Three-volume Easter journey with St. Augustine finds riches in 'Confessions'

By DAN BARNETT

The 13 chapters (or books) of Augustine's "Confessions," written in 397-400, continue to enthrall and challenge readers. Augustine had just become Bishop of Hippo (a name that means "seaport") in North Africa, but the document he produced is no dry ecclesiastical pronouncement. Instead, in the intimate language, he pours his heart out to God and to his readers and confesses that even as a man of faith he still seeks understanding.

As Christians celebrate Jesus' resurrection, it is well to remember that Augustine's story of his own Easter faith is full of surprises. Augustine is convinced that God was at work in his life even, when as a young man, he turned away from the family faith to pursue a career as a teacher of rhetoric and to satisfy his own sexual desires. His mother Monica's fervent prayers were eventually answered.

There are many translations of the "Confessions"; one recent and clear one is from Henry Chadwick ($7.95 in paperback from Oxford World's Classics). But while the first nine books recount Augustine's experience in becoming a believer, the 10th book, on memory, turns to Augustine's present philosophical concerns. The last three books deal with questions of time and eternity, creation and redemption, and how the earthly world connects with the heavenly realms. For many readers it is not easy going.

Those wishing a careful and scholarly guide through the "Confessions" will be delighted with the three-volume work of Carl G. Vaught, distinguished professor of philosophy at Baylor University. He writes that the books of the "Confessions" show a carefully structured thematic unity, which is portrayed in the titles of Vaught's trilogy, all published by the State University of New York Press: "The Journey Toward God in Augustine's Confessions (Books I-VI)" ($17.95 in paperback); "Encounters With God in Augustine's Confessions (Books VII-IX)" ($35 in hardcover); and "Access To God in Augustine's Confessions (Books X-XIII)" ($65 in hardcover). These books form a section-by-section commentary on Augustine's great work.

Vaught begins, as Augustine does, by asking lots of questions: "How shall we respond to a book as rich and complex as this? What approach should we take?" Vaught writes that though "Augustine speaks as a psychologist, a rhetorician, a philosopher and a theologian ... he speaks most fundamentally from the heart."

In order to best understand the "Confessions," Vaught writes, readers need to be aware of the time, space and eternal dimensions of the story. Regarding time, Augustine recounts his theft of pears when he was 16, his interest in philosophical wisdom and his being led astray by the Manichees (a sect that believed good and evil were locked in eternal battle). Spatially, Augustine's story deals not only with his outside world (the African church, the temptations of Italy) but the inside world of his own soul, the place he encounters God (though God is much greater than the soul and is its creator). The eternal dimension is about how God manifests himself in the created order, through memory and time and the sacraments, enabling Augustine to encounter the one who "made us for yourself"; and Augustine adds: "Our heart is restless until it rests in you."

Vaught's books provide the reader with an understanding of that rest.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Columnist goes positively eupeptic over new kind of thesaurus

By DAN BARNETT

Back in the day, say 1852, Peter Mark Roget, finding no thesaurus on the shelf, decided to write one himself, grouping words by related ideas and earning for himself a place in lexicographical history.

Subsequent thesauruses, rivals to Roget, dispensed with the grouping principle and simply listed words alphabetically. Not all of the synonyms were direct substitutes for the word synonymized. The assumption was (and is) that we readers know the nuances and simply need our mind jogged a bit. If we wanted a synonym for "steal" we might come across embezzle -- but we'd have to know that embezzling is a particular kind of stealing. (You can't embezzle a candy bar from the grocery store, but you can steal one. But you really shouldn't.)

Most of the synonyms in these word books were also likely as common as the original word -- ho-hum! Frankly, if we are looking for a sparkling alternative to quotidian diction, the thesaurus is a dinosaurus.

Of course, we might well turn to the many books that alphabetize unusual or obsolete words, but we can't have archaic and eat it, too, since how would we know that "natterjack" was just the word we wanted for a Western European toad that runs rather than hops?

Enter Philadelphia attorney Peter E. Meltzer who, after a decade of sedulous work on his avocation, has published "The Thinker's Thesaurus: Sophisticated Alternatives to Common Words" ($16.95 in paperback from Marion Street Press). Attempting to write the wrongs of thesauruses past (which he does in a marvelous 50-page introduction), Meltzer goes on to deliver the goods, thousands of ordinary words coupled with one or more less common synonyms. But he doesn't stop there. Some 75 percent of the entries contain "clarifiers" helping us understand the particular synonym's "spin." So wrongdoing "in public office" is malversation. And an occupation "requiring little work but paying an income" is a sinecure.

Meltzer writes that he has avoided the use of obsolete words (Shakespeare used a lot of them, but they weren't obsolete then, don't you know). To show their currency, the "thinker's synonyms" get illustrative quotations drawn from magazines, newspapers, and even books published in the last decade. The author quotes from a story in the Sydney Morning Herald from 2000 about the newest in adult education courses -- stripping. The quote comes in the entry for "bravado" and its synonym "fanfaronade": "Fanfaronade," says the story, "will take you through the steps necessary to become a confident exotic dancer. Each participant is expected to have partially completed a semester each of Tassel Making, Cracking Walnuts with Your Own Buttocks on Stage and Booking the Light Entertainment Circuit." Just so you know, there's also a good word for "having a nicely proportioned rear end": callipygian. Time magazine used it of Jennifer Lopez.

Some words cry out to be used in this day and age. Under "superficial (knowledge of a subject while pretending to be learned)" we find "sciolism" and a quote from a Montreal newspaper referring to talk show hosts. Oh, Canada: You, too?

What has me eupeptic (cheerful but, you know, in a scholarly way) is that "The Thinker's Thesaurus" is not a book for impressing friends with a lot of fanfaronade. It's a book that helps us think a little more clearly as we search for just the right word -- especially those who yearn to be philosophers and not mere philophasters.

This book may, however, make you a philosopher faster!

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

National Book Award winner Barry Lopez to speak at Chico State University tonight

By DAN BARNETT

Chico will be graced with a visit by nature writer Barry Lopez at 7:30 p.m. today at Chico State University's Laxson Auditorium. Advance tickets are $15 for adults, $7 for students from the University Box Office, 898-6333. Sponsored by Chico Performances and the university's Office of the Provost, Lopez's appearance is part of the new "On the Creek" lecture series which, according to a news release, "will present authors and lectures whose focus promotes and explores environmental and sustainability issues that affect the world today."

One of the best nature writers in the country, Lopez has published the best-selling nonfiction work "Of Wolves and Men" and has also written "nine works of fiction and several collections of essays, and has been honored with a John Hay Medal, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Fellowship and by the American Academy of Arts and Letters." Not a bad résumé!

