A Good Opening Line

You can read here below the opening line of Johnny Pye and the Fool Killer, from the 1939 collection of Tales before Midnight, by Stephen Vincent Benét:

"You don't hear so much about the Fool-Killer these days, but when Johnny Pye was a boy there was a good deal of talk about him."

We don't hear much about the fool killer these days? I doubt anyone ever heard much about him. But I took time enough to read the story yesterday, so I now know all about the fellow.

Read here.

Less was Less, So Aim for More

I have a journal given to me by a student, and I've written in it every day since November 21, 2015. But I've actually been keeping a journal since 1985. Until the advent of the internet, I wrote long entries in my journal, writing experimentally. I imposed rules on my style, such as forbidding myself any use of the word "be" unless it were being used in an "-ing" form. That forced me to think harder in expressing myself. But my journal entries became perfunctory and have been for the past decade or longer. I will continue writing shorter entries, but I'll work harder at offering more substantive entries.

Thomas Harris

Thomas Harris
(Believe it or not!)

According to Wikipedia, Thomas Harris - creator of the brilliant serial killer Hannibal Lecter - attended Baylor University, where he studied English literature, graduating with an M.A. in 1964, about a decade before I arrived on the scene there, where I also studied literature.

There's hope for me yet!

(No, not as another Lecter.)

The One True Path to Success in the Wily Korean Wilds

Here are photos that Sun-Ae and I managed to bring back from our Bonghwasan hunt stalking a wild Emanation.

Seeing the Emanation before it saw us, we quietly sneaked up on it . . .

. . . but it then saw us . . .

. . . and distanced itself . . .

. . . then turned its back to us and flew to another bench.

It then fluttered toward a growth of tall, thick grasses . . .

. . . but approached us carefully, seemingly curious . . .

. . . but soon backed off again toward the thick grass . . .

. . . where it lingered, as if to bolt into the safety of the tall, thick stalks and blades.

Off it then suddenly went again, so we followed till it reached a dry gulch . . .

. . . where it again stopped, and looked around . . .

. . . as if to reflect on the paradox of streambed with no stream.

Baffled at that, then at tree roots above ground . . .

. . . the Emanation opted to fly away, though I nearly succeeded in plucking it from the air!

It managed to escape, however, for my reach exceeded my grasp, and it flew to a nearby tree, where it perched precariously.

Then, spreading its wings,  it flew from the tree to a bench . . .

. . . then to another tree . . .

. . . then to yet another tree . . .

and another, where it remained . . .

. . . a while, then left for good . . . or for ill.

After all, who knows what good or ill might be accomplished by a book as complex as an Emanation?

Especially when it's called "Emanations."

There were echoes in there . . .

Carter's Invisible Tower

Volume 1

Carter Kaplan's Echoes has arrived, and its plural title "Echoes" makes me want to say "have" arrived, but I bend my will to the correct grammar and write "has."

It actually arrived some weeks ago, and I've been in a quandary about what to do with it, but don't say "read it" because I have -- in glorious bits and pieces over the past several years, as well as again, in part, since it arrived.

But what to do with it beyond reading is more the question, like, say, where to place it. It can't forever stand there like a tourist in the upcast shadow of Haruki Murakami's IQ84, hoping for that Japanese masterpiece -- situated just out of sight left of the lower-left corner -- to cast some good fortune over its way . . .

Boys will be photogenic boys . . .

We have photos from the WAH Center! Here's Terrance:

And here are Carter and Bien:

Two of the three boys are holding up an image from my story, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer.

You might also be interested in my volume of poetry, Radiant Snow.

Carter Kaplan to Give a Talk on July 2 at the WAH

WAH Private Library

WAH Center

My friend Carter Kaplan has been invited by another friend of mine, Terrence Lindall, to present the following talk at the WAH Center:

"Illustrating the Visions: Alloys of Art, Poetry, Politics, and Philosophy"

The talk will take place on Sunday, July 2, 2017 from 2:00 till 3:00 for no admission fee (directions), but the luncheon from 12:30 to 1:30 will cost $25. Kaplan is a professor of literature and philosophy, an author of fiction and nonfiction, and a publisher of international writing through International Authors (IA), and one might therefore expect him to be an overly serious man, but consider the fact that he has suggested that a number of mannikans be invited to attend his talk.

