Tag Archives: Edgar Allan Poe

Sherlock on the Summit: Solving the Mysteries of My Mountain Abode

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“My idea of superwomanman is someone who scrubs herhis own floors.”

–Bette Midler (b. 1945; renowned American actress, singer, and comedian; quote modified by a Midling but Aspiring Aerial Editor.)

From time to time, I start a post with “Listen up!” This time, I’m not going to do that because those who follow me know that I live on a mountain, so saying, “Listen up! I live on a mountain” would be totally unnecessary. But I do. Sometimes I say that I live on a mountain top. Well, actually, I don’t. Not exactly. But my property borders the George Washington National Forest which goes up to the top of the mountain and beyond. I live mid-way up the mountain, at about 1,650 feet, so it’s not as if I have an aerial habitation, though some folks seem to think that my head is up in the air. I assure you that it is not. I am simply too short, even if I stood on my tippy toes. Perhaps, if I climbed up Jacob’s ladder, I could stretch and achieve aerial status.

Either way, my mountain world is otherworldly. I know because I lived in Washington, DC, for 25 years before retreating here. In DC, I had wide city streets, a pristine patio, and urban elegance. In the Shenandoah Valley–at least on my mountain–I have a narrow dirt road with patches of gravel here and there that bespeak better days, a woodland yard that some folks call a “mountaintop oasis,” and a collection of dirt, dust, and debris hiding behind the mask of a rustic embrace. It’s a stark contrast here. Nature reigns supreme and shows herself more powerful than I. Truthfully, I spend so much time outdoors trying to keep Nature’s wilderness at bay that I sometimes wonder whether I need to spend more time indoors so that I can maintain my mountain abode according to the White-Glove Standard of Cleanliness.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that cleanliness has taken a back seat. It hasn’t. I write frequently about my frenzied strategies to stay on top of my home, indoors and out. No doubt you will remember “My Imaginary Guests,” “OHIO On My Mind,” and “Less Is Not Always More Until It Is.”

More recently, I’ve adopted some new tactics. I’ve started going through my home with a high-beam flashlight, shining it across the floors and baseboards, into corners and crevices, on top of furniture and behind, and even up and down the ceiling beams. I started doing that when I lost my Fitbit. (For a full account, see my “Finding Far More than My Fitbit.”) I discovered cobwebs lurking in unseen and unvisited spots. Their little filament lines looked like fluffy dust streamers. From time to time, I could even see anchor points attaching the web to the walls. I was absolutely flabbergasted because I thought that my home would have passed the White-Glove test. After all, I had cleaned the house thoroughly for my Thanksgiving guests. The month before, I had cleaned the house thoroughly for Veteran’s Day guests. I could keep rolling the calendar back, and I could keep talking about how I had  cleaned house for this occasion or for that occasion or for this guest or for that guest. But what good would that do me? I had shined a light, and I had seen those cobwebs. Since then, I have been sleuthing around with my flashlight regularly, day and night. It helps me discover all that is unseen before my guests see what I didn’t discover before their arrival.

I’ve implemented additional drastic cleaning methods, too. It broke my heart to break the pledge that I made to Pledge decades ago, but recently, I wrapped my arms (and my dustcloth) around Endust. Trust me. It doesn’t. End. Dust. I’m thinking about asking Pledge for a reconciliation.

I tried one more thing, too. I picked it up from my neighbor, who’s hot to buy my house when I put it on the market, especially now that he knows I don’t come with it. The first time that he visited me, he took his shoes off at the door. There he stood in his white socks.

“Say whaaat?”

“Don’t be ridiculoos! Of course, he was fully clothed. He only removed his shoes.  Geez!”

I am certain–in fact, I’ll wager my shoes–that it was just a ruse on Jordan’s part to see how dirty my floors were, especially since I tried my best to persuade him to put his shoes back on. Nope. He would not be swayed, though God knows how hard I tried. No luck. He kept right on walking around in his white socks. When he started to leave, I did not dare look at the bottom of his socks. I was fearful.

Since then, I have observed that he does not wear shoes in his home either. I realize, of course, that lots of people follow that practice. It makes good sense for hygiene and cleanliness. But like I said, in my efforts to keep my Nature wilderness tamed, I go in and out my door 20 times a day, if not more.

But Jordan’s cleanliness inspired me, so I decided to try his strategy. I bought myself a whole navigation of crocs so that I could slip them on quickly (going out) and slip them off easily (coming back in). It worked pretty well for me, but for the life of me, I could not train Ruby to slip into her four cute purple clogs (matching mine, of course). All the bones of Chewy would not sweeten the deal enough for her to wear them. That’s okay. I’m adaptable, so I decided to abandon Jordan’s shoeless method and get right down to the dirty: wear white socks indoors. I know dirt when I see it. When the bottoms of my socks are dirty, I know that my floors are dirty, and I know exactly what to do.