But perhaps the book that most captured public attention is his "Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire In a Northern Landscape" ($15 in paperback from Vintage), first published in 1986. A winner of the National Book Award, "Arctic Dreams" exemplifies Lopez's concern with the interaction of human culture and the land. His is not a simplistic vision; in the epilogue he contrasts his own heritage with that of the Eskimo (adopting the standard term for a number of distinct peoples):

"One of our long-lived cultural differences with the Eskimo has been over whether to accept the land as it is or to exert the will to change it into something else. The great task of life for the traditional Eskimo is still to achieve congruence with a reality that is already given. The given reality, the real landscape, is 'horror within magnificence, absurdity within intelligibility, suffering within joy,' in the words of Albert Schweitzer. We do not esteem as highly these lessons in paradox. We hold in higher regard the land's tractability, its alterability. We believe the conditions of the Earth can be changed to ensure human happiness, to provide jobs and to create material wealth and ease. Each culture, then, finds a different sort of apotheosis, of epiphany and comfort in the land."

He adds that "No culture has yet solved the dilemma (of) ... how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one's own culture but within oneself. ... There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions."

Lopez spent almost half a decade in the Arctic region researching his book, which includes chapters on musk oxen, polar bears, narwhals, the migration of birds and mammals, the history of human encounters with Arctic ice, the ever-changing Arctic landscape itself. "When you have walked for days under the enormous sky; when you have felt the remoteness of the world from the Thomsen river country of Banks Island; felt the unquenchable exuberance of sled dogs cracking off the frozen miles down a river valley; or been shown how some very small thing, like a Lapland longspur eating the lemming's bones for calcium, keeps the country alive, you begin to sense the timeless, unsummarized dimensions of a deeper landscape."

Later in the book Lopez writes the history of the European exploration of the "northern passage" and says that "They thought of the Arctic as fixed in time -- a primitive landscape, a painting, inhabited by an attenuated people." The reality is far otherwise.

People have had many (incompatible) dreams of what the Arctic might be, given their view of what it is and has been about. With a trained eye Lopez notes how industrialization is changing the face of the north but at the same time recognizes Eskimo hunting practices are not without violence. He is a careful and sensitive guide.

The book begins and ends with the author bowing to the natural world, giving it due regard. "This is a land," he writes, "where airplanes track icebergs the size of Cleveland and polar bears fly down out of the stars. It is a region, like the desert, rich with metaphor, with adumbration. In a simple bow from the waist before the nest of the horned lark, you are able to stake your life, again, in what you dream."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Chico financial planner offers advice for bequeathing the family farm

By DAN BARNETT

Chico's Kevin Spafford is a certified financial planner who specializes in farm "succession planning" defined broadly as "what is best for the family-owned business."

He writes that "farming is the quintessential family business. No other business endeavor is as emotionally charged as the family farm." But deep feelings can often prevent owners from thinking clearly about "the inevitable transfer of ownership" that comes sooner or later.

To help farm owners make wise decisions about that transfer, Spafford has published "Legacy By Design: Succession Planning for Agribusiness Owners" ($29.95 in paperback from Marketplace Books). He will be speaking and signing copies at 6 p.m. Friday at Lyon Books in Chico. The public is invited.

The book presents all the steps necessary to develop what Spafford calls a "comprehensive succession plan." The creation of such a plan, he writes, "may require a multi-disciplinary team of professionals, including a financial planner, an attorney, an accountant and possibly a banker among others. It involves planning and advice for multiple generations of the family. It includes financial, estate, retirement and business planning," each of which is covered in a separate section. In addition, "Legacy By Design" includes a large appendix with checklists and charts, a comprehensive glossary and a bibliography.

While the sections on estate and retirement planning are pretty detailed, even there Spafford maintains a conversational tone and includes a variety of case studies that connect with the real world.

The chapters on business plans and succession were the most interesting to me.

A business plan helps spell out how that particular agribusiness fits into its environment and what its prospects for growth might be. The environment has changed. "In the agricultural world of yesterday," Spafford writes, "commodities ruled. Today, there has been a significant change. Consumers are now willing to pay extra for unique and specialized products. Customers are seeking individual relationships with suppliers and vendors as never before. They want safe, healthy, and convenient food sold through a personal relationship of trust." Think farmers markets.

Something else has changed. Time was when labor was viewed as a cost and farm machinery as an investment. But the author points out that "when you factor in the benefits of long-term employees dedicated to business success, it is difficult to imagine them as an expense. Labor must be regarded as an investment. Like other systems on the farm, a skilled labor force improves the bottom line."(He also notes that it's better to view farm equipment as an expense rather than an investment.)

Family farmers may have developed a knack for making money over the years so it's hard for them to understand why a business plan is so important. But "farmers' earnings are squeezed today as never before. You are asked to do more with less. Input costs increase as commodity prices decline. Foreign competition exerts pricing pressures on all commodities. There seems to be a never-ending string of bureaucratic challenges each grower must navigate before applying many of the fertilizer or herbicide inputs that make agricultural practices so prolific. Automation which promotes efficiency in agricultural practices also increases capital expenditure."

All of these things and more need addressing in a business plan, especially if the farm is to be turned over soon to the next generation. "The way it's always been done" won't work anymore.

Just who will take possession of the farm is another significant issue, and Spafford focuses on the inevitable family difficulties when some members wish to remain active in the business and others do not. Active members may be interested in long-term investment whereas "passive" members may want short-term return. Conflict and rivalry are inherent in the process of choosing a successor, and the author offers a way through by considering not equal distribution of assets but "equitable" distributions to various family members. Those not involved in the business may well settle for a lower cash sum when the transfer comes, leaving the farm intact to be run by active members. Spafford is good on helping family farmers take a more objective look at the talent available to them, encouraging them to look to trusted employees or outside managers if family members are unwilling or unable to continue the business.

"Legacy By Design" offers a sensible and careful approach to a complex and emotional "passing of the baton."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Training books deliver the goods

By DAN BARNETT

These days there are some pretty sophisticated software applications available for those who want to design printed materials or create or enhance Web sites.

As for the tools of the trade, Adobe's InDesign for page layout and Macromedia's Dreamweaver for Web site construction are second-to-none.

InDesign is part of a larger suite of related computer programs, called "Creative Suite 2," which includes Photoshop and Illustrator which are both used to manipulate and create graphical content.

Dreamweaver (now at version 8) is also part of a group of tools called "Studio 8" which includes Flash, the industry standard for the production of animation and video for the Internet. With the recent acquisition of Macromedia by Adobe, both sets of software programs are being offered in one package.

Graphics and design professionals use InDesign or Dreamweaver every day and so develop a hands-on familiarity with each program's "feature set." But amateurs like me need considerable hand-holding and that's where training manuals come in. I've been especially impressed by the H-O-T (Hands-On Training) series developed by lynda.com and published by Peachpit Press out of Berkeley. Each volume includes a CD-ROM with training files and a couple dozen short movies that can be played on a computer and that illustrate especially complicated procedures shown in the step-by-step manuals. The authors voice their own movies and they are friendly and proficient.

