Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: Writing

  • Sunday Episode – Avonlea Tunes

    Little ones’ sweet days (Click here for what they did.)

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    It’s still cold here in the town of Avonlea with the North Wind reigning his realm of winter. The snow has stopped falling since the last Tuesday, but the cold temperature still befalls the residents of Avonlea. However, the spirits of the little ones are all the more upbeat with their seemingly nonstop frolics and curious minds about what goes around them everyday.

    Yesterday after attending their 9:00 AM Sunday mass in the Church of St. Mary, the little ones gathered again at Mrs. Lompstrompf’s cafe to confabulate with one another with sweets and refreshments. It was a reward for their attending the early morning mass despite the frigid temperature added by frightfully pungent wind slapping he little faces without mercy as they had marched forth to the church. What brave souls they were! That’s why Jesus told that we should be like children to inherit the kingdom of heaven.

    So this was how they spent yesterday in Avonlea. However simple the story might be, it’s recorded in their chapters of life. That’s what a life is. The meaning of life depends upon whether or not we fulfill the demands placed upon our daily tasks. The little ones seem to know it. What about you, dear reader?

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  • The Arrival of the Beaver

    Calico Times (Click here to read the article.)

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    At the outset of the new year, which is also Year of Dog, a new family lands at Littleton Airport in the vicinity of Avonlea with their new hopes and aspirations. The Calico Times, which is the one and only newspaper in Avonlea, welcomes the new family wholeheartedly as new residents of Avonlea with a heartwarming report of their arrival.

    Meet the Beaver from England: the household is headed by Paul Beaver, an able mechanic with amazing technical dexterity and a heart of gold. Brenda Beaver, his better half, is a full-time homemaker, administering the domestic affairs while her husband is working outside the home for the family. In fact, Mrs. Beaver regards housekeeping as a formidable domain of work, contrary to the received idea of the work as drudgery or menial labor degraded by women nowadays. Betty and Wille are their adorable and bright children. They have inherited the good qualities from their parents but are by no means spoiled, thanks to the child rearing balanced with loving care and discipline.

    So the new family will start their life anew in a new land with auspicious thinking and go-aheaditiveness. Also, they are happy to reunite with their good friends, the Collie from Scotland.  In fact, the Beaver will stay a week at the Collie until they find a new abode in the town. Let’s make good wishes for the Beaver!

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  • The Romans as close as you can be

    Life in Ancient RomeLife in Ancient Rome by Lionel Casson

    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    There was a time when all the roads led to Rome that lasted approximately 1,500 years ranging from the era of B.C. to that of A.D. It was from this Roman world where the art of politics was crafted and exemplified; it was also from this grandiose empire where Christianity gained ground and dispersed Christendom/Christianity to Urbi et orbi. However, what piqued me most was the key phases of life in the Roman world; what life was like in the various spectrum of society, ranging from the slave to the aristocrat? How different was the life in the Roman world from the life in our modern world? This book by the erudite historian Lionel Casson presents elegant sketches of such aspects of the Eternal City, particularly during the first and second A.D.

    Although Rome was the center of the Empire, its strength came from its provinces. For instance, the grain, wine, and oil came from Egypt, France, and Spain. The businessmen who traded such goods were largely provincials, so were the army recruits. Moreover, even slaves could achieve upward social mobility once they became freed through manumission which granted them Roman citizenship. In fact, it was this practice of incorporating into the state the communities it claimed and the populace it governed by bestowing upon them citizenship on the whole. To illustrate, Horace, the famous Roman poet, was a son of a freed slave who later became a wealthy farmer. Felix, who threw St. Paul in a jail, was himself a freed slave who rose above the planes of his melee. These nouveau citizens joined the citizen body and contributed their labor to the society.

    Most girls married between the age of twelve and fifteen, and they must possess a dowry. If her husband died, or the couple divorced, it was returned, except a portion for the raising the children by the husband and penalty in case of her misdemeanor. No dowry, no husband in this paterfamily society. Also, the common law marriage was accepted, such as in the case of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor ruling Rome from 161 A.D. to 180 A.D. After his wife died, he lived with the daughter of his wife’s business agent as concubine. An upper-class woman could have a lover of humble status, even including a slave.

    There are lots of other interesting facts that will surprise the reader with a feeling of closeness to these citizens of the Eternal City because they were not much different from the citizens of the modern world in many ways; the scenery changes, and the people change, but the human nature does not change as long as the humankind exists.

