"a person who could use... a little help"

Thanks to Paula for this graphic

As we approach our 4th birthday at massmouth.com and start our third year as a nonprofit I can't help but wonder. Just sometimes, I wonder but my family wonders about this often - am I actually a person who "could use... a little help"  because, as the article below states pretty clearly "... starting a business is, on its face, a little nuts." Will  massmouth,inc. be the place where storytelling meets entrepreneurship and get "rediscovered" by the dominant culture? Or is this a group delusion and I am a main perp?  In October of 2010, my family asked me to see a therapist for my condition. It was fine, nice even to have someone who had no "dog in the fight" to talk to every 10 days or so. I could express my doubts and joys without worrying about how it would make my therapist feel. But I have to be circumspect about enthusiasms and frustrations with my family. Many of my blood relations think I am as soft as a sneaker full of...mashed bananas.  I think I am not deluded - but what deluded person doesn't? Yet I have evidence  that we are creating the connections and a space where storytellers can make a living while practicing our art form.  But the "crazy" label  does not get put away that easily. This is why I read with great pleasure what the NY Times had to say about the phenomenon of the crazed entrepreneur.  I like to revisit  this article at various low points in my non remunerative journey...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/



09/19/business/19entre.html

Just Manic Enough: Seeking Perfect Entrepreneurs

"...this thought exercise hints at a truth: a thin line separates the temperament of a promising entrepreneur from a person who could use, as they say in psychiatry, a little help. Academics and hiring consultants say that many successful entrepreneurs have qualities and quirks that, if poured into their psyches in greater ratios, would qualify as full-on mental illness.

Which is not to suggest that entrepreneurs ...are crazy. It would be more accurate to describe them as just crazy enough.

“It’s about degrees,” says John D. Gartner, a psychologist and author of “The Hypomanic Edge.” “If you’re manic, you think you’re Jesus. If you’re hypomanic, you think you are God’s gift to technology investing.”

The attributes that make great entrepreneurs, the experts say, are common in certain manias, though in milder forms and harnessed in ways that are hugely productive. Instead of recklessness, the entrepreneur loves risk. Instead of delusions, the entrepreneur imagines a product that sounds so compelling that it inspires people to bet their careers, or a lot of money, on something that doesn’t exist and may never sell.

"...people will tell you that what you’re doing can’t be done, and if it could be done, someone would have done it already."

So venture capitalists spend a lot of time plumbing the psyches of the people in whom they might invest. It’s not so much about separating the loonies from the slightly manic. It’s more about determining which hypomanics are too arrogant and obnoxious — traits common to the type — and which have some humanity and interpersonal skills, always helpful for recruiting talent and raising money.

"...because starting a business is, on its face, a little nuts."

Some V.C.’s have personality tests to help them weed out the former. Others emphasize their toleration of mild forms of mania, if only because starting a business is, on its face, a little nuts.

“You need to suspend disbelief to start a company, because so many people will tell you that what you’re doing can’t be done, and if it could be done, someone would have done it already,” says Paul Maeder, a general partner at Highland Capital. “There are six billion human beings on this planet, we’ve been around for hundreds of thousands of years, we’re a couple hundred years into the industrial revolution — and nobody has done what you want to do? It’s kind of crazy.”

"I never met an idea I didn't like."

" I never met an idea (a man) I didn't like."

Will Rogers ( above left ) said it  and Mae West ( right) said lots of things, but not " I never met a man I didn't like."

"I never met a man I didn't like." Will Rogers actually said it but I hear it in Mae West's voice when I reflect on my shameless, wanton behavior with ideas. In my mind I have confused and then recombined Will Rogers, Mr. Nice Guy, humorist and political commentator and the grandmother of "A Bad Reputation Is a Good Thing," Mae West. Although, like Mae West, I love to talk in double entendres, in actual fact my sexual exploits would put me in the same class with a femme fatale of the Mother Theresa caliber.  Many say I share her fashion sense as well. Unlike Mother T, I am not celibate but monogamous. Thirty-five years with the same guy. Really? Like an albatross, or a wolf I have mated for life.  Apparently, an albatross will always return to the same place and the same partner.  Some pairs bond for a lifetime, cemented through the use of goofy but affectionate ritual dances. Hah, my guy and I even do the dance! But still, where's the drama in that ?

When it comes to ideas? Oh sister, get out of my way.  Mae West, move over!  Even when I was very young and very single I never played with men-folk the way I absolutely slut around with ideas.  I am easy.  Just cannot get enough of 'em.  I love 'em and leave 'em.  I am totally promiscuous with ideas.  As Mae West would say, "I feel like a million! But not all at once." 