Over the last number of months I've worked my way through "Adobe InDesign CS2 Hands-On Training" ($44.99 in paperback), by Brian Wood, and "Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 Hands-On Training" ($44.99 in paperback) by Daniel Short and Garo Green. (I love this stuff!)

I can attest that both are excellent guides. Two other guides are on hand which I can hardly wait to get to: "Flash Professional 8 Hands-On Training" by James Gonzalez ($44.99 in paperback) and "Macromedia Studio 8 Training from the Source" ($44.99 in paperback from Adobe Press/Peachpit, which also comes with a CD), by Shaowen Bardzell and Jeffrey Bardzell, with Bob Flynn.

The InDesign and Dreamweaver books, and the Flash guide as well, are reference works as well as training manuals. At various points throughout the chapters the authors present tables listing the various choices on a toolbar or in a submenu, such as paragraph formatting or rollover image options (used when the mouse pointer rests on a navigation graphic). Each of these guides begins with an overview of the program's interface and work area, but then focuses on various small projects that the reader completes in bite-sized sections. The InDesign book develops advertising brochures and postcards for the fictional "Tea Cloud" company; the Dreamweaver book extends the company to the Web with some 90 tutorials. (The Studio 8 book presents just two projects that cover hundreds of pages--the development of a static Web site for a fruit company and an interactive site on the poet Dante.)

The Hands-On Training books are a delight to the eye, with hundreds of full-color screen captures, sections of tips and tricks, and a style that keeps reminding the reader there are real people behind all those directions. "Congrats!" Brian Wood tells me at the end of chapter 12 in the InDesign book. "You have another chapter under your belt." (We all need encouragement.) The Dreamweaver book is especially well-designed; it's just elegant, with the muted color scheme of the practice Web site matching the book's own.

The emphasis in all of these manuals is learning by doing, as one might expect, but these guides also go beyond simple cookbook style ("select the object from page 1, copy the object, paste the object into page 2") to helping the reader see things a novice might overlook. In the Dreamweaver book, for example, one instruction is to click on a color you like to add a background color to a Web page. But then Short and Green add: "Look at the Code window. See how the XHTML is updated to reflect the changes you just made? This is a great way to learn XHTML. ... Go ahead and make some more changes to your page, but leave the Code window open so you can watch Dreamweaver 8 create all the XHTML." (XHTML is short for "Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language"; it's "the current standard for creating Web pages.")

In short, play around a little bit. I like that.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Childhood on the island of Murano -- A memoir of Italy has a Chico connection

By DAN BARNETT

Some 34 years after she came to America, Walnut Creek resident Lucia Barbini Falcone finds herself back in northeastern Italy for a vacation with her large family.

Her mother is in bed, frail, "not like the determined and energetic person she had been. No. All traces of Mama have disappeared. What lies in bed now is a scribble of the original. Not even an imitation of my mama, only a forgery." It is inevitable, perhaps, that memories flood in.

"I think of my heritage, of my childhood, of all of our relatives and friends who still live on the small island of Murano and in my mind I see a young girl walking over bridges with her siblings and friends, talking to relatives and passersby."

Murano, Falcone writes, is "a speck of land in the Venetian Lagoon adjacent to Venice. ... A place -- which at times seems to appear and disappear within the depth of its capricious tides -- not only linked by its bridges, but as well by the written and unwritten laws engraved within its social fabric."

Later, recounting a visit to Murano with a childhood friend, she would write of "a mystical world in which fantasy and reality fuse into one. I savor the beauty of it all, just like I savor the stories of my childhood veiled by time, that have become more magical with each passing year."

That world is evoked in "Over Bridges, Across Tables: Growing Up On the Island of Murano" ($16.95 in paperback from Trafford Publishing or from Falcone Books, P.O. Box 3463, Walnut Creek, 94598) in which the author becomes a character, Anna Marchini. "I've taken the liberty of rearranging names and certain events," she writes, "out of respect for my family and friends in Murano, but the essence of the stories is true."

Falcone is the sister-in-law of Joyce Anderson of Chico, who wrote me that "two of Lucia's three daughters attended and graduated from Chico State so Lucia has been a frequent visitor to Chico. ... Nicole, their eldest daughter, married a young man from Murano. ... Through the years Lucia's nieces, nephews and sisters have visited this area. They've been impressed by our big park and especially with the university campus, although during an August visit, one sister remarked that being in Chico was 'like living on the sun.' For generations Lucia's family have been glass makers, and it's interesting to know that in Murano, famous for its glass, they admire the works of our very own Orient and Flume. (The letters 'ch' are pronounced with a 'k' sound in Italian, so 'Chico' is mispronounced there as 'Kiko.')"

"Over Bridges" is full of dozens of vignettes of Murano life. The island is only 1,100 acres and now has a population of 7,000, but to young Anna it was an entire world. Born in 1949, Anna grew up with five siblings. Her mother, Teresa, had fallen in love with her husband, Nicolò ("Nico") when she was just 13. Anna thought it was not so strange, then, when she, age 12, fell in love with a young man named Davide. Mouths flapped, of course, but that was to be expected. "On the island, people took a fragment of your life and made it their own when there was not enough excitement in theirs."

Anna and her friend Tina "walked to forbidden corners of the island, even after Mama's friend, Signora Lena, told us that if we took one step past the lighthouse, or went to the cemetery after dark, people would put a tabarro over our heads and shoulders. When I asked Mama what her friend meant, she explained that a tabarro was a dark, imaginary mantle made up of people's gossips."

Tying all her memories together is the presence of Papa Nico, painter, incurable optimist, a man whose income from work at the mirror glass factory could hardly keep up with household needs. He joked with his children and his wife, he invited strangers home when there was little to eat (there were no second helpings), "he filled his and our lives with small pleasures. Via the everyday rituals, the celebrations, the small lessons of love, he passed on to us the true essence of life."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Skyway poet writes of 'dangerous places in our dangerous time'

By DAN BARNETT

Paradise writer and "Skyway poet" Sally Allen McNall won the State Street Press competition for her chapbook, "How To Behave At the Zoo and Other Lessons"; her book manuscript, "Rescue," received the Backwaters Press Prize.

Now, in a new chapbook, "Trying to Write a Poem Without the Word Blood In It" ($6 in paperback from PWJ Publishing, www.wellinghamjones. com), McNall harnesses poetic energy to cry out against the absurdities and injustices she sees all around. The poems do have a lot of blood in them--the bloodshed of war, the bloodshed of a poet whose only refuge seems to be in a dream "where no one hates you, there's no impossible job to attempt." True to the typo on the front cover, hers is a "work" of blood.