§ § § § §

Overall, these new cleaning initiatives have worked beautifully. However, every single time that I get close to achieving the White-Glove Standard of Cleanliness that I long for, mysterious things start to happen. They’re beginning to give me the fantods. Why would anyone or anything want to undermine my intentions and hard work? The really scary part about it all is that I never see it happening. Never. Not ever. It just happens, always taking me unawares and by surprise.

I am determined to ferret out whatever it is that is behind it all. I’m certainly capable, especially since I have decades of experience as an information sleuth at The Library of Congress. If I can find stuff in books, it will be a sneeze for me to find stuff in my dustpan and in my vacuum cleaner bag, and I can analyze my findings using my powerful Sherlock Holmes Magnifying Glass.

Actually, I have begun to do so already. I am horrified to the point of being nearly speechless, mainly because I don’t know how some of it is getting in my house.

I always do a general sweep of my floors several times a week, so I ought not have a lot of anything in my dustpan ever. You’ll be surprised. Information sleuth that I pride myself in being, I have organized my findings according to Library of Congress Call Numbers, which I have researched painstakingly and meticuloosly.  I hope that by providing these call numbers, you can classify your own dirt.

TS2020.D87. DUSTPAN FINDINGS

● RC867. The Last Strands of a Balding Hero: Lord, help us all. I found more than a few strands of my own hair, valiantly hanging on, participating in a follicular showdown with the relentless forces of balding.

● SF411-459. Doggy Debris: I found a generous contribution of short black dog hair, forming an uncanny tribute to Ruby’s daily shedding rituals. Bless her precious heart. A few of her hairs won’t matter nary no bit at all.

● TX808.C78. Crumb Conundrum: Duh! I expected that: I am baker. Hear me rise! Nonetheless, it is weirdly fun for me to see these crumbs since I know each one’s unique origin story and flavor profile.

● SB453.5.G37. Gardener’s Treasure Trove: As you might expect, bits of soil and garden debris snuck in just to remind me of my gardening prowess and green-thumbed escapades.

● SD397.F67. Forest Souvenirs: I also spied leaves and twigs from my lush garden adventures, as if the forest itself decided to follow me indoors.

● QL458.2.S65. Spider Artifacts: Damned arachnids. I even saw a few spiderwebs, a spider leg or three, evidence of arachnid architectural failure.

● TX339.L56. Lint Lagoon: How about a lot of lint and fuzz, aerial fluffiness in a sea of debris.

● TD427.P37. Mystery Particles: I swear that I have looked and looked, and after all I have unidentifiable specks and particles that defy explanation, as if they were transported from The 5th Dimension, just to confuse me some more.

§ § § § §

TR899.D57, OR TX314.N8, OR TS221.C55. VACUUM CLEANER BAG FINDINGS.

Well, the bag looks like a pufferfish, so I needed to clean it anyway. There’s no way–there’s just no way–that I’ll empty its contents indoors. This exploration requires that I be outdoors as I delve into the bag, unearthing a few more enemies sucked up from the depths of my home’s nooks and crannies.

● CT9999.M42. Paper Trail of a ReInvented Life: I’m not too surprised to find stray paper scraps, receipts, and notes that have been vacuumed up. I pause as I peruse each one and sigh:

“My goodness,” I say to myself for no one else to hear, “My goodness, my goodness. Maybe I should dust these off and file them away as evidence of my busy, document-scattered, reinvented existence.”

● TS1345.B88. Button Bonanza: Glory Halleluliah. At last, I’ve found my buttons–Button, button, who’s got the button?–and I can embark on a sewing spree and attach the buttons to their rightful owners.

● Z711.P37. Paperclip Parade: To get my daily steps in, I often walk around while I’m doing desk cleanup. Obviously, I’ve lost a few clips during my metallic shenanigans.

● QM23.2.A5 OR T47.L67. Nutty Surprises: Say whaaat? Nuts and bolts? I have no idea what to do with them, so I’m sure that I didn’t drop them. Ahhh. Now I’m getting closer to the truth, and I know exactly what to do. A rogue handyman elf dropped them on a mission to confound me. Just wait ’til I get my hands on/around him/them.

● TT145. Crafty Clues: I swear to you, My Dear Readers who know me so well, that I cannot account for all of the glitter, beads, and sequins. At this point in my life, I am as open as a book, and while I am crafty, it’s never covert and behind the scenes. Give me a sec while I dust off these baubles. They’re just too cutsey-wootsey to toss out. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they’re forming a tiny glittery army, just the way they did the other day when I was trying to hide them.

