Christmas Music: Hymnody of Earth

December 13, 2012 at 11:57 am (Feasts/Seasons, Music)
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I stumbled on my favorite Christmas CD quite by chance several years ago, browsing in Tower Records. (Anyone remember Tower?)

Photo from composer's website

Photo from composer’s website

It’s called Hymnody of Earth, and the composer is Malcolm Dalglish. I was attracted first by the album’s name and then when I noticed that most of the works were settings of the poetry of Wendell Berry, that clinched it. Most of them are for boys choir, another plus as far as I was concerned, and the primary accompanying instrument is the hammer dulcimer, which Dalglish plays. I can’t recall if I was already familiar with hammer dulcimer or not, but it was love at first note. For those who haven’t heard it, the timbre is quite a bit like a harp only much more percussive. It’s a magical sounding instrument, perfect for Christmas music.

Now, the album isn’t precisely Christmas, more winter solstice, but anyone familiar with Berry’s poetry knows the backbone of his spirituality is Christian. Same with the settings of Shaker lyrics and hymns that are part of this work. That said, nowhere is Christ or Christmas directly mentioned, making the album a suitable liturgy for any spirituality that celebrates nature, God, and human love. Perfect music for a quiet winter’s evening when your mood is contemplative rather than extroverted.

The album begins and ends with chant written by Dalglish, evoking a medieval procession. The opening chant includes frame drum (a very subtle thrumming, no rat-a-tat-tat here!) and the lovely chiming hammer dulcimer, while the ending number is unaccompanied voices that gradually fade into the distance—a bit like Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, and here and there are touches of Britten in the boys choir as well, but the overall style is unmistakably its own.

To listen to an excerpt, click here, and you will be taken to Dalglish’s website. The recording that I have is the early version, “as it was originally conceived for Malcolm Dalglish (hammer dulcimer and voice), Glen Velez (frame drums and shakers), and The American Boychoir” (quotation from website). It’s now published by the Musical Heritage Society. There is also a newer version put out by Ooolitic Music, which looks like Dalglish’s own publishing company. It looks like the new version ends with a livelier “Amen” for voices and instruments, but personally I love the way the original version fades away—more contemplative—but that’s just me.

photo from composer's website

photo from composer’s website

Here’s his description, attached to the newer recording on his website: “There are moments in nature when wordless poetry washes over me, and I feel lost in the rhythm of a pure sound or vision. Hymns gather together people, words, and music to memorialize these transcendent moments in our lives. I found the poetry of Wendell Berry and the mysterious and primitive sound of the dulcimer, frame drums and shakers to be ideal collaborators in this broadly defined Hymnody.”

Hymnody of Earth is a wonderful work, and I hope many of you will become fellow fans and incorporate it into your own winter festivities.

What kinds of seasonal music do you most enjoy?

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Children’s Books / Adults’ Books

December 6, 2012 at 11:50 am (Books)
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When I decided to self-publish my Christmas story last year, it received mostly positive reviews, but those who didn’t care for it so much had a common complaint: they thought they were getting a children’s book, and it wasn’t.

santa_final_smNowhere on the cover or in the description is there mention of children as an intended audience, but apparently the combination of Saint Nick and a Fir Tree character spelled “Kid’s Book” to more than one person. This year I’m changing the description to read: “a Christmas tale for grown-ups who haven’t forgotten the magic.”

One reader grumbled that it was too grown-up for kids and too “silly” for adults. Well, to each their own, but I find it sad that some adults feel there is no place in their lives for indulgence in a bit of whimsy or make-believe.

On the other hand, there’s ample evidence that many of us continue to enjoy not only children’s classics that we remember fondly from our young days (The Wind in the Willows gets my vote for the children’s book that I continue to love and re-read the most of all) but also new classics such as Harry Potter that take us into the realms of youthful fantasy.

red pyramidWhen I was visiting my sister this summer, I started reading my nephew’s copy of Rick Riordan’s THE RED PYRAMID, the first in the fantasy series that involves Egyptian gods and two modern-day kids. Such fun! I saw it last week at a bookstore and decided it was the perfect book to follow Tana French’s deep and gorgeous but tragic BROKEN HARBOR. Time to switch gears to something lighthearted after all that Hibernian angst.

