Open Page, Open Road

Wandering Educator's Badge

2009-12-14T11:41:00.000-08:00

As some you know, I write from time to time for a fantastic site called Wandering Educators. In fact, I am their literary travels editor and just posted a story about California's Route 1. So, if you look to the right of this post, you will see a cool new badge on my site marking me as a Wandering Educators editor. Go ahead, click on it, see where it takes you. It will be some cool destination someplace on this earth.

Academic Ambassadors update

2009-10-19T18:36:00.001-07:00

Hi Friends,

This past spring, I wrote about a great service I stumbled across called Academic Ambassadors. Well,I wanted to check back in with Adam Siegle, the brain behind the surface, and I though I would share his response with you:

I recently got back from a hotel scouting trip (doubling as an exhausting family vacation) and wanted to report back that AcAmb has been enhanced with some smashing new offerings.

Upon the recommendation of a member from Harvey Mudd College, I checked out (and into) the Hotel Roger Williams in NYC. Wow! From the moment we walked in, this place felt right. It's colorful without being startlingly and offputtingly chic. The rooms are so bright and cheerful (and not at all tiny a la Manhattan), the public spaces are very inviting, and the breakfast tremendously tasty!.

Moving southward, we hit the just-opened Hotel Monaco in Baltimore, and it's grand. Carved into a cathedral of 19th century big business, it's now an epic boutique hotel (oxymoron?) with soaring public spaces and huge rooms. Plus, it has all the Kimpton magic: (comp) wine hour, coffee hours, fitness and business centers...

Last stop was DC, where I needed to submerge my kids in the Palomar pool, cooling hot tempers while mom and dad chilled for (brief shining) moments. I hadn't been there before and have been showcasing the more intimate and trendy Topaz and Rouge on the site, but I loved the place and its location--so close to lively Dupont Circle.

Hmmm...what else? Oh yeah, I worked out a deal with Enterprise/Budget Rent-a-Car. We now get an additional 5% off their already discounted rates. I know that's not blockbuster savings, but imagine if we all access that; it will mean (in the aggregate) tens of thousands more available for our worthy causes.

Ever scouting for new hotels in yet covered cities, we're picking up a new haven in, uh, New Haven. It's boxy, glassy and classy, and it's called The Study. Continuing is my infinite search in London (suggestions, please!). Also, I'd like to add more to our Florida territory, especially as the warmth up here (New England) wanes.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly to you, Kimpton has extended for us its 20% discount off their Best Available Rates until the end of March (we had been getting 10% off). So, from Seattle to Atlanta (new) and from Aspen to Chicago, we can drink their free wine (4-6 p.m.at most of their hotels) and luxuriate in their tiger-print robes (grrr), with the piece of mind knowing that our decadence is affordable. Enjoy!

Wishing you a stimulating and productive fall,

appreciatively yours,

Adam

PS. Thanks, as ever, for passing word of AcAmb on--it's still very much a word-of-mouth endeavor!

A Satisfactory Conclusion

2009-09-24T12:48:00.000-07:00

The editor who used my idea and sources without my consent has agreed to pay me a consulting fee -- reasonable and responsible conclusion.

Editorial Ethics and Respecting Respect - Part II

2009-09-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

Here is the update on the story for those who are interested. I never heard a reply to my email from the editor and so invoiced him this morning for a consulting fee at my usual hourly rate for editorial work. In the end, I felt an hour fee was the most fair. He doesn't have a lot of money in his budget, and I am more concerned about protecting my colleagues than using this as a money making event.

Thanks again for all the feedback and support. I don't want other writers to change how they interact with editors...unless this story gives them support if they they've been wronged. As writers, our ideas and time our our prime assets.

I will keep you all updated as this story continues to unfold.

Editorial Ethics and Respecting Respect

2009-09-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

So here is the story:

After returning from a trip, I was talking on the phone with the editor of a magazine for which I occasionally write. We chatted about a number of ideas for his magazine, including one we both thought was interesting. I followed up with an email, to which he replied that the magazine was seriously considering the story idea we had discussed. He then asked me for more information.

I did my research and put out a HARO on the idea. I forwarded the relevant emails to him and reiterated my interest in doing the story. I heard nothing for a while. Then, yesterday, I opened the most recent issue of the magazine to find the exact same story idea written by the editor and based on the sources I had provided.

I emailed him and heard back this morning. His explanation was that another story fell through and he wrote the story quickly. He apologized and told me that since his magazine is a small niche market, I shouldn't have any trouble reselling the idea.

What do you suggest I do?

Talking the Walk

2009-07-20T12:31:00.001-07:00

Okay - I'm jumping off into the world of multimedia by recording an audio tour of Transcendentalist Concord. I will be recording narration for the North Bridge, the Old Manse, Walden Pond, Bush House, the Concord Museum, the Wayside, the Orchard House, and Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Each stop along the tour is about 5 minutes.

I am doing it on my freshly-delivered iMac with Garageband. Is that the best option? What all do you use? Suggestions? Who has had success? Share your links to podcasts, mp3s and whatnot, and I'll check 'em out.

Tours to Go

2009-06-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

I am becoming increasingly interested in audio tours that can be downloaded and brought with on an iPod, cell phone, or GPS unit. I remember one my dad had of the section of I80 from Auburn to Truckee in California. It was fantastic and we listed to it repeatedly. Here are some of the more recent ones I've found.

Discovery Audio: they seem to offer a wide array of downloadable tours. I'm not sure about production values.

Audyssey Guides: I bought their CD on Boston to research my Walking Boston book and loved the high quality and interesting narration.

Walk Talk Guides: these are mostly in Europe and provide an interesting business model.

Visual Travel Tours: Multimedia tours for the iPod.

Have you used any of these? Do you know of any others that are great? What about cell phone tours or tours specific to museums or other places of interest? What do you look for in an audio tour?

Please jump into the conversation below. I know there are a number of readers interested in your thoughts on this one, and I'll be monitoring this closely all week.

Book Expo Recap

2009-06-01T06:53:00.001-07:00

BEA RECAP

For those outside the book publishing world, Book Expo of America (BEA) is the annual gathering of book publishers, book sellers, librarians, authors, editors, and hangers-on. It’s where deals are struck, buzz is created, and the schmoozing oozes. As you can imagine, this year’s version was a bit subdued compared to previous years.

As I wandered the rows of publisher booths at the show on Friday, I noticed a few things. First, I did not see very many new books. I had been hearing rumors of publishers shelving almost entire seasons of new releases until the economy gets better, but it really struck me here. In the past, many booths had stacks and stacks of pre-release books and galleys. This year, it was easy to navigate my way through the crowds without bumping into books.

Secondly, and I fully applaud this move, there were three stages right on the expo floor, where authors and influencers gave interviews, talks, and presentations. Much of this was about how to use Twitter and social networks to promote content. Not necessarily books, but content.

This brings me to my final observation. It seemed to me that everyone at the show was waiting to exhale – waiting to see what comes next. I firmly believe that there will be a need for good content: wonderful stories, engaging nonfiction, thrilling poetry. And I think everyone recognizes that the book as we know it is quickly evolving to other, more electronic forms. The big question is what this will do to our reading and writing styles? I look to the music industry where the notion of an album is evolving in the face of iTunes. Audiences are getting used to only paying for the content they want.

What do you see happening? What are you willing to pay for?

Hit the Road With Academic Ambassadors

2009-05-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

Academic Ambassadors
Academic Ambassadors is a wonderful service for academics and non-profit traveling professionals. For more information, read this article at Wandering Educators

Academic Ambassadors President, Adam Siegel

The Best of Baseball

2009-05-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

Ahh, the best of local baseball: extra innings, a late game-winning dinger, and an all-team conference on the mound:

Sustainable Travel and Wandering Educators

2009-05-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

Wandering Educators has posted my review of Code Green. Check it out for my thoughts on sustainable travel: http://tiny.cc/36Kk8.

Wandering Educators Celebrates a Year!

2009-04-20T07:41:00.001-07:00

It is remarkably appropriate that I am writing this post from an eco-lodge in Costa Rica, for this is exactly the type of cultural and educational travel endorsed by Wandering Educators, who are celebrating their first anniversary today with lots of new features (including my review of Otalo, the vacation home rental supersite) and wonderful giveaways. Hint, hint, look for all the Roaring Forties Press titles, including both of mine. Comment throughout the day and you'll be sure to come up with something fantastic.

Looking for good Costa Rican literature

2009-04-16T06:01:00.000-07:00

I am thrilled to be headed to Costa Rica next week to explore sustainable and meaningful travel (I'm also writing a book review of Lonely Planet's Code Green -- stay tuned at www.wanderingeducators.com), and am looking for suggestions on Costa Rican literature to bring. I am interested in novels, poetry, drama - engaging nonfiction -- you name it!

Thanks -- I'll send you a postcard!

Twitter / Home

2009-04-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

Twitter / Home: "NewUrbanismGood mag,@streetsblog show a livable street emerge before your very eyes.More contexts needed, contest will generate them. http://is.gd/r8XF"

About the Precipice

2009-04-07T07:38:00.000-07:00

On the eve of my fortieth birthday, I am thinking about the path I want to take for the next forty years. I am crossing my fingers for the wonderful luck, love, and happiness that I've enjoyed for the first forty (minus that haircut in 7th grade and the time I backed into my girlfriend's car while trying sneak her out of her house).

Watching Spring come in...slowly

2009-03-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

I'm looking out at the backyard ice rink, which, like many of our glaciers, has lost about a third of its ice. But unlike with global warming, I'm not that sorry to see the ice go.

On the other hand, there is free skiing this Wednesday at Okemo if you bring three non-perishable items of food. Maybe King Winter can hold out for another week or two. Snow in the first two weeks of April is not out of the question.

Budget Traveler's Best of Ireland photos

2009-03-23T12:54:00.001-07:00

Wonder of all wonders, I clicked on Budget Travels "Best of Ireland" photos link and was hit with this photo in the number one slot:

I doubt it is based on quality, but it is nice to be first in line. Check out the rest of the show at Budget Travel

Check out the Photoshelter Page

2009-03-06T09:17:00.000-08:00

For more information on my photographic services, check out my Photoshelter page by clicking on the image below.

lecture at All Souls Church -- Feburary 26, 2009

2009-03-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

First, thank you all for coming out on a Thursday night. I’d also like to thank Carlos Martinez for setting up this event, and Jim Yacopino for the introduction. It is a thrill to be here. In preparation, I was reading a bit on your congregation and the Emerson Circle. Besides being a little humbling, it was wonderful to read about the variety of voices and perspectives you’ve had come speak here. It’s an exciting honor to add mine to such distinguished company.

As was mentioned in the introduction, I was an English teacher for 9 years before I became a writer. Well, I guess I was a writer all along, but it took a stroke of luck for me to become a book author. In the spring of 2004, after much deliberation, my wife and I decided it was time for me to take a break from teaching and chase my dream of the writing life. I submitted my resignation to the school where I worked and was prepared to spend a year trying to start a career as a freelance writer when, merely a week later and literally a month before school ended, a colleague emailed me. He wrote that a friend of his was starting a publishing company and was looking for a writer in New England willing to take on a book project. Did I know of any writers in New England who might be interested? I just so happened to be a writer in New England willing to take on a book project. When I found out that it was to be a literary travel guide, I could not believe my luck. Well, that turned out to be this book and I had so much fun doing this one that I decided to do one on Ireland’s Literary Revival, (which is here), and one on England’s Lake District Poets, (which is still in the works).

