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I posed a number of probing questions to Moristotle recently. His answers give us new insights into his mind and heart, while on a lighter note, they also helped me figure out what to give him for his 80th birthday tomorrow!
Thanks to my sister, Jennifer, for taking the photos above.
What three (or more) words would you use to describe yourself?
Skeptical, optimistic, helpful. I’m surprised how easily those three words came, and how confident I am of them….No, those came too fast; they need qualification, elaboration.
“Skeptical” applies mainly to incoming information, “the news,” or passing opinions of others. Being skeptical is questioning, doubting, refraining from judgment, not outright dismissive, not inclined to store it as “knowledge.” I wish I were more skeptical about things I see with my own eyes, because I way too often wrongly interpret “visual data,” imposing on them a pre-formed conception of what I was expecting to see, or assuming. This can be fatal if I’m driving at 70mph on a freeway. I have, however, come to be more skeptical even of myself. One needs to be skeptical of one’s own self – or, at least, I would recommend that.
“Optimistic” isn’t expecting things to turn out okay, or get better, but rather a sense that I can endure and retain my strength, whatever happens. I see in dramas on TV an annoying number of instances of parents reassuring their children that “it’ll be okay.” It very well may not be. The script writers need to think of some more realistic words of reassurance.
“Helpful” may need the least elaboration. It parallels my oft-expressed wish that I not continue living past my being of use to others.
And, of course, you said “at least three.” I would like to add “empathetic,” which I believe I am, perhaps excessively, to the extent of projecting consciousness and self-awareness onto birds and other animals, certainly onto dogs. But who is to say that these creatures don’t have those faculties; dogs certainly do. And birds seem extremely aware. How else could numbers of them descend on a bird feeder I’ve just filled and hung, if not from at least one bird’s having been “keeping watch” and alerting others after spotting me doing the deed?
“Compassionate” is another. My heart goes out to people I see out and about (at Walmart or Costco, on the street, wherever) who appear to be burdened or sad. I feel for them. Similarly with dramatic characters. The world is often too much for a person. You know that too.
I feel that I must add a word that characterizes my shortcomings, my faults. “Imperfect”? “Flawed?” Or just “human”? I haven’t thought of the word yet, but I want to register my sense of needing to add such a word to the list.
What inspires you?
My short answer to that is: anything. And sometimes everything, as when the overarching “mystery of being” imposes itself on me. But, then, some things do not inspire me; Bible verses, for example – unless “in reverse,” by way of occasioning an essay or a story or a poem that “takes off” from there, interpreting a verse, opposing it, reframing it. Maybe the key to what I’m saying in reply to this question is that, at my core, I see myself as an artist. I’m even trying to sculpt this answer artfully. Wordartfully, wordplayfully.
What books do you think everyone should read? Why?
Must I have books to recommend that way? How many books are there now, anyway? Many, many, many more than I have read or ever will read, or even know exist. No doubt, a number of those, were I to read them, would be ones I was very glad to have read, for one or more of several possible reasons: literary delight, psychological insight, wisdom….And have books to recommend to whom, and for what?
With the caveat that the following books are not for everyone, I would very highly recommend Sam Harris’ short book, Free Will, and a few works of his associates Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion and Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide), Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great), and Daniel C. Dennett (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and Consciousness Explained). These books are not for everyone because they can provoke people who are deeply ensconced in religion to vigorously denying what they’re reading and shoring up their reasons for believing the things the books are questioning. Of course, as our late colleague Victor L. Midyett taught us, the books can’t make these readers do that, the readers are doing it to themselves in their attempts to repel the books’ indictments. (Those are my opinions, as an amateur psychologist.)
What are your three favorite quotations, and why is each of them memorable for you?
Well, the first that came to mind was Gertrude Stein’s “There’s no there there.” That might be a paraphrase; I haven’t checked it. She was speaking of Oakland, California; I extend it to religion. I admit, however, that there’s no there for me; obviously, many people seem to find a lot there for them.
No other quotations are coming to mind at the moment. I could look for that list I made one time (for Facebook, I think), if I still have it. Maybe in Moristotle & Co.’s back pages…Well, I just checked, and there’s no such list there. I also checked a recent post of Ken Marks’ favorite quotes; his list is long, but none of them would be my favorites.
