George Orwell
Why I Write
[d]
From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books.
I was the middle child of three, but there was a gap of five years on either side, and I barely saw my father before I was eight. For this and other reasons I was somewhat lonely, and I soon developed disagreeable mannerisms which made me unpopular throughout my schooldays. I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life. Nevertheless the volume of serious — i.e. seriously intended — writing which I produced all through my childhood and boyhood would not amount to half a dozen pages. I wrote my first poem at the age of four or five, my mother taking it down to dictation. I cannot remember anything about it except that it was about a tiger and the tiger had ‘chair-like teeth’ — a good enough phrase, but I fancy the poem was a plagiarism of Blake's ‘Tiger, Tiger’. At eleven, when the war or 1914-18 broke out, I wrote a patriotic poem which was printed in the local newspaper, as was another, two years later, on the death of Kitchener. From time to time, when I was a bit older, I wrote bad and usually unfinished ‘nature poems’ in the Georgian style. I also attempted a short story which was a ghastly failure. That was the total of the would-be serious work that I actually set down on paper during all those years.
However, throughout this time I did in a sense engage in literary activities. To begin with there was the made-to-order stuff which I produced quickly, easily and without much pleasure to myself. Apart from school work, I wrote vers d'occasion, semi-comic poems which I could turn out at what now seems to me astonishing speed — at fourteen I wrote a whole rhyming play, in imitation of Aristophanes, in about a week — and helped to edit a school magazines, both printed and in manuscript. These magazines were the most pitiful burlesque stuff that you could imagine, and I took far less trouble with them than I now would with the cheapest journalism. But side by side with all this, for fifteen years or more, I was carrying out a literary exercise of a quite different kind: this was the making up of a continuous ‘story’ about myself, a sort of diary existing only in the mind. I believe this is a common habit of children and adolescents. As a very small child I used to imagine that I was, say, Robin Hood, and picture myself as the hero of thrilling adventures, but quite soon my ‘story’ ceased to be narcissistic in a crude way and became more and more a mere description of what I was doing and the things I saw. For minutes at a time this kind of thing would be running through my head: ‘He pushed the door open and entered the room. A yellow beam of sunlight, filtering through the muslin curtains, slanted on to the table, where a match-box, half-open, lay beside the inkpot. With his right hand in his pocket he moved across to the window. Down in the street a tortoiseshell cat was chasing a dead leaf’, etc. etc. This habit continued until I was about twenty-five, right through my non-literary years. Although I had to search, and did search, for the right words, I seemed to be making this descriptive effort almost against my will, under a kind of compulsion from outside. The ‘story’ must, I suppose, have reflected the styles of the various writers I admired at different ages, but so far as I remember it always had the same meticulous descriptive quality.
When I was about sixteen I suddenly discovered the joy of mere words, i.e. the sounds and associations of words. The lines from Paradise Lost —
So hee with difficulty and labour hard
Moved on: with difficulty and labour hee.
which do not now seem to me so very wonderful, sent shivers down my backbone; and the spelling ‘hee’ for ‘he’ was an added pleasure. As for the need to describe things, I knew all about it already. So it is clear what kind of books I wanted to write, in so far as I could be said to want to write books at that time. I wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their own sound. And in fact my first completed novel, Burmese Days, which I wrote when I was thirty but projected much earlier, is rather that kind of book.
I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in — at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own — but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature stage, in some perverse mood; but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write. Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:
(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.
(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.
(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.
(iv) Political purpose. — Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.
It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time. By nature — taking your ‘nature’ to be the state you have attained when you are first adult — I am a person in whom the first three motives would outweigh the fourth. In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties. As it is I have been forced into becoming a sort of pamphleteer. First I spent five years in an unsuitable profession (the Indian Imperial Police, in Burma), and then I underwent poverty and the sense of failure. This increased my natural hatred of authority and made me for the first time fully aware of the existence of the working classes, and the job in Burma had given me some understanding of the nature of imperialism: but these experiences were not enough to give me an accurate political orientation. Then came Hitler, the Spanish Civil War, etc. By the end of 1935 I had still failed to reach a firm decision. I remember a little poem that I wrote at that date, expressing my dilemma:
A happy vicar I might have been
Two hundred years ago
To preach upon eternal doom
And watch my walnuts grow;
But born, alas, in an evil time,
I missed that pleasant haven,
For the hair has grown on my upper lip
And the clergy are all clean-shaven.
And later still the times were good,
We were so easy to please,
We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep
On the bosoms of the trees.
All ignorant we dared to own
The joys we now dissemble;
The greenfinch on the apple bough
Could make my enemies tremble.
But girl's bellies and apricots,
Roach in a shaded stream,
Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,
All these are a dream.
It is forbidden to dream again;
We maim our joys or hide them:
Horses are made of chromium steel
And little fat men shall ride them.
I am the worm who never turned,
The eunuch without a harem;
Between the priest and the commissar
I walk like Eugene Aram;
And the commissar is telling my fortune
While the radio plays,
But the priest has promised an Austin Seven,
For Duggie always pays.
I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And woke to find it true;
I wasn't born for an age like this;
Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?
The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects. Everyone writes of them in one guise or another. It is simply a question of which side one takes and what approach one follows. And the more one is conscious of one's political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one's aesthetic and intellectual integrity.
What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience. Anyone who cares to examine my work will see that even when it is downright propaganda it contains much that a full-time politician would consider irrelevant. I am not able, and do not want, completely to abandon the world view that I acquired in childhood. So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us.
It is not easy. It raises problems of construction and of language, and it raises in a new way the problem of truthfulness. Let me give just one example of the cruder kind of difficulty that arises. My book about the Spanish civil war, Homage to Catalonia, is of course a frankly political book, but in the main it is written with a certain detachment and regard for form. I did try very hard in it to tell the whole truth without violating my literary instincts. But among other things it contains a long chapter, full of newspaper quotations and the like, defending the Trotskyists who were accused of plotting with Franco. Clearly such a chapter, which after a year or two would lose its interest for any ordinary reader, must ruin the book. A critic whom I respect read me a lecture about it. ‘Why did you put in all that stuff?’ he said. ‘You've turned what might have been a good book into journalism.’ What he said was true, but I could not have done otherwise. I happened to know, what very few people in England had been allowed to know, that innocent men were being falsely accused. If I had not been angry about that I should never have written the book.