Before I go much further, let me take a moment to explain a little about the series. The ArtPlace series explores the interaction between art and place. The books look at the places where artists and thinkers lived and worked, and how those places affected them. It also examines how that artist's legacy affects and changes the very landscapes that helped sparked their creativity. The Transcendentalist book is the 3rd in a series of seven which includes Dorothy Parker's New York, John Steinbeck's California, Flaubert's Normandy, Matisse's South of France, Michelangelo's Rome, and my second book, the Ireland of the Irish Literary Revival.
Because I got involved with the series at the beginning, I was able to do two things: write the type of book I would buy and write the type of book that I would teach. Although this book makes no claims at academic or scholarly argument, it does provide a unique way in -- a way to explore Transcendentalism in a way that is accessible and hopefully engaging. And because you already have such a rich and detailed picture of Emerson, I’ll try to focus my remarks a bit more on those around Emerson. And, given your patience, I will also talk a little about my process in putting the book together.

I started my research process by looking around for a few concise definitions of Transcendentalism. One of the first definitions I found came from a minister named Father Taylor, who was a friend and colleague of the Transcendentalists. He defined Transcendentalism as “a seagull with long wings, lean body, poor feathers, and miserable meat.” Not very helpful.

The writer Rebecca Harding Davis characterized the followers of Transcendentalism in her book, Bits of Gossip, as “hordes of wild-eyed Harvard undergraduates and lean, underpaid working-women, each with a disease of the soul to be cured by the new healer.”

Even Nathaniel Hawthorne, got in on the act in his Mosses from the Old Manse, describing Concord as “a poor little country village infested with such a variety of queer, strangely-dressed, oddly-behaved mortals.” Sounds a bit like Amherst to me.

It’s not surprising that when the British novelist Charles Dickens came to Boston and inquired about Transcendentalism, he was told that “whatever is unintelligible would certainly be transcendental.” Clearly, these answers were not going to help me, so I went to the town of Concord, and to an old house by the river. The river is the Concord River (near the famous North Bridge of the Battle of Concord) and the house is now called, The Old Manse.

As many of you know, while Emerson lived at the Manse with his mother, he wrote Nature. The challenge with which Emerson opens the book is remarkable:

The forgoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?

Then follows an Emersonian, and therefore Transcendentalist solution: go spend time in nature, and see what new ideas this brings. They will surely be more powerful and enticing than ancient philosophy and dusty theology.

Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us, by the powers they supply to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past?

It seems particularly telling that Emerson wrote these words, with their central metaphor of “the flood of life,” looking out at the river from the window of his study. As he states, however, “to go out into solitude [to achieve our ‘original relation’], a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.” Emerson made good on this premise by going out daily to walk the hills, forests, and meadows of his chosen town of Concord. He let neither the elements nor the demands of society keep him from his walks.

Emerson is also clear about the benefits of the move into nature:

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- a mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

It was in these passages from Nature that Transcendentalism first came alive for me, and I structured the book around what I view as Transcendentalism’s central quest: to forge an original relationship with the universe or, as Emerson puts it, to behold “God and nature face to face.”

So, what quickly became interesting to me was how this group of writers, philosophers, poets, activists and dreamers conducted their quests. Where did they go for that “face to face” interaction? How does one forge one’s own unique relationship with the universe? This idea became the central theme of my book: where did the Transcendentalists go in New England and what did they do there?

Obviously, they came here, to Concord. They came to visit and converse with Emerson. They came to walk the paths and trails around the town and draw inspiration from the trails. Or, as Hawthorne did, stare lovingly at his garden watching the melons grow. (No kidding, he wrote in American Notes): "I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had not taken part in the process of creation." It’s little surprise the practical, no-nonsense farmers of Concord wondered about him.

Hawthorne came to Concord after his marriage to Elizabeth Peabody’s younger sister, Sophia. By that time, Elizabeth was an ardent admirer of Emerson and an important Transcendentalist in her own right, but more on her later. The Hawthornes arrived in 1842 and moved into the very same house where Emerson wrote Nature. Emerson himself had bought another house on the other side of town seven years earlier. While at the Old Manse, Hawthorne wrote prolifically, took long walks in the woods, rowed on the river in a boat he bought from Thoreau, and, yes, stared mooningly at his garden.

Bronson Alcott also came to Concord…repeatedly. He came, with his wife and four daughters, and lived in a number of houses in Concord, including one he eventually sold to the Hawthornes, and another that still serves as an Alcott museum called The Orchard House. Alcott’s quest to behold Got and nature face to face was most successful in his educational endeavors, schools he started in Boston and on the grounds of The Orchard House. In Boston, Elizabeth Peabody’s bookstore on West Street was another place the Transcendentalists went to develop forge that relationship with the universe. They spent time here bouncing ideas of each other and searching for a better way before wandering up Tremont Street to School Street and the Old Corner Bookstore and the Parker House hotel. Among the ideas battered around the downstairs of Elizabeth Peabody’s bookstore was for a utopian society created out of Transcendental optimism and a utopian theory called Fourierism. Brook Farm, in the Boston suburb of West Roxbury, Although Brook Farm literally went up in flames after seven years, its promise of a more balanced, Transcendental agrarian life enticed the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller, all of whom regularly visited. Hawthorne did join but quickly realized his unique relation to the universe did not include milking cows.

Perhaps the most well known method to forge an original relationship to the universe was to move to Walden Pond and attempt to “front only the essential facts of life” as Thoreau did from 1845 to 1847. His experiment in living the Transcendentalist quest, along with the record of it we know as Walden, has had perhaps the greatest impact of any of the Transcendentalist writings.

It is regularly quoted as the defining text for a wide variety of philosophical movements and radical thinkers...or just to sell t-shirts and yoga-tapes. I've even seen Walden quoted in a review of new electrical gadgets like cell phones and iPods.
But my favorite story of Thoreau’s influence is about a shy, lanky Irish boy whose father read Walden to him in the mornings before he trundled off to school. On summer vacation in the west of Ireland, this same boy then dreamed about moving to an island in the middle of a lake and living like Thoreau.

He even picked out the perfect island and spent a night reconnoitering it. As it turned out, the boy never lived out his dream, but he did write a poem about the island. The poem is called “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and the boy is the Novel prize winning writer William Butler Yeats. As a side note, I will talk about that story and much more tomorrow night at the National Arts Club.

My central theme of a “quest” helped me through the writing of the book, but I also had to take the photographs that accompany the text. And in taking those pictures, I tried to be Emerson’s eyeball. I tried to see all and vanish into nothing. Not an easy trick standing on the Boston Common in the middle of a busy afternoon. But I tried.

And, after the book was published, and I was putting together an collection of photographs from the book for an exhibition at the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts, I realized that Transcendentalism was more than just a quest to create that unique place for one’s self in the universe, it was also a way of seeing the universe -- not just looking, but truly seeing. The Transcendentalists were both unfailingly dedicated to the careful study of the natural world and unequivocal about the benefits. Again, from Emerson's Nature, I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me." And Henry David Thoreau challenges us, with his usual play on words, to go beyond looking to really seeing: "Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer."

It is perhaps no surprise to this crowd that the person who was met that challenge and was clearly much, much more than a student seemed to prefer more the journeys of the imagination. Like William Wordsworth and Emerson before her, Emily Dickinson was greatly inspired by what she had seen. As someone who actually had to travel to Cambridge for uncomfortable eye treatments (at which the doctor forbid her to write and even took her pen from her, forcing her to use a pencil she must have snuck in), vision is not something Dickinson takes lightly. Like her predecessor, the visionary British poet William Blake, When Dickinson does turn her eyes to something, she sees it as well as something else: From that "narrow fellow in the grass" to the trains she saw from her bedroom that

"lap the miles,/And lick the valleys up
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop – docile and omnipotent –
In fact, she recognizes the power of her imagination to create riches from what she sees:
‘Tis little I could care for pearls
Who own the ample sea;
Or brooches, when the Emperor
With Rubies pelteth me;

Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines;
Or diamonds, when I see
A Diadem to fit a dome
Continual crowning me

And even when her circumstances did not allow her to use the actual sight of something as a jumping off place, Dickinson is still satisfied (and rightly so), with seeing things in her mind.

I never saw a moor
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be

I never spoke with God
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given

When Thoreau went to Walden, he said it was to "live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Although Dickinson never walked the shores of Walden Pond, or even went to Concord, she clearly lived deliberately, fronted the facts of life, and lived her life to the fullest. And even though she was never invited to one of the famous conversation groups Emerson held at his house, when Emerson extolled his audience, "to see God face to face," Dickinson knows the way. In fact, where others put their eyeballs (transparent or otherwise), Emily puts up her soul:

Before I got my eye put out,
I liked as well to see
As other creatures that have eyes,
And know no other way.

But were it told to me today,
That I might have the sky
For mine, I tell you that my heart
Would split, for the size of me.

The meadows mine, the mountains mine, --
All forests, stintless stars,
As much of noon as I could take
Between my finite eyes.

The motions of the dipping birds,
The lightning’s jointed road,
For mine to look at when I liked, --
The news would strike me dead!

So safe, guess, with just my soul
Upon the window-pane
Where other creatures put their eyes,
Incautious of the sun.

And perhaps that is the best place for us to end, with our souls upon the window pane." I believe it is the best way to create what Emerson called "an original relation with the universe" -- something that Dickinson, perhaps more than Emerson himself, or even Thoreau, was able to do through her vision, her imagination, and her poetry.

Thank you so much for your time and wonderful attention. I would certainly love to hear any questions or comments you might have, either now or later. I will be posting the text of this talk at http://openpage-openroad.blogspot.com/ as well as information about my upcoming events and books. I will turn on a slide show of photographs to run as I sign books.

lecture at the Yeats Society of the New York - February 27, 2009

2009-03-02T13:51:00.000-08:00

First off, thank you to all of you who have come this evening. It’s so gratifying to know I’m not the only one who likes spending a Friday night talking about Yeats and poetry. I'd also like to extend a special thank you to Andy McGowan for setting up this event.

Before I go much further, let me take a moment to explain a little about the series and how I got involved. I was an English teacher for nine years before I became a writer. Well, I guess I was a writer all along, but it took a stroke of luck for me to become a book author. In the spring of 2004, after much deliberation, my wife and I decided it was time for me to take a break from teaching and chase my dream of the writing life. I submitted my resignation to the school where I worked and was prepared to spend a year trying to start a career as a freelance writer when, literally a month before school ended, a colleague emailed me. He wrote that a friend of his was starting a publishing company and was looking for a writer in New England willing to take on a book project. Did I know of any writers in New England who might be interested? I just so happened to be a writer in New England willing to take on a book project. When I found out that it was to be a literary travel guide, I could not believe my luck. Well, that turned out to be my first Roaring Forties Press ArtPlace book and I had so much fun doing that one that I immediately pitched another idea that was near and dear to me: Irish Literature.

The Art Place Series
The ArtPlace series explores the interaction between art and place. The books look at the places where artists and thinkers lived and worked, and how those places affected them. It also examines how that artist's legacy affects and changes the very landscapes that helped sparked their creativity. In my books, there is an additional layer of how members of the group interact with each other, and in the case of this book, there is one more layer of how the writers and thinkers dealt with a culture that had all but vanished when they first took up their pens.

The Irish Book was fifth in a series of seven which includes Dorothy Parker's New York, John Steinbeck's California, Flaubert's Normandy, Matisse's South of France, Michelangelo's Rome, and my book on the Transcendentalists’ New England

Because I got involved with the series at the beginning, I was able to do two things: write the type of book I would buy and write the type of book that I would teach. Although this book makes no claims at academic or scholarly argument, it does provide a unique way in -- a way to explore the Irish Literary revival in a way that is accessible and hopefully engaging. As a teacher, I often found that students were the most engaged and interested, not when we were talking about the grand scope of literature, or even about the big ideas, but when we focused on specific events, moments actually.

