Readers and writers blog

With apologies to Sir Walter Scott: O what a tangled web we crawled through to find a blog on aesthetics — finally, a site called philosophy of art — when most of the aestheticians we met wouldn’t know what to say unless that web produced spider veins.

And there is one of the vagaries of modern English: Where an aesthetician once was someone versed in the philosophy and nature of beauty and artistic expression, the word has been co-opted to mean specialists in skin care and cosmetics. And they have co-opted the Internet: Of the top 100 Google listings for ‘aesthetician blogs,’ only two qualify in the traditional sense, and philosophy of art was a blogroll spinoff from one of them.

Well, the crawl was worth it, I think, although you may not agree.

Aesthetic theory is not to be approached with an ‘I don’t know about art but I know what I like’ attitude. It’s complex, convoluted and confusing. And although philosophy of art is a collaboration of different thinkers, often in an extended dialogue, it is well-written. Which is why it’s now on our blogroll.

Here’s a sample from the most recent entry I found — a Feb. 25 essay by Robert Kraut, an Ohio State professor in metaphysics, aesthetic theory and philosophy of language, pondering the “alleged universality of art”:

Over the years, I’ve found that most of my introductory aesthetics students reject this claim of ‘universality’: They are more struck by differences than similarities among artworks of different cultures and ages. But the logic of the situation is notoriously complex: With sufficient cleverness, it is always possible to find a set of invariants uniting any given class of data. The question is whether those invariants are non-trivial, and whether they are of importance to someone interested in ‘the essence’ of art . . . Moreover, even if there exist artworks with ‘universal and eternal’ appeal, it is not clear (to me) why such features should be valorized as essential to art.

In a comment three days later, Jerome Langguth, an adjunct philosophy instructor from Cincinnati, suggested there is a universality to the arts:

Maybe what is universal is not some set of features that art-objects or experiences might or might not have in common, but the human capacity to become enthusiastic about opening oneself to the pleasures of the new.

Kraut acknowledges in an entry about a year earlier, Feb. 21, 2006, that aesthetic theory is not easy:

One reason aesthetic theory is so difficult — and, in my opinion (I’m not alone in this), less well developed than areas like philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, theory of knowledge and metaphysics — is that genuine artworld practitioners (ED: the artists themselves) tend not to wield the formidable technical machinery of theory construction employed by those in the sciences or in analytic philosophy. But, of course, the reverse deficiency also holds: Artists wield other sorts of machinery that theorists lack. It goes both ways.

I don’t understand everything the aestheticians are talking about, but it reminds me of being a kid and listening to grownups talking intelligently about a subject some of which I can barely grasp and the rest of which seems a wonderful mystery that I someday may understand.

The content of philosophy of art can be dense, but the postings are sporadic. Feb. 25, in fact, is the most recent I found, and although the site is two years old, there are entries in only 10 of those 24 months.

I found the site through Philosophy Talk, a companion blog to a West Coast radio program of the same name on which a variety of philosophical topics are discussed.

– Sid Leavitt

EDITOR’S NOTE: Following is Chapter 35 of “Adrift in America: Diary of a Minimalist Mariner,” a work found in the nonfiction section:

Center Ossipee, New Hampshire. July 15, 1990.

In the apron of the southbound lane of New Hampshire Route 16, just south of the overpass spanning old Route 16 in Center Ossipee, lies a dead raccoon, his neck bent at an unsurvivable angle, a string of blood dried to his rectum. In the same lane just to the north lies a half-chewed hamburger bun.

“Jimmy, what did you throw out of the car?” a mother might have said to her child in the back seat with the window down.

“What?” the child probably said.

“I saw you throw out that bun,” the mother might have said.

“What?” the child probably said.

“You can’t eat the burger and throw the bun away,” the mother might have said.

“What?” the child probably said.

Oh well, the mother might have thought, although maybe not, at least the bun is biodegradable.

It is mid-July, with daily highs in the humid 80s. The raccoon will soon be gone. He also is biodegradable.

So are the mother and child.

Not so the chrome spoked hubcap, green wine cooler bottle, twin Coors Silver Bullet cans, plastic department store bag and empty styrofoam burger box that lie within sight of the dead raccoon.

I am soaked with sweat when I get back from my walk. The pines in front of my grandmother’s place have kept the truck in the shade all day, but when night comes, it is still too hot for sleep.

(Chapter 36, a different place, a different season, a kindred theme.)

As the 1915 song says, we’re all adrift in our memories, and Jerry Waxler is here to say that writing them down helps us cast a lifeline to other people.

To whose benefit? Well, in the June 23 entry to his weblog, Memory Writers Network, the latest addition to our blogroll of well-written sites, Waxler says a memoir can benefit people on both ends of the lifeline:

Your wisdom is contained in your life experience. Share it with the world . . . As you go, you’ll discover the sense you’ve made of your past, and then discover the impact your experience has on others. By writing and organizing your story, without even knowing how, you are already beginning to serve. And like any service to others, you’ll be the first to reap the rewards.