In one form or another this problem comes up again. The problem of language is subtler and would take too long to discuss. I will only say that of late years I have tried to write less picturesquely and more exactly. In any case I find that by the time you have perfected any style of writing, you have always outgrown it. Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole. I have not written a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another fairly soon. It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.
Looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don't want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.
1946
THE END
Monday 30 July 2007
Sunday 29 July 2007
Milton.......
On May Morning
Now the bright morning Star, Day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing,
Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.
Now the bright morning Star, Day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing,
Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.
Emily Dickinson
Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!
A poem by Ibn Arabi
Wonder
Wonder,
A garden among the flames!
My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.
My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief,
My faith.
- Ibn Arabi
Wonder,
A garden among the flames!
My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.
My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief,
My faith.
- Ibn Arabi
Ibn Arabi
Ibn Arabi
Ibn Arabi (1165-1240)
Ibn Arabi poems
Mystic, philosopher, poet, sage, Muhammad Ibn 'Arabi is one of the world's great spiritual teachers. Known as Muhyiddin (the Revivifier of Religion) and the Shaykh al-Akbar (the Greatest Master), he was born in 1165 AD into the Moorish culture of Andalusian Spain, the center of an extraordinary flourishing and cross-fertilization of Jewish, Christian and Islamic thought, through which the major scientific and philosophical works of antiquity were transmitted to Northern Europe. Ibn 'Arabi's spiritual attainments were evident from an early age, and he was renowned for his great visionary capacity as well as being a superlative teacher. He travelled extensively in the Islamic world and died in Damascus in 1240 AD.
He wrote over 350 works including the Fusûs al-Hikam , an exposition of the inner meaning of the wisdom of the prophets in the Judaic/ Christian/ Islamic line, and the Futûhât al-Makkiyya, a vast encyclopaedia of spiritual knowledge which unites and distinguishes the three strands of tradition, reason and mystical insight. In his Diwân and Tarjumân al-Ashwâq he also wrote some of the finest poetry in the Arabic language. These extensive writings provide a beautiful exposition of the Unity of Being, the single and indivisible reality which simultaneously transcends and is manifested in all the images of the world. Ibn 'Arabi shows how Man, in perfection, is the complete image of this reality and how those who truly know their essential self, know God.
Firmly rooted in the Quran, his work is universal, accepting that each person has a unique path to the truth, which unites all paths in itself. He has profoundly influenced the development of Islam since his time, as well as significant aspects of the philosophy and literature of the West. His wisdom has much to offer us in the modern world in terms of understanding what it means to be human.
Ibn Arabi believed in the unity of all religions and taught different prophets all came with the same essential truth.
"There is no knowledge except that taken from God, for He alone is the Knower... the prophets, in spite of their great number and the long periods of time which separate them, had no disagreement in knowledge of God, since they took it from God."
- Ibn Arabi
From Ibn Arabi society
Ibn Arabi (1165-1240)
Ibn Arabi poems
Mystic, philosopher, poet, sage, Muhammad Ibn 'Arabi is one of the world's great spiritual teachers. Known as Muhyiddin (the Revivifier of Religion) and the Shaykh al-Akbar (the Greatest Master), he was born in 1165 AD into the Moorish culture of Andalusian Spain, the center of an extraordinary flourishing and cross-fertilization of Jewish, Christian and Islamic thought, through which the major scientific and philosophical works of antiquity were transmitted to Northern Europe. Ibn 'Arabi's spiritual attainments were evident from an early age, and he was renowned for his great visionary capacity as well as being a superlative teacher. He travelled extensively in the Islamic world and died in Damascus in 1240 AD.
He wrote over 350 works including the Fusûs al-Hikam , an exposition of the inner meaning of the wisdom of the prophets in the Judaic/ Christian/ Islamic line, and the Futûhât al-Makkiyya, a vast encyclopaedia of spiritual knowledge which unites and distinguishes the three strands of tradition, reason and mystical insight. In his Diwân and Tarjumân al-Ashwâq he also wrote some of the finest poetry in the Arabic language. These extensive writings provide a beautiful exposition of the Unity of Being, the single and indivisible reality which simultaneously transcends and is manifested in all the images of the world. Ibn 'Arabi shows how Man, in perfection, is the complete image of this reality and how those who truly know their essential self, know God.
Firmly rooted in the Quran, his work is universal, accepting that each person has a unique path to the truth, which unites all paths in itself. He has profoundly influenced the development of Islam since his time, as well as significant aspects of the philosophy and literature of the West. His wisdom has much to offer us in the modern world in terms of understanding what it means to be human.
Ibn Arabi believed in the unity of all religions and taught different prophets all came with the same essential truth.
"There is no knowledge except that taken from God, for He alone is the Knower... the prophets, in spite of their great number and the long periods of time which separate them, had no disagreement in knowledge of God, since they took it from God."
- Ibn Arabi
From Ibn Arabi society
We are more alike.....
Human Family
I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.
The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.
I've sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two
who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.
We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.
I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.
The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.
I've sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two
who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.
We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.
I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
Passing Time
Passing Time
Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk
One paints the beginning
of a certain end.
The other, the end of a
sure beginning.
- Maya Angelou
Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk
One paints the beginning
of a certain end.
The other, the end of a
sure beginning.
- Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
Phenomenal Woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
More of TH
A Woman Unconscious
Russia and America circle each other;
Threats nudge an act that were without doubt
A melting of the mould in the mother,
Stones melting about the root.