The first of the 18 poems here sets the tone. "Before This War Is Over" is not about our present conflicts (or is it?) but takes the reader back to the days of Vietnam. "The young mother knows what she / has just done" in hiding the news from her son. She "knows she'll deceive / her little boy as long as she can about how / blood pumps out, or blooms purple under / skin, and how perfect strangers will spit / on you." Why? "She wants her son to remember peace" but "this is hopeless. ... And rage / is splashing up and down / her skin like ten gallons of gasoline / and any grownup / could be the match."

The final poem, "Quill," reminds the reader how hard it is to forget.

We don't decide what to remember. The brain's master etchers
do their best work for the disaster, for war, rage, shame.
The rapist surges like a troll from under the bridge, grabs,
grapples. The girl can't forget a second of it for years.
No matter how safe we feel just before it happens, or how
we've drilled ourselves to be calm, the world takes us.

I don't believe in angels, but it amuses me to think each of us has
a recording angel, our personal chemist and electrician--impartial,
lacking fellow-feeling, dipping her quill in our rushing blood
or hacking, keystroke by keystroke into our hearts, tattoos and operas.
SAVE, she commands, SAVE, SAVE, and we are helpless,
we bear her art forward in us, into our darkness, into our light.

In the poem that gives the chapbook its title, the writer imagines watching a movie backwards and imagines blood returning into a person and the wound closing. And then she writes, "... I have lost a lot to this / century, I am exhausted, I would like it back, / scooped, sopped up, suctioned from wherever it is, / and siphoned back in me, for future use."

The poet had "A Welcome To the Real World" long years ago. "I was 17, it was still the '50s, / when one college teacher pried up one / little corner of what this country / officially believed-- believes-- / about itself. We were reading the / Communist Manifesto in order / to learn what was wrong with it. I don't / remember exactly what he said / that made me think he liked Marx. // I thought of him today, / while preparing the kitchen floor / for the new tiles. / The floor looked like the black / bed of a bad road leading out of some city where / everyone hates us-- with some reason-- / where it's not sensible for me to talk / alone or in company, in any dress."

The despair and anger in these poems is at times relieved by ironic whimsy, from the "recording angel" to the time when "The Last Secular Linguist Leaves Her Spiderhole" (what a title) who wonders, if "God be with you!" eventually became "good-bye," what "God bless you!" will become.

But even "Going To the Theatre" brings back crimson thoughts. "In Shakespeare's really bad play, the girl is raped, / her hands chopped off, her tongue cut out. ... / Today, around the world, long streets fill / with the spoken word peace. Once the lips / part from the initial sound, the tongue flattens, / pulls back, the lips stretch wide before / the final hiss, tongue pointed at teeth. Silent, / we leave the play, we dream real blood."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Retired Oroville teacher tells story of a daughter lost, a family united in tragedy

By DAN BARNETT

"I love young babies," writes Olivia Claire High, who retired in 1997 after 19 years teaching in Oroville elementary schools. "They come from their special little cloistered world, with their own unique chemistry. There's a certain mystery about them that intrigues me. I can't help wondering what goes on inside their pure little minds when I see the myriad of expressions flitting across their tiny faces."

When their first daughter, Kathy, was born to Claire and her husband Joe in 1958, Claire was a young married, "barely 19," "a 'color inside the lines' kind of person" who liked "to plan each page of my life as much as I possibly can." But plans go awry. Kathy was born with a cleft lip.

But surgery repaired the damage early on, and Claire welcomed their second daughter, Kari Suzanne, born in 1960, hoping that lightning would not strike twice. Yet during Kari's infancy Claire would have a recurring nightmare of her death. Kari lived 6 years, the last three battling an especially aggressive form of leukemia, a story her mother could not recount until now, all these many years later.

"An Angel Among Us: A Mother's Heartfelt Story" ($16.95 in paperback from I & L Publishing in Oroville, www.ilpublishing.com) presents not only Kari's physical struggle but her mother's spiritual struggle as well. "I kept trying to figure out why this awful thing was happening. The more I probed, the less I understood. Why was God letting this happen to Kari? Was it my fault? Was He punishing us? Was He trying to teach us a lesson? I couldn't find one convincing reason to justify any of this intolerable heartache we were going through. It would have been so easy to turn away from God, but I couldn't because I needed His spiritual sustenance. Still, it wasn't easy walking through the minefield of events laid down by Kari's illness."

There was no miraculous recovery for Kari though her illness frequently went into remission. Her reaction to multiple-drug therapy often made matters worse. Trips from Oroville to the UC Medical Center in San Francisco became all-too-routine and the companionship of other families with severely ill children was bittersweet. Who would succumb next?

Most of the book is a detailed record of Kari's struggle and the reader almost wants to turn away in the face of such suffering. A published story about the book noted that Claire had kept a journal since her teenage years, something to draw on when hazy memory begins to play tricks. But it is clear that Claire High's story is not self-pitying. The writing is straightforward, the evidence of some emotional distance. "Joe and I feel so fortunate these days," she writes toward the end of the book. "We have three loving daughters who share our lives. We still think about Kari and will always wish that she could still be here with us in body, as well as spirit. ... She seems to be in my thoughts more now that I'm getting older. I've tried to make some sense out of why Kari had to suffer so much, but I don't think I ever will. I'll always think of leukemia as a thief. It is a robber of life and happiness, of futures and dreams. I do not spend my days wallowing in bitterness, but the sadness is there. My heart still feels the pain of my daughter's ordeal, but I can't dwell on it because I have so much to be thankful for."

Not long before she died Kari whispered to her mother, "Take care of Cuddles for me." Cuddles, a miniature poodle, had been a constant companion in her last year. Those words would prove to be Kari's last. "She passed away the next morning; it was Joe's 35th birthday. Her life's brief journey had come to an end."

More than a dozen black-and-white photographs enhance the poignancy of the story.

"Kari enriched our lives with her presence," Claire writes, "but she was a precious little gem we were not meant to keep. It's very hard not to miss someone you've loved so much. You have your memories, but they are not flesh and blood you can hold in your arms, nor do they give you the sound of their laughter. Only the cherished echoes remain."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Former Chico State University psychology professor to talk about 'body intelligence'

By DAN BARNETT

Ed Abramson retired from academic life in 2001 after three decades teaching in the Chico State University psychology department.

Now in private practice in Lafayette, Abramson is in Chico today to speak to a psychology group. He'll also be signing copies of his new book at Lyon Books, 121 W. 5th Street in Chico at 5 p.m. today. The public is invited.

The book is the fruit, if you will, of years of experience with those who want to lose pounds but who just can't seem to succeed. The missing ingredient is also the title of the book. "Body Intelligence: Lose Weight, Keep It Off, and Feel Great About Your Body Without Dieting!" ($21.95 in hardcover from McGraw-Hill) is the most sensible guide I've ever read about weight management.

