Sunday Serenity #168

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Dreaming of naps. Only dreaming. Awake but dreaming. I think this kitty nabbed my nap.

Almost forgot to do today's post. Was working on the Book Drum project right up until the deadline. I finally populated the sixth section at 10:40PM which qualified me for consideration in the Tournament. Then I started putting bookmarks into the still empty 24 page sections, copy/pasting from my notes like a dervish to see how many I could get in there before the 11PM deadline at which point they would be taking a 'snapshot' of where all the Profiles stood. I needed 11 to not leave any empty. I got five or six done before 11 I think and then kept on working for the next hour until I got at least one bookmark in each 25 page section. I didn't bother with any media. I focused on titles and authors from the epigraphs heading the chapters throughout, adding Wikipedia links only, no other media. I'll go back and add pictures etc later.

I've been so hyper-focused on this project for the last twenty days that I'm not sure how to loosen my grip. But I have to as I've another commitment in twelve to fifteen hours at the library to set up my crocheted bookmark display. Which isn't ready as I described yesterday. I may not get more than a nap if that between now and then. I'm going to be tucking tails, weaving ribbons, blocking bookmarks, ironing ribbons, threading beads and hopefully finishing at least one more bookmark that is the first of a new pattern with a new stitch I just learned.

I'll try to take pictures for posting later this week.

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So, So, So, So Busy

moar funny pictures

26 hours left to get my Book Drum profile of The River Why in shape for the tournament. I can continue to work on it regardless but won't qualify to be considered for prizes if I don't have all six sections of the profile populated by 11PM PST Sunday February 28. Until this morning I'd put all my efforts so far into the Author and Bookmark sections and after a week of work on Bookmarks I'd put up 25 Bookmarks for the first 10 pages. A Bookmark is like a mini blog post in some ways but on a specific topic pertaining to a specified page in the book. The idea is to identify something that could possibly be enhanced for a reader by further information or visual or audio augmentation.

In the case of the River Why a lot of maps, pictures and video of Oregon locales especially the rivers are in order. But I've also added stuff about fly fishing and fly tying, meeschaum and briar smoking pipes, Izaak Walton's The Compleate Angler, Dylan Thomas, Scottish Divine Zach Boyd, British Author and friend of Tolkein and C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Nijinsky, the blues singer Taj Mahal, H2O, St, Augustine, Tweed, Winnebago, the Rover P4, calligraphy, name etymology, Orvis the giant fishing gear retailer, Rattray's Highland Targe pipe tobacco, Glenfiddich, For each of these topics I provided whatever visual or audio item might pertain, wrote a paragraph or two and linked to outside resources for for citation or followup. All of that and more and I still working on chapter two and haven't passed page ten!

It's a bit like creating an informal encyclopedia targeted at whatever is mentioned or alluded to in the story. And David James Duncan likes to pack his paragraphs with mentions and allusions and begin each chapter with epigraphs relevant to it. He also loves puns and other kinds of word play.

When I woke at 5:30 this morning after five hours of sleep and set to work I would not let myself return to making bookmarks until I got the last four sections of the Profile populated so I spent the first several hours of the day working on the glossary section and got 30 some words and definitions input I have more ready to go but I'm leaving it at that until I get all the rest of the sections populated. This afternoon I finished preparing the Settings section. That leaves me with the Summary and the Review. Probably no more than 1500 words total between the two most of which already exist in my notes but need extensive editing.

As soon as I get them done I can return to creating bookmarks. It's going to look rather funny to have only one of the 25 page sections of Bookmarks populated when there are over 300 pages counting the Afterward. I hope to be able to put one bookmark into each of the remaining 12 sections.