The quick of the earth burned out:
The toil of all our ages a loss
With leaf and insect. Yet flitting thought
(Not to be thought ridiculous)
Shies from the world-cancelling black
Of its playing shadow: it has learned
That there's no trusting (trusting to luck)
Dates when the world's due to be burned;
That the future's no calamitous change
But a malingering of now,
Histories, towns, faces that no
Malice or accident much derange.
And though bomb be matched against bomb,
Though all mankind wince out and nothing endure --
Earth gone in an instant flare --
Did a lesser death come
Onto the white hospital bed
Where one, numb beyond her last of sense,
Closed her eyes on the world's evidence
And into pillows sunk her head.
Ted Hughes
Russia and America circle each other;
Threats nudge an act that were without doubt
A melting of the mould in the mother,
Stones melting about the root.
The quick of the earth burned out:
The toil of all our ages a loss
With leaf and insect. Yet flitting thought
(Not to be thought ridiculous)
Shies from the world-cancelling black
Of its playing shadow: it has learned
That there's no trusting (trusting to luck)
Dates when the world's due to be burned;
That the future's no calamitous change
But a malingering of now,
Histories, towns, faces that no
Malice or accident much derange.
And though bomb be matched against bomb,
Though all mankind wince out and nothing endure --
Earth gone in an instant flare --
Did a lesser death come
Onto the white hospital bed
Where one, numb beyond her last of sense,
Closed her eyes on the world's evidence
And into pillows sunk her head.
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes ~ one of my favourits
Old Age Gets Up
Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks
An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again
Ponders
Ideas that collapse
At the first touch of attention
The light at the window, so square and so same
So full-strong as ever, the window frame
A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on
Supporting the body, shaped to its old work
Making small movements in gray air
Numbed from the blurred accident
Of having lived, the fatal, real injury
Under the amnesia
Something tries to save itself-searches
For defenses-but words evade
Like flies with their own notions
Old age slowly gets dressed
Heavily dosed with death's night
Sits on the bed's edge
Pulls its pieces together
Loosely tucks in its shirt
-- Ted Hughes
Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks
An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again
Ponders
Ideas that collapse
At the first touch of attention
The light at the window, so square and so same
So full-strong as ever, the window frame
A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on
Supporting the body, shaped to its old work
Making small movements in gray air
Numbed from the blurred accident
Of having lived, the fatal, real injury
Under the amnesia
Something tries to save itself-searches
For defenses-but words evade
Like flies with their own notions
Old age slowly gets dressed
Heavily dosed with death's night
Sits on the bed's edge
Pulls its pieces together
Loosely tucks in its shirt
-- Ted Hughes
An exercise to get you writing.......Kate Seitz
Meditation Walks for Writing
Objectives: Students will be able to...
1. use visualization to stimulate writing
2. write descriptively
3. use listening skills
4. relax for 20 mins.
Materials:
1. composition paper
2. pen/pencil
3. tape of relaxing instrumental music (can be used, but not necessary)
Preliminary Activity:
1. Ask students to move the desks into a circle and to get into a
comfortable position (head on the desk, lying on the floor, etc.) and to
refrain from making any noises, talking, or giggling. In order for this to
work, students must be quiet. Limit all distractions as much as possible.
2. Turn off the lights.
Activity:
1. Have students concentrate on breathing, taking a deep breath in, holding
(for about a second), and then exhaling. "Deep breath in, hold it, and
release"
Repeat 3 times.
2. Say to students in a calm and quiet tone: While still breathing ("deep
breath in, hold it, release") concentrate on your muscles.
First focus on your toes and your feet. Without moving a muscle, try to
tense your toes as you breathe in and relaxing as you exhale. Deep breath and
tense, hold it, and release. Next, focus on your legs, deep breath in and
tense, hold it and release. Move on to your back and stomach: deep breath
in, hold it and release. Move on to your shoulders and neck: deep breath in
and tense, hold it and release. Your head: deep breath in, hold it and
release. Finally your arms, hands, and fingers: deep breath in, hold it and
release. You have just squeezed all the frustration, anxiety, sadness, and
other negative feelings out of your body. You feel very calm, relaxed, and
comfortable.
3. While still breathing, deep breath in, hold it, and release, imagine
yourself getting up out of your chair and walking towards the door. You
reach your hand out and can feel the coolness of the doorknob. You open the
door, and walk out into the hall
At this point lead the students (in their minds) to the nearest exit door and
outside onto school grounds.
4. You open the exit door with its bright red neon exit sign and step
outside. Now this morning when you stepped outside it was [insert weather
description here]. This time when you step outside you feel very
comfortable, and it is springtime (warm sunny, plants blooming, etc.). You
can feel the warm sunlight on your face and shoulders. Also, as you walk
across the school grounds, you notice that you are barefoot. You can feel the
cool green grass beneath your feet. [Have students walk towards the woods]
5. As you walk on the trail in the woods you notice the ground beneath your
feet, how wide the trail is, if there are any plants growing along the trail,
the types of trees on either side, color of the leaves, etc. {Give students
various sensory descriptions as they "walk" and continually repeat the
descriptions at various intervals}
6. The trail can lead to a number of different places and beyond. This is a
quick gist of the trip my students take. Feel free to improvise and include
various descriptions or sensory prompts. For this part I'm going to write
using 3rd person instead of second. When speaking to the students use 2nd
person.
a. a stream with bright tropical fish and stepping stones to get across
to the rest of the trail. (Usually I tell my students that one of their feet
slips and enters the water, whereby a fish will take a quick nibble on one of
their toes)
b. a field with tall grass and a GIANT tree in the middle (so tall that
the top is lost in the clouds)-- the trail picks up on the other side of the
field.
c. back on the trail and the scenery begins to change and they find
themselves in their own "special place" (somewhere where they feel
comfortable and safe-- it can be a room, the beach, a clearing in the woods,
a house, etc.)
Ask the students:
-what objects do you see?
-Colors?
-What sounds do you hear?
