chrysanthemum

goings-on

2009-07-01T15:31:59Z

Dead Mule's Summer Sabbatical Issue is up, with three of my poems ("The Language of Waiting," "Fuel," and "Sonic Crochet Hook"). Don't miss the Southern Legitimacy Statements of the various contributors.

June Cotner has reprinted my "Prayer for Perspective" in her anthology Serenity Prayers: Prayers, Poems, and Prose to Soothe Your Soul. Haven't seen the book yet, but the check arrived last week, and it will pay for lunches with friends tomorrow and Friday. :-)

Recent posts at Chrysanthemum (personal blog):

28: recent pleasures, including St. Ann Episcopal's 150th anniversary celebration (special guest Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop)
23: SERMON: Chocolate and Conscience
18: link to samhenderson on getting a job

At Vary the Line, I've just been linking to poetry in the news:
July 1 - Souter taking leave of the Supreme Court (quoting of Robert Frost on both sides)
June 23 - Murray Mound pantoum

mechaieh @ 2009-06-16T14:28:00

2009-06-16T19:43:29Z

At Vary the Line (the group poetry blog):

June 3: the net is lowest in the middle (tennis and poetry)

May 24: Mona Lisait = crack den

May 20: The Red Wheelbarrow

May 16: the poetry building (Rilke in Smichov)

And, during the last third of April, twelve more poems for assorted NaPoWriMo challenges.

At Chrysanthemum (the personal blog):

April
21: Cavafy / new poems
24: call and consider
26: SERMON: Turtles
30: five things Stephen Colbert and I have in common

May
02: feeding the roses...
06: fifteen books
18: ad te omnis caro veniet
21: three notes from Paris
22: notes from Paris
24: et ses va et ses vient

June
06: starting the note before you sing it
09: A choice is only possible if there are genuine alternatives.
11: helplessly LMAO; words to ward off darkness
16: SERMON: The Red and White and Starry Blue

General state of the Peg: Where the hell did the first half of June go??? (And how is it past 14h already?) Dealing with a pulled thigh muscle, warding off a sore throat, and trying not to sulk too hard about the whole daft writing compulsion at the moment. (Over the weekend, I wrote over 2000 words (in addition to 1 1/9's worth of sermonage) and was feeling pretty pumped about where things were headed. Then, yesterday, upon doing more research, I realized the whole thing was logistically hosed, which in some ways is a relief (that's 6000 words I now don't have to pursue) but in other ways, not so much (because I came across a phrase that would be <perfect as a title and theme for the gift-prompt that led to me wrestling with the trunked plotbunny in the first place...) And then there is the critique I owe, the poem-of-the-month I need to get into the mail, and last night's exceptionally frustrating nothing-to-show-yet-for-it session of musings on the Coupe de Mousquetaires...) On the plus side, there is a thunderstorm making a terrific racket outside, and our contractor brought by some fresh eggs I'm now going to go fry. And then it will be back to some pedal-to-the-metal PowerPoint wrangling...

As I went walking down Radlicka Street...

2009-05-10T16:21:11Z

mrgeddylee, I couldn't help but think of you earlier this morning: I passed by a bookshop window that displayed a title on metaphysics right next to a gun.

From europe 2009

recent updates

2009-04-20T06:24:54Z

17 April: I think the dog hates Verdi, and links to three new poems ("All I Want Is Not to Want," "So We Decided to Walk Down St. Claude," and "Flute White")

19 April: my weekend, Harper's index (and what I ate) version. (Detailed (aka chronic-grousing-about-writing) version and two finished poems("Practicing Jump Shots With William Shakespeare" and "Aftermath") at Vary the Line.