● HG222.3. Dusty Coin Cache: I am not about to throw away the coins that I found. On my reinvented salary–even factoring in my negative royalty payments from In Bed and Green Mountain Stories–I need every Hungarian pengő that I find. What a welcome treasure trove, right beneath my sneezing nose.

● QL678.9. Feathered Friends: Feathers! While I’m not thrilled to find so many of them—enough to turn myself into a modern-day Icarus—I’ve traced their origin to my strong work ethic, which apparently keeps me busy even in my sleep having pillow fights with myself. It’s either that or invisible birds are taking flight to confound me.

§ § § § §

I am confident that you will agree with me. Analyzing and classifying my vacuum cleaner bag debris and my dustpan debris is fascinating–actually, it’s riveting, especially since I assigned Library of Congress Call Numbers to each category–but it is not helping me fulfill my initial mission of discovering who/what the hell is getting my house dirty every time that I get it close to passing the White-Glove Inspection. And I haven’t even shared with you my horror when I discover streaks and smudges that appear on my windows and stainless-steel appliances almost immediately after I polish them.

Well, this much I know. Ruby and I are relatively small and do not take up much space, so there’s no way–there’s just no way–that the two of us can be the masterminds of all this mayhem.

I have one more thing that I plan to do. I’ll set up cameras and infrared lights in my mountain abode–just as Ghost Hunters do–and when I watch the celluloid–cellulite?–I will discover the culprits and bare them to the world.

Information sleuth that I am, I found myself flipping through the virtual pages of the Ghost Hunter’s handbook. If you are into the paranormal–or, for that matter into the normal–you may be familiar with it: Spectral Shenanigans: A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Afterlife Amusements (Call Number: HQ666 G5S68 2023). The book speaks of a need for a curious blend of cutting-edge gadgetry–(That’s me!)–and a dash of supernatural charm–(That’s me, too! I am an aerial spirit, after all!)–to capture elusive spectral entities on film.

I started my journey by selecting the most strategic camera positions, carefully pinpointing those areas where perplexing window streaks and elusive stainless-steel smudges keep appearing and reappearing. One was trained on the stainless-still kitchen sink, the scene of many a phantom dishwashing episode. Another zeroed in on the microwave, the double wall ovens, and the refrigerator, where inexplicable fingerprints left their ghostly marks.

Then I embarked on a similar quest by strategically positioning cameras at the windows that peer out onto my deck, across the Shenandoah Valley, and to the mountain range beyond. 

Once the cameras were in position, I tapped into advanced virtual surveillance software, not too unlike the spectral-analysis tools used by seasoned Ghost Hunters. This high-tech wizardry has the power to identify peculiar movements, whether the handiwork of gnomes or spirits.

And there I was, sitting spectrally on my couch with a trusty bowl of popcorn that I popped exclusively for Ruby. (I assure you that there’s no way–there’s just no way–that I would pop a bowl of popcorn for me.) I felt just like a seasoned Ghost Hunter, ready to expose the true nature of these elusive entities. And Ruby must have felt that way too because she kept looking around to see what I was looking around to see. Were they crafty forest creatures, whimsical feathered friends, or perhaps mischievous spirits? The spirit of being a mountain man in the wilderness coursed through my veins, as I eagerly awaited any signs of movement, waltzing shadows, or ghostly charades. Indeed, this was no ordinary evening; it was the evening when I transformed my mountaintop oasis into a paranormal stakeout.

Lo and behold! In my quest to discover the secret sources of all my dirt, I had reinvented myself accidentally once more. Go figure. I had embraced the fleeting role of a domestic detective, hell bent on uncovering the antics of the whimsical creatures who plague my search for a little White-Glove Cleanliness. I swear. I could hear echoes resonating through the very walls of my home. I verily believe that they were laughing at me. And if they weren’t laughing at me, they were laughing at the Sherlock on the Summit that I had become, foolishly hoping to solve the dirt, dust, and grime mysteries of my mountain abode. Nevermore.

Circling Back (Again, Again, and Again)

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“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”

–Joan Didion (1934-2021; renowned American Essayist and novelist whose distinctive writing style and introspective approach earned her a lasting place in contemporary literature).

Maintaining friendships can be a delicate dance, and I’ve learned that silence is golden when it comes to my own writing. My friends–especially those who are writers–know that I abide by Robert Frost’s sage counsel:

“Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second ” (Letter to Sydney Cox, 3January 1937; quoted in Robert Frost and Sidney Cox: Forty Years of Friendship. By William Richard Evans. 1981).