-What are you doing?
-What time of day is it? What time of year is it?
(Questions which use their senses)
d. a person joins them in their special place--someone who makes them
feel calm and happy. It could be a person they saw yesterday, last week,
today, or someone they haven't seen in years.
Ask students:
-Who is this person?
-What are you doing with this person? Talking? Fishing?
Watching a sunset?
e. the special person leaves, but the students feel happy because they
were able to spend time with this person. And they know that this person
will always be here waiting for them.
f. students take one last sweeping glance around their special place
noticing all details. Have the students turn around and the trail will be
right behind them.
g. take the students back the way they came.. repeating various sensory
cues ("you see the sunlight filtering through the branches, you can hear the
birds in the trees, and you feel the warm earth beneath your feet")
7. When students have "returned" to their seats, tell them to slowly cover
their eyes with their hands (this is always a great way to tell who fell
asleep). As you count back from 5, slowly have them open their eyes into
their hands, and as you reach the number one, slowly take their hands away
from their eyes.
8. Say to students: "Now without talking, turn to your sheet of paper and
beginning writing about the experience. Describe the trail, your special
place, or special person, or for those of you who fell asleep, what you
dreamed about. But don't talk; you don't want to break the spell." You will
be amazed how quickly and quietly they write!
9. For the last 5 minutes of class debrief:
Discuss: How easy or hard it was to write.
What images they saw.
****I never grade the meditation writings. I just read them and make
supportive comments about the content. This is a great prelim. activity for
creative writing. I use the meditation writes as pre-writes for poetry
writing sessions.
Have fun!
-Kate Seitz
9th grade English
Southern Regional High School
Manahawkin, NJ
Objectives: Students will be able to...
1. use visualization to stimulate writing
2. write descriptively
3. use listening skills
4. relax for 20 mins.
Materials:
1. composition paper
2. pen/pencil
3. tape of relaxing instrumental music (can be used, but not necessary)
Preliminary Activity:
1. Ask students to move the desks into a circle and to get into a
comfortable position (head on the desk, lying on the floor, etc.) and to
refrain from making any noises, talking, or giggling. In order for this to
work, students must be quiet. Limit all distractions as much as possible.
2. Turn off the lights.
Activity:
1. Have students concentrate on breathing, taking a deep breath in, holding
(for about a second), and then exhaling. "Deep breath in, hold it, and
release"
Repeat 3 times.
2. Say to students in a calm and quiet tone: While still breathing ("deep
breath in, hold it, release") concentrate on your muscles.
First focus on your toes and your feet. Without moving a muscle, try to
tense your toes as you breathe in and relaxing as you exhale. Deep breath and
tense, hold it, and release. Next, focus on your legs, deep breath in and
tense, hold it and release. Move on to your back and stomach: deep breath
in, hold it and release. Move on to your shoulders and neck: deep breath in
and tense, hold it and release. Your head: deep breath in, hold it and
release. Finally your arms, hands, and fingers: deep breath in, hold it and
release. You have just squeezed all the frustration, anxiety, sadness, and
other negative feelings out of your body. You feel very calm, relaxed, and
comfortable.
3. While still breathing, deep breath in, hold it, and release, imagine
yourself getting up out of your chair and walking towards the door. You
reach your hand out and can feel the coolness of the doorknob. You open the
door, and walk out into the hall
At this point lead the students (in their minds) to the nearest exit door and
outside onto school grounds.
4. You open the exit door with its bright red neon exit sign and step
outside. Now this morning when you stepped outside it was [insert weather
description here]. This time when you step outside you feel very
comfortable, and it is springtime (warm sunny, plants blooming, etc.). You
can feel the warm sunlight on your face and shoulders. Also, as you walk
across the school grounds, you notice that you are barefoot. You can feel the
cool green grass beneath your feet. [Have students walk towards the woods]
5. As you walk on the trail in the woods you notice the ground beneath your
feet, how wide the trail is, if there are any plants growing along the trail,
the types of trees on either side, color of the leaves, etc. {Give students
various sensory descriptions as they "walk" and continually repeat the
descriptions at various intervals}
6. The trail can lead to a number of different places and beyond. This is a
quick gist of the trip my students take. Feel free to improvise and include
various descriptions or sensory prompts. For this part I'm going to write
using 3rd person instead of second. When speaking to the students use 2nd
person.
a. a stream with bright tropical fish and stepping stones to get across
to the rest of the trail. (Usually I tell my students that one of their feet
slips and enters the water, whereby a fish will take a quick nibble on one of
their toes)
b. a field with tall grass and a GIANT tree in the middle (so tall that
the top is lost in the clouds)-- the trail picks up on the other side of the
field.
c. back on the trail and the scenery begins to change and they find
themselves in their own "special place" (somewhere where they feel
comfortable and safe-- it can be a room, the beach, a clearing in the woods,
a house, etc.)
Ask the students:
-what objects do you see?
-Colors?
-What sounds do you hear?
-What are you doing?
-What time of day is it? What time of year is it?
(Questions which use their senses)
d. a person joins them in their special place--someone who makes them
feel calm and happy. It could be a person they saw yesterday, last week,
today, or someone they haven't seen in years.
Ask students:
-Who is this person?
-What are you doing with this person? Talking? Fishing?
Watching a sunset?
e. the special person leaves, but the students feel happy because they
were able to spend time with this person. And they know that this person
will always be here waiting for them.
f. students take one last sweeping glance around their special place
noticing all details. Have the students turn around and the trail will be
right behind them.
g. take the students back the way they came.. repeating various sensory
cues ("you see the sunlight filtering through the branches, you can hear the
birds in the trees, and you feel the warm earth beneath your feet")
7. When students have "returned" to their seats, tell them to slowly cover
their eyes with their hands (this is always a great way to tell who fell
asleep). As you count back from 5, slowly have them open their eyes into
their hands, and as you reach the number one, slowly take their hands away
from their eyes.
