Scattered Notes

Robert Frost & Ogden Nash — These two poets are about as opposite as you can get. One the master of dark understatement from rural New England, the other the light-verse virtuoso oft associated with the New Yorker. Though a good deal of their lives overlapped (Frost 1874 - 1963, Nash 1902 - 1971), they don't seem to have had anything to do with each other. I can find no reference to Nash in Frost's selected letters, or in a biography I have of Frost. I don't know enough about Nash's life or letters to say "vice versa," but I'm certain I could, although Frost does make an appearance in one of Nash's poems ("O, Snow-Bound was written by Robert Frost / And Scott Fitzgerald wrote Paradise Lost" — from Who Did Which? or Who Indeed?).

A quick stroll through the table of contents of a volume by both poets easily shows how worlds apart they are, but here are a few contrasting stanzas, exempli gratia:

The City
by Odgen Nash

This beautiful ditty
Is, for a change, about the city,
Although ditties aren't very popular
Unless they're rural and not metropular.

Sentimentalists object to towns initially
Because they are made artificially,
But so is vaccination,
While smallpox is an original creation.

Artists speak of everything urban
As the W.C.T.U. speaks of rye and bourbon,
And they say cities are only commercial marts,
But they fail to realize that no marts, no arts.

The country was made first,
Yes, but people lived in it and rehearsed,
And when they finally got civilization down,
Why, they moved to town.

Take country people, they suffer stoically,
But city people prefer to live unheroically;
Therefore city dentistry is less painful,
Because city dentists find it more gainful.

City people are querulous and queasy,
And they'd rather die than not live easy
And if they did die, they'd find fault
If they weren't put in an air-conditioned vault.

Yes, indeed, they are certainly sissies,
Not at all like Hercules or Ulysses,
But because they are so soft,
City life is comfortable, if not perpetually, at least oft.

The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
by Robert Frost

The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.

The barn opposed across the way,
That would have joined the house in flame
Had it been the will of the wind, was left
To bear forsaken the place's name.

No more it opened with all one end
For teams that came by the stony road
To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs
And brush the mow with the summer load.

The birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in,
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.

Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm;
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.

For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept.

But they were not always so antipodal. Frost occasionally penned a whimsical verse:

Sym-ball-ism

The symbol of the number ten—
The naught for girls, the one for men—
Defines how many times does one
In mathematics or in fun
Go as you might say into zero.
You ask the heroine and hero.

And Nash sometimes weighted his lines:

Old Men

People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when...
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.

But both poets came together in a very real way for me in the last few days. Last Wednesday, I stopped at Half-Price Books while my wife was getting her lovely locks scissored. I checked all the sections I normally do, to see if anything new was in. In the poetry section, I spied an old edition of Frost's complete poems. It was actually entitled "Collected Poems," and it was published by Halcyon House, which I found odd because Holt had published most of his poetry.



I pulled it from the shelf and thumbed through it. It was published in 1942, and definitely looked that old.



The first page was inscribed, "To Mother, With Love, Helen. Mother's Day 1944." Inside the book were several newspaper clippings about Frost which had stained the pages they were wedged between.



Frost is one of my favorite poets, and I have three different volumes of his complete poems (one published in 1964 just after his death, one edited by Edward Connery Lathem who "regularized" a lot of Frost's punctuation and spelling, and the Library of America edition which is the best you can get of the poet). This would make an interesting fourth volume, and would be the oldest of the lot. But I wasn't quite sure, as books are a vice of mine, and I've been trying to buy fewer and read more of the ones I already have. Did I really want it, I asked myself. Especially with the newspaper stains. As I was mulling it over, I looked back at the front of the book, and separated a couple of pages that had static cling, and suddenly saw this:



I'm sure my jaw dropped open at the sight of that. I just remember a rush of thought like, "Is that really Frost's signature?! Can't be. How could it have ended up here, like any old book? Frost's signature? Really?" I looked and looked at it. Even though I had a wee bit of doubt—I had to doubt, I mean, what are the chances?—but also, I knew. I had seen Frost's writing before, and this volume even had a facsimile of his signature on the frontispiece. I wandered the aisles a little more, walking off my excitement some, and bought it.

I have no idea how much it's worth. I did manage to find this very edition, also signed, on eBay, for $249. Needless to say, considerably more than I payed for it, but no matter the monetary value, it is the jewel of my little Frost collection.

