Category: writing

Feverfew in medicine and conjure

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn conjure, writing

“Tanacetum parthenium, known as feverfew, is a flowering plant in the daisy family, Asteraceae. It may be grown as an ornament, and may be identified by its synonyms, Chrysanthemum parthenium and Pyrethrum parthenium.” – Wikipedia

In conjure, feverfew is used for love, protection against accident or illness, purification, uplifting the spirit, breaking biding spells, and for aspirin-oriented treatments. Do not ingest the plant without consulting a doctor. It can be purchased in powdered form for teas and in capsules.

Witch in the Woods says that “On an energetic plane, Feverfew is a balm for the spirit, calming and soothing the nervous system, particularly during times when the shadow self emerges. It aids in the alchemical transformation of nervous energy, preventing the manifestation of shadow habits and emotions. As a green ally in the herbalist’s enchanted garden, Feverfew offers its strength, adaptability, and confidence, illuminating the path during times of decision-making and shadow work. It opens the portals to higher realms of understanding, fostering trust in one’s intuitive gifts, and maintaining an anchored spirit amidst the dance of chaos and change.”

In medicine, it’s been used to fight headaches, including migraines, as well as other inflamations. Studies are following research into feverfew and cancer and depression. In addition to the capsules, feverfew can be taken in tea and as a tincture. Drugs.com notes” An optimal dose of feverfew has not been established. For prevention of migraine, dried leaf preparation dosages ranging from 50 to 150 mg/day for various treatment durations have been evaluated in clinical trials.”

Preparations in a variety of forms such as the one shown here are available online and at herbal shops.

–Malcolm

‘The Dancing Wu Li Masters’ by Gary Zukav

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, writing2 Comments

“Gary Zukav has written “the Bible” for those who are curious about the mind-expanding discoveries of advanced physics, but who have no scientific background. Like a Wu Li Master who would teach us wonder for the falling petal before speaking of gravity, Zukav writes in beautifully clear language—with no mathematical equations—opening our minds to the exciting new theories that are beginning to embrace the ultimate nature of our universe…Quantum mechanics, relativity, and beyond to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect and Bell’s theorem.” Mary Ellen Curtin at GoodReads

“The most exciting intellectual adventure I’ve been on since reading Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” – Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times

I read this book in 1979 when it was released. An exciting, thought-provoking book. I agreed with one reviewer who thought the constant l links to Zen were a bit much. Or, perhaps not

From the Publisher

“Gary Zukav’s timeless, humorous, New York Times bestselling masterpiece, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, is arguably the most widely acclaimed introduction to quantum physics ever written. Scientific American raves: “Zukav is such a skilled expositor, with such an amiable style, that it is hard to imagine a layman who would not find his book enjoyable and informative.” Accessible, edifying, and endlessly entertaining, The Dancing Wu Li Masters is back in a beautiful new edition—and the doors to the fascinating, dazzling, remarkable world of quantum physics are opened to all once again, no previous mathematical or technical expertise required.”

About the Author

“Gary Zukav (born October 17, 1942) is an American spiritual teacher and the author of four consecutive New York Times Best Sellers. Beginning in 1998, he appeared more than 30 times on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss transformation in human consciousness concepts presented in his book The Seat of the Soul. His first book, The Dancing Wu Li Masters (1979), won a U.S. National Book Award.” Wikipedia

“We’ve spent more than 25 years experimenting with our lives together as spiritual partners and sharing our experiments with the world.” – Gary and Linda at The Seat of The Soul.

Banjo Patterson’s ‘The Man From Snowy River’

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn poetry, writing

The Man from Snowy River”. The film had a cast including Kirk Douglas in a dual role as the brothers Harrison (a character who appeared frequently in Paterson’s poems) and Spur, Jack Thompson as Clancy, Tom Burlinson as Jim Craig, Sigrid Thornton as Harrison’s daughter Jessica, Terence Donovan as Jim’s father Henry Craig, and Chris Haywood as Curly. Both Burlinson and Thornton later reprised their roles in the 1988 sequel, The Man from Snowy River II (the film’s original Australian title). The 1988 sequel film was later released in the United States by Walt Disney Pictures under the title Return to Snowy River and in the United Kingdom under the title The Untamed.” – Wikipedia

Like most viewers,  I found this an enjoyable film even though Roger Ebert thought it was kind of corny even though he liked the scenes that show arial shots of herds of horses. Many critics point out that while Patterson provided a great ending, the ride to that ending the was bumpy. The film did well at the box office.

One thing I liked about the film was its popularization of the work of “Waltzing Matila” poet Banjo Patterson who was not a one-shot wonder with that poem. He lived from 1864 to 1941 and was known as an Australian bush poet, journalist and author.

He began as an attorney and then started writing under the pseudonym of “The Banjo,” his favorite horse. Patterson’s image appears on the $10 note and on a 1981 postage stamp.

While he is best known for his songs and poems, he wrote two novels An Outback Marriage and The Shearer’s Colt and the “The Cast-Iron Canvasser” collection of short stories.

According to Wallis and Matilda, Patyerson “travelled to South Africa in 1899 as special war correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald during the Boer War, and to China in 1901 with the intention of covering the Boxer Rebellion but he arrived after the uprising was over. By 1902 Paterson had left the legal profession. The following year he was appointed Editor of the Evening News (Sydney), a position he held until 1908 when he resigned to take over a property in Wee Jasper.”

“Waltzing Matilda” will, I think, always be his enduring claim to fame as generations of readers try to sort of the word meanings in this ballad.

–Malcolm

Potpourri for Valentine’s Day

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Potpourri, writing
  1. Valentine’s Day, also called Saint Valentine’s Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring a martyr named Valentine, and through later folk traditions it has also become a significant cultural, religious and commercial celebration of romance and love in many regions of the world. – Wikipedia

  2. “They have killed skinny jeans and continue to shame millennials for having side partings in their hair. They think using the crying tears emoji to express laughter is embarrassing. But now comes a surprising gen Z plot twist. One habit that those born between 1997 and 2012 are keen to endorse is reading – and it’s physical books rather than digital that they are thumbing. This week the 22-year-old model Kaia Gerber launched her own book club, Library Science. Gerber, who this month appears on the cover of British Vogue alongside her supermodel mum, Cindy Crawford, describes it as ‘a platform for sharing books, featuring new writers, hosting conversations with artists we admire – and continuing to build a community of people who are as excited about literature as I am’”. Guardian

  3. “When you’re a parent who loves to read—or as the case is for me, happily, makes his living from reading—the first time you see your child become obsessed with an author is a genuine thrill. For both of my daughters, that author was Raina Telgemeier. The graphic novelist, best known for her trio of memoirs about her anxious preteen years, Smile, Sisters, and Guts, is referred to in my house simply as “Raina.” Apparently we’re not alone, as Jordan Kisner’s profile this week makes clear. Telgemeier is beloved for the way she captures an essential part of growing up: the fear that you and you alone are strange. My daughters read her books again and again, sometimes finishing and then flipping right back to the first page. We have multiple copies of most of them, now completely tattered. Their intense love of these titles reminds me of a powerful aspect of reading—one that adults often end up forgetting.” – The Atlantic
  4. Oysters with Pikliz – Today’s Meals 

Romantic Valentine’s Day Meals –  1 small head Savoy cabbage, cored and thinly sliced, 2 medium carrots, grated, 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion2 scallions, thinly sliced, 3 medium garlic cloves, minced, 2 tablespoons kosher salt, 2 1/2 teaspoons black pepper, 2 teaspoons smoked paprika, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground allspice, 4 small fresh habanero chiles or Scotch bonnet chiles, thinly sliced and, if desired, seeds removed, 1 cup distilled white vinegar, 24 oysters on the half shell

–Malcolm

Southern Gothic

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing

“Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country music, film, and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic elements and the American South. Common themes of Southern Gothic include storytelling of deeply flawed, disturbing, or eccentric characters who may be involved in hoodoo, decayed or derelict settings, grotesque situations, and other sinister events relating to or stemming from poverty, alienation, crime, or violence.” – Wikipedia

Characteristics of Southern Gothic literature include isolation and marginalization, violence, and crime, sense of place. Southern Gothic has a lot in common with film noir because it has a skewed view of the world in which reality is bent into a general feeling of hopelessness and the smallness of the individual. I like both these genres a lot.

River Jorden

THE MIRACLE OF MERCY LAND

“Two journalists in a small Alabama town discover a mysterious book that makes them confront the past.

“If you had the power to amend choices you made in the past, would you—even if it changed everything?

“Mercy Land has made some unexpected choices for a young woman in the 1930s. The sheltered daughter of a traveling preacher, she chooses to leave her rural community to move to nearby Bay City on the warm, gulf-waters of southern Alabama. There she finds a job at the local paper and spends seven years making herself indispensable to old Doc Philips, the publisher and editor. Then she gets a frantic call at dawn—it’s the biggest news story of her life, and she can’t print a word of it.

“Doc has come into possession of a curious book that maps the lives of everyone in Bay City—decisions they’ve made in the past, and how those choices affect the future. Mercy and Doc are consumed by the mystery locked between the pages—Doc because he hopes to right a very old wrong, and Mercy because she wants to fulfill the book’s strange purpose. But when a mystery from Mercy’s past arrives by train, she begins to understand that she will have to make choices that will deeply affect everyone she loves—forever.

“A tremendously well-written tale. River Jordan is a truly gifted author. Highly recommended.” – Davis Bunn, best-selling author”

Harry Crews

The Gospel Singer

“Golden-haired, with the voice of an angel and a reputation as a healer, the Gospel Singer appeared on the cover of LIFE and brought thousands to their knees in Carnegie Hall. But for all his fame, he is a man in mortal torment that drives him back to his obscure and wretched hometown of Enigma, Georgia. But by the time his Cadillac pulls into Enigma, he discovers an old friend is being held at tenuous bay from a lynch mob. As Harry Crews’s first novel unfolds, the Gospel Singer is forced to give way to his torment, and in doing so he reveals to the believers who have gathered at his feet just how little he is God’s man, and how much he has contributed to the corruption of each of them.”

Cherie Priest

Cinderwich

“Who put Ellen in the blackgum tree?

“Decades after trespassing children spotted the desiccated corpse wedged in the treetop, no one knows the answer.

“Kate Thrush and her former college professor, Dr. Judith Kane, travel to Cinderwich, Tennessee in hopes that maybe it was their Ellen: Katie’s lost aunt, Judith’s long-gone lover. But they’re not the only ones to have come here looking for closure. The people of Cinderwich, a town hardly more than a skeleton itself, are staunchly resistant to the outsiders’ questions about Ellen and her killer. And the deeper the two women dig, the more rot they unearth … the closer they come to exhuming the evil that lies, hungering, at the roots of Cinderwich.”

Other Southern Gothic Authors of Note

  • V. C. Andrews (1923–1986)
  • Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
  • Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
  • Poppy Z. Brite (b. 1967)
  • Larry Brown (1951–2004)
  • Erskine Caldwell (1903–1987)
  • Truman Capote (1924–1984, early works)
  • Fred Chappell (b. 1936)

–Malcolm

‘Into Thin Air,’ By Jon Krakauer

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn mountains, writing

“The 1996 Mount Everest disaster occurred on 10–11 May 1996 when eight climbers caught in a blizzard died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit. Over the entire season, 12 people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest season on Mount Everest at the time and the third deadliest after the 22 fatalities resulting from avalanches caused by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake and the 16 fatalities of the 2014 Mount Everest avalanche. The 1996 disaster received widespread publicity and raised questions about the commercialization of Everest.” Wikipedia

In 2023, 17 climbers died on Mt. Everest, eleven died in 2019, and eight died in 1996. Jon Krakauer wrote the book about the 1996 season, his first time on the mountain as a successful climber and a reporter.

“Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a 1997 bestselling nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details Krakauer’s experience in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a storm. Krakauer’s expedition was led by guide Rob Hall. Other groups were trying to summit on the same day, including one led by Scott Fischer, whose guiding agency, Mountain Madness, was perceived as a competitor to Hall’s agency, Adventure Consultants.” – Wikipedia

“Despite being nearly 800 feet shorter than Mount Everest, K2 is a more deadly mountain. Mountaineer Jake Meyer told Insider several critical factors contribute to making K2 so dangerous. On K2, mountaineers face constant 45-degree-angle climbs, no matter the route they take, he said.” Wikipedia.

Krakauer had criticisms the book, but I believe in it was as accurate as he could make it though climbers who did not come off too good slammed the book.

–Malcolm

N. Scott Momaday: Obituary

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn authors, writing

Navarre Scott Momaday (né Mammedaty) (February 27, 1934 – January 24, 2024) was an American and Kiowa novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet from Oklahoma and New Mexico. His novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, and is considered the first major work of the Native American Renaissance. His follow-up work The Way to Rainy Mountain blends folklore with memoir. Momaday received the National Medal of Arts in 2007 for his work’s celebration and preservation of Indigenous oral and art tradition. He held 20 honorary degrees from colleges and universities, the last of which was from the California Institute of the Arts in 2023, and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wikipedia

Pulitzer Prize

“A special 50th anniversary edition of the magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from renowned Kiowa writer and poet N. Scott Momaday, with a new preface by the author

“A young Native American,  Abel has come home from war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his grandfather’s, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and traditions of his people. But the other world—modern, industrial America—pulls at Abel, demanding his loyalty, trying to claim his soul, and goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle of depravity and despair.

“An American classic, House Made of Dawn is at once a tragic tale about the disabling effects of war and cultural separation, and a hopeful story of a stranger in his native land, finding his way back to all that is familiar and sacred.”

Review

“Beautifully rendered and deeply affecting, House Made of Dawn has moved and inspired readers and writers for the last fifty years. It remains, in the words of The Paris Review, both a masterpiece about the universal human condition and a masterpiece of Native American literature.” Birchbark Books. Momaday receiving the National Medal of Arts from George W. Bush in 2007

–Malcolm

‘The Waters’ by Bonnie Jo Campbell

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, writing

From the Publisher

“A master of rural noir returns with a fierce, mesmerizing novel about exceptional women and the soul of a small town.

“On an island in the Great Massasauga Swamp―an area known as “The Waters” to the residents of nearby Whiteheart, Michigan―herbalist and eccentric Hermine “Herself” Zook has healed the local women of their ailments for generations. As stubborn as her tonics are powerful, Herself inspires reverence and fear in the people of Whiteheart, and even in her own three estranged daughters. The youngest―the beautiful, inscrutable, and lazy Rose Thorn―has left her own daughter, eleven-year-old Dorothy

“Donkey” Zook, to grow up wild.”Donkey spends her days searching for truths in the lush landscape and in her math books, waiting for her wayward mother and longing for a father, unaware that family secrets, passionate love, and violent men will flood through the swamp and upend her idyllic childhood. Rage simmers below the surface of this divided community, and those on both sides of the divide have closed their doors against the enemy. The only bridge across the waters is Rose Thorn.”

From from Reviews

“Campbell, who lives outside Kalamazoo, Michigan, is one of American fiction’s leading voices about rural life: the struggle to make a living, the beauty of the wild environment, the thorny and sometimes violent relationships between men and women, and the economic and industrial pressures that threaten everything…filled with vivid descriptions of the diverse flora of this wetlands, The Waters is a realistic novel with a strong thread of fairy tale running through it[.] The Waters builds toward an incredible climactic episode that addresses the great divide running through this imperiled community.” ― Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Campbell has been exploring hardship, especially the hardships that independent and exploratory women have to work through, for most of her writing career. She knows that unexpected misfortunes have to be put up with, and the question is always whether to do it your own way or to give in to the people around you and embark on a life you do not want…The Waters is a thought-provoking and readable exploration of eccentricity and of all different kinds of love―familial love, romantic love, love of knowledge, love of animals, and love of one’s own environment, even when it is a difficult place to live.” ― Jane Smiley, Los Angeles Times Book Review

From the Writer

Bonnie Jo Campbell is an American Writer living with her husband and donkeys in rural Michigan.

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of the National Bestselling novel Once Upon a River (Norton, 2011), a river odyssey with an unforgettable sixteen-year-old heroine, which the New York Times Book Review calls “an excellent American parable about the consequences of our favorite ideal, freedom.” The book was optioned and developed into an award-winning feature film directed by Haroula Rose, which debuted in 2020.

Her first novel, Q Road, delves into the lives of a rural community where development pressures are bringing unwelcome change in the character of the land. Campbell’s critically acclaimed short fiction collection American Salvage (Wayne State University Press, 2009) was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critic’s Circle Award. The collection consists of fourteen lush and rowdy stories of folks who are struggling to make sense of the twenty-first century. She is also the author of Women and Other Animals, which won the AWP prize for short fiction; and the collection Mothers, Tell Your Daughters. Her story “The Smallest Man in the World” was awarded a Pushcart Prize and her story “The Inventor, 1972” was awarded the 2009 Eudora Welty Prize from Southern Review. She is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Mark Twain Award from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature.

–Malcolm

Rising Ark Prices Worry Georgia Residents

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing

Everywhere floods and people are worried and why shouldn’t they be what with frogs falling from the sky? Lizards, too, in some areas.

Ark prices are rising faster than the flood waters. There are shortages everywhere. Ark handymen are seldom to be found. Where they (the handymen) can be found, hourly rates are $100000 not counting materials–and beer. Most of the handymen are drunk.

A man down in Cedar Town tried to build his own ark out of old washboards, plywood, and stuff out of the kitchen junk drawer. Damn thing sank. A man down in Cave Spring built an ark out of bathtubs and duct tape. Crate got all the way south to Apachilachicola.

Mostly, it’s filed-in basements and old stills gone to ruin.

–Malcolm

HOUSE PASSES FIRST FEDERAL BILL SHIELDING JOURNALISTS FROM REVEALING SOURCES

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Journalism, writing

Under the so-called PRESS Act Journalists Won’t be Compelled to Reveal Confidential Sources

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 23, 2024
(WASHINGTON)— PEN America applauds passage in the U.S. House of a bill that will protect a fundamental press freedom and would be the first of its kind at the federal level.

House bill, H.R.4250, known as the PRESS Act (for Protect Reporters from Excessive Suppression Act) is “integral to protect journalists in reporting freely without fear of retaliation or court-ordered disclosure of information,” said Laura Schroeder, Congressional Affairs lead at PEN America, which has advocated with partner organizations for the legislation for several years.

“We thank Congressman Kiley and Congressman Raskin for their work to shepherd this bill forward successfully in the House and we urge an expeditious passage in the Senate,” said Schroeder.

While many states already have such protections, there is no federal law. The bill passed this past Thursday in the House would create a federal shield for journalists so they will not be compelled to reveal their confidential sources at the behest of the government.

About PEN America

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.