Ideas come and go. Like buses, there is another idea every 5 minutes. But like buses, especially in Boston, the next bus or idea usually is not one you should get on and often is not the one you were waiting for...When I see any new idea I go weak at the knees.  I can be quite naughty.  Not one to wait to be asked, oh no. Hussying right up to an idea I say,  “Look at you! Mmmmm, mmm.  Such a big, strong, handsome idea! Let me sit in your metaphorical lap and run my fingers through your hair. Now, you whisper into my little ear and tell me what you are going to do to me. Did you say sleepless nights? O, you devil! Loss of money? Tarnished reputation? Relationships shot to hell?  - Wait, you are not any run of the mill idea, are you? I think *pant* you might just be *pant* a *pant* a lost cause!  Take me.  Now!"

Is playing with ideas always a bad thing? A very short google search on "playing with ideas" yielded this top website  American Journal of Play  which among other things, "includes material that... illuminates the important role of play in learning and human development throughout the life cycle..."   In a Dec 2011 article,  Playing with Ideas, The Affective Dynamics of Creative Play, by Pat Power,  I found loads of information to explain and put a more healthy spin my licentious behavior with ideas. Power says that "Playfulness is the essence of adaptability..." So, that is a good thing, no? He also notes that playfulness evolved in mammals because it works and has many benefits. I also liked this part a lot:

When adults are in a playful mood, they internalize the high jinks kids enjoy.

Adults play with the boundaries of their own thoughts and perceptions and withthose of others—dynamically exploring possible worlds in fantasies or creative writing; mixing and blending conceptual spaces through satirical imitation or playfuldesign; stretching and breaking established schemas by engaging with art or beingabsurd; and bouncing round otherwise solid and well-defended psychic structuresusing self-deprecating humor or teasing others.

Yeah, we do a lot of "dynamically exploring possible worlds in fantasies or creative writing; mixing and blending conceptual spaces through satirical imitation or playful design" at the massmouth office. By this definition, we play a lot while we work at massmouth,inc.! And our play seems to be, er, um... working?  Power also offers a few somber nuances to the discussion.  For example, here is one that resonated:

It is easy to idealize playfulness because it seems on first analysis to have

overwhelmingly positive attributes. But playfulness is environmentally situatedwith contextual constraints, and even young mammals with a strong propensityto play need to learn these limitations quickly if they are to survive. Anyone whohas experienced inapt playful antics knows how annoying, disruptive, or evenpotentially lethal they can be. Playfulness is not always creative, and in play, as instories, “destruction is a way of causing maximum impact for minimum effort.”

And this:

But it is worth remembering that creativity produces useful ideas and artifacts;
play creates possibilities.

But none of these small reality checks could harsh my mellow.  After reading the positive conclusions of Power's article,  I say it strong and say it loud,  "I am an idea slut and I am proud!"

...This human neoteny enables us to extend a level of playfulness into later years and is likely to help stimulate neurogenesis in healthy adults and similarly forestalls mental decline in cases of dementia. However, cultural influences can sometimes

be constraining, and the often pervasive effect of the rhetoric of play as frivolity,which is an essentially puritanical attitude toward playfulness in adults, can havereal repercussions for adult play, creativity, and quality of life. And why shouldwe cease being playful when 'the joyfulness of infinite play, its laughter, lies inlearning to start something we cannot finish.'

From Journal of Play by Pat Power

I am buoyed by this reading.  As Geoffry Chaucer said, "A man may say full sooth [the truth] in game and play." And, as Shakespeare said in  King Lear, "Jesters do oft prove prophets."  It seems that ultimately, the way to truth, health and happiness is through play.  I do recommend the whole article which is available for free as a PDF.

Pat Power is Senior Lecturer of Digital Media and Design at London Metropolitan University.  A specialist in 3-D animation, he has worked widely in both industry and academia, including a position as Academic Manager for Multimedia and Animation at the Digital Academy. His interdisciplinary research encompasses animation, emotion, play, narrative, and the synthesis of science and the arts. In articles published in Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, he has examined expressive style in 3-D computer graphic narrative and the creative nature of character conception. Power also serves as an External Examiner at Oxford Brookes University.