8. Say to students: "Now without talking, turn to your sheet of paper and
beginning writing about the experience. Describe the trail, your special
place, or special person, or for those of you who fell asleep, what you
dreamed about. But don't talk; you don't want to break the spell." You will
be amazed how quickly and quietly they write!
9. For the last 5 minutes of class debrief:
Discuss: How easy or hard it was to write.
What images they saw.
****I never grade the meditation writings. I just read them and make
supportive comments about the content. This is a great prelim. activity for
creative writing. I use the meditation writes as pre-writes for poetry
writing sessions.
Have fun!
-Kate Seitz
9th grade English
Southern Regional High School
Manahawkin, NJ
GB Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
1856-1950
Playwright, born in Dublin into a loveless and genteely poor household overshadowed by his father's tippling, but filled with music and musicians by his mother. Shaw was educated both at Wesley Connexional School, in the National Gallery of Ireland, and by his own wide reading. In 1876 he joined his mother who had moved to London as a music teacher.
From 1878 to 1883 Shaw wrote but failed to publish five novels, but in subsequent years made remarkable intellectual progress, acheived conquest over his shyness, and made many important friendships. In 1884 Shaw joined the Fabian Society, and over the next decade wrote as a book reviewer for the Pall Mall Gazette, an art critic for the World, a music critic for the Star under the pseudonym Corno di Bassetto, and dramatic critic for the Saturday Review.
By 1925, Shaw's work earned him the Nobel Prize. He established the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation and left residue of an estate to institute a British alphabet of at least forty letters (12).
1856-1950
Playwright, born in Dublin into a loveless and genteely poor household overshadowed by his father's tippling, but filled with music and musicians by his mother. Shaw was educated both at Wesley Connexional School, in the National Gallery of Ireland, and by his own wide reading. In 1876 he joined his mother who had moved to London as a music teacher.
From 1878 to 1883 Shaw wrote but failed to publish five novels, but in subsequent years made remarkable intellectual progress, acheived conquest over his shyness, and made many important friendships. In 1884 Shaw joined the Fabian Society, and over the next decade wrote as a book reviewer for the Pall Mall Gazette, an art critic for the World, a music critic for the Star under the pseudonym Corno di Bassetto, and dramatic critic for the Saturday Review.
By 1925, Shaw's work earned him the Nobel Prize. He established the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation and left residue of an estate to institute a British alphabet of at least forty letters (12).
The Rossettis................
Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894), poet.
Christina Rossetti's first productions were printed privately, 1842 and 1847. She contributed to the Germ under the pseudonym "Ellen Alleyne" in 1850. She also published Goblin Market (1862), Commonplace (1870), Sing Song (1872), and subsequently composed mainly devotional literature.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), painter and poet.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti studied at the Royal Academy 1846, and later under Ford Madox Brown. He met Woolner, Holman Hunt and Millais, and founded the Pre-Raphaelite school of Painting. After the death of his wife in 1862, D.G. Rossetti lived with his brother William, Mr. Swinburne, and George Meredith.
William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919), writer and critic.
A pre-Raphaelite writer and art critic, William Rossetti also edited the works of his brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He edited four editions of D.G. Rossetti's collected works, Memoir (1895), and Christina Rossetti's New and Collected Poems (1904).
Rossetti, Christina Georgina.
The Prince's Progress and Other Poems.
Macmillan, 1866.
Contents Introduction Publishers Writers Periodicals Notes Next Page
UBC Library Special Collections & University Archives
Select image to view
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel.
The House of Life ... Being Now for the First Time Given in Its Full Text.
Boston: Copeland & Day, 1894.
Select image to view
Rossetti, William Michael.
Swineburne's Poems and Ballads: A Criticism.
J.C. Hotten, 1866.
Christina Rossetti's first productions were printed privately, 1842 and 1847. She contributed to the Germ under the pseudonym "Ellen Alleyne" in 1850. She also published Goblin Market (1862), Commonplace (1870), Sing Song (1872), and subsequently composed mainly devotional literature.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), painter and poet.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti studied at the Royal Academy 1846, and later under Ford Madox Brown. He met Woolner, Holman Hunt and Millais, and founded the Pre-Raphaelite school of Painting. After the death of his wife in 1862, D.G. Rossetti lived with his brother William, Mr. Swinburne, and George Meredith.
William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919), writer and critic.
A pre-Raphaelite writer and art critic, William Rossetti also edited the works of his brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He edited four editions of D.G. Rossetti's collected works, Memoir (1895), and Christina Rossetti's New and Collected Poems (1904).
Rossetti, Christina Georgina.
The Prince's Progress and Other Poems.
Macmillan, 1866.
Contents Introduction Publishers Writers Periodicals Notes Next Page
UBC Library Special Collections & University Archives
Select image to view
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel.
The House of Life ... Being Now for the First Time Given in Its Full Text.
Boston: Copeland & Day, 1894.
Select image to view
Rossetti, William Michael.
Swineburne's Poems and Ballads: A Criticism.
J.C. Hotten, 1866.
Arthur Symons ~ Things you need to know
Arthur Symons
1865-1945
Arthur Symons was a poet, translator, critic and editor who captured Colbeck's attention like no other writer. Educated in Devonshire, Symons befriended many artists and writers of the nineties in England and France. He published several volumes of verse and criticism, notably "Symbolist Movement in Literature" (1899), contributed regularly to Athenaeum, Saturday, and Fortnightly reviews, wrote plays, edited, and translated from six languages (7).
Colbeck proclaimed: "Arthur Symon's prose writings fascinated me, an uncritical youth, more than sixty years ago. When I first read that remarkable essay 'Fact in Literature,' I realized I was in communion with a mind I would venerate and love always. Perhaps we could recapture the first paragraph of that work:
The invention of printing helped to destroy literature. Scribes, and memories not yet spoilt by over-cramming, preserved all the literature that was worth preserving. Books that had to be remembered by heart, or copied with slow, elaborate penmanship, were not thrown away on people who did not want them. They remained in the hands of people of taste. The first book pointed the way to the first newspaper, and a newspaper is a thing meant to be not only forgotten but destroyed. With the deliberate destruction of print, the respect for printed literature vanished, and a single term came to be used for the poem and the "news item." What had once been an art for the few became a trade for the many.
