Thoughts on Pen & Ink

I try to jot down in a notebook words or quotations that either impress me right off, or in some way provoke thought on one, two or more ideas. The following six quotations are in no way grand or inspirational, but if nothing else are at least interesting opinions about the art of writing, and the tools we use to do that.

“There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.” — Petrarch

“The Pen is the tongue of the mind” — Horace

“No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination” — James Joyce

“I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen because of the pen.” — Gustave Flaubert

“The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.” — Norbet Platt

“My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ballpoint pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.” — Graham Greene

And one last excerpt from Jeffrey Deaver, which is something I included in an earlier post this past March. Again, the novelist wrote in a 1999 book:

“Handwriting is a part of a human being. Like our sense of humor or imagination. It’s one of the only things about people that survives their death. Writing can last for hundreds of years. Thousands. It’s about as close to immortality as we can get. Whatever somebody wrote is a reflection of who they are. It doesn’t matter how the words are made or what they say, even if they’re mistaken or nonsensical. Just the fact that someone thought of the words and their hands committed them to paper is what counts. I’ve always thought of handwriting as a fingerprint of the heart and mind.”

Dream or Reality?

Tired of waiting for a rainy day and fearful of nighttime crowds, I caught a matinee of the Christopher Nolan - Leonardo DiCaprio movie, Inception. Wow! Let me say that again. Woooow!

Imagine a future where espionage agents are able to enter the dreams of a target and extract bits of information from the subconscious. Take it a step further and imagine not the extraction of information via dreams, but the planting of an idea that eventually tilts the target toward a desired action. This is Inception.

Writer-Director Christopher Nolan drops us into a world where a razor thin line separates dreams from reality, a world where dreams are created layer upon layer, then entered and manipulated by ultra-talented and dangerous spies. But the subconscious is a dangerous terrain where a flicker of thought can crash the dream, and where players can end up comatose in a near permanent limbo. There are mazes within mazes and puzzles double-knotted with complication, and at times you ask yourself if the action is dream or reality. A literal understanding of the full-blown scheme cooked up by Dom (DiCaprio) and his team is out of reach, but somehow Nolan has crafted the story so that we know the what and why of their plan.

Inception is beautiful, chaotic, classy, and image-wise a mind boggling ride. In virtual worlds Parisian streets roll up like carpets, cities collapse, gravity is tamed, and locomotives grind high speed through traffic clogged streets.

If Christopher Nolan’s Batman picture, The Dark Knight gave you a movie thrill, Inception will cover it in aces. See it on the big screen, because a lot will be lost when it filters down to DVD.

Aug 16, 1920 - Mar 9, 1994

Yesterday was the birthday of poet and novelist, Charles Bukowski, who died in 1994 at the age of 73. To date, he has over sixty books in print—poetry, stories, novels and one screenplay—the most recent published in 2009. Bukowski’s wife, Linda Lee has continued over the years since his death to sort through the numerous boxes of unpublished pages her husband left behind, and to offer ‘new’ collections of his work. Through her, his readers have been treated to a new book almost every year, despite his death sixteen years ago.

The book featured here in the photograph is one I randomly chose from my collection, carries another typically Bukowski-like title, Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems, and was published in 1990. I say randomly chosen only meaning that careful thought isn’t needed to pick a good book by Bukowski; they are all good, and all have their strengths. Septuagenarian Stew is an excellent example of the writer’s overview. There is also Run With the Hunted: The Charles Bukowski Reader, which many will recommend. Either one provides the reader an excellent introduction to Bukowski, if such is needed.

A short poem from Septuagenarian Stew, “cause and effect”

the best often die by their own hand

just to get away,

and those left behind

can never quite understand

why anybody

would ever want to

get away

from

them

Bukowski’s gravestone reads: DON’T TRY

He explained this phrase in a letter:

‘Someone at one of those places asked me: “What do you do? How do you write, create?” You don’t, I told them. You don’t try. That’s very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It’s like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it.’