Since the signature was dated March 13, 1949, I wanted to see if I could find out where he was that day. I checked his selected letters and biography, but couldn't find anything near that date. So I went online and typed in "Robert Frost March 13, 1949." Lo and behold, I found this site detailing the Frost collection at Bluffton University, and from one of the items listed, I can say it's likely that Frost signed this book in Georgia at Agnes Scott College:

Folder 30 - Photographic Material -- Photographs
1. (1945?) - Frost at University of Georgia (lighter exposure)
2. (1945?) - Frost at University of Georgia (darker exposure)
3. January 1947 - Frost at Agnes Scott, signing books (signed)
4. January 1947 - Frost at Agnes Scott, signing books (signed)
5. March 13, 1949 - Frost with Doris Sullivan, Agnes Scott student

Incidentally, while looking around on eBay and other websites, I happened upon a photo of Frost's Complete Poems 1949. I had never seen what it looked like, and I was intrigued how it looked exactly the same as my 1964 edition, except for the year 1949 on the cover. Then I remembered that not long ago, perhaps just this last time, I had seen at Half-Price a volume of Frost that looked like that. At the time, I had passed it by, thinking I already owned that edition. It suddenly struck me that it could have been the 1949 edition, and what's more, it could be signed. (Crazy and covetous, I know.)

So a few days later, I went back to Half-Price Books. The volume was gone, alas, and though I felt a little disappointed, I realized I was being rather silly. To find one like this, not probable but quite possible. To find two, not possible, at least statistically. But while I'm here, I thought, I might as well check some of the other old poetry tomes on the shelf. You never know... I pulled an old, cigarette-smelling edition of Carl Sandburg of the shelf. No signature. Read a few pages, placed it back on the shelf. Looked at an old, thick volume of Kipling. Then saw on the bottom shelf a collection by Ogden Nash.



I'd actually seen it before, but didn't bother looking at it. I have a good edition of his already (Verses from 1929 On), and though I like his light verse, you have to be in the mood for it.

I slid it from between its companions on the shelf, opened it and saw right away this:



No way! I had no idea what Nash's signature looked like, and wondered if it might be fake. But does that really happen? And who would fake Nash's signature? It was written with a heavy black pen, and at the bottom of the page was a lighter inscription, "To my Love, Dorothy Ann. Love, Bill. 3/23/42". The book itself was published in 1941. The fact that the inscription was at the bottom of the page, obviously leaving room for the signature, pretty much cinched it for me.

So again, I made a happy purchase, and after getting home checked online to see if I could verify the signature. Sure enough, it was his, and I found one site that was selling a signature of his for $399.00. I think I've probably used up all my luck for the rest of my life.

Which is why I haven't even attempted removing the price stickers. Modern stickery is designed to survive a direct nuclear hit, and will rip and tear anything it is removed from, or at least leave a nasty residue. Does anyone have an idea how to safely remove them?

Speaking of things modern, I end with a poem by each. These are by no means the best, but I find them relevant to our time.

Not to Keep
by Robert Frost

They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying... And she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was there,
Living. They gave him back to her alive—
How else? they are not known to send the dead—
And not disfigured visibly. His face?
His hands? She had to look, to look and ask,
'What is it, dear?' And she had given all
And still she had all—they had—they the lucky!
Wasn't she glad now? Everything seemed won,
And all the rest for the permissable ease.
She had to ask, 'What was it, dear?'

'Enough
Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
And medicine and rest, and you a week,
Can cure me of to go again.' The same
Grim giving to do over for them both.
She dared no more than ask him with her eyes
How was it with him for a second trial.
And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.
They had given him back to her, but not to keep.

Everybody Tells Me Everything
by Ogden Nash

I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.

A little bit of Frost, a little bit of Nash, and a whole lot of luck.

filed under: poetry

Bless Who? — There's a new guy at work who sits in the cube next to mine. The few times he's sneezed, I've said the customary "bless you," but he has always responded with silence.

I imagine his silence arises from feelings similar to those some people have when they hear "under God" in the pledge, or see "in God we trust" on all of our money (so much for rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's), or are forced to participate in school prayer, or have to view in a courthouse a hulking monument engraved with the ten commandments, only three or four of which can be related to our legal system.

And I can definitely sympathize with this feeling, as "bless you" is a religious phrase, once you think about who's doing the blessing—the full subjunctive form is, after all, "may God bless you."