Rarely, then, do I talk with friends about what I’m writing in my weekly blog posts. Talking about it diminishes my focus and my belief. Oh, to be certain, I may tease by divulging a topic or a working title. I love teasing. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again right now by telling you the working titles of some future posts:

● “What My Father Saw.”

● “Packin’ Up. Gettin’ Ready to Go.”

● “My Right to Know.”

● “Somewhere Called Home.”

● “What If Artificial Intelligence (AI) Makes Us Even Better than We Are?”

● “Grappling with Unknowns.”

● “The Cake Stops Here.”

● “When Did Tomorrow Begin?”

See there. I didn’t mind sharing those titles at all. Like I said, I’m a tease.

Truth be told, though, that’s all that I can share in advance because I’m clueless as to how those tentative titles will play out. I never know the end of a post until it leads me to its ending.

Clearly, I am not one of those writers–of whom there are many–who align themselves with Edgar Allan Poe. I’m thinking now about his focus on “unity of effect” and that a writer must know the intended effect from the beginning:

[…] in almost all classes of composition, the unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance. […] If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design (Poe’s review of Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales, Graham’s Magazine, May 1842).

A few years later, he reiterated that point:

Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the dénouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention (“The Philosophy of Composition,” Graham’s American Monthly Magazine, April 1846).

Poe’s way of writing is not my way of writing.  Mine is just the opposite. Mine is the Frostian way:

Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and carried away the poet with it (“The Figure a Poem Makes,” Atlantic Monthly, June 1939).

I am not trying to compare my writing to Frost or to Poe. Yet, as a writer, I have every right to align my methods with someone. I choose Frost for alignment, and I choose Frost for ally.

Like Frost, I am unwilling to talk about the content of what I am writing: opening the hydrant [talking] lessens the pressure on the upstairs faucet [writing]. At the same time, I am more than willing to talk about my writing methods: melting like a piece of ice on a hot stove, carrying me away with it.

Actually, I have talked about my writing process extensively in several blog posts. I’m tempted to suggest that you browse my posts and find them for yourself. But that would be mean spirited. So let me recap the main points here.

1. I write my posts in bed–every day, seven days a week–starting at 8:00 pm and continuing until I decide to stop, usually around 9:30 pm or so. Sometimes, I ignore my body’s call for rest, and I write until 11:00 pm. I don’t think that I’ve ever written past 11:30 pm. (However, I do recall writing until 12:30 am once, just to prove to a friend that I could stay up that late.)

2. I write my blog posts exclusively on my smartphone. Yes. On my smartphone. I hold it in my left hand (as I am doing now), and I touch type my text, letter by letter, with the index finger of my right hand (as I am doing now). I know: it’s slow. I know: it’s tedious. But guess what? It works.

3. I write my blog posts while sipping on a Bunnahabhain Scotch, neat.

4. I have a large number of drafts in progress at any given time: everything that I experience is copy. Right now, for example, I have 29 drafts in various stages of development.

5. Whenever I have an idea and start a draft, I develop it enough so that I can leap back into the idea whenever I return to it, even if it’s weeks or months after the idea leapt into my head.

6. Usually, one draft among all the others calls to me and demands my attention. I listen. I focus on it for seven nights, hanging on tight and never letting go.

7. On Sunday of each week–the day before publishing a post–I read it out loud by telephone to my oldest sister, Audrey. Reading it aloud gives me the opportunity to find any remaining mistakes. (Inevitably, I still miss a few.) More importantly, however, it gives me the opportunity to hear the rhythm, and if I have an off-key passage, my ear speaks to me. Sometimes, I pick up on a rhythm, and I decide to play it more fully in one final revision before going to bed. But here’s the important thing: it’s the hearing aloud–what Frost would call the “sound of sense–that allows me to know my degree of accomplishment.

Those are the main steps that I follow in writing my posts.

Recently, however, I noticed a recurring practice that I’ve been unintentionally following. Let me share it with you.

As I open a draft, I revisit the beginning instead of scrolling down to where I left off the night before. This practice offers a fresh perspective on my words and ideas.

I circle back to the beginning, I start from there, and the Frostian melt starts anew.

As I circle back, I take my time. I savor every word. I savor every nuance. I savor all the possibilities, including the white space between words where so many meanings live–and hide. And, as I circle back, I change whatever it is that calls to be changed.

To be sure, circling back flies in the face of the process that I and other English professors are hell-bent on teaching our students. Generally, we teach a straightforward, linear process without much room for deviation, except for an occasional reminder that writing can be recursive, especially when we need to do additional research to strengthen content. The process that we teach goes something like this:

First. Prewriting (Topic, Audience, Brainstorming, Research, Thesis, and Outlining).

