Cairn

A cairn is a human-made stack or mound of stones, assembled from prehistoric times to the present, usually as a memorial, landmark, or spontaneous work of found art representing balance and harmony with nature. One might appear as a guidepost on a hiking trail, as a mile - marker on a walking path, or atop a hilltop to indicate the skyline. I came across the one above in a local cemetery -- and the one below on a wellness website.

Here is my little stack of
literary stones for today:
A couple of days ago, I quoted poet Philip Booth:

“I think survival is at stake for all of us all the time. … Every poem, every work of art, everything that is well done, well made, well said, generously given, adds to our chances of survival."

Which in turn reminded me of this Tennessee Williams quotation that seemed so befitting a year ago:

"The world is violent and mercurial - it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love - love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love."

Which made me think of the closing stanza of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach":

"Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the word, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."

Which then brought to mind what my friend and mentor Nancy wrote in her Harry Potter Christmas letter several years back:

"Even if you haven't read
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,
you surely know Harry's life was saved by love."


As well as this gem
from Nancy, a card featuring
one of my favorite quotations from E. B. White:

Inside, Nancy writes: "Informed women have to keep talking, asking questions, challenging, encouraging others to think. . . . The woman depicted on this card, incidentally, is the true me."

I wondered for a minute if it was E. B. White's wife, Katharine Sergeant Angell White; or maybe the Queen of England, or maybe just an anonymous model from the archives, who represents "the true us."

Nancy's wise words, written in mid - June 2016, became our watchword a year ago in mid - November 2016 when our hopes for the presidential election were dashed. In January 2017, Nancy offered further encouragement:

"It has helped me a lot to find a group of like - minded women. My advice is to go to Washington and join the women's March. There is still time. In any case, find something that speaks to your most important issues and volunteer. No time to despair. We must be strong: Warrior Women! Get out of your head and emotions and Act! Righteousness and love have kissed."

In closing,
"let us be true to one another" . . .
"for we live in a perpetually burning building!"

Cityscape

Sam's Cityscape ~ 1999

Good luck Sam McCartney,
bound for New York, New York!

“On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. It is this largess that accounts for the presence within the city’s walls of a considerable section of the population; for the residents of Manhattan are to a large extent strangers who have pulled up stakes somewhere and come to town, seeking sanctuary or fulfillment or some greater or lesser grail. The capacity to make such dubious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.”

“By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is uncomfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience- if they did they would live elsewhere. . . ."

"But the city makes up for its hazards and its deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin-the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty and unparalleled. . . .”

from Here Is New York by E.B. White
American Writer (1899 - 1985)
Recipient of Honorary Pulitzer, 1978
Famed for children's favorites, Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little;
also The Elements of Style; and many, many wonderful essays
New York, Lello Sky ~ 1997

More Artwork
from the University City New School Years
West Philadelphia

Update ~ September 2016
"For a Long Life, Retire to Manhattan"
Sam, hang on to your apartment . . .
Dad and I can retire there! Right, Gerry?

A Word to the Wise

Storytellers and masqueraders, humor and romance.
A word to the wise is sufficient!

NEW POST TODAY:
"Raoul & Marguerite"
ON
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] literary blog
of connection & coincidence; custom & ceremony


Harmony in Flesh Colour and Red, 1869
by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1834 - 1903
[embellished by Yours Truly]

*"It is not often that
someone comes along
who is a true friend
and a good writer.
Charlotte was both."

from Charlotte's Web
by E. B. White

Savor September!

September Sky

"The air still had summer in it,
but the breeze smelled like fall to me.
It was weird how September
always smelled different from August.
It just did."

from The Side Door
a novel by Jan Donley (b. 1956)
American novelist, playwright, poet, teacher

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

"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy.
If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem.
But I arise in the morning torn between
a desire to improve [or save] the world
and a desire to enjoy [or savor] the world.
This makes it hard to plan the day."