Surely something Albert Camus, or Søren Kierkegaard, or Jean-Paul Sartre, or Rainer Maria Rilke(!) said would be a candidate for my list of three favorites. Something existential, apparently? I suspect the two remaining quotations (to answer your question proportionally) would come from Kierkegaard and Rilke. They would be my two favorite authors of the four named. What would make quotations of theirs memorable to me (even though I apparently don’t literally remember them) is my strong sense of many hours spent reading and rereading works by those two thinkers in seeking (and finding) spiritual nourishment.
I looked through a long list of Kierkegaard quotations, and I came upon one that I found very familiar and close enough to my heart to be labeled a favorite: “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” And another: “Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.”
I did the same for Rilke: “All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up.” (I don’t know what work that came from.) “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic / Orders?” (The second one is the opening of the first Duino Elegy, many of whose lines are deeply meaningful to me from many readings, and they might be candidates for favorites.) Having quoted from The Duino Elegies, I now want to sit down and read it again, as well as his Sonnets to Orpheus. But I don’t seem to be able to find either; do I even still have a copy of them?
That’s four quotations, one above quota! I’m sure there are more (maybe as many as Ken’s long list), but I guess it’s questionable how “favorite” they are, since I can’t just quote them off the top of my head (the way James T. Carney seems to be able to quote all manner of things from his high school Latin studies). Ironically, I can quote from the Bible, owing to the unfortunately many hours I spent in Bible study. Obviously, they aren’t among my favorites. So maybe being a favorite quote doesn’t imply that it must be remembered and quotable without checking?
What is your favorite or most vivid childhood memory?
Some of my most vivid are too sad to be favorites. Like seeing my poor, ailing mother standing tired at the sink of our house on the chicken ranch outside Petaluma washing dishes….
A happy and favorite moment is the image of my happily smiling father handing me an ice cream cone, with two scoops on the cone, if my memory is accurate (and not just fanciful). I see one vanilla and one strawberry. Ah! Another happy memory is evoked by the black-and-white photo of me and my father on a big tractor in a cotton field (I think it’s a cotton field). But I don’t think I actually remember standing on the tractor; I just remember often looking at the photo, which is framed and hanging on a wall of my office.
What is your most cherished keepsake?
My most cherished keepsakes are plural: doilies crocheted by my mother, my father’s perhaps last pocket watch, his hunting knife (from earlier in his life, I think, than me), photographs of my parents, photographs of my sisters, photographs of you and Jennifer as young children. I guess I cherish many things.
What do the people you love or admire have in common?
A good heart, an uncommon mind.
What organizational tools help you to stay on track with your daily routine and current goals?
I probably employ too many “tools”: scribbles on notes, email drafts addressed to myself, notes in an Apple “Notes” space, dictating into an email draft as I walk, a monthly calendar page on our hall chest of drawers, lists on sheets of paper on my computer desk. Those tools are more for remembering specific, unique tasks, than daily routines. Daily routines seem to take care of themselves because they are routines, habits. Routines are good, I love them. I was wondering just this morning whether people have rituals out of a love for routine; their lives may be hectic, dangerous, worrisome, but if they remember to pray at each of five or so times a day, or whatever, they gain some stability, some comforting repetition.
Over the few days after giving that response, at least partly as a result of focusing on the problem revealed when I answered your question about tools I use to manage time, I have evolved a tool that I really like, and think flexible enough to replace the others:
I started the new procedure by simply emailing myself a list of to-do’s under the subject line, “Do today or in the near future.” The way I deploy it is daily to reply with done items deleted, new items added, and undone items reviewed. For now, this “solution” seems to work well and promises to “unify” my tools into a central, more easily manageable one.
Would you describe a specific daily routines (e.g., preparing food, doing push-ups) and muse on why you love them and what they do for you?
Ha, it seems to be working on Moristotle & Co.
Of the Moristotle posts that you yourself have authored, which would make your “short list” of posts that have special personal meaning or potential wider appeal? What would a Moristotle’s Greatest Hits compilation look like?
That’s the question you and Jennifer must have had in mind several years ago when you suggested I collect my “musings and perusings” for book publication. When you suggested such a collection, my “fictional” character Goines had not yet arrived on the scene. But now that he is well-established, he would head my list, featuring my extended “Goines On” short story that won the writing contest.
My unhinged essay of a little over five years ago, “Unique new evidence for divine intervention: Remember: ‘God’ backward spells ‘Dog’,” would be on it. I loved going on poop patrol with Siegfried!
Some of my sestinas and sonnets and other poems would be on the list – maybe even a few limericks.