"Symons was a great deal more than a writer of the Nineties, and is completely mis-classified with poets of the Decadence. He had his brief moment with the Rhymer's Club, and, as editor of The Savoy appeared to dominate the scene for those few months of 1896, but he lived aside from any movement.
Contents Introduction Publishers Writers Periodicals Notes Next Page
UBC Library Special Collections & University Archives
"Symons was straightway in a distinguished company, and one can imagine the astonishment of his fellow editors, had they learned the age of the newcomer. Time passed, and Symons became a familiar of nearly all the writers of his time, accepted equally in Paris as in London, and found a ready market for his prose in the Quarterlies and Monthlys: but Editors, more often than not, returned his verse submissions with polite thanks, declining to publish. Days and Nights, 1889, his first book of poems, had a limited success, but Macmillans never had any call for a reprint; and his next three volumes of verse might not have seen the light of day but for the enterprise of a young, almost unknown, Leonard Smithers. Silhouettes and London Nights survived into second editions, each with a new preface which renders it permanently valuable, but it is true to say that the poet had no assured market for his work until the turn of the century, when a newly arrived publisher - William Heinemann - took him up (8).
1865-1945
Arthur Symons was a poet, translator, critic and editor who captured Colbeck's attention like no other writer. Educated in Devonshire, Symons befriended many artists and writers of the nineties in England and France. He published several volumes of verse and criticism, notably "Symbolist Movement in Literature" (1899), contributed regularly to Athenaeum, Saturday, and Fortnightly reviews, wrote plays, edited, and translated from six languages (7).
Colbeck proclaimed: "Arthur Symon's prose writings fascinated me, an uncritical youth, more than sixty years ago. When I first read that remarkable essay 'Fact in Literature,' I realized I was in communion with a mind I would venerate and love always. Perhaps we could recapture the first paragraph of that work:
The invention of printing helped to destroy literature. Scribes, and memories not yet spoilt by over-cramming, preserved all the literature that was worth preserving. Books that had to be remembered by heart, or copied with slow, elaborate penmanship, were not thrown away on people who did not want them. They remained in the hands of people of taste. The first book pointed the way to the first newspaper, and a newspaper is a thing meant to be not only forgotten but destroyed. With the deliberate destruction of print, the respect for printed literature vanished, and a single term came to be used for the poem and the "news item." What had once been an art for the few became a trade for the many.
"Symons was a great deal more than a writer of the Nineties, and is completely mis-classified with poets of the Decadence. He had his brief moment with the Rhymer's Club, and, as editor of The Savoy appeared to dominate the scene for those few months of 1896, but he lived aside from any movement.
Contents Introduction Publishers Writers Periodicals Notes Next Page
UBC Library Special Collections & University Archives
"Symons was straightway in a distinguished company, and one can imagine the astonishment of his fellow editors, had they learned the age of the newcomer. Time passed, and Symons became a familiar of nearly all the writers of his time, accepted equally in Paris as in London, and found a ready market for his prose in the Quarterlies and Monthlys: but Editors, more often than not, returned his verse submissions with polite thanks, declining to publish. Days and Nights, 1889, his first book of poems, had a limited success, but Macmillans never had any call for a reprint; and his next three volumes of verse might not have seen the light of day but for the enterprise of a young, almost unknown, Leonard Smithers. Silhouettes and London Nights survived into second editions, each with a new preface which renders it permanently valuable, but it is true to say that the poet had no assured market for his work until the turn of the century, when a newly arrived publisher - William Heinemann - took him up (8).
Poetry by Barbara Helfgott Hyett
The Inlet
Here again, the rough-cut jetty, the ridge
worn flat by men trolling bass and bluefish
and boys with plastic buckets full of porgies.
The hooks are taut in their mouths.
I comb the crevices for mussels, find
a baby flounder, stiff and gray, a shell.
Right side down a huge crab bakes on a rock.
Behind me, vacant, boarded up, the tenements
where I was born. Beige bricks, three or four stories
crammed with families, fathers who delivered milk
or sold potato chips from tall tin cans -
I scooped them into brown bags, watched the oil seep through.
In summer, mothers gave up unemployment
to work in tourist places hawking beach chairs,
vegematics, tickets to Ripley's Believe It or Not.
Mothers didn't swim. They sent us to stay
at the lifeguard stand with a quarter for lunch.
We'd swim past the jetty to the rotted pilings, then back
to the shallows and the puckered seaweed. I'd open my eyes
underwater, watch the silversides skimming my cheek.
When my towel underneath the boardwalk was all in shadow
and the sand had turned quartz cold, I went home.
At Zwiebacks, after dinner, I'd read comic books
or else I'd buy one used. Later, at Altman Field
the boys from Philly who stayed at the guest house
would start to shoot some baskets.
Sometimes I'd just sit on the bleachers
licking salt from the back of my hand.
Everything was like that then: crisp, expectable,
a silent movie, the ocean and the hoop disappearing
gradually from the end of the playground
until I couldn't see the ball anymore.
In my bed, I'd watch the sway of the clotheslines
on the rooftop outside my window and listen
to the men playing pinochle at the dining-room table,
the stogie smoke gray and small-winged down the hall.
The women swept the floors, laid roach traps,
ate chocolate at the mahjongg game downstairs.
They'd laugh, and clack the bone faced tiles,
a sound of summer when summer wasn't time
but place, ordinary as the low cry of a loon
diving at night, the voice of a beach block,
its muggy rhythm, the click of the tide
just before it turns.
Barbara Helfgott Hyett
Here again, the rough-cut jetty, the ridge
worn flat by men trolling bass and bluefish
and boys with plastic buckets full of porgies.
