Hasselstrom’s Meditation on a Jar of Jelly

When I wrote my previous post to this blog on a whimsical piece by James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, I mentioned it made me remember a similar piece overflowing in a sense of place.

Here ’tis. It’s by a North Dakota writer, Linda Hasselstrom, who writes and runs a writer’s retreat at her home, Windbreak House, not too far from Rapid City in western South Dakota.

I ran across it quoted in The Sierra Club Nature Writing Handbook (1995), by John A. Murray.

The piece, like Boswell’s “Meditation on a Pudding,” finds an exultant sense of place in an item of food . . . for Linda Hasselstrom, in a jar of buffalo berry jelly.

This is an exquisite piece of writing, one that has stuck with me and that I often have shared in writer workshops as an example of flat-out great writing.

The jelly is a tawny peach color, and the flavor is hard to describe. I might compare it to apple pie with lemon: sweet, extra tangy. But another element lurks in the flavor that I can’t compare to anything else. I think it’s the essence of wildness, clean prairie air made solid. It contains the deer that nibbled the leaves in winter, the brush of a grouse’s wing as it picked berries from the ground, the blundering invulnerability of a porcupine living under the ledge. It’s the taste of blinding white drifts slowly being built and smoothed into glittering sculpture outside the house as you make morning toast, slathering it with butter and buffalo berry jelly. The jelly brings the flavor of summer heat to your tongue, a sheen of sweat to your shoulders; even as you watch the blizzard, it reminds you of spring fragrance and the cool nights of fall.

That paragraph (from “Finding Buffalo Berries” in her book Land Circle) never fails to bring a shiver of awe to me when I read it. The tongue of a poet, the eyes of a writer that sees the place around her . . . and knows how to write so that, like the jelly, “clean prairie air is made solid.”

In this article about her creation of Windbreak House as a writers’ retreat, Hasselstrom writes: “Edith Wharton once observed, ‘There are two ways of spreading light, to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.’” That was the inspiration for the writing retreats she hosts at Windbreak House.

She ends that article with:

Start with the closest spot of earth. . . . Sit outside at midnight and close your eyes; feel the grass, the air, the space. Listen to birds for ten minutes at dawn. Memorize a flower. . . . You can only benefit.

Great advice for writers. Take the time to look closely, inhale, exhale, and keep doing it until you’ve breathed in it. Then, you write.

Boswell’s Meditation on Place and a Pudding

Last week I did a pleasant book-signing at Boswell Book Co. (for A Guide to Fantasy Literature; my thanks to Daniel Goldin, proprietor, and Jason, for hosting!).

Boswell Books is a Milwaukee indie bookstore, named for James Boswell (1740–95), a literary Scottish laird, described by one biographer as a complicated fellow, with “his rippling good nature, his extravagance and folly and weakness, his odd piety, his awful glooms, his alternations of revelry and solemnity . . .” and known today mostly as a companion of Samuel Johnson, the famous dictionaryist (okay, lexicographer).

He loved good conversation, liquor, travel, writing . . . hey, a man after my own heart.

Anyhow, the Boswell Books signing made me recall a lovely, fanciful “sense of place” piece from Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, written on a long excursion with Samuel Johnson in the fall of 1773 to the western isles of Scotland.

This is Boswell’s recollection of an afternoon bit of playfulness:

“. . . . He [Johnson] then indulged in a playful fancy, in making a Meditation on a Pudding, of which I hastily wrote down, in his presence, the following note; which, though imperfect, may serve to give my readers some idea of it.

MEDITATION ON A PUDDING

Let us seriously reflect of what a pudding is composed. It is composed of flour that once waved in the golden grain, and drank the dews of the morning; of milk pressed from the swelling udder by the gentle hand of the beauteous milkmaid, whose beauty and innocence might have recommended a worse draught; who, while she stroked the udder, indulged no ambitious thoughts of wandering in palaces, formed no plans for the destruction of her fellow-creatures; milk, which is drawn from the cow, that useful animal, that eats the grass of the field, and supplies us with that which made the greatest part of the food of mankind in the age which the poets have agreed to call golden. It is made with an egg, that miracle of nature, which the theoretical Burnet has compared to creation. An egg contains water within its beautiful smooth surface; and an unformed mass, by the incubation of the parent, becomes a regular animal, furnished with bones and sinews, and covered with feathers. – Let us consider; can there be more wanting to complete the Meditation on a Pudding? If more is wanting, more may be found. It contains salt, which keeps the sea from putrefaction: salt, which is made the image of intellectual excellence, contributes to the formation of a pudding.”