Second. Drafting (Creating an initial version).

Third. Revising (Reconsidering content and context).

Fourth. Editing (Looking at grammar and mechanics).

Fifth. Proofreading (Taking a final look to discover mistakes, including formatting).

Undoubtedly, the 5-step method works, especially for beginning writers who often have no method.

It works for seasoned writers, too, but as we gain more and more writing experience, we follow that method subconsciously. For example, even though I write my posts in bed, I’m well aware that whatever I’m working on is simmering on my writer’s back burner throughout the day and throughout the night as I sleep. My ideas and insights come unexpectedly and without invitation.

For me, then, as a writer–especially a writer of Creative Nonfiction Essays like my blog posts–I’m tapping into the tried and tested steps of the writing process, but I’m really unaware that I’m doing so.

Yet, I am exceedingly aware of my circling back, and I find that keen awareness fascinating. It’s a conscious choice that I make every night when I open my WordPress draft to pick up where I left off. The starting point is always same: I circle back to the beginning. Most nights, I spend half of my writing time revisiting, rethinking, and modifying what I’ve written already.

I’m not suggesting that the “circling back” part of my writing strategy is revolutionary or unique. Perhaps lots of writers circle back in like manner.

What I am suggesting, however, is this: Circling back becomes a dance of words, a waltz with sentences that have already found their footing. It’s a writer’s serenade to their own creation, a harmonious echo of ideas that resonates and refines. Circling back is an invitation to linger in the labyrinth of language, to savor the richness of thinking, and to let the journey unfold in its own enchanting way. In the quiet act of returning to the starting point, I find my path illuminated by the wisdom of Frost and by the freedom of my narrative.

A Halloween Obsession

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The roldengod and the soneyhuckle
the sack eyed blusan and the wistle theed
are all tangled with the oison pivy
the fallen nine peedles and the wumbleteed.

–MAY SWENSON (1919-1989); “A NOSTY FRIGHT”

I know. I know. It’s Halloween. BOO! That’s as far as I’m going to go. Don’t expect any tricks in this post. You won’t find any. With a little luck, though, you might find a treat. Perhaps two. I found a big one, and I was not even expecting it.

But before I tell you about my big treat, I must tell you that I am spooked. Truly and positively spooked. Yep. I am.

I cannot believe the batty thing that I have done.

Somehow, I have allowed myself to be spirited into the notion that just because October 31 this year happens to fall on a Monday–the day that I publish my blog–I somehow have to make this post fit the hobgoblin occasion.

To spooked, let me now add phooey. So, phooey. It’s all a bunch of hocus pocus.

Since when have I ever written anything for an occasion? Sure, I write from time to time, as in occasionally. But an occasional writer is one who writes for specific occasions, with or without the benefit of a patron who supports the arts.  

Two Colonial Americans  known for writing on specific occasions come to mind when I think of occasional writers.

One is Anne Bradstreet, the first writer in our Colonies to be published. Her volume of poetry The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650) sounds rather sprightly. Indeed, Bradstreet knew fully well how to cast occasional poetic spells, especially on her husband and on the Royal Family.  Here’s a perfect example, with the occasion revealed by the poem’s title: “A Letter to her Husband, absent upon Publick employment.” And here’s another where the occasion that prompted the poem is equally evident in the title: “In Honor of that High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory.” Parts of the poem no doubt left Colonial men feeling jittery and unbalanced:

Nay Masculines, you have thus taxt us long,

But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong,

Let such as say our Sex is void of Reason,

Know tis a Slander now, but once was Treason.

Into the mix we must add Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), the Sable Muse of the American Revolution and author of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). Her poem  “His Excellency General Washington,” written in 1775 during the American Revolution, is a perfect example of occasional poetry. Far better, though, is her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America”:

‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

“Their colour is a diabolic die.”

Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,

May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

No doubt the ending of her poem left Colonial Christians feeling jittery and unbalanced. If they didn’t feel that way, they should have. Wheatley saw the truth that they may have been too blind to see.

But since Wheatley and Bradstreet were both poets, I started wondering whether occasional writers are always poets.

A quick google search chilled me to the bone because I had to read what I uncovered several times.  Even then I was not certain that I could break the spell of what it really meant.

Read an excerpt for yourself and then we can compare our fright notes.

[…]the key concept of occasional literature and its specific position between writer and patron, fiction and reality. The latter is defined in terms of two kinds of referentiality: on the one hand, the text’s connection to the occasion (pretext/performance); on the other, its (literary/potentially fictive) representation of a ‘reality’ that is relevant to that occasion.