But what of books and stories like my “Fir Tree” that seem to be neither fish nor fowl? Fantasy that doesn’t have adult levels of sex or violence, but isn’t really written with a young audience in mind. I’m drawing a blank. Are there more out there? If you can think of one, let me know.

And meantime, bring on more young adult titles, especially good fantasy. I’d like to hear suggestions for those, too.

9 Comments

Hawk

November 29, 2012 at 12:56 pm (Nature, Spirituality)
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The new commute is a major pain, but it has the occasional compensation.

Like seeing a hawk up close for the second time in my life.

The school’s new digs are located in an office park about an hour’s drive from the city in rush hour traffic. (The gridlock on the expressway is appalling.)

Said office park has plenty of green: grass that doubtless is the doubtful beneficiary of assorted chemicals—a far cry from Whitman’s leaves—and a nice variety of trees, each trimmed to a uniform triangular shape and planted at uniform intervals. Very Stepford, like Magritte men in corporate bowlers dotting the landscape.

But the suits can’t control the sky.

I was on my way to the bus stop going home when I heard a crow calling and looked up. A large winged something hovered not far above me, white wings, and then it descended, giving me the closet view I have ever had of a hawk.

It was medium-hawk-size, I suppose, big but not humongous, maybe the size of a small housecat. Mostly white, especially underneath (I had already glimpsed the wings and belly many times, catching glimpses of it floating above in the afternoon sky as I waited for the bus) with some brown and gray striping, the most noticeable mark a rusty red bar in the middle of its tail.

The hawk settled on a hillock just above the sidewalk where I’d stopped to stare at it, maybe about five feet away, maybe a bit less. My previous close-hawk-encounter had been through the window of our kitchen sink, watching the neighborhood hawk as it perched on the fence bordering our yard. The next-door neighbors there have a nice array of bird feeders which also attract squirrels and other small animals, and I fancy that was the reason for the hawk’s interest.

It was incredibly cool to see this raptor up close, with no intervening window pane. It paid me no mind; the feathers and down scattered around the bird’s feet gave evidence of a recent kill, and Hawk was more interested in poking about the remains for a last juicy morsel than taking heed of anything so commonplace as a human passing by.

What is it about animals of prey that so excites the imagination? The feelings of awe and wonder that any close sighting of a wild creature gives to me intensify. I love seeing and hearing chickadees—my favorite bird—but the pleasure there is more domestic, more of a “How’re you doing, neighbor.” Awe is the province of the hawk, the owl; awe requires the presence of power and danger in the creature observed, not unlike the religious feeling I get when contemplating God as an inestimably larger force of unimaginable power.

red tailed hawk from Glass_House, courtesy of Creative Commons (again, mine had more of a white head)

This is something I ruminate on quite a bit. Nature, red in tooth and claw, majestic, awe-inspiring, but how to reconcile this with my convictions about love and peace? Of course those of us who aren’t vegetarians all live on other things, so any move to condemn the hawk, the predator, would be hypocritical in extreme. Is it because creation is flawed, fallen? But creation would be so much the poorer without its awe-inspiring creatures of prey: the raptors, the owls, wolves and big cats.

Perhaps I should simply accept it as one of those Mysteries with a capital M, and leave it at that.

What inspires awe and wonder in you? (And is there anyone out there who can tell me what kind of hawk? I assumed it was a red tail, but the red tail hawks in Peterson’s all have solid red tails, not a single stripe.)

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My Novel-in-Progress

November 1, 2012 at 1:08 pm (Books)
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A few weeks ago, fellow Sister in Crime Alyx Morgan invited me to participate in an ongoing blog chain called “The Next Big Thing” where writers talk about their current works-in-progress. Alyx writes young adult mysteries featuring teenage Holmes-wannabe Tabitha Patterson. If that sounds like your cup of tea, check out her short stories on http://www.alyxmorgan.com/ and http://www.amazon.com/Sarah-Other-Woman-Patterson-ebook. Tabitha is an appealing character and the stories are loads of fun. (Note: Sisters in Crime is a group of mystery writers, not criminals!)