Common Core = rotten at the center

Update: Just relocated this video

People - I am getting really worried about education trends and you might be too. All kinds of crazy styles and fads run through education but when the "architect" of the national standards/Common Core (and now the head of the College Board, which develops and administers the SAT and AP tests) David Coleman said that he believes in emphasizing so-called “informational texts” over literature and have the "the core standards for the first time demand that 50% of the text students encounter in kindergarten through 5th grade is informational text…" I said "what?"  But Mr. Coleman, was not quite done. He rocked on and added this beauty of a statement:

“[A]s you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a s%$* about what you feel or what you think.” - David Coleman

I was puzzled by his attitude. This man is an educator speaking to educators of young people at meeting about how to best educate young people. This is not Bart Simpson having a beer. This is David Coleman who founded the Grow Network ‐ acquired by McGraw‐Hill in 2005 ‐ which has become the nation’s leader in assessment reporting and customized instructional materials. Mr. Coleman was a lecturer at the University of London before going to work in the pro bono education area  ( what is that one wonders - is pro bono code for sales or marketing?) of McKinsey & Company. He is a Rhodes Scholar and a graduate of Yale University, Oxford University and Cambridge University. Here are two things he is not; a classroom teacher and pretty clearly he is not a very mature human being.

Common Core "architect" David Coleman

From his impressive credentials you may believe he knows a lot about education. But  actually he seems to only know a lot about education policy, specifically  education reform.   His statement about stories was so inane and mean spirited that it really was frightening. This person is in charge of policy for young learners?  We have a real problem when hot shot policy people can trash talk literature and are not pelted with virtual tomatoes and booed off the stage. But my shock is way overdue. This  CCSSI and the denigration of the study of literature is all part of a wider, long term plan. Susan Ohanian said in her recent blog: 

"Educating Students to Fill Most In-Demand Jobs

And so corporate courtier Arne Duncan tells a group of education reporters that unemployment is caused more by a 'skills crisis' than a 'jobs crisis,' and that we aren't educating students to fill the most in-demand jobs.

Downgrading the importance of fiction in our schools, saying that children gain information about the world only through nonfiction, is the Common Core's role in "educating students' to fill those most in-demand jobs.

Schoolteachers who have gloried in reading Rotten Ralph, The Just-So Stories, The Trumpet of the Swan, The Great Gilly Hopkins, Incident at Hawk's Hill, The Acorn People, and hundreds of other titles with their students are late in getting to this corporate party. In Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle Chris Hedges points out that universities have already accepted their corporate role, and "As universities become glorified vocational schools for corporations they adopt values and operating techniques of the corporations they serve.

"An oft-repeated assertion of self-proclaimed Common Core architect David Coleman is that non-fiction is where students get information about the world and that's why schools must stop teaching so much fiction. In this assertion, Coleman is echoing the corporate world which he is hired to serve." Read more here

My complaints are largely and argumentum ad hominum.  Let's talk about what David Coleman is actually doing. His credentials and connections  have allowed him and his gravy train-enthused allies, to foist a huge dose of snake oil on the Massachusetts public schools. His snake oil Rx - the Common Core National Standards CCSSI exist to fix a system that is not broken.  Read an informational text below that is full of data. It will show you, if you haven't already been besotted with wasteful and wanton reading of fiction, that following the Massachusetts ELA frameworks in the classroom was, as documented fact, doing a great job of educating students. The excerpt below was written by Jamie Gass May 08, 2012  He is director of the Center for School Reform at Pioneer Institute, a Massachusetts think tank ( all emphasises are mine).

"Architects of the landmark 1993 education reform law understood and appreciated our literary heritage; that's why Massachusetts public school students were reading much of the work produced by these and other ancient and modern poets. The results of our students' grounding in poetry, literature and higher-level vocabulary have been outstanding. In 2005, the commonwealth's fourth- and eighth-graders came out tops in the reading component of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation's report card.

In 2007, 2009 and 2011, each time the test was administered, they repeated that feat. But recently, our students started learning 60 percent less about the many great Massachusetts poets and literary figures. That's because the commonwealth ditched its nation-leading English standards for inferior national standards that will have students reading far less poetry and literature, particularly in high school. Now, via these national education standards, Massachusetts has exactly the same literary expectations as they do in low-performing states like Louisiana, West Virginia and Mississippi." More 


This movement for "reform" and hue and cry of danger! began in the Dark Ages of President Ronald Regan Reign. It was he who initiated the study with an introduction so over the top it now sounds like it was written by Stephen Colbert:

from "A Nation at Risk,   1983

"Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. This report is concerned with only one of the many causes and dimensions of the problem, but it is the one that undergirds American prosperity, security,and civility. We report to the American people that while we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the well-being of its people, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future -as a Nation and a people. What was un-imaginable a generation ago has begun to occur. Others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments.

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an  act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in Student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have,in effect, been committing an act of unthinking. unilateral educational disarmament."

