Green Gables

Without imagination there is only stasis.

To think that we do sooo many things without any sense of thrill or excitement. I like children's literature for that very reason. There is a wonder and enjoyment of the world that jaded adults just miss. Recently I got Anne of Green Gables from the bookstore, primarily because the cover was a really lovely turquoise and the cover page illustration of the character was so quirky that I couldn't resist. I was rewarded with a reading experience that was worth my superficial reason for picking it up. Like a child would be moved by the simplicity of how beautiful something looks, I found my shallow reason was enough of a motive. I'm just about halfway and I like Anne's desire to fill every experience with the imagination. Part of me would want to give real life Anne a time-out quite often but that's the soulless adult losing patience with trusting innocence.

I am not saying that we should approach everything with that open spirit, trusting all, and losing our wisdom to innocence. But it is good to infuse our days with imagination. Do we have to overload our senses with blood and gore and criminal investigations? What's so bad with a little fairy world, an ogre, a dragon or some stardust? Or even a little alternative reality in the fiery sky or the golden sea?

On a slightly related note, I was thinking recently that our Caribbean folklore tends to be very dark and full of gore. Even the benevolent supernatural creatures tend to be a bit frightening. Yes, I would like to take a few months away from my regular job and pore over the lore across the Caribbean region. There's no telling where imagination will take one. Like this post, where is it now?

I do think there is something about faith, love and the imagination in the: "unless ye be like a child..."

Blessings and Imagination to you!!!

Harry Potter, T. S. Eliot & Catholicism

What an incongruous title, what an irreverent post!!

Today I was being a good Catholic, I went to mass. There I was reminded of my short temper with critiques of the H Potter series. I suspect a significant number of these critics have not read the books. And then my temper comes from a bias of a love for a fictional world. The intricacies of Rowling's world are engaging. It's also what I like about the Pendragon series.

So from one enamoured with the romance of fictional worlds and having first read the Potter series as an adult (so I just don't perceive the threat to one's sanity/spirituality)I think maligning the series is a waste of energy, especially pulpit energy. I admit that I can see how an impressionable 'child' can be seduced by the 'magic.' But then you can dissect every single novel ever written and see the subversive subliminal messages. Well, let me not get into all the things that a young child can be seduced by. It's so easy to latch on to any one thing and blame it. It's so easy to forget the things we take for granted. If something is bad and dangerous, then explain why to adults and children. You blindly say DON'T and expect compliance? When did that ever work?

As an adult I don't feel threatened by the 'magic' of the novels. The themes are classic: the struggle of good versus evil and the triumph of good. My enjoyment of the romance of the fictional world, comes from the same place that is enamoured with the elaborate intricacies of Catholicism. And that comes from having had my doubts and questions and miscellaneous explorations. After all my journeys I returned more Catholic than I ever thought I could be. And I realized that all my journeys and explorations brought me to a new kind of understanding which I will not explain or defend. So why do I even bother to explain the attachment to Harry Potter? I am so bored with the criticisms.

Which takes me to Eliot, whose Waste Land images came to me in the middle of that sermon, "Son of man, you cannot say, or guess, for you know only a heap of broken images."

When one misses the intricacies or mystery of the elaborate Catholic world, it becomes rote, blind adherence without conviction, a heap of broken images. It does not even reach out to a Harry Potter world(or any) because it missed out on its basic tenets, to turn back for that last leper. I looked at the rituals and when you really think about the meaning attached to them, they really are quite compelling. But has it become so rote that we forget? Eliot's Fisher King takes from the image of the messiah dying to redeem that waste land. It has been done, salvation has been offered. I don't know what I want the pulpit to say. I just don't want it to destroy the beauty of the intricate world. I don't want it to become a heap of broken images.

And I came out a very bad Catholic, ever committed, ever immersed and ever critical, just like the pulpit.

Miles Davis and miscellaneous

Somehow, trying to be invisible in a small island just does not work.

My characters are harassing me with the desire to get out of my head and all sorts of other things about living here try to distract me. That is the challenge of writing now. Not the fear of wondering if I will be good enough to be read, or to sell. At the risk of sounding self-absorbed and oblivious to an audience's interests; frankly I just want to get the characters of of my head. It's a tad schizophrenic now. Full-fledged dialogues appear in my head at the oddest times and I find myself wanting to get away to put them down before I forget. I find myself getting irritated with the world at large because there's a world in my head that just won't disappear.

So my absence here has not meant lack of writing. Au contraire.

So where does Miles Davis come in all of this. I have no idea. I have been listening to Meshell Ndegeocello every morning for the last 2 weeks and as I settled down to catch up on job-work(the distractions), I wanted that bass/sax jazz sound without vocals and Miles it is...'The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions'

I really don't want to sound like that cliched beatnik bohemian sensibility, but the music really hits the spot...sans any incense and other smoky stimulants. Ok ok so I had my 'Black Fix' dose of caffeine already.

Hopefully I can get through job-work early enough to put in a few pages of those guys in my head, who seem to like Miles too.