In a nutshell, diets don't work because they're just about counting things (calories, portions, grams of fat) and not about counting on things (like healthy habits of eating and exercise). Once the right habits are established, dieting can become a thing of the past. Abramson describes "body intelligence" as the integration of "research on the psychology of eating and appetite, body image, and exercise to provide a more complete view of weight regulation." Diets are about restrictions; body intelligence is about, well, living!

Body intelligence is about coming to terms with food, body image, and exercise (each of which is covered in detail in the book): "Once you understand the different reasons for eating, and become aware of how you use food, you will find that some of these needs can be met without eating. As you develop alternative ways of meeting these needs, you will lose weight. When you have a realistic, but non-punitive view of your body, you will avoid much of the discouragement that has undermined your previous weight-loss efforts.

"A healthy body image will enable you to convert the new eating behaviors into permanent habits. Similarly, understanding the bad feelings associated with exercise will help you get past these feelings so you can develop a routine that is not painful and which actually may be enjoyable."

Some of Abramson's observations may sound counterintuitive. "As your body image improves," he says, "your willingness to get involved in physical activity will increase." But wait -- doesn't the motivation to exercise come because we feel bad about ourselves?

Maybe in the short term, but if we have developed habits of dissatisfaction with our bodies before exercising, we'll never be satisfied with them after exercising.

"Even after losing weight, you might still be unhappy with your thinner body. Instead of being preoccupied with fat, you might be dissatisfied with your stretch marks, wrinkles, the shape of your nose or some other less-than-perfect feature."

How about this one? "Never eat chocolate (or other craved food) while you're hungry."

What? Don't eat when we're hungry? Hunger is a complex phenomenon but what is clear is that we frequently say we are hungry not because of physical need but because of a whole array emotional states and external cues.

I was doing just fine until I passed the bakery with all those delicious smells. I ate and ate at a party because everyone else was eating. One day my wife asked if I was hungry. I couldn't tell until I had looked at my watch. Ouch!

Eating chocolate when we're "hungry" sends all the wrong habit-messages. What we might be more satisfied with, if we're physically hungry, is a nutritious meal (eating chocolate to get full doesn't work very well). Once we're physically satisfied, eating chocolate can be quite pleasurable (I'm told).

One more. If a person has "been fat for some time" (Abramson says "fat" is a perfectly good word) "other people may have difficulty adjusting to your new eating and exercise behaviors and may be uncomfortable with the weight loss that follows."

You'd think spouses and friends would be overjoyed that all the nagging has paid off, but think again. The person finally connecting with body intelligence changes old habitual relationships -- and that can be threatening.

"Body Intelligence" is written in a caring and sympathetic tone, with plenty of short case histories and brief surveys to make the ideas clear.

Abramson discusses the controversy over high carb diets, assesses surgical weight-loss solutions, and explains how parents can raise children with body intelligence.

Weigh to go!

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Pictorial volumes on Chico and Oroville from those well-versed in local history

By DAN BARNETT

Kudos to Arcadia Publishing (www.arcadiapublishing.com) for its extraordinary paperback series that showcases vintage black and white photographs from towns across the country.

Local historians write the introduction and captions and each book, though presented in an appealing uniform format, has its own personality and focus.

It's tempting to devote individual columns to each of the volumes of north state interest, but, space being of the essence, I'll do periodic roundups instead. That in no way mutes my advice: If you have any interest in area history, buy these books and send a thank-you note to the publisher.

"Images of America: Chico" ($19.99, published in 2005), combines the words of Edward V. Booth (former Enterprise-Record staff member and son of longtime E-R staffer Eddie Booth, who died in 1994) with the pictorial and historical expertise of Keith Johnson of the Butte County Historical Society and the unmatched John Nopel who, it can be said, has forgotten more about Chico than most of us will ever know.

Photographer Darcy Davis has added special attraction with "what does it look like now?" pictures of old-time Chico. (The E-R's Steve Schoonover, Laura Urseny and Ari Cohn are also credited.)

The book focuses primarily on Chico's grand old buildings and thoroughfares, and the then-and-now photographs are mesmerizing. Several pages are devoted to City Plaza in its various transformations, and the text is so up-to-date the current construction is also mentioned. You can look down The Esplanade of the 1920s and then see the same boulevard in 2005; there's Bidwell Mansion in 1868, just after it was finished, and then there's the mansion as it looks today. The most stunning change, though, is from the 1872 picture of Chico's Town Hall building, between Third and Fourth streets, to today's site, occupied by The Underground and the Towne Lounge, with not a politico in sight.

There's the 1916 shot of West First Street with the steps of Chico (now Bidwell) Presbyterian Church on the right and the steps to what would become Tres Hombres restaurant on the left -- and actual inches of snow on the ground! There are the buildings that became Chico State University; an aerial view of Diamond Match in 1918; and a picture of something the caption says "most people likely never knew existed": a rail line on West Fifth to the Sacramento River which "carried streetcars taking workers from Chico to the new sugar-beet processing plant that opened in Hamilton City in 1907." (PassengerS had to cross the river in a boat.)

There aren't many boats in "Images of America: Oroville, California" ($19.99, 2001) but there are a lot of gold dredgers, trains and bridges. Author James Lenhoff (whose own home on Montgomery Street, built in 1878 and "purchased and restored by the author and his wife in 1961," is among those pictured) has an abiding love of Oroville and its people. Lenhoff includes engravings of early scenes and is given to identify, by name if possible, those pictured in the many photographs.

The last chapter, "Luminaries and Modern Times," gives us images of Forty-niner Captain Ralph Bird, who "has been called the Father of Oroville because he laid out the new city of Oroville in 1855, naming the streets after himself and other contemporary associates"; George C. Perkins, "Oroville's most outstanding pioneer, going on to be elected governor in 1879" and later senator; Thomas Alva Edison, who "in 1879 ... established the Edison Ore Milling Company in Oroville to promote his gold-separating machine and seek platinum for his new light bulbs ... (who) visited Oroville at least once"; and Erle Stanley Gardner, the creator of Perry Mason, who "was raised in Oroville" and whose "father was a gold dredging engineer."

Though Oroville Dam played a large part in the life of the town in the 1950s and '60s, and there is a stunning picture when work was finished in 1968, most of the book's pictures are devoted to mining, the development of downtown and Oroville's schools and houses of worship. Oroville boys marched off to war in 1917; "the first statewide Citrus Fair was held on the courthouse lawn in downtown Oroville in 1887; and there is a picture of the historic Union Hotel, begun in 1864 on the corner of Myers and Montgomery Streets.