Phew - I was so worried after reading this I had to check the water and canned goods supplies in my apocalypse shelter.  But wait - maybe there is more to this story?

... Project Censored reports: "Six years later, [after A Nation at Risk] when state governors and President George Bush set national education goals after the 1989 education summit, the administration charged Sandia National Laboratories, a scientific research organization, with investigating the state of public education. In 1991, Sandia presented its first findings to the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation. While the response from these government agencies should have been one of some celebration, instead it was one of silence -- a silence compounded by the national media. The results did not reveal a seriously deficient educational system in dire need of profound changes such as a nationwide voucher program.

 And in Wikipedia we find this[below]. Apparently the "truth" about the education crisis was so strong, it was necessary to suppress or ignore any other findings.

"In 1990, Admiral James Watkins, the Secretary of Energy, commissioned the Sandia Laboratories in New Mexico to document the decline in the Nation at Risk report with actual data. When the systems scientists broke down the SAT test scores into subgroups they discovered contradictory data. While the overall average scores declined, the subgroups of students increased. In statistics this is known as Simpson's paradox. The 3 authors presented their report. David Kearns, Deputy Secretary of Education allegedly told the authors of the report,"You bury this or I'll bury you", though this quote is disputed by Diane Ravitch. Education Week published an article on the Sandia report in 1991. Unlike the Nation at Risk report, the Sandia Report critique received almost no attention."

The fact is that the Ed Reform people do not care what they deform or who they hurt with their policies. After all, this is the real world and they are grown ups. They know, "...people really don’t give a s%$* about what you feel or what you think.” - David Coleman
search for

nonagenarian morning & afternoon

Nonagenarian #1 Today was my day to spend some time with my mother-in-law. E. is 94 years old and very frail. My sister's in-law have been on duty 24/7 for decades and I am finally able to contribute a bit. My husband cannot help because E. needs personal care that he cannot give.

E.'s body is not really cooperating with her plan to live out her days independently.  She has all her marbles.  So that is good. But some kind of Parkinson-ian condition makes it hard for E. to do much for herself. She needs help to move from her chair, where she needs a walker to assist her with more help to get into her wheel chair. Her legs are still working enough to stand and shuffle but E. wobbles in a scary way. At least, I find it scary. I am terrified that I might be the one to drop her. She will not bounce. I dread when E. needs the commode because it is necessary for me to wipe her. The act itself is fine; as the mother of  four I still wipe butts with aplomb.  But it is so scary when I need more wipes and I only have a light touch on E.'s back as I grope frantically behind me for the wipes, tissues, Vaseline or whatever I should have located before starting the process.  I can see how one slip caused by my carelessness might be the start of the bitter end of my mother-in-law's life. And that thought makes me seriously nervous.

It is ever clearer to me that our mortal lives are separated from death by a very flimsy and random premise, which is, simply; "Not yet."  Luckily, we are usually too distracted to notice how close we dance to our own demise.  Again, this is fine! It is paralyzing or worse to worry about one's life ending. As someone who has suffered from anxiety I know that no one needs this acute awareness from moment to moment. Especially while taking care of young people. Or in while in one's prime. You'd be miserable and the young in your care would never get to do or learn anything.  And anyway, what a waste of time to worry about something you have no control over.

However,  when I am with my mo-in-law I do think about the inevitable. I am pretty sure that she does too. I have a strong sense that there is something undone, some task she aims to accomplish. No one cares for themselves and eats with the appetite she does when they are resigned or have been consigned to 'shuffle off this mortal coil'. My guess is that she aims to live to be 100.  One deep loss after another was her lot for most of her life. She has borne it all with quiet pluck and stoic resolve.  I sense a determination in her that is like stainless steel; it's just that the package that holds her spirit is very worn down.

After spending  the morning and early afternoon with mo-in-law I was going to meet some friends at a free concert in Copley Square. But I ran errands first and was getting a later start than I planned and I could clearly see that I would ride my bike all the way to Copley Square only to miss the concert and get very wet on return. Storms were predicted and it was getting so dark street lights were turning on at 4:15PM.

Nonagenarian #2 As I was heading into to Boston, I took one more look at the sky and then turned on a dime and went instead to visit a neighbor who lives only a few blocks away. My friend's mom is 91 years old and her husband of 70 years just died the end of this January.  He was a lovely guy and as a couple they were always kind and had befriended to me as a teenager. The seemed to take interest in my life and always listened as if I had something worthwhile to say.   It meant a lot to me to have some sane adults in my life and they were the first people to ever buy a piece of art from me.  When I put together my portfolio for art school they wanted to see it and then bought and framed a dry point etching of mine. They said it reminded them of Kathe Kollwitz.  This was an act of extreme kindness and meant a lot to me.

