Poetic pragmatism, neo-transcendentalism, bikes, burritos, basketball.
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A formula for determining your NPR name:
You take your middle initial and insert it somewhere into your first name. Then you add on the smallest foreign town you’ve ever visited.
Yelapa is a tiny village near Sayulita, Mexico, and the naming formula was concocted by Liana Maeby.
Say what you will about the Soviets, but you can’t argue with this reasoning for sending dogs, rather than monkeys, into space. If there’s one universal truth of dogs, it is that they are “suited to endure long periods of inactivity.” Lynne brought the subject of these Soviet cosmonaut dog-heroes to my attention, including those pictured at right — Belka (which “most likely means ‘Whitey,’” according to Wikipedia’s “Soviet space dogs” entry) and Strelka (“Arrow”). They were the first animals to go into orbit and return alive, spending August 19, 1960 in space before returning to Earth. Wikipedia helpfully adds that they were accompanied by some friends from the animal kingdom: “a grey rabbit, 42 mice, 2 rats, flies and a number of plants and fungi.”
All passengers survived.
(Thanks to Dan Mogford, who grabbed the image off a commemorative Soviet matchbox).
Last night I read the New Yorker profile of Matthew and Michael Dickman, poets from Portland, Oregon who happen to be identical twins. (Here’s the abstract). In their work, they have very different voices, but there’s a strange sort of twin telepathy that seems to exist within it. They also edit each other’s work, providing insight and feedback to each other about works in progress.
During one editing session, one of the Dickmans recalls an interview with former American poet laureate Mark Strand in which Strand cautions against relying on “clusters of words” that pop into your head ... This sounded to me like a good rule of thumb for writing. (It also added fuel to the fire of my dislike of Twitter and Twitter-like tools that encourage people to offer half-cocked, cliche-ridden mini-opinions about everything.) I plundered the Internet in search of the interview.
Turns out that he was referring to a 2003 piece in Post Road Magazine. It was conducted by writer Michael O’Keefe. The relevant bit is the last passage from Strand, but the context is helpful:
Mark Strand: Nobody wants to arrive because that’s the end. One wants to have openings constantly before him so there are places to go.
Michael O’Keefe: Do you believe that sometimes words can get in the way when you write?
MS: Words do get in the way when you have heard them used in a particular manner before. When you write all you’ve got are words but they both get in the way and serve as a salvation.
MO: Do you avoid using any kind of combinations of words that you could remember easily?
MS: Yeah, I mistrust them because it means that they existed in that way before. The idea is to use a modifier-noun combination that may never have been used before. Otherwise you may be just quoting others or quoting yourself. The excitement comes when you have done something that was unthinkable before.
Amen, brother. Mistrust ease. Seek the unthinkable.
In my digging, I also found some excellent Strand resources, including a nice interview in a 1975 issue of Ploughshares and a very helpful page at the Library of Congress that eventually led to my discovery of the above interview.
I’ve been working on a design project involving income tax, and I’m a big fan of Big Love — so naturally I wonder how a polygamist fills out a 1040. My project has given me a good introduction into some techniques that people in exotic situations use to avoid getting nailed by the IRS, and I wonder which ones are employed by Bill Hendrickson, Big Love’s plurally-married husband.
So, all you tax protesters out there, tell me how this guy does it ...
On the surface, the Hendricksons are typical suburbanites, living in a subdivision with manicured lawns and white picket fences and SUVs, continually weaving a protective cloak of lies when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world, hiding the fact that three seemingly independent families living side-by-side are actually one large, plurally married family. The husband, Bill, owns a Home-Depot-style super-store, so clearly he’s got some income, in addition to a variety of avenues to shelter that income. Each of the three wives lives in her own house. Bill lives with the first wife, Barb, and the other two wives — Nikki and Margie — live in the houses adjacent to Bill and Barb. Nikki and Margie both work part time, but they clearly don’t earn enough to cover living expenses — rent, taking care of the kids, etc.
We can assume that Bill owns all three houses. Maybe he “rents” houses to Nikki and Margie for a very reduced rate, and perhaps he also pays them a salary to be babysitters, or house cleaners? Still, you’d think that this sort of situation would be suspicious to the IRS, especially since they live in Salt Lake.
You’d also think that the Internet would have a lot of information about how polygamists can avoid income taxes, but, if it’s there, it’s not easily Google-able. How Stuff Works actually has an article called “How Polygamy Works,” which includes this bit:
The economics of polygamy can be hard on the families as well. Colorado City, Arizona, a strict polygamist enclave, suffers from severe poverty. The families are simply not able to make enough money to support all their wives and children. They rely heavily on welfare, and in some cases commit welfare fraud. The problem is so severe that Colorado City and similar communities put a serious strain on state welfare systems.
It would be even more suspicious, I would guess, if they collected welfare while living in a fancy subdivision.
So: Who has some insight here? How do they do it?
From the Cooper Journal