Moments of Place, Art, & Geography
So in this book, I really focused on special moments, moments when place, art, and geography collide. Like that moment two friends having tea on a wet and windy afternoon in County Galway decide that Ireland needs its own theater tradition and the Irish Theatre Movement is born. Or that moment when a young poet standing by a lake shore sees nine and fifty swans scatter wheeling into the sky above him and, from their flight, creates the poem “The Wild Swans at Coole.” This book is about that moment when a young man listens to a story told to him by an Aran Islander and finds in it a drama of lasting value. And finally, the book is about that moment when a play written by Irish authors and acted by Irish actors on an Irish stage inspires the tearful singing of patriotic songs and that moment a few years later when another Irish play in Dublin incites rioting and violence, in many cases by the same people.

Indeed, looking back, the Irish Literary Revival can be seen as a moment itself. Lasting only a short time from the early 1890’s through roughly 1926, the Irish Literary Revival was nothing more than a flowering of literature that sought to first glorify then critically examine, what it meant to be truly Irish. It was also nothing less than a profound shift in how the citizens of this country not much bigger than Maine identified themselves, both within their own counties and to the world.

While Irish history is long, complex, and mythological, it is important to know that Ireland was, for many hundreds of years, under English control. To help solidify this English rule, many British second sons, with no claim to land in England, colonized Ireland, displacing many Irish farmers. In some cases, these families eventually felt more Irish than the farmers whose lands their ancestors had taken centuries before. When England switched from Catholicism to the Protestant faith, religion became a dividing line and those who practiced Catholicism were systematically oppressed and denied access to land and power. By the time the potato blight of the mid-nineteenth century hit Ireland, most of the Irish Catholics had few options but to leave Ireland or die. Millions did both.

Therefore, it is not surprising that by the late nineteenth century, Britain was not just the main cultural influence in Irish cities like Dublin, Belfast, and Cork – it was the only option. The fields of music, literature, and art were dominated by British tastes, and when the Irish were represented, they were portrayed as drunk, stupid, or quick to anger…or all three.

Through a series of political events, which included failed insurrections, bungled political wrangling, and the fall and quick death of Ireland’s best political hope for independence from Britain, the Irish who wanted to create an Irish identity separate from England turned to Celtic sports, art, and literature to create a social movement where the political one had failed.

Into the Mix of Irish Literary Revival
Into this mix came a young poet, tall with unruly black hair. He was not Catholic, could not speak Gaelic, and did not even come from the land-owning Protestant ascendancy. But he could write beautifully of place and write he did. Yeats’ poems, beginning with his first poetry collection in 1889, so captured the essence of his childhood home of County Sligo in the west of Ireland, that he quickly became the center of the Irish Literary Revival.

Attracted by his poetic talent, and perhaps the dark unruly hair and piercing eyes, the widow Isabelle Augusta Gregory, made friends with Yeats and opened her Galway home to him. It became the western birthplace of the Revival, and many of the writers, painters, and poets came to visit with Lady Gregory and Yeats when he was in residence. J.M. Synge stopped by on his way back to Dublin after his trips to the Aran Islands. After the tremendous success of his play, The Plough and the Stars at the Abbey Theater, Sean O’Casey was introduced to polite society by Lady Gregory. George Bernard Shaw came often but remained aloof from the rest of the revival. The novelist George Moore came to collaborate with Yeats on their plays. James Joyce was invited but declined to come. But it was Yeats above all who was the featured guest.

At Coole Park

Yeats had a pretty cushy life there…literally. While Yeats was working in the best room in the house, Lady Gregory laid the thickest and softest rugs she had in the hallway outside his room so that footsteps wouldn’t disturb his thoughts. She brought him hot broth and tea to keep his strength up and offered the best port for after dinners. And all the while, she was collecting folk and fairy tales from the local tenant farmers first for Yeats to use in his own writing, and then eventually for her own books and plays. But, she stated that her first duty was to support her poet friend.

So it is little wonder that Yeats wanted to come back…and often. Nor is it surprising that when it came time for him to buy a summer house, he choose the nearby house and tower, which he named Thoor Ballyllee. It was literally a Norman fort which had in essence been abandoned and left to rot. But it was where Yeats wrote some of his finest poetry, as he describes in a letter written from Ballylee

Alas I have to return to Dublin in a couple of days. There one gets angry and writes prose, but here beside a little stream I write poetry and think of nothing else.

The poetry from his collection The Tower exemplifies the best of Yeats’ ability to simultaneously portray landscape and create symbols from it. Listen to this passage from his long poem, “Meditation in Time of Civil War," in which he takes stock of his surroundings:

An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,
The sound of the rain or the sound
Of ever wind that blows;
The stilted water-hen
Crossing stream again
Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows

A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth
A candle and written page

To the Aran Islands

So, if it was Yeats’ special gift to encapsulate moments of time where mountains, streams, lakes, and ancient forts become more symbol than scene, he also had the ability to inspire those moments in others…or at least set them on their way. It was his advice, spoken in an unguarded moment of criticism, to John Millington Synge, that helped shape that young writer’s career. Upon meeting Synge in Paris, Yeats told him:

Give up Paris. You will never create anything by reading Racine and Arthur Symons will always be a better critic of French literature. Go to the Aran Islands. Live there as if you were one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression

Although Synge was best known for his drama, one of his finest works is a small book called The Aran Islands. This slim volume narrates the events of Synge’s three consecutive visits to the Aran Islands, a group of three small, very rocky, and culturally isolated islands just off the west coast of Ireland. While he lived on the middle island of Inis Meain, Synge often sat on the stones just watching the weather change or observing the comings and goings of the people at work and play. He also collected stories from the elders.

One of the most interesting stories he hears and narrates in his book is actually one that Yeats had also heard a few years before on his visit to the Arans. It tells of a man who kills his maniacal and vicious father and then escapes to the Aran Islands. Rather than reacting with horror at harboring a murderer in their midst, the islanders hide the man from the authorities and help him eventually escape to America, following the story, Synge offers this thought:

The impulse to protect the criminal is universal in the west. It seems partly due to the association between justice and the hated English jurisdiction, but more directly to the primitive feelings of these people, who are never criminals yet always capable of crime, that a man will not do wrong unless he is under the influence of a passion which is as irresponsible as a storm on the sea. If a man has killed his father, and is already sick and broken with remorse, there can be no reason why he should be dragged away and hanged by the law.

Although he acknowledges that he most likely always remain an outsider on the island, Synge gives the reader many glimpses into the souls of the Aran Islanders. In the moments after British soldiers, serving as the local police, turn an island woman out of her home because of debt, Synge clearly sees just what his means:

For these people the outrage to the heart is the supreme catastrophe. They live here in a world of grey, where they are wild rains and mists every week in the year, and their warm chimney corners, filled with children and young girls, grow into consciousness of each family in a way it is not easy to understand in more civilized places

Synge’s talent was to illuminate the special moments in the daily lives of the some of the most interesting Irish, the Aran Islanders.

Moments I'll Never Forget

For me, doing this book was also made up of moments too, moments when I felt art, history, and geography collide. Like when I sat on the rock formation atop the cliffs of the island of Inis Meain in the rock formation called “Synge’s Chair” in honor of the playwright who arranged the rocks and often sat there, I looked across the ocean to the coast just as he did and felt the wind on my back and the ocean sprays drifting up. As I sat there, I could almost sense his presence and understood much better what his experience was like.

A similar moment happened on the top of the mountain Ben Bulben. Yeats often climbed Ben Bulben as a youngster and had written that he wanted to be buried in the small Drumcliffe churchyard at the foot of the mountain. It was alone at the top of this cliff that I felt the closest connection to Yeats.

But the most powerful moments for me were the stories, like the one I heard mere hours after I landed in Ireland for this research trip.

I was sitting with a group attending the Lady Gregory's Autumn Gathering. Among the scholars and attendees whose father's friend was the taxi man for the town of Gort. One night, after stowing his horse and buggy and battening down the hatches against an oncoming storm, he was awakened by a terrible pounding on front door, as if someone were trying to break it down. A little frightened, he opened the window of the second floor and looked down. "Who is it," asked his trembling wife. A moment later, he pulled his head in and turned to his wife, "ach, it's only that mad Yeats, looking for a ride home in the rain."

The most special moment came during lunch the next day at the Lady Gregory fall symposium. I was late for lunch, so I picked the only spot available, next to a white-haired gentleman telling a story. At first, I was focusing on my lunch and what I needed to photograph that afternoon, then I started to pay attention to the story the man was telling.

“He only found out he had won when Bertie Smyllie called with the news and he just asked “how much is it? How much?” It was then I realized that he was Michael Yeats talking about when his father won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. I nearly choked on my potatoes. Michael Yeats, who passed away just before the book was published, was a wonderfully generous and kind spirit who was tremendously supportive of me. I want to give him my thanks as well

So, in wrapping up, I’d certainly like to encourage all of you to get to Ireland (and of course use this book!), but also get out in search of your own moments. Climb Ben Bulben or sit in Synge's Chair. Walk down to the water’s edge at Lough Gill and look out across the water to the lake isle of Innisfree. Sit it in the audience for a play at the Abbey Theatre or listen to the story the white-haired gentleman next to you is telling. Ireland’s magic need only take a moment -- I thank you for the moments you’ve spent with me.

back in Amherst

2009-03-01T12:13:00.000-08:00

I;m thrilled to be back in Amherst after a great weekend in New York. I will be uploading the texts to both talks I gave in New York shortly, but first am getting the word out about my two talks this week.

Just in time for Saint Patrick’s day, I will be giving not one but two slide show presentations this Thursday. The first is at The Springfield Museum at 12:15 as part of their Museums A La Carte series. You get cookies if you come to this one; see the link for more information.

The second event is right here in Amherst, at the Jones Library at 7:00 pm. Although there are no official refreshments being offered, come on by and we’ll see what we can do.

I will be selling autographed books and photos (both framed and unframed) at both events. They might just make the perfect St. Patrick’s Day gift!

As always, thanks for all the great support.

Off to New York

2009-02-26T06:10:00.001-08:00

I'm off this morning to New York for my talk tonight at the All Souls Church in Manhattan. Tomorrow night, I'll be at the National Arts Club. The book talks (two completely different ones) are on hard copy, backed up to a flash drive, and emailed to myself. Did I forget anything?

Check out the events calendar below for more information on the events. I hope to see you there.

New Slide Shows

2009-02-24T10:24:00.000-08:00

Check out the right side of the blog for the two new slide shows I put up. They are linked to my photoshelter account where you can check out the other galleries and even purchase photos for your very own use. Let me know what you think.

blogging for A Traveler's Library

2009-02-23T07:37:00.000-08:00

Wander over soon to A Traveler's Library for a great source of information on travel literature and a guest appearance by your truly. YOu can also win a copy of Walking Boston if you leave a comment.

500 Places to Add to the List

2009-02-03T07:20:00.000-08:00

My review of Holly Hughes’ 500 Places to See Before They Disappear is up at Wandering Educators. I was thrilled to review the book and have a chance to talk with Holly. She’s got a great perspective on travel and a wonderful sense of humor. If you are interested in a copy of her book, you have a couple of options. Post a comment on the book or the review over at Wandering Educators and you are entered to win. Or…you can post your suggestion for a place to visit before it disappears here at Open Page, Open Road, and I will randomly pick a winner and send a copy of the book. Good luck!

Presentation at All Souls Church in New York City

2009-01-27T06:21:00.000-08:00

An Evening with R. Todd Felton on “A Journey into the Transcendentalists’ New England”

Thursday, February 26, 2009
Reidy Friendship Hall, 6:30 p.m. Reception (light refreshments), 7:00 p.m. Presentation

The Emerson Circle cordially invites you to an exquisite evening and audio-visual presentation by Robert Todd Felton, who will recreate through image and spoken word the picturesque towns around the city of Boston inhabited by Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, and the other like-minded Transcendentalists who revolutionized American ideas about the artistic, spiritual, and natural worlds. His fascinating and beautiful narrative of his lush one volume work, “A Journey into the Transcendentalists’ New England,” will examine the intertwined lives of these remarkable men and women and explore the places that inspired them. His presentation will include displays of the lavish photos, paintings, and maps contained in the book which vividly recaptures nineteenth-century New England while discovering the Transcendentalists’ enduring legacy in Walden, Cambridge, Concord, Salem, Amherst, and Boston.

