On good writing. 9-26-19

Here is a letter from a friend that I’m using as an example of how good writing can be just plain fun, in and of itself. The letter is actually a tour de force, as far as writing goes — certainly not what most people can achieve without first having both a mountain of learning and lots of practice. Jim has bucketful’s of both and is the person that wrote Mending “Mending Wall”, which I have posted in this blog, and so far has the most comments.

The letter below achieves all three things that I consider important in writing: Inform, entertain or educate. I think it’s necessary to achieve at least one of them, but Jim manages to do all three.

There is lots to learn from this letter if you pay attention. For those that are interested in writing, here are some points to notice:

• The use of parentheses, quotation marks, hyphens, slash forward, and italics.
• Notice how “1970” is a number whereas “seventeenth century” is spelled out.
• Notice the way some words are capitalized and the use of dialog.
• Notice how he flows from one subject to the other without it feeling choppy.
• Notice how he conveys so much information using a minimum of words.

Now, I’m not saying the information in the letter is important, per se, I’m saying that if you are interested in writing, this is a good letter to study.

As follows:

Dear Manuel and Linda:

(Upon reflection, I find the salutation above unfit in today’s political climate because it ignores Manuel’s Latino/a heritage by addressing him by what the late Malcolm X would describe as the “slave name” which he had to adopt in order to be accepted in a society dominated by those whom the late Joe Hill–see a pattern here?–would call “the bosses.”  Better to respect him and the millions of other Americans who do their part every day to advance the American agenda in spite of the stain of their origins in what Our Beloved President identifies as shithole countries.)  So–

Dear Manuelo and Linda:

(But placement of Linda second in that pair harkens back to an even older pattern of discrimination; men first, then women, if one chooses to include them at all.  In order not to be judged a sexist pig, I must honor her as a recipient.)  So–

Dear Linda and Manuelo:

(Now Manuelo is the one disgraced; I can fix that by writing a second letter to both of you beginning “Dear Manuelo and Linda,” but I have no other news than what follows, so I would be compelled to write another letter of froth worthy only of an upraised fist or a cheery emoji.)  I have no time for such nonsense, so I have finally decided to imitate the most successful politician of the last century, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and begin

My friends:

        After our excellent lunch Saturday, I realized that I started several stories which I left unfinished, a familiar problem.  Both concerned meditation and the need for a mantra to help bring the constant monologue in one’s head to a stop or perhaps divert it like a stream that hits a dam and goes in another direction.  In The Natural Mind, Andrew Weil points out that, as children, when the adults were not around, we did things to get high like holding our breath, blowing on our thumbs or spinning in a circle (Whirling dervishes are religious zealots.) to get to another mental or perhaps spiritual state.  One which I used was to repeat a word continually until meaning dropped off and it was just a series of sounds that kept the logical part of my mind occupied.  That’s how a mantra works.  A big hit is “Om mani padme hum” which means “O jewel in the lotus” and is popular because of its parade of open vowel sounds mixed with the great throbbing “m.”  Maybe I became enlightened and didn’t know it, which is just my luck.

            When I got older I found that there is an organized way to do things, another mistake for me.  In order to meditate properly, one must be in a yoga position in a peaceful spot and recite one’s mantra for twenty minutes.  It’s also a good idea to breathe deeply a lot.  By the 1970’s, meditation had become a service industry, and the Transcendental Meditation people would give you a place to meditate and your own personal mantra for twenty five bucks.  At this point I detected the odor of a rodent and backed off.  As my late best friend, Foy “Tex” (once he moved to Los Angeles) Campbell, said, “I’ll give ya ‘om’ for nothin’.”

            When I was trying to meditate, the one thought I could never get out of my mind was “Is twenty minutes up yet?”  Alan Watts solved this problem by suggesting saying a Catholic rosary with a mantra in place of the prayers.  Start at the cross and say your mantra slowly, then do it again at the next bead and so on.  When you’re back to the cross, twenty minutes has passed.  Neat-o.  (As with the dervishes, this ritual, which seems silly to the non-believer, has a calming effect on those who do it in a quiet, candle glow and incense filled church.)

            In the summer of 1977, my mother and I went to San Francisco and later visited in Los Angeles with Foy, now the editor of Easyriders magazine.  While we were in the city by the bay, we visited Mission Dolores, northernmost of the churches established by Fr. Junipero Serra in the seventeenth century.  Serra’s reputation has suffered the same slide as that of Cristoforo Columbo–he’s either a saint who brought civilization to the First Nation or a jackass of global proportions.  I bought a rosary in the gift shop which my mother and I gave Foy, along with a reminder of what Watts had said.  He was very pleased with it.  In Carmel, where Serra is buried, I bought another rosary for myself.

            Second story–in May 1970 I attended a demonstration on the south lawn of the White House to protest Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia.  This was a big deal–speakers included Dave Dellinger of the Mobilization to End the War and Jane Fonda, who rode up with me and Bill Farmer from Dallas and sat in front of me writing her speech for the next day in a looping, childlike handwriting. Farmer and I were sharing first class with her because we were to speak at a conference after the protest and our way was paid by the government, whose policies we would denounce when we got to D.C.  Totally absurd–Paul Goodman and Jean-Paul Sartre would have loved it.

            The high point was when Dellinger said, “And now, here’s Allen Ginsberg.”  The crowd roared and we got to our feet to honor this hero who had endured and accomplished so much.  He stepped to the microphone and said, “Ommmmm.”

                                                                                                                                                Jim

P.s. Spellcheck did not recognize “emoji,” possibly because I am using Word 2007.

P.p.s.  Andrew Weil is also known as the guy who ratted out Tim Leary and Richard Alpert for giving LSD to students and getting them fired from Harvard.  Leary forgave Weil for this but Alpert never did.  Incredibly, Harvard was just another school to Leary and he could see that he needed a larger audience than academia would allow, so Weil actually helped him.  But Alpert was from a socially aggressive family that was proud of its professor son, and he bought into that too.  Although he became Baba Ram Dass, part of him was always the triumphant professor with a corner office at the Big Red One.

P.p.s. I met Dass once and noted, “I was at Harvard the same time you were.”  He said, “Lot of water under the bridge since then.”  The wisdom of the east.

P.p.s.  “Spell-check” (I guess) also wouldn’t buy “Spellcheck.”  A hard taskmaster.