Chandler, Wife & City

Raymond Chandler is one of those writers whose books call out to me every couple of years, the answer to which is taking down one of his seven novels or several books of stories and submerging myself in the dank shadows of his landscape—Los Angeles, circa 1940s.

A few months ago a friend in Los Angeles recommended a book on the subject of Raymond Chandler. The book is one called, The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved, by Judith Freeman; published in 2007. It is a strange and captivating tale Ms Freeman tells, and it is as much about the city of Los Angeles as it is about Ray and his wife, Cissy Pascal. Geography, setting and corruption are central characters in the work of Chandler, and influenced his writing as much as the presence of his longtime wife. In telling her story, Freeman wraps the city and its tarnished personality securely around her human characters.

From early on Freeman realized that the mystery couple, Ray and Cissy lived a peripatetic lifestyle grounded in something central to their city view, to their understanding of the city’s first-of-a-kind development throughout the years from 1913 to 1954. During the years of their marriage (1924-1953) the couple never left California, while living a few months in one rented apartment or house, before moving to another. Freeman researched and visited most of the thirty-six places the couple lived.

The life of Raymond Chandler, as well as his writing were strongly colored by the woman he loved, a beautiful woman eighteen years older than he. From the beginning to the end, Cissy’s true age was a hidden secret, and it was some years before Ray realized he had married a woman almost old enough to be his mother. But to her credit, Cissy was far more than a pretty face; a woman of intelligence, talent and wit enough to bedazzle Ray Chandler. Not a storybook or fairy tale match, but one that included devotion and love, as well as need.

The Long Embrace gives the Raymond Chandler fan a bounty of ideas on how the stories and novels were conceived and written. We also see how an alcoholic bookkeeper fired from the oil business became the creator of Philip Marlowe, the iconic private eye. Freeman uncovers what was almost an umbilical cord connecting Chandler’s adopted home to his story settings.

‘A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness.’ — THE LONG GOODBYE

The Long Embrace is ostensibly about a writer and the woman in his life, but it is in every way also a book about the city of Los Angeles between 1913 and 1954, and it is a fascinating read. A big thanks to Shelby for the recommendation. I got the book first at the library, but ordered a copy to keep before I was halfway through the library copy.

More of Kawamura

Found a loose wire on a painting in the living room, so I took it down for repair. But as it happened, the time between taking it off the wall and tightening the loose wire got extended somehow, and for much of the day the painting lay across a table. That being a different perspective of looking at the piece, I stopped several times to look again at the painting.

The artist is one I’ve mentioned before, the still young Japanese painter, Chinami Kawamura, who I consider a bright light for the future of Japanese painting. There is a large amount of Western influence and style in Kawamura’s painting, but she is completely faithful to Japanese, or at least Asian subjects. Much of her work is in acrylic, and I can’t even recall seeing anything done in oil, watercolor or pastel. I have a very large pencil drawing of two nude figures, and I have seen other of the artist’s work in pencil. Her skill in that medium is equal to what she does in acrylic.

The painting here is in acrylic, measures 23 inches by 19 inches, and is done on board. The large brown, almost round area is a dish or plate, and the viewer looks down from a bird’s eye view into the plate, at an arrangement of three vegetables common to Japanese homes and restaurants: eggplant, lotus root and green chili-like peppers. The small daubs of greenish-yellow and white below are wasabi mustard and grated white radish. Turning to a Western technique, the artist spread an English language newspaper across her ‘table’ and created a collage effect with gesso. This gives the appearance of dish and vegetables laying on a newspaper covered table. For highlights on the eggplant and green peppers she used silver leaf.

I am forever happy that I stumbled upon an exhibit of Ms Kawamura’s work in a small Tokyo gallery. I bought one painting at that show, and in the next two years bought other paintings and drawings directly from the artist. Of course, I could be wrong in my appraisal, but I have great faith that one day Chinami Kawamura will be a familiar name among Japanese painters.