The hooks are taut in their mouths.
I comb the crevices for mussels, find
a baby flounder, stiff and gray, a shell.
Right side down a huge crab bakes on a rock.
Behind me, vacant, boarded up, the tenements
where I was born. Beige bricks, three or four stories
crammed with families, fathers who delivered milk
or sold potato chips from tall tin cans -
I scooped them into brown bags, watched the oil seep through.
In summer, mothers gave up unemployment
to work in tourist places hawking beach chairs,
vegematics, tickets to Ripley's Believe It or Not.
Mothers didn't swim. They sent us to stay
at the lifeguard stand with a quarter for lunch.
We'd swim past the jetty to the rotted pilings, then back
to the shallows and the puckered seaweed. I'd open my eyes
underwater, watch the silversides skimming my cheek.
When my towel underneath the boardwalk was all in shadow
and the sand had turned quartz cold, I went home.
At Zwiebacks, after dinner, I'd read comic books
or else I'd buy one used. Later, at Altman Field
the boys from Philly who stayed at the guest house
would start to shoot some baskets.
Sometimes I'd just sit on the bleachers
licking salt from the back of my hand.
Everything was like that then: crisp, expectable,
a silent movie, the ocean and the hoop disappearing
gradually from the end of the playground
until I couldn't see the ball anymore.
In my bed, I'd watch the sway of the clotheslines
on the rooftop outside my window and listen
to the men playing pinochle at the dining-room table,
the stogie smoke gray and small-winged down the hall.
The women swept the floors, laid roach traps,
ate chocolate at the mahjongg game downstairs.
They'd laugh, and clack the bone faced tiles,
a sound of summer when summer wasn't time
but place, ordinary as the low cry of a loon
diving at night, the voice of a beach block,
its muggy rhythm, the click of the tide
just before it turns.
Barbara Helfgott Hyett
Monday 23 July 2007
Harry Potter ~ The end???
Epilogue
In the story's epilogue, set nineteen years later, Ginny Weasley and Harry have three children named James, Albus Severus, and Lily. Ron and Hermione have two children named Rose and Hugo. The two families meet at King's Cross Station when they are taking their children to Platform Nine and Three Quarters for their departure to Hogwarts. Lily is too young to attend Hogwarts just yet, Albus is entering his first year at the school, and James is already an experienced Gryffindor. James finds Teddy Lupin, the son of Lupin and Tonks, kissing a girl named Victoire, who James says is his cousin and so can be assumed to be the daughter of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour. Neville Longbottom is now the Herbology professor at the school and is close friends with Harry. At the station, Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione spot Draco Malfoy across the platform with his unnamed wife and their son Scorpius; it is suggested that the former rivals have reconciled their differences. The book ends with the line: "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well."
In the story's epilogue, set nineteen years later, Ginny Weasley and Harry have three children named James, Albus Severus, and Lily. Ron and Hermione have two children named Rose and Hugo. The two families meet at King's Cross Station when they are taking their children to Platform Nine and Three Quarters for their departure to Hogwarts. Lily is too young to attend Hogwarts just yet, Albus is entering his first year at the school, and James is already an experienced Gryffindor. James finds Teddy Lupin, the son of Lupin and Tonks, kissing a girl named Victoire, who James says is his cousin and so can be assumed to be the daughter of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour. Neville Longbottom is now the Herbology professor at the school and is close friends with Harry. At the station, Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione spot Draco Malfoy across the platform with his unnamed wife and their son Scorpius; it is suggested that the former rivals have reconciled their differences. The book ends with the line: "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well."
Tuesday 3 July 2007
Are you interested in Global Warming?
Sun to Blame for Global Warming
by John Carlisle
Those looking for the culprit responsible for global warming have missed the obvious choice - the sun. While it may come as a newsflash to some, scientific evidence conclusively shows that the sun plays a far more important role in causing global warming and global cooling than any other factor, natural or man-made. In fact, what may very well be the ultimate ironic twist in the global warming controversy is that the same solar forces that caused 150 years of warming are on the verge of producing a prolonged period of cooling.
The evidence for future cooling is supported by considerable scientific research that has only recently begun to come to light. It wasn't until 1980, with the aid of NASA satellites, that scientists definitively proved that the sun's brightness - or radiance - varies in intensity, and that these variations occur in predictable cyclical patterns. This was a crucial discovery because the climate models used by greenhouse theory proponents always assumed that the sun's radiance was constant. With that assumption in hand, they could ignore solar influences and focus on other influences, including human.
That turned out to be a reckless assumption. Further investigation revealed that there is a strong correlation between the variations in solar irradiance and fluctuations in the Earth's temperature. When the sun gets dimmer, the Earth gets cooler; when the sun gets brighter, the Earth gets hotter. So important is the sun in climate change that half of the 1.5° F temperature increase since 1850 is directly attributable to changes in the sun. According to NASA scientists David Lind and Judith Lean, only one-quarter of a degree can be ascribed to other causes, such as greenhouse gases, through which human activities can theoretically exert some influence.
The correlation between major changes in the Earth's temperature and changes in solar radiance is quite compelling. A perfect example is the Little Ice Age that lasted from 1650 to 1850. Temperatures in this era fell to as much as 2° F below today's temperature, causing the glaciers to advance, the canals in Venice to freeze and major crop failures. Interestingly, this dramatic cooling happened in a period when the sun's radiance had fallen to exceptionally low levels. Between 1645 and 1715, the sun was in a stage that scientists refer to as the Maunder Minimum. In this minimum, the sun has few sunspots and low magnetism which automatically indicates a lower radiance level. When the sun began to emerge from the minimum, radiance increased and by 1850 the temperature had warmed up enough for the Little Ice Age to end.
