Those Elusive Passes

The Mountain Pass
by Big Frank Dickinson

Lewis and Clark made it over the pass.
They knew it existed but did not know where
It was; they needed help to find it
And this took them on a round-about journey
To a difficult passage

Over the mountains
To the Pacific
Ocean, a goal of some satisfaction,
Not because of where they ended up
But rather on having gotten there.

They quickly went back, and
The pass was easily found this time
As was the destination from which they had come.
However, it was never the same again

Thanksgiving

Give Thanks = Be Happy

The foundation of happiness is gratitude so does that mean that the Danes and the Finns are more thankful than we Americans? They are, stats tell, the happiest countries in the world. They are also among the most well-off, but it appears that only being better off than others without being grateful does not lead to increased levels of happiness. Emmons and McCullough did an interesting experiment in which three groups of people were asked to write lists and then had their relative levels of happiness compared. The lists were:

(1) What I’m thankful for (gratitude condition)
(2) What Is a Big Hassel (hassel condition)
(3) Anything I feel like writing down (control condition)

Group number one just by virtue of writing down a short list of what it is that they were thankful for at the end of each week for 10 weeks ended up 25% more happy than the other groups. Even when in a subsequent experiment with a new group added that wrote down how much better off they were than others (the comparison group) the gratitude group still came out significantly happier.

So, come on, what are you waiting for? Be thankful; write out your list today and continue to do so every week from now on. Be thankful for what you have and what you have will make you happy - much happier than what it is that you think you need but don’t have. It’s what’s in your hands that makes you happy; hold it, hug it, smile, and be thankful. Big Frank is - he’s smiling - Big Time!

The Origin of Lines

[Photo: Big Frank Dickinson: Osaka, Japn]

There are many ways of categorizing humans in which they are separated from other animals, mammals, and primates: the tool maker, the user of language, or the imaginative one looking into the future. However, here's a new one that definitely is unique to humans: standing in line. No animal will willingly stand in line for any reason whatsoever: food, shelter, entertainment, sex, . . . nothing! Human are the Queuing Animal. Look at all the times/places that humans will line up: to get on a train, plane, or taxi; to get a hamburger, a pizza, or a shot of vodka; to have someone look at their bunyans, moles or warts; to buy a TV, a hammer, or a quart of milk; to enter a theater, a restaurant, or a church; to register for class, withdraw from class, or enter class . . . and so on and on and on. Big Frank wonders when the first line was formed and for what reason. Surely it was not a group decision of perhaps a group of hunters descending on a carcass and standing in line to hack off a piece, nor the consensus of a tribe to queue up in order to drink one at a time from a narrow pool of water. We see lots of cartoons on the first users of wheels and this is typically put back into the fuzzy time when people lived in caves so perhaps that was when the first line was formed. Surely there must have been some kind of power structure to enforce it and some kind of order or enforcement. What did they first line up for: water, food, or perhaps something even more substantial and essential . . . but what?

Now

Big Frank knows the answer to this lovely poem full of questions and waiting!

This Couple
by C. D. Wright

Now is when we love to sit before mirrors
wth a dark beer or hand out leaflets
at chain-link gates or come together after work
listening to each other’s hard day. The engine dies;
no one hurries to go in. We might
walk around in the yard not making a plan.
The freeway is heard, but there’s no stopping
progress, and the week has barely begun. Then
we are dressed. It rains. Our heads rest
against the elevator wall inhaling a stranger;
we think of the cliffs we went off
with our laughing friends. The faces
we put our lips to. Our wonderful sex
under whatever we wear. And of the car
burning on the side of the highway. Of jukeboxes
we fed. Quarters circulating with our prints.
Things we sent away for. Long drives. The rain. Cafes
where we ate late, and once only. Eyes of an animal
in the headlamps. The guestbooks that verify
our whereabouts. Your apple core in the ashtray.
The pay toilets where we sat without paper. Rain.
Articles left with former lovers. The famous
ravine of childhood. Movie lines we’ve stood in
when it really came down. Moments
we have felt forsaken: waiting for the others
Tt step from the wrought-iron compartment,
or passing through some town with the dial
on a Mexican station, wondering for the life of us
where were we going and when would we meet.

"You will outlive yourself . . ."

Big Frank shares below a great poem by Timothy Donnelly from his latest collection of poems: "The Cloud Corporation". And no, it's not just because the title has "Cloud" in it that Big Frank recommends the book. The poems are sharp, they tread familiar territory but reveal it in startlingly pleasing ways. Here's one that Big Frank especially likes on the transitoriness of feeling, but unlike much lyric poetry this is presented as a good thing - not a loss. There are times when we feel we would bet large on the permanence of what we feel; as Donnelly puts it: "You wager too much, small self, on the way you feel." For, as the poem concludes: "you will outlive/ yourself again, and what you feel now, this adamantine/ sorrow, will scatter its dicethrow behind you into swans." Yes that wager that you were so sure of . . . the dicethrow turns into swans!

THROUGH THE WILDERNESS OF HIS FOREHEAD
By Timothy Donnelly

You wager too much, small self, on the way you feel. Nothing
you have thought should last forever can’t be lost.

Even the yellow wind that begins at once to strip the last of the
heart-shaped foliage from the tree across the way

knows that feeling is a spell from which the mind can
rouse itself awake if it would only let itself be taken

leaf by leaf apart. And you have felt this fear before, clung
as to a vapor misremembering what had stood to

live through memory alone. Or was it afterwards among
fog folded into blankets of some self-erasing sleep.

Or when, conversely, focused on the constancy of any given
thing without dispersing, undissolved – an icecap-

white moon or clock-face on a tower – the mind intent on far
too fine a point to take in any more. You will outlive

yourself again, and what you feel now, this adamantine
sorrow, will scatter its dicethrow behind you into swans.

The Magic Lantern's Costume?

Big Frank had to take out the Magic Lantern again. It does seem that there are certain important events that do require its magic. Certainly traveling can always use a little magic from the ol lantern to keep things exciting. Writing is something that Big Frank has not yet used the Magic Lantern for, but it could be useful. However, most immediately - Halloween is coming and with that weird holiday comes . . . Costume Parties! The Costume Party is a a favorite of Big Frank's.

Here's a little history on Costume Parties. In England they are typically called 'fancy dress parties' and date back to the 18th century - really coming into their own in Victorian times in terms of frequency. However, the costumes were pretty simple (basically masks) until after the second war when things started getting a bit more extravigant. Typically you will see current popular characters from the media as the most popular costumes: Lady Gaga, Kick-Ass, Avator, Ironman, Vampires, etc. However, Big Frank and his Magic Lantern go for the costume which is not tied to any one character at all. It will be vaguely familiar but will elude particular identification.

Those with no place to go for Halloween in Spokane are all invited to Bluz at the Bend on Saturday night for the costume party of the year. Costumes are required and Big Frank (incognito) will be there along with the Social Adventurers (all in costume, of course).