“The Next Big Thing” was started by blogger She Writes to help female authors promote their current work by answering a set of ten questions and then “tagging” other writers, inviting them to do the same. So, without further ado, here is my contribution:

photo by Laertes courtesy of Creative Commons

What is your working title of your book?

CHIMERA. The title is a double-edged reference, first to the French word for decorative gargoyles (chimeres: gargoyles which don’t function as downspouts). The most famous of these are the group that sits atop the gallery connecting the two towers of Notre Dame in Paris. Secondly, it refers to the notion of “chimera” as “an impossible or foolish fantasy” (Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1964).
Where did the idea come from for the book?
CHIMERA started as a short story for an anthology titled FISH NETS, where the story had to incorporate the idea of “fish nets” in some fashion. I wanted to set the story in Paris and started by having two fishermen discover a young woman’s body near the Seine. My main character is a priest, a “fisher of men.”
What genre does your book fall under?
It’s a mixture of urban fantasy and suspense.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I don’t always think in those terms, but one of the secondary characters is partly based on an old French film star from the black-and-white era, Jean Gabin.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A Jesuit professor’s sabbatical in Paris is disrupted when a gargoyle accosts him on the tower of Notre Dame, demanding that he investigate a young woman’s suspicious death.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
That remains to be seen. I hope to start querying agents sometime after the new year.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I wrote it in fits and starts. The first chapter, which started out as a story for the anthology, went very quickly, in only a week or two, and then I sat on the thing for a matter of months. I realized that I really loved this universe and wanted it to become a full-length book, but wasn’t sure how to continue. The initial chapter was written in February of 2011, and bits and pieces of the story came to me over the following months, but I didn’t really sit down and start to work on it in earnest until Thanksgiving break. I finished the first draft the following May, and have since been revising it with the help of beta readers and critique partners.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
That’s a tough one. It isn’t really quite like anything I’ve read, but I can tell you about some of the authors who have influenced this particular book. One of them is Robertson Davies. He didn’t write fantasy per se, but his books have these wonderful, almost fantastical, elements, and one of the characters in CHIMERA has a few details in his background that are a salute to one of the characters in Davies’ DEPTFORD TRILOGY.
Another element that inspired me comes from the Merrily Watkins novels of Phil Rickman: the idea of a place which focuses supernatural energies. Rickman’s novels also feature a self-doubtful member of the clergy as a main character, just as CHIMERA does.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My previous novels are all historical mysteries, and after working on them for several years, I wanted a change. I wanted something set in the present day, but something that also preserved that element of otherness which is one of the things I love about reading historical fiction. Paris is one of the most marvelous places on earth, plus it is a city that I know very well–at least parts of it. I also loved the idea of writing fantasy, but it wasn’t until I wrote the story for FISH NETS that all of these things came together.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
If you’re curious to know what the gargoyles on Notre Dame get up to when nobody’s looking and what happens when one of them recruits a doubting-Thomas priest to join their battle against an evil demon who has risen from the city’s ancient past, I think you’ll enjoy CHIMERA.
***
And here are the writers I tagged
Please tune into their blogs the week of November 5-9
Judith Starkson writes historical fiction.
Her “Next Best Thing” post will appear Thurs. Nov. 8
http://www.judithstarkston.com/
Stacy Juba writes adult murder mysteries and contemporary romance fiction as well as books for young adults and children.
Her “Next Best Thing” post will appear Wed. Nov. 7
http://stacyjuba.com/blog/
Edith Maxwell writes mysteries. Her first novel, Speaking of Murder, is published by Barking Rain Press. A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die, the first in the cozy Local Foods Mystery series, will be published by Kensington in May, 2013.
Her “Next Best Thing” post will appear Mon. Nov. 5
http://www.edithmaxwell.com/
Mary Sutton writes the middle-grade fantasy
series Hero’s Sword as M.E. Sutton. She also writes mystery, including the
Laurel Highlands Mysteries, and contemporary romance as Liz Milliron.
Her “Next Best Thing” post will appear Tues. Nov. 6
theresabodyinthelibrary.blogspot.com 

***

Message for the tagged authors and interested others:

Rules of the Next Big Thing
***Use this format for your post
***Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (work in progress)
***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:
What is your working title of your book?
Where did the idea come from for the book?
What genre does your book fall under?
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged.

