WPA and writers

Congress approved the formation of the
Works Progress Administration on this date in 1935. The WPA was created
by President Franklin Roosevelt to relieve the economic hardship of the Great
Depression. The program employed more than 8.5 million people on 1.4 million
public projects before it was disbanded in 1943. Many of the WPA's projects
involved manual labor, but it also included literary and arts programs like the
Federal Writers' Project, which gave jobs to writers such as Nelson Algren, Saul
Bellow, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Margaret Walker, and
Richard Wright. Critics of the program said it encouraged laziness and shoddy
work, and claimed the acronym really stood for "We Poke Along," but Nelson
Algren said: "Had it not been for [the Writers' Project], the suicide rate would
have been much higher. It gave new life to people who had thought their lives
were over."from 4/8/12, The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

It seems to me that we continue to have this tension about support of artists, the value of culture and the role of government--over 70 years later. When I walk the sidewalks of urban neighborhoods in Tucson and Phoenix, I see the WPA "stamp" in the concrete. Much of the work at Sabino Canyon and Mt. Lemmon (where we went today/Easter Sunday and saw patches of snow on the northern slopes along with gentle streams of water and green shoots of grass, tree buddings and pine saplings spreading new needles) was done by the WPA. Can we at least find some agreement that public works do benefit the common good--even if we disagree about what the "common good" looks like?

Eudemonia

Does the concept of happiness through reasoning have meaning for you? I consider how, when I plant a seed, measure the depth of soil and its content, place the pot so that it catches a certain slant of light (thank you Emily D.)--my actions are guided by reason, and so, in that instance, I am experiencing eudemonia. Can you conjure up moments of eudemonia in your life?

eudemonia \yoo-di-MOH-nee-uh\, noun:

1. Happiness; well-being.
2. Aristotelianism. Happiness as the result of an active life governed by reason.

We all seek eudemonia, but he thinks that it takes
a great deal of reflection and education to get a clear enough conception of it
really to aim at it in our practice.
-- Robert Campbell Roberts, Intellectual Virtues

They may have believed that we already do value duty, utility, and eudemonia, but it is debatable whether they need to make such
descriptive claims.
-- Jesse J. Prinz, The Emotional Construction of
Morals

From Aristotle, eudemonia comes from the Greek word eudaímōn
which meant "a good or benevolent spirit."

tasting by sight

from Hong Kong Fusion, Haddon Heights/Cherry Hill, NJ Region: fried ice cream with a cake-like crust--sweet but light, melting with each slow chew; mushrooms, noodles, green beans--tasty, savory with gentle service for a foodie's soul. We ate the dessert after the entree, but you could go for dessert first and have fun with your palate.

If you visit the area, or live somewhere close, don't miss this gem for a filling and affordable meal that beguiled my sous-chef son who said "this is the most imaginative and delicious Chinese restaurants I have been to and worth flying across the country to eat at again."

http://www.hkfrestaurant.com/

eating at El Corral at 93

This is a picture of dear old Dad, celebrating his 93rd birthday with a "mud pie" at El Corral in Tucson. He had just finished off five grilled shrimp and two rolls, loaded with butter before digging into this dessert. Yes, he has five stents to keep his clogged arteries going but he only got them at the age of 91! I can't imagine how many burgers, fries, salami sandwiches, Dairy Queen sundaes, and (since moving to the Tucson area with mom), Lucky Wishbone fried chicken he has devoured over the years.

Now, with the UA Basketball season winding down, I suspect a wave of depression may set in before (I hope) he can transition to a season of pool exercises at Cascades where he lives. Kermit sang, "It's not easy being green..." and others have lamented "it's not easy getting old." I see it in every visit I have with my dad: it's not easy to witness how a man--who, at 5 a.m., used to shovel snow off of our house roof in Elgin, Illinois and then go to work at Hillcrest school to shovel snow and ice off the sidewalks so the teachers and kiddies wouldn't slip and slide--now has to push his walker to the dining room. But he does get there to where he needs to go and so, when these birthday milestones roll around, we put on our birthday celebration faces and call out to the cosmos that yes, this son of Italian peasant parentage, continues to enjoy the just desserts of his life.

And: here's the link to El Corral: http://www.elcorraltucson.com/lp.html . We enjoy the food, the rustic western atmosphere and the sense of Tucson-time that this 1930s heritage place brings to our eating experience.

attitudes and actions

I am sharing this link because, as it happens today, my daily literature reminded me that the ONLY things I have control over are my attitudes and actions. So, keeping that in mind, here are word shifts that can reframe both: http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/become-more-optimistic-6-tricks.html

And "here's looking at you" on 3/1/12, Arizona Inn

caprice

The early Spring is changing today a bit and, as I watch the branches bend and flower leaves dance, I think this word applies: there's a bit of whimsy in my day--what about yours?

caprice \kuh-PREES\, noun:

1. A sudden, unpredictable change, as of one's mind or the weather.
2. A tendency to change one's mind without apparent or adequate motive; whimsicality; capriciousness.
3. Music. Capriccio.

Does she turn, thought he, thus, from one to the other, with no preference but of accident or caprice? Is her favour thus light of circulation?
-- Fanny Burney, Camilla, or a Picture of Youth

You lose, you gain—it's all caprice. The omnipotence of caprice. The likelihood of reversal. Yes, the unpredictable reversal and its power.
-- Philip Roth, The Humbling

Caprice is from the Italian word capriccio which means a sudden start or motion. It comes from the word capro meaning goat.

cordate

cordate \KAWR-deyt\, adjective:

1. Heart-shaped.
2. (Of leaves) heart-shaped, with the attachment at the notched end.

Despite their strong and interlinked root structure, the actual flowers were of a lowly order, though, canted towards the sun, they attracted the cordate butterflies.
-- Brian Wilson Aldiss, Hothouse

Without any wind blowing, the sheer weight of a raindrop, shining in parasitic luxury on a cordate leaf, caused its tip to dip, and what looked like a globule of quicksilver performed a sudden glissando down the center vein, and then, having shed its bright load, the relieved leaf unbent.
-- Vladimir Nabakov, Speak, Memory

Related to core, cordate comes from the Latin word for heart, cor, and the suffix -ate which forms an adjective from a noun.

_________________

I am "in love" with words and the sentence above by Vladimir Nabakov is perfect to me. I suggest it is also a poem, with some line editing by me:

Without any wind blowing,

the sheer weight of a raindrop,

shining in parasitic luxury on a cordate leaf,

caused its tip to dip,

And,

what looked like a globule of quicksilver

performed a sudden glissando down the center vein,

And then,

having shed its bright load,

the relieved leaf

unbent.

Happy Valentine's Day--from anitawrites