And even though I have until 11PM tomorrow, I shouldn't really give all of my time and effort to the Book Drum bookmark project as my other bookmark project deadline hits Monday afternoon when I have an appointment at the local library to set up a display of my crocheted bookmarks in their glass display case. And I'm sooooo not ready for that either. Oh I've got nearly 100 crocheted but only half a dozen are dressed in their ribbons and beads and tassels and nearly half need their tails tucked and nearly all need to be blocked--even those that once were because the way I stored them and fussed with them their edges curled. And even the dressed ones have wrinkled ribbons as most of them were made for myself or Ed and have been in use and the ones that weren't were stored with the naked ones part of the time so their looking bedraggled themselves.

But I'm not good for much in the way of quality work at the moment. Can't keep my eyes open and I've been making two typos for every ten keystrokes for the last two paragraphs. Gotta give into it.

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David James Duncan Part 2

The David James Duncan official web page

It's under construction as of late February 2010 so has only one page which keeps you abreast of recent or near future appearances, links to info on his books and other publications and media he has any involvement in.

Online resources for information about David James Duncan:

The Wikipedia article on David James Duncan

The bing reference page for David James Duncan

The David James Duncan page at Open Directory

An Inventory of his papers: David James Duncan Papers, 1959-2002 and undated, Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas

The River Dry -David James Duncan rows through a wheat field to save salmon—and we’ve got pictures - by Sarah K. Burkhalter

Publications:

Books

The River Why - a novel (1983; 2002 20th Anniversary edition: ISBN 1578050847)

The Brothers K - a novel (1996 ISBN 055337849X)

River Teeth - personal essays, stories and writings (1996, ISBN 0553378279)

My Story as Told by Water: Confessions, Druidic Rants, Reflections, Bird-Watchings, Fish-Stalkings, Visions, Songs and Prayers Refracting Light, from Living Rivers, in the age of the Industrial Dark. -- personal essays (2001, ISBN 1578050839)

Citizen's Dissent (co-authored with Wendell Berry) (2003, ISBN 0913098620 )

God Laughs and Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right (2006, ISBN 0977717003)

Frank Boyden: The Empathies (2007, ISBN 1930957572) (Duncan provided companion prose for some of Boyden's 96 drypoint images)

Essays/Articles/Stories

(David James Duncan has been published in many periodicals and anthologies and many of the pieces were then re-published in one of the collections bearing his name and visa versa. This is a partial list of titles for his short pieces with links when available to read online)

Web Exclusive - When Compassion Becomes Dissent: On the post-9/11 struggle to teach creative writing while awaiting the further annihilation of Iraq

He Sets Me in the Stream: A short story

What Fundamentalists Need for Their Salvation: In defense of truth, stewardship, and neighborly love - adapted from God Laughs and Plays. This adaptation was awarded a 2006 Pushcart Prize

On Salmon and the Soul

Their Bodies are Needles: A Song and a Prayer for the Greatest Travelers of the Pacific Northwest

Of Love and Prayer

"Bird Watching as a Blood Sport" in Harper's Magazine in 1998

The foreword to Thoreau on Water: Reflecting Heaven (2001, ISBN 0395953863)

An essay, "A Mickey Mantle koan: The obstinate grip of an autographed baseball" in Harper's Magazine in 1992.

A number of op-ed pieces supporting the preservation of Montana's Blackfoot River

Other Media

Radio:

A Native Son of Oregon Writes of Heartbreak, Determination - High Country News -- Interview by Adam Burke regarding My Story as Told by Water. (May 26, 2003) -- This is a text recap by Adam Burke with a few excerpts from the radio broadcast in which Duncan discusses his life, art, passions, and activism. The link to the audio archive in this article was dead. But the quotes from Duncan are worth a glance.