Be sure to line up your five people in advance.

2 Comments

Rain

September 24, 2012 at 4:27 pm (Feasts/Seasons, Nature, Spirituality)
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Image from mxgirl85′s photostream, courtesy of Creative Commons

On Labor Day, it rained.

I woke to the pleasant dim light of cloud cover, and by the time I had showered and gone downstairs to make breakfast, it was starting to drizzle. Just barely noticeable if you looked closely. Then the rain increased its tempo to a steady downpour. But there was no wind, no thunder, only the peaceful patter of droplets coming down.

I was glad it was raining. I was glad it wasn’t a day when I had to go into work and brave the elements. If you take public transit, you have to be prepared for rain or you will arrive at work soaked to the skin, as I did a week ago.

I was glad it was raining. The rain would give my husband a day of rest from preparing and painting the trim on our wrought-iron porch railings. He’d spent all day Sunday scraping and washing.

He needed the rest.

I was glad because the dim light let me sleep late after several bad nights the previous week.

I needed the rest.

Rain is Nature’s way–God’s way through Nature, if you believe in God–of showing us our limits. Of gently urging us away from the “24/7″ madness of the culture. In ancient societies, hunters couldn’t hunt, gatherers couldn’t gather, farmers couldn’t farm in heavy rain. It must have been like an unexpected holiday. Perhaps they sat around and told stories on such days, dug into their stores, created a feast. Or lacking stores, ate little, providing those who prepared food (probably the women) rest as well. Resting their digestive systems as well.

Nature can be cruel, too. I don’t want to minimize the tragedies of flood victims, hurricane victims, and others whose lives have been devastated by natural violence. There are whole books there, considerations of theology and, yes, politics that I don’t feel equipped to deal with, at least not here. But in the normal course of the daily, weekly, monthly round, Nature is usually benign if we will open our eyes to receive her wisdom and teaching.

There is a marvelous essay by Thomas Merton called “Rain and the Rhinoceros” that says all this much better than I have. It is one of my favorite pieces of his, published in what is probably my favorite Merton collection, Raids on the Unspeakable.

Read it.

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Watching Dog Walking

September 6, 2012 at 8:15 pm (Animals)
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Smile by choco@Nerima’s photostream. Licensed under Creative Commons

A week or two ago, on my way to the train, I caught sight of a man walking a little dog some ways ahead of me. I had not slept well and didn’t feel particularly enthusiastic about getting up at  6 a.m. to go to the day job. Not in a bad mood exactly, but sunk in a sleep-deprived fog.

The sight of the little dog, however, revived my spirits. He (or she) was trotting beside his person, a dark-haired man in baggy shorts and a T-shirt, who was ambling along in no apparent hurry but not stopping for the little terrier, either.

Being cat-centric, I’ve never owned a dog, but I like to watch animals, and I find it especially interesting to watch dog walkers and note the human-canine interactions. Last year my husband and I walked our neighbor’s dog while she was away for the weekend. It was a fascinating experience deserving of a blog post unto itself, and it gave me some interesting insights into the whole dynamic of walking a dog. Not the simple thing it might seem–but back to the main story.

Th man in front of me respected the little Yorkie’s pace while also keeping his own, not allowing himself to be pulled aside every time the little dog wanted to stop, but never yanking on the leash, either, just continuing his gentle, ambling gait so that Yorkie couldn’t become fixated for too long a time on any particular patch of fascinating smells and eventually resumed toddling along by his person’s side.