These books open historical doors and it is wise that we enter.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Former Chico State University student puts emotion into computer animation

By DAN BARNETT

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Back in 1968, Ira Latour joined Chico State University as a professor of art history. The school's Web site notes, "Latour was in Ansel Adams' first class of the photography department at the California School of Fine Arts in 1945. ... Now retired, he was a 1999 Ansel Adams Research Fellow at the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography."

One of Latour's students, Mike Wellins, has taken a photographer's eye into the booming field of computer animation. In his new book, "Storytelling Through Animation" ($49.95 in paperback, with a companion CD, from Charles River Media, Inc.), Wellins pays fitting tribute to his mentor:

"Ira is perhaps the most prolific artist, filmmaker and photographer I've ever known. He has always been a great source of encouragement, humor, and inspiration."

In a letter, Latour notes that "Mike teaches a course in computer animation each summer at Fresno State in our California State University Summer Program. He has made many films, both computer-crafted and live-action, for which he has won numerous awards. Several of his 'epics' have been premiered here at the Pageant Theater in Chico."

The book focuses on how the story appears on the screen. The first two parts deal with "emotions in motion" and "visual storytelling" and only then does the author take up preproduction, production and postproduction issues. Throughout the book Wellins has included long interviews with practicing professionals, including Disney animator Glen Keane ("The Lion King" and many others), Pixar animator Andrew Gordon (the lead animator for the character Mike in "Monsters, Inc.") and Mike's brother Dean ("Osmosis Jones" and an upcoming Disney project).

Wellins emphasizes that the considerations needed for live-action film (sound, lighting, narration, character development and so on) are the same for animation (either stop motion or computer generated). He notes that "The history of film and animation is about a fascination with illusion -- the illusion of movement and the story. The characters on the screen aren't just a projection, but become people to whom the audience is emotionally connected. ... From each frame, pose and choice, the filmmaker who has distilled the ideas down to their key emotional connections and truly understands what connection he is trying to make overall will have that much more control and creative ammunition on every decision he makes."

Wellins illustrates his points with dozens of black-and-white photographs and diagrams, a color section and an included CD that contains several short features. One, Wellins' own "Shards of Death," is available for free viewing on the Internet. The feature only runs a couple of minutes and features an interview conducted by a mean-looking monster with a "small blue fairy creature" who wants a job in a video game. The ugly monster has a soft side (that's part of the humor) and plays counter to type. The small creature is cute, cute, cute and that sets up "a hopeless situation: a cute character applies for a job in a violent video game, and the scarier the character tries to be, the cuter the character becomes. In directing both characters," Wellins continues, "the setup of two such extreme characters creates a natural dynamic of tension and absurdity."

In this case it's important that the camera does not draw attention to itself. There is some camera movement, but not enough to distract from the bizarre interview going on. There is an explosive ending but, as the big sweet monster might say, it's all in a day's work.

Wellins' description of the "animatic" or story reel, a kind of first draft of the visual story that helps establish how long "each scene, shot or effect will ultimately be," is fascinating. "Animatics are created by photographing or scanning the storyboards and other elements and then editing them to time with a dialogue, scratch track or other temporary sounds and music." That's the start. Here the author returns to emotions, because the animatic must take into account the pauses needed when one character delivers bad news to another, or the quick cuts needed in a comedy film.

"Storytelling Through Animation" is a wonderful and detailed introduction to the field from someone who sees clearly every aspect of a film that must be in place in order for the animation to "click" with audiences. He, too, stands on the shoulders of giants.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Now for something completely ridiculous

By DAN BARNETT

In the late 1950s, a writer named "Grendel Briarton" (who turned out to be writer Reginald Bretnor with the letters rearranged) began publishing a long series of shaggy dog stories in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction called "Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot." After lengthy buildup, each would end with an audacious pun.

Imagine the following example expanded into a 20-minute disquisition and you get the idea. Jacqueline Spear, the famous anthropologist, dressed in furs among tribal peoples until one day she discovered her duds had been abducted. For Feghoot, it was easy to see that "Dr. Jacqueline missed her hide."

But Feghoots are so 20th-century. That brings us to Bill Dutcher, who, we are told, "lives in Oklahoma with his wife, Terry" and their two daughters. (He should move to Arizona, where they really have a sense of Yuma.) He is self-described as "a seldom-published writer who would like to be rich and famous, but not for the same thing. He is working on the former as an independent oil and gas producer in Oklahoma City, and on the latter as the creator of 'Fictoids.'"

Fictoids? They are, writes Dutcher in "Fictoids: Short Fiction ... Very Short" ($12 in hardcover from Dutcher & Co. Inc.), "a bit of fictional history, making a statement or telling a story in one sentence. A typical fictoid tells who did what, when and where. A fictoid may even be partially true, but is never entirely true, or it would be a factoid. In fact, a fictoid is just a fictional factoid."

Dutcher's Web site (www.fictoids.com) explains that he got the idea in the late '90s watching CNN and its fascination with factoids. Dutcher may not know it, but his invention is the new Feghoot for the attention-deficit new century. No more wading through a long story to get to the stupid ending. The stupid ending is contained in the first sentence!

The invention of fictoids is also the story of a self-publisher. As Dutcher writes on his site, "In 2003, encouraged by family and friends, I decided to put my favorites into a self-published book. This led to a long period of negotiating with myself over which fictoids should be in the book. By this time, I had written hundreds of fictoids, but my inner-editor felt some of the fictoids were too easy, too abstract or just not funny enough to justify being in the book. There was also the issue of how many fictoids should be in the book. Once it was decided that the book should be around 200 pages, the editing continued, but each time I would write a new fictoid I would delete an old one." Dutcher goes on to say how he picked the illustrator, New Yorker cartoonist Jack Ziegler. Turns out you can go on the New Yorker Web site and pretty much hire their cartoonists. So he did.

The day I'm writing this column Amazon ranked the book No. 52,126 (up from No. 81,767 the previous day -- Dutcher must have sold a couple of copies). Readers who dream of their own self-publishing bonanza may want to follow Dutcher's story. He appears on the verge of breaking into the coveted No. 36,152 spot on Amazon but we'll see.

In the meantime, to the fictoids. The ones I liked the best are reminiscent of the old Feghoots, only without the length, setting up the pun or other wordplay and then getting out of the way (fast). "The Minnesota Endangered Species Act of 1974 stipulated that the mink shall inherit the earth, but if they don't go for it, they could leave it to beaver." "Egyptian Pharaoh Amir Ziplok invented self storage in 850 BC, then marketed his invention through a clever pyramid scheme."

More? "In 1928, Fannie Footloose, a highfalutin flip flapper who loved to shimmy and Charleston, shocked Newport's high society when she suddenly fled the social scene and sailed off for Paris with foppish fashion photographer F. Stop Fitzgerald."