Posted a few minutes ago: Restless.

updates since 3 April

2009-04-16T14:17:21Z

4 April: happy things

5 April: in memory of Bob Smartt

9 April: "Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing" (Robert Lowell quote + links to seven NaPoWriMo poems)

13 April: Easter weekend in New Orleans

16 April: links to the newest four NaPoWriMo poems

updates at Chrysanthemum (first quarter 2009 and a bit)

2009-04-04T13:43:01Z

Posted at Chrysanthemum since 28 December:

3 Apr: oh, the drama! (or, the creative grind revisited, part nth + 26)

1 Apr: unexpected pleasures

28 Mar: "Knitting About Oracles" (poem)
26 Mar: Nine Things About Oracles (poem)
19 Mar: Sara Davis Buechner on Joseph Bloch
18 Mar: on Herod, Paris, and visual vocab
16 Mar: SERMON: Cults of Personality
16 Mar: Readings: Pomeroy and Wilder
09 Mar: happy birthday, Paula! (a musical setting of "Lo Alecha" + "Step by Step")
07 Mar: the complexity of silence

February:
01: the while my path illuming (morning at church)
02: sing out praises for the journey (mysticism/church involvement)
03: What in this unpleated world isn't someone's seduction? (pacing)
05: No, no, no, can't let them go / I love them so (Peter Mayer / pretty junk food)
08: the night I am hiding from them (Erica Jong)
10: from cloud to tumbling cloud (Waltz with Bashir)
11: it gets hot down where we're goin' (Hiatt/Lovett concert)
15: not too far out (physical activity)
17: the wages of sin are cramps and chills (food poisoning)
20: I forget to speak of how everything means (Cynthia Grier Lotze)
21: A glance held long and a stolen kiss (quotes from the NYT)
23: SERMON: Lessons from Country Dancing
24: these drops of rain / falling in Lake Ponchatrain (Catie Curtis)
26: shall shear my lambs and ewes and rams (church, radio, and Roy Blount Jr.)
27: rambling in Roy's wake (more from Mr. Blount, including on salacious dancing with oysters)

January:

02: "star of the east, the horizon adorning" (dancing into the New Year)
03: productive vs. unproductive worry
05: stars at elbow and foot (watching my mother die)
07: I inflict despair and angst upon the BYM yet again
08: When fingers open and the hedges burn (assorted notes)
10: happiness meme, day 1
11: happiness meme - day 2
12: truth... in the faces of them who seeke to tread it out (journalism)
13: happiness meme - day 3 / clippings
14: happiness meme - day 4 / ranting in spite of myself
15: cold in Nashville
17: happiness meme - day 5
18: "pain is not good, but pain is necessary" (hope trapped in my throat)
19: Nashville-area notes
20: messages hither and thither
23: strivings toward social justice
24: saying farewell to an old reference book
28: And all around me a voice was sounding (folkie service)

30 December 2008: notes from Christmas Country Dance School

posts at Vary the Line - first quarter (and a bit) 2009

2009-04-04T13:17:17Z

At Vary the Line (poetry collective):

April 3: "The Problem With Easter" (poem + notes on process)

April 2: "An Asian American" (poem)

April 1: "Goose, Goose, Duck" (poem)

March 25: "notes on STAR*LINE and Plaths"

February 28: I admire Jennifer Atkinson's "Landscape with Mud Turtle"

February 13: reading Carolyn Miller on Ono Island

January 26: cinquains

January 16: happy birthday (in a few days), Edgar Allan Poe

updates since 4 December

2008-12-28T23:49:55Z

At Vary the Line:

28 Dec: "some for the measure of a poet's song..."

17 Dec: And yet more harping on sonnets

At Chrysanthemum:

28 Dec: have sword, will dance
21 Dec: SERMON: Tidings of Light
20 Dec: navigating amplified times
17 Dec: That in course the flower may flourish...
16 Dec: affirming the margin of hope
15 Dec : clippings from the New York Times
12 Dec: quote of the day
09 Dec : where to donate surplus giftwrap?
08 Dec: auction, accessibility, etc.
07 Dec: Grant to your heart its hopeful promise

pssst...

2008-12-07T02:01:18Z

I know at least one of you would kill me if I didn't make sure you were aware that Katharine Kerr is offering several signed editions of her work (including the rare Polar City Nightmare) in the helpvera auction that's up until 20 December.

