Going round the mountains

Just occurred to me that when I began this blog I didn't have much idea what I was going to write about (some might say that nothing's changed), so the first bunch of posts I put up on here were quotes, (mostly from books, some from newspaper reports), that I'd collected over the years, and which I thought were worth sharing.   The quotes aspect quickly gave way to writing about a host of different subjects, so much so that whenever I'm asked by some group to tell them what the focus of my blog is, I'm at a loss.  It has an arts aspect, but also deals with religion, politics, social issues, and a variety of quirky things that happened to interest me.  It's rather like a follow-up to the weekly column I used to write for Dunedin's weekly Star newspaper, back in the 90s.  It also had a wide-ranging 'focus.'   I was fortunate that the editor of the paper didn't see any problem with me writing about whatever I felt like.  I always think that columnists who have to focus on the same topic week after week (or even day after day) have a kind of corner they're stuck in.

Anyway, I was going to say that another blog I write, Workreport.net, started out as having a particular focus: seeking work when I was unemployed.  That's what the first bunch of posts covered, and then gradually, when I actually got a job, I moved into writing about that job itself, to some degree.  Then, in early 2009, when I was having prostate problems, that's what the column focused on (to the extent that I was planning at one stage to form these posts into an ebook).  The blog stuttered along for a while after that, and then found itself revitalised as a...blog for quotes!  Full circle.  Sort of.

Being (fairly) ordinary

Some time ago I bought a copy of Good Poems, a selection by Garrison Keillor of mostly American poetry. (I set one of the poems to music for my last concert: Welcome Morning, by Anne Sexton.)

Keillor's selection tends to poetry that is more accessible rather than less, with some well-known material, but much that isn't. I discovered late last week while looking for a something called Wedding Poem for Schele and Phil that Keillor is associated with the daily Writer's Almanac, and that a host of similar poems are listed there.

Today's (13th Dec, 2009) is Suits by David Slavitt, and with its discussion of not wearing the best suit because the best occasion hasn't arisen yet, it reminded me of a piece I wrote a while ago (it originally appeared in the Star Midweeker back when I was writing a weekly column for that paper).

This piece, called Missing - Again, bewailed the fact that I had yet again missed out on the Queen's Birthday honours list (a thing that isn't likely to happen any time soon either!) Slavitt writes in a similar vein:

I have not been named
ambassador to Malta; I am not on the board
of any college or large corporation; I shall not
receive a major prize today and pose
for photographers.

Yup, that pretty much sums up my life too. No holidays in Bermuda hotels as a celebrity, no standing on the Town Hall steps in the Octagon before crowds of fans while wiping away unexpected tears, no regular commission for merely being who I am...and so forth. Some of us are just born to be (fairly) ordinary.

Discovered Crowl quote

Although I try to get my facts right I'd sooner manage without any facts at all.

A rather nice line from one of my old columns.

Midweeker Columns

While we're on a roll here - a bit like Paul the Apostle when he tells us he has nothing to boast about but then says there are quite a few things he could boast about, if he wanted to - I'll make a note about the Midweeker Columns that are also on the Net.

I wrote five and a half years of weekly columns (apart from the holiday period each year) about all manner of subjects. It was great having a free hand like that - the sort of benefit few writers probably have just to let their hair down and go for it. Sometimes having such a wide range is inhibiting, strangely, but in general something got written each week that was worth reading, and, in a few cases, worth forgetting. The column began when the previous columnist announced, rather out of the blue, that he was quitting. I rang up and - amazingly - got the job on the strength of a couple of hastily-written pieces that were eventually among the first published columns. It ended even more abruptly when I received a letter from the editor (a change from sending him one, I suppose) telling me that due to 'restructuring' (that wonderfully abstract word) my services were no longer required. I had one more column to write and in it told the readers that I'd been summarily dismissed - and amazingly, got away with it. I don't know the real reason for my dismissal, though I suspect it might have had something to do with the column I wrote (one of my occasional religion-focused ones) in which I said that in spite of their claims, the Mormons were not part of the wider Christian church.

It may have had nothing to do with that. It may have been that the editor felt the columns were getting tired. (Sometimes they were.) It may have been that I was employed by one editor and fired by his replacement. It may have been that they preferred to save $50 a week (or was it $30?) and use the space for advertising.

Certainly they did restructure the paper, quite some time later. It now has virtually nothing in the way of columns ( a longstanding humour columnist was also ditched about the same time) and, while it certainly looks at plenty of local issues, which is its brief, it's also full of pseudo-news: the sort of thing that's really an advertisement in disguise. Rather like Quazen.