Film:

Troutgrass -- a film/documentary about the making of a bamboo fishing pole, following the bamboo from its home in Southern China through its transition into a fly rod in use on a Montana river. Written and narrated by David James Duncan

Stage:

This year, 2010, Repertory Theatre Book-Its world premiere adaptation of "The River Why" plays on the Center House Theatre stage February 9 through March 7. For more information on the show, or to buy tickets, check out

Speeches:

Podcast: "Salmon Worship: Is It Wrong?" Pt. 1

Podcast: "Salmon Worship: Is It Wrong?" Pt. 2

Keynote speech for the Extinction Stops Here rally (September 19, 2006)

Duncan is scheduled to be Keynote speaker for the Cardinal Virtues Conference at Viterbo University WI THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2010 7:00pm Fine Arts Center Main Theatre

Interviews:

Activism, Fly Fishing, and Fiction—A Conversation with David James Duncan conducted by David Thomas Sumner:

By Hook and By Book: David James Duncan, author and fly fisher, answers questions

The World's Longest Conversation - Smokebox Interview conducted by mail from June 2002 to September 2004

Pacific Northwest Quarterly: Meeting the Author of The Brothers K -- Interview by Daniel Lamberton

Interview: David James Duncan Author of "The River Why" on water, salmon and the policies that are killing them

A Q&A with David James Duncan, author of 'The River Why' on the occasion of the book-it repertory production in Seattle Feb/Mar 2010

Awards and Honors

Winner of the Dr. O. Marvin Lewis Essay Award for My Advice on Writing Advice

Lannan Fellowship

Honorary Doctorate for Public Service from the University of Portland

American Library Association Best Books Award for The Brothers K

1992 New York Times Notable Book for The Brothers K

Two Pacific Northwest Booksellers Awards -- one for The Brothers K, the other for The River Why

1999 Best of the West: The River Why is given 35th spot on the San Francisco’s list of Top 100 Books of the 20th century

2001 Western States Book Award for Nonfiction for My Story as Told by Water

2001 National Book Award nomination for My Story as Told by Water

2003 American Library Association’s Eli Oboler Award (with co-author Wendell Berry) for the Preservation of Intellectual Freedom for Citizen's Dissent

2006 Pushcart Prize

Inclusion in four volumes of Best American Spiritual Writing

The River Why was chosen as one of100 books from the years 1800 to 2000 that exemplify the best of Oregon’s rich literary heritage by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission

[The above is the list of works, awards, and misc portion of the Author section of the Book Profile I'm creating for Book Drum. Yesterday I posted the bio.

I still haven't found an image of Duncan for which attribution and permissions are clear or any contact info for acquiring such permission so I've not yet been able to post a picture of Duncan on the Book Drum Profile. The image I posted above I deemed OK for posting on a personal non-commercial blog as I've seen it posted elsewhere by reputable websites sans attribution which leads me to believe it is an image released for such purposes as in a press kit or promotional package. If anyone seeing this has reason to object to my use of it here please advise me via email at joystory AT gmail]

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David James Duncan Part 1

David James Duncan father of three, fly fisher, novelist, essayist, speaker, activist, teacher, contemplative, and practitioner of what he calls “direct, small-scale compassion/activism,” was born in Portland, Oregon in 1952 and raised in a working-class east Portland neighborhood in a family in which three generations of ardent Seventh Day Adventists (on his mother's side) preceded him. He attended Adventists services and Sabbath School until age 15 when, finally deemed of age to choose, he bowed out having long before discovered there was more of wonder, grace and God Presence in the burble of a trout stream, a stand of Redwood, a leaping Chinook Salmon, or the wide open sky than in any pulpit or cathedral.

His father introduced him to fly fishing while he was still in elementary and over the years his love for it has deepened into a devotion so deep and a practice so devout it seems identical with religion. Later he would imbue his two novels, The River Why and Brothers K, with the images, metaphors and analogies drawn from fly fishing and intimate connection to waterways.

