Summer Reading: Less Than the Sum of its Parts

(reflections on nonfiction by Malcolm Gladwell, THE TIPPING POINT (2001), and WORLD OF WONDERS (1972), the third novel in the Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies.)

Even at 6 a.m., the heat and humidity are still oppressive.  But, I'm up early fretting about homework schedules, so that means summer's long over.   Time only to give due consideration to the last two books of the season.

Our faculty read THE TIPPING POINT looking for possible applications to our middle school.  Can we engineer a positive trend by appealing to a few charismatic trend-setters, or by paying attention to small details, or by having a memorable message?  Yes.  Can each of those methods fail?  Yes. 

THE TIPPING POINT contributed its title to our vocabulary, so that I've heard the phrase countless times in analyses of politics, the economy, and popular trends in the years since it was published.  Beyond the cover, Gladwell tells a dozen or so good stories in which a seemingly small adjustment to some behavior spreads like a virus through a whole community.    The agents of the virus are "Mavens" who collect knowledge about consumer goods or whatever; "Connectors" who retain names and interests of hundreds of acquaintances; and "Salesmen" who use persuasion and personal charisma to draw others to a product.

From these, he tries to tease out some general rules.  These are, one by one, interesting and useful.  One salesman, for example, operates by having a ready reply for the would-be customer's every doubt (You can't afford it right now, but can you afford to wait?).  The "Broken Windows" change in policemen's policies in New York seems to have worked wonders, turning the city from crime-ridden and sleazy to its present Disney-fied squeaky clean feel.

But each of his general rules works only when some other general rule doesn't apply.  A virus won't work if the context isn't right, for instance.  That's true for a sexually-transmitted virus that stops spreading when cold weather inhibits bar-hopping.   Theology students preparing a sermon on the importance of caring for strangers literally stepped over needy strangers planted in their route to the lecture hall, so long as the context was that the audience was already there waiting for the sermon.  It's a good illustration of something we all know from experience.  Nothing works, he tells us, if the trend (object, concept) isn't "sticky," and it's "sticky" if it's useful, repetitive, appealing, chemically addictive ... whatever.

Think of it as a manual, and the book is a failure.  Think of it as a collection of loosely - related anecdotes that sometimes give ideas to a teacher or any other social engineer, and it's just fine.

Excited to re-read the FIFTH BUSINESS (see an earlier posting, here), I eagerly dusted off my old 1980 paperback editions of the other two novels in the trilogy.  In brief, the three novels follow out the lives of the boy who threw a snowball containing a heavy stone at another boy who ducked, and a third boy who popped out of his mother prematurely when that rock hit her in the back of the head.  Diminishing returns.  THE MANTICORE, I wrote previously, was a fascinating essay to illustrate Jungian ideas of universal myths that have personal meaning to each of us.   The evolving relationship between patient and analyst gave that novel a forward drive to carry through its discursive narrative.  WORLD OF WONDERS begins as a kind of creepy Huckleberry Finn story of a little boy who escapes home and is set adrift in a nasty carnival side-show called "World of Wonders."  The boy, now a master magician and film actor, tells his story to the film crew.  Once that story is over, it moves to the young man's apprenticeship with the last of the Romantic actor-managers in England.

We appreciate the details of life in the carnival, life in the old-fashioned theatre, life in the provinces of Canada.  But however much Davies strains to create dramatic tension between the tale-teller and his audience, the way he did pretty successfully in THE MANTICORE,  he doesn't achieve it, here.  Reading it became a chore, and the final chapters seemed redundant.

I recall feeling that way in the 1980s, and I also recall feeling that his next trilogy, beginning with REBEL ANGELS, was better, and his earliest trilogy, beginning with LEAVEN OF MALICE, was best of all.

Names and James: Homily for St. James' Church

(Homily delivered July 31 at St. James' Episcopal Church, Marietta, at a celebration of St. James' Day.)

Good evening, and happy St. James’ Day!  This is the day when we celebrate the saint who is our namesake.

And my name is Scott Smoot.  That’s how I’ve always been introduced to you through the years, whenever I’m your guest pianist, or whenever I’ve brought news from the Vestry or the Rector Search Committee. 

But my driver’s license calls me William.  So do my insurance card, and my registration with this church.  And when I sign my name, it’s W. Scott Smoot.

My dad is to blame for this confusion.  Dad chose my first name, and he also chose not to use it.   I’ve always had to explain this to teachers and officials.  But the name has had the advantage of tipping me off to telemarketers:  If they ask for William Smut, I can hang up.

When I was in my twenties,  I finally asked my dad why he gave me a name that he never intended for me to use.   He got a gleam in his eye.  “I wanted you to have that initial W.,” he said  “like W. Somerset Maugham.”   That was a literary lion in the mid-twentieth century, a playwright, essayist, story – writer and novelist, my Dad’s favorite. 

But Dad never had told me that W. Somerset Maugham was my namesake.   Dad never said, “Son, I want you to be a writer.”   So how come I was the ten year old who stayed inside to type stories while the other boys were out playing ball?  How come, to this very day, my first thoughts each morning are about a story or a play that I could be writing, or a homily that I should be writing?   Somehow I grew to fit the name.

Living Up to Our Names
I won’t embarrass anyone by making you raise your hand.  But nod your head if you feel that your parents in some way influenced the course of your life by the names they gave you. 

I’m guessing that some of us have had names to measure up to. I went to high school with a guy named Manley, and you couldn’t help but measure him against his name.  Children of celebrities have had trouble living up to their famous family names.

Some of us have had names to live down.   The classic example is in Johnny Cash’s song about the absentee dad who made sure that his boy would grow up able to stand up and fight, by naming him “Sue.”   I once knew an atheist who named her son Darwin.  She explained that she was protecting him from what she called “cute little Southern Baptist cheerleaders.”  Last time I saw the boy, guess who he was dating?

In the Bible, names are signs of destiny. “I have called you by my name and you are mine,” says the Lord.  The angel tells Mary what to call Jesus before she has even conceived him.  Then there are the names in the Bible that change to mark a new relation with the Lord:  Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai becomes Sarah, Jacob becomes Israel, Saul becomes Paul. 

In our culture, it’s not easy to choose to change your own name, except for entertainers, and for  women who take the husband’s name in marriage. 

Our Church's Name
Now, we never chose the name of our church.  Our name was chosen for us in 1842 by our founding father, William Root. He led Bible studies for railroad workers in Marietta, but he had attended St. James’ Church in Philadelphia. 

