I finished a piece of a project today. Details will follow, but in the meantime I am once again cleaning my office. This is a dreaded occurrence that doesn’t occur often enough. I moved everything away from one wall. Well, except for the filing cabinets. What I found was beyond killer dust bunnies. It was like calling in a nuclear strike of cat hair, eraser crumbs, my hair, dust, and stuff I can’t identify. I’d send it to the chem or bio department at Wesleyan, but I’m afraid the hazmat people would be paying a visit. On the other hand, they might discover a new life form that we could patent and make a bunch of money.

Among the surprises: photos of people I can’t identify, dividers for a file cabinet I no longer own, a package I was supposed to mail last year, an unbelievable number of file folders, mailing envelopes, packages of staples (yes, from THAT STORE), and enough scrap paper to supply the U.S. Army for a year.

Also back issues of New Yorkers to December 2011 and of Connecticut Magazine to 2009 (?!). Those will stop this year as they come with a donation to CPTV. I will not be giving money this year. I don’t watch it or any other TV station and donated because of the UConn Women Huskies. Those games will now be on some obscure digital channel which a great number of UConn fans won’t be able to watch. I know it’s all about the money, but the total lack of loyalty is dismaying. And I did not appreciate Geno’s spin that it would be “better” for fans.

Next week’s entries may be spotty as I’ll be cleaning and have an alarming number of meetings and other obligations.

The Murdoch family’s hacking scandal is going into a silent period in Britain because of the laws over there. We’ll probably hear more on “this side of the Pond.” In the meantime here is a wrap-up of recent action.

• Terry Gross has a good overview and history up to the end of March with “Murdoch’s Scandal.”
•  A few days later the Guardian reported that James was giving up his leadership position at the television network BSkyB, which Rupert wanted to own all by himself.
• The Guardian also reported that BSkyB’s subsidiary Sky News admitted hacking into emails but claimed that it was a “public service.” So it’s OK to commit a crime if you are investigating a crime.
• The problems mounted. Poynter announced that the venerable Times of London stood accused of hacking as well.
• The Guardian weighed in again. I was going to headline this exchange “James is a ijiet.” (Translation: James Murdoch is a bloomin’ idiot.) He basically admitted that he was either a crook or an incompetent.
• The same day, Slate reported that the politicians who were not in Rupert’s pocket seem to be prevailing, at least for the moment. Bloomberg seconded that emotion and provided good details on News Corp’s reign of terror.
• There was a brief hiatus and then the Guardian reported that a committee investigation had found Rupert “not fit to lead a major international company.”
• The NYTimes’  David Carr analyzes News Corp board’s immediate response: an expression of “full confidence” in its leader. The Times’s timeline online is much better than the wimpy text version that appeared in the print version on May 13.
• The latest act involves the Lady Macbeth of this tragedy. Well, maybe she’s not urging Rupert to kill anyone, but she’s certainly up to her elbows in conspiracy. Rebekah Brooks testified and then she was busted. Britain does not permit pretrial publicity, so everything will be on lockdown. Stay tuned …

The challenge from the writers workshop is: What books would you want if you were stranded on a desert island and why? I think we said three, but we didn’t specify whether we could do “collected works.” So if I could take three collected works, I’d take all of my mother’s adult fiction: The Street, Country Place, The Narrows, and Miss Muriel and Other Stories. She covers such a range of human experience: city and country and suburb, black and white, humor and pathos, passion and nurturing. Each time I pick up one of her novels or stories I hear her voice, and I would certainly want her with me. If I can’t have her in person, then I’ll take her words on the page.

I’d also take the collected works of William Shakespeare. I’ve not read all of the plays and know little of the poetry (except for “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”), so I figure all this good lit would keep me occupied and learning for years. I most definitely want to reread Hamlet, Lear, Twelfth Night, and Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’d be able to re-create in my mind Patrick Stewart’s fabulous performances in Macbeth and The Tempest.

And I’d take the Bible, not as much for religious purposes but as a source of fabulous stories and literature. We’ve got fratricide, bigamy, rape, epic battles, and hallucinations. Plus there are glorious songs and depictions of beautiful (and ugly) rituals. Those items are just off the top my head, and I’ve read very little of the actual text.