Ever since the non observant shiva/reception they had in early February I had been meaning to stop by and say hello but had never found time.  Nowadays I live in the same town where I went to high school and S. was our next door neighbor then and is also the mother of a dear friend. Since I enjoy her company - it was not an avoidance thing. Actually I felt pretty bad about how much time had passed.

At  91 and a few months,  S.  is very different from my mother-in-law. Much to her grown children's chagrin, S. smokes Marlboro's - actually she chain smokes them. My mother-in-law never smoked. And S. is quite capable of wiping her own butt.  S. is always very glad to see me and has a style of conversation that is part interrogation, part rant that I find very entertaining.  She loves to tell stories and is a good storyteller. She also is frail and has trouble getting up from any seat because of her 'weak knees'.  She told me a story about that,

"At the senior center I saw woman struggling like me. So I said this woman trying to get out of her chair, "I have the same problem. So I vocalize, It helps- I say 'O God,' and sometimes, I even say 'O, Jesus'.  "

S. is Jewish and she paused to give me a sharp look and then asked me if I was a religious person. When I say no she said,

"Oh, good! Because I thought I had offended this other woman with bad knees by being sacrilegious because she said to me 'I never say that!' And I said " You never say anything like that ?  And she said " Never ! I say Oy, sh*t!" 

Then S. launched onto a topic I had heard from her before, especially when her husband was dying.

"Although I am an atheist I spend a lot of time arguing with 'god' or whoever thought up this crazy system called life. We are all born under a sentence of death. It is not right! We never know when or how, we will die  just that it will be. It is unfair and wrong!" Then she sighed and said more philosophically " Well, that's life."

Ah, yes. She sees and names the inevitable. And she is not afraid to say she does not like it. Like my mo-in-law, S. intends to be here, on the planet, until she is 'evicted'. I find her feisty foibles charming.  Perhaps it is her New York City accent and the fact that she looks a bit like my own mother?  They were of the same generation.   Whatever it is, since I am not responsible for S.  I can simply enjoy her stories and accept her as she is. As is often the case, I was not nearly so kind to my own mother. 

After S. told me how she actually felt worse, missed her husband more and was more lonely after 6 months had passed, she shivered and then, literally shook off her sadness and got busy making tea.  We played Scrabble at her kitchen table and she won by 50 points. I am going back for a rematch. And more stories.


It was a good day for someone like me, so far from my nonage, to hang with nonagenarians. And S.'s quarrel with death reminded me of this story:

Tía Miseria, Aunt Misery

by Olga Loya

Momentos Mágicos, Magic Moments Arkansas, August House Publishers, Inc., I997

Once there was an old woman known only to the people as Tía Miseria, Aunt Misery. She lived outside a small village. Tía Miseria was poor but happy. She had a garden with large vegetables, two big chickens, and most of all, she had her pear tree. Oh, how she loved her pear tree! She would pick a pear and feel its smooth form. When she would bite into the pear, she’d sigh and say, “Ah, how delicious, how marvelous, how sweet!”

Tía Miseria was a proud woman who walked through the village with her back straight and her hair pulled back in a bun. Although she was very old, her skin was smooth except for a few wrinkles around her eyes. But Tía Miseria had a problem with the children in the neighborhood. These children were the great-grandchildren of the ones who had named her Tía Miseria. Indeed, her life had been miserable for a long time. The children would run right through her garden, step on all of her vegetables, and taunt, “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria.” They would climb her tree, pick some pears, and bite into them. With the juice running down the sides of their mouths, they would say, “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria.” Poor Tía would get very upset. She would go under the tree and say to them, “Come down from my tree right now!”

But the children would just look down at her and laugh: “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria!”

Only when the children were good and ready would they climb down the tree. Then they would run through the gar­den calling out, “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria!” Poor Tía! She had to replant her garden because the chil­dren had stepped on everything. Then she had to go look for the chickens in the bushes because the children frightened them so much. Worst of all, they were eating up her sweet, delicious pears.

One night as she was cooking supper, she heard a knock at the door. When she went to see who it was, there stood a short, thin man with friendly brown eyes. He wore a straw hat. “Can I please stay the night?” the man inquired. ‘‘It is so cold outside!”

“Of course,” said Tía Miseria. “Come in, come in.”

Tía served him a fine meal of rice, beans, and codfish. In the morning the man said, “Tía, I am a magician, and because you have been so generous, I will give you a wish.”