“This well-researched volume . . . contains a wealth of historical information. Some travelers might carry this volume along while sightseeing; others may wish to use it for travel research. Armchair travelers and even those without much wanderlust will want to read this for pure pleasure. Highly recommended.” The Library Journal.

Robert Todd Felton is a full-time freelance writer and photographer specializing in literary and cultural travel. His first two books, A Journey into the Transcendentalists' New England and A Journey into Ireland's Literary Revival, were published by Roaring Forties Press and have received favorable notices in the pages of Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New England Watershed among other publications. His third book, Walking Boston, is a street level guide to the best walks in Beantown, and was published in the summer of 2008 by Wilderness Press. He has also written for National Geographic Traveler, Backpacker, Draft, Gemut.com. and is currently the literary travel editor for Wandering Educators. See www.rtoddfelton.com and http://openpage-openroad.blogspot.com for more information about his work.

Bright, Sunny, and Meaningful

2009-01-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

Bright, Sunny, and Meaningful
In addition to all the symbols and ceremony of today, I have been amazed by the variety of mediums through which I can and have experienced the inauguration. It began this morning with the images of the mall filling up on CNN supplemented by the commentary of NPR. As it noon got closer, I went down to my son elementary school to watch with them in the gym, where the school had set up a huge projection. The best part was hearing the kids chant “Obama, Obama, Obama” when the cameras caught their first glimpse. It was also easy to tap into the emotion of the teachers, many of them persons of color and visibly moved by what was happening. Afterwards, I came home to listen to NPR and scan Twitter, the blogs, CNN’s home page, and listen to a streaming radio and then a podcast. From the ringing sounds of children chanting to the pixilated reality of my monitor, this has been a day to remember.

A New Year, a New Thought or Two

2009-01-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

Wherever you are and whatever you celebrate, I hope this time of year has brought relaxation, time with family and friends, and hope for the new year. In any case, best wishes to you and yours and I'm very happy to be back at the keyboard with an eye for the future. As I swing into the new year, here are a few things I think are important about my traveling life (let's not call them "resolutions" as that will damn them to obscurity and failure):

read up before I go
I like to read about the places I'm going. Sometimes, it's only the guidebook for the area. Best case, it is an eclectic range of nonfiction, poetry, and novels. Seeing the wild swans of Coole Park was made much more significant after having read "The Wild Swans of Coole." As I look forward to this year, I am reserving a book on the history of the Sierra Nevada mountains for our March trip to ski, guidebooks for our April trip to Costa Rica, and a re-read of Thoreau's Cape Cod for a summer trip. What will you bring and where?

take the photos I usually wished I had taken
Occasionally, I look at the photos that other people take on a trip and marvel at the things I missed. I am drawn to photographing architectural details -- clean lines, repeated patterns, weather-worn sculpture, interesting angles -- and so miss the human details. Other photographers focus on the people around them. Not just the ones on the trip with them, but the local residents. Their shots tell stories with a richness and sense of place that mine miss. I will try to include more people in their natural elements. But I want to avoid doing this in a voyeuristic, slanted way. I guess the key is to know as much about what and who I am shooting as is possible. Why do those men line up on that street corner? Is the woman sweeping out the restaurant the owner or hired help? Is the young couple in the wedding clothes who won't look at each other nervous or reluctant? Where will you point your camera this year?

don't be embarrassed to be a traveler
This one will help me with the one above. I am naturally a reserved person with strangers. I get a little embarrassed and am reluctant to engage people in strange situations, thinking they might judge me in one way or another. This can prohibit me from meeting and getting to know real people when I travel. When I do loosen up a bit and talk with those I meet, honestly trying to find out about them and their lives, I come away with a better understanding of where I am -- or at least singing Austrian drinking songs arm in arm with a room full of hearty Bavarians or listening to tremendous jazz in a crazy bar in the middle of Havana. What type of traveler are you? What's your best story of getting to know the local culture?

celebrate the inconveniences
I don't usually have much difficulty with this. I am not one who gets flustered and dejected by airport delays and sub-standard housing. Instead, I am willing to embrace the adventure and live with what I've got. I'm just thrilled to be on the road. However, this is a good one to remind ourselves of. And since the majority of my travel these days includes my whole family, it can be easier to lose that patience and serenity travel usually brings me. What new tips, strategies, technologies, or perspectives will you employ this year to make travel easier?

write, write, write
People hit the road for a variety of reasons; one of mine is to witness the great big world out there and try to bring back a slice of it for others to experience. So, when I go on a trip and then don't write about it, it's a little like keeping my big mouth shut when I know something special and won't tell you. It feels a little bit selfish. What are your reasons for hitting the road? What will get you out on the road this year?

Pull a chair up to the fire -- the Irish Fireside that is

2008-12-17T08:49:00.000-08:00

Pull a seat up to the fire -- click on over to the Irish Fireside for a chance at winning A Journey into Ireland's Literary Revival. While you are there, check out his list of great Irish gifts and other wonderful things. It's a great site.

Passports with a Purpose is a success!

2008-12-15T09:53:00.000-08:00

This just in from Passports with a Purpose about their fundraising efforts this December. I am contributing a copy of all three of my books and have sent my money into Heifer International in hopes of one of the great prizes below. Read on for more details:

Passports With Purpose: Get Ready to Win!

I'm excited to announce that we have raised over $3300 for Heifer International through Passports With Purpose! We're not done yet, though, and if you have not yet made a donation, this is your last full week to do so before you head off for the holidays. I'm posting the full list of prizes and instructions below. Odds off winning are still very good, and there are even a few prizes that don't yet have any entries. I thought I'd share that list so that you can rush over to FirstGiving and make your donation (just leave the code number for the prize you want in the comments). For more details, click on the link with each of the prizes below.C03 Merino Wool Long Underwear from Jones Wear ($120) from Nerds Eye ViewC06 Clothing items (one outfit) by Earth Creations from Travel With PurposeC07 His and Her Shirts by ExOfficio from Wanderlust and LipstickK05 $100 Gift Certificate with Babies Travel Lite (sponsored by Babies Travel Lite), signed copy of Travels With Baby($122) from Travels With BabyE04 Tour Pack from Mountainsmith ($70) from GoGreenTravelB03 Five Books from Lonely Planet ($94) from Ever The NomadB04 A selection of books from Lia HadleB07 2 items: Travel with Kids: The Definitive Guide to Family Holidays Worldwide AND A Magnetic Travel Art Kit for Children ($40) from LizAndTobiB08 Where to Go When: The Americas, DK Brazil, DK Peru, DK Argentina ($120) from WandermomB09 Signed copy of Sacred Places of a Lifetime ($40 plus signature value from National GeographicB12 Travel Guide Bonanza from Wandering EducatorsB14 A Set of CDs ($102) from The Blend Magazine
Here is the full list of prizes. Remember that each donation makes a huge difference in the life of a family struggling to keep food on the table.
Prize ID
Description
Blogger
Destinations
D01
3 Nights at the Wyland Waikiki in Hawaii ($400+)
NerdsEyeView
D02
Harlem Food and Cultural Tour ($190)
FarSightedTravelGirl
D03
Seattle TourSaver and Alaska TourSaver ($180)
AlaskaTravelGram
D04
$100 Gift Card for any hotel in the Mr. and Mrs. Smith Hotel Collection ($100)
Mr & Mrs Smith Luxury Hotels
D05
Two night stay for a family of four at The Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, VT ($400)
TwoAndAHalfTravelers
D06
$100 gift certificate towards any Ciao Bambino property ($100)
Ciao Bambino
D07
2 night stay at B&B in CA($495)
TheBlendMagazine
D08
Cooking class and dinner for 4 in NYC ($600)
Collazo Projects
D09
Culinary Tour of Greenwich Village led by Addie Tomei ($240)
Things You Should Do
D010
PhotoWalks walking tour of Boston for 4 ($120)
Things You Should Do
D011
Horseback riding on the beach in Bradenton, FL ($120)
Things You Should Do
D012
Fairmont Hotel Package, One night in a suite, parking, dinner ($299)
Fairmont Hotel
Photography
P01
Flip Video Camera ($150)
MotherOfAllTrips
P02
$150 Gift Card to B&H Photo (valid online and in store) ($150)
EscapeFromNY
P03
Eye-Fi Wireless Camera Memory Card ($130)
WeJustGotBack
Clothing
C01
$200 shopping spree with ExOfficio & $100 lunch ($300)
WanderlustAndLipstick
C02
1 set of ExOfficio his/her shirts ($148)
Around the Bloc
C03
Merino Wool Long Underwear from Jones Wear ($120)
Nerd's Eye View
C04
Mountain Hardwear Women's Mynx Jacket (medium, dark adobe), Eagle Creek Messenger Bag ($265)
Away.com
C05
Merino Wool Long Underwear from Ibex ($120)
Nerd's Eye View
C06
Clothing items (one outfit) from Earth Creations
Travel With Purpose
C07
His and Her Shirts from ExOfficio ($170)
Wanderlust and Lipstick
Gadgets
G01
Casio Wave Ceptr WR10 Bar World Time Watch ($100)
MomMostTraveled
G02
Solio Charger - portable solar charger ($170)
Trusty Pony
G03
WordPress Premium Theme ($90)
Coming Soon from TravelRants!
Kids
K01
Medela Swing Single Electric Breastpump ($149)
JetWithKids
K02
Maclaren Techno XLR ($350)
JetWithKids
K03
Britax Boulevard Car Seat ($330)
JetWithKids
K04
CARES Flight Safety Harness (sponsored by Kids Fly Safe), signed copy of Travels With Baby ($97)
TravelsWithBaby
K05
$100 Gift Certificate with Babies Travel Lite (sponsored by Babies Travel Lite), signed copy of Travels With Baby($122)
TravelsWithBaby
K06
Sit-n-Stroll convertible car seat and stroller (sponsored by Lilly Gold), signed copy of Travels With Baby ($272)
TravelsWithBaby
K07
Ergo Hands Free Baby Carrier and iPod Shuffle ($213)
DeliciousBaby
K08
Peg Perego Primo Viaggio Infant Car Seat ($290)
Cookie Magazine and Going Places blog
Gift Bags and Baskets
GB01
Grab Bag of fun travel-related gifts including the Funkey Finder, hair products from Tassi, a Carson Lens Pen, luggage tags from BonjourFleurette.com and an Eastport Natural Collection Duffle Bag. ($155)
TravelingMamas
GB02
Grab bag of travel-related gifts from the Moms who participate in GNO
Coming Soon from GNO!
GB03
2 Indonesian sarongs, 2 matching Indonesian pillowcases, 1 Indonesian pillow cover, 1 Chinese bottle cover ($120)
HammockInParadise
GB04
Gift bag of travel goodies
Matador Travel
GB05
Gift basket from SkinStore ($200)
Just Go!
GB06
Makeup and Beauty Package from Erwin Gomez Salon and Spa ($300)
Things You Should Do
GB07
Original Oil Pastel Painting by Lola Akinmade ($250)
Geotraveler's Niche
GB08
TravelMuse Travel Journal, "Inspire Me" T-shirt and $100 Shutterfly gift certificate ($135)
TravelMuse
GB09
$100 gift card from American Express ($100)
Uptake.com
Equipment
E01
Eagle Creek ORV Duffel and Eagle Creek Messenger bags ($210)
Away.com
E02
REI Vagabond Travel Pack and PackTowl UltraLite Towel (XL) from Viking River Cruises ($130)
AlmostFearless
E03
Carry-on luggage from LuggageGuru.com
Go Galavanting
E04
Tour Pack from Mountainsmith ($70)
Go Green Travel Green
Tickets
T01
2009 Tampa Buccaneers home game tickets! ($170)
What Boundaries!
Books and Music
B01
Spain: A Culinary Road Trip by Mario Batali w/Gwyneth Paltrow
1,000 Places to See Before You Die-by Patricia Schultz
Immersion Travel USA-by Sheryl Kayne, Diners
Drive-Ins and Dives-by Guy Fieri
Frommer's 500 Places to See Before They Disappear-by Holly Hughes($100)
MidWestGuest
B02
Gift pack of Barefoot Books ($100+)
BackpackToBuggy
B03
5 books from Lonely Planet
The Travel Book
Best in Travel 2009
The Big Trip
Lonely Planet 2009 Wall Calendar
Travel Journal($94)
EverTheNomad
B04
Lonely Planet Travel Book
5 Time Out city guides of the winner's choice
2 Alastair Sawdays Guides
1 Pocket Comm Communications tool
2 Paperblanks 2009 diaries
HeatherOnHerTravels
B05
5 sets of Moo postcards by collage artist Lia Hadle
Lia Hadley
B06
$100 Gift Certificate for Amazon.com ($100)
MVOnTheSpot
B07
2 books: Travel with Kids: The Definitive Guide to Family Holidays Worldwide AND A Magnetic Travel Art Kit for Children ($40)
LizAndTobi
B08
Where to Go When: The Americas, DK Brazil, DK Peru, DK Argentina ($120)
WanderMom
B09
Signed copy of Sacred Places of a Lifetime ($40 plus signature value :-)
National Geo Intelligent Travel Blog
B10
Lonely Planet Guide of YOUR choice and copies of The Travel Book ($100)
RoamingTales
B11
A Journey into the Transcendentalists' New England A Journey into Ireland's Literary Revival Walking Boston. ($45)
OpenPage-OpenRoad!
B12
Travel guide bonanza:
Lonely Planet's Syria & Lebanon
Frommer's 500 Places to See Before They Disappear
Frommer's NYC Free & Dirt Cheap
Frommer's Cancun and the Yucatan
A Mindful Christmas($100+)
WanderingEducators
B13
$100 worth of Creative Memories Scrapbooking Supplies ($100)
TwoKidsAndAMap
B14
Set of 3 CDs from award winning Native American flutist, Evren Ozan
1 CD from cowboy poet, Mike Moutoux
1 CD from Americana musicians Steve Smith & Hard Road
1 CD from Nashville singer/songwriter Jon Roniger
1 CD from from Phoenix-based Michael & Spider($102)
The Blend Magazine
B15
Putumayo World Music CD's
Women of Africa
Asian Groove
Samba Bossa Nova
Turkish Groove
World Hits($75)
Wanderlust and Lipstick
B16
Signed copies of Getting Lost and Globejotting: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals AND a one-hour writing consultation with Dave Fox ($100)
Dave Fox