Wax Seals

Looking through my writing desk you will find no shortage of seals, personal, seasonal or otherwise. During my time in Japan I had at least a dozen of them made, but they are all for use with ink rather than sealing wax. I have always thought of the wax type as stylish and sort of dapper, wanting one for a long time.

The first of these seals I considered buying was one I saw on Ward Dunham’s website, Atalier Gargoyle, San Francisco. I saw two or three I liked, but the one of a lowercase Gothic alphabet in a circle especially intrigued me. Several times I started to order this wax seal, then stopped myself, thinking again of the price. A very beautiful seal, but expensive.

Recently I got something from Brian Goulet at gouletpens.com and it included a note from Brian with a wax seal in the shape of a ‘G.’ I thought about ordering one of these seals with a personal initial, then decided to look around and see what else is out there.

I found a company online that offered what looked to be interesting wax seals, all of them at a reasonable price. I chose one and placed an order. Big, big mistake. The ordering process was simple enough, and the delivery was prompt, the items well packaged, but both seal and sealing wax were a huge disappointment. Disappointment so complete I have still, after five or six attempts, been unable to get a satisfactory, or even mediocre impression from the seal and sealing wax. Both came from Capricorn’s Lair in Utah. The seal is much too shallow to leave a sharp impression, and the True Vermillion (Ecclesiastical Red) sealing wax almost useless.

The seal I chose is shown in the top photo, but the two impressions are ink. The bottom image from a cheap red ink pad, the top from an expensive Japanese ink. The seal is pewter and the design is a four-point Celtic Knot. Not personal in the sense of an initial, I still like the design and its probable meaning, which may be representative of four stages in life: birth, maturity, death and afterlife. Celtic designs however, are not easy symbols to interpret.

Whatever the meaning and whatever my feeling for the Celtic Knot is, it’s all moot, because the seal and wax are inferior. I have wasted my money. Would have done better to save my money and then later order the Ward Dunham Gothic alphabet seal, and some J Herbin sealing wax from Brian Goulet.

Architecture Bayou Style

Growing up in Louisiana, the sight of a residence designed by architect, A Hays Town was not rare. I even had an aunt who worked for years as his personal secretary. The lumber mill across the street, where my father worked, did the millwork for all the Hays Town designs. But as with many youngsters, I had other things on my mind and took little notice of such during my years of growing up.

A Hays Town was a remarkably prolific architect, who started his career designing government and commercial buildings in Mississippi and Louisiana before turning his full attention to the design of private homes. More than 1000 of his homes remain today, in addition to the government and commercial work from earlier years. As a Louisiana son, his designs are strongly influenced by not only the south Louisiana culture he grew up in, but in the very landscape that defines the area. One of the distinctive Hays Town characteristics is a house that seems to rise out of the landscape, a design incorporating native plant materials into its basic parts. There is a quality of benign neglect in much of his work—studied decay, incorporating the effects of aging, mold, algae, and mildew into the shape, color and texture of materials. The houses make lavish use of cypress and heart of pine, two woods native to Louisiana.

Looking at a home designed by Hays Town will reveal elements of classic Louisiana—full-length shutters, dovecotes, thirteen foot ceilings and brick floors with a special beeswax finish. A familiar design reflects the old Acadian cottage with a raised front porch and exterior staircase. More often than not, the architect carried his influence inside, selecting materials, colors, furnishings, sometimes even recommending a dog to complement the design.

Most of his homes now wear a bronze plaque: A HAYS TOWN, ARCHITECT

Mr Town died in 2005, age 101.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS:

All five photographs are from the book, The Louisiana Houses of A. Hays Town, and are by Philip Gould.

From the top…

1. Witter House — classic Louisiana setting with a raised porch.

2. Sherar House — familiar Louisiana columns fronting open porches.

3. Laborde House — unseen here are the wide steps leading to the raised porch.

4. Strawitz House — old brick and aged wood, with the large window looking out.

5. Bonnecaze House — to my eyes a breathtaking design of the traditional 19th century look; the signature porch, this time with whitewashed brick and beams. And notice the old brick building with dovecotes.