If the rules are that I can only take three books, then the selections change. I’d still carry The Narrows because of its great sweep of emotions and absolute genius study of human nature. It’s the best of my mom’s books in my non-expert opinion.

I’d also take Jane Austen’s Emma, though I might change my mind at the last minute and substitute Persuasion (“What I’m Reading Now”). Emma is less mature, and Anne Elliot is becoming more appealing. Either way, I’d get a terrific dose of Austen wit and some truly memorable, and in some cases execrable, secondary characters.

To these I would add Herman Hesse’s Magister Ludi, also known as The Glass Bead Game. I read this work when I was in college and only understood about half of it, which I’ve since forgotten. But I remember that it fascinated me. On the island I would have plenty of time to re-read and figure out the math-music conundrum.

The writers also talked about what three objects we would bring, not just books. That’s easy: a wireless connection, electricity, and a smart phone. Then I would have  access to pretty much all the good literature, at least up to 1923. Eventually I suppose I’d call for help, too.

People repeatedly asked my mother, “Where do you get your ideas?” I answered that question in part in At Home Inside: A Daughter’s Tribute to Ann Petry: newspapers, her own personal experiences, family members (especially the Lanes), friends, neighbors, books, books, and more books.

People ask me about sources – not for me but for themselves. I always say “Look around you.” Walk around the grocery store, not to shop but to people watch and to eavesdrop on conversations. The personal exchange is great, but cell phones have expanded the opportunities. “No, no, you’re not listening. I’m in the cooking aisle. It’s not there! Oh, wait a minute…” “Do you want baked potato chips or regular?” “How many people are coming to the barbecue?” And so forth.

New experiences are of course the best opportunity. I recently had occasion to re-read my Twain Twichell blog entries. The first post was far longer than the subsequent ones, just because so much appeared wonderful and fresh. Even the parts of Hartford that I had seen before came through with a distinct clarity because I was walking and not dodging potholes and watching for red lights.

So here are sources that may turn into blog entries, or good short stories if I ever decide to write fiction. Feel free to adopt them.

• How much our ancestors really influence us.
• Why some people are so afraid of gay marriage.
• What other people are blogging about.
• Various news sources, most especially NYTimes, NPR, New Yorker, Poynter, the BBC, and less frequently Slate.
• As mentioned above, people watching in the grocery store or another busy venue. The local coffee shop was great fodder during our two power outages as it was filled with people who normally don’t visit.
• Gazing out the window of my study.
• Whatever book I’m reading.
• My occasional visits to the nail salon. And yes, men do go. Anyone with circulation problems will benefit.
• Local politics, up to the level of dog catcher. Anything higher is far too exhausting.
• Weekly visits to volunteer at the hospital.

As a belated honor to Mother’s Day, I’d like to pay tribute to a friend of my mother’s who died in March at the age 104. Ruth Cornelia Johnson Davis was a “courtesy aunt,” whom my parents had met in their days in New York. She was a pioneer: She became a registered nurse and was head nurse for surgery at a Manhattan hospital. I remember her as a wonderful caring person who stepped in on occasion when Mother had one or another of her medical crises.

We corresponded after Mother died, and I visited Aunt Ruth in Atlantic City about ten years ago. She was still living by herself, watching out for “old people,” most of whom were younger than she. She walked daily around the beautiful marina near her home and took excursions to the casino, dressed in her Phillies baseball cap, a warm-up suit, and running shoes. She impressed me with her energy and sensible approach to her health. She had arthritis but didn’t trust the new medicine her doctor wanted to prescribe. Sure enough, about six months later complaints led to the withdrawal of the drug. I’m modeling her and take only vitamins, a daily low-dose aspirin, and the odd ibuprofren if the stiffness gets too bad.

The last time I saw her, Aunt Ruth gave me two gorgeous carved African statues, which I have cherished since.