While in Junior High the loss of his brother (just 17) had a profound affect on Duncan, providing an early and sharp lesson in grief and loss. Awareness of this may have prompted his high school teacher to hand him Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks and from that novel he learned the power of story to enlighten and transform, which sparked in him an undying love of the novel. Says Duncan: "This love had nothing to do with desire for fame, money, or even publication. I was simply smitten by the power of the novel to create an atmosphere in which a reader's inner wisdom would sometimes reveal itself, and I yearned to create such atmospheres on paper myself." (David James Duncan from "An Afterward, Twenty Years Later" p296-297)

For the duration of his high school career he read novels voraciously, "an older friend who went off to Stanford University. He started sending me reading lists and books, and my friendship and correspondence with this guy grew so much more interesting than anything in high school that I basically quit studying anything except great novels."(Smokebox Interview)

In the twelve years after graduating from Reynolds High School, he worked as "delivery driver, tenant farmer, factory grunt, lawn mower, Little League baseball umpire, janitor, tree planter, tree pruner, wilderness retreat caretaker, bartender, truck driver, toy-maker, warehouse manager, house painter"(297) and during those same years he also graduated from Portland State University, explored the paths of the inner or contemplative life, visiting Trappist and Buddhist monks, traveling to India, attempting vision quests, read avidly in the wisdom literature of many spiritual traditions, all the while continuing to read and write fiction.

In 1976 he abandoned a 200 page WIP to begin writing The River Why which he started submitting in1980 and which was rejected by over 20 major publishing houses over the next two years (including all the same ones that had rejected Norman Mcclean's A River Runs Through It several year's earlier) before it was picked up by Sierra Club Books in 1982.

Duncan continued to alternate between the Portland area and the Oregon coast for about a decade after the release of The River Why before moving with his wife sculptor/ceramic artist Adrian, and their two daughters, Celia and Ellie, to live on a trout stream at the headwaters of the Columbia/Snake river systems in Lolo, Montana

Duncan has been a sought after teacher and speaker for schools and events. He was the William Kittredge Visiting Writer at the University of Montana for the fall semester of 2002. He gave the Keynote speech for the Extinction Stops Here rally,September 19, 2006. In 2008 he spoke and read from The River Why at Hope College IDS Student/Faculty Retreat. And is scheduled to be Keynote speaker for the Cardinal Virtues Conference at Viterbo University WI, April 15, 2010.

Two of his most passionate concerns have been for the protection of Norman Maclean's river, the Big Blackfoot, in Montana from the river-killing leaching method of gold mining and pressing for removal of the four lower Snake dams which are driving NW Salmon to extinction. For the latter he has teamed up with American Rivers and will be speaking at their NW regional office’s 8th annual dinner and auction in Seattle on March 4 2010.

His essays and stories have appeared in Big Sky Journal, Gray's Sporting Journal, Harper's, Northern Lights, Outside, Orion, The Sun, Sierra, and a myriad of anthologies, forwards for other writers, and other publications.

Duncan told Smokehouse the interviewer in 2004 that he was working on several long fiction projects, a novella collection featuring female protagonists set in the West, a novel with working title Eastern/Western and a second novel, a comedy about reincarnation and human folly he used to call Nijinsky Hosts Saturday Night Live but has since relegated that title to a section of the whole now with working title:

The Reincarnatio

Non-Rhyming, Non-Catholic Western-American-Dialect

Montana-&-New York-Locale

Divine Comedy,

Version 2.

A Novel

[The above is the bio portion of the Author section of the Book Profile I'm creating for Book Drum. Tomorrow I'll post the list of works, awards, and misc.

I still haven't found an image of Duncan for which attribution and permissions are clear or any contact info for acquiring such permission so I've not yet been able to post a picture of Duncan on the Book Drum Profile. The image I posted above I deemed OK for posting on a personal non-commercial blog as I've seen it posted elsewhere by reputable websites sans attribution which leads me to believe it is an image released for such purposes as in a press kit or promotional package. If anyone seeing this has reason to object to my use of it here please advise me via email at joystory AT gmail]

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The epigraph heading chapter two of The River Why, "The Rogue River fishing War", was a piece of verse and when I followed up on the attribution below it I discovered a musician I'd never heard of before and am now grateful to have discovered him.