The Maunder Minimum is not an isolated event: it is a cyclical phenomenon that typically appears for 70 years following 200-300 years of warming. With only a few exceptions, whenever there is a solar minimum, the Earth gets colder. For example, Europe in the 13th and 15th Centuries experienced significantly lower temperatures and in both cases the cold spells coincided with a minimum. Similar correlations were found in the 9th Century and again in the 7th Century. Since 8700 B.C., there have been at least ten major cold periods similar to the Little Ice Age. Nine of those ten cold spells coincided with Maunder Minima.
There is no reason to believe that this 10,000-year-old cycle of solar-induced warming and cooling will change. Dr. Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and one of the nation's leading experts on global climate change, believes that we may be nearing the end of a solar warming cycle. Since the last minimum ended in 1715, Baliunas says there is a strong possibility that the Earth will start cooling off in the early part of the 21st Century.
Indeed, it could already be happening. Of the 1.5° F in warming the planet experienced over the last 150 years, two-thirds of that increase, or one degree, occurred between 1850 and 1940. In the last 50 years, the planetary temperature increased at a significantly slower rate of 0.5° F - precisely when dramatically increasing amounts of man-made carbon dioxide emissions should have been accelerating warming. Further buttressing the arguments for future cooling is the evidence from NASA satellites that the global temperature has actually fallen 0.04° F since 1979.
Of course, it is impossible to precisely predict when solar radiance will drop and global temperatures will begin falling. But one thing is certain: There is little evidence that mankind is responsible for global warming. There is considerable evidence that the sun causes warming and will most likely stimulate cooling in the not so distant future.
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John K. Carlisle is the Director of The National Center for Public Policy Research's Environmental Policy Task Force. Comments may be sent to JCarlisle@nationalcenter.org.
by John Carlisle
Those looking for the culprit responsible for global warming have missed the obvious choice - the sun. While it may come as a newsflash to some, scientific evidence conclusively shows that the sun plays a far more important role in causing global warming and global cooling than any other factor, natural or man-made. In fact, what may very well be the ultimate ironic twist in the global warming controversy is that the same solar forces that caused 150 years of warming are on the verge of producing a prolonged period of cooling.
The evidence for future cooling is supported by considerable scientific research that has only recently begun to come to light. It wasn't until 1980, with the aid of NASA satellites, that scientists definitively proved that the sun's brightness - or radiance - varies in intensity, and that these variations occur in predictable cyclical patterns. This was a crucial discovery because the climate models used by greenhouse theory proponents always assumed that the sun's radiance was constant. With that assumption in hand, they could ignore solar influences and focus on other influences, including human.
That turned out to be a reckless assumption. Further investigation revealed that there is a strong correlation between the variations in solar irradiance and fluctuations in the Earth's temperature. When the sun gets dimmer, the Earth gets cooler; when the sun gets brighter, the Earth gets hotter. So important is the sun in climate change that half of the 1.5° F temperature increase since 1850 is directly attributable to changes in the sun. According to NASA scientists David Lind and Judith Lean, only one-quarter of a degree can be ascribed to other causes, such as greenhouse gases, through which human activities can theoretically exert some influence.
The correlation between major changes in the Earth's temperature and changes in solar radiance is quite compelling. A perfect example is the Little Ice Age that lasted from 1650 to 1850. Temperatures in this era fell to as much as 2° F below today's temperature, causing the glaciers to advance, the canals in Venice to freeze and major crop failures. Interestingly, this dramatic cooling happened in a period when the sun's radiance had fallen to exceptionally low levels. Between 1645 and 1715, the sun was in a stage that scientists refer to as the Maunder Minimum. In this minimum, the sun has few sunspots and low magnetism which automatically indicates a lower radiance level. When the sun began to emerge from the minimum, radiance increased and by 1850 the temperature had warmed up enough for the Little Ice Age to end.
The Maunder Minimum is not an isolated event: it is a cyclical phenomenon that typically appears for 70 years following 200-300 years of warming. With only a few exceptions, whenever there is a solar minimum, the Earth gets colder. For example, Europe in the 13th and 15th Centuries experienced significantly lower temperatures and in both cases the cold spells coincided with a minimum. Similar correlations were found in the 9th Century and again in the 7th Century. Since 8700 B.C., there have been at least ten major cold periods similar to the Little Ice Age. Nine of those ten cold spells coincided with Maunder Minima.
There is no reason to believe that this 10,000-year-old cycle of solar-induced warming and cooling will change. Dr. Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and one of the nation's leading experts on global climate change, believes that we may be nearing the end of a solar warming cycle. Since the last minimum ended in 1715, Baliunas says there is a strong possibility that the Earth will start cooling off in the early part of the 21st Century.
Indeed, it could already be happening. Of the 1.5° F in warming the planet experienced over the last 150 years, two-thirds of that increase, or one degree, occurred between 1850 and 1940. In the last 50 years, the planetary temperature increased at a significantly slower rate of 0.5° F - precisely when dramatically increasing amounts of man-made carbon dioxide emissions should have been accelerating warming. Further buttressing the arguments for future cooling is the evidence from NASA satellites that the global temperature has actually fallen 0.04° F since 1979.
Of course, it is impossible to precisely predict when solar radiance will drop and global temperatures will begin falling. But one thing is certain: There is little evidence that mankind is responsible for global warming. There is considerable evidence that the sun causes warming and will most likely stimulate cooling in the not so distant future.
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John K. Carlisle is the Director of The National Center for Public Policy Research's Environmental Policy Task Force. Comments may be sent to JCarlisle@nationalcenter.org.
Monday 2 July 2007
Martin Bell
Martin Bell, in his trademark white suit, stood out from the crowd at a recent party for independent publishers and booksellers. His new book, The Truth That Sticks - about the loss of trust between the government and the electorate and how it can be re-established - will be published by Icon Books in September.
Mr Bell is soon to return to a danger zone of a different sort in Iraq. One hopes, when he does, that he will wear something a little less conspicuous.
Mr Bell is soon to return to a danger zone of a different sort in Iraq. One hopes, when he does, that he will wear something a little less conspicuous.
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