I also know that one of you would probably kill me if I purchased this cat-shooter for your partner. I'm still tempted, because seeing it made me laugh out loud, but there's also about twenty other things I could get for them, so I'll probably play it a bit safer. The list of people who want to throttle me is long enough as it is. ;-)

updates since 25 October

2008-12-04T17:39:05Z

At JournalScape, I've posted about...

4 Dec: Peter Mayer to be playing at my church this Sunday, and other pleasures

3 Dec: in memory of Doug Shaw

2 Dec: the Winter issue of flashquake includes two of my poems, "The Sharpshooter Assembles A Relish Tray" and "A Stack of Cards."

30 Nov: Belfast

22 Nov: "Hi, I'm a boarding pass!"

21 Nov: Pete Morton sings sweet shepherd's songs

16 Nov: not quite in harmony with calm soul of all things

10 Nov: Alice Walker to Barack Obama, Amanda Shelton on John McCain, and other notes

8 Nov: lists

5 Nov: cool books I've recently copyedited

1 Nov: hymns I love and William Logan on Elizabeth Bishop/Robert Lowell

29 Oct: lots of carrot salad

26 Oct: a happy Sunday and the New Poetry Order

recent updates

2008-10-25T21:08:19Z

At Vary the Line, Joanne's posted about terza rima, Mary's musing on the point of persistence, and I'm touting the SFPA's 2008 Online Poetry Reading (which includes a .wav of me reading "Da capo senza fine") and Georgia Tech's free McEver workshops (which I've attended in the past, both because they're a good way to recharge the writing mojo and because I can usually work in a visit with Rancho Lesbiano and other peeps during the same shlep).

On JournalScape, I've posted about the following:

25 October: avoid vote-flipping by selecting each candidate individually (as opposed to straight ticket); this morning's Electoral Map in the NYT.

24 October: it's fall and I'm a Tennessean: volunteering and other pleasures

23 October: a photo from Raleigh and quotes from the NYT

18 October: sorting out my Tennessee ballot; quoting Elizabeth Bear

18 October: what the media is saying about the public and good taste

16 October: late-blooming creativity

15 October: Dr. Atomic and other intriguements/pleasures

14 October: Christine Kane, Anthony Lane, and Martha Silano

13 October: two quotes from the St. Louis Dispatch

12 October: Frank Rich takes McCain/Palin to task

10 October: on despair and endurance

recent updates

2008-10-07T21:13:54Z

At Chrysanthemum:

Oct. 7: happy things (auction donations and other facets of church life)

Oct. 3: ugly, ponderable, doable, good

Sept. 29: in memory of Sue Alley

Sept. 25: Japanese festival in Memphis

Sept. 17: reasons to vote against McCain

Sept. 2: link to a link to "non-dopey Chanukah music"

Aug. 31: a Catholic for Obama

Aug. 28: closed on the sale of my mother's house

Aug. 26: dodging the tongue of a frog

At Vary the Line (group poetry blog - great thought-provoking posts from the other members of the collective there as well. Go see!):

Oct. 7: quotes from Ted Hughes and a U of C physicist

Oct. 4: east winds and poetry on war

Sept. 25: some introductory nattering about myself and some recs

what's new

2008-08-24T17:59:34Z

General state of the Peg: recovering from a nastily virulent bout of bronchitis (severe enough to prod me into working on my will, although I'm feeling past the worst of it); working feverishly (way too literally for my taste) through the typical clustermangle of myriad projects; getting oriented as the new treasurer of my church's endowment; possibly on the verge of closing on the sale of my mother's house. My respiratory system may have the stability of a Rube Goldberg spaghetti-shaver, but I am armed with copious quantities of stubbornness, dried squid, and tea. I shall prevail!

My recent posts @ JournalScape (http://www.journalscape.com/mechaieh) have been about...

24 August: a link to Maho Kiwi's call to action re: the conscience rule. [Side note: if the current regime had wanted to give me added incentive to volunteer for Obama's campaign, they couldn't have picked a better means. Between that and McCain's multiple votes against increasing minimum wage...)