All right. I get it, but only because I bring to the reading of the paragraph prior knowledge of occasional literature. Without that prior knowledge, would I get it? I don’t think so.

I suppose that I could rewrite the passage in plain English, but since the original was written in academic English, it might lose something in translation. And what if the author heard about my translation and decided to translate it back to academic English. That version might be even more frightful.

Wouldn’t that be a hoot!

I had not thought of it until now, but that scenario is incredibly similar to what happened to Mark Twain and his “Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Twain wrote the story in English with lots of dialect. Then it was pirated and translated into French–literally, word for word– with no attempt to capture the many colorful nuances of dialect. Twain found out about the French version and translated it back into English. The intriguing literary menage de trois was exposed to the entire world in 1903 as The Jumping Frog : In English, Then in French, Then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil.

While my google search for occasional writers thrilled me because it prompted me to conjure up how Mark Twain clawed his famed story back into civilized English, it spooked me away from digging further into the catacombs of occasional writers.

Nonetheless, my goblinesque spell was not broken.

Somehow, I remained cauldron-bent that this post would ride along on some sort of literary broom.

I soon came up with what I thought was a perfect slant: famous writers who died on Halloween. Wouldn’t that be fun! Indeed, a number of famous people died on Halloween, including Henri Houdini (1874-1926) who made a career out of defying all odds, but in the end could not out-magician the Grim Reaper. However, I found only one writer who died on Halloween: Natalie Babbitt (1932-2016), writer and illustrator of children’s books. In her best-known work, Tuck Everlasting, a family discovers life everlasting.

Obviously, that angle handed me no real treats. How about the flip side: writers who were born on Halloween?

Lest I be accused of being a trickster, let me tell you up front that I know already of one writer whose birthday is October 31. (But I will swear on a stack of pumpkins that I had forgotten all about it until I started writing this part of the post.) She, however, will follow John Keats (1795-1821), English Romantic poet, whose poem “‘Tis the Witching Time of Night” is fitting, perhaps, for Halloween:

‘Tis ” the witching time of night”,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen —
For what listen they?

The opening line of Keat’s poem is, of course, a play on the Soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

With that out of the way, let’s move on to the woman writer who shares her birthday with Halloween. She is none other than my lady, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930). I say “my lady” because she has bewitched me into spending five decades digging up her life and letters, and I am still not finished. At the turn of the twentieth century, she and Mark Twain were America’s most beloved writers. And when Twain was celebrated with lavish abandon on the occasion of his 70th birthday, Freeman was his guest, and he escorted her into Delmonico’s where she dined at his table. Anyway, I just perused my The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman to see whether she had written any letters on any of her birthdays. I found two, but neither mentioned her birthday or Halloween.

But in one letter written late in her life, she reflects on the October 4, 1869, flood, which was among the most disastrous floods in the history of Brattleboro (VT) where she lived at the time:

I remember the Flood with a capital F, when Whetstone brook went on a rampage, and Brattleboro was cut in twain by a raging torrent, in which lives were lost, and–a minor tragedy, savoring of comedy to all save the chief actor–a rooster went sailing past on a rolling pumpkin into the furious Connecticut river. [Letter 461]

Maybe Freeman was always out trick-or-treating. I doubt it. More likely than not she was at home, working on one of her own spooky supernatural stories for which she is well known, most notably her The Wind in the Rose-Bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural (1903). If you like stories about body-snatchers–of sorts–you might enjoy her “Luella Miller,” one of her most critically acclaimed supernatural stories with Luella cast as a New England vampire:

Weak heart; weak fiddlesticks! There ain’t nothin’ weak about that woman. She’s got strength enough to hang onto other folks till she kills ’em.

Actually, talking about Freeman’s stories of the supernatural requires a brief nod to two of her literary ancestors.

If you’re thinking Edgar Allan Poe, you’re right. Although Freeman claimed that she read nothing which she thought might influence her, in the same letter she acknowledges that she read Poe. [Letter 441] Without doubt, the madness in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Freeman’s “The Hall Bedroom” are kin, with both stories calling into question the sanity of their respective narrators.

And if you are thinking of Nathaniel Hawthorne in addition to Poe, good for you. Freeman read him as well. Just as Hawthorne was heir to a Puritan tradition, think of Freeman as heiress to the same Puritan tradition but with a far greater emphasis on psychological probing and on characters with such warped wills they border on the grotesque. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called Freeman’s novel Pembroke “the greatest piece of fiction in America since [Hawthorne’s] The Scarlet Letter” (The Infant Sphinx, 2-3). A good Hawthorne story to read on Halloween might be his “Young Goodman Brown“:

“Welcome, my children,” said the dark figure, “to the communion of your race! Ye have found, thus young, your nature and your destiny. My children, look behind you!” They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiend-worshippers
were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on every visage.