The Irish Gift of Gabbing about Irish Gifts

2008-12-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

This is pretty cool. My book, A Journey into Ireland's Literary Revival, was listed as a top Irish themed gift for 2008 at the Irish Fireside website. These guys handpick stuff from quality craftspeople and artists, so I was thrilled to be included.

Take a look here at the link:

http://irishfireside.com/2008GiftGuide/ and scroll down until you find me.

live author chat on LibraryThing

2008-12-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

Friends -

I am answering questions live over on LibraryThing. Stop on by and add to the conversation.

Thanks,

Todd

Passports with a Purpose

2008-12-01T06:02:00.000-08:00

No matter how light we pack, we almost always carry our privilege with us. Our simple presence in a foreign land is a clear sign that we have the means to get there, and, as often is the case, when we carry camera equipment and backpacks worth hundreds of American dollars, that message is doubled. I struggle with this often -- how do I respectfully witness and document conditions so very different than mine in a way that empowers those I see, or at the very, very least does not take away from their sense of personal grace and humanity? What is my role as writer and photographer, as fellow human?

While I have no ready answers to these questions and welcome all perspectives, I do know of a few actions I can take. One is to read: read the perspectives of those who live different lives than me, read the accounts and thoughts of other travelers, read the theories of those who spend their lives thinking about these issues. Another is to write. A third option is to help provide the funds to help people overcome the challenges set in front of them.

Today, I grabbing that third option and linking up with Passports with a Purpose, a fundraiser run by four travel bloggers in Seattle. They have set up a December raffle for a series of great prizes offered by a variety of travel bloggers. They are raising funds for Heifer International.

For my part, I be contributing to Heifer International using the First Giving page set up by Passports with a Purpose. And, I am offering a bundled three-pack of my books to a lucky raffle winner. So, go to the First Giving page, make a donation and sign up to win a copy of each of these three books:

A Journey into Ireland's Literary Revival

From the 1890s until the 1920s, a great tide of literary invention swept Ireland. As the country struggled for political independence, the writers who formed the Irish Literary Revival created a new, authentically Irish literature. Some, such as W. B. Yeats, John Synge, and Lady Gregory, celebrated the mystical tradition of Ireland’s west; others, such as Sean O’Casey, explored Dublin’s crowded streets and tenements. This fascinating, revealing, and beautiful book examines the relationship between these writers and the towns and countryside that fueled their imaginations. Party history, part biography, and part travel guide, A Journey into Ireland’s Literary Revival takes the reader to Galway, the Aran Islands, Mayo, Sligo, Wicklow, and Dublin. Along the route, it visits the cottages and castles, crags and glens, theaters and pubs where some of the country’s finest writers shaped an enduring vision of Ireland.

A Journey into the Transcendentalists' New England
This lavishly illustrated volume examines the major figures of the Transcendentalist movement and explores the places that inspired them. Beginning with Transcendentalism’s birth in Boston and Cambridge, the book charts the development of a movement that revolutionized American ideas about the artistic, spiritual, and natural worlds. At the same time, it creates a vivid sense of New England in the nineteenth century, from its idyllic countryside and sleepy towns to its bustling ports and burgeoning cities. The book is divided geographically into chapters, each focusing on a town or village famous for its relationship to one or more of the Transcendentalists. Thus, for instance, one chapter spotlights Cambridge, where Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his path-breaking lectures, while another explores Walden, when Henry David Thoreau spent two years attuning himself to the rhythms of nature. Other chapters retrace the paths of writers and poets such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, and Margaret Fuller through Salem, Amherst, Boston, and Concord and the utopian communities of Brook Farm and the Fruitlands.

Walking Boston

Boston has a revolutionary history that has established the city as New England’s cultural and historic capital. Here you can experience American history and fresh pasta in the North End, visit the shiny new waterfront and 50-acre greenway post-Big Dig, or wander the cobblestone streets to Henry David Thoreau’s house in Beacon Hill—and it’s all conveniently within walking distance. This portable guide features detailed maps for each trip, original photos, and public transportation information for every trip. Route summaries make each walk easy to follow, and a “Points of Interest” section summarizes each walk’s highlights. The 36 walks include trivia about architecture, local culture, and the city’s rich history, plus tips on where to dine, have a drink, and shop.

Chasing Frisbees in the Sky

2008-11-24T10:05:00.001-08:00

Rest in Peace, Unti

She was a great dog -- happiest when chasing frisbees, swimming, or just lying around with us. We will miss her terribly.

Wandering Educators Brings Me Home

2008-11-14T07:40:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have the experience when you are traveling of turning a corner in a city you’ve never been in before and having the feeling you’ve been there before? There’s something almost comforting in the layout of the buildings or the smell of a nearby bakeshop that seems somehow almost like home. Recently, in my various wandering around the travel-related corners of the web, I came across the name of a website that intrigued me. With the same curiosity that gets me peering down alleyways in strange cities, I clicked on the link and it brought me here: Wandering Educators.

From the moment the page booted up, I knew there was something strangely familiar about the place. This website is a compendium of compelling stories, important travel tips, job postings, sabbatical homes, and travel deals. The layout is simple and straightforward, the blog post titles unpretentious, and the whole vibe positive and encouraging. It simultaneously welcomes me home and sends me out the door for new experiences.

Founded in 2007, the website is the brainchild of husband and wife team, Jessie Voigts and Ed Forteau. In an email interview, Voigts told me that they wanted to create a project that they could work on together. With Voigts’ background in education and travel, Wandering Educators was a natural choice. However, they had no idea how quickly the idea would catch on. Since the founding, they have grown tremendously and now see over a thousand visitors a day. After tapping Joel Carillet to be chief editor, they have added over forty editors in charge of writing and recruiting new content in areas as diverse as Italy and teaching in South Korea. Although these are volunteer positions now, as the site grows, Voigts anticipates a revenue sharing agreement with her editors. Although she claims to want to slow down, Ms. Voigts seems indefatigable, posting post after post on other travel sites and blogs, travel books, and tips for traveling with children.

Of the many stories posted by Wandering Educators, there are stories on heritage trips, hidden gems of Ireland, reviews of travel books and websites, and breaking travel news. I also appreciate the “artist of the month” and “photographer of the month” features, as they introduce me to visions of worlds I might not otherwise see.

For me, one of the most tempting places on Wandering Educators is the listing of sabbatical homes in places like New Zealand, Egypt, Turkey & Germany. Actually living in a country is such a completely different experience than just traveling through it. My wife and I experienced that while living and working in Austria and have been longing to move back ever since we left. So, if anyone knows of a job in the Salzburg area, please let me know.

In the meantime, I like what I see at Wandering Educators and may just make myself at home here.

Vote Like a Transcendentalist

2008-11-04T06:56:00.000-08:00

Vote Like a Transcendentalist

Like many Americans, I have been thinking a lot about this election and my place in the historic nature of it. As a modern day Transcendentalist, I turned to the likes of Thoreau and Emerson for their thoughts. Thoreau, who famously marched to the beat of his own drummer, quoted the motto, “the government is best which governs least” in his essay, “On Civil Disobediance,” calling government “a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves.” This is the man who famously spent the night in jail for failure to pay a local tax because he did not want to support the American government’s war with Mexico.

However, contrary to popular belief, Thoreau did not call for the abolishment of government:

But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.

In following this call, I am making known what kind of government will command my respect: one that will weigh many options before deciding what might be best for the majority of the world’s citizens, not just Americans; one that recognizes that we are merely temporary inhabitants of this earth and not owners of it; and one that will seek to erase the divides and injustices that separate us from each other and not seek to institutionalize them. That, for me, is best represented by the candidacy of Barack Obama, and I urge all of you to get out and vote.

The Voices of Moore Hall

2008-10-29T05:59:00.000-07:00

BLOGAPALOOZA STORY!

This story is part of Angela Nickerson's Blogapalooza event over at her blog, Just Go!

After reading this little tale, click on over there and read some of the stories there and sign in to win prizes, including my own A Journey into the Transcendentalists' New England and A Journey into Ireland's Literary Revival. In fact, this little story comes from my research for that book.

The Voices of Moore Hall

It was still a bit chilly the morning I pulled into the small parking area along the northern shore of Lough Carra, a large lake near the center of County Mayo in Ireland. I was there early that morning to catch the morning light on what had been the novelist George Moore's home until it burned down in 1923. George Moore was a colleague and friend of the poet William Butler Yeats and occasionally hosted the poet at this house. I had driven in to the area the night before from Galway and would continue on to Sligo in the afternoon.

Day was just dawning steel grey as I headed up the path toward the house. About halfway up the path, I looked back and could see my footprints in the wet grass leading up from the dark grey water of Lough Carra on the other side of my car. I continued on.