But let's get serious!

On display before, during, and after the talk will be IA books and original illustrations by renowned artists. Kaplan has informed me that he will be discussing my books Radiant Snow and the Bottomless Bottle of Beer (BBB), among other things, and Lindall will have his copy of the initial BBB text (a hard copy that I didn't edit carefully enough) and his BBB illustrations as part of the items on display. Other publications and illustrations are in Emanations and in Tasso's Creation of the World. Bienvenido "Bones" Banez, Jr. will show illustrations for E6 and other illustrations he's done for Emanations, along with a Michael Moorcock drawing. Troy Frantz will provide an illustration that he made for E5.

As for International Authors, it is a consortium of writers, artists, architects, filmmakers, and critics, and it publishes works of outstanding literary merit. Dedicated to the advancement of an international culture in literature, primarily in English, the group seeks new members with an enthusiasm for creating unique artistic expressions. For instance, there is Emanations. This is an anthology series - and I'm borrowing most of Kaplan's terminology - featuring fiction, poetry, essays, manifestos, and reviews. The emphasis is on alternative narrative structures, new epistemologies, peculiar settings, esoteric themes, sharp breaks from reality, ecstatic revelations, and vivid and abundant hallucinations - preferably, those achieved through authentic, intensive meditation rather than the less authentic, drug-induced sort, but to echo Publius Terentius Afer, "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto."

The IA editors are interested in recognizable genres - science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, local color, romance, realism, surrealism, postmodernism - but the idea is to make something new, and along these lines the illusion of something new can be just as intriguing. If a story or poem makes someone say, "Yes, but what is it?" then it's right for Emanations. Essays should be exuberant, daring, and free of pedantry. Length is a consideration in making publication decisions, but in keeping with the spirit of the project, length is "open." Emanations is a continually shifting and evolving project, and contributors should see themselves as actively shaping our editorial vision and compass

The Williamsburg Circle of International Arts and Letters is the program that has invited Kaplan to give this talk. This Circle - and I think I'm borrowing Lindall's words here, though perhaps as filtered through Kaplan - is a program of the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center (WAH Center). The Circle serves as a hub for discussion of new ideas about diverse subject matters. It is especially keen to point up intersections in areas of study that on first glance appear to be contradictory, especially in the areas of art and literature. Observations on the human experience in a receptive individual can sometimes evoke intuitive leaps of creativity, bringing forth new ideas in science, philosophy, literature, and the arts. We hope to encourage this.

The Williamsburg Circle believes that a strong education in the classical humanities is a fundamental prerequisite for good citizenship, not only in Western countries, but in every country in the world today. What is "Classical Humanities"? It is nothing less than the spiritual, ethical, and intellectual foundation for Western culture. The classics form the vibrant, interdisciplinary field lying at the heart of the liberal arts. It is the lack of a common heritage and common values that gives rise to basic conflicts among peoples. A broad education in the classical humanities can bring about a common understanding and a common set of values. Engagement with non-Western classics is also necessary, of course, and is therefore to be encouraged.

Our outstanding members serve as inspiration to young scholars whose concepts are forming and who are or will be developing projects important to our 21st century civilization.

Or so is such said . . .

UPDATE: The talk is on July 2 (not July 4).

A literary opinion from a man whose literary judgement I respect . . .

Michael Butterworth
Savoy Interviews

Carter Kaplan sent a copy of my poetry book, Radiant Snow, to Michael Butterworth, who wrote back to Carter with these kind words:

The book arrived on Tuesday — I forgot to acknowledge. Thank you very much. It's nice to have something else of Jeffery's to read. I'm a big fan of his sense of the ridiculous, the eternal, the questing soul, the existential acceptance of our lot. Very Carrollean, Rabelaisian. There are love poems too!

I hadn't thought of my writing as Rabelaisain, but I am, quite consciously, Carrollean in my writing. Anyway, thanks to Michael for his appreciation of my poems.

The other writing that he obliquely referred to as having appreciated was my Faustian, Bottomless Bottle of Beer story.

Splendor in the "s" . . .

Horace Jeffery Hodges
and
Bruno Littlemore,
The Greats

. . . and glory on the door.

My department has a new professor, a woman, and since she had no available office, I volunteered to share mine, partly because I use it only for storing books and records - the English Lounge is my place to meet students, for they have plenty of room to sit and wait if several show up at the same time.

Anyway, the staff in charge of adding names to doors added the name of the new professor to my door . . . and removed my name! I therefore contacted the TAs in my department for help:

My name is no longer on my door. I think that the administration thought that when I volunteered to share my office with a woman, that meant I was moving out of my office. Could my name be put back on my door?

A prompt response came:

Your name on the door will be engraved soon. Probably the person in Facility Team made a mistake. How do you want your name to be written? H. J. Hodges, Horace Jeffery Hodges, or Horace J. Hodges?

I'd never been given such wide-open choice, so I went for the gold:

Thanks. I want my name written Horace Jeffery Hodges the Great.

I waited for my glory to be recognized, but when I checked the other day, not only was "the Great" missing, so was the "s" of my family name Hodges:

Horace Jeffery Hodge

I turned again to the TAs for help:

Thank you for the help with my name. Unfortunately, the person in Facility Team made another mistake. Instead of "Horace Jeffery Hodges" on my door, there is "Horace Jeffery Hodge." In other words, my family name is lacking the final "s." This is easy to fix because the door has space at the end of "Hodge" for an "s."

I then added a PS:

PS "the Great" was also missing, but there's no space on the door for that.

The TAs replied:

The Facility Team told me that missing "s" of your name will be revised soon. Thank you for understanding the Great was missing because there's no space on the door for that.

I figured that was good enough - my greatness is recognized, but it is too great for the commonplace doors of our quotidian world . . .

That's glory for you!

Huang Yong Ping: Wu Zei

Wu Zei
Huang Yong Ping, Artist
Photo by André Morin
Kamel Mennour Exhibitions

The scale of this giant octopus sculpture titled Wu Zei reminds me of The Swansong, a gigantic squid-like sculpture in Philip Murray-Lawson's story "Good Deed Day," which appears in the anthology Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5, edited by Carter Kaplan.

The story's well done, too.

Poetry Break: "The Pin-Head Prance"

I think - actually, I now know, having checked - that I posted this poem once before, but given that it appears in my published tale "The Uncanny Story," available in Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5, where two characters, Vladimir and Kropot, dance to its rhythm, I have an excuse to post it again:

The Pin-Head Prance

To stand upright will ask thee skill?
That was a bit of overkill!
We smitten with amazement fall?
Oh, that won't happen, not at all!
Come join us in a happy throng --
And see if you can dance along!
We prance as on a steel pin head --
You do it too, or you'll be dead!

Those of you with the anthology, Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5, will find this poem on page 422. For interested readers, you might note that this poem's inspiration comes from the third temptation set up by Satan in Paradise Regained, but I'll leave it at that . . .

Finally, a copy of Emanations!

Emanations

A copy for me has finally arrived - not the free one that got lost in the mail, but a replacement I ordered for that one, whose arrival I've given up on.

My own tale, titled "The Uncanny Story," can be found on pages 363-442  - you might try Amazon to see if you can access any of those pages.

I'll write more some other time - too busy with grading right now . . .

Trafika Europe 5 - Slovenian Interlude

Now,
from
Southeastern
Europe!

Literary Man-About-Town Andrew Singer exhorts us to:

Check out the latest issue of our quarterly literary journal, packed with terrific new literature and artwork from Slovenia and across Europe, free online!

Just click on the link and explore new literary worlds . . .

A Novelist Appears . . . Tim Fitts

Tim Fitts

Linked In

I received a note just recently from a novelist telling me that he likes a story by Jang Jung-il that my wife and I translated:

My name is Tim Fitts, and I am a novelist currently living in Philadelphia. I wanted to drop a quick note and say that I just picked up When Adam Opens His Eyes, and from the first page, am really enjoying the voice and character. I'm constantly looking for new books to teach in my classes here and will spend the next month organizing my fall reading list.