  • At the cafe on a New Year’s Day

    NEws Article about the upgraded cafe   (Click here for the cafe scenes)

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    Benjamin Franklin in his Autobiography advises his reader for the New Year to resolve to perform what he ought and perform without fail what he resolves. Mrs. Lompstrompf’s bakery whose official business name is “Rilakuma Cafe” is accordingly decorated anew with a variety of new snacks at affordable prices to accommodate the little ones’ pocket money. How thoughtful and generous the proprietor is! There is seldom anyone like Mrs. Lompstrompf in these days.

    So after wishing Happy New Year to their families and friends, the little ones gather in their elbow room in Avonlea. What is better than uplifting your spirits with sweets and refreshments in a wintry afternoon?

    The little ones are busy talking about their new year’s resolutions and plans among themselves, and listening to them makes anyone smile at their innocent wishes and simple hopes for the future, which is a prerogative of the young at heart.

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  • Episode V: Spaghetti Evening

    A Spaghetti Dinner  (Click here, and it will take you to the House where you can read the dinner story with pictures of the characters.)

    PROLOGUE

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    Last thursday was a spaghetti evening at Mrs. Lompstrompf’s house, where Sally and Mathilda lodged. Sally was still recovering from a serious case of abscess on her neck due to her weak immune system for being anemic. The medication Dr. Humbug had prescribed to  her was Ajaxcillin/TMP 800/169 MG TB, which was to be taken twice per day. It’s an antibiotic, and Sally took 2 tablets a day religiously with her hands supplicant for a quick healing of the wound. The effect of the medication dovetailed with its name derived from Ajax the Great, a towering figure and great warrior of valor and strength fighting alongside Achilles and other famous Greeks against Trojans. One portant tablet would make Sally dizzy and her stomach feel light. No feeling of hunger would be shed over her. In a way, Sally thought this could be an opportunity to  lose some weight.

    But Sally was prabably not meant to be thin because she could not resist the wonderful aroma of Mrs. Lompstromfp’s spaghetti. Mrs. Lompstrompf had receipts from her old Grandmother in Norway, the land of fjords and the Norse gods and goddesses, where her relatives were still thriving on their homemade dairy products.  Her spaghetti surpassed the most authentically Italian made one in flavor, texture, and contents filled with genuine affection for cooking and caring for whoever would taste her culinary blessing.

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    So Sally gladly joined the dinner table with Mrs. Lompstrompf and partook in a convivial conversation. She talked about her Web log activities, how much she liked writing anything that came to her mind, such as poetry, novellas, and book reviews although the works published were not widely recognized. Upon hearing this from Sally, the good old Norwegian lady gently encouraged Sally’s somewhat downcast spirit by saying, “Sally, but your writings are all original, written bottomless from the bottom of your mind. And besides, you are writing in a language that is foreign to you when all these other people write in their own tongues. ast out literary, grammatical, and syntactical inhibition when you write. Be like Hercules whose confidence equals that of gods and goddess.”

    With this inspiring word of advice and encouragement from the saintly lady, Sally suddenly felt a rush of appetite that had been quelled by the antibiotic agents, thus joyously enjoyed the delicious spaghetti. Anything coming from Mrs. Lompstrompf was opposite to deceit, flattery, and lie. She talked only truth like an oracle at Delphi. Surely, the spaghetti tasted better than ambrosia or nectar.

    fa8e830c9e8170c16507cc49b7b0aeb7And what about Mathilda, another boarder? She was in her melancholic mood again, so she stayed in her room. It’s not that she felt uncomfortable with both of the ladies but that it was her nature to be solitary once in a while. She was by  the way a writer like Sally. Both Sally and Mathilda kept their traveler’s notebooks in which  they wrote their journals and drafted what they would post on their Web logs.

    So it was a nice warm Thursday evening dinner. Sally’s spirit was emboldened by Mrs. Lompstompf’s truthful revelation, and her wound on the neck seemed to heal considerably. Sometimes, everyone needs good food for the mind and the body because as the ancient Greeks said, “Mens sana in corpore sano.” (A sound mind dwells in a healthy body.)