And we can’t look back at Freeman’s literary ancestors without noting several of her literary offspring. Freeman’s exploration of grotesque characters–village types with strong-wills, walking blindly the warped paths of their own existence–made heads turn in her own time and paved the way for future writers who were equally fixated on unearthing their own grotesque characters.

It’s not too great a stretch of the imaginative web of literary influence to say that without Freeman, we wouldn’t have Sherwood Anderson’s tales of grotesque village types memorialized in his Winesburg, Ohio. Don’t be fearful. Open the book and read “The Book of the Grotesque” or “Hands.” Or go beyond Winesburg and read one of Anderson’s later stories “The Man Who Became a Woman.”

The web grows larger with another writer known for his Southern Gothicism. Who does not recall the macabre ending to William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”?

For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.

Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.

And somewhere in the web we might even find Toni Morrison. Though she denied it, she was heavily influenced by Faulkner. (She had to have been influenced by him. After all, she did her master’s thesis on Faulkner.) Therefore, Morrison could have been indirectly influenced by Freeman as well, at least by Freeman’s significant role in the American Gothic literary tradition. In fact, in Freeman’s “Old Woman Magoun,” the grandmother’s decision to murder her granddaughter Lily to save her from a fate worse than death is not too unlike Sethe’s decision in Morrison’s Beloved to murder her daughter rather than have her face the horrors of slavery.

Well, one thing is not up for conjecture. This post has taken twists and turns that I never expected. Go figure.

Now the challenge is how to bring the post to its logical conclusion. Initially, I had every intention to end with the last few lines of “A Nosty Fright”:

Will it ever be morning, Nofember virst,

skue bly and the sappy hun, our friend?

With light breaves of wall by the fayside?

I sope ho, so that this oem can pend.

But now another ending is required.

I am shrieking with laughter. To think that I started this post by protesting that I was not an occasional writer–one who writes on special occasions. Yet look at what I’ve gone and done. I’ve managed to dig up a lot of literary supernatural greats and, without any original intent whatsoever, I’ve managed to explain how they’re all connected in one way or another to my lady, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, known to her closest friends (and to me) as Dolly.

How twisted is that? And just think. I did it all quite by accident on the occasion of her Halloween birthday! That makes it even more bizarre!

I believe fully that I am bewitched! No, I believe fully that I am possessed. Either way, I have a solid defense: the goblins made me do it.

Bewitched and possessed, let me mount my broom, summit my mountain, and screech in a voice sufficiently loud to wake the living and the dead:

Happy 150th Halloween Birthday, Dear Dolly!

Serendipity on Sullivan’s Island

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My Humourist post for today noted my location:  Sullivan’s Island.  It noted as well that Edgar Allan Poe was at Fort Moultrie on the western end of Sullivan’s Island for thirteen months and while there gained the inspiration for his story “The Gold Bug”—a story about a beetle that leads to a buried treasure!

Great!  So, that’s how I started my day.  Afterwards I went to the Charleston County Public Library to research wills and plats.  More on my findings tomorrow or the next day.  Let me tell you, though, that I have but one word to describe what I found:  PHENOM!  Stay tuned.  You will be as stunned as I was/am!

After my research, I returned to Sullivan’s Island.  Allen and I thought that it would be fun to bike around the island.  We’re staying at a marvelous historic home, located on Station 28.  So, off we went, biking.  We had nowhere special in mind, mind you.  We just wanted to bike, mindlessly.  We just wanted to explore, mindlessly.

And so we did.  We biked.  Mindless.  Mindlessly.

Toward the end of our trip, and, indeed, just a stone’s throw from our “home away from home,”  we spotted the most spectacular tree that either of us had ever seen in our lives.  We nearly fell off our bikes at the same time!  We stopped, drop dead.  And, just as we were gawking, a woman walked down the driveway that led to the house behind the tree.

“What a spectacular tree,” I exclaimed.  (Of course:  she knew that already!)

“Yes.  It’s on the Historical Register.”

“Yes, yes.  Of course. As well it should be.  It’s phenomenal.”

“It’s the Gold Bug tree, you know.”

I didn’t know. To me, it was just a drop-dead, spectacular tree.

“The Gold Bug Tree?”  I questioned.  “The Gold Bug Tree?  You mean Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Gold Bug’ tree?”