My “New Ten Commandments”? No, probably not; too derivative, too dependent on others’ work. But I probably would include a few of my musings about those works – how they inspired me, gave me pause. After all, my breaking free from religious indoctrination occurred during the blog’s early years.
I’d include my 2012 essay, “To the three white ladies, I was a colored maid,” and its related pieces (collected in our Back Pages), not because they’re great, but because I think they’re humorous. Or maybe I’m just still a bit miffed at being pressured to retire from UNG General Administration?....
Let’s stop there, shall we? Be assured that moving forward with the “musings and perusings” collection is now on my active to-do list. So help me, Alexandra Dotcheva!
So many talented, thought-provoking writers have contributed to the blog over the years. How would you characterize the Moristotle community?
Well, “loosely knit” comes to mind. It might be a tight community if we actually met and sat around a conference table together, but I have yet to meet some of the staff members myself, and I probably never will. I have tried to bring everyone together via email, but no give-and-take interchanges involving everyone have resulted. I’ve had to wonder whether everyone even read each email.
But “& Co.” has worked to bring a wide offering of poems, stories – even novels – travelogues, reviews, humor, artwork, interviews to our readers, because individual members have generously submitted their work voluntarily and been responsive to my nudges.
Maybe it’s more of a network than a community. Everyone interchanges with me, and groups of two or three have formed their own networks – or come to me as a network, like the Jeff City Poets.
What are your proudest accomplishments?
The first item that came to mind was the 1973 publication of my article, “Invoking the Muse of Technical Writing,” in an issue of Technical Communication, the journal of the Society for Technical Communication. Almost daily, I still get notices from Academia.edu that “Someone recently saw ‘Using Experimental Psychology...’ in an Academia search.”
I am also proud of all of the writers whom I have helped by editing their books and, in most of those cases, helping them try to publish (Jim Rix’s Jingle Jangle, and Steve Glossin’s Prophecy of the Medallion). These authors include the prolific Ed Rogers and the amazing Florida writer Roger Owens. (They’ve all had to be self-published – so far. But I have high hopes for Roger’s latest. A Killing on a Bridge could hit it big.)
I am proud of the longevity of Moristotle & Co. Steve Glossin and I started blogging jointly in 2006, and I haven’t stopped. It became a “company” in 2012, starting small and growing fairly large.
I remember being asked the accomplishment question by Chuck Smythe in 1978, on our road trip back to California from Arkansas (and Missouri?). In answering it, I failed to mention you (just turned 11) and Jennifer, the omission incurring a later expression of disappointment from your mother (I think she feared I had offended you and Jennifer; I hope not). I don’t mention you, here, again, because I don’t think I can take credit for your and Jennifer’s being the good, accomplished persons you have become. If anything, your mother had more to do with it than I did, because she played the cop, and I played go-along. (I don’t remember what accomplishment or accomplishments I did tell Chuck; I wonder whether he does?)
What are your favorite works of art? What about them speaks to you?
Rodin’s sculpture “The Thinker”: it encapsulates what I value highly: thinking, cogitating, ruminating.
“The Winged Victory [or Nike] of Samothrace”: I hope I never forget seeing it in the Louvre as I began to ascend the staircase leading to it in either the final week of 1965, or in January 1966, prior to my departure from France to the East Coast of the U.S., where I worked as a temp long enough to buy a cross-country bus ticket to Tulare, to my second-semester high school teaching job there, during which I met (and six weeks later) wed the woman who would become your mother.
“Works of art” need not, of course, include only sculptures! I suspect that one or more works of literature must rank more highly in my mind (and/or heart) than either of the two works identified above. But which work of literary art? Surely, it should be smacking me in the face! Shoot, I’m just going to say it: Jim Rix’s true crime nonfiction book, Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out. Jim did achieve art there, I think.
What sounds would you gladly live without?
The noise labeled “music” that stores inflict on shoppers, the bangs of war, the coy droolery of self-serving politicians. Maybe also the continuous sound of traffic on the interstate freeway half a mile away. But I’m so used to it, do I really hear it? It’s hardly more than the constant hum of the ear’s own sensors vibrating (or whatever the actual explanation for that is). But the interstate buzz reminds me I’m home, so there’s that to recommend it.
What sounds would you not want to live without?