This makes me think that we could easily choose a new name for our church.  After all, we didn’t choose the name, and we’re not really named for a saint, but for another church.  This might be a good time to think of a new name, since we’re in a time of transition, looking for a new rector. 

What other saint might be more appropriate?  In a homily a couple weeks ago, Tim Raasch pointed out how Saints Mary and Martha represent the contemplative spirituality of one sister, and the active hospitality of the other.   That certainly seems to describe two strengths of our congregation.   But the Episcopal Church of Sts. Mary and Martha in Buford GA could probably sue for brand infringement.

So what other saints might fit the way we are?  I’m amazed at the skills of people here who are good at building and making things – so we could adopt the name of Joseph, patron saint of carpenters.    Or we could go with Sir Thomas More, patron saint of lawyers?

We could buck tradition and go for a new-style corporate name, something catchy that would look good on a web site.   I was thinking, maybe, in big friendly letters, Prayers R Us?  Or maybe, something with an exclamation –point after it, like, Spiritco!  At the risk of rubbing a sore spot, here, I think we might streamline our current name, the way BP streamlined “British Petroleum.”  What could be more twenty-first century than SJx!

You all don’t look very excited.  Maybe, like me, you have a feeling deep down that St. James fits us somehow.  Perhaps, before we take such a radical step, we should look at what we know about St. James and see what it is we’re living up to.

Our Namesake
In today’s gospel (MT 20:20-28), James tags along with his brother behind his family name, “Zebedee.” We’re told in a note that the name means, “Thunder.”  When your dad’s name is Thunder, you probably get a lot of teasing from the other kids on the block.  The men in the neighborhood always tell you, “Your father was a really great man, very tough.”  Then they have to add, “So, when are you going to be more like him?”   Their mom certainly storms in to make sure they get the attention due such a name.    I imagine James is blushing, and saying under his breath, “Aww, Mom, you’re embarrassing me.”  But I don’t see that he steps up to stop her, either.   No wonder the rest of the apostles get mad.  

But Jesus stays calm.  He has a test for James and his brother.  “Are you able to drink from the cup that I am about to drink?”  The brothers aren’t sure what they’re agreeing to, but they are Sons of Thunder, and they’ve got to live up to that name.  They say, “We are able.”   Jesus is referring to that cup mentioned later at the garden of Gethsemane, the one that he wishes could pass from his lips, the bitter cup of martyrdom.   He sees in James a young man who will indeed make a stand and suffer the consequences.  

We’ve seen that quality in James before, when he was a fisherman, working all night without catching anything.  Jesus called out to him to cast his net on the other side, and the haul was great enough to tip the boat; but when James reached shore, he left the catch behind, and followed Jesus.  Son of thunder indeed, he’s impetuous and determined. 

But with his mother there, asking for special treatment, the other guys get mad, and Jesus rebukes them, saying those wonderful words at the core of Christian life, about how the greatest must be the servant of all, how the first must be the last. 

Tonight’s reading from Acts (11:27-12:3) tells how James, our namesake, lived out those words, drinking the cup that Jesus drank:  serving the Lord, he was the first of the apostles to die for Jesus. 

Now, there are other traditions and stories about James.  We know that he was a missionary who established the church in what we now call Spain, earning the love and gratitude of the natives there.   There’s a story that he resurrected a boy who had been hanged for a crime that he did not commit.  It was five weeks after the event, and people rushed to tell the boy’s father the good news.  The father, who was eating dinner at the time, bitterly said, “My boy is no more alive than this roasted bird.”  According to the story, the bird stood up on the plate, spread its wings, and flew away. 

After King Herod put James to death by the sword in 44 AD, legend has it that the saint’s body was airlifted from Jerusalem by angels, and deposited in a rudderless boat off the coast of Spain at Compastela.   Ever since then, Christian pilgrims have made their way to Compastela, to the church of St. James, or, in Spanish, Santiago.  They carried with them the symbols of our church: a traveler’s bag to carry necessities and a scallop shell to lift water from streams along the pilgrim’s way. 

Is our name a good fit?   Right now, this very month, is a good time to ask that.  The Rector Search Committee has put out a survey, and we are looking for your answers to questions about our church as it is now, and as we hope it will be.  

James answered the call of Jesus, no questions asked, without regard to cost or risk.  I know people at this church who’ve made open-ended commitments of time and resources.  Could this be true of us all?

James learned a lesson about becoming great through service to others.  Are we servants of the Lord?  Do we take turns serving each other?  I see on our survey a long list of committees and guilds.  Could more of us be involved?

James established a church among the needy in Spain;  I see our well-established ministries of Wonderful Days, and Reach Out Mental Health.  I know that we sponsor a church in (Ma – JEL – i- ko).  Is there more we could do?  Could more of us be involved?  

James is the patron saint of pilgrims, who leave their fishing, their business, their day to day lives, to worship.
Is worship central to our church in that way?  Is it central to our own lives?  We have a group here called the Pilgrimage who make their spiritual journeys without leaving the confines of this building – are we all aware of this group?  Could more of us join them?

This is a good time for us to ask these questions.   If a name is something that we grow into – well, let’s keep growing into ours.   Happy St. James’ Day!

[See my page Those Crazy Episcopalians! for other reflections on the church, scripture, and the writings of others who deal with these topics.]

Jung at Heart

(reflection upon re-reading Robertson Davies' "Deptford Trilogy," especially the second in the series, THE MANTICORE.  I use a paperback edition from Penguin books, 1984,  Originally published in 1972.)

Robertson Davies (photographed above) was a sly, witty, humane spinner of tales from his esoteric interests.  I've written an appreciation of him elsewhere ( "Reading" at www.smootpage.com  ) , and will focus here on THE MANTICORE.

As a novel, it's a great essay.  It is flanked by wonderful stories.  This one is also fascinating, and it's fun to see how Davies fits its incidents into the larger framework.  But it's still a device for showing the reader what Davies liked in Jung's psychology.

The narrator, lawyer David Staunton, speaks to us through journal entries and transcripts of his year in analysis with a Jungian practitioner.  He tells his life story to her, and she points out to him the way he is casting the real people of his life as characters in his own personal drama.  By the end, he has achieved at least one main goal of analysis:

I am beginning to recognize the objectivity of the world, while knowing also that because I am who and what I am, I both perceive the world in terms of who and what I am and project onto the world a great deal of who and what I am.  If I know this, I ought to be able to escape the stupider kinds of illusion. (269)

All of this was fascinating to me when I read it at 25. Double that, now, and it's a timely reminder.  Now that I think of it, I have a pretty good idea of who my "persona" is and my "shadow."