“A wish—let’s see, what can I do? Maybe I will wish for silver; no, maybe I will wish for gold.” Then she stopped and smiled a very big smile. “I know what I want. Once someone is up my tree, they can’t come down until I say the magical words.”

“Fine,” said the magician. He said goodbye and went walking down the road.

That day the children came to the house. As usual, they ran through the garden taunting, “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria!” They climbed the tree and picked some pears. They bit into the pears and then threw the uneaten portions at the cats and chickens. They threw the pears all over the garden. But Tía did not react as she usually did. Instead of stand­ing under the tree and yelling at them, she went into the kitchen and brought out a cup of coffee. She stood on the porch and drank her coffee with a big smile on her face. The children knew something was very wrong. She never acted like this. So they did the one thing they knew would make her mad.

They said, “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria!”
But she just smiled and sipped her coffee and said, “Children, come down from the tree.”

“No, we are not ready,” they replied. Finally the children were ready to come down from the pear tree. But as they tried to climb down, they found they couldn’t. The magic spell was working.

“Tía, Tía, please, let us down,” the children cried out to her. “It is very late.”
  Tía sipped her coffee, looked at the children, smiled, and said, “No!”

“Please!” they called out to her again. “Let us down! It is getting late!”
Tía was enjoying this very much. She looked at the chil­dren, took a sip of her coffee, smiled, and said, “No!” Oh, the children cried, begged, and pleaded. Finally Tía went under the tree and said, “If I let you out of that tree, will you promise me never to come back?”

The children responded immediately, “Sí, yes.”

So she said her magic words, “Come down, come down, come down from my tree.”
The children came down the tree as fast as they could. They ran around the garden instead of through it, and they did not return. Now Tía was very happy. Her garden was quiet, her chickens were safe, and now she had her precious pear tree to herself.

One afternoon, when she was cooking supper and think­ing about what had happened, she heard a knock at the door. She thought, Oh, my friend has returned. She went to the door. A man stood there, but he was not her friend. He was a tall, thin man, and when he looked into her eyes, she felt as though she were falling into a deep, dark hole. She felt a shiver come over her body and she stepped back. The man moved toward her. He looked her in the eyes and said, “I am Death, and I have come for you!”

Tía Miseria thought quickly. “Well,” she sighed, “I knew you were going to come. Before we go, though, can we pick some pears to take with us?”
“No, no,” said Death. “I have a long list of people I have to get tonight. I don’t have time!”

But Tía continued to talk about her pears, how wonderful and delicious they were to eat. Finally Death could see he wasn’t ever going to get out of there unless he yielded. “Go and pick some pears,” he said. “I want to leave.”

“Me?” Tía said. “I am a little old lady. Look at you. You are tall and young—and besides, you look like you could use a pear or two.”

Death was so exasperated that he said, “Fine. I will pick some pears.” So he climbed the tree and picked some pears. He picked a few here and a few there, and then he was ready to climb down. But he could not go anywhere. He was caught in the magician’s spell! Oh, he called her the most terrible things you have ever heard—and probably some other things you have never heard.

“Old lady, let me down now!” But she did not obey. She just said to him, “Throw me a pear, please.”
She left him in the tree for a day, a week, a month, a year! Finally the village priest came to her. “Please let him down,” he pled. “No one is coming to church because they know they are not going to die!” Tía just shrugged her shoulders. Then the undertaker came by. “Please let him down,” he said. “I have no work and my children are hungry.” Tía looked at the undertaker and said, “Get a new job!"

Finally, her very oldest friend came and spoke in a slow, halting voice. “Please ... let him down. I am very tired and I want to go ... Everything hurts me. Please ... I want to die.” Tía could not refuse the request of her oldest friend. She went under the tree and said to Death, “If I let you down, will you promise never to return for me?”
“
Yes, yes,” Death replied. He was tired of being in that pear tree. She said the magic words, “Come down, come down, come down from my tree.”

Death came down, leaned over her old friend, gently, swooped her up in his arms, and went running down the road. Death did keep his promise. So Tía lives on and on. And that’s why some say that as long as Death keeps his promise, there will be misery in this world.

 

Graphic design - old school

colophon | noun   a publisher's emblem or imprint, esp. one on the title page or spine of a book.
• historical a statement at the end of a book, typically with a printer's emblem, giving information about its authorship and printing.
letterpress | noun  printing from a hard, raised image under pressure, using viscous ink.