Even more? "When the Ammonite people were driven out of Egypt in 1220 BC, their luggage was carried by the Samsonites."

Enough? "Since 1994, commuters entering Manhattan in car pools have been required to use bridges instead of tunnels, due to rising health concerns over car pool tunnel syndrome."

All I can say is, if you have to have your head examined for liking fictoids, bill Dutcher!

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

The 1968 siege of Khe Sanh -- A Chico visitor's Vietnam memoir

By DAN BARNETT

Michael Archer, who lives in Reno with his wife and three children, signed up for the Marines in 1967.

He and his best friend, Tom Mahoney, enlisted not for patriotic reasons but, for Tom, to get out of Oakland, and, for Michael, to live the adventure and "to prove myself." By 1970, with the Corps downsizing, Michael was released to civilian duty after a tour of Vietnam and months spent in Khe Sanh during its siege by soldiers from North Vietnam. Tom would never return.

Archer had long wanted to write his story, but earlier attempts brought too much emotion. Now, drawing on his own records and the published accounts of others, "A Patch of Ground: Khe Sanh Remembered" ($15.95 in paperback from Hellgate Press) takes the reader into the heart of the U.S. war in Vietnam told in very human terms. Archer's prose is vivid and detailed, the account of his actions "in country" both humble and humbling, and the incidents he relates sometimes darkly humorous and sometimes intensely frightening. There are more than two dozen black-and-white photographs with several maps to help orient the reader.

A radio operator out of the Khe Sanh Combat Base, located not far from Laos and the Demilitarized Zone that separated North and South Vietnam, the author is surrounded by unforgettable characters: Tiddy, Pig, Old Woman (known for his constant high-pitched complaining), Savage, Captain Mirzah "Harry" Baig and many more. Archer's deft style draws the reader into the story so that it becomes more than ancient history.

Michael Archer will be coming to Chico for public appearances and a luncheon for Khe Sanh veterans. He will be signing books at 6 p.m. Friday at Lyon Books in Chico and at 3 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble. In a letter Archer writes, "January 21st has special significance to the survivors of the 1968 siege of Khe Sanh because it is the anniversary of the day that momentous battle, the most protracted, costly and consequential of the Vietnam War, commenced."

The statistics, as recounted in "A Patch of Ground," are hard to grasp. "Over 1,000 Americans died fighting for Khe Sanh in 1968, and another 4,500 were wounded. ... South Vietnamese military losses were in the range of 750 dead and 500 wounded. The North Vietnamese Army suffered nearly 12,000 dead with probably twice that many wounded."

The book's central chapter, "Overrun," is the most harrowing. Archer is on radio duty at Khe Sanh Village. Early the morning of Jan. 21, 1968, word comes from the combat base "putting all forces in the area on red alert." Minutes later, "gunfire ... encircled the compound and, mixed with our outgoing fire, created an unbelievable racket. The deafening roar in the center of a pitched battle nearly defies description: a seamless earsplitting blend of chattering bursts of semi-automatic rifles, the oscillating knock of machine guns, teeth-jarring detonations of rocket-propelled grenades, and the deep, reverberating thump of exploding mortar shells. ... Alone in the bunker, fear cramped my neck muscles and tremors shook my head like a seizure. Tears filled my eyes and I started to repeat the same question aloud, 'What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?'" The reader cannot turn away.

When Archer returned home to the Oakland-Berkeley area at the height of anti-war sentiment, his "anger and frustration were sometimes overwhelming." No one seemed to understand "the unconscionable brutality of North Vietnam's terror apparatus." Willard Park in Berkeley became "Ho Chi Minh Park" and mailboxes were painted to resemble Viet Cong flags. Archer blamed the hippies for their romanticism, the politicians for wavering, the military for dishonest assessments and admits to decades-long bitterness which "eventually, mercifully, sputtered out." Then he could write.

The war, he realized, was a kind of noble futility. He would think of the tens of thousands who lost their lives and remember "the insolent young faces of my buddies, the fine red dust of Khe Sanh etched into their every pore (and) the ease, humor and courage with which they endured such relentless peril."

"In those moments," he writes, "it did not matter how I felt about the war, the nation that wished to forget, or myself. It mattered only that I was proud to have stood with them and defended a little patch of ground."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. used by permission.

Chico novelist's love story unfolds against an international diplomatic background

By DAN BARNETT

Chico resident Helga Ruge, a German native, is no stranger to international diplomacy.

An author's note says Ruge "came to America as the bride of Foreign Service Officer Neil Ruge in 1950," though the couple, and later their two children, "lived abroad for most of their 20 years in the diplomatic service." Neil retired in 1969 and "the family settled in Chico, where Neil taught business law and Helga taught German" at Chico State University. Neil died in 2000, and Helga's memoir, "Flashbacks of a Diplomat's Wife," is a tribute to her late husband.

Now Helga has entered the world of fiction, drawing on her experiences to create a love story, set in 1960 and 1961, involving 23-year-old Octavia Angelini, a beautiful and spirited Sicilian who immigrates to America to find her fortune, and Jeff Carpenter, Vice Consul of the United States, whom she first meets on a beach in Palermo, Italy. "Whither the Promised Land" ($11.95 in paperback from Clay & Marshall Publishing Company out of Chico, claymarshallpubl@aol.com) chronicles Octavia's rise from maid, to hatcheck girl, to a mesmerizing presence on the international diplomatic front. America's "promised land" status is fully vindicated, though of course there are twists and turns in the torrid (though decidedly not sordid) love affair between Jeff and Octavia.

Ruge writes about the "exhilarating experience" of creating her characters. "I felt immensely powerful as I created life, formed human shapes and personalities with all their strengths and weaknesses."

Octavia is larger than life. Searching for work in her newly adopted country, she lands a job in New York as a maid for an Italian diplomat and his wife who need help with their two children. She is absolutely gorgeous and has brains to spare.

"I studied English, French and some German at the university," she tells Count Geminiano, "and because my father insisted I learn something practical as well, I took a course in typing and also one in modeling."

Jeff is no slouch, either. Octavia tells her Aunt Laura that "Jeff's parents were fairly well off but not rich. They helped him some when he went to Harvard, but mostly he had to rely on scholarships." Jeff double majored in history and political science.

Why did Octavia leave her family in Palermo? "I've always had a desire to immigrate to America for reasons I wasn't quite sure of," she tells her aunt. "I had even applied before I met Jeff -- but after he was gone, I was determined to come over here. I knew it was hard to leave behind my parents and ... everyone and everything dear to me for an insecure future, yet an inner voice urged me to go to the Promised Land, and I followed it."