I'm a goin' fishin', Mama;s goin' fishin'
An' de baby's goin' fishin' too.
Bet yo' life
Yo' sweet wife's
Gonna catch mo' fish dan you.
--Taj Mahal

I was delighted to then find a YouTube vid featuring Taj Mahal singing this very song.

For more of Taj Mahl's music and news of performances and appearances visit his website.

You can pretty much count on all of my posts between now and next Monday featuring something I've researched and developed for my Book Drum profile for The River Why.




taj mahal siging the song in the epigraph "i'm a goin' fishing'

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The Rogue River Valley

The Rogue River as seen from Table Rock just a few miles from where we live.

Here are some of the results of my research on the Rogue River Valley for the Book Drum profile for The River Why by David James Duncan.




And here's a sweet little documentary about the wild and scenic Rogue River complete with commentary on the stats, history and fact.



For those wondering what Book Drum is all about and haven't wandered on over there to check out their concept, well this is an example of a 'Bookmark' in a book profile. I put these and more into a Bookmark at the first mention of the Rogue River in the book. Which is in the title of chapter 2: The Rogue River Fishing War.

Hoping to get half a dozen more Book Drum Bookmarks put together tonight. As you can see that is a lot like expecting to put together half a dozen blog posts. But the time consuming part is the research and media gathering which is already done for many of them and I'm getting quicker at getting the pieces all plugged in.

I only have until Sunday afternoon to complete the profile and submit in order to compete for the prize and I began to suspect yesterday that I'm not going to make it. At least not if I continue to be so inclusive in my choice of what to illustrate and stubborn about searching until I find something usable. My list of things in the book that I think warrant illustration or explanation is huge but if I don't want to end up by Sunday with a 100 Bookmarks for the first five chapters and nothing after that, I better change my strategy. I'm thinking of skipping along through the book after I get Chapter 2 Bookmarked and choosing 1-3 things per chapter or even say, 3 things per 25 pages since that is how they have the sections split up and that way there would at least be something and not nothing in every one of the sections and I can continue adding material from my notes after the contest has been judged next month.

I have the Author page done. At least as done as I'm going to for now. I never did find a photo of David James Duncan usable for this commercial project and I spent hours and hours over three days looking so I'm going to let that go for now. I linked to plenty of resources that included photos.

The other sections of the profile I still have to put together are: Setting, glossary, Summary and Review. Setting will be easy as I'm collecting material for it as I research the Bookmarks relating to place. Glossary is just a matter of plugging the info into the form but again I probably have way too many words collected and need to be choosier. Summary is just a matter of setting myself to the task of writing a 100 to 500 word objective overview of the novel. Review is dicier that is where I get to express my own take on the story and...well...there's a reason my book reviews are so few and far between. I tend to collect enough info and make enough notes for something more akin to a term paper than a book review and then get overwhelmed and or distracted and not get it into postable form. Just like I do with my stories. *sigh*

OK back to work.

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The River of Dreams

I'm going to try to duck in and out of here real quick tonight as I'm deep into my The River Why project for Book Drum. The deadline is looming, Feb 28 is a little under 10 days now, and I don't want to break the hyperfocus I seem to be in this evening.

So I'll leave you with this Billy Joel video that came up in one of my searches for media and info relating to The River Why. Having my head full of the scenes and themes of the novel, I was struck with a sense of wonder as I seemed to see them being played out on this little YouTube screen. I've loved Billy Joel music since Jr. High but had never thought of him or his songs as spiritual but now I can't see this one as anything but.

My favorite verse:

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the jungle of doubt
To the river so deep
I know I'm searching for something
Something so undefined
It can only be seen
By the eyes of the blind.
In the middle of the night.

*shivers*

Note the flyfisher in the very last frames.

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Fishing for Facts and Photos

One of the ways Book-it promoted the upcoming production of The River Why in Seattle was by a flash fish mob. Fun and quirky just like the novel.

