain or as they are called, original. I've had the Blueberry kind, but prefer to add my own blueberries. When I picked up a couple of packages the other day, I failed to notice that one was the "Protein" variety, formerly called "Power Grains." I didn't realize the difference until It felt like I was chewing on b.b's.. 

3) I woke up early this morning with a sinus headache. and wanting to sneeze. I detected a strong perfumy odor in the room. I'd just washed the sheets and thought it might be that laundry smell, but that is a fresh smell and has never bothered me. Eventually I traced the cloying heavy odor to a pack of toilet paper I'd just bought. After opening the 8-pack, I'd placed a few rolls in the bathroom and the rest, as usual, I deposited on the (unused) treadmill in my bedroom. The brand was AngelSoft, often purchased, but this pack, I see now, has the added feature of "Scented Tubes" in "Fresh Linen" scent. My eyes, throat and nose are all itching. Toilet paper begone!

Chicken (Little)

     Oh, one of those dreams again. But who's to say which is dream state and which is real time. 

    We were in a large supermarket, and someone, David it seems, asked which would we rather have, a nice juicy steak or some other option, which I am unable to recall. I said I'd rather have the steak but that was not  practical for the number of people who would be eating. I decided on chicken, not any chicken parts but a whole chicken, which somehow seemed ample to fill the bill. I knew the weather was too hot to turn on the oven, but I'd had very good results cooking chicken in my electric frying pan, wedding gift vintage 1968, but it still works. 

   We began to scour the cases, looking for a whole chicken, and we couldn't find any. "There's one," someone called out, but it was just a package of legs or breasts. I thought I spotted one, but it turned out to be a game hen. I picked one out of the case thinking I found one, but no, it was a duck. There were no whole chickens in the store.

As we prepared to leave, I was intrigued by a display on the shelf advertising Honey for Cats."  I picked one of the packages up, interested in the concept, but decided against buying it, and went to place it back on the shelf. I didn't have to reach too far, because a man, ensconced high on the shelfing, reached out and replaced the package back in its rightful place on the shelf, with him somehow stationed just inside the display case. I wondered how that could be.

   I had a last card to play. I knew if I could get to the car, which I hoped was unlocked, that the problem would most likely be solved. I only hoped the car was unlocked. I hurried out of the store and down the street. It started to rain.

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When I woke up this morning, I thought the idea of roasting a chicken in the electric fryer sounded like a good idea. So this evening I went to SNS to get a chicken.  There were chicken drumsticks, chicken breasts, chicken wings, and chicken thighs, but not one single whole chicken. Dreams do come true. 

 

Ennui

 I was at Barbara's house, must have been on an emergency basis because I was wearing only my red nightgown. A car pulled up in front of the house and B. looked out the window, ran to the  hallway and shoved a large box of something she'd been going through high up on a shelf, and hurried out to greet her  guests. There were  at least 2 women and a young man, about the age of the younger woman, maybe late teens. They all had blond hair, I noticed. One of the women was very friendly and we all chatted for a while, and later I thought I was talking to her, but it was the  younger woman. When I turned to go back into the house, wanting to go home and get dressed, Ruthie appeared on the scene, looking like her old self, slender and active. After hugging each other in greeting, I got into her car and we drove off. I didn't know where but she drove to Dorothy's house. Dorothy, surprised,  had just put a cake on the table  and was slipping plastic wrap over a large green salad she had just made. She welcomed us in and Ruth remarked how good the cake looked, so Dorothy served us a piece. Ruth commented on the salad and so we took some. I noticed Ruth put a large amount on her plate but didn't eat any. Dorothy told us she had to leave but we were welcome to stay and eat. I was eating lettuce. She said she was bringing the food to an elderly woman, and started to rewrap the salad, which now only filled half the bowl. Since Ruth hadn't touched her large helping, we began to add that back in the bowl. When I woke up, I was wearing the red nightgown.