The sounds of your mother’s cheery “good morning,” her laughter, her spelling out to me the right way to do something. That third thing reminds me of a quotation I found while researching your “favorite quotations” question: “Marriage can be loving, but it cannot be pleasant.” Or something like that. Rilke, I think. I should have listed it as a favorite, but I don’t think I’d ever seen, or taken note of, it before. The sounds of song birds, the sounds of The Classical Station, the sounds of your YouTube channel….Siri’s voice?
What’s something that doesn’t usually come up in conversation that you wish people knew about you?
Ha, people are probably better off not asking; anyway, I am bold in telling people what I want them to know about me anyway. I don’t need for it to “come up” (on its own?); I am fearless in bringing it up myself. “Fearless”! Another word to describe me! Except that I’m not sure I’m even brave (in any other way, anyway).
What three (or more) words would you use to describe yourself?
Skeptical, optimistic, helpful. I’m surprised how easily those three words came, and how confident I am of them….No, those came too fast; they need qualification, elaboration.
“Skeptical” applies mainly to incoming information, “the news,” or passing opinions of others. Being skeptical is questioning, doubting, refraining from judgment, not outright dismissive, not inclined to store it as “knowledge.” I wish I were more skeptical about things I see with my own eyes, because I way too often wrongly interpret “visual data,” imposing on them a pre-formed conception of what I was expecting to see, or assuming. This can be fatal if I’m driving at 70mph on a freeway. I have, however, come to be more skeptical even of myself. One needs to be skeptical of one’s own self – or, at least, I would recommend that.
“Optimistic” isn’t expecting things to turn out okay, or get better, but rather a sense that I can endure and retain my strength, whatever happens. I see in dramas on TV an annoying number of instances of parents reassuring their children that “it’ll be okay.” It very well may not be. The script writers need to think of some more realistic words of reassurance.
“Helpful” may need the least elaboration. It parallels my oft-expressed wish that I not continue living past my being of use to others.
Skeptical
optimistic helpful compassionate imperfect |
“Compassionate” is another. My heart goes out to people I see out and about (at Walmart or Costco, on the street, wherever) who appear to be burdened or sad. I feel for them. Similarly with dramatic characters. The world is often too much for a person. You know that too.
I feel that I must add a word that characterizes my shortcomings, my faults. “Imperfect”? “Flawed?” Or just “human”? I haven’t thought of the word yet, but I want to register my sense of needing to add such a word to the list.
What inspires you?
My short answer to that is: anything. And sometimes everything, as when the overarching “mystery of being” imposes itself on me. But, then, some things do not inspire me; Bible verses, for example – unless “in reverse,” by way of occasioning an essay or a story or a poem that “takes off” from there, interpreting a verse, opposing it, reframing it. Maybe the key to what I’m saying in reply to this question is that, at my core, I see myself as an artist. I’m even trying to sculpt this answer artfully. Wordartfully, wordplayfully.
What books do you think everyone should read? Why?
With the caveat that the following books are not for everyone, I would very highly recommend Sam Harris’ short book, Free Will, and a few works of his associates Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion and Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide), Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great), and Daniel C. Dennett (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and Consciousness Explained). These books are not for everyone because they can provoke people who are deeply ensconced in religion to vigorously denying what they’re reading and shoring up their reasons for believing the things the books are questioning. Of course, as our late colleague Victor L. Midyett taught us, the books can’t make these readers do that, the readers are doing it to themselves in their attempts to repel the books’ indictments. (Those are my opinions, as an amateur psychologist.)
What are your three favorite quotations, and why is each of them memorable for you?
Well, the first that came to mind was Gertrude Stein’s “There’s no there there.” That might be a paraphrase; I haven’t checked it. She was speaking of Oakland, California; I extend it to religion. I admit, however, that there’s no there for me; obviously, many people seem to find a lot there for them.
No other quotations are coming to mind at the moment. I could look for that list I made one time (for Facebook, I think), if I still have it. Maybe in Moristotle & Co.’s back pages…Well, I just checked, and there’s no such list there. I also checked a recent post of Ken Marks’ favorite quotes; his list is long, but none of them would be my favorites.
Surely something Albert Camus, or Søren Kierkegaard, or Jean-Paul Sartre, or Rainer Maria Rilke(!) said would be a candidate for my list of three favorites. Something existential, apparently? I suspect the two remaining quotations (to answer your question proportionally) would come from Kierkegaard and Rilke. They would be my two favorite authors of the four named. What would make quotations of theirs memorable to me (even though I apparently don’t literally remember them) is my strong sense of many hours spent reading and rereading works by those two thinkers in seeking (and finding) spiritual nourishment.
