1. From the very the very early pages of Boys in the Boat right to its conclusion, I enjoyed the way Daniel James Brown wrote this book. Brown writes intelligently, insightfully, and knowledgeably in a graceful and straightforward style. It's a deep book. He probes the historical context of what was happening in Washington State, the U.S.A., and Germany as the crew of rowers at the University of Washington he writes about steadily mature into the team that eventually competed in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Brown also probes inwardly, not only examining the complex of emotions these rowers experience, but also the invisible spiritual bonds that unite them. In addition, Brown takes us inside the union that formed between the boat builder of the book, George Pocock, and the wood he used and his methods, as if the love for the materials and his craft endowed the boats he built with animation. The boats themselves seemed alive.
Brown's descriptions of the different races are suspenseful, made even more riveting by his discussions of the team's strategies and what each rower contributed to the crew's success. Ultimately, though, the races themselves and the team's success were secondary, in my experience, in my experience, to the way Brown brought to life the deeper, more spiritual, and unifying dimensions of boat building, team building and rowing.
2. The other night Debbie combined a medley of ingredients and seasonings into a tomato based stew that we enjoyed over rice. Tonight, she used the leftovers of this meal to stuff red and yellow peppers and she made a delicious and lemony broccoli salad. On March 13th, I ate breakfast at Sam's and haven't eaten a meal out since. Once, when Cas and Tracy came over, I ordered a pizza at Yoke's. Otherwise, Debbie and I have enormously enjoyed eating at home, expanding our culinary possibilities, preparing mostly vegetarian or fish based meals. We've had fun trying out new ideas and making delicious meals, pleasing each other.
3. When Bill Davie performed Tree House Concert #14 Tuesday night, he mentioned that Billy Collins is regularly broadcasting poetry readings on Facebook. Today, I became a follower of Billy Collins' Facebook page. I listened to a past broadcast in which he read and made low key, wry, and dryly humorous comments about W. H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts", followed by a reading of his own poem, "Musee des Beaux Arts Revisited". I also caught the last half of the live broadcast he gave today. He introduced me to a terrific poet I'd never heard of, Ada Limon; he then read two poems by one of my favorites, Naomi Shihab Nye.
I've got to keep going back to this broadcast and dipping back into archived videos. Billy Collins will introduce me to poets I'm unfamiliar with; he'll reanimate my love for poems, like "Musee des Beaux Arts" that have lived inside me for as long as forty-five years or more; and, I can enjoy his low key, casually intellectual persona, as he quietly tosses off compelling commentary and reads different poems in his unaffected, easy going manner.
Here's a limerick by Stu:
A nickname's what you can be called.
Could be apt or instead's got you galled?
Might be just shortened name,
Or by your looks or your game?
Or a hobby that's got you enthralled?
No comments:
Post a Comment