He also mentioned a novel of his to be translated into Korean, The Soju Club, which will apparently appear in Korean before it appears in English. I hadn't heard of Mr. Fitts, so I looked him up and quickly saw that he is an up-and-coming writer who has published in well-known literary journals, such as Granta, which informs us:

Tim Fitts lives and works in Philadelphia with his wife and two children. His stories and photography have appeared in journals such as The Gettysburg Review, The New England Review, CutBank and others.

The Korea connection behind his soju novel? He has taught here, the last time in 2005. For more on the man, Google his name. He doesn't seem to have a website, but his name does appear on a variety of literary journal sites . . .

Hodes . . . Hodegs . . . Hodges!

A Story Takes Flight
RedCap

I recently received the published version of my paper "The Mis-Education of Horace Hodges," which I presented at Chung-Ang University's Storytelling Conference last December, and I've pasted the abstract below:

Horace Jeffery Hodes, (2015). The Mis-Education of Horace Hodegs. Storytelling, 1(2), 52-69. This paper attempts to give listeners the experience of storytelling, from the perspective of both a storyteller and a listener, by alternating between relating stories and analyzing them, and so beginning with allusions to Cervantes, Shakespeare, Henry Adams, and Charles Darwin, the paper traverses hillbilly concern with storytelling as lying, through a 'just-so' children's story by the author of this paper, through a tall tale by Bob Dylan from his Chronicles, through another tale by Dylan, but in song, then on to remarks on truth and the believability of stories in the thought of Plato, Boccaccio, Sir Philip Sydney, Shakespeare, and Coleridge, then again a story through showing Milton recounting one in Paradise Lost, wherein he also claims to receive divine inspiration, then on through Hans Blumenberg's thoughts on myth, to another story, a Faustian one by the author himself, drawn partly from Bulgakov's own Faustian tale in his novel The Master and Margarita, and finally concluding with Nietzsche on poets as liars and the author's admission that the whole paper has been a lie.

Attentive readers will have already noted that my surname is misspelled twice in bold font! I swear I wasn't the heterographic malefactor, though who will believe me since I have owned up - in the above abstract - to being a liar.

Speaking frankly, however, I'm surprised to see my middle name, "Jeffery," spelled correctly, but my surname misspelled! The opposite is usually the case.

Andrew Singer Reviews Emanations: Foray into Forever in World Literature Today

Magazine Title

Andrew Singer - the driving force behind Trafika Europe - has written a positive review of Emanations IV in World Literature Today, from which I excerpt:

Emanations: Foray into Forever is a refreshingly focused collection - focused by staking out a particular frequency of literature to explore. This hefty volume is the fourth in the Emanations series, which seems to be groping toward a renewed, internationalized avant-garde. Series editor Carter Kaplan has assembled fine offerings, and what unifies the whole is the specific range of experiment it hosts - now slyly unruly, now intellectual, now delighted. This is an expression of the range of Kaplan himself, in the (correct) assessment that others of us will enjoy being invited along . . . . Given its inclination, the whole is notably readable. There is an effort to balance works with generous helpings of prose that push a bit against expected narrative frames, and poetry that pushes quite a bit more than that at times . . . . There are three sections: "Tales," "Verse," and a short collection of essays, "Themes," prefaced by a deft introduction by Kaplan, titled "Out of the Hermeneutic Captivity" . . . . There are more than enough high points to make this volume a worthwhile addition to any library - something to return to whenever the muck clears . . . . No piece in this collection is representative; each is a facet compelling us toward gratefulness for such pearls.

My contribution to this fourth literary anthology is a number of poems on pages 263 through 266, namely: "Crater Lake Blues," "Before the Storm," "Ozark Indian Mound," "Day Breakin'," "Souvenirs," "Ad Age," "Trail Home," and "Natural Philosophy." I hope you enjoy these bits of times humorous, times melancholy verse.

In the upcoming volume of Emanations - fifth in the series - there will be my second story, titled The Uncanny Story, which I will post on Amazon as an ebook sometime later after reworking a few parts, which will likely make the ebook version somewhat longer.

Incidentally, World Literature Today is the literary magazine that selected the translation that Sun-Ae and I did of Yi Kwang-su's novel The Soil as one of the top 75 translations for 2013.