I spent the last six writing this and the previous post. This one first. Does that confuse you? Well beginning with the next paragraph and to the end was written in the previous post before what now appears there was written. Then I realized that I hadn't yet answered the question in the title, Why The River Why? So I went back to the top and thought to add a paragraph or two of the explanation I had in mind. And once again I seemed to loose my ability to detect when enough was enough and I'd soon doubled the post in length and the bottom half was a complete change in subject. I considered deleting it or moving it into my journal but then I had the thought that if I split the post in two I'd have Wednesday's as well as Tuesday's post done, leaving me free until after dinner on Thursday if I chose. (I just took all the words of both posts over to Whiz so I could use the word counter. 2644. Only 600 some odd short of 2 days NaNo quota!!! If only it were November.)

I have just spent the bulk of the last 24 hours working on my River Why profile for Book Drum. Visit my December post Drumming for Books if this confuzzles you.

At any rate, this was the second over 16 hour session I put in on it in the last week. It was Thursday/Friday when I spent over six hours just looking for a photo of David James Duncan that was either creative commons or had a clear provenance with contact info for its owner so I could request permissions for its use on a commercial site such as Book Drum.

I had expected that to be a fairly easy task as I've encountered so many author photos in so many venues in my wanderings on the web. I knew it was common for there to be a press packet available for journalists and failing that at least a contact page somewhere on the author's or publishers sites.

But David James Duncan's site was under construction and had only the front page. No about, no contact, no press packet. Only one photo and that with no attribution. I finally had to forgo my goal of populating the author page of my profile for The River Why before I quit my session to sleep. And discouraged by that, I did not pick up where I left off when I awoke but instead buried myself in watching DVDs for a good twelve hours over the weekend.

One of those DVD was Normal People Scare me which I posted about and it set me off on another round of surfing the Asperger/Autism resources online, collecting links and notes. I also slept hard and Sunday got to go out to dinner with Ed and then shopping for crochet thread. My first time out of this house in two weeks!

So last night I set myself to get it done already! I decided I would make one more quick pass through the usual motions, collecting the links and recording my moves so that I could describe them in an email to the editor at Book Drum so he would know what ground I had covered when I asked his advice. And once I had that info, I would proceed to organize the rest of the material I had collected for the Author page: links to some of his essays online, his web page, the Wikipedea article on him; facts pertaining to the timeline of his life for the bio; lists of his published works and awards. I had pages and pages of these in my note taking ap WhizFolders. Well, it would be pages and pages if the topic windows weren't as bottomless as Crater Lake, holding potentially as much as my RAM could handle.

OK, couldn't help myself had to check. Word count on one topic was nearly 4K and the other nearly 2K and that's with 20-90+ character links making up at least 30% of the total character count.

So there was a lot of info and it was loosely organized by type but there was still a number of links I'd collected that I hadn't visited yet to confirm their usefulness or at the least their aliveness. And of course that only led me to more links that had to be followed. Sigh.

And once followed, explored, read, contemplated. I began the project soon after I posted last night. Meaning soon after 1AM. And it was 1PM before I was finally satisfied with the completeness, tidiness, accuracy, and integrity of the material in Whiz and was ready to start transferring it to Book Drum.

Of course it took me an hour to get un-clumsy with the Book Drum platform. It has a resemblance to blogger from over five years ago. It's clunky and glitchy. I like to say cranky and by the time I started working with it so was I. Yeah, clunky, glitchy and cranky.

When I got about two-thirds done with creating the 30 links (30 before I noticed I'd put the same info into two different lists and had to eliminate one) I realized I'd been making a colossal error when filling out the link dialog form. I thought the second box under the URL box was meant for the highlighted text that you wanted turned into the link and so I'd been making the extra step of returning to copy that text as soon as I'd dropped the link in. Then one time I goofed and didn't get the text copied so when I returned to the dialog box and pasted I found I'd pasted in the link again but I noticed that just as I clicked to insert the link. When I returned to the work area to click the highlight off I discovered that the hover text now had the link in it instead of a simple copy of the highlighted text.