The face I try to present to the world at my best, my persona, is mild, competent, detached (and therefore ready to be amused), a fair observer whose talents are sifting and finding connections between things, and appreciating others' perspectives the way an actor does.

The shadow, whom I know uncomfortably well when I feel under attack, is hot tempered and ready to strike back with cutting remarks intended to cause permanent damage to the attacker's self-image and social reputation,

My Gripe With Grimes

(reflection on Martha Grimes' detective novel THE BLACK CAT.)

Although I expect any detective fiction to be on some level a game  (see my "Guilty Pleasure in Crime Fiction" ), I also hope to lose myself in the story.   THE BLACK CAT drew me in quickly with elements of plot, involving expensively dressed corpses of women who work for different "escort services."    Grimes also continues an emotional storyline from an earlier book in the series, as Inspector Richard Jury visits a comatose woman in the hospital, guilty that he feels more relief that the relationship is over than sadness over the certainty that she won't recover.  That's plausible.  In this novel, there's a likable small town detective with a paraplegic wife.  They're appealing.

But I could never believe the story because Grimes keeps interrupting it with whimsical characters and their self-consciously witty dialogue -- perhaps aiming for the effect of Sayers' Lord Peter Whimsey fictions. It's why I put down Grimes after initial excitement with her series a few years ago.   The characters seem sometimes to be aware that they are part of an entertainment.  There are whole chapters that seem intended to be "cute," here involving a couple of anthropomorphized pets.  In other novels, there were cute chapters involving over-the-top small town characters -- an aunt, a lazy aristocrat, a snide butler -- all looking like they'd wandered in from a parody of Agatha Christie.   

Granted, it's a fine line to walk between the artifice that we love in detective fiction, and the artificiality that makes it flat.   In Grimes, I think the problem may be in Jury himself, because she seems to play him both ways.   He's sort of like the detective in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?  who passes between a real world and a cartoon one. 

It Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time

(reflections on the news cycle of the past two days.)

I picked up a theme in yesterday's news that points to a universal truth that Democrats and Republicans alike ignore at their peril.  Sorry -- our peril.

The theme is nothing surprising:  When intelligent people in authority get together and make plans with good intentions for other people,  there will be consequences that they did not foresee and would not want.

For example, in a flurry of urgent activity to get a handle on the economic crisis, the Obama administration bought out GM and forced the closing of redundant and poorly performing dealerships.  This made perfect sense, to save jobs by saving the company by divesting it of dead weight.   News yesterday was analysis that shows net harm and net job loss by killing dealerships that were job creators in their communities.  An Obama regulator admitted this today, speaking how they would have done things differently, with benefit of hindsight.

Another example is the 2004 Republican Congress's response to the 9/11 Commission's common - sense  recommendation that a new head of intelligence be given the responsibility and authority to "connect the dots" in all the intelligence gathered.  As the latest candidate for the post interviews for the job today, analysts have reflected on the failure of the idea, as the position holds responsibility but not authority, and it's supported by a vast new bureaucracy that cannot (yet) do what it's intended to do.  Meanwhile, another analyst interviewed yesterday detailed examples of the different agencies' duplications of effort.  Of course, we also saw the "failure to connect the dots" at Christmas when a warning from a would-be bomber's father didn't get through channels to the people who would have kept the man off a plane.

Another example is in the gulf spill.  Here, it's corporate decision-makers plus political ones plus federal decision makers in the Coast Guard and other departments.  Did the dispersants used to break up the oil actually make the situation worse, because the thick oil becomes thinner and more easily absorbed into living tissue?  Has the capping of the pipe actually resulted in subterranean ruptures across a much wider area, hopeless to stop?

When we discuss these things and criticize the ones who made the decisions, we're scoring points as if every decision is a win or lose, right or wrong, smart or stupid, fair or unfair.  But it's always a matter of balance.

What other policy decisions in the news today will be discussed next year "with the benefit of hindsight?" 

John Updike Live, in Cincinnati

(reflections on UPDIKE IN CINCINNATI, edited by James Schiff.)

photo: John Hughes

"The whole aim of civilized life is to create nonviolent circumstances."  John Updike made that observation to explain how he could sympathize with the "prudery" of the NEW YORKER's editor Wallace Shawn. 

Sympathy is John Updike's other talent, the first being his facility with our language.  Besides these, he also works conscientiously, regularly, productively -- "three pages or three hours a day."
 
This book preserves the transcripts of Q and A sessions during two days of public appearances that Updike made as guest of the University of Cincinnati in the spring of 2001, and one can learn from Updike how to handle this kind of situation.  In every response, he explores the other person's assumptions and opinions as if in sympathy, before he begins to define his difference ...and then typically ends with a deferential comment as if to say, "I could be wrong."

Seeing him do this is a great pleasure of the book.  Much of the content is stuff I've read before, and the pages include the entire texts of the stories and essays read to the crowds by Updike and by critics who shared a panel discussion with him. Updike shows at least that he has been able to appreciate the critic's insights before saying, "Well, we all have our approaches and the critics are welcome to theirs.  But it seemed to me...." (57).

He bites back twice, at "every writer's friend" critic Kokutani (?) whose hostile reviews of his work I've seen in the NY Times; and at Tom Wolfe.  Even here, Updike shows that he knows what Wolfe has said, and why, before he dismisses Wolfe's A MAN IN FULL.

A theme that pops up a lot has to do with "archaeology."  It's an explicit metaphor in a story discussed a lot here, whose title includes the phrase "Packed Earth."  I remember a later story with "Archaeology" in the title; and his last book of poems describes how time packs layers of previous selves between the poet and the boy who looks back from the bottom of a well, blue sky behind him.

The editor James Schiff introduces the guest of honor at one event with an anecdote from seeing Updike at another conference.  "I became convinced that John Updike was merely the front man for an underground stable of writers who were .... cranking out stories and reviews ...and articles," until the end of the busy day, when Schiff catches sight of Updike at a table in the corner of the lobby, writing (2).

There are photos of Updike at talks and at the art museum, which I visited a not long after with my aunt Blanche. "I seem to have an expression I maintain through most of these authorial appearances," he writes back to the editor, "mouth half open, as if mulling  a salient point or recovering from a sharp blow to the back of the head"   (xxviii).