My Dinner with Andre - An Elliptical Bit of Dialogue

My Dinner with Andre
Google Images

A Korean friend contacted me recently with a query prompted by one of her Korean friends who was trying to understand a line of dialogue in an American film:

She can't figure out the underlined phrase, and neither can I. Can you? I don't know what movie the lines are out of, but I don't think watching the movie would make it intelligible.

Grotowski and I got together at midnight in my hotel room in Belgrade, and we drank instant coffee out of the top of my shaving cream, and we talked from midnight till 11:00 the next morning.

The lines sounded distantly familiar, but I couldn't place them, so I Googled the underlined line, "and we drank instant coffee out of the top of my shaving cream," which led me to My Dinner with Andre, and that got my old brain whirring. I wrote back:

As for "we drank instant coffee out of the top of my shaving cream," the line is from a film by Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn (both of whom wrote and starred in it), My Dinner with Andre, which I saw way back in 1981 as a young grad student at Berkeley. You should see it sometime, too.

I think the sentence is elliptical and that the only thing it can mean is "we drank instant coffee out of the top of my shaving cream can."

Andre is describing a manic time in his life when he acted on impulse, and the unfinished statement reflects that time.

Literally, he used the plastic top that fit on the spray end of his shaving cream can to serve as a cup for holding instant coffee, and he and his friend Jerzy Grotowski, a Polish theater director, both drank from that same 'cup' in Andre's Belgrade hotel room.

My response was accepted:

Oh, Jeff, thank you so much for your kind explanation . . .

At your service - always ready to help the friend of a friend! Moreover, the successful search brought back many old memories from my early graduate-school years, so I gained some unexpected pleasure from responding to the request.

A pairing that didn't work . . .

Rivka Galchen
Illustration by R. Kikuo Johnson

In the NYT's Sunday Book Review is posed the question "Which Books Do You Read Over and Over Again?" (March 3, 2015), to which Rivka Galchen responds, beginning with an anecdote:

Recently at the checkout of a grocery store, the young man bagging my goods mentioned that he had brought the very same prosciutto to the Rosh Hashana meal he shared with his Jewish roommate's family. He had brought that prosciutto . . . and he also brought a lavender goat cheese that he would recommend, it was delicious. He had ended up eating . . . both the prosciutto and the goat cheese himself. The family, he said, had laughed at him about what he had brought . . . . [T]hey were nice about it, but also they were kind of rude, but he didn't care, he'd enjoyed the food, even though, he emphasized, they really had been very weird about it. The young woman working the cash register interjected that the reason Jews don't eat pork is because, in their holy book, God punished some people by turning them into pigs, and so eating pork was cannibalism. Then the young man said, Oh, that makes sense, but still I don't think they had to be so weird about it.

At least, the Jewish family didn't cut the young man's head off for profaning a holy day, unlike what a devout group from one of the other 'Abrahamic' religions might have done in a place where its laws are enforced.

Speaking of which, the young lady at the cash register seems to have learned the pig tale from that other Abrahamic religion, since we often hear its religious leaders referring to Jews as the offspring of pigs. Actually, though, I've read somewhere that the pig tale comes originally from a Jewish source warning that God was displeased with the Jews of some city or other and transformed them into pigs as punishment. But as far as I recall, the change was temporary. Perhaps some reader can fill us in on that.

Anyway, the amusing part of the young man's story - to get back to my real point - was that he was not only bringing the wrong meat, i.e., pork, an 'unclean' meat, he was pairing the meat with a dairy product, which is not a kosher pairing since observant Jews can't pair meat with 'milk'! The young fellow couldn't have gone much further wrong.

Unless the cheese itself were unkosher, but I don't think it is.

Margaret Atwood on Robots . . .

Margaret Atwood

NYT

Margaret Atwood, a Canadian novelist, has written on future dystopias, though not on robots . . . until now, in "Are Humans Necessary?" (Atwood, NYT, December 4, 2014). Interestingly, she seems not so harsh on the robots:

Every technology we develop is an extension of one of our own senses or capabilities. It has always been that way. The spear and the arrow extended the arm, the telescope extended the eye, and now the Kissinger kissing device extends the mouth. Every technology we've ever made has also altered the way we live. So how different will our lives be if the future we choose is the one with all these robots in it?