Graphic design - old school
by Norah Dooley
I guess you could call this post - "Why I Love My Mac". My memories of the "bad old days' of inhaling toxic Nazdar fumes while sweating into silk screens and running out of letters and needing just one more "s" thereby having to buy a whole sheet of Letrapress when it cost the equivalent of a dinner out have not made me miss old school graphics. But letterpress printing? Ah! Those memories make me swim in nostalgia!

Using a job stick to set type at Baka Pres, in the basement at Washington Street - Caslon was my fave.  circa 1982

I love type and typefaces and all things graphic. The advent of the computer and word processing is a time I remember well. Because back in the bad old days? Way way back? In the days of Letra-set by the sheet? Back then when I wanted to create a poster or flyer I had to work with some interesting and archaic tools.  I  was a visual artist then and helped run a collective gallery and school. We had a very low budget and we needed lots of beautiful promotional pieces. We had to use sheets of dry transferable lettering to create masters for printing.  This technique was used for all kinds of lettering and we combined it with offset printing, xeroxing of flyers and sometimes silkscreen too. It was widespread for lettering and other elements before the advent of the computer techniques of word processing and desktop publishing.

Bad luck to run out of a letter

When artwork was prepared by hand, Letraset sheets were available with letters in a large range of typefaces, styles, sizes, symbols, and other graphic elements. The letters could be transferred one by one to artwork being prepared. This was always a tedious job, but the alternative, to do the lettering by hand, was also tedious and required graphic artist skills. Frustration with the cost and so-so results and other long forgotten reasons helped us decide that what we needed to do was buy and run a letterpress. This was just one of many of my not so remunerative "income generating" notions I had as I struggled to find "right livelihood" and support my work as an artist.

My partner in this venture was one Carl Mueller. He was an artist who did scientific illustration for a living. He also was a writer, philosopher, perfectionist and one heck of a hard worker. Husband Robert was a huge help as he had studied this kind of printing while going to trade classes at his middle school where he set type and printed all kinds of side jobs for his teachers.

We had minimal tools when we bought the our first tabletop platen press and started the Baka Press,  still we fell in love with the process and printed three books for private clients as well as business cards, broadsides and wedding invitations.  We bought a press like this (left) that would now be 140 years old. When we bought it our  press was stored in a chicken coop in Taunton MA on a farm where a man had been collecting this equipment for decades. He had acres of old machinery; presses, bindery machines, linotypes all leaning at wild angles, sometimes outlines by bind weed, partially obscured by flowers as they sank deeper each year into the ground. And we sank deeper and deeper into the process we found more of the arcane tools and supplies one needed to be productive. Our press had the same little motor as pictured above but the belt was made of leather and no longer functioned. I found the exact belt needed on Main Street, near MIT in Cambridge. Before that, Robert would put running shoes on his hands and be a "gerbil on treadmill" for me.  I was really delighted by all the little mechanical doo-dads I actually needed to use on a daily basis. Below is a description of the things we used from this web site.

Ah, the bad old days... how I wish we still had the press and type so that I could pass on this truly arcane skill to some starry-eyed youngster with time on their hands.

Job or composing stick

Type (at the very minimum, you'll need at least one small font of type, about 2-4 pounds in weight, although you'll no doubt soon find yourself forced out of your home by your ever-increasing collection), a Type Case (a partitioned box to separate and hold the individual letters of type, one for each font), a Composing Stick  (the hand-held metal tray in which you assemble the pieces of type), some Leads & Slugs (pronounced "leds", thin strips of metal, lower than the height of the type, which go between lines to add white space), an Imposing Surface (a fancy name for a perfectly flat place on which to assemble the form you are going to print), a Chase (an iron frame, made to fit your specific press, that holds the type from which you will print), some Furniture (no, not tables and chairs; rather, pieces of wood or metal in varying sizes, all lower than type high, that fill up the area in your chase around the type),   Quoins (pronounced "coins", metal wedges that employ friction to hold the type and furniture in the chase), a Quoin Key (a special tool used to tighten the quoins), some Tympan Paper (oiled sheets of hard paper that cover the platen, the area on which you put the sheet of paper to be printed), Gauge Pins (adjustable clips that you attach to or stick into the tympan on a platen press to position the paper so that image prints where you want it), Ink (printing ink, either oil- or rubber-based, in the color(s) of your choice), a Brayer (a hand roller used to smooth out ink and sometimes ink type by hand), an Ink Plate (on which to mix and roll out the ink; an 8" square piece of glass or plexiglass will do for starters), Rollers (for your specific press, made of either rubber or a special printers' "composition" of glue and glycerin), Typewash (one of several solvents used to clean up ink from the press and type, ranging from the organically benign and FDA-approved, such as Canola oil; through mineral spirits, which are cheap, readily available and work well; to the seriously lethal and flammable), Oil (to lubricate every moving part on your press every time you use it), Rags (to use with the typewash to clean the press), a steel or plastic Type Gauge (a ruler that measures inches on one side and printers' points and picas on the other, often called a 'pica pole') and a Galley or two (a metal tray used to store type after you've set it but before you've put it back in the case).