“Yes,” she said.  “This is the Gold Bug Tree.  But It wasn’t quite this big when Poe wrote his story.  It’s grown a lot.”  She smiled—a big wide Southern smile, full of pride. The Gold Bug Tree, right there in her yard. Right there, in front of her home. Right there, in front of me.  Right there in front of me—a tree that I had read about but not a tree that I had ever in my wildest imaginations expected to see!  I had no idea that such a tree ever, ever, ever existed!  And here I stood, drop dead in front of it, admiring it without even knowing its literary significance.

“Oh, my!” I stammered, stuttered.  “How strange.”  I continued stammering, stuttering. “I write a blog, and my post for today mentioned that I was staying here on Sullivan’s Island where Poe gained his inspiration for writing ‘The Gold Bug.’  Wow! I’m so glad that you were here as we biked by!  The Gold Bug Tree.  I’m stunned. Just stunned! The Gold Bug tree!  If you hadn’t been here, I woudn’t have known.  I would have just thought that this was such a spectacular tree.”

“Yes.  This is the tree!  The Gold Bug Tree.  Enjoy the rest of your day.” 

She walked back up the driveway leading to her home behind the famous tree.  

We biked back to our less famous rental home on Station 28, and then we returned to The Gold Bug Tree at Station 27.  Without a doubt:  we had to take pictures. 

Two photos follow: one of the tree; the other, the corner marker where the tree reigns with commanding magnificence!  

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I have but one word:  Serendipity!

WOW!

And, of course, let me tease you with the passage from Poe’s “The Gold Bug”:

“Jupiter, by direction of his master, proceeded to clear for us a path to the foot of an enormously tall tulip-tree, which stood, with some eight or ten oaks, upon the level, and far surpassed them all, and all other trees which I had then ever seen, in the beauty of its foliage and form, in the wide spread of its branches, and in the general majesty of its appearance.”

Now, go:  read the story and find the tree!  “The Gold Bug.”

Share with me my serendipitous day! 

Research! 

Joy!

Controlled Revelation #4: Live from Charleston, South Carolina

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This week I’m here in Charleston, South Carolina, where I am continuing my research work on The Humourist.  For this trip, however, I decided to stay off the beaten path:  I’m out on Sullivan’s Island, at the entrance to Charleston Harbor.  Edgar Allan Poe spent thirteen months here at Fort Moultrie, beginning November 18, 1827, and it was here on Sullivan’s Island that he wrote his famous short story, “The Gold Bug.”

Later this morning, I’ll be visiting the South Carolina History Room, Charleston County Public Library. I want to examine some land plats from the 1750s when the Humourist was publishing his essays in the South Carolina Gazette, and I want to examine some wills from the period.  Obviously, I’m looking for the will of the person I believe to be The Humourist.  I want to see whether the will contains any information that might confirm that he is actually the writer!

I realize, of course, that it’s a long shot, but who knows!  Last week, I was chatting with one of my colleague’s about my research, and I mentioned to him that I was 99% certain who wrote the essays, but I still hoped to find a direct statement somewhere that “Mr. X” was The Humourist.  My colleague looked at me and wisely replied, “You’ll never find it because it probably doesn’t exist.”  He’s probably right, and I know that I won’t find such a statement in The Humourist’s will.  However, I might find such a statement in someone’s diary, someone’s journal, or someone’s letters.  And who knows:  I might just find it on this research trip.

I keep reminding myself, however, that identifying the author of these essays is only part of my project.  The larger and more important part is making the Humourist essays available to students, scholars, and the world at large.  I am well on my way to doing just that by making the essays available here in this blog.

You will recall that last week’s Controlled Revelation #3 left me reeling because I discovered multiple passages in the Humourist essays that were identical to passages that had appeared in a series of “Castle Building” essays that had been published in The Student under the name of Chimaericus Cantabrigiensis.  I offered up two possibilities, as follows:

“The Humourist is a plagiarist, and I have just unwittingly disclosed what may well be the first documented case of academic dishonesty in Colonial America.

“Or, shifting to a more optimistic possibility, is it possible that Chimaericus Cantabrigiensis and The Humourist are one and the same?  If that’s the case, the parallel passages are all fine and well because a writer may certainly borrow from his own work and use it in multiple publications!  More, though, if that’s the case—if Chimaericus Cantabrigiensis and The Humourist are one and the same—I have just expanded significantly what I believed to be The Humourist’s literary canon.”

Since last week, I have discovered that Chimaericus Cantabrigiensis was a pseudonym used by English poet Christopher Smart (1722-1771).  Smart, not The Humourist, is the author of the “Castle Building” essays that appeared in The Student.

Therefore, I must report that Continue reading →