When I passed them, I noticed that the man was Asian-American, and now, writing this, I am reminded of the gentle, non-confrontational art of Tai Chi.

Seeing the little animal and the gentle, placid man who held the dog’s leash brought a much-needed smile to my face that morning.

P.S. The cute little fella in the photo is from Japan, a nice reminder of how universal some things are!

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Veterinarians

August 30, 2012 at 6:01 pm (Animals, Books, Guest blogs)
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I’m thrilled to welcome one of my favorite mystery authors, Sandra Parshall, as a guest on today’s blog. Her award winning series features veterinarian Rachel Goddard, a passionate, strong-willed character with hidden vulnerabilities. The writing is flawless, the characters three-dimensional and memorable, and whenever I’m in the midst of one of her books, I find myself haunted by the depths of the story, unable to get it out of my mind. If you are new to the series, you should read the books in order, beginning with HEAT OF THE MOON. Just be aware that you may not be able to put this book down.

Today Sandra offers some thoughts on her main character’s profession of veterinarian. Please join me in welcoming her to the blog.

I’m always amused when a reader or interviewer asks if I’m a veterinarian.

Me? Perish the thought.

The work of a veterinarian like my protagonist, Dr. Rachel Goddard, requires a type of emotional strength I will never possess. A good vet is a marvel to me – and by “good” I mean one who is both skillful and gentle, compassionate with pet owners but tough about doing what’s best for the animal. I imagine it’s not unlike being a pediatrician for very young children who can’t communicate verbally. But a vet carries a burden that no pediatrician does: he or she frequently must make the recommendation that it’s time to bring a painless end to the patient’s suffering.

I couldn’t do it. I can’t imagine myself euthanizing an animal – or working with sick animals day after day. Taking care of healthy pets during routine visits for checkups and vaccines is no picnic either. People go into veterinary medicine because they love animals, then spend their whole careers being hissed at, growled at, scratched and occasionally bitten by their terrified, I-don’t-want-to-be-here! patients

Rachel is made of stronger stuff than I am, and I admire her for it. She cares deeply about her patients, but she does what is necessary to heal them, end their pain, or see to their basic medical needs. I didn’t base Rachel on a particular person, but she shares her gentle approach to caring for animals with our real-life female vet.

When I started writing about Rachel – in The Heat of the Moon (2006) – we’d already had a couple of female vets for our cats, and the friend who volunteered to help me get the animal medicine details right was a woman vet, but I still thought I was clever to choose an unusual occupation for my protagonist. Before long, though, I realized my fiction was following a real-life trend. In 2009, for the first time, women outnumbered men in the veterinary profession, and that majority has continued to grow. Today nearly 80% of veterinary students are female. Vet colleges are now actively working to recruit more male students to maintain diversity.

What explains the shift? A lot of veterinarians might say it’s because their profession doesn’t pay as well as other branches of medicine, and men aren’t as willing as women to accept an average salary of $70,000 to $80,000 after investing the time and money to complete their training. If a man loves animals and wants to work with them, though, the prospect of a middling income won’t stop him any more than it will stop a woman. The change in vet college enrollment may simply be a reflection of the general shift in education: since 2000, women students have outnumbered men in U.S. colleges.


The new female majority is changing the profession. Women will always be the ones who have the babies, and this basic fact of human existence must be taken into account. Flexible schedules and part-time employment have become more common for vets who are mothers. Some prejudice against women still exists, of course, both among pet owners and male owners of veterinary clinics, but the sheer number of women in the profession should eventually eliminate any lingering bias.

I admire anyone, male or female, who chooses to work for the benefit of animals. I hope my respect for veterinarians shows in my portrayal of Rachel. I get a kick out of writing her because she’s so much stronger and smarter than I am, and through her I can vicariously do some of the things I’m too much of a wuss to do in real life.

Sandra Parshall is the author of the Agatha Award-winning Rachel Goddard mystery series. The fifth in the series, BLEEDING THROUGH, will be published September 4.

Visit Sandra at her website, http://www.sandraparshall.com, and join her each Wednesday at http://www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com.

8 Comments

5-Star Paranormal Thriller: Bound by Suggestion

August 19, 2012 at 3:32 pm (Books)
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If you enjoy mysteries and suspense with a touch of paranormal, you will want to put L.L. Bartlett’s Jeff Resnick series on your list. You should read the books in order to get the maximum enjoyment, for much of the interest comes from the characters’ personal lives and changing circumstances.

MURDER ON THE MIND, the first in the series, introduces us to Jeff, a regular guy whose life changes forever when a vicious mugging leaves him with some permanent side effects: the ability in certain cases–not all, to share others’ emotions in an unpleasantly visceral way, plus weird visionary flashes that eventually lead him to investigate and solve a murder.

BOUND BY SUGGESTION, the 4th and latest in the series, is structured a little differently from the others. Rather than a who-dunnit, it is a psychological thriller. We know the “bad guy” early on, and the considerable suspense comes from wondering how far the baddie’s twisted plot will go before Jeff starts to wise up.

A secondary plot involving Jeff’s half-brother, Richard, and a second “bad guy” keeps the reader on her toes, wondering how it will all pull together.

I’m normally pretty good at leaving books, good interesting books, in my backpack at the end of the day’s commute, but I was only halfway through BOUND BY SUGGESTION before I HAD to take it out and read it over dinner and then stay up way past my bedtime to finish it. It was worth the lost sleep.

The only downside is that now I’ll have to wait until the talented Ms. Bartlett gives us the next Jeff Resnick book. Meantime I’d love to get some suggestions for other paranormal/mystery/suspense reads. I’m sure there are plenty out there.

8 Comments

Transitions

August 4, 2012 at 9:31 pm (Books, Feasts/Seasons, Spirituality)
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This time of year, from August through September, is one of transitions. For many of us, school begins in less than a month. People are moving, starting new lives. Summer will fade and the autumn rains come.

Transition feels like a major theme in my life at the moment. The day job is changing, radically in some ways. I’m beginning preparations for what I hope will be a transition to a new career as a freelancer. I have just finished my novel’s second major draft. It is a departure from what I have written in the past, and I’m excited about it, but nervous as well.

In many ways, it is an unsettling time.

In the midst of all this, I stumbled upon THE BREAD OF ANGELS, Stephanie Saldana’s wonderful account of the year she spent in Syria.

When 27-year-old Stephanie arrives in Damasus courtesy of a Fullbright scholarship, she is at a crossroads in her life. A rolling stone who has led a nomadic existence since graduating from college, she feels the time has come for her to settle and choose what she will do with the rest of her life.

A spiritual autobiography that will appeal to fans of Kathleen Norris and Thomas Merton, BREAD OF ANGELS takes its structure from the Spiritual Exercises of Jesuit founder Ignatius of Loyola. I was halfway through the book before I realized this fact. Jesuits have been much on my mind lately; the protagonist of the novel-in-progress is a Jesuit priest facing something of a midlife crisis. I had no idea there were any Jesuit connections when I picked up BREAD OF ANGELS. It came across my desk along with the library’s other new acquisitions in the cataloging queue. Such seeming serendipity feels like a sign, a blessing, a signal that I’m on the right track. I started reading Saldana’s book because I’m fascinated by distant places, and the opening immediately drew me in.

I’m still in the midst of Stephanie’s travails, not knowing how it will turn out. This memoir holds as much narrative suspense as any mystery novel, and something tells me I won’t be disappointed when I reach the end. It’s good to know that others have come through times of transition.

Like all good books, BREAD OF ANGELS reminds me that I’m not alone.

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I lean and loaf at my ease

June 21, 2012 at 6:30 pm (Books, Feasts/Seasons, Music)
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Saints and Trees is taking a break.

In the meantime, here are some summertime images, quotations, and whatnot, for your delectation:
Enjoy!

I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
–Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Summer Books for my Hammock

Gershwin’s “Summertime” with an Island View

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