I’m trying to start writing music, and every now and then I come up with a small melody that is catchy and sounds good, and once I fully develop it, I realize I’m the only one in the world who has enjoyed the sound of it. It almost feels wrong to not share it with anyone, so I’m trying my best to share my new music more often so someone else can hopefully enjoy it too.
There’s something very tender about that one on one relationship with the work, which paradoxically I think can make it more appealing to others than if you made it to please them
Just listened to yesterday’s podcast (“Boyz 2 Men: How Telemachus Grows Up”): am so looking forward to hearing more about “The Odyssey”! I read it twice in college: the second time for a class on children’s literature, but I gained so much more from that class!
One of my favorite lessons from the lectures on “The Odyssey” was the episode when Telemachus meets Helen and Menelaus and how these characters are contrasted. “What do we make of these two?” I remember our professor asked, revealing how unhappy these two are, but how better it is that they have each other: the professor even relayed an anecdote about a young woman who complained how much her parents hated each other, but was told that her parents were two very passionate people and as a child, she would not see other facets of their relationships. The lesson that I took is that however it looks outside, miserable people deserve each other, and the only ones who truly deserve sympathy are their children.
We read “The Odyssey” after several Grimms’ fairy tales, but the tale would be referenced over and over again: “Alice In Wonderland”, “The Hobbit”, even chapters in”The Wind In The Willows”.
(And yes…some day, please mine the treasury of Pan’s appearance in “The Wind In The Willows”—“Piper At the Gates of Dawn”.
One thing I tell my students is: you're not just reading one poem. You're getting inducted into a whole framework of reference. Next time you walk into an art museum, the paintings won't all look the same to you anymore!
Excellent thoughts today, Spencer. I think many authors could identify with what you said about once a book is finished and published, the author is thinking of the next books. I've compared it with pregnancy -- while a mother is acutely aware of all of the effects of the unseen child on her body -- nausea, clothes not fitting, those first ephemeral kicks, the hours in the night adjusting postures and foods and activities, again to an unseen child who orders your world. Others are only vaguely aware of what is so overt to the mother. Then, right after the baby is born, everyone's delight at how the baby looks, coos, etc. But at that moment, the mother retreats back into her own recently-traumatized body, looks for healing, and begins to forget those nine months and those hours of rigor. Writing, like bearing a child, is an intensively private and individual experience. By the time a book sees the light of day, quite literally, what produced it is often minimized (John 16:21) and we enter into a time of community joy quite unlike the previous months and hours.
I’m trying to start writing music, and every now and then I come up with a small melody that is catchy and sounds good, and once I fully develop it, I realize I’m the only one in the world who has enjoyed the sound of it. It almost feels wrong to not share it with anyone, so I’m trying my best to share my new music more often so someone else can hopefully enjoy it too.
There’s something very tender about that one on one relationship with the work, which paradoxically I think can make it more appealing to others than if you made it to please them
Just listened to yesterday’s podcast (“Boyz 2 Men: How Telemachus Grows Up”): am so looking forward to hearing more about “The Odyssey”! I read it twice in college: the second time for a class on children’s literature, but I gained so much more from that class!
One of my favorite lessons from the lectures on “The Odyssey” was the episode when Telemachus meets Helen and Menelaus and how these characters are contrasted. “What do we make of these two?” I remember our professor asked, revealing how unhappy these two are, but how better it is that they have each other: the professor even relayed an anecdote about a young woman who complained how much her parents hated each other, but was told that her parents were two very passionate people and as a child, she would not see other facets of their relationships. The lesson that I took is that however it looks outside, miserable people deserve each other, and the only ones who truly deserve sympathy are their children.
Curious as to your take next week.
Beautiful. We'll tackle Menelaus and Helen next week!
We read “The Odyssey” after several Grimms’ fairy tales, but the tale would be referenced over and over again: “Alice In Wonderland”, “The Hobbit”, even chapters in”The Wind In The Willows”.
(And yes…some day, please mine the treasury of Pan’s appearance in “The Wind In The Willows”—“Piper At the Gates of Dawn”.
One thing I tell my students is: you're not just reading one poem. You're getting inducted into a whole framework of reference. Next time you walk into an art museum, the paintings won't all look the same to you anymore!
Excellent thoughts today, Spencer. I think many authors could identify with what you said about once a book is finished and published, the author is thinking of the next books. I've compared it with pregnancy -- while a mother is acutely aware of all of the effects of the unseen child on her body -- nausea, clothes not fitting, those first ephemeral kicks, the hours in the night adjusting postures and foods and activities, again to an unseen child who orders your world. Others are only vaguely aware of what is so overt to the mother. Then, right after the baby is born, everyone's delight at how the baby looks, coos, etc. But at that moment, the mother retreats back into her own recently-traumatized body, looks for healing, and begins to forget those nine months and those hours of rigor. Writing, like bearing a child, is an intensively private and individual experience. By the time a book sees the light of day, quite literally, what produced it is often minimized (John 16:21) and we enter into a time of community joy quite unlike the previous months and hours.