Authors talking about writing

The occasion was an all day session for the members of the Adult Lifelong Learning center on the subject of local writers. Five each poets, fiction and nonfiction writers talked to an audience of 120 about what they do. Most read some of their work.

I don't know if it was meant to be inspirational or educational. I'm not in need of inspiration but found it wonderfully entertaining. Two writers went beyond reading and talking to performing and were a very delightful surprise. One poet says she knows all her work by heart and truly performed her poems some of them moving, especially the political ones. I was also mesmerized by the animation that seemed to change her face as she performed. Another writer who is a maritime historian who teaches at Harvard and Woods Hole, but is originally from Spokane told us that when she first came East she was asked by someone, "How did you ever become interested in the sea living 3000 miles away?" To illustrate the sense of her novel, she ended her talk by singing, magnificently, a sea shanty.

Of the fifteen, all with Cape Cod connections, most have largely local reputations.
Two who are nationally known were Martin Sandler and William Martin [interesting - two Martins, huh?]. As the sea shanty singer's story illustrates a certain provincialism is at work here. I hear it frequently. The plus for me personally was that I had an opportunity, which a newcomer needs, at the coffee breaks and lunch, to chat with people I've met but not had a chance to get to know, which I consider quite valuable. A day well spent.

The photo is just because I don't like posts without photos.]

Why not?

You see things: and say "Why?" But I dream things that never were: and say "Why not?"

So wrote George Bernard Shaw in Back to Methuselah. This vegetarian who was still writing plays into his 90s, is an example of an aging person who did not lost his powers as he aged.

By the way, speaking of playwrights who don't lose their power, I wrote a couple posts back that Sophocles wrote Oedipus Rex in his 70s. He wrote Oedipus at Colonus at 92. Perhaps not as perfect but who's to quibble?

I"m reading a second book by Gene Cohen, The Creative Age. He gives one example after another of people in many fields who achieved much after age sixty. And he wages the battle against the stereotypes of deterioration and old age being synonymous. John F. Kennedy who, unfortunately, did not live to an old age, nevertheless did not believe in stereotypes. He said, "The great enemy of truth is very often not the lies -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."

I am going to spend all of tomorrow listening to people over 55, the majority over 65, reading from and discussing their literary works, fiction,nonfiction, poetry. I expect an interesting day.

The Mature MInd, Gene Cohen

From the summary of The Mature Mind, the Positive Power of the Aging Brain, by Gene Cohen, M.D., Ph. D. :

"A great deal of research, both psychological and physiological, has demonstrated that creativity is good for one's health. And it's not just that people who are engaged creatively are healthier to begin with. The very act of engaging one's mind in creative ways affects health directly via the many mind/both connections. Our rains are deeply connected to our bodies via nerves, hormones,and the immune system. Anything that stimulates the brain, reduced stress,and promotes a more balanced emotional response will trigger positive changes in the body."

Cohen describes large NIH sponsored studies that support his conclusion. This book is the best news I've read in a very long time. Among the findings that I especially am glad to read of is that the right brain/left brain functions we've all read about are indeed true for those young people who were in the original brain imaging studies. But finally gerontologist like Cohen began to look at mature brains doing the same tasks. They found the mature brains uses BOTH sides for problem solving and came up with very creative answers.

The title, as you see is Mature MIND, and I'm writing about brain. Cohen calls mind/brain two sides of the same coin and does not philosophically try to define mind. That would be another book of a different sort. I am content dealing with brain although, of course, I believe I have something called mind. But it seems unnecessary -- at least right now -- to quibble about which is what. I am happy to celebrate what I have suspected, that creativity does not fade. Oh, there are critics who write that this or that novelist, poet, composer did all his best work before he was 40. Some did, but I suspect if a tally were done as many would have done brilliant work later in life -- once people began living in good health beyond 50 or 60.

Mature Creativity

Sophocles was 72 when he wrote Oedipus Rex. I recently came across references to Gene Gohen's books, The Mature Mind and The Creative Age. I broke my very long standing decision to avoid Amazon.com in favor of local books stores, -- at least they wouldn't be sending me emails about what I might also enjoy. But I am planning to teach a course called "Writing with the Whole Brain" and I feel I need to read The Mature Mind immediately. It and The Creative Age arrived today and I've read only the introduction so far.

I am immediately in love with a book that tells me the drama I consider the greatest ever written -- period. End of discussion. Jaw droppingly perfect -- was 72 when he wrote it. This is mature wisdom and skill!! I'm sure I will be blogging about other discoveries from these books. Cohen is a gerontologist who took up a challenge in a college course given by Eric Erickson -- find out more about the aging mind. Little was known and what people thought they knew was often wrong. The former direction was always to look at the deficits and not at the life-long accumulation of wisdom, plus the breakthrough to intellectual freedom -- often, they've now found, using both sides of the brain for tasks that younger people must do with only one side of the brain. Integration! Synergy! I shall be glued to my chair reading for the next several hours, well days, because I am a slow reader and an underliner too.

A Paradox

The human brain can't tell time accurately said a major article in today's New York Times Science section. It cited the experiences we all have had of sometimes thinking only a little time has passed when we are deeply involved in a task, only to find it's been a much longer time than we thought. On the other hand time seems to crawl when we're bored or anxious. There were more sophisticated examples of how we feel we spent much time when we've done many things in a year, or that it a year passes suddenly when it seems nothing much happened that year. Many permutation, including some often cited experiments of people living for weeks in caves with no external stimuli who thought six weeks had actually been four, and whose circadian rhythms had adjusted to longer than 24 hour days.