She told me that she was growing forgetful and her family was growing concerned. We corresponded briefly after she entered a nursing home. I sent her a copy of At Home Inside. I wrote once or twice again and never heard from her. I had no idea she was still alive until just a couple of months ago. I’m not sure how long the link will be up, but this obituary captures her life, if not the essence of the woman.

RIP, Aunt Ruth. Thank you for being my mother’s friend and an inspiration to me.

I have a couple of major projects on the horizon and decided to clean my desk as a way to maybe improve my efficiency. Here’s what I found:

• list of people to email/write
• pile of cards and letters that need an answer
• $1.70 in change
• miscellaneous clippings
• miscellaneous notes
• seven Post-It notes three of which make no sense
• notes for my current writing project
• one-hundred page manuscript from one of the men in the veterans’ writing project complete with index
• name and phone number for a friend
• on the same page a note on mindfulness practice
• a folder of writings from the veterans’ workshop
• neatly folded clean paper towel
• more notes from my writing project
• cell phone
• letter from my web host advertising free stuff that I can’t use
• tissues
• two rewards cards that I don’t use
• an expired membership card.
• unopened mail
• card for a shopping party that I missed
• card that has URL for my neighbor’s blog
• sixteen pens and pencils
• folder of stuff for my current writing project
• piles of scrap paper, some of it partially used
• email address and URL for a woman I met at a Super Bowl party,
• more unopened mail
• New Yorker from May 14
• paperwork from a Godfrey board meeting
• sales slip from the local health food store
• notes about house repairs
• notes about a meeting
• notes on copyright
• flash drive still in the package
• clipping on improving productivity (Ha!)
• October 31 New Yorker opened to an article about poet Tomas Tranströmer
• another sales slip from the local health food store
• information about replacement plan for the flash drive
• notes on what to do to really clean up the computer
• rules for playing Exquisite Corpse
• invitation to a baby shower for which I have to buy a present
• pad of Post-It notes.

I’m in full bore mode – to be explained later, so here’s an update on “You Might Live in New England.” NE Mamas seem to have stopped blogging, but the link to Jeff Foxworthy’s  take on us “damn Yankees” lives on. Also available at HBingham.

Here are a few additions that I have compiled during the past year.

• You know you live in New England if you’re running in shorts one day and the next day your exercise is shoveling eight to ten inches of snow from the driveway.
• You’ve been through two major power outages (five days each) in the space of two months, one caused by a tropical storm, the other by a blizzard.
• You were taught as a child that people didn’t enter and leave by the front door – it was only for coffins.
• You know even more people who’ve hit a deer more than once.
• Foxworthy has 10 degrees as “a little chilly.” Others call it “a bit brisk.”
• One word: thundersnow.

These obituaries are becoming much too frequent even if the last one was a year and a half ago.

Rex Huppke decided that Facts died on April 18. As I indicated in “The Death of English,” I think the death occurred years before and that the corpse has been maintained on life support.

Huppke cited a Florida Republican’s assertion that up to eighty-one Democrats in the House of Representatives are Communists. This statement surprised the actual Communists, who didn’t realize they had congressmen in their midst. And of course it turned out not to be true. All that sturm und drang is great, but did the head-blind statement really represent the death blow to Facts?

Huppke cites a number of “setbacks” that I believe “in fact” killed the poor beleaguered soul. In my opinion (and it is an opinion and not a fact) Presidents Clinton and W. Bush delivered the last blows. (“I did not have sex with that woman”; “weapons of mass destruction,” followed by “Mission Accomplished.”) If their lies didn’t kill Facts then the entire GOP primary season contained so many “misstatements” that Facts could not possibly have survived.

N.B.: I’m also not sure how Professor Mary Poovey came to choose Aristotle as Facts’ “parent” and to pick a birth date of 360 B.C. Does she (or Huppke) mean that before then people didn’t have “shared assumptions” or “universal principles that everybody agrees on”? Was everyone just running around asking, “Is the sky blue” and not getting an answer? Did no one notice and state that water flows down hill? With the death of Facts, I’m sure we probably don’t have blue skies and gravity any more, but most people haven’t noticed.

As for Professor Gary Alan Fine, I’m sorry that he is in a state of denial. He believes that Facts is still alive and that there are “in fact” too many of him/her/it. I think Fine is confusing opinions with facts.

