Sloan Creative

I’ve just started The Intellectual Life by A. G. Sertillanges

I’m finding deep resonance in it’s call for a life of quiet reflection… even in the midst of family life.

It’s a practical, useful work that calls us to sit still and listen for the eternal that suffuses all we see and hear.

This combined with the film Into Great Silence leads me to think I may have a monastic streak in me somewhere… of course, the soon-to-be-three children pretty much preclude that.

I have this set to come up in my calendar to read once a month. I find it helpful and thought you might too.

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common–this is my symphony.

WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING

I ran across this the other day on the Bureau of Labor Statistics site.

Time use on an average weekday for full-time
university and college students, 2003-2005

			       Hours	

Sleeping                	8.5
Leisure and sports      	4.1
Working                		2.7
Educational activities  	3.1
Other                  		2.4
Traveling              		1.5
Eating and drinking     	1.0
Grooming               		0.7

Total                  	       24.0

http://stat.bls.gov/opub/ted/2007/may/wk4/art04.htm

From this, I draw the following conclusions.
1. College kids are well-rested, in good shape, but malnourished . Maybe bad dorm food saves them time on eating, only 1 hour per day? But to include drinking in that 1 hour number seems to me disingenuous.

2. That if I want to continue my self-education at a college-like pace, it’s certainly possible, given that they are spending only 3 hours per day on educational activities. If you want to remain a life-long learner, it’s certainly possible to keep up with, or even stay ahead of the average college student by simply reducing work hours a bit and devoting some leisure time to your studies.

I’ve just purchased the Great Books of the Western World series (Thanks Joy!) and am looking forward to diving in.

I am reminded of a recent book by an author I respect, The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had, though some of the key ideas in her book are from Giambattista Vico’s great work from early in the 18th century, On the Study Methods of Our Time, which is certainly worth a look if you have the time!

Two amazing books about Central Europe in WWII.

The Visible World combines a man’s search into his family’s past in Bohemia followed by a novel that actually gets at the deeper meanings of what he finds. Mark Slouka’s writing often approaches poetry. Highly recommended. I thought it was the best book I’d read all year, until…

Last night, I finished The Book Thief. It’s mis-categorized as youth fiction. It’s actually one of the most moving books I’ve ever read. The loving treatment of the characters, even the narrator, Death, that Markus Zusak makes the ending one of the most moving I’ve ever read. I was actually glad to be ill the last two days so I had an excuse to laze about reading it in a couple of huge gulps. Has just replaced The Visible World as my favorite recent book.

As someone interested in history, I really appreciated the view Zusak gives us into the lives of poor German citizens just trying to get by and remain human during the war years. That he then ties in the power of words to comfort or control makes it all the more interesting.

I highly recommend both of these books.

I buy many books used. Why not when you buy a lot of especially older titles? However, these books I’ll buy new in hardback, after having read Heather’s copies, because I want to vote with my dollars and give a tiny bit of money to these authors and their publishers.

These titles are what books can and should be about. They look into our collective stories, our histories, and shine light on the best and worst in us all. Only by authors thoughtfully, lovingly shining this light for us and we as readers looking clearly and honestly at what’s illuminated can our civilization heal itself by connecting us to one another across physical, cultural, and temporal distance.

What a summer it has been for reading. Our time in Port Townsend was full of lazy days at the beach and at home reading as the kids played and Katie gestated.

Thanks again to Heather for these and so many other great recommendations and the loan of so many bound treasures.

If you’d like to spend a bit of time with a bright, wise delight, watch Martin Marty’s conversation on his latest book with Bill Moyers

Click here to watch

I found his discussion of “Child-ness”, that openness to the wonders and joys of life, refreshing and enlightening. His book on the subject is The Mystery of the Child

Katie and I came up with a simple rule to make driving, biking, and walking much safer for us all. Something in today’s news proved the idea.

Our idea was that driver’s should be licensed for specific horsepower ranges, based on their hormone levels. Therefore, young men and elderly women might only be able to drive under-powered scooters or golf carts. Think of James Dean racing the Little Old Lady from Pasadena. (I grew up in Pasadena and I remember those old ladies with their tiny electric cars!)

Here’s the proof from the BBC.

Now that I’ve been capturing my own family history for the past few years, I’m happy to help you capture yours.

As our parents and grandparents age, we run the risk of losing all the stories they have…

• The stories of what we were like when we were kids
• Of their own childhoods in a world very different from our own
• Who is that in this old photograph, what was the event?
• What have the years taught?

I love talking with folks and drawing out their stories. I understand capturing stories in audio and video recordings and publishing them in a variety of formats- print, web,audio, photo, and video.

If you know of anyone with a story to tell, please let them know I’m here to help.

More information here

What if one of the best violinists in the US played in the Metro for change, on his $3,500,000 violin?

Watch what happened and didn’t

The videos are worth watching as they include his playing.

Thanks to The Washington Post for this fun and more than a little sad experiment.

I hope that you are always stopped in your tracks by beauty.

Dennis Vogt, a good friend and a good mind, forwarded me this just a bit ago… a very interesting look at our linked world.

 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html

 It reminded me of this great E. M. Forster story I re-read just the other night. 

http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/prajlich/forster.html

As it all gets so easy, so interesting… what might we be losing? 

What risks increase as systems become more complex?

What risks does The Machine lead us to discount or forget?

An interestng article on “Normal Accidents” here:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep06/4423

No time to muse further, I’m working hard on a local loosley coupled system; connecting farmers and local citizens to the land via the Trust for Working Landscapes

I tighten the tarp; Maxi stomps and rustles her bridal.
Cool morning, nice for driving.
Our eyes meet, welling, there’s far too much to say;
Just another turn of history’s wheel, I’ve left before, ahead of fevers and hot rebellions.

Today, harvest in, house ready for destruction, Anni and the girls safely ahead.
If I don’t turn and go now, the centuries of stories
And now Jóska’s embrace will hold me here forever,
Until my life hangs at the end of a red-eyed, young peasant’s barrel, or a revenge court’s decision that I am an enemy of the people.

I flick the reins, the horses strength creaks the leather, the tongue, the wagon,
Onto the road and turn east, facing the red masses over the Tisza river who are starting west this morning; killing this way for another day.

By noon, I’ll be turning west, toward the Duna, my first watery protector, and a future anywhere but here.

Today, I write, at my grandfather’s age that day, trying to unravel the darkly poetic forces driving his story and mine, knowing

“that the dead can live only with the exact intensity and quality of life imparted to them by the living.”*

Can the living live with anything but the exact intensity and quality of life imparted to them by the dead?

Today, I wonder.

In the first days of October 1944, as the Russian army approached, my grandfather Zoltan Bárczay packed what he could into a horse-drawn wagon and left the family farm in the Hernad Valley, family seat for the last 800 years. He had sent his wife and daughters ahead towards safety the day before.

*Quote from Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes