Traps: sentimentality, or what I did--a kind of
>>hardassed tone with somewhat extraneous material that doesn't get at
>>what I began to get at only midway through, the action itself minus
>>set-ups, etc.
Well, I kept thinking about this traps of sentimentality and how true it is with
dog stories, and perhaps your question who hasn't been owned by a dog? I've
always had dogs and feel sometimes attended by an absence in now not having
one, but this issue of sentimentality reminds me of this dog that I had when I
was a kid. She showed up at our door one day, a black and white collie, the
oldfashioned type with the broader muzzle, not the pencilpoint muzzle that was
introduced by interbreeding with greyhounds, and I named her Sam. She was
incredibly smart; the sort of dog that would hear me walking home from school
a half mile away and would want to be let out to come racing to meet me. She
wasn't spayed and eventually had five puppies which we gave away, though in
about three months, the people who had adopted one of them brought him
back. As usual, in a couple of months, my father decided to move and since my
parents were broke all the time, they decided they couldn't afford to have her
spayed and that if we took her with us, there'd be more puppies, and how to
find a place to rent etc? the usual implacable logic of the adultworld, so they
decided 'the best thing' would be to take her out into the surrounding
countryside, many sheep farms etc, and leave her and the puppy out at some
farmer's house where some kindly sheepherder would take her in. So we were all
miserably loaded in the car and drove for some fifty miles into the countryside
and when my parents saw a hopeful looking farmhouse, they let her and the
puppy out. I remember looking out the rear window of the car and knowing that
she would come back, for she wasn't following the car, she had turned and was
flying like an arrow across the Wyoming scrub brush flatness as if she knew
where she was going, and wondering for days afterwards why she hadn't, that
something must have happened along that flight back. It was only later that my
mother told me that Sam had come back, after we'd gone to sleep, and that my
father had driven her 40 miles out in the opposite direction and she'd come
back. During the night he made three trips into the surrounding countryside,
each trip becoming shorter as he lost faith in the idea of such a thing working,
and she came back. So since it was approaching morning and I was likely to
wake up and see her there, they called the animal control people who came and
picked her up. Though they had also picked up another dog and somehow
during that stop, my dog escaped from the car and came back again. I have,
once or twice, tried to write about this but have never managed it, but, yes, I am
still owned by that dog,
Best,
Rebecca
---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 12:17:19 -0500
>From: Rebecca Seiferle <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: "Power"/too late to be a snap, oh well
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>>I wish the beginning worked as well as the end. It was about a very
>>strange, "defining" moment and it is very hard to describe the interplay
>>between human and animal because all the thinking for the animal is
>>assumed by the human. Traps: sentimentality, or what I did--a kind of
>>hardassed tone with somewhat extraneous material that doesn't get at
>>what I began to get at only midway through, the action itself minus
>>set-ups, etc.
>
>Yes, Ken, I think it does seem a "very strange 'defining' moment', that's there,
>and perhaps the trouble with the beginning is the staging, where you start out
>from a rather distanced view "Grant this" and then zero in, incremently. You
>could try something like this,
>
>Chain your intellect to the fencepost and let it bare its teeth at Old Yeller
>or So Dear To My Heart. Know you are wearing a neck chain and your teeth will
>not
>reach.
>
>This is a dog story, but the dog is not shaggy, he combines Rottweiler,
>Shepherd, and jerk,
>which means there are no apologies here save to the insulted and the injured.
>
>Grant this: He is the woman's dog, but I have lately adopted him to the heart.
>He is not an Ours because when it comes to this dog there is no Us.
>
>A kind of interweaving, instead of the view moving in upon the 'action' by
>marked delineations, and I hope you don't mind the suggestion! And I wouldn't
>worry about the line being from Meister Eckhardt via some Landinsky; since
it's
>that sort of line, perhaps because as you say Landinsky is the sort of
'translator
>who makes everyone sound like himself' it sounds like a line from anyone, as
in
>the sense, of those medieval morality plays, "Everyman".
>
>best,
>
>Rebecca
>
>
>>I wish the beginning worked as well as the end. It was about a very
>>strange, "defining" moment and it is very hard to describe the interplay
>>between human and animal because all the thinking for the animal is
>>assumed by the human. Traps: sentimentality, or what I did--a kind of
>>hardassed tone with somewhat extraneous material that doesn't get at
>>what I began to get at only midway through, the action itself minus
>>set-ups, etc.
>
>
>---- Original message ----
>>Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 11:01:34 -0500
>>From: Ken Wolman <[log in to unmask]>
>>Subject: Re: "Power"/too late to be a snap, oh well
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>>Rebecca Seiferle wrote:
>>
>>>I like your snap, Ken, so honest to so many not always pleasant
>>>intersecting realities and agree with Andrew about the fine turn of the end,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>What is wrong with him, I sometimes wonder? He does not thrive on
>>>>anger. He is forgiving. He is not human.
>>>>Love does that.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>a real questioning of being,
>>>
>>>best,
>>>
>>>Rebecca
>>>
>>>
>>I wish the beginning worked as well as the end. It was about a very
>>strange, "defining" moment and it is very hard to describe the interplay
>>between human and animal because all the thinking for the animal is
>>assumed by the human. Traps: sentimentality, or what I did--a kind of
>>hardassed tone with somewhat extraneous material that doesn't get at
>>what I began to get at only midway through, the action itself minus
>>set-ups, etc.
>>
>>"Love Does That." I hate to admit this, but I stole the words from a
>>poem about an overburdened donkey fed by a passer-by; I think it was
>>written by Master Eckhard filtered through a guy named Daniel Ladinsky,
>>who I've seen condemned as (gasp) New Age and, worse, as a translator
>>who makes everyone sound like himself. I wish I could find the original
>>poem which I remember as a sweet, simple look at the kind of
>>communication I tried to describe.
>>
>>ken
>>
>>--
>>Kenneth Wolman
>>Proposal Development Department
>>Room SW334
>>Sarnoff Corporation
>>609-734-2538
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