But when I say it, and I think most other non-religious people would feel the same, I don't say it with religion, I don't feel anything religious. It's simply the one after-sneeze expression we have in English. The German "gesundheit" is available, but it always has a facetious ring to it, and what if you want to be truly earnest, say, after a particularly furniture-rattling sneeze?

If only we could say, "health!" like they do in nearly every other European language, for that is truly what any post-sternutation wishes or concerns should be directed towards. Why associate religion with the high-force expulsion of spit and snot?

Of course, "bless you" supposedly arose from a belief that the soul might leave the body, or that the devil might enter, during a sneeze. Other accounts say it started with Pope Gregory the Great during one of the many historical outbreaks of the bubonic plague, one symptom of which, unsurprisingly, was sneezing.

And before modern medicine, a sneeze could have been considered an omen of greater illness, bubonic plague or no—but still, why not say "health"? "Bless you" seems more morbid, as if you know the person's going to die. It's like you've given up hope, and you think the other person's going to give up the ghost, so you resign yourself to saying, "I hope God blesses you," and perhaps that person won't tumble down to God's eternal torture chamber. (Maybe it really was from those bubonic times, when death was pretty much inevitable.)

"Health!" I'd rather say. "Screw the afterlife, I want you well in this life." But we don't have that phrase available.

So now I've taken to not saying anything at all when someone sneezes. But it feels very odd greeting a sneeze with silence—it feels rude. And I'm sure that my other coworkers, to whom I've always extended a "bless you," have noticed that now I say nothing. Do they wonder why I've suddenly become impolite?

Yet if I continue saying it when it's not desired, that makes me seem somewhat like those obnoxious Christians who disobey their master's command not to "pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men" (Matthew 6:5), who blatantly advertise their religion and impose it on others. Far be it from me, non-Christian that I am, to make another non-Christian feel that way about me.

Short of finding a new phrase, only one other solution suggests itself to me. But would it be okay to say it to some, and not to others?

At any rate, "health!"should the English after-sneeze expression change to something less religious?

filed under: observations, religion

Better Coffee —

I had rarely for many years used animal food, or tea, or coffee, &c.; not so much because of any ill effects which I had traced to them, as because they were not agreeable to my imagination. ... think of dashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea!

When I came across those lines in Walden, my reverence for Thoreau slipped, not quite a notch, but a few hairs at least. I love coffee. I look forward to the brew almost every afternoon. (I've never really been one to cry for a cup in the morning.)

I enjoy the ritual of making it, the anticipation while it cools just a little, and the hot dark taste as it goes down—not to mention the caffeine fix. That's what got me through the all-nighters I pulled in high school (and one double all-nighter) and college, though the boost I get is milder now.

The passage in which the above quote occurs discusses our animal life vis a vis our spiritual. Thoreau doesn't elaborate much here on his aversion to coffee, instead deliberating on the virtues of abstaining from meat, but it seems to stem from a concern with being enslaved to exotic appetites and addictions at the expense of higher pursuits. Later on he gets more economic:

I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them; again, as I did not work hard, I did not have to eat hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food.

This is not an issue with coffee anymore (except for those who drop $4+ at Starbucks everyday), though there are plenty of contemporary addictions this could be applied to—cars and oil spring to mind, as do disposable AA batteries for all of our portable electronic gadgets.

But I think Thoreau would have plenty more to say about coffee were he around today. I think he would criticize the mass production of inferior coffee products, the exploitation of the environment and people of coffee-producing countries, and our reduction of coffee to the merest utilitarian purpose of giving us a little more energy to work.

I was made aware of all of this and much more when I read Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast. I left the book at my school in China for the enlightenment of any coffee drinkers who might come that way, otherwise I'd quote from it.

But Pendergrast traces the history of coffee from the legend of Kaldi's dancing goats to the Starbuck's phenomenon of our time, and I highly recommend his book. He particularly focuses on the late 19th and 20th centuries, explaining the increasing intertwining of coffee with international relations, economics, and our domestic lives, as well as discussing how coffee was produced, packaged and sold over the years, and how that influenced the quality and taste of the coffee we drink.

Two things become apparent when reading this book:

1. Coffee was one of the first products that fell victim to the mantra of corporate America: "how much can we lower the quality and up the quantity, and get people to still buy it?"
2. Coffee as it is mostly grown is bad for the environment, the economy, and the people of coffee-producing countries.