This morning I awoke when my bedside clock said 5:56. I turned on my clock radio that was going to come on at 6:00. This is relevant because I realized a couple days ago that the last time I reset the clock -- because I accidentally unplugged it -- I set it about four minutes slow. It is set to come on at 6:00 so I can hear the the very short news broadcast on the local classical music station. I especially want to hear the temperature and weather forecast.

For a very long time I've been aware that I can wake myself when I need to; and this even extends to waking myself just before a wake up call when I'm traveling even if I've traveled six or eight time zones the previous day. I don't know how my brain adjusts and tells the local time -- it's a great mystery. So is having found my eyes open at 5:56 this morning when it really didn't make much difference whether I heard that forecast or not, I wasn't going anywhere anyway. What's my brain doing and why? Damned if I know. I'm just quietly amazed that people who I take to be serious scientists are still muddling around and don't really have any answers to how we experience time.

Auspicious Reading

Somewhat more than half my life ago a young man who died still young, and whose name I remember only because it's inscribed in the copy of the Wilhelm translation of the I Ching which he left behind did me the great favor of introducing me to this most awesome of wisdom books. For a long period I used it weekly -- not for predictive purposes [although, I admit, I am not immune to superstition] but because I found its wisdom something I wanted to make a deep part of my life. I kept a record of the hexagrams I threw and became convinced of two contracitory things: the coins fall randomly as any good scientist will tell you. And I occasionally have th ability called telekensis, i.e., I sometimes made the coins fall so I got the readings I wanted to get -- as any good scientist will tell you is not possible.

I became aware of how my New Years eve coins were tending. I was getting all yang lines, I knew if I got six in a row it would be the first hexagram, "The Creative." Not a frequent reading. On the final throw I got a changing yin line which made the reading "Breakthrough." But the reading changed to "The Creative" after all. Often the names of the hexagrams tell most of the story. Actually both have fairly lengthy commentaries, especially The Creative. No matter how I look at it, even considering the commentary in Breakthrough that misfortune was a possibility [it always is!] I feel very positive about this reading, both as points to ponder and -- yes, I admit it -- as a prediction for the year we've just started.

Wishes are usually stronger than reality which is why we humans cannot shake off superstition. I did not have a reading in mind when I began to throw the coins, but I couldn't have hoped for a better one. The profound good sense in the Wilhelm transation of Confucius' commentaries seems to me the best advice for living a balanced and, generally, serene life.

Eclectic reading, as usual

Since 1964 I've made only one new year's resolution: to try to read 100 books that year. Books! Magazines, how-tos, cookbooks, newspapers and all the other stuff I read don't count. Why '64? Because that's when I graduated from college and my thought was that never wanted to stop learning so I would read to learn, not [usually] for entertainment alone. I have a small notebook in which are listed every book, author, date since then. Only 3 or 4 years was I able to get to 100. The average is in the high 60s. For 2009 it was 67, the last one being finished last night. I read very eclecticly and rarely the new book of the moment as I buy a great many at used book stores.

Some good books I read this year in three categories: poetry, nonfiction and fiction.

Poetry: Mary Oliver, three of her books [plus went to a reading she gave]
Ted Kooser, The Poetry Home Repair Manual, a no nonsense guide to writing and reading poetry, with some of his poems in it
Billie Collins, Sailing Alone Around the Room, poems
Garrett Hongo, The River of Heaven, poems
Stanley Kunitz, The Wild Braid, poems and memoir -- title poem unforgetable!

Nonfiction: 1599, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, James Shapiro, really a year in London.
Life and Death of a Druid Prince, A. Ross, D.Robins, fascinating anthropology
Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow, Benjamin Holt/ Opal Whitely, painful biography of a child prodigy including her diary
The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester, the making of the OED
Best American Travel Writing of 2000, anth. ed. Bill Bryson, one of the annual collections, a particularly good one
The Zookeepers Wife, Diane Ackerman, novelistic biography
A Voyage Long and Strange, Tony Horowitz, recounting the exploration of the US
Mad Dogs and an Englishwoman, Polly Adams, dog sledding in the Yukon
Smara, Journey to the Forbidden City, Michel Vieuchange. classic travel in the Sahara by a Frenchman in disguise
Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts, the death of books as we know them [!?!]

Fiction: Nadine Gordimer, Get a Life
Elfrida Jelinke, Lust -- Wanted to find out what this Nobel winner wrote. Hated it.
Anchee Min, Empress Orchid about the last Empress of China, her early years
Linda Hogan, Mean Spirit, a wonderful Native American writer, book move into magic realism now and then
Irwin D. Yalom, Lying on the Couch, By and about the world of a shrink, very fun read
J. G. Farrell, The Seige of Krishnapur,
One of three important books written before he died much too young.
J. M. Coetze, Disgrace, a frightening picture of South Africa
Muriel Barbary, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, A book I'd never have read without a friend's recommendation.

Now I am going to my bookshelf and decide what fiction I will read next, and I'm going to Amazon to order a nonfiction I know I want to read. I recommend all the above to anyone. Some are hard to find, some not