23 August: Edna St. Vincent Millay is still relevant

21 August: Two poems of mine at Dead Mule; links to a poem by Rodney Jones and an essay by Andrew Sullivan

20 August: general update; link to a poem by Connie Voisine

6 August: the start of my trip to Chicago

4 August: quotes from a Waldo Beach sermon

3 August: notes on a memorial service

3 August: outburst re: fulsome election coverage

1 August: a small thing making me happy (clever NYT headline)

30 July: link to an article on Allen Grossman; notes on Julia Cameron's Finding Water

29 July: assorted pleasures

28 July: UU sorrows and joys (Richmond, KY)

25 July and 24 July: on homiletics and HAIR (Lexington, KY)

18 July: weekend in Louisville

10 July: a quote from a Louis Patrick sermon

9 July: "the best-kept secret in the Bible"

8 July: pleasures

new at Journalscape

2008-07-06T22:53:15Z

http://www.journalscape.com/mechaieh

Taking pleasure in marvelous things, including "Victory Garden", a poem Sam Henderson wrote for me.

"Left with me in the sheets" (poem based on a marymary snippet)

goodies for a good cause (...and if you've ever wanted me to write a villanelle or sonnet for you, you can fight it out with the very kind souls who have already bid...)

assorted other natterings and quotes

new at JournalScape + news

2008-06-14T04:02:58Z

The sermon and readings for last Sunday's service at UUCC, on "Introversion and Community"

1 kvetch and 3 pleasures

New poem up at flashquake: As She's Dying

A very cool concert this coming Tuesday (I'm in the chorus).

posted at JournalScape this week

2008-05-31T22:03:44Z

today: If you are in or near Nashville, and feel like treating your ears to some virtuoso saxophone playing, you might consider visiting First UU tomorrow morning (services at 8:50 a.m. and 10:50 a.m.). For this year's Music Sunday (a tradition at our church), the choir has been working on Paul Halley's In Sideribus Domi - At Home in the Stars, a cantata celebrating the interconnectedness of art, science, religion, and creativity... [more on singing Sanctuses, creative confidence, and other topics]

yesterday: on callings and chores

Sunday: whining

older entries

PSA: check your LJ account filter

2007-11-30T15:44:34Z

LiveJournal has instituted a tag and flag system for "adult concepts" and content.

What you should be aware of: the default setting on your account for reading other journals is for "moderate" filtering (scroll to the bottom of the screen).

My current reaction to this is very mixed. I'm fine with the theory of provocative content being opt-in; after all, that's why I maintain a separate journal for my own fandom natterings (and vice versa - a lot of the folks who follow that journal aren't interested in the minutiae of my daily life, my lover's quarrels with God, etc.). That said, I am once again dumbfounded by LJ's ineptitude and half-assedness on multiple fronts. (A number of people have already articulated my concerns and cynicism better than I have, as well as raising other issues that wouldn't have occurred to me, such as how sex ed/health awareness comms may be affected by this new mishegoss.)

Anyhow, while I'm theoretically in favor of opt-in filtering, it's not "opt-in" if the general readership doesn't know about it. Which is one of the reasons why I won't be voluntarily restricting this journal or bronze_ribbons to 14+ or 18+ readers (another reason being that the tools don't appear to be bug-free, judging from early reports from the field). A third reason being that I read Ayn Rand, Kathleen Woodiwiss, D.H. Lawrence, Nancy Friday, and many other sexually frank authors before I turned 18 (which wasn't until the end of my first year in college), and that was before I had regular Internet access. (Not to mention the occasional racy guest contribution to a friend's ongoing Real Person Fic series, which was passed from music stand to music stand in all its dot-matrix glory every afternoon during sixth period. But that's an anecdote for another time...)

*stomps back to the em-dash mines*

mechaieh @ 2007-11-20T11:36:00

2007-11-20T17:50:12Z

To my mysterious well-wisher: Thank you for your kind thoughts. The same to you!