I looked through a long list of Kierkegaard quotations, and I came upon one that I found very familiar and close enough to my heart to be labeled a favorite: “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” And another: “Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.”
That’s four quotations, one above quota! I’m sure there are more (maybe as many as Ken’s long list), but I guess it’s questionable how “favorite” they are, since I can’t just quote them off the top of my head (the way James T. Carney seems to be able to quote all manner of things from his high school Latin studies). Ironically, I can quote from the Bible, owing to the unfortunately many hours I spent in Bible study. Obviously, they aren’t among my favorites. So maybe being a favorite quote doesn’t imply that it must be remembered and quotable without checking?
What is your favorite or most vivid childhood memory?
Some of my most vivid are too sad to be favorites. Like seeing my poor, ailing mother standing tired at the sink of our house on the chicken ranch outside Petaluma washing dishes….
A happy and favorite moment is the image of my happily smiling father handing me an ice cream cone, with two scoops on the cone, if my memory is accurate (and not just fanciful). I see one vanilla and one strawberry. Ah! Another happy memory is evoked by the black-and-white photo of me and my father on a big tractor in a cotton field (I think it’s a cotton field). But I don’t think I actually remember standing on the tractor; I just remember often looking at the photo, which is framed and hanging on a wall of my office.
What is your most cherished keepsake?
What do the people you love or admire have in common?
A good heart, an uncommon mind.
What organizational tools help you to stay on track with your daily routine and current goals?
I probably employ too many “tools”: scribbles on notes, email drafts addressed to myself, notes in an Apple “Notes” space, dictating into an email draft as I walk, a monthly calendar page on our hall chest of drawers, lists on sheets of paper on my computer desk. Those tools are more for remembering specific, unique tasks, than daily routines. Daily routines seem to take care of themselves because they are routines, habits. Routines are good, I love them. I was wondering just this morning whether people have rituals out of a love for routine; their lives may be hectic, dangerous, worrisome, but if they remember to pray at each of five or so times a day, or whatever, they gain some stability, some comforting repetition.
Over the few days after giving that response, at least partly as a result of focusing on the problem revealed when I answered your question about tools I use to manage time, I have evolved a tool that I really like, and think flexible enough to replace the others:
I started the new procedure by simply emailing myself a list of to-do’s under the subject line, “Do today or in the near future.” The way I deploy it is daily to reply with done items deleted, new items added, and undone items reviewed. For now, this “solution” seems to work well and promises to “unify” my tools into a central, more easily manageable one.
Would you describe a specific daily routines (e.g., preparing food, doing push-ups) and muse on why you love them and what they do for you?
First, I don’t think I’d describe doing push-ups as a loved routine, although I would hate to not be able to do them any longer. But I guess I do love to reach 40, or 50, or 60, or even 70 occasionally in a single set. (I did two sets of 50 on this morning’s walk.) Oh, and I don’t them daily, but every other day, and I sometimes skip two days.
Quite true, though, that I love preparing fruit, cereal, and coffee for your mother’s and my breakfasts, and sitting down at table with her to enjoy eating and sipping, and I even “love” cleaning up the soiled dishes, the counters, the sinks afterwards.
But underlying the cleaning-up is another routine, one that deepens and enhances it, exploits it: thinking, surveying my subconscious for what suggestions, revelations, epiphanies my muse might have for me. (Her name is Artesia, by the way, as revealed in a recent “Goines On” vignette that was inspired by one of your interview questions.) While a flood of material can be overwhelming – requiring me to stop to take notes lest something weighty or urgent pass me by or get lost or forgotten – what comes is more usually orderly, even, coherent, reassuring. A pleasant, sometimes outright exciting daily routine.
How are numbers and/or patterns a part of your life?
How are they not? I may be best known for championing the re-use of calendars, for the hours (many abed) I have put into the study of the recurrence of days of the week on particular days of the month.
Another very significant part of numbers in my life is their use in the mnemonic major system, by which longish numbers can be remembered by applying that system to the construction of memorable words or phrases from them.
An offbeat connection of numbers with my life is that it was my math teacher who encouraged me to look into Ivy League colleges, which led to my applying to Yale….
My mind just flashed on how significant numbers and patterns must be in the life of musicians such as yourself!