More to the point, how will we power that future? Every modern robotic form that exists, and every one still to come, depends on a supply of cheap energy. If the energy disappears, so will the robots. And, to a large degree, so will we, since the lifestyle we have built and come to depend on floats on a sea of electricity. Hephaestus' bronze giant was powered by the ichor of the divine gods; we can't use that, but we need to think up another energy source that's both widely available and won't end up killing us.

If we can't do that, the number of possible futures available to us will shrink dramatically to one. It won't be the Hurrah; it will be the Yikes. This will perhaps be followed - as in a Ray Bradbury story - by a chorus of battery-powered robotic voices that continues long after our own voices have fallen silent.

In her dystopian writing, Atwood appears to treasure that inhuman silence . . .

Bob Dylan telling stories . . .

Bob Dylan
Amazon

Seth Rogovoy, writing in Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet (Scribner, 2009), reviews volume one of Dylan's memoires and pegs him as a "storyteller":

The most striking thing about Chronicles is how it introduces an entirely new voice - that of Bob Dylan, the colorful, garrulous storyteller. *More important than how closely he adheres or doesn't adhere to the facts* is the language that he uses to recount his life and times, and the detours and byways down which he leads the reader, through literature, music, philosophy, and life's learned lessons. (Rogovoy, Bob Dylan, 280)

The term "storyteller" here means someone who misleads the reader in entertaining ways, and having read a bit of Dylan's Chronicles myself, I'd say that he 'misleads' with a nod and a wink, signaling to the wary reader that he's not as good as his word, he's better than that. A passage early in volume one makes this clear when Lou Levy, a higher-up in Leeds Music Publishing company, gives Dylan a big break and tells the head of publicity for Leeds, Billy James, to have a talk with Dylan and write promotional material on him for a press release:

Billy dressed Ivy League like he could have come out of Yale - medium height, crisp black hair. He looked like he'd never been stoned a day in his life, never been in any kind of trouble. I strolled into his office, sat down opposite his desk, and he tried to get me to cough up some facts, like I was supposed to give them to him straight and square. He took out a notepad and pencil and asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Illinois and he wrote it down. He asked me if I ever did any other work and I told him that I had a dozen jobs, drove a bakery truck once. He wrote that down and asked me if there was anything else. I said I'd worked construction and he asked me where.

"Detroit."

"You traveled around?"

"Yep."

He asked me about my family, where they were. I told him I had no idea, that they were long gone.

"What was your home life like?"

I told him I'd been kicked out.

"What did your father do?"

"'lectrician."

"And your mother, what about her?"

"Housewife."

"What kind of music do you play?"

"Folk music."

"What kind of music is folk music?"

I told him it was handed down songs. I hated these kind of questions. Felt I could ignore them. Billy seemed unsure of me and that was just fine. I didn't feel like answering his questions anyway, didn't feel the need to explain anything to anybody.

"How did you get here?" he asked me.

"I rode a freight train."

"You mean a passenger train?"

"No, a freight train."

"You mean, like a boxcar?"

"Yeah, like a boxcar. Like a freight train."

"Okay, a freight train."

I gazed past Billy, past his chair through his window across the street to an office building where I could see a blazing secretary soaked up in the spirit of something - she was scribbling busy, occupied at a desk in a meditative manner. There was nothing funny about her. I wished I had a telescope. Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene. I told him, nobody. That part of things was true, I really didn't see myself like anybody. The rest of it, though, was pure hokum - hophead talk. (Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One, Simon and Schuster: New York, 2004, pages 7-8)

In short, Dylan told Billy James a pack of entertaining lies, and he did so because he "didn't feel the need to explain anything to anybody." People want a story anyway, so he gives them one.

But Dylan is primarily a songwriter and performer, and he is better known as a storyteller in his songs. One blog post by Jason Boog, "Best Bob Dylan Songs That Tell a Story" (Galleycat, June 15, 2011) lists 24 of his best storytelling songs.

As regular readers know, I've already blogged on one of these, namely, Isis.

UPDATE: The text had "Less important than how closely he adheres to the facts", but after checking with Mr. Seth Rogovoy, I've edited to reflect what he intended to write: *More important than how closely he adheres or doesn't adhere to the facts* . . .