Of course! Duh!!!! Makes perfect sense. Now that is useful info. I vaguely wondered why that hover text was only mirroring the highlighted text. But I hadn't made the connection with the text I was pasting into that form. *shakes head and thumps it with fists*

So I did it the right way for the remaining 8 links and then went back and re-did the rest. By then I'd been up for 28 hours and still had this post to do

Was planning to do a quick video post related to what I've been working on. Hence the vid that heads this. But once I started typing something cut loose. I tend to get hypergraphic when sleep-deprived anyway but I think it had something to do with reading so much by and about a writer all day and manipulating words with cut and paste but doing very little composing and something in me was itching too be cut loose.

No, I was not plagiarizing. I was taking bare, essential facts: proper names, dates, titles, a few nouns and verbs and arranging them in logical groups or sequence and then adding whatever was needed to make coherent sentences.

Something about what I've been doing in the last 30 some hours must have sparked something major in me though because during dinner tonight while I was 'chewing the cud' so to speak, I had a flash of insight into the characters of my FOS story world, into the very plot and timeline tangle that has had me stalled out for months. I ruminated on it while doing dishes and planned to get finished fixing those links, then get a quick post up and then spend a half hour or so getting those thoughts down in the FOS worksheet WhizFolder. I was thinking I would just type wild kinda like I'm doing now without worrying too much about keeping perfect order of the info--just get those ideas recorded so I wouldn't forget.

Because I could very well forget as I'm likely to crash down off this lit up brain state and sleep like I'm dead for ten to twelve hours and then wake with a brain that feels like chewed cud for the first four to six hours.

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Why The River Why?

Book-it Repertory Theatre in Seattle is currently putting on an adaptation of The River Why!! It's running through March 7.

Oh how I wish....

Adapted and Directed By Myra Platt. Yes, a woman adapted and directed a play about a young man's quest for life's meaning based on a novel written by a young man in a year when it would probably have been an even rarer thing to see. 1983, the year The River Why was debuted was just 8 years after my high-school guidance councilor told me I should just get married and have kids and raise them untroubled and write stories for them instead of aspiring towards a child psychiatrist's training in order to help troubled kids and write their stories because at some level, already, I knew that stories could save lives. (I'd been inspired by Dibs in Search of Self in 7th grade and Sybil that year. ) Gee thanks Mr. G.

Oh how I wish....

Watch the preview above. It looks magical. Just like I remember the story being when I read it around 1994.

Why did I choose The River Why by David James Duncan for my Book Drum project?

Because I can say without a sliver of exaggeration that this story saved my life.

I was living in Longview WA right on the Columbia River at the time. The town of my childhood and only a day trip away from most of the locales the story was set in, many of which were familiar to me from encounters while growing up just a few years behind the narrator Gus Orviston.

The year I read it, my life was in meltdown. It had been three years since I was diagnosed with the eye disease my mom inherited from her mom. RP. Retinitis Pigmentosa. AKA tunnel vision. I'd been assuming it was so for three years already. I was already legally blind by the time I was diagnosed at age 33.

It had been six years since our move back to Longview had forced mt to drop out of school just shy of my senior year at Ashland, OR SOSC (now SOU) because there was no four year school within reach and thus I'd defaulted on my student loan and the powers that be had sent the hell-hounds after me as did my own conscience.

It had been two years since I'd learned that the fundamentalist 'Bible Believing' group I'd been raised in was imploding while doctrine-drunk 'Brethren' slinging verses like Ninjitsu shuriken slashed and burned their way through the hearts of families, excommunicating one another and their spouses and children along with them. 50 years of inter-marriage among the families had created an intricately woven 'extended family' that was now torn asunder. Several hundred people across half a dozen states west of the Rockies were affected. Cousins and best friends were forbidden to have any 'fellowship' because their respective fathers or husbands were on opposite sides of the fence. Like my mom and her twin sister. Fence sitting was not an option. If you didn't choose a side you were exiled from both.