Assessing Students' Writing with Rubrics: First, Do No Harm

NOTE:  I wrote this reflection back in 2001, and ran across it in a file this week.  My view has not changed. 
For non-teachers, a "rubric" is a list of qualities ranging from "strong thesis sentence" to "fewer than three spelling errors."  Each quality gets a point value.  In theory, students know before they hand a paper in how much credit their paper should earn; teachers can respond simply by checking off items on the rubric and adding up points.

For non-Episcopalians, a "rubric" is an instruction written in red (L. rubra) in the margins of a prayer book to guide priests in the motions and choices they have during any rite.

Here's the reflection:

The worst experiences I had as a teacher assessing writing both came about when I thought I was upholding high standards as prescribed on a rubric. 

Ready-made rubrics are available

According to the rubric, Laura's researched essay earned C-.  She'd been warned: thesis sentence in the introduction, topic sentences for every paragraph, or else.  She'd been warned at two earlier stages of the writing, too. I didn't see past the rubric to the fact that this paper was a huge step forward for her, that it did many other things I'd asked for.  I didn't know the immense amount of time she had put into making it the best she knew how.  She was crushed, and the entire eighth grade rallied to her support.  In a class meeting, they suggested more flexibility in the rubric....  They also told me (not in so many words) to frontload the assessment, to do more directing early on and to de-emphasize the final grade.  That is, in fact, how I use rubrics now, as a guide and gatepost early on.  My colleague Bonnie Webb (Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project) says it this way:  "[Student], you're going to write an A paper, and this is not yet an A paper."

[Laura's mother quipped that we teachers should take the Hippocratic oath:  "First, do no harm."]

My second bad experience relates to the flip side of rubrics: when they work, they can still do damage.  It was my A++ student Adrian who deflected a compliment from me at the end of the year.  He said I was wrong, that he used to be a good writer, but now he was just writing by formula (i.e., the rubric).  He's right.  I fail to find any articles in New Yorker or even Newsweek that follow those "high standards" involving the five-paragraph formula.

I compare what I did to Laura and Adrian to what Mrs. Spear did for me in seventh grade.  What I learned in my research on "world religions" stays with me, and I spent weekends and one long night on it, proud of my grown-up subject and (I thought) grown-up conclusions.  But I still didn't "get" what a "paragraph" was, and several of mine in that paper are one sentence long.  Few of the paragraphs have topic sentences.  By my own rubric, that was a C- or worse.  But, bless her,  Mrs. Spear encouraged what was good, and saved battles over paragraphing for some other occasion or year.  [Result:   I was confident as a writer, and therefore interested in learning how to improve.]   She graded the paper separately on content, organization, grammar, spelling, and neatness.  Got A's and B's except for the C- in neatness.

Escape Clause: Graham Greene's THE HEART OF THE MATTER

(reflection upon re-reading THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene, in an anthology published by Heineman, 1979.)

"Scobie." Even twenty-seven years after I read THE HEART OF THE MATTER, that name brings to mind a man and his milieu.  He's an officer of the law in a British colony on the west coast of Africa, taciturn, so scrupulously honest that he records only facts in his journal.  He has stripped his office of all personal effects that would speak of a past now lost to him, and little remains except necessaries for the desk and handcuffs on the wall.

More than once, Greene reminds us of those handcuffs, because the colony itself is a kind of prison, at least for the British stationed there. Beyond the borders of the colony, Nazi Germans lurk. The air itself is oppressive, hot and humid, teeming with mosquitoes. The rainy season begins and the drumming of rain on the tin roofs never ends.  Ants, rats, and lizards encroach on their homes.  Besides that, the natives, politely subordinate to the British, form a tangle of interconnected families and lies so thick that Scobie long ago gave up trying to judge who was right or wrong in any of their conflicts.     

That much I remembered.  I'd forgotten how wittily concise Greene is.  Greene breaks us into the world of the novel via Wilson, fresh off the boat, surveying the city from a hotel's balcony, pink gin in hand.  Like Scobie, Greene doesn't have to pass judgement; we know all when we read of Wilson's pink knees, thin mustache, and concealed books of poetry, one verse concerning betrayal of friendship. Wilson's guide points out Scobie, and Wilson takes an interest in rumors that Scobie may be sleeping with black women and may be taking bribes.  What we figure out, long before Scobie does, is that Wilson is secretly investigating corruption in the colony.

Though I'd forgotten the specifics of the plot -- Wilson falls in love with Scobie's wife while Scobie falls in love with a young refugee from a sunken ship -- I remembered how Scobie's world closes in on him.    Whatever Scobie does with good intentions, always above board, also gives the appearance of corruption, and draws him deeper into relationships with characters whose interests conflict. 

Is there any escape?  Greene contrives it so that Scobie has no viable choices, except to hurt either his wife or his lover.  He chooses instead to hurt his God, sacrificing his integrity for pity. Early in the novel, discussing a suicide with his ultra-montaine wife, he says "sharply" that even suicide can be forgiven: "We'd forgive most things if we knew the facts" (p.68).

Still, the novel doesn't endorse Scobie's choice.  An ironic coda makes Scobie's heroic sacrifices seem foolish. The world is more tangled and deceitful than even Scobie thought. 

The real escape from this net of interconnected needs and tangled deceptions is one offered by a bland priest, to take care of one's relationship to God first, and let God handle the rest.

Johnny O'Neal, Jazz Pianist: Leaving them Laughing

(reflection on a recital by Johnny O'Neal, pianist, at the Southwest Arts Center of Atlanta, June 13.  With trio.)

Atlanta jazz lovers know the voice of H. Johnson, host of "Jazz Classics" beginning every Saturday night from 9 p.m. 'til  two o'clock, and it was around midnight that I woke up to hear Johnny O'Neal playing and talking jazz with H.   A few hours later, I was seeing both of them at a fine community theatre, as H. introduced his old friend.

The affable Mr. O'Neal, looking a bit thinner than his picture here, played for more than two hours with local guys on percussion and bass.  He opened with "Put on a Happy Face," setting a theme for the show.   Once he had established the tune, he played around with it.   One hallmark of his style is his penchant for very suddenly pulling back on the volume, barely touching the keys, often while the room resonates with a chord he has just pounded out.   His improv included dozens of notes that seem like a spray of sound, soft and brilliant.

He followed that with "Some of My Best Friends are the Blues," getting laughs with scat.

There was hardly a moment when laughter wasn't a part of the performance.  There was slapstick comedy of the Victor Borge variety, but there were also moments when he seemed to surprise himself with an idea and chuckled. 