Now, not everyone in the writing world takes such a positive view of memoirs — publishers and literary agents, for example. Reputable publishers warn against sleazy operators who bilk would-be memoirists in self-publishing and vanity publishing schemes. And a Denver agent named Kristin, author of the weblog Pub Rants, says a big mistake she sees in query letters about memoirs is “writers who spotlight how cathartic and therapeutic the writing of the work was and how they now need to share it with the world.” Forget it, she says. Successful writers like Frank McCourt and Jeannette Walls understand that a memoir is not therapy — “or shouldn’t be” — but art:

“What these memoirists actually under(stand) is that readers aren’t interested in any one person’s therapeutic story. These readers are interested in an inside look to a world they’ve never seen or have never imagined. A world that is unbelievable but true . . that is unique but resonates with us.”

Not all Kristin’s readers agreed with her June 13 rant: “I have to disagree,” said a blogger named the anti-wife. “Writing a memoir can definitely be therapeutic. The mistake people seem to make is in assuming this form of self-therapy is publishable.”

And Waxler isn’t saying your memoir has to be published, although he has published two books himself and does list a number of methods of publication (June 10). No, his training and experience are as a therapist, and it is the therapist in him that most often speaks in Memory Writers Network. Most of his entries are about getting you started and proceeding as a writer because, well, it’s good for you.

In fact, he sums it all up in one of his most recent entries, July 27:

While we can’t change the past, we can change our relationship to it. By telling the story, we see it from a higher vantage point, see how it fit in with what came before and after, and provide more insights into the other characters and beyond them to the stage they acted on . . .

Putting it on paper lets me get it out of my head, and reduces some of its hold on my unconscious. On paper it doesn’t look as bad, and when I squint, I see it as an interesting story. And the most important benefit of the story is that I can see that even after bad things happen, life goes on.

Waxler discusses why certain memoirs are powerful — black author George Brummell’s life with blindness in Shades of Darkness, Anne Lamott’s unsteady passage to faith in Traveling Mercies, actress Brooke Shields’ struggle with depression in Down Came the Rain — and offers a lot of coaching and encouragement about writing:

• How to avoid ‘loaded words’ — clichés that need description and detail to appeal to those who don’t share them (July 2).

• Breaking down ‘code’ words into scenes and images (June 29).

• Storytelling lessons (June 27).

• The difficulty of remembering and the importance of recreating the sense and feeling of memories (June 6).

• Using story scenes to convey abstract ideas and emotions (April 12).

And if that memoir of yours does get published . . . well, it’s never too late, Waxler tells us in his April 2 entry: Harry Bernstein, an immigrant from England, lost his wife five years ago and decided to write a memoir, his first book, and got it published by Random House. He is 96 years old.

– Sid Leavitt

I wanted to write this entry about an acoustical scientist, but I discovered that accountants are more interesting, largely due to a weblog called Gina’s Tax Articles, the latest addition to our blogroll of well-written sites.

While crunching numbers may not seem as glamorous as some pursuits, many of us deal with an accountant from time to time if just for one reason — tax preparation. And you won’t find better writing in this field than that of Gina L. Gwozdz, a certified public accountant based in Bullard, Texas.

Even if you think AMT is a machine where you get money, don’t worry: While tax laws are complex, most of Gwozdz’s entries are about subjects that affect ordinary people of ordinary means — and they are written with a blessed clarity.

Now if you are a business person interested in vehicle depreciation recapture or an investor wondering about short-term stock loss versus long-term stock gain, it’s all there, too. But if you are an ordinary citizen working from paycheck to paycheck, there’s plenty to interest you in Gina’s Tax Articles.

Among the topics she discusses at the request of readers are:

• Reverse mortgages and how you can keep it all in the family. (See the entry for Sept. 27, 2006)

• Severance pay — is it subject to withholding, how is it taxed, and will it affect unemployment benefits? (Feb. 26)

• No-interest loans — for example, from parents to their children who want to buy a home — and whether the IRS will consider the foregone interest a gift subject to tax. (May 6)

• Whether a college dropout living at home and doing online studies can be claimed by parents as a dependent. (Jan. 25)

• What to do if a collection agency calls about your tax debt — yes, the IRS hires private agencies to do just that, but you don’t have to surrender. (Oct. 7)

• Is cosmetic surgery a deductible medical expense? (Feb. 23)

• Selling a frail elderly parent’s home in a way that will maximize proceeds toward the parent’s assisted living care. (April 10)

• Declaring winnings from gambling, including the possibility of declaring yourself a professional gambler in order to contribute part of them to an individual retirement account. (June 10)

• Deducting your pet’s medical expenses — yes, it can be done if the animal is an asset of a profit-earning farm business. (June 9)

• Educator expense deductions for homeschooling. (Feb. 20)

• What to do if the IRS notifies you of income, such as from a settlement, that you didn’t realize was taxable. (Jan. 28)

• Hiring your child and putting his or her pay into a 529 college savings plan. (Dec. 28)