General housekeeping note (there being new names on the friendslist, etc.): I moved my online hammock over to JournalScape in June, so that's where you'll find my current natterings. There is an LJ-feed (mechaieh_js), but be warned that (1) the coding sometimes goes splat between JS and LJ, and (2) I'm not notified of comments on syndicated posts.

Wishing you all a good week, and safe traveling/happy feasting to those observing this Thursday's giving of thanks. :-)

update

2007-06-01T00:01:09Z

6A/LJ has been making an effort; jury's out on whether it's sincere and/or will stick.

For now, I plan to continue at JournalScape, but as long as things appear to be improving here, I'll reverse my stance on not linking to any LJ content from there.

The fabulous and gifted xochiquetzl has set up an LJ feed, mechaieh_js. I am honored and humbled.

ETA 9/3: Oy. Staying at j-scape, y'all.

migrating

2007-05-31T02:48:19Z

Effective immediately, this journal will no longer be updated (unless SixApart suddenly wises up and does right by those wronged, which is looking less and less likely by the hour). I won't delete it (if it disappears, it wasn't my doing), but neither will I be linking to it or anything else posted at LJ, no matter how scintillating or thought-provoking or gorgeous or just wildly funny. Yes, I'm that angry and annoyed.

I do plan to delete all information on my user profile (including the friendslist) as soon as I have time to reorganize the information for myself elsewhere. Between that and the ongoing crush of work, I will likely be even slower and more erratic than ever in terms of following all y'all's posts and comments. I beg your patience (and if it's important, do send me a note or e-mail).

Going forward, you can find me here: http://www.journalscape.com/mechaieh

Wishing you all the best. Let's keep in touch!

Blessings,
Peg

"Make firm my changeful heart / so I may do my part"

2007-05-28T07:07:36Z

Longevity buns at the Panda buffet after church.

The two senior Asian men at the table (one 67, the other 79). Watching them try to outrank each other over the bill was especially entertaining.

The postlude was a violin and guitar rendition of "Come, Come Whoever You Are," which had been the closing hymn.

As the musicians played, a couple in the front row (co-founders of the fellowship) waltzed together to the back of the meeting room. A magical moment.

Didn't care for the too-casual arrangement of "Eternal Father, Strong To Save" on this weekend's "Prairie Home Companion," but the sound of the entire auditorium singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" -- that was worth tuning in for.

Abandoned fully drafting the homily around 6 a.m. and extemporized the bulk of it. Didn't fall flat on face or scare off visitors.

Being able to refer one of the visitors to Church of the Larger Fellowship.

BPAL's "Port Royal" and "Taurus" both very nice and spring-appropriate.

Three poems accepted by kingfisher1031 for SGVPQ 34.

The New York Times occasionally runs "Op-Charts" (by Adriana Lins de Albuquerque and several co-designers) that analyze aspects of the Iraq war in graph form. (It's one feature that definitely comes across better in the print edition than online.) The latest one, "In Memoriam," is here.

This morning's opening hymn (words by Carl Seaburg):

God who fills the universe
from the atoms to the stars,
make firm my changeful heart
so I may do my part
and bring joy to all the earth.

God who webs the universe
with amazing mysteries,
make glad my fragile soul
so I can see life whole
and bring hope to all on earth.

God who keeps the universe
by the truths of living love,
make strong that love in me
so I can set it free
and bring peace to all on earth.

"God is assuredly not on the side of the unbelievers, but history may yet be."

2007-05-27T05:57:11Z

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/05/21/070521crbo_books_gottlieb

In the May 21 New Yorker, Robert Gottlieb reviews Hitchens and other recent manifesti against religion in an essay titled "Atheists With Attitude." One of the paragraphs that leaped out at me:

One practical problem for antireligious writers is the diversity of religious views. However carefully a skeptic frames his attacks, he will be told that what people in fact believe is something different. For example, when Terry Eagleton, a British critic who has been a professor of English at Oxford, lambasted Dawkins’s The God Delusion in the London Review of Books, he wrote that "card-carrying rationalists" like Dawkins "invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince." That is unfair, because millions of the faithful around the world believe things that would make a first-year theology student wince. A large survey in 2001 found that more than half of American Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians believed that Jesus sinned—thus rejecting a central dogma of their own churches.