     

  • Billy Budd by Herman Melville

    Billy Budd, SailorBilly Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville

    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    The ageless question of human nature pertains to the paradoxical mysteries of human personality shaped by our perception of the world, as reflected in ancient mythologies. Herman Melville saw this intricate irony in this representation of reality in connection with the development of complex human personality in the characters of Billy Budd, John Claggart, and Captain Vere in this nautical novella.

    (1) Psychoanalytic perspective: The characters are emblematic of Freudian elements of personality. They are id represented by Billy (intuitive mind), ego (conscious mind) by Claggart, and superego by captain Vere (ethical consciousness). Billy’s ingenuousness, unalloyed beauty both in physical appearance and inner qualities, and young age symbolize the earliest phase of development of human personality. Hence the name “Budd” seems to betoken this emerging state of metamorphosis into early adulthood. When Dansker warns him of Claggart’s malicious intention to do harm on him, Billy dismisses the advice and insists on Claggart’s friendly treatment of him. In Billy’s representation of reality, Claggart exists as what he sees: a kind officer who does not give him a hard time. In fact, it is this innocent child-man like quality that becomes Billy’s fatal flaw.

    Billy Budd is doomed to be ruthlessly crushed when he is transferred as a foretopman to the naval ship HMS Indomitable. Here he meets his Valkyrie John Claggart, Master-at-Arms equivalent of Chief Police Office or discipline officer, who is always down upon Billy, for a reason indicated none other than his being divinely beautiful and angelically kind. It is the old veteran sailor named Dansker who regards Billy as his little child and informs him of Claggart’s devious motive. All these characters are at the helm of Captain Vere (whose name is derived from the Latin word Verite, meaning truth. Here the vessel is a model of representation of reality surrounded by seas, which is the world it anchors in.

    Claggart’s reason for his hatred of Billy is clandestine. He appears to act according to his ego, the conscious mind which Socrates considers as spirit. It seems that Claggart’s loathing of Billy becomes inflamed when Billy accidentally spills pea soup on his feet because he believes it to be Billy’s intentional effrontery. Claggart seems to act by his emotions based on the purely abstract reasoning of the mind. Therefore, Claggart’s model of reality is a result of his own way of interpreting the situation with his faulty assessment of the character that defiles his mind with dangerous antipathy toward the youth.

    Captain Vere, a figure of authority that convenes both Billy and Claggart on the subject of alleged mutiny as instigated by Billy, represents the ethical mind, the superego, the reason. He acts as an executor of justice to gird up the loins of discipline among his crew amid the revolutionary wars on the sea. Vere feels that Billy is innocent; however, when Billy hits Claggart to death at his false accusation of him as a mutiny leader, Vere is convinced of Billy’s alleged guilt and orders his execution by hanging. In a way, Vere represents an amoral authority figure dealing with individual citizens or subjects according to law and order minus spirits and appetites.

    (2) Mythological perspective: It is also interesting to look at this story of Billy Budd as folklore tinged with a mythological undertone of heroism akin to Norse mythology. The figure of Billy Budd reminds the reader of an ideal hero dying young; the hero can prove his nobility of character by death because often heroism depends on lost causes. The young welkin-eyed Billy Budd’s death gives rise to the high concept of this Nordic hero because the real power of good is shown by continuing to resist evil while facing certain death as the legacy of Billy Budd is immortalized in the seaman’s ballad. In my opinion, this story of the welkin-eyed young hero reflects Melville’s model of a heroic individual whom he once envisioned in his sailing days. Or perhaps, Billy Bud could be what Melville wished his two sons lost in unfortunate occasions (Malcolm, the eldest, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1867 and another Stanwix, who died in 1886 in San Francisco) to be like. It would have been Melville’s mournful tribute to the deaths of his sons as enshrined in the mythological figure of Billy Budd.

    The book is written in an intricate prose style with the literary vocabulary used in the 19th century and historical allusions to the revolutionary wars and the great Admiral Nelson’s naval wars to give to the story a more realistic setting. Melville, who was a seaman himself in his youth and later settled as a customs inspector in New York City, wrote this novella in 1891, the time of his death. It was actually his postmortem work, published in 1924, 33 years after this death. And it was this work that kindled widespread interest in Melville’s works.

    Reading this tale of an angelic sailor will give the reader a sense of reading a Norse mythological tale because the protagonist of the story is evocative of pathos flowing from the complex human nature that is sublimated into heroic triumph over the face of the harsh reality of the world.