He got serious with a version of Whitney Houston's hit "Savin' All My Love for You," played mostly as a languorous jazz waltz, followed by a Seventies ballad, "With Every Breath I Take," sung with a deep baritone that rose to crying, sighing high notes.

Just when I was thinking that he hadn't done anything in the Gospel vein, he obliged, though his improvisation rather overwhelmed the familiar gospel riffs.  He concluded with "I Need A Vacation From the Blues."

While he was vigorous at the keyboard, he looked frail when he walked.  He seemed like a wizened kid in his dad's suit, making me wonder if he has gone through some bad times recently.

Still, he left us with a lot of happy faces.

What's Toxic, Sticky, and Spreads?

American Egret takes flight from an oil-impacted marsh along the Louisiana coast. June 7, 2010 - AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Jeremiah 17:5-6  Cursed is the man who trusts in man…. He is like a shrub in the desert [and shall dwell in] an uninhabited salt land.

On this day one year ago, a deadly explosion released torrents of oil that flowed unabated for months.  It polluted Gulf waters and coated the shore, suffocating life, making fertile land uninhabitable.

We felt anger even more than sorrow.  We had trusted “failsafe” technology;  in any case, we had trusted agencies to shield the marshland and beaches.  We felt betrayed.

But in our interconnected world, there’s a lot of betrayal to go around.  I drive, heat and cool my home, shop for low price on gasoline, and invest in funds that include oil stocks.  In these ways, I supported the drilling for oil in the Gulf; didn’t we all?  While teams of volunteers frantically scrubbed toxic tar from the eyes and mouths of turtles and birds, I cringed with the feeling that those innocent creatures of God were suffering for our Sin.

By “Sin,” I don’t mean air-conditioning, but a pervasive human condition that spreads like oil through the Bible, from the garden of Eden to the garden of Gethsemane.  Once Adam and Eve betray the Lord’s trust, the story of humanity becomes the story of Cain against Abel, nation against nation, powerful against powerless.   Again and again, God’s beloved people betray His trust, finally delivering His son to the cross.

God’s cleanup begins at Easter, and spreads by disciples from Jerusalem to Rome, from Jews to Gentiles, from generation to generation, all the way to St. James’ Church in Marietta today. 

Like teams of engineers, Coast Guard, fishermen, and animal rescuers who rushed to the Gulf last year – plus marine biologists, civic agents and lawyers who will continue dealing with consequences of the oil spill for many years to come – we all have our work to do, and we have to do it together. 





 

Atlanta Lyric Theatre Does Sondheim Musical: It's a Hit!

(reflections on A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Produced by the Atlanta Lyric Theatre at the Strand Theatre in Marietta, GA.  Production directed by Alan Kilpatrick.)

What more is there to say about this exemplar of musical comedy?  Since 1962, after a rough period of gestation that required the help of "show doctor" Jerome Robbins,  A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM has worked, even when production values were lacking.  I know, because production values have always lacked in every production I've seen, until now.

At the Strand, a refurbished old movie theatre on Marietta's refurbished 19th century town square, a peppy and precise band played the delightful Overture.  Rotund and cherubic-faced Glenn Rainey took the stage and promised "Comedy Tonight."  The audience was charmed right away.  When the curtain rose on three distinct Roman houses squashed together on the very narrow but tall stage, the audience applauded. The song got laughs for the antics of the "Proteans" and for the entrance of each character.  Every joke and every song landed.   Every actor seemed perfectly suited to the part.  Of course the characters are stereotypes -- those haven't changed in the 2000 years since the source material for this play premiered in ancient Rome -- but these actors made the characters feel like old friends.   I don't recall other actors I've seen in the roles of Hysterium, Senex, Lycus, or Domina, but young Chase Todd, Robert Wayne, Brad Raymond and Ingrid Cole made strong impressions. 

Sondheim's music and lyrics were overlooked in 1964.  How?   Every one of them contains polished gems of verbal playfulness (my companion especially liked, "The situation's fraught, / Fraughter than I thought..." and I've always been partial to "Today I woke, too weak to walk").  The music serves the actors their comic effects on a silver platter, the pauses and punchlines accented by the accompaniment.

Mr. Sondheim, if you happen to Google yourself and see this, you will be gratified to know that a companion, seeing the show for the first time, commented how the tunes were so "hummable," and the nine-year-old girl on our row, also seeing it for the first time, was actually humming along.

Spencer Quinn's Dog Detective Series: A Doggie Treat

(reflections on DOG ON IT and THEREBY HANGS A TAIL, the first two novels in a series by Spencer Quinn.)

On one page -- 42 in the first edition of THEREBY HANGS A TAIL -- I counted six aspects of this series that have made every page a pleasure to read.

First, when the narrator is a real dog's dog like Chet, the German Shepherd, you get deliciously ironic moments.  He thinks that he knows more than he does:  "I was in the picture, understood the whole enchilada just like Bernie" (i.e., the P.I. who owns Chet).

"Enchilada" sends Chet off on a tangent, and we get another delight of the series.  It's just like a dog to run off the track after any fleeting thought.

Meanwhile, Bernie is waiting for a small private plane to appear.  By now, Chet's ears have been bothered by the buzz of its approach for at least a page.  But only now does Bernie say, "I think I hear something."  Chet's enhanced senses bring us some angles on a story -- sounds and smells -- that we don't usually get.

But it's Chet's attitude that makes these books so delightful.   Like any healthy dog I've known, he seems to find pleasure, at least interest, in just about every thing that happens.  A limo approaches, "leaving a golden trail of swirling dust" in its wake.  Chet comments, "Things were so beautiful sometimes I just wanted to gaze and gaze."

And through all this, it's still a legitimate crime novel, with its cast of interesting human characters, such as Adelina, a woman who causes detective Bernie's jaw to drop on page 42.

So reason number six is that Bernie is a sympathetic guy, and Chet's admiration and devotion to him are boundless.  The reverse is also true.  It's like reading about young romance (puppy love?), fun and funny and sometimes heart - breaking when one of the pair is in danger and separated from the other.

A seventh reason, as lagniappe:  According to Quinn's official bio, his favorite authors include two that I've been reading this past week, novelist Graham Greene and poet Philip Larkin.  Anyone who likes those two, and dogs, has got to be good.

Students: Why Visit Savannah?

(letter to seventh graders, introducing a workbook that will accompany them to Savannah in September.)