Didn't get to more than a twelfth of what I'd hoped to cover today, but the weather was spectacularly nice. I did literally stop to smell the roses during my walk this morning, and brunch was a bottle of Orangina and a leek and goat-cheese quiche. And in the squeezing of blood out through my forehead the rest of the day, I did eventually come up with one of those lines that occasionally persuade me I might be clever after all (it's not a spectacular line in itself, but I was grinning from ear to ear as I typed it in).

Back to sermon-drafting. Onwards.

religion watch: "who speaks for the quasi-religious?"

2007-05-26T03:38:20Z

David Brooks's editorial in this morning's New York Times is titled "The Catholic Boom," but it's also about "who speaks for the quasi-religious," arguing that "quasi-religious people often drive history" (citing the influence of Abraham Lincoln, quasi-religious Victorian Protestants, and quasi-religious 20th century Jews):

...there are at least two things we know about flourishing in a modern society.

First, college students who attend religious services regularly do better than those that don’t. As Margarita Mooney, a Princeton sociologist, has demonstrated in her research, they work harder and are more engaged with campus life. Second, students who come from denominations that encourage dissent are more successful, on average, than students from denominations that don’t.

This embodies the social gospel annex to the quasi-religious creed: Always try to be the least believing member of one of the more observant sects. Participate in organized religion, but be a friendly dissident inside. Ensconce yourself in traditional moral practice, but champion piecemeal modernization. Submit to the wisdom of the ages, but with one eye open.

The problem is nobody is ever going to write a book sketching out the full quasi-religious recipe for life. The message “God is Great” appeals to billions. Hitchens rides the best-seller list with “God is Not Great.” Nobody wants to read a book called “God is Right Most of the Time.”

_ _ _

Mulling over the sermon, roasting squid, and wrestling with a story. Onwards.

divisions between art and morality (and mortality)...

2007-05-25T06:12:10Z

So. Not my most stellar week: it's not near done in spite of me hitting 40 hours just before midnight, there was a messy night of gastric distress, and I said the wrong thing and/or too much in several conversations. *headwall*

On the other hand, I'm making discernable headway on Project Barbeque Albatross. And, as ever, there's the funny and the good:

Via kirbyfest: Turtle Creek Chorale's performance of the "Hallelujah Chorus." With nuns. Socrates, I thought of you.

The title of Janet Maslin's NYT review of Newt Gingrich's Pearl Harbor novel: "An Assault on Hawaii. On Grammar Too." (No, that wasn't nice. But I don't claim to be.)

Michiko Kakutani characterizing Al Gore's new book as full of "the sort of wonky ardor" that made An Inconvenient Truth "so bluntly effective." (I probably won't read it -- I'm not who he needs to sway -- but the phrase "wonky ardor" tickles me to no end.)

One more from the NYT, from Bernard Holland's review of a Met Orchestra concert: "[Michelle DeYoung]'s encore was "Traume" from Wagner's "Wesendonck Lieder," which can be heard as a sketch for the second act of Tristan und Isolde but also as a thing of beauty itself. That such a treacherous and unprincipled man could write music as moving as this argues for the division between art and morality."

Just read about a Uruguayan joint down the street from the BYM's office that hosts Gnocchi Day once a month. I love my town.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/21/hello-kitty-takes-a-dip-in-usb-powered-aquarium

things of happy wrongness

2007-05-20T14:25:04Z

The New York Times quotes Frank Brown (NHL VP for media relations) on the league's stance toward "Octopus Al":

Every so often, an octopus slips out of someone's hands, and Al is right there to take care of the matter. And he cannot be blamed if, as it tries to break free from Al's grasp, the octopus lifts Al's arm and twirls itself in the air.

ice cream truck playing the theme from Swan Lake

swooop's The Secret of the Giant Squid, a Nancy Drew/Harry Potter crossover. *glee*