• How long to keep records — income tax returns, escrow closing statements, securities purchases or sales, retirement plan documents, estate and gift tax returns, divorce documents, deeds — it all depends. (Nov. 19)

• Is there a best time of the year, tax-wise, to get married? (Sept. 6)

• The differences between a small business, with its attendant tax deductions, and a hobby. (Aug. 15, 16)

• How to avoid being a ‘defective’ taxpayer. (July 24, 2006)

• Should you buy a hybrid car? (July 21, 2006)

• Ever thought of deducting your child’s summer camp? (June 27, 2006)

By the way, if you are a new reader (or an old one like me with short-term memory issues), I should explain that I have been simplifying my search for diverse weblogs by using Wikipedia’s list of occupations. The first on the list was ‘able seaman,’ which produced Charles Darwin for our July 29 entry. I wanted to skip No. 2, ‘accountant,’ because No. 3, ‘acoustical scientist,’ seemed so exotic. Maybe too much so. Other than a bunch of acoustic guitar sites, my search turned up no acoustical science blogs.

But there is something exotic about Gwozdz. According to her web profile, her favorite movie is “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” If you’ve read Douglas Adams’s book, watched the TV series or seen the movie, you realize at least one CPA has a sense of the bizarre.

– Sid Leavitt

EDITOR’S NOTE: Following is an abridged version of Chapter 51 of “Adrift in America: Diary of a Minimalist Mariner,” a work found in the nonfiction section:

Sumter County, Alabama. April 18, 1989.

A woman’s voice.

“Hello. Hello in there.”

I am standing, as they say in this part of the country, buck naked in the middle of the truck after taking a sink bath to relieve myself of this sticky Alabama heat.

“Hello. Hello-oo. Anybody in there?”

It is a young woman’s voice.

“Hold on,” I say, crouching behind the stove while I speak through the screen door. “I am just getting dressed.”

It is early evening, and I am glad I haven’t yet turned on the lights.

I pull on fresh shorts, T-shirt and trousers, and they wilt when they hit the sweat of my body.

I go to the door and there meet Nannette Steedley, a true flower of the South – mid-20s, a slender 5-foot-7, maybe 135 pounds, light brown hair, blue-hazel eyes, skin like peach brandy in cream.

She is quite startling in her full camouflage outfit.

“I was out in the fields doing some turkey hunting when I saw your truck parked here,” she says, standing with her weight on one boot and her hands on her hips. “I was just curious . . . nosy, I guess you’d say.”

“Well, you have found a turkey,” I say. She seems puzzled by the comment.

“Say, do you have time for me to show you something?” she says with new animation. “I want to show you the hunting club where I hang out.”

She leads me to her car, a gun-metal gray Datsun loaded with a .20-gauge Browning shotgun, cartridges of birdshot and other hunting gear, and we tool off north and west on Route 28.

Somewhere on the way to Livingston, we pull off onto a long wooded road that leads to an oversized stone-and-timber building. It is the headquarters of Southern Sportsman, a hunting club whose 312 members come from as far away as Pennsylvania to roam over 23,000 acres. That’s roughly the same area – about 36 square miles – that the king of England would grant to one of his friends to establish a town in colonial America.

Inside the lodge are stone floors, hewn wooden walls and ceilings, a huge copper hood over a huge open fireplace. Plain, rustic, but sort of corporate, too. Like some architect had been commissioned to design an office building in the woods using only available materials.

The lodge manager, a pleasant, plaid-encased man named George, takes me on a tour with Nannette. I admire one of the club’s two bunkhouses. Plain wood floors, uncluttered, but I notice that all the wooden dressers, despite natural variances in grain, are matched in their detailing right down to the same brass drawer pulls. The club also has its own trailer park, two stocked lakes, a hanging shed, a skinning shed, a cutting and processing room and a walk-in freezer 24 feet square. A regular Auschwitz for game animals.

The tour continues. She drives a short distance to her apartment, a two-room suite in a building that is a cross between a dormitory and a motel. As I walk in, the first thing I see is a hardwood tree limb. Not a potted tree but a medium-size limb, broken off at the bottom, leaning into a corner. On one of the branches, something moves.

“Oh, that’s BS,” she says, retrieving a tiny gray squirrel from the branch. She gives him a peanut, and, although hardly a month old, he tears expertly at the shell.

“I got him last month at a veterinary clinic after he fell out of a tree. He was like 10 days old, and he had his eyes all shut like a little nasty rat. I had to feed him from a bottle every two to four hours. BS stands for Baby Squirrel, and I’m Mother Squirrel.”

The peanut is part of the weaning process. The limb is vocational training for BS before he goes back into the wild.

Nannette, too, is at home in the wild:

“It is sacred holy ground,” she says. “I feel like I’m more in God’s house when I’m out in the woods than when I’m in church. The church has its doctrine, but I have my beliefs. Being outside in nature, seeing how things stay in balance, you know there’s a God out there, and it all works.”

The new South. A synthesis of the good old boys and the new-age woman.

– Sid Leavitt