E.B. White
American Writer (1899 - 1985)
Recipient of Honorary Pulitzer, 1978
Famed for children's favorites, Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little;
also The Elements of Style; and many, many wonderful essays
Purdue Practice Flights Passing Over Our Backyard

German Vocab

Carriage House in University City, West Philadelphia
For Friday the 13th, how about a couple of German vocabulary words whose connection you will appreciate:

The first, weltschmerz, particularly in relation to "The Door," E. B. White's essay of pain and distortion:
weltschmerz (VELT-shmerts) noun meaning world-pain or world weariness; pessimism, apathy, or sadness felt at the difference between physical reality and the ideal state.

The second, torschlusspanik, in relation to Kafka's "Man Before the Law" whose doomed life illustrates the very concept:
torschlusspanik (TOR - schluss - panic) noun describing the door-shutting panic experienced at the thought that a door between oneself and life's opportunities is closing forever.

For more on Door-Shutting Panic & World-Pain
see my post "The Little Door"
on my fortnightly literary blog
of connection and coincidence
www.kitticarriker.blogspot.com

NEW FORTNIGHTLY POST TOMORROW!
Saturday, August 14th

The Little Door

Here is the Little Door
Lift up the latch; O lift!
We need not wander more,
but enter with our gift . . . "
~ Chesterton

"Strive to enter through
the narrow door:
for many, I tell you,
will try to enter
and will not be able."
~ Luke 13: 22

[L: The Cutest Playhouse
in all of Philadelphia!]


There are numerous symbolic doors in literature: opening, closing, revolving, inviting, forbidding, remaining locked forever. As I read on a poster once, "There are as many doors as there are desires." Here are some of the most meaningful doors that I have come across in my reading:

1. In Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird,
a door representing one's own humanity

2. In Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet "Bluebeard,"
a door representing privacy

3. In Franz Kafka's parable, "Before the Law,"
a door representing the Law

4. In E. B. White's essay, "The Door,"
a door representing (in)sanity

And most recently . . .

5. In my friend Jan Donley's new novel The Side Door,
a door representing "secrets . . . everywhere . . . under carpets, in closets, in pockets, underground . . ."

















FOR MORE ON DOORS
SEE TODAY'S NEW POST: "THE LITTLE DOOR"

ON THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER
MY LITERARY BLOG OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE

A Mom on Fire

“It takes a great deal of bravery
to stand up to our enemies, but just as much
to stand up to our friends.”

from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
by J. K. Rowling

"It is not often that someone comes along
who is a true friend and a good writer.
Charlotte was both."

from Charlotte's Web
by E. B. White
Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting! is an energetic, energizing book about parenting and picking the right grade school (public vs. private) for your kids. Okay, yes, I saw the negative press about Loh and her marriage, but I'm not going to think about that. I'm going to focus instead on how much I relished her depiction of the almost perfect, all-American childhood, and the driving force behind it, i.e., a Mom on Fire! Plus, I like the way that she weaves in Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, Mary Poppins, and Charlotte's Web:

"Perhaps it is the wonder of periomenopause, but my days are suddenly shot through with luminous, almost hallucinogenic magic. All at once, I see the meaning of my whole year. . . . the wildest revelation of my unmedicated, premonopausal fever-dream: I suddenly saw what had been hitherto invisible to me, an astonishingly beautiful universe, a shimmering web made of millions of gossamer threads, tended, day by day hour by hour, patiently, by the stubborn and unsung force -- of women. Everywhere around me, in the the city, the whole time, there had been Charlottes, spinning their webs" (239).

Loh's metaphor captures the beauty of webs and being connected and taking care of each other. Charlotte must be the world's favorite spider, and what's more she is also a mother and a true friend. Certainly to me she has always seemed more human than arachnid. She's on our side. She loved Wilbur, and she saved his life. She looked to the future on behalf of her children.

Salutations!











Illustration by Garth Williams
from Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2009
M. T. Anderson
Sandra Tsing Loh
David Sedaris
Sandi Toksvig
On my Book Blog

Goblet of Fire
Before Igniting . . .

After Igniting!