When I got to the house, I set up my tripod and began taking the photos I needed for my book. It was very quiet in the early morning and, as the sun rose, it did little against the thick wool blanket of clouds overhead. I continued to shoot the house and marveled at how a house this massive and historically important could just be left in the middle of the woods. There was a sign to the right of what had been the front entrance stating that the inside was off limits, and iron bars on the first floor doorways and windows, but other than that, there was nothing...and nobody around. Standing on the porch, under that granite portico, I also noticed that if I climbed over to the first story window from the porch, I could actually climb up through the window above the iron bars and drop into the interior of the house to explore.

Of course my curiosity got the better of me, and I climbed inside the house. It was tremendous to stand on the inside of the crumbling building and try to imagine what it was like, imagine the parties and grand gatherings of literary talent. Because the interior of the house was completely gutted, there was no way I could get up to the upper stories, but there was a stone staircase down to the basement, the dark basement.

Well, okay. I'm not going to say I wasn't scared at all, but I knew that was just plain silly. So, gripping my tripod like a baseball bat, I went down the stairs. And, I was right, there was nothing down there but what one visitor described as a "sinister labyrinth of arched corridors and dark rooms, their floors carpeted by a mulch of decaying leaves and squelching mud."

But, while I was down there, flashing my camera flash into corners not to take pictures, but to see what was there, I heard voices upstairs. Shit! I had left my camera bag and car keys just inside the front door in easy view. I immediately had visions of the local police hauling me off to jail for trespassing and having to call my publisher to spring me out. Or, perhaps worse, someone stealing my stuff and rental car. The voices were actually inside the house, so whoever it was either had the keys to the lock on the iron gate or had climbed through the window like I had.

I crept back up the stairs, again with my tripod in hand and peaked around the corner. Hmm. Nobody. The voices had gone. My stuff was there, untouched. Maybe the voices just sounded like they were in the house. I slipped back out the window and dropped back down to the grass below. I looked around the sides of the house -- still nobody. The group must have just come up to the front door, looked in the gate and then headed back down the path, disappearing before I got back upstairs. Whew, nothing to worry about.

I chuckled to myself and shouldered my camera bag to head back to my car. I guess I startle easily. Then, I noticed that my footprints in the wet grass were still the only ones leading up to Moore Hall. Nobody else had come this way.

The Story is in the Details

2008-10-22T09:01:00.000-07:00

One of the temptations I fight against when I photograph literary sites is to try to get everything into one shot. So I will stand across the street and try to get the house and surrounding trees, like this photograph of The Wayside in Concord, Massachusetts.

Both the Alcott family (think Louisa May Alcott and her eccentric educational reformer father, Bronson) and Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in the house. The leaves were at peak and it is an okay picture – but it is just a house. It doesn’t tell the story. The top floor addition was put on by Nathaniel Hawthorne – he called it his “Sky Tower.” He built it as a quiet writing retreat and put in a writing desk where he could pen his stories while standing. So, this picture is better for telling that story:

However, the best part of this trip was that I had contacted the house beforehand and spoke with the ranger in charge, Bob Derry, who agreed to not only give me a personalized tour, but allowed me to take photographs on the inside. So, I was able to get the picture I ended up including in the book:

Although this is not my favorite photograph, I’m happy with the sense of writer and place it gives. I think it tells the story of writer and place in a way that the first one does not. It gives a sense of intimacy.

Follow Me!

2008-10-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

Hey - Follow Me!

Okay, I'm hoping it will be much easier to get people to follow my blog than to get this group moving in any one direction. I've added the "follow me" widget to my blog (look right) so you can sign up and check out new content when I post it. And with exciting new posts on photography, literary destination, green building, book marketing and the values of the two-two lineup for second-grade soccer, you will want to stay informed every step of the way.

It's a Party! A Blogapalooza Even!

2008-10-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

My friend and fellow author, Angela Nickerson is hosting a blogapalooza party on October 29 at her blog:

http://aknickerson.blogspot.com/2008/10/blogapalooza-october-29.html

I will be slipping a few copies of my books into her goody bag for the party and contributing a strange trip of my own to the tale-telling. Put it on the calendar and stop on by.

Best Way to Plan a Best Weekend

2008-10-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

Make the most out of the clear, crisp fall weekends with a trip to Boston. Grab a copy of Walking Boston and get to Beantown for a true taste of fall. The trees at the Arnold Arboretum are near peak, the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway is getting ready to celebrate its opening, and the waters of the Charles River will soon be churning with thousands of oars of crew teams from around the world.

If you go, take a look at this website, Jim Flynn’s Best Weekends. It’s a compendium of great tips and insider information for prime places to get away for the weekend all along the Eastern Seaboard. If you just want to hand the planning off to someone else, Best Weekends will find and book the perfect hotel, make reservations at the right restaurant, and snag those theater tickets you’ve been wanting. So, with perfect walking weather and the fall leaves providing the show, get online to Best Weekends, and then get out on the streets.

How to Photograph Literary Landmarks - The Old Manse

2008-09-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

Photographing The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts

As I began working on A Journey into the Transcendentalists’ New England, I read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s book, Nature. He wrote it while living at the Old Manse, and the book serves as one of the foundations of Transcendentalism. Here is a key passage from the beginning of Nature:

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- a mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.
For me, this became a central tenet to my photography. Try to become Emerson’s “transparent eye-ball” and see “all.” This was particularly difficult on Boston’s Common during rush hour, but not so much at the Old Manse.

In Nature, Emerson writes of the importance of escaping not just from the society but also from one’s “chamber.” To that end, I wanted to capture a sense of the chamber in which Emerson wrote. Unfortunately, at the Manse (as at many literary landmarks), you need special permission requiring an application and a fee to shoot photographs for publication from the inside, so I set up this shot of the outside.

At the Old manse in Concord, the noises of the outside world fade away to be replaced with the sounds of place: the rustling of leaves, voices drifting across the yard, the occasional splash from the river, and, if you listen very carefully, echoes from the past. Of all the historical sites I’ve visited and photographed, the Old Manse is one where the past always feels close, so it was not at all surprising to find this colonial soldier guarding the bridge (actually, just a costumed volunteer).

How to Photograph Literary Landmarks

2008-09-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

Photographing Literary Landmarks

One of my favorite parts of the three books I have done in the past four years is doing the photography. I have had the great fortune to photograph the Alcott’s Fruitlands farmhouse at sunrise on a cold January morning, William Butler Yeats’ Galway tower in the sunshine, Emily Dickinson’s bedroom, and Earnest Hemingway’s Cuban house. Each of these places presents a new challenge and offers new insights into the connections between literature and place. In the following series, I will explore some of the strategies I’ve used to create the photographs that accompany my books. I welcome your additional comments and suggestions.

Read Into It
All too many visitors have very little understanding of what was written at the literary landmark they’re at. Not to sound too much like a school teacher, but a little knowledge here can go a long way. While you may not be a scholar in the poetry of William Butler Yeats, you will want to know enough to realize that much of Yeats’ poetry is about the magic and mysticism found in nature. For example, while looking for the beach Yeats wrote about in “The Song of the Wandering Aengus,” these two swans who magically appeared as the sun broke out for the first time that day served quite well as symbols of what Yeats accomplished in verse.

Along the same lines, I had studied Yeats’ poem, “The Wild Swans at Coole,” numerous times and when my tour of Coole Park in Galway lead down to the water, I was thrilled to catch this view of the swans:

They only appear seasonally at the lakeside, so it was fortunate for me. But you don’t have to rely on luck. At the Old Manse in Concord, I knew I wanted to capture the paths that led Emerson from his study out into the woods that inspired his book, Nature and so walked around until I found this shot:

I will discuss photographing The Old Manse in the next installment of Photographing Literary Landmarks.

A JOURNEY INTO IRELAND'S LITERARY REVIVAL

2007-07-30T16:04:00.000-07:00

A Journey into Ireland's Literary Revival

My second book with Roaring Forties Press is out. I'm thrilled with how good the layout is and am very thankful to everyone who worked on it. I am also gratified that it has gotten some good press so far. It was mentioned in Jan Gardner's Shelf Life column in the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/07/01/a_poet_remembered/.

I was also interviewd by Debra Lawless for the Cape Cod Chronicle in advance of a book event in Chatham. There is more information on book events at www.roaringfortiespress.com. I'm also having my website redesigned and will let you all know when it is up and live. The early drafts look really great.

In other news, my third column for Automotive Traveler is online now at www.automotivetraveler.com. I just submitted the fourth one, following John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, and am also working on some stuff for National Geographic Traveler, Backpacker, and Draft. Stay tuned.

Thank you all for reading,

Todd

Flower Bowl

2007-03-20T05:46:00.000-07:00

Taken with a Canon 10D at 1/90 at 5.6 with a focal length of 105.

Thoughts of Spring...

2007-03-12T06:57:00.000-07:00

Balboa Flower

Despite a great day of skiing yesterday, spring seems right around the corner today. This photo of a daisy is actually from Balboa Island in Orange County, CA It was taken with a Canon 10D with an exposure of 1/180 at F 6.7 with film speed setting of 100. The focal length was 105.

Rambling in Boston

2007-03-06T07:23:00.000-08:00

Walking Boston

I am halfway through the research for my walking guide to Boston for Wilderness Press and looking forward to spring and summer when it will be much more pleasant to do the "in the field" work. However, I've had a great time learning about Boston's history and culture. If you have any thoughts on great places (neighborhoods, parks, walk, cafes, museums) that I should include, please email me and let me know. I'd love to include other voices in this book.

Rainbow over the Liffey

2007-03-05T10:32:00.000-08:00

My A Journey into Ireland's Literary Revival (Roaring Forties Press) went off to the printer today with an early May publication date. You can preview it on Amazon.com or at www.roaringfortiespress.com. Stay tuned for information on book signings and events.

Dave Roderick's Blue Colonial

2006-12-04T09:49:00.000-08:00

In David Roderick’s debut poetry collection, Blue Colonial (The American Poetry Review), language is literally a tool for digging into a past that is both personal and historical. In the opening poem, “Excavation of the John Alden House,” Roderick hands us the letters of the alphabet and sends us into the dirt:

We needed an alphabet to get our grid laid out.
Then we tore grass from the site and found
a pike-head, a spoon, a key with a hollow shank.
Voices behind us chipped into the ground,

Throughout the collection, Roderick continues to unearth treasures buried in two different places. The first is the historical landscape of New England and specifically the area around Plymouth, Massachusetts (Roderick’s childhood home).

In poems like “William Bradford Drafting Of Plimoth Plantation,” “John Billington’s Conversion,” and “Priscilla Alden’s Sickness,” the past is made personal. In “William Bradford Drafting Of Plymouth Plantation,” we are brought into William Bradford’s house as he writes. Through carefully balanced detail, Roderick slowly invites us closer until we see “breath/stream from his nostrils,” and “his lips quivering/like the flame that lights his page./Because this is the way history/ was written back then.” History is not just written on the page, it is first lived and then hidden away in the dirt.

Roderick does not limit himself to the writers of history; he inhabits the concerns of the women as they set foot in Massachusetts for the first time, bringing the artifacts we will later uncover.

A line of goodwives climbing the dune’s spine.
They have baskets or children
in their arms, iron pots, spools.
They walk toward hornpout and otter fat,
Toward the gleam of a minted name
but above them the sky
is spoiled cream, clabber from the bottom of a pail.

These are not idle concerns; food, family, and legacy speak to us all.

As Roderick mines the other important theme of this collection, the past is personal:

If I become her son, which I will,
if I become her last line,
which I will, if I grow
into her visible grief,
which I will, I will
she can push me into mulch
around mongrel trees
or bury me in the beach-stone square.

Roderick, digging into the intersections between his childhood in Plymouth (growing up in the blue colonial house of the title poem) and the historical heritage of New England, sees “as a mole sees: diaphanous/ bird calls, sounds to guide his blindness.” Here in the darkness of his own past, Roderick returns to language in a series of three “self-portraits” to give shape to an experience not often encountered in poetry: that of baby in womb.