Because of this, most of the coffee out there is no good, and most people don't really know what a good cup of coffee tastes like—and yet the big coffee companies rake in money every year.

Consider your canned coffee. Generally made from the cheaper, poorer-tasting Robusto beans, grown with pesticides and paid pennies for. Pre-ground long before it's brewed, so it rapidly loses flavor. And old after sitting on the shelf at the store and at home for weeks and weeks, possibly months or even longer. Coffee is a perishable commodity and needs to be brewed as soon after roasting and grinding as possible.

When I read this book, I had been regularly drinking Nescafe Gold instant coffee, as that was the easiest type of coffee to buy in China. After I finished, though, I vowed never to drink instant coffee again, or crappy regular coffee, even if nothing else were available (that's the only way to fight the "increase quantity, decrease quality" corporations). Generally I have succeeded—I can count on one hand the number of times since then I've had crappy coffee with a couple of fingers left over.

I also decided to seek out a better way to make coffee. The book mentioned the French press method as the best, but I never liked the grit that always gets through the filter mesh. I'd used drip coffee makers all my coffee-drinking life, but I knew I'd never had a truly excellent cup from one of those. But aside from a drip, the options available to me in China were nil (although I always saw these cool vacuum pots and other contraptions in the numerous cafés there).

I ended up rigging up something with clothes pins, a large glass jar, and some coffee filters I managed to find. It worked, and not too badly, but though the coffee I used was better than Nescafe Gold, it was not quite the taste I was looking for. (I bought it pre-ground at the French supermarket chain, Carrefour—whole beans, and grinders for them, were impossible to come by—but at least it was real.)

After I came back to America, my quest for a better coffee-brewing method was superseded by the job search and everything else needed to get on my own two feet here. I did get some good beans, though. I tried some organic, shade-grown Green Mountain coffee, as well as Whole Foods' organic store-brand coffee. Now I get Whole Foods' Allegro coffee since they get a newly-roasted batch of beans every week, and you can buy whatever amount you like—I like to get about a week's worth at a time.

But until recently I was still using a drip coffee maker, though the particular model I had was a step up from what I had used in the past. I was still not getting the brew I wanted, and I attribute this to two things: the inside pot of this particular model being difficult to access and hence difficult to clean, and the plastic filter basket.

Coffee always leaves a residue, and just rinsing with water, soap and water, or even coffee pot cleaners does not remove the residue. It has to be physically wiped off. (This is why work coffee is so bad—those huge thermal servers have years of crud inside them, and cannot be cleaned.) Filter baskets are hard to clean effectively what with all the ridges. Furthermore, plastic seems to absorb coffee odors very easily, and it's nearly impossible to remove them. If you use a drip, smell the filter basket and you'll see what I mean (or let me know what soap you use). These old odors get into your coffee every time you brew.

After things settled down in the other areas of my life, I renewed my quest, and decided to give the French press another try, but with a paper basket filter to keep all the grit out. I read somewhere online that this could not be done without the filter shredding, but lo and behold it works, and works very well.



The French press I have was a mere $14 at IKEA, and has no plastic parts (except the handle and plunger knob). It also meets my other requirement of it being easy to clean all surfaces that coffee comes into contact with. And 8-10 cup filters fit perfectly in the glass beaker.



After the water (just below boiling) is poured over the grinds, I place the filter in the beaker mouth, press it down a little with the plunger, and fold the rest of the filter out over the edge so I can push the lid down.



After 2-3 minutes (that's all the time you need) I lift the lid, fold the filter in, and slowly push down, pausing every 20 seconds or so to shake the press a little to scatter the grinds and allow for the easier flow of liquid through the filter. Pushing down too hard or quickly will cause the filter to tear.



I finish with a beaker full of excellent coffee, and pour it out so it doesn't brew further, and enjoy.

The only other thing I would like to get is a manual burr grinder to replace my electric blade whacker. The best burr grinders are made by Zassenhaus in Germany, but they've not exported any grinders to the US for about two years or so, hence they're hard to come by. I've been watching eBay, but every time a decent one is offered, the price ratchets up to $100+. Don't want one that badly. I've heard that blade whackers cause some flavor loss due to heat, but I just want to switch so I can get one less electronic gadget in my life.

Once I get there, I think I could brew some cups that even Thoreau might try, and hopefully he wouldn't exclaim afterwards, as he did in Walden, "Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by them!"Bad coffee and how it got that way, and how to make it better.

filed under: corporate US, do it differently