It had been six months since the mother of three month old twins Ed and I had been babysitting for several weeks did not arrive at the expected hour to drop them off, calling two hours later with the news that that morning she had found one of the boys blue-faced and silent and the other red-faced and screaming, grasping his brother's cold ear in his fist. SIDS. And because they were identical twins the other twin needed to be kept on a monitor until he was past one year and anyone caring for him had to be trained. Thus we lost both 'our' babies.

And just a few months later, I was to make my final, unequivocal choice as to which side of the fence I was on. Neither. I left the pasture altogether. My choice was triggered by the trauma of witnessing an infant disciplined by his father with a hand over the mouth to 'deprive the baby of the reward of hearing himself cry' because those cries were willful rebellion don't you know.

And rebellion was worse than the sin of witchcraft don't you know. (1 Samuel 15:23)

And having a will of your own was the equivalent of rebellion don't youu know.

Obedience was the prime directive. Obedience to the Word of God. Which commanded children obey their parents and warned us that our nature being born out of nature was naturally rebellious don't you know.

That the thoughts of our hearts were only evil continually so of course we couldn't be trusted to have our own don't you know.

So our thoughts had to be trained early and often to conform, to follow a rigid, narrow path flanked by an abyss of terrors. For narrow is the way and few there be who find it don't you know.

Into the middle of all that came David James Duncan's little fish tale. It wormed it's way into my heart, hooking me with its humor, its laugh-out-loud scenes depicting characters having a riotously good time exploring their world and their own minds. Thinking singular thoughts. And disagreeing without banishing or abandoning one another. Yes, even a wife disagreeing with her husband or a son with his father did not bring down the wrath of the Almighty.

A young boy not yet shaving could have thoughts that opposed his mother's or father's or pastor's and Mount St Helens didn't blow, the river didn't flood, the lightning didn't strike, the tumor didn't grow.

Before the tale was through I'd glimpse another way, a possibility that lifted me out of despair and inoculated me against its power to overpower me. And when that moment of choice came a few months later, I had the image of Eddy the first time Gus laid eyes on her. A woman alone in the wilderness fishing alone in the wilderness, jumping naked into the river to chase after the steelhead that was towing her pole up stream. And she caught that fish and towed it ashore and reeled it in and killed it herself. That woman alone in the wilderness.

That image sustained me through the coming trauma of feeling myself cast out into a wilderness alone. A wilderness of both dangerous and nurturing thought that often seemed the twin of each other, thoughts that had to be wrestled, baited, hooked, teased, subdued, reeled in, caught and released or perhaps cooked for dinner. For what is food for thought if not thought itself? Thought could be wily and slippery and strong but I need not be mastered by it. I could be its master without the aide of a Master (priest, king, father, husband, pastor)

It's been 16 years and that image still sustains me. I never quite managed to slip into Eddy's skin, inhabit her sure poise or clothe myself in courage such as hers but just knowing it was possible to imagine it was possible gave me something of courage to continue in the face of the fear that stalked me in the coming years. It might have been half the size of a mustard seed but it had potential.

So that's why The River Why was my choice for this project.

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Oregon Rivers

These are a few of the videos I found while researching Oregon rivers as part of my work for my Book Drum project for The River Why by David James Duncan. Most of the novel is set on Oregon rivers.

I gave the video featuring our local Rogue River the top position. And it looks like I've been partial to Southern Oregon and the coast in spite of having grown up between the Columbia and Cowlitz in SW Washington on the Oregon border and visited the Willamette near Portland often.

Wondering what Book Drum is? Its a new site that provides a way to annotate a novel with multi-media material that explains or enhances the story. Like maps, videos, photos, glossary, author bio, links, quotes from reviews and more. Setting is one of the categories and The River Why is mostly set on or near Oregon rivers. The Rogue River is named specifically. In fact the protagonist was conceived near it.









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