But it would be remiss to portray Blue Colonial as completely dark. Roderick, after all, paints himself as “the tickler’s son,” and his work often ripples with his trademark wry, quirky humor. “The Makers of the American Language” lists various men of the new world: “Shit shovelers./ Seed-sowing hands when the crabapple buds/ grew as big of as the balls of a bull.”

Whether in the sheer loveliness of many of the sounds (“Strangers. Saints. Blazers of sphagnum and sap”) or his honest childhood exploits in the title poem, “Blue Colonial,” (I was bored until I began rigging catastrophes”), Roderick’s poetry is always a joy to read. It is perhaps for these reasons the book was chosen as the APR/Honickman First Book winner. Or it may be why Robert Pinsky wrote the introduction. But for whatever reason you pick up Roderick’s language tools and begin digging, you will not be disappointed by what treasures lay down deep.

In Pursuit of Perfection

2006-11-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

Classical Pursuits: Beyond Tourism to Meaningful Travel

In researching my book on the Irish Literary Revival, I came across the itinerary for a trip to Ireland titled "Irish Literary Genius." It was with a program out of Toronto called Classical Pursuits. Although the timing didn't quite work out for me to go on that trip, I stored the information away for future investigation. Now, I'm intrigued. After a few conversations with founder Ann Kirkland, I see how Classical Pursuits is one of the leading programs in the growing movement in literary travel; the programs offered bring inquiring adults together to explore life's big questions in the context of the world's greatest wriers and artists.

Classical Pursuits founder Ann Kirkland

Kirkland's outfit essentially runs two programs: one brings much of the world's literature and culture to Toronto and the other brings travelers into the world to experience culture first hand. Toronto Pursuits is a six day immersion in the stuff you wish was part of the curriculum when you went to college: fear of colour in contemporary art, Egyptian novels, Iranian cinema, alongside the classics you wish you had payed more attention to: Shakespeare, Russian fiction, Moby Dick. Around a hundred, fifty people from all over flock to Toronto each summer for the engaging conversation and camaraderie.

The other arm of the program takes travelers to the places that make this art come alive. With literature and art-based trips to places like Mexico, Georgia, Italy, Spain and New Mexico (this year's destinations), Travel Pursuits aims to offer an experience that will last long after travelers return home, marrying high ideas with high adventure. Kirkland offers some half-dozen trips each year, fueling literary and artistic investigations worldwide.

As a writer of literary guidebooks, I find programs like Kirkland's Classical Pursuits (http://www.classicalpursuits.com/), and Francis McGovern's Literary Traveler(http://www.literarytraveler.com/) encouraging signs. People are starting to demand more from their travels and are looking for programs like these to help them engage their minds beyond what they find in their guidebooks.

Seven Gables Talk

2006-11-14T07:23:00.000-08:00

Book Talk at the House of the Seven Gables in Salem - October 6, 2006

I gave this talk at the annual meeting of the House of the Seven Gables in Salem on a spectacular fall day that began at daybreak at the Fruitlands Museum. It was a thrill for me.

Thank you for coming. I would like to begin by thanking Stan Burchfield and the House of the Seven Gables for having me here this evening. It is quite an honor to be speaking not just at the House of the Seven Gables, but at the annual meeting. I am also thrilled to be back in Salem on such a lovely day because the last time I was here, Salem was full of snow and bitterly cold.

At the risk of offending these very walls, I want to start tonight by talking about another venerable old house, the Old Manse in Concord. The Old Manse was home to Ralph Waldo Emerson from 1834 to 1835 and to Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne from 1842-1845.

When I started writing this book two years ago, I began with the Concord chapter first, because I knew that although many of the early public events of the Transcendentalist movement happened in Boston and Cambridge, much of the most dynamic and original thinking was done in Concord.

I also knew that I needed to understand Concord’s role in Transcendentalism in order to fully appreciate the movement’s relationship to New England – because this is really the driving force behind both this book and the ArtPlace series.

My book is the third title in Roaring Forties Press’s ArtPlace series. The series looks to examine the interaction between the landscape and geography of a place, and the art that is created there. Other subjects in the series include Dorothy Parker’s New York City, John Steinbeck’s California, and a really great one on the Irish Literary Revival (but more on that later).

For my part, this series was a dream come true. I have always been interested in how groups of writers interact and inspire each other. In my career as an English teacher and founding director of a writing center, I was particularly intrigued by groups of writers who drew inspiration from the community and the landscape around them. In addition, I developed a particular affection in college for Nathaniel Hawthorne, having studied many of his works in my courses.

So when the opportunity to do this book came up, I jumped at it and began to try a get a sense of what Transcendentalism truly meant.

One of the first definitions I found came from a minister named Father Taylor, who was a friend and colleague of the Transcendentalists. He defined Transcendentalism as “a seagull with long wings, lean body, poor feathers, and miserable meat.” Not very helpful.

Rebecca Harding Davis characterized its followers as “hordes of wild-eyed Harvard undergraduates and lean, underpaid working-women, each with a disease of the soul to be cured by the new healer.”

Even Hawthorne, got in on the act: “Never was a poor little country village infested with such a variety of queer, strangely-dressed, oddly-behaved mortals.”

It’s not surprising that when the British novelist Charles Dickens came to Boston and inquired about Transcendentalism, he was told that “whatever is unintelligible would certainly be transcendental.” Clearly, these answers were not going to help me, so I went to the Old Manse.

This house was home to Ralph Waldo Emerson from 1834 to 1835 and to Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne from 1842-1845.

While Emerson lived here with his mother, he wrote the book that quickly became one of the core documents of Transcendentalism: Nature, The book begins with this remarkable challenge:

The forgoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?

Then follows an Emersonian, and therefore Transcendentalist solution: go spend time in nature, and see what new ideas this brings.

Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us, by the powers they supply to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past?

It seems particularly telling that Emerson wrote these words, with their central metaphor of “the flood of life,” looking out at the river from the window of his study. As he states, however, “to go out into solitude [to achieve our ‘original relation’], a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.” Emerson made good on this premise by going out daily to walk the hills, forests, and meadows of his chosen town. He let neither the elements nor the demands of society keep him from his walks.

Emerson is also clear about the benefits of the move into nature:

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- a mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

It was in these passages from Nature that Transcendentalism first came alive for me, and I structured the book around what I view as Transcendentalism’s central quest: to forge an original relationship with the universe or, as Emerson puts it, to behold “God and nature face to face.”

So, what quickly became interesting to me was how this group of writers, philosophers, poets, activists and dreamers conducted their quests. Where did they go for that “face to face” interaction? How does one forge one’s own unique relationship with the universe?

For Hawthorne, one way is to work in the garden. The garden at the Old Manse is a replica of the one planted by Henry David Thoreau for the Hawthornes as a wedding present. Hawthorne absolutely loved it.

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation.

It was truly a present that kept on giving. And it seems wonderfully appropriate that this replica garden continues to give. It was planted by the non-profit group Gaining Ground who uses the “vegetable progeny” to feed the hungry and less-fortunate of Boston.

And Hawthorne did not limit himself to the garden. In the introduction to his collection of short-pieces called Mosses from an Old Manse, Hawthorne rhapsodizes about the Concord River, calling it “the river of peace and quietness.”

(I was also gratified to read that Hawthorne lived there for three weeks before he could tell which way the current flows because I thought for the longest time that the river flowed in the opposite direction.)

Much of Hawthorne’s introduction to the Old Manse, as well as his journals from the time, is filled with these wonderful descriptions of natural splendor: the orchards, the fields, and breezes that blow through them. These passages are especially powerful when contrasted against his descriptions of the “dead books” and “dreary trash” he finds in the attic library of the Manse.

Hawthorne also reserved great praise for his study: “there was in the rear of the house the most delightful little nook of a study that was ever afforded its snug seclusion to a scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature.”

And, while Hawthorne certainly poked fun at the Transcendentalists and never thought of himself as belonging to any movement, many of the central tenets of Transcendentalism (awareness of the creative and imaginative power of nature, the breaking away from form and tradition, and the emphasis on individual experience) can be see in stories like “Young Goodman Brown” and novels such as The Scarlet Letter.

In the opening essay of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne addresses the ennui he feels as a government employee, directly contrasting it against what he feels in nature:

It was not merely during the three hours and a half which Uncle Sam claimed as his share of my daily life, that this wretched numbness held possession of me. It went with me on my sea-shore walks, and rambles into the country, whenever – which was seldom and reluctantly – I bestirred myself to seek that invigorating charm of Nature.

It is these passages, and many more like them scattered throughout Hawthorne’s works, along with his close connections to major Transcendentalist figures like Henry David Thoreau, Elizabeth Peabody, and Charles Ripley, that allowed me to include him in this book.

But he was not the only one in Salem with Transcendentalists leanings. Certainly, there was Elizabeth Peabody, whose contributions to the movement have for so long gone unsung. But her story has recently been wonderfully told in Megan Marshall’s The Peabody Sisters, so hopefully she will get her due as one of the leading forces of not just the Transcendentalist movement, but American culture of the nineteenth century.

I also want to take a moment to talk about the Salem poet, Jones Very. Jones Very grew up, like Hawthorne, in Salem and went off to Harvard in the mid-1830’s. By 1838, he had come to the attention of Emerson, who had brought him to Concord to lecture in April of 1838.

By this time, Very had graduated from Harvard but stayed on as a Greek tutor and divinity student. During the summer of 1838, he began an essay on Shakespeare. At the same time, he was attempting to completely erase his identity in order to be an empty vessel for God’s light.

These two projects proved too much for him: the twenty-five year-old poet and scholar began to develop a reputation among the young undergraduates of Harvard for a madness that culminated in telling his student to “flee to the mountains, for the end of all things is at hand” and storming Professor Henry Ware Jr.’s rooms, asserting he was the second coming of Christ. When Ware questioned him, Very responded, “I had thought you did the will of the Father, and that I should receive some sympathy from you – But I now find that you are doing your own will, and not the will of your father.”

Not surprisingly, Harvard quickly let him go, and Very returned to Salem under the care of his younger brother, then a freshman at Harvard.

Although Very continued to channel God’s light and was given a month’s sojourn at the McLean Hospital in Cambridge for it, he remained relatively harmless and eventually lived out his life serving as a supply preacher.

But forging one’s own unique relation with the universe was not necessarily a solo adventure. You could go to Elizabeth Peabody’s bookstore on West Street to develop forge that relationship, particularly if you were coming to attend one of Margaret Fuller’s discussion groups or join the groups bandying about ideas for social reform.

Or you could go, as Nathaniel Hawthorne did, to Brook Farm and join their utopian community. Or join Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands community just west of here in Harvard, Massachusetts.

Perhaps the most well known method to forge an original relationship to the universe was to move to Walden Pond and attempt to “front only the essential facts of life” as Thoreau did from 1845 to 1847.

His experiment in living the Transcendentalist quest, along with the record of it we know as Walden, has had perhaps the greatest impact of any of the Transcendentalist writings.

It is regularly quoted as the defining text for a wide variety of philosophical movements and radical thinkers. His words are regularly used for everything from yoga websites to articles on new technology.

But my favorite story of Thoreau’s influence is about a shy, lanky Irish boy whose father read Walden to him in the mornings before he trundled off to school. On summer vacation in the west of Ireland, this same boy then dreamed about moving to an island in the middle of a lake and living like Thoreau.

He even picked out the perfect island and spent a night reconnoitering it. As it turned out, the boy never lived out his dream, but he did write a poem about the island. The poem is called “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and the boy is the Nobel Prize winning writer William Butler Yeats.

I tell that story, and more, in my next Roaring Forties Press book due out in February, A Journey into Ireland’s Literary Revival. See I told you I would come back to that.