The State Department recalls Jeff to Washington, D.C. and sends him to Moscow to help deal with an impending crisis. It was May 1960. "The temperature of the Cold War had risen perceptibly. Headlines everywhere focused on the U-2 incident, which Khrushchev exploited to the maximum, politically speaking. For months, Francis Gray Powers had eluded the Soviets in his highly sophisticated, unarmed reconnaissance plane, taking pictures of sensitive defense installations. No Soviet missiles had reached Powers until that fateful first day in May when his plane suffered a direct hit. Now in a Moscow jail, Powers had time to reflect on his extraordinary capture while American diplomats negotiated to get him freed and back to the U.S."

But the driving force of the novel is the lovers' passion for each other and the question of whether Jeff can marry a non-citizen (and a Sicilian -- did she have Mafia connections?) and still keep his job, his life's calling.

There are plenty of emotional ups and downs, and neither Jeff nor Octavia are exactly virginal, but it's clear that they are made for each other. Descriptions of their lovemaking are discreet, but the reader gets the idea: "Words were superfluous at this deliberate hour of love's triumph. Only the rising passion between the two lovers spoke of immense joy and heartrending pain as their souls and bodies were fused through the eternal rhythm of life, so revealingly new and all-encompassing and yet oh so temporary, so fleeting."

It's clear Ruge had immense fun with this confection and readers can look forward to future work as she blossoms as a novelist.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Crossing into 2006 with Skyway Poet's words

By DAN BARNETT

Chico poet Audrey C. Small is part of a small coterie of writers, the Skyway Poets, who meet monthly, alternating between Chico and Paradise, to listen to and critique each other's work.

Small's first chapbook, "Crossings" ($6 in paper from PWJ Publishing, www.wellinghamjones.com, out of Tehama), collects more than two dozen poems, about half previously published, and illustrates them with three of the author's carefully drawn string figures.

According to a note on the author, Small often uses these figures -- cat's cradles -- when she presents her poetry or short stories. "Her mother, Paula Collinson, originally taught her some string figures and encouraged her to use written sources to expand her interest in this ancient art form. Audrey has taught and shared this interest in the San Francisco Bay Area and Butte County, as well as in travels with her husband overseas." The book lists several sources on constructing string figures, among them Caroline Furness Jayne's "String Figures and How To Make Them: A Study of Cat's Cradle in Many Lands" (Dover Publications) and Camilla Gryski's "Cat's Cradle, Owl's Eyes: A Book of String Games" (William Morrow and Company).

The poems in "Crossings" don't tell a single story but rather stories of multiple crossings that weave themselves into a pattern, as string weaves in and out to produce "Caribou in the Willows," or "Many Stars" or "the Salmon River with the Last Peak on the Plain" (shown on the cover), each lending its title to a poem. "String Figures" reminds us there was a World Wide Web long before the Internet:

Figures one by one
enact in fact or memory
an endless line of circle oval pentacle.
Lizard / bird / marsupial
may move away
but come back
another way
to dance or play
caught in the web
of infinite variety.

Here are deep forces at work, suggests the poet in "Forces":

In spring
when we were young
we planted gnarled sweeds
in our gravelly yard
and the sun-warmed earth
of summer brought yellow
and orange bursts
of nasturtium.

There is another force too, between human and human, evoked not only by this poem but by "Countless":

Some things in numbers
lend a beauty
single objects lose:
the clustered grape
and heather.
Days spent together.

There are crossings of oceans, from "Martin Mere, Lancashire" and "Ullet Road Church, Liverpool," "over the sleeping Aegean" to Greece ("The moon grows round as a chariot wheel, / turns to bronze, then a silver shield / fielding spears of stars."). In "Sibling" there were

Welsh pebbles shifting,
slipping with delicious friction
beneath our dashing feet ...
Life carried us seaward.
Gone now the Irish Sea
of childhood, sounds of the shingle beach ...
Today a golden sun
washes my pebble paths --
boundaries of my wedded home
by Contra Costa's echoing shore.
There are memories that cross our minds and shape our years.

January 4th is "My Father's Birthday":

As rain falls on snow
large white patches
that were pasture
stand out across the canyon,
but trees, ever darker,
guard winding paths
out and away.
Ridge pines remain erect
while these housebound shrubs
bent beneath snow-load need help
some probing, some shaking.
Facing the wrong direction
they harbor both cold
and heavy burden. ...
The snow is heavy and the wind fierce,
but what is left at twilight
stays: dark trees,
new green of lawn
and those smooth, faraway fields.

In "Siberian House," the "name of a Chukchee Indian string figure," the poet writes:

Have you ever played cat's cradle?
My mother and I did.
She would insert her hands
in the closed loop of string
and, drawing it taut,
start us with the "Cradle."
Best was to watch her make,
in slow motion, a Navajo "Butterfly"
and feel her delight in its fluttering.
But of all the string figures --
not the easiest she taught me -- I come back to "Siberian House."
I feel in my hands
the building of the house
the throwing loose of the loop
the collapse of the roof
and the running away of two figures.
Yet it wasn't like that.
Yes, the slates fell in,
walls and floor were smashed
by the bomb's blast,
but the figures had already left.
In the end war and separation never happened:
the string always came out whole.

In 2006, may we be spared as well.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Summing up the year in book reviews

By DAN BARNETT

Of the 51 books I reviewed in 2005, all but four had some north state connection, coming either from area writers or visiting guests.

Seven works by local novelists caught my attention: "Fatal Embrace" by Aris Whittier of Oroville; "Memoirs of the Messiah: A 98% True Story" by Chico's own DNA; "The Angel in Wax: A Love Story" by retired Chico State professor David Downes; "On the Bumpy Road to Heaven With the Devil in Hot Pursuit" by Michael Ramon, another retired professor, writing as "Robert Marlowe"; "SASP," children's adventure tales by Orland resident Jonathan Perez; and two from Redding writer and columnist Steve Brewer: "Bank Job" (about bank robbers) and "Boost" (about car thieves).

The interest in local history was given a boost by a long list of publications. The column paid tribute to issues of "Wagon Wheels" and "Diggin's." Chico State historian Michael J. Gillis produced a detailed account of "The Soper-Wheeler Company: A Century of Growing Trees." Durham's Adriana Farley published "Durham's World War II Honor Roll: A History of Service." Jane B. Schuldberg told the story of "Kennett" (now buried under Shasta Lake). Bob Colby and the late Lois McDonald took the reader from "Magalia to Stirling City."

In addition, Chico State historian Stephen E. Lewis published "The Ambivalent Revolution: Forging State and Nation in Chiapas, 1910-1945" and Butte College historian Dan Ostrander came out with a Chinese edition of "'Read My Lips: No New Taxes.'"

In biography and memoir, I reviewed "Spiritual Business: The Amazing and True Story of Magical Blend Magazine" by its Chico-based founder, Michael Peter Langevin; "Beyond the Public Eye: One Teacher's Journey" by longtime Las Plumas High School history teacher James Dale Shelby; "A Fish