July 10: Sweet Sense of Independence, "Hamilton," My Legacy

Young Merton's summer of independence . . .

Bonnemaman was the one who suffered most from my reticence.  For years she had been sitting at home wondering what Pop was doing in the city all day, and now that I was developing the same wandering habits it was quite natural for her to imagine strange things about me, too.

But the only wickedness I was up to was that I roamed around the city smoking cigarettes and hugging my on sweet sense of independence.  

I found out that Grosset and Dunlap published more than the Rover Boys.  They brought out reprints of writers like Hemingway and Aldous Huxley and D. H. Lawrence and I devoured them all, on the cool sleeping porch of the house at Douglaston, while the moths of the summer darkness came batting and throbbing against the screens, attracted by my light that burned until all hours.

Most of the time I was running into my uncle's room to borrow his dictionary, and when he found out what words I was looking up he arched his eyebrows and said:  "What are you reading, anyway?"

Sweet sense of independence.

That's what my daughter will be tasting this weekend.  She, her boyfriend, and another friend are going on a road trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula for a few days.  By themselves.  In my daughter's car.  It's not that I don't trust my daughter's judgement.  She's got a good head on her shoulders.  It's just the letting-go part of this little adventure that I'm having a problem with.

My daughter and I watched Hamilton this evening.  It has been one of my daughter's favorite musical soundtracks since the show premiered on Broadway.  That's four years of listening.  She could literally sing the entire show if she wanted to.  I do love the music, as well.  And I knew the plot of the show.  Nothing was a surprise.  I knew that American defeated Great Britain in the Revolutionary War with the help of Lafayette.  George Washington stepped down as President after two terms.  I knew that Hamilton cheated on his wife, and that his son was killed in a duel.  Hamilton supported Thomas Jefferson in his bed for the Oval Office, and Aaron Burr killed Hamilton in a duel.  Knew all of that going in.

It was the ending of the show that did me in tonight.  The question of who is going to tell your story. what your legacy will be.  When Phillipa Soo was singing Eliza Schuyler-Hamilton's last song, I found myself literally crying.  Not just tearing up.  I wasn't expecting that.  The idea that Eliza spent the rest of her life telling Hamilton's story, putting herself "back in the narrative"--the depth of her devotion and love profoundly affected me.

I'm not sure what kind of legacy I'm going to leave behind, and I doubt that there's going to be an Eliza in my life to tell my story.  Chances are, these blog posts are going to do that job.  Somebody 70 or 80 or 100 years from now may be reading these very words because of my poems.  Or because of something my son or daughter did.  I may be a footnote to their lives.  Or maybe that future person is doing a dissertation on the pandemic of 2020, and I'm eventually going to be cited or quoted as a reference.

Let me clear up something right now:  I'm a mess.  I'm full of insecurities and contradictions.  I'm not always nice or smart.  At the moment, the trajectory of my life seems unclear.  I'm never going to be President of the United States, although Donald Trump has proven that anybody with enough money and connections with Russia can become a resident of the Oval Office.  Perhaps I'll write something of note some day.  Marriage and family--well, that's all in God's hands, as everything is.

Maybe my daughter and son will write a musical about me some day.  It will take Broadway by storm, win all kinds of Tony Awards, and, eventually, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  My kids will speak my narrative.  I hope it will be a good one, something they can be proud of, despite all of my character flaws.

Perhaps, as my daughter is sitting in her hotel tomorrow night, after a day of travel and sight-seeing and fishing, she will take out a notebook and jot down a random line of poetry that will become the opening lyric of that musical:  "How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore / And a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot / In the Caribbean by providence impoverished / In squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?"  Or something catchy like that.

Here's the thing:  you don't get to decide your legacy.  My job in this whole process:  living the best life that I am able.  The rest is in the hands of other people, long after I'm gone.

Hopefully, they'll write about the miracle of this night, with my daughter.  How we both sat, crying on the couch, at the end of Hamilton.  How my daughter, filled with her sweet sense of independence, on the cusp of her adventure, looked at me, after rubbing her eyes, and said, "That was really good."

And for that moment in his legacy, his narrative, Saint Marty gives thanks.

March 10: Fetid Little Passage, Calumet Theatre, Being On Stage

Ford and Arthur are about to be tortured with some Vogon poetry . . .

The sweat stood out cold on Ford Prefect's brow, and slid round the electrodes strapped to his temples.  These were attached to a battery of electronic equipment--imaginary intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators and simile dampers--all designed to heighten the experience of the poem and make sure that not a single nuance of the poet's thought was lost.

Arthur Dent sat and quivered.  He had no idea what he was in for, but he knew that he hadn't like anything that had happened so far and didn't think things were likely to change.

The Vogon began to read--a fetid little passage of his own devising.

"Oh freddled gruntbuggly . . ." he began.  Spasms wracked Ford's body--this was worse than even he'd been prepared for.

"? . . . thy micturations are to me - A plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee."

"Aaaaaaargggghhhhhh!" went Ford Prefect, wrenching his head back as lumps of pain thumped through it.  He could dimly see beside him Arthur lolling and rolling in his seat.  He clenched his teeth.

"Groop I implore thee." continued the merciless Vogon, "my foonting turlingdromes."

His voice was rising to a horrible pitch of impassioned stridency.  "And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, / Or I will tend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"

"Nnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyuuuuuurrrrrrgggggghhhh!" cried Ford Prefect and threw one final spasm as the electronic enhancement of the last line caught him full blast across the temples.  He went limp.