Dear Student,

You walk up steps every school day. Do you know how many?  Most of us can't answer that question.  As Sherlock Holmes said, “People see, but do not observe.”  How many of us just pass through the world without observing most of what we see?

When you visit your grandmother, do you observe what her home tells about her past? Have you looked where she keeps her wedding dress, childhood treasures, and letters from her own grandmother?  If so, then you pass through time when you walk through her home. Do you ever ask her about her childhood?   She asks you about yours!  She wants to tell you about the people and places that made her who she is, if only you’d ask.   She raised someone who raises you, so, deep down, her past is a part of your past, too.

Savannah is our state’s beautiful grandmother, and Savannah will be telling us stories of her early life, a life that’s a part of the past of every Georgian and every American.    She “talks” through guides, but also through what you see.  The people of her past tell you stories through their buildings, designs, and artwork. 


This booklet will be your source for notes, quotes, and examples when you return to school and write for your teachers about what you learned.  The questions here will help you to “hear” what Savannah says.  Make notes on what you observe, and make notes on the stories you hear from guides.  Make notes, too, about how it all affects you, and about your friends. 

Someday, this booklet may be the souvenir of a trip that made a difference in your life, a memory of a fun time when you outgrew a stage of childhood, something for a grandchild to find in your attic.
  

Joys of Larkin

(reflections on Philip Larkin by way of an essay published on line in CONTEMPORARY POETRY REVIEW.)

The late writer Rachel Wetzsteon begins her essay "Philip Larkin and Happiness" with a disclaimer:  the title isn't one of those jokes, along the lines of a slim volume called "German Humor."  For the famous curmudgeon, she writes, happiness was key to his work, even in its absence.

The article cites a poem that took me by surprise a week ago.  Called simply, "Coming," the poem conjures the look and feel of sunset outside a row of suburban homes at that time of year when days are getting longer. When a thrush sings, "astonishing the brickworks,"  Larkin reflects that the feeling is like that of a child "Who comes on a scene / Of adult reconciling."  Without understanding why, the child "starts to be happy."

Reading this at a deli as the sun rose on a Saturday, following an exhausting Friday, I felt that happiness unfold in me. 

I've written elsewhere on this blog about the joys of Larkin.  I recommend Ms.Wetzteon's essay, which focuses on a marvelous poem called "Born Yesterday."

Meaning of LIfe: Detectives' Perspectives

(reflections on two novels, FACELESS KILLERS by Henning Mankell -- first in the series -- and TEA TIME FOR THE TRADITIONALLY BUILT by Alexander McCall Smith.)

In FACELESS KILLERS, Henning Mankell writes of his detective Kurt Wallander that he rarely gives himself over to philosophy, repose, or introspection. "Life for him was a matter of juggling practical questions that needed resolution" (123).

Same here. My perpetual to-do list is like Wallander's -- answering mail, putting off a phone call, cleaning up the place, making a note to call a repairman -- only "find killer" isn't on it.  On Sundays, and whenever I take time to write here on this blog, I wonder if life is being frittered away doing small errands and ticking off deadlines that are met with a flurry of activity and then forgotten.  When I have a large swath of time, I miss the errands that give shape and urgency to the activity of the day. 

That may be a large part of the appeal of contemporary detective novels: murder gives point and urgency to all the busy-ness of the day.  Coffee, showers, bills, car trouble, family crises, unanswered messages and other homely details beset the detectives of Mankell, Cornwell, Grafton, Mosley, Cruz Smith, making their lives more of a piece with our own,  They share in our daily stuff, and we share vicariously in the pursuit of truth that's supposed to put our mundane life in perspective.  

With McCall Smith, it's the other way around: it's the small problems and perspectives on life that give his books their flavor, and the investigation of crime merely binds the threads of his characters' homely concerns. 

In a scene of introspection during TEA TIME FOR THE TRADITIONALLY BUILT, Alexander McCall Smith's detective Precious Ramatswe sits with tea before her family wakes up.  She enjoys the moments before she has to juggle practical questions of her own: preparing breakfast, dressing her kids and husband, "a hundred things to do."  But for the moment she could be alone, "As the sun came up over the border to the east ... hovering over the horizon like a floating ball of fire" (55).  This brings to the mind of Mma Ramatswe something that a priest once told her, when she worried that the sun would someday swallow the earth. "Our concern should be what is happening right now. There is plenty of work for love to do, you know"(56).

I like the sound of that.  If convicting a murderer isn't on one's list of things to do, it takes something else to make it all worthwhile.  Religion is supposed to provide that, but a creed and assurances of forgiveness don't make sweeping the floor or buying the milk any more meaningful.  Let one see those "practical questions that need resolution" as part of the "work for love to do," then that's motivation.

High School Actors Make Summer Brave Real

(reflections on SUMMER BRAVE by William Inge, directed by Katie Arjona for the Walker School's upper school.  Performance April 18, 2010).

In a tiny studio theatre where the audience sits within six paces of the cast, the actors must do more than speak their lines with conviction.  The characters flirting in the background are as close to us as the ones with dialogue in the foreground, and we can see in their eyes if they're in character or not.   In a production of William Inge's SUMMER BRAVE by students of the Walker School in Marietta, GA, every move was true to the character, even between the lines.

When the play begins, life is balanced and predictable in Flo's home.  Daughter Madge (Olivia Breton) is "the pretty one" and engaged to an attentive and upright young man with a bright future, Alan Seymour (Patrick McPherson);  the other daughter Millie (Casey Schreiner) resents her sister's prettiness and claims to care about books and art instead of boys.  Flo (Kiwi Lanier) is a widow focused on her girls' future marital prospects; her neighbor Mrs. Potts (portrayed by hilarious Claire Golden) is unmarried, flighty, and oblivious.  Their border Rosemary (Megan Hilburn) is a teacher maintaining a tense relationship with forty year old Howard (Jordan Perry) vague about his commitment to marry her.

A stranger upsets the balance.  Hal Carter (Justin Kasian) appears, unemployed, unattached, and unreserved.  He enters in a wife-beater tee, sweating, with an ingratiating grin. Every female on stage seems to be attracted and repelled to some degree.  There's to be a picnic that night, and, in no time, Hal has a date with the younger sister Millie, and he's flirting with the older sister Madge.  When Howard brings whiskey along for the evening, we know that this community event will be no picnic.