Huppke received a great deal of publicity for his obituary, and a great many comments. My favorite reads in part (Errors in the original, but with the Death of English, they are no longer errors) “Obama is a Kenyan terrorist sent by the devil to kill corporate America and enslave the rich white people to his ways; Mitt Romney wants to kill gays, rape women and put blacks in their own separate and inequal society. Republicans hate minority opinion, Democrats hate commercial success.

“Oh, and God is really a transvestite with three nipples, a girlfriend named Durga, 378 baby mamas from the middle east with the last name “Mohammed”, and a husband name Joseph Smith.”

O-o-o K. After that diatribe, I have just one question. What do we call things that we previously designated as facts?

After weeks of walking up hill and down in preparation for the Twain Twichell walk, I decided to resume running today. Less than a quarter-mile from the house my eyes started to itch and tear and I started to cough. The wind was blowing about 15 miles an hour in my face and all the pollen came blasting into my face. It added to the dust being kicked up by the street-digging crews who have been wandering up and down the side streets around the neighborhood for something like two weeks now.

So there I was barely able to see, barely able to breathe. So much for returning instantly to a quick two miles. And so much for doing much reading and writing for this blog. I’m off to soak the contact lenses and take a dose of Benadryl.

More tomorrow.

Once again a band of enthusiasts ventured over the river (Park) and through the woods (Talcott Mountain State Park and assorted nearby woodlands) for the annual Twain Twichell walk. (See “Walk Extras” and “Twain Twichell Walk“). Even though I’ve done this walk four years in a row, new encounters make this an ever-new experience.

This year, Steve Courtney, who organizes the walk and has written the excellent biography Joseph Hopkins Twichell, drew our attention to a house on Woodland Street that once belonged to Mark Twain’s lawyer. It is gloriously Victorian and also for sale, though I couldn’t find it on Zillow.com.

We made unusually good time as the weather stayed cool – the sun came out just as we were getting into the car to return home. Once again we were fortunate that it only sprinkled on the first part of the walk – just enough to make my hair look like I’d stuck my finger in a socket. The skies waited to open up until we were under cover at Auer Farm during the lunch break. As we worked our way up the driveway, a gaggle of alpacas, properly a herd, as “gaggle” refers only to geese, appeared in the pasture normally occupied by cows. Since the cows were in the pasture that we traverse when we leave, we walked around, through a field of wild turkeys, which were running around loose. They make me nervous because my one encounter with them several years ago when I was biking on the Shoreline made me realize how mean they are. I responded by doing what cyclists do with infuriated dogs – get off the bike and put it between yourself and the dog/turkey. These beasts all kept their distance, and our group walked past without incident.

During our lunch break Steve read from several works. Twain’s commentaries, even the cynical and somewhat mean, always make me laugh. It is our shared journalist background, I like to believe. The most moving were from The Civil War Letters of Joseph Hopkins Twichell. Twichell witnessed the conversion of a group of Irish draftees from New York, who began their service as slavery-favoring Democrats but changed their minds when a group of Maryland hunters chased some kidnapped black men into the camp and tried to snatch back their “property.” The staunch abolitionist Twichell recreated this transformation without Twain’s snide comments but with utter compassion for the runaways and respect for the troops who changed their minds.

Then it was back on the road. Once we hit the Metacomet Trail, we crossed paths with two little beasties that I called salamanders but learned were properly newts or efts. These little red fellows were sure a whole lot cuter than the Newt in the news. At about three inches long they stood out in rather alarming fashion against the gray rocks and green shrubbery. Here’s a picture of their New Hampshire cousin.

The visibility did not allow for great viewing as the clouds hovered over the Farmington Valley and obscured New York, New Hampshire, Long Island Sound and so forth. The only casualties along the way were our shoes, socks, and the last six inches of our pants legs. The bog-muddy trail was covered in many places by downed trees and rocks that had washed down in the various storms. It’s a pity the state lacks the money to groom the trails. Perhaps one of the various hiking clubs in the area could be prevailed upon to contribute labor.