And, of course, if “patterns” can be interpreted as routines, I have said already how much I depend on, and love, routines, everyday routines. And, it just occurred to me, I was a computer programmer for a number of years at IBM. How much bigger can routines get than in a computer program?
Please relate patterns to your appreciation, or writing, of poetry. This question occurred to me after reading your recent quartinas.
I’m glad you brought that up, because it has already helped me realize – to go on record – that I prefer “traditional” metrical, rhyming verse forms to free verse. And I say that in full admiration – awe, in fact – of what Michael H. Brownstein and Maik Strosahl and others can do, and do regularly in their columns (“All Over the Place” and “Hobnobbing with the Philosophers”).
The sestina form, of which my quartina is a shortened version, doesn’t prescribe rhyme, but, if anything, its fixed pattern of repeating end-words over multiple stanzas is more difficult than rhyme patterns. But, more significantly, in my experience, is the form’s “forcing” me to see new meanings or levels of whatever realities the end-words suggest. Quite extraordinary, really. Hmm, I have never researched what original practitioners of the sestina form may have had to say about it. That could be very interesting…were there world enough and time….
What is your passion?
But underlying the cleaning-up is another routine, one that deepens and enhances it, exploits it: thinking, surveying my subconscious for what suggestions, revelations, epiphanies my muse might have for me. (Her name is Artesia, by the way, as revealed in a recent “Goines On” vignette that was inspired by one of your interview questions.) While a flood of material can be overwhelming – requiring me to stop to take notes lest something weighty or urgent pass me by or get lost or forgotten – what comes is more usually orderly, even, coherent, reassuring. A pleasant, sometimes outright exciting daily routine.
How are numbers and/or patterns a part of your life?
How are they not? I may be best known for championing the re-use of calendars, for the hours (many abed) I have put into the study of the recurrence of days of the week on particular days of the month.
Another very significant part of numbers in my life is their use in the mnemonic major system, by which longish numbers can be remembered by applying that system to the construction of memorable words or phrases from them.
An offbeat connection of numbers with my life is that it was my math teacher who encouraged me to look into Ivy League colleges, which led to my applying to Yale….
My mind just flashed on how significant numbers and patterns must be in the life of musicians such as yourself!
And, of course, if “patterns” can be interpreted as routines, I have said already how much I depend on, and love, routines, everyday routines. And, it just occurred to me, I was a computer programmer for a number of years at IBM. How much bigger can routines get than in a computer program?
Please relate patterns to your appreciation, or writing, of poetry. This question occurred to me after reading your recent quartinas.
I’m glad you brought that up, because it has already helped me realize – to go on record – that I prefer “traditional” metrical, rhyming verse forms to free verse. And I say that in full admiration – awe, in fact – of what Michael H. Brownstein and Maik Strosahl and others can do, and do regularly in their columns (“All Over the Place” and “Hobnobbing with the Philosophers”).
The sestina form, of which my quartina is a shortened version, doesn’t prescribe rhyme, but, if anything, its fixed pattern of repeating end-words over multiple stanzas is more difficult than rhyme patterns. But, more significantly, in my experience, is the form’s “forcing” me to see new meanings or levels of whatever realities the end-words suggest. Quite extraordinary, really. Hmm, I have never researched what original practitioners of the sestina form may have had to say about it. That could be very interesting…were there world enough and time….
What is your passion?
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| A masthead of the blog before it “incorporated” |
That’s the question you and Jennifer must have had in mind several years ago when you suggested I collect my “musings and perusings” for book publication. When you suggested such a collection, my “fictional” character Goines had not yet arrived on the scene. But now that he is well-established, he would head my list, featuring my extended “Goines On” short story that won the writing contest.
My unhinged essay of a little over five years ago, “Unique new evidence for divine intervention: Remember: ‘God’ backward spells ‘Dog’,” would be on it. I loved going on poop patrol with Siegfried!
Some of my sestinas and sonnets and other poems would be on the list – maybe even a few limericks.
My “New Ten Commandments”? No, probably not; too derivative, too dependent on others’ work. But I probably would include a few of my musings about those works – how they inspired me, gave me pause. After all, my breaking free from religious indoctrination occurred during the blog’s early years.
I’d include my 2012 essay, “To the three white ladies, I was a colored maid,” and its related pieces (collected in our Back Pages), not because they’re great, but because I think they’re humorous. Or maybe I’m just still a bit miffed at being pressured to retire from UNG General Administration?....