Blatant self-promotion aside, this story speaks to one of the things that surprised me the most about Transcendentalism: the influence and interconnections between people. For example, just among the major Transcendentalist figures: Hawthorne met Elizabeth Peabody here in Salem, who had also worked for the Transcendentalist educator and philosopher Bronson Alcott, as did critic and writer Margaret Fuller. Bronson Alcott lived in Concord and was close friends with both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau was invited and came very close to living at Brook Farm where Hawthorne was before he married Elizabeth Peabody’s younger sister Sophia in a ceremony at Elizabeth Peabody’s West Street Bookstore, where Brook Farm was first dreamed up. And the Transcendentalist journal The Dial was published. By Margaret Fuller. And Emerson. It’s dizzying.

The other thing this book taught me was how human these philosophers were. As someone who grew up in California, and only studied the Transcendentalists from afar, I had the vision of these writers as a series of lofty and forbidding men with serious foreheads and Transcendent thoughts. They may be that, but they were also human.

One of my favorite Hawthorne stories is about his tendency to get caught up in the moment and forget the practical details of life: While planning his wedding, Hawthorne wrote to James Freeman Clarke, a liberal Unitarian minister to ask him, (a man he’d never met), if he would perform the ceremony.

Both Nathaniel and Sophia had read his sermons and valued his ideas and philosophy. Unfortunately, Hawthorne neglected to include any details about the wedding in the letter. He also forgot to add a return address or way to get in contact.

So the good minister, well-acquainted with Elizabeth Peabody’s bookstore, was able to do some investigative work and be at the wedding on time. I love this story because it is totally something I would do.

Another favorite story is about how, when the Hawthornes lived at the Old Manse, the river behind the house froze over and Emerson and Thoreau stopped by for a skate with Hawthorne. Think of it, three of America’s most important writers skating in the backyard like a bunch of schoolboys.

These are the stories that make both the literature and the place come alive for me. I would guess many of you feel the same and that idea underlies your commitment to this place.

So, as I leave you to your own quests, I urge you to walk with Thoreau and Emerson, garden with Hawthorne and Dickinson, I urge you to dream your own utopian communities like Bronson Alcott and Charles Ripley. And read. As Thoreau reminds us:

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

I hope you enjoy this journey and read it as deliberately and reservedly as the spirit in which it was written. Thank you all very much for your wonderful attention. I will take some questions if you have some.

Wait...what happened?

2006-11-12T17:36:00.000-08:00

We were still high-fiving and carrying on when I happened to look back at the screen to see Brian Ching rise well above Jay Heaps and essentially put the Revs away. Yes, I know he just tied the score to put the game into a shoot-out. Yes, I know that should have been to the Revs' advantage with Matt Reis on fire. But I knew at that moment, still hugging my eight-year old boy while celebrating Twellman's goal that it was over. There was just something so final about it.

Damn, and the Revs played well. With the exception of the first fifteen minutes, the Revs took the game to the Dynamo. They took away Mullan and Davis, and DeRosario could only blast away from the outside. They slotted in a few crosses and looked dangerous from time to time. But the Dynamo go home winners because they simply did not give up.

To their credit, the Dynamo played a great game as well. Their backline positioning was excellent, their midfield did their best to harry the New England central midfielders, and Onstand was, quite literally, golden. And when push came to shove, they converted.

Although disappointed by the result, I was not disappointed by the game. Both teams played a wide open game for the most part, and guys like Jay Heaps were still making forty-yard sprints in the waning moments. Although he figures twice in the loss, nobody can heap the blame on Jay. He was a credit to the team. Elsewhere, Parkhurst, Joseph, Reis, Noonan (who also missed), and Smith played outstanding games. I hope for Dempsey's sake that he gets to see some European playing time and the same goes for Joseph. For my part, I'd love to see the Revs come back for one more shot.

A Promising Start...only

2006-11-06T05:50:00.000-08:00

Snowfall in the cornfields of the Pioneer Valley

The evening started off beautifully: the kids were settled nicely in with a babysitter, we arrived at the restaurant right on time, and the wine was an excellent choice. The menu looked enticing, and we ordered quickly, anticipating a delicious meal before going to a friend's poetry reading at Amherst Books. Unfortunately, the meal never measured up to our expectations. It wasn't that the food wasn't delicious; it just...wasn't anything. In the hour and a half we enjoyed each other's company and that great wine, there was no food to be found. No bread, no salad, no bar nuts, no food. With only ten minutes left before the reading, we paid for our wine and hightailed it over to Antonio's pizza, who were able to serve up our food before we had even decided on a table.

In contrast, the poet Dave Roderick reading from his new collection of poetry, Blue Colonial, was a satisfying as anything on the menu of a friday night. Dave returned to the valley where he earned his MFA after a two-year teaching stint at WMA, and his ease in front of this "home crowd" was noticeable. He told stories, thanked members of the audience for their roles in his development as a poet, and explained his poetry with a disarming honesty and humility. As for the poetry itself, it was clear that this is a voice in American poetry to pay attention to. Roderick effortlessly weaves in historical themes with a more personal and introspective voice. His imagery is rich and textured, filled with the naming of specific objects and striking juxtapositions. I look forward to exploring the poems in greater detail and will report later.

A Top Ten of Yeats Poems

2006-11-03T05:40:00.000-08:00

The Mountain Ben Bulben in County Sligo

Recently, after some discussion of highly touted lists of the most important novels in America over the last twenty-five years or the most important Irish writers over the last one hundred years, I posed a challenge to the Yeats discussion group to see what they felt were the ten most important (a difficult distinction) poems of Yeats. Their answers were excellent and demonstrated both the depth of their knowledge and the eclecticism of their approaches. So, here is my take on Yeats' ten most important poems. My list is more biographical than some, and certainly leaves out some very important and very good poems. But it was an interesting exercise.

“The Stolen Child” – for its tour of the magical places of Sligo that inspired him
“Cuchulain’s Fight with the Sea” – for the Cuchulain theme
“Adam’s Curse” – for Maude Gonne and his view on art
“The Wild Swans at Coole” – for his relationship to Coole and to beauty
“Easter, 1916” – for his relationship to politics
“The Tower” – for his thoughts on aging, legacy, and connection for place
“Words for Music Perhaps” – for its use of oppositional forces
“The Municipal Gallery Re-visited” – for his nostalgia
“Cuchulain Comforted” – for his return to the theme
“The Circus Animals Desertion” – for some of his last words on art

Our Annual Treading of the Path Less Taken

2006-11-02T06:37:00.000-08:00

It started off just as most of our annual backpacking trips start. We ranged from fifteen minutes to two hours late in leaving, the trail head was not were it was supposed to be, the town where we were all going to meet was pitched into darkness by sixty mile an hour winds and driving rains. After a fiftful night of sleep in the cars, we headed off into the mountains among the now swirling snow.

In spite of all that (or, more likely because of all that), we had a great trip -- one of the best we've had in the ten years we've done this. At the risk of sounding like a gear snob, having the right goretex outside and breathable fabrics inside made all the difference. To start, we climbed up Styles Peak in southern Vermont, across the ridge to Peru Peak, and then down to Griffith Lake for lunch. After lunch we pressed on to Baker Peak and then down to the Big Branch shelter for the night. The next day's hike was a realitively easy (and infinitely more pleasant without the heavy winds and snow) trek across to Lost Pond and then up White Rocks before descending to the Greenwall shelter. We spent the night there before hiking out the next morning.

The thing that made this such an amazing trip was the variety. We had everything from snow and forty mile an hour winds to warm sunshine. We hiked through evergreen forests, birch forests, scrub pines, along rushing rivers, across small brooks, and around still mountain lakes. We scrambled up granite peaks and strode along wide forest paths. Sometimes we ran into a number of people (mostly through-hikers), and other times we felt we were completely alone in the wilderness. Every turn brought some new thing for us to experience. Most memorable was descending from White Rocks towards Greenwall and coming across a place in the woods where someone (or many people) carefully balanced rocks in mini sculptures around the trail. The bright white rock formations against the cool evergreen forest was truly surreal.

However, it's difficult to explain all this to people when we get back. They hear snow and cold winds and think it must have been miserable. And it does sound miserable. But when we were out there, being anywhere else seemed like a poor substitute for being in the woods.

A Rare Rant

2006-11-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

This will be a brief and rare rant for me, but I need to get it out of the way. Organized sports for our children is way too...organized. Kids playing in leagues below high school age do not need silk uniforms. They do not need their names on the back of their jerseys. They do not need matching duffels with the team name on it or large flags waving over the field. Ten year old football players do not need eight year old cheerleaders in miniskirts and makeup cheering them on. Coaches do not need matching uniforms.

When I coach my sons' soccer games, I love having a third of the group wandering either in mind or body off the field. I love the kids who run like crazy only to miss the ball completely. I love the parents who cheer for both teams and for pretty much anything. I love coaches who do as much laughing and smiling as yelling.

I've read recently that American soccer has become way too structured, that kids are not learning the creativity and flow of play that comes from playing pickup games wherever there is a flat space and a round object. I wonder what it is about American culture that seems to be forcing our adults to live vicariously through our children, forcing them to live out dreams we never followed through on.

A Journey Into Ireland's Literary Revival - my next book

2006-10-17T05:42:00.000-07:00

The Path to Coole Park -- Galway, Ireland

Three of the four Irish writers who have won the Nobel Prize for Literature have walked up this path and these stairs to visit the Coole Mansion belonging to Lady Augusta Gregory. She lived here for the better part of fifty years, hosting such literary greats as George Bernard Shaw, John Millington Synge, and her closest literary friend, William Butler Yeats. The place continues to be an inspiration to writers and artists from around the world, including the poet Seamus Heaney, who won the Nobel for his poetry in 1995.

I profile Coole Park and much more in my next book, A Journey Into Ireland's Literary Revival, due out in February. This book was tremendously fun to write and research. The turn-of-the-century Irish writers who made up the Revival were an interesting and colorful group, full of great stories of encounters with spirits and British gunmen and rioting theater patrons. Ireland, to boot, is a country full of energy and new money flowing in, mixed with truly breathtaking scenery and dramatic natural features. Whether you go for the literary landscape or the pints, it is well worth the trip.

Deborah Noyes - Angel and Apostle

2006-10-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

It seem to make sense that my first real post should be words in praise of another author. I've just finished Angel and Apostle by Deborah Noyes (from Unbridled Books, http://www.unbridledbooks.com/page/angel-and-apostle). In this "re-imagining" of the end of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Noyes introduces to the Pearl we wish was in The Scarlet Letter. The narrative follows Pearl's life in the woods outside of Boston, to her removal to England, to her eventual marriage and return to America. Throughout the novel, Pearl's voice rings true, and Noyes is at her best setting up the relationship between the stubborn and independent Pearl and the pathetically dependent Simon, a blind boy she meets in the forest. Pearl's relationship is also as tightly strung as a guitar and resonates with just as much music.

I appeared at an event recently with Deborah Noyes at the Old Manse in Concord (http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/346_old_manse.cfm), and was very impressed with her approach to writing knowledge of seventeenth century life. She is an author worth keeping track of; she is planning another historical novel.

First Post

2006-10-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

The wind whips across the top of the cornice, making my ski pants crackle and snap. Although down at lodge level, people are out in their short sleeves soaking up the early spring sun, up here on this ridge, I am shivering. Maybe its the cold wind or maybe its the fact that I can see the bottom of the run between my skis, right about where my toes end. The rest of my skis jut out over the edge. The run is called Idiot's Delight, and the reason I am up here is to give my father his sixtieth birthday present. I take a deep breath, say "Happy Birthday Dad," and push off into thin air...

2006-10-13T19:22:00.000-07:00

This is me.

The photo is by a great photographer, Betsy Archer (http://www.betsyarcher.com/), and I use it for book jackets