Arthur lolled.

"Now, Earthlings . . " whirred the Vogon (he didn't know that Ford Prefect was in fact from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and wouldn't have cared if he had), "I present you with a simple choice!  Either die in the vacuum of space, or . . ." he paused for melodramatic effect, "tell me how good you thought my poem was!"

I am back from performing at the Calumet Theatre.  The show ended last night around 9:30, and, by the time I got to my hotel room, I had just enough energy to order a pepperoni pizza, eat a few slices, and then fall asleep.  Any blogging I might have done last night would have sounded like Vogon poetry, so I decided to forgo any attempt at it.

I think the show went well.  I didn't notice anyone spasming in their seats or screaming "Nnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyuuuuuurrrrrrgggggghhhh!"  Therefore, I will take that as a sign that the we didn't suck.

All kidding aside, I am really lucky to work with some great artists at The Red Jacket Jamboree.  They have become like family to me, as I said in my last post.  As a poet, I don't get a whole lot of opportunities to be around people who truly appreciate what I do.  If someone asks me what I do for a living, and I reply that I'm a poet, that someone will suddenly find a mole on his/her arm that needs to be removed.  Poetry is like sorcery to most everyone I meet. 

The other thing that The Red Jacket Jamboree gives me is the opportunity to flex a few of my other skills--acting, singing, writing scripts, and comedy.  I used to do quite a lot of theater work.  I actually was the lead in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  I played the Stage Manager in a production of Thorton Wilder's Our Town.  I've directed plays and musicals, as well.  Until I started working at the Calumet Theatre for this radio show, I didn't realize how much I missed being on stage.

So, Saint Marty gets the best of all worlds on these weekend jaunts to the Keweenaw.  And the audience pays good money to hear, among other things, a few poems.  Pretty cool.

June 21: Barbecued Porpoises, Summer Solstice, Poetry Blessings

That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and philosophy of it.

It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth's time, a certain cook of the court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to be eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. The meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and being well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls. The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great porpoise grant from the crown.

The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men like Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are not so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare old vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous doctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly juicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel- that these men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of whales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called "fritters"; which, indeed, they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling something like old Amsterdam housewives' dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh. They have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can hardly keep his hands off.

But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as the buffalo's (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that is; like the transparent, half jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the third month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for butter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into some other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try watches of the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip their ship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Many a good supper have I thus made.

In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine dish. The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two plump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings), they are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess, in flavor somewhat resembling calves' head, which is quite a dish among some epicures; and every one knows that some young bucks among the epicures, by continually dining upon calves' brains, by and by get to have a little brains of their own, so as to be able to tell a calf's head from their own heads; which, indeed, requires uncommon discrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck with an intelligent looking calf's head before him, is somehow one of the saddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at him, with an "Et tu Brute!" expression.

It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before mentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal's jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras.

But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand, dining off that roast beef, what is that handle made of?- what but the bones of the brother of the very ox you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty of Ganders formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two that the society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens.

This is not a chapter for the vegan reader.  It isn't for the animal lover, either.  The details of different animals being killed and consumed are not pleasant, especially when Melville discusses creatures that are endangered and protected.  I know that I probably wouldn't order a plate of deep-fried sperm whale brain at Red Lobster, and I wouldn't be tempted by porpoise balls at a Super Bowl party.

I am in the Copper Country right now.  Have been since last night.  I'll be performing at the Calumet Theatre this evening at 7 p.m. as part of the Red Jacket Jamboree radio show.  It has been one of the highlights of this past year being a part of this group of artists.  Love the music.  Love reading my poems and essays in front of a live audience.  It has stretched me as a performer and writer.

I know I make a big deal out of not being comfortable with change.  That I prefer routine.  That's the writer part of me, I think.  I can't plan my day or week or month of writing if I don't know when I'm going to be able to sit down with pen and journal.  However, since being named Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula, I have been pushed outside my normal comfort zones, and I've really enjoyed the experiences.  Enjoyed the people I've met, the things I've done.

That doesn't mean that I'm ready to sit down to a sperm whale meal after a poetry reading.  Don't think I'd go that far.  However, I have grown in the least year-and-a-half, as a person and poet.  I've been able to raise money for causes that I hold dear, like the local homeless shelter and warming center.  I've been invited to be a part of things (like the RJJ) that have enriched my life a great deal.

Being in the Copper Country at this time has reinforced to me how really lucky of a guy I am.  This past week, the Keweenaw Peninsula was devastated by floods.  Roads collapsed.  Houses were destroyed.  Entire towns isolated by washed-out thoroughfares.  It's incredibly sad.  On my way to Calumet yesterday, I saw firsthand some of the damage.  It humbled me.  A lot.

Poetry has provided me with a lot of blessings over the last year.  I think that I take these blessings for granted sometimes.  I need to stop doing that.  I'm sitting in a hotel room right now.  In a few hours, I'll be at a theater with a group of really talented performers, and they'll be treating me like I belong with them.  That's amazing.

Blessings come in many forms.  I guess they considered sperm whale pudding a blessing back in the day.  In the face of great challenges, people rise up and fight back.  That's a blessing, too.

On this summer solstice day, Saint Marty is thankful today for all of the blessings poetry has brought into his life.