Quoin and quoin key squeezing chase

Other things that will stand you in very good stead are a Printer's Apron to protect your clothes, Hand Cleaner formulated to remove printer's ink (although most mechanic's hand cleaners will do well), a Safety Can to hold your type wash and an Oily Waste Safety Container to hold your solvent-filled rags before you clean them, Tying String to keep the type you've set from falling apart during storage, a pair of surgical Tweezers to help [carefully!] manipulate small pieces of type, a Magnifying Glass or Linen Tester to closely examine your printed sheets, a Type High Gauge (not to be confused with the pica pole mentioned above) for confirming the correct height of type and engravings, a Paper Cutter for dealing with the stacks of paper you will print, and a pair of Scissors and a Craft Knife for all sorts of things, including the ever-imperative makeready.

California Job case - we memorized the positions of all letters and minded our ps and qs and ds and bs

It's a 'vision thing'

Lizi Brown, Jannelle Codianni, Josh Whiton and Jackson Gillman at the Semi-finals in JP

I thought I was just helping someone out and getting a some content for our blog...but personally,  Lizi Brown's 'article' couldn't have come at a better time. I was feeling pretty worn out by the grueling work of the past 6 months and her statement was a much needed affirmation.

Disclaimer: This article below was a solicited declaration. I had asked Lizi to write something about her experience ( she wanted a massmouth,inc. T-shirt so I suggested she write something for our blog  this as a barter) and here it is...

    This February a friend treated me to my first evening of massmouth,inc. storytelling at Doyle’s. She knows I listen to The Moth, and wanted to turn me on to what‘s happening locally. When we got there they were asking audience members to consider telling a story on a particular theme. I had one that matched the topic and told it to my friends at the table while we were waiting for things to get going. Though I didn’t think it was worth the mic time, they encouraged me to get up and tell it. I was reluctant because I’m just not a performer. I hadn’t had any time to figure out how to tell it right, and I was also just plain chicken. Even though I knew my experience was interesting, I couldn’t imagine that I could put it out there very well. But the crowd seemed friendly, and I decided to give it a try.

       What followed was a few quick minutes sharing my life in a way that seemed to work surprisingly well. I had decided to ‘just be me’, and stick to the bare bones of a series of life events that it turned out people liked hearing. It was more fun than I can possibly explain, probably largely because I was relaxed and unprepared. I won the audience vote, got some excellent coaching, and went on to the semi finals. At this point I felt way over my head, but the other tellers were supportive and really nice, and we all had a great time that night. Miraculously, I went on to the finals.

       I’m not a performer in any sense, and yet I was able to tell my experience, partly because of the short time limit that made it less scary (how much trouble can you get into in 4 minutes? wait – that could be a future theme...), and partly because the night was so welcoming and fun. Each event required shortening and fine-tuning. As I rewrote the story I learned more about it, and why I was telling it, but I stuck to my original gut feeling to just be me. When I told it the last time I did the best. I was surrounded by great people with wonderful, human stories, and I felt very good about my contribution to the evening. I can’t believe I did it! Participating in these events was very empowering, it helped me find my voice in many ways.
 
       It also feels really good to contribute to the high school storytelling project that benefits from the funds raised at these evenings. They are teaching kids to find creative ways to express what is happening in their lives, incredibly important work. Thank you massmouth.

- Lizi Brown

Thanks, Lizi - this is precisely our vision for story slams  -  a kind of storytelling 'of the people, by the people and for the people'.   Creating experiences like yours are the greater part of what we worked so hard to make happen. Promoting the art of storytelling is the rest of the gig.

Related articles

• April 21st, 2012 10:00AM 1st BostonStorytellingFestival

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• BigMouthOff 2012: stories and appreciations

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• High School Slam - This Saturday!

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• Final Scholarship Slam is a Hit

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Road Trip to a Storytelling Conference.

Stearns family farm, CT

 Sunset in NY

huge thunder storm

working in the car

Cincinnati

A long drive to Cincinnati, OH. Crazy and fun! Started in MA to Carolyn Stearns farm on CT 900+ miles to Covington, KY.