Inge's script is almost schematic in its pattern of contrasts, but the actors didn't settle for black and white.   During the sisters' banter, Breton and Schreiner hurled accusations at each other, but we could see that "Millie" needed some reassurance from her older sister, and Breton's eyes registered concern while her annoying sister baited her.  McPherson is supposed to be too proper, too passive, making Hal roughness and impulsiveness irresistible to Madge.  But when the two men confronted each other, Kasian showed a boyish vulnerability, while McPherson was hardly passive.  He let us see Al's mind and heart at odds, knowing that his old friend Hal is not to be trusted, while hoping that he might save Hal with the right mix of generosity and reason. 

It's been a week since I saw the show, but I haven't lost complex impressions made by the characters in key moments:

• When the widow Flo, comforting Madge, says that a girl can be taken in by the attractiveness of a man who will ruin her life, actress Kiwi Lanier seemed to be looking into her own past, though the script never says outright that she's describing her own marriage.  

• While inconsequential dialogue went on among other characters, Kasian's "Hal" attempted to dance with Schreiner's "Millie," but she let us see by her awkward steps and downcast eyes how her fear of being inadequate vied with her hopes of being desirable like her sister. Then Hal turned to dance with Madge, and their simple swing step turned quickly into an aggressive display, foreshadowing all that would follow.

• One of the most intense moments of the play occurs when the whiskey flows, and schoolmarm Rosemary, having been needled by her "friends" (played by Mohini Chakravorty and Georgie Wilkins), expresses her resentments at men.  She delivers her tirade inches from Hal's face and drills into him what a useless excuse for a man he is.  Kasian hardly moved while she circled him and attacked, but his devil-may-care look hardened into grim determination.  We expected, and got, an explosion.   

• In just a few moments, McPherson took "Seymour" from forgiveness offered to Madge, to a fistfight with Hal, to pain of loss when she rejects him, through the quick decision to change all of his plans for the future.  Yet he suppressed the character's inner turmoil to smile at others' happier endings. He was still smiling a little as he turned for his final exit, swallowing hard, eyes red. 

• In the final scene, Breton's eyes were haunting, first rimmed in makeup smeared with tears.  She started the play as the self-composed town beauty, fascinating and untouchable to the boys in town (played by Josh Zuckerman, Alex Moyer, Matt Lewis and Myles Haslam); but the morning after her fling at the picnic, they return like a wolf pack to a dog in heat, hooting and honking their cars at her.  Breton exited stiffly, eyes staring forward, reflecting horror at what she has lost and what her future holds.

I saw the play with a colleague of mine who has also taught young actors for decades, and she was as impressed as I by the layers of character and the quality that all the actors had of being wholly "in the moment." 

Kudos to director Katie Arjona, who worked the actors hard to make their face - to - face interactions real.

Jamie Cullum in Concert: Shhhh! This is called "Jazz!"

(Reflections after seeing the concert by Jamie Cullum and musicians at the Cobb Energy Center north of Atlanta, Friday night, March 13.)


I hear the word "Jazz," and my pulse starts racing immediately. But for a generation or more, "Jazz" has become a word of scorn. Some women I know, older than I am, think of jazz as ugly, formless, annoying; students in my middle school classes use "jazz" the way my generation used "elevator music." So maybe it's good marketing for Jamie Cullum to play down the core of his strength as a performer.

In an interview broadcast on NPR the morning after I saw Jamie Cullum, the young singer / pianist told of playing jazz clubs in London where audiences were sparse and much older than he was, until word of mouth got around about, in his words, "the type of show I do," and he drew in fellow twenty-somethings.

He has since attracted an audience as wide as a continent, and an ocean away from that little jazz club. On the Grand Tier level of the house at his concert in Atlanta Friday night, there were elderly couples, young women who screamed "Whooo!" and "Jamie!" whenever he ripped off an article of clothing, college-aged Asian Indian groupies who posed with their Jamie Cullum posters at intermission, my friend Suzanne who is JC's age, and this fifty-year-old fan of piano jazz and show tunes.

So, does he still have to step up on the piano and jump off? Does he still have to kick the piano stool over and stand pounding chords on the grand? The promotional material extolled his "spontaneity," but some of these "spontaneous" actions seemed to be a requirement. Standing at the top of the piano, his body language and a long pause seemed to ask us, "Do I really have to do this?" I don't fault him for giving his audience what they wanted; I fault the audience for wanting all that when he was offering so much more!

For his show Friday night, he treated us to a wide range of musical styles and textures. He sang ballads alone at the piano, including an original composition "Grand Torino," composed for the movie that strikes me as an instant standard -- moving, thought-provoking, tuneful, well-crafted. He made a point of stepping away from the microphone to rely just on his voice. He sang a new rendition of a song that I've heard him sing on TV and on recording, Cole Porter's "I Get a Kick Out of You," this time arranged simply for his voice and an upright bass. He improvised at the key board while other band members played solo trumpet and guitar.

He worked an intense, slightly abstracted version of Stephen Sondheim's "Nothing's Going to Harm You" into the middle of another song.

His real spontaneity is the kind that qualifies him as a jazz musician, and that's what happens when he and his band surprise each other with twists and sparks in the music. He's in his thirties now, and he doesn't have to jump off pianos any more. Unleash the jazz, and let it work on a new generation or two, or three.

Colette Collected and Recollected: Sweet and Sour

(reflection on COLETTE, a musical entertainment by John Dankworth, original 1980 cast album released by Stagedoor Records, and THE COLLECTED STORIES OF COLETTE. edited by Robert Phelps.)

Singer / Actress Cleo Laine and her husband composer / lyricist John Dankworth opened previews of COLETTE in London the very week that my summer in England ended in 1979, and listening to it brings back that time sweetly. The sweetness is increased because their loving marriage came to an end with Dankworth's death from long illness just a few weeks ago.

I also caught up on reading the works of the eponymous writer, expecting to enhance the experience. But I wish I'd taken the sweet "musical entertainment" without the sourness of the writer.

Mr. Dankworth must have enjoyed writing this musical "entertainment" for his wife. It opens with a waltz set at a reflective tempo, with rich jazzy chords arpeggiated behind Cleo's smokey observations about the changing colors of seasons, and how "You Can Be Sure of Spring." Other numbers are spritely marches, a little girl ditty for little girl Colette, and more waltzes. It's a little jarring when sounds that were hip in 1980 intrude, sounding extremely dated. Dankworth arranges the songs the way he arranged his wife's concerts, saving her high notes for an anthem of self-assertion midway through the score.