A delightful little piece, by a couple of writers lounging about a Scottish inn on a lazy afternoon, speculating on place and pudding.

(Reminds me of a similar, more modern “sense of place as seen in food” piece by Linda Hasselstrom. I’ll dig it out and share in a coming post.)

A Sense of Place Pilgrim – Annie Dillard

To learn to see and write better, there are great books to inspire you.

One of the finest, an exquisite book of nature writing, is Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), winner of a Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, an account of a year spend looking closely at the world centered around a creek in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

As Eudora Welty (no slouch herself when it comes to sense of place), wrote in the New York Times Book Review: “The book is a form of meditation . . . about seeing.”

Here’s a brief sample, about a breezy late afternoon in a plowed field:

The wind is terrific out of the west. . . . It’s the most beautiful day of the year. At four o’clock the eastern sky is a dead stratus black flecked with low white clouds. The sun in the west illuminates the ground, the mountains, and especially the bare branches of trees, so that everywhere silver trees cut into the black sky like a photographer’s negative of a landscape. The air and the ground are dry; the mountains are going on and off like neon signs. Clouds slide east as if pulled from the horizon, like a tablecloth whipped off a table. The hemlocks by the barbed-wire fence are flinging themselves east as through their backs would break.
– Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

A page or so earlier, she wrote:

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here.
– Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

A beautiful work, compared to Thoreau’s Walden. In another book, The Writing Life, she talks about writing, in her wonderfully exalted, prosaic style, about climbing into a desk that floats in the air, as birds fly underneath:

Get to work. Your job is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.

I strongly recommend Annie Dillard’s books, full of open eyes, open heart, and beautiful prose, books to open and read again over the years.

And then, seek in your own way to write descriptions of Place that give a sense that you are in a wonderful place on “the most beautiful day,” passages that combine the two things Dillard says give birth to seeing: knowledge and love.

July Hodgepodge – Creative Names and Cars

I’ve been driving cars around the block. Lots of them. I’m car shopping, looking to replace a venerable Suburu wagon that almost made it to 200,000 miles, but sadly stopped short of that celestial goal in a cloud of smoke a couple of weeks ago.

Accordingly (hey, that’s a Honda pun!) I’ve been studying the names of cars. For some, I can only scratch my head. The Dodge Avenger? What exactly are they avenging . . . and how do they plan to go about it? Should I be worried?

Or the Nissan Armada. Hey, didn’t the most famous armada, the Spanish Armada, end up being blown to bits by the English or running aground on the Irish coast, in one of the greatest disasters of all time? (And can a single vehicle be a whole armada? Isn’t that a little vainglorious? Does the SUV come with an admiral’s jacket with epaulets and a funny hat?)

Great car names? It’s the story of Marianne Moore (1887–1972),  a celebrated American poet. (One of her great lines was to describe poetry as “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”) In a 1925 essay, William Carlos Williams wrote about Moore’s ability to capture the vastness of the particular: “So that in looking at some apparently small object, one feels the swirl of great events.”

In 1955, Moore was invited informally to submit ideas for names for Ford’s “E-car” (which stood for “experimental” car) project. Her poetic list included:

• “Resilient Bullet”
• “Mongoose Civique”
• “Varsity Stroke”
• “Pastelogram”
• “Intelligent Whale”

And the exquisite offering:

• “Utopian Turtletop.”

Ford, however, in its wisdom, went with the name Henry Ford’s son, Edsel, and slapped it on the car that would up up as perhaps the greatest marketing failure in American history.

Was it the lame name? Ford had also hired an ad firm to come up with a name. However, the ad agency’s report offered an astounding 18,000 possibilities. Wow, now that’s a consultant’s report! When pressed . . . they managed to trim the list to just 6,000 names.

The executives got an eventual 10 names to choose from, none of which they liked, so in a whim, someone offered the name of Henry Ford’s son. In that high-level committee setting, it must have seemed brilliant . . . or impossible to vote against.

Myself, I’d love to drive a Utopian Turtletop.

To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, what I’d like in a car is simply: “So that in driving some apparently small object, one feels the swirl of great events.”

Such as a good speedy merge from an uphill ramp onto the freeway?

The Power of Poe: Use of the Gripping Image

Imagery for a master writer isn’t just coming up with a nice turn of phrase . . . one that conjures up a sunset suddenly appearing like a distant marching band turning the corner . . . or the sense of a breeze on the skin like a silk scarf.

A truly compelling image is the one that grips your imagination by the throat and just won’t let go.

For examples, there’s no better place to turn than Edgar Allan Poe. Founder of the detective story, master of the creepy short story, and a quotable poet, this is his 200th anniversary (he was born Jan. 19, 1809), and I highly recommend the Read Street series of blog posts on Poe in the Baltimore Sun.