Let’s stop there, shall we? Be assured that moving forward with the “musings and perusings” collection is now on my active to-do list. So help me, Alexandra Dotcheva!
So many talented, thought-provoking writers have contributed to the blog over the years. How would you characterize the Moristotle community?
Well, “loosely knit” comes to mind. It might be a tight community if we actually met and sat around a conference table together, but I have yet to meet some of the staff members myself, and I probably never will. I have tried to bring everyone together via email, but no give-and-take interchanges involving everyone have resulted. I’ve had to wonder whether everyone even read each email.
But “& Co.” has worked to bring a wide offering of poems, stories – even novels – travelogues, reviews, humor, artwork, interviews to our readers, because individual members have generously submitted their work voluntarily and been responsive to my nudges.
Maybe it’s more of a network than a community. Everyone interchanges with me, and groups of two or three have formed their own networks – or come to me as a network, like the Jeff City Poets.
What are your proudest accomplishments?
The first item that came to mind was the 1973 publication of my article, “Invoking the Muse of Technical Writing,” in an issue of Technical Communication, the journal of the Society for Technical Communication. Almost daily, I still get notices from Academia.edu that “Someone recently saw ‘Using Experimental Psychology...’ in an Academia search.”I am also proud of all of the writers whom I have helped by editing their books and, in most of those cases, helping them try to publish (Jim Rix’s Jingle Jangle, and Steve Glossin’s Prophecy of the Medallion). These authors include the prolific Ed Rogers and the amazing Florida writer Roger Owens. (They’ve all had to be self-published – so far. But I have high hopes for Roger’s latest. A Killing on a Bridge could hit it big.)
I am proud of the longevity of Moristotle & Co. Steve Glossin and I started blogging jointly in 2006, and I haven’t stopped. It became a “company” in 2012, starting small and growing fairly large.
I remember being asked the accomplishment question by Chuck Smythe in 1978, on our road trip back to California from Arkansas (and Missouri?). In answering it, I failed to mention you (just turned 11) and Jennifer, the omission incurring a later expression of disappointment from your mother (I think she feared I had offended you and Jennifer; I hope not). I don’t mention you, here, again, because I don’t think I can take credit for your and Jennifer’s being the good, accomplished persons you have become. If anything, your mother had more to do with it than I did, because she played the cop, and I played go-along. (I don’t remember what accomplishment or accomplishments I did tell Chuck; I wonder whether he does?)
What are your favorite works of art? What about them speaks to you?
Rodin’s sculpture “The Thinker”: it encapsulates what I value highly: thinking, cogitating, ruminating.
“The Winged Victory [or Nike] of Samothrace”: I hope I never forget seeing it in the Louvre as I began to ascend the staircase leading to it in either the final week of 1965, or in January 1966, prior to my departure from France to the East Coast of the U.S., where I worked as a temp long enough to buy a cross-country bus ticket to Tulare, to my second-semester high school teaching job there, during which I met (and six weeks later) wed the woman who would become your mother.
What sounds would you gladly live without?
The noise labeled “music” that stores inflict on shoppers, the bangs of war, the coy droolery of self-serving politicians. Maybe also the continuous sound of traffic on the interstate freeway half a mile away. But I’m so used to it, do I really hear it? It’s hardly more than the constant hum of the ear’s own sensors vibrating (or whatever the actual explanation for that is). But the interstate buzz reminds me I’m home, so there’s that to recommend it.
What sounds would you not want to live without?
The sounds of your mother’s cheery “good morning,” her laughter, her spelling out to me the right way to do something. That third thing reminds me of a quotation I found while researching your “favorite quotations” question: “Marriage can be loving, but it cannot be pleasant.” Or something like that. Rilke, I think. I should have listed it as a favorite, but I don’t think I’d ever seen, or taken note of, it before. The sounds of song birds, the sounds of The Classical Station, the sounds of your YouTube channel….Siri’s voice?
What’s something that doesn’t usually come up in conversation that you wish people knew about you?
Fearless |
| Copyright © 2023 by Geoffrey Dean & Moristotle |
Well done,
ReplyDeletefather and son!
Well Happy 80th Morris. This fondly reminds me of a video I took of my dad in his hometown when he was in his 80s I think. Please hang around and keep on thinking! It's the best part about us, most of the time.
ReplyDeleteLXXX! Joyous felicitations on your natal anniversary. There, I just channeled Mo. Happy Birthday!
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