The show originated at the summer arts camp that the Dankworths ran together for decades, and there's a little summer camp quality. The lyrics rhyme playfully and frequently without ever saying a whole lot. Dankworth settled for repetition and stereotyped lines ("He was a sight to see!" and lots of lines with "really" and "quite" filling out the meter). The story -- there is no script mentioned in the credits -- is about a country girl who marries an urbane young bounder who uses her talents for his own self-promotion. Later, she creates a line of cosmetics, she acts on stage, and she divorces number one and marries two more.

It's a pleasant relic from a time when Cleo's voice was at its peak of clarity, suppleness, range, and stamina. The show was light, and a way for Cleo to wear lovely costumes, show off in bright songs and in thoughtful ballads. It was a lovingly crafted gift from Dankworth to Cleo.

The real Colette comes across in her stories as a fine craftsman -- if one can judge from translations -- but also as disdainful of the people she describes. "Cheri" focuses on a narcissistic young man through the eyes of the older woman who keeps him. We read about his skin, his hair, his muscles, his pouting, his wearing her pearls, his dancing around the bedroom while she watches. One blogger observes astutely that this is a reversal of the usual point of view, and that's interesting.

In a suite of stories set backstage at a 1920s music hall in Paris, Colette evidently draws on her own experience as a "mime" to show us monstrous behavior, cheapness, drabness, and insecurity back stage. One portrait of "The Quick Change Artist" shows sympathy for the young woman who dances herself into a state of quivering exhaustion, runs backstage to change costume in under a minute, and runs back on stage for another desperate dance in another style.

Some other stories are brief glimpses of criminals: stupid men who have lashed out stupidly at girls we never see except as corpses. We see how these men self-destruct.

I don't have time to think this through right now, but I have observed many times in this blog that certain artists -- Updike, Sondheim, Shakespeare, Buechner, and mystery writer Sue Grafton -- feel a love or at least a sympathy for their characters, and they work hard to get us to appreciate them. Colette's ability to observe is as acute as anyone's, yet I feel from her only disdain, though she sometimes condescends to feel pity for someone.

After reading stories from each of the sections in this collection, I've had to give up. I was getting depressed.

Greece's Tantrum: When Safety Net Becomes a Crib

(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

(reflections on recent street demonstrations in Greece and health care debate in the US.)

In Greece, we're seeing lots of demonstrations. We're also seeing a demonstration of what happens when the State becomes Daddy for its people. Naturally, those people become like adolescents -- dependent, feeling entitled, petulant, short-sighted -- but without the charms of youth or the adolescent's excuse of a disconnected frontal lobe.

Today, the AP reports up to 30,000 demonstrators including masked "youths" who hurt people and property, while some units of the police, also dependent on government largesse, stood by in silent approval.

Earlier this week on NPR, I heard one of those demonstrators against the Greek government's austerity plans ask, "What will the government ration next? The air we breathe?" She thought she was making a clever rhetorical point about the current government's callousness, but she unwittingly demonstrated how decades of Greek voters' clamoring for more protections, more programs, more subsidies have made those same voters frighteningly dependent on their Daddy.

That image of the "safety net" has long since lost its original meaning. The acrobat who falls into a safety net is supposed to jump right out and get back up on the trapeze. But now, when liberals speak of "safety net," they're thinking of a floor beyond which no one can drop by reason of old age, disability, illness, location, temporary unemployment, chronic unemployment, unemployability... regardless.

Greece demonstrates that the safety net can become a crib, infantilizing its people. Where's security when a large chunk of the population is dependent upon the state for salary, health care, transportation, retirement income, utilities, and an ever-growing list of services promised to attract votes from an ever-larger chunk of the population?

A Greek union official, quoted on NPR, called the government "hypocrites" for making "the people" pay for the mismanagement of the previous government. Again, he's revealing something scary: In the birthplace of democracy, where voters chose the previous government on the basis of its promises of benefits, who's to blame for the mismanagement?

I've heard further analysis about the government's failure to collect taxes, because some 80% of the population is involved in some form of "black market," bypassing taxes. The Greek economist scolded his own people: "Corruption causes poverty, not the other way around."

While Greece is tangled up in its erstwhile "safety net," the US Congress is considering a federal mandate to purchase health insurance in order to spread risk for companies.

It's hard for me to see this as quite the threat that Republicans' rhetoric makes it out to be. Nor can I see the government takeover of GM and purchase of stock in AIG as creeping European Social Democracy. My very conservative Republican state of Georgia has long mandated that everyone purchase auto insurance for exactly the same purpose as the proposed health insurance mandate; and Ronald Reagan oversaw the buying up of Savings and Loans and the bailout of Chrysler -- temporary measures to stabilize the markets.

But it's easy to see how temporary "safety net" provisions have become permanent parts of everyone's plans for their own futures, Republicans' as well as Democrats'. That's how, thread by thread, the safety net becomes a different kind of net, a snare.

Theology of Crosswords: A Shortz Sermon

Will Shortz has two strong associations with Sundays: He's "Puzzle Master" on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, and, as editor of crosswords from the New York Times, he compiles the books of Sunday crosswords that I've worked for years.

[Photo: Will Shortz, by Diane Christensen]

The Sunday connection inspires me to reflect on theological insights to be learned from crosswords:


A Shortz Sermon
When you begin a new puzzle, it's the Creation all over again: a paradise of potential.

Inspiration comes amid the perspiration: You suddenly know that "_ _ _ _ _ R I N" must be MANDARIN, and out roll the words "muMs," "basAl," "eleNa,""larDs," and, fittingly, "ahA!"

Like the cornerstone that the builders rejected (Luke 20.17), a three-letter word can be the key to solving one-fourth of a puzzle

Little sins have consequences that spread wide: so many words "across" went awry because I misspelled "Omar Kaayyam!"

Sins can be erased, once you recognize that all of the "across" words make sense after you change your one bad answer "down"

How wonderful to perceive a pattern! ("Whoa! Birds are concealed in miCROWave and T. E. LaWRENce!")

Often words mean more than they seem to mean: "English channel" can be the BBC.

Reincarnation makes sense. How else could I, vegetable - challenged, know instantly that a "leafy vegetable" is chard?

Trust that the creator has a plan, even though you can't see it (and you won't peek in the back!)

Z: When you fit the final letter in place, it's time for renewal: Next page!

[Will Shortz appears frequently in Adrienne Raphel's Thinking Inside the Box, her book about the phenomenon of crosswords. Read about it here. Will Shortz's introduction to a book of cartoon-related puzzled inspired somewhat more serious reflections, detailed in a blog entry in 2007,The Real Intelligent Design ]