Here a couple of excerpts from those posts that refer to Poe’s command of the gripping image – how it can hold your attention and burrow into your brain.

Where in your own writing can you create and point the reader’s attention to a glorious, unforgettable image?

In this Read Street guest post by Rob Velella, creator of the Edgar Allan Poe 2009 Bicentennial Desk Calendar, Velella describes Poe’s timeless appeal:

Poe was the first author that I wasn’t ashamed to enjoy – and I remember what pulled me in were his sights and sounds. I heard the tremor in the narrator’s voice when he told me how “calmly” he would tell me the whole story. I saw the old man’s evil, vulture-like eye, blue film and all. I heard the sound of the old man’s heart, beating like the ticking of a watch when enveloped in cotton.

What appealed to me then is still what appeals to me now: his ability to take words that do more than tell a story, but show one. He was a writer of sensation, creating images that are impossible to forget – a writhing black tongue in “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” a shackled man in jester’s motley appealing “for the love of God!” in “The Cask of Amontillado,” and the one-eyed black cat sitting triumphantly on the head of a murdered wife in “The Black Cat,” just to name a few.

Here is another excerpt from the Read Street series on Poe, by a member of the South African-born mystery writing team known as Michael Stanley (with Michael Sears), Stanley Trollip’s Read Street blog post on Poe:

Of everything I read, I only recall a few vividly. The one that had perhaps the greatest impact on me was Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum.” After I turned the bedside light out, darkness brought vivid mental pictures of impenetrable cell walls and a gaping hole in the middle of my bedroom floor. The swish of curtains nearly caused cardiac arrest as I imagined a great scythe swing ever closer to my shaking body. I knew that creaks in the house meant that the walls were closing in. Mice running across the pressed metal ceiling of my room convinced me that rats were swarming all around my bed. My active imagination took its toll, and I was terrified for weeks after finishing the short story.

How did Poe achieve these effects? Here’s a bit from commentary on the “The Raven” poem, in the 1884 Harper & Brother edition (illus. by Gustave Doré), written by Edmund Clarence Stedman, a 19th-century poet.

The components of “The Raven” are few and simple: a man, a bird, and the phantasmal memory at a woman. But. . . . What have we? The midnight; the shadowy chamber with its tomes of forgotten lore; the student, — a modern Hieronymus; the raven’s tap on the casement; the wintry night and dying fire; the silken wind-swept hangings; the dreams and vague mistrust of the echoing darkness; the black, uncanny bird upon the pallid bust; the accessories of violet velvet and the gloating lamp.

He notes that “all this stage effect of situation, light, color, sound, is purely romantic, and even melodramatic,” but is so effective. The bottom-line: it works.

Here’s one last example, from “The Masque of the Red Death,” the description of the fitful effect caused by the hourly chiming of a “gigantic clock of ebony” that stood “against the western wall” in a set of princely rooms where a masked ball was being held.

Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

Poe had the knack for the image that stuck in the brain, like one from a dream that is odd, memorable, mysterious . . . and so concrete that you wonder if indeed you dreamed it . . . and pray to god that you did.

His feverish imagery isn’t necessarily to imitate, although masters like Stephen King have pulled it off, but to learn from. One of Poe’s tricks: he often combines description of the image with the distinct effect it has on those that encounter it.

The gripping image is a technique that can be used in powerful writing from journalism to fiction. Find the odd, eccentric, specific image that holds the imagination, and you can push the reader to feel emotions – of fear, unease, delight, or compassion – because of the power of their own imaginations to continue where you left off.

The Succinct Pitch: Why It Works

“I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.”
– A.A. Milne, in Winnie-the-Pooh

Short words and phrases are effective. Whether it’s a query letter to an agent, or a review blurb excerpt, keep it short and sweet, and you’ll impress more than you would with a long version.

Why is the short pitch so effective? Because an appealing, succinct summary of a work is a likely indicator of the nature of the work itself: good focus, clear communication, and good storytelling – all of which we want and expect in our reading materials, whether for pleasure or profession.

This is why the movie or book blurb is so effective:

“Thrilling.” “Great storytelling.” “A real page-turner.” “Essential.”

It’s the shortest version of a pitch. This ultra-short approach is not just a marketing gimmick or a problem of tight space. It’s an effective bit of quick communication.

If you’re a chef, you know the value of what’s called a reduction. For Christmas dinner in our household, we tackle a different country’s holiday menu each year. This year was Spain. I made some tasty seafood crepes. One of the great ingredients was the cooking liquid (mostly wine) in which I’d just poached some red snapper and crab. That pan-full of liquid was then reduced, by boiling it for a while, to a tiny amount, just a half cup. Wow! It was bursting with a savory, delightful flavor – not something you could buy in a store – which I used to flavor the fish and creamy nutmeggy stuffing, with a sherry cream sauce on top . . . yummm!

The same is true for your pitch. Start with a paragraph. Then, boil it down, Reduce it to a couple of sentences. Then, cut those sentences to a shorter form. What are the fewest key words that best sum up your work, in a quick, essential, delightful way?

If you can’t describe a book in one or two pithy sentences that would make you or my mother want to read it, then of course you can’t sell it.
— Michael Korda, editor-in-chief, Simon & Schuster

Why does this work?

1. We’re all busy.
Tell it quickly, make it exciting and brief, then be done. Trying to cram more at me than I want to hear, especially at first when I just want to know if it’s even the type of thing I like, is not going to put me in a better mood about you and your work.

2. You can quickly tell a lot.
By reading just a little bit, using a professional instinct developed over many years, a professional can get a good sense of the potential of a longer work. (It’s fractal theory; the small bits reflect the work as a whole.)

3. It’s a fair test.
Hey, you’re claiming to be a good writer. If so, it’s fair to ask you to find and quickly tell me the core essence – the one- or two- or three-line short description – that will create interest and inspire everyone, from agent to reader, to want to find out more.

4. Less is more.
Fewer words carry more meaning. They are powerful, selective, intriguing. Whatever the length, people like richness, and, like making a great sauce in cooking, that is achieved with concentration, not watering it down.

As one agent said about pitching, “There’s no need for flowery language – I can read between the lines, so the shorter the better.”

Business intuition is a highly evolved set of deep knowledge. The more complex a decision (the less quantifiable or black and white it is), often the more the call is made quickly, based largely on instinct.

So boil it down. Go for that ultimate reduction, bursting with flavor. You’ll impress your readers, and can enjoy seeing them beg for more, like hungry guests and a plate of seafood crepes at Christmas dinner.

It has often been said
there’s so much to be read,
you never can cram
all those words in your head.

So the writer who breeds
more words than he needs
is making a chore
for the reader who reads.

That’s why my belief is
the briefer the brief is,
the greater the sigh
of the reader’s relief is.

– Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel)

Cliches, Irritating Phrases, and Inflated Claims

At the end of the day, I personally, at this moment in time and with all due respect, want to say something fairly unique. Although it’s absolutely a nightmare to even try, but certainly not rocket science . . . let’s face it, I shouldn’t of started this literary blog for good writing advice, available 24/7, unless I was up to the task!

There! I’ve now officially used all of the “Top 10 Most Irritating Expressions” in the English language, per researchers at the University of Oxford.

For the record, here are the ten phrases that most irritate the good folks of Oxford:

1.  At the end of the day
2.  Fairly unique
3.  I personally
4.  At this moment in time
5.  With all due respect
6.  Absolutely
7.  It’s a nightmare
8.  Shouldn’t of
9.   24/7
10.  It’s not rocket science

In an Underwire (Wired Blog Network) blog post by John Scott Lewinski, he says the list is from a new book, Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare, by Jeremy Butterfield, a British lexicographer, looking at “the world’s largest language databank, the Oxford Corpus, which contains more than two billion words – to determine for the first time definitively how the English language is used.”

If you follow that Damp Squid link, the Oxford University Press claims in its online catalog [emphasis mine]:

This entertaining book has the up-to-date and authoritative answers to ALL the key questions about our language. Butterfield takes a thorough look at the English language and exposes its peculiarities and penchants, its development and difficulties, revealing EXACTLY how it operates. We learn, for instance, that we use language in chunks of words – as one linguist put it, “we know words by the company that they keep.” For instance, the word quintessentially is joined half the time with a nationality – something is “quintessentially American” or “quintessentially British.”

Wow! Did they really say “authoritative answers to all the key questions about our language”? And “revealing exactly how it operates“?

And what do you mean, “our language,” Kimosabe?

Must be quintessentially British to make such claims, don’t'cha think?

And how would you describe something that is closer to being unique than to being a very common thing or cliché? “Fairly unique” is the kind of thing we say here in the quintessentially American Midwest, where we tend to think some qualification is good. (And how do you prove that something is unique? I guess if you have “the world’s largest language databank” . . . ?)

So, is this List of Irritating Expressions unique? Or fairly unique?

Let’s face it, it’s not rocket science. Language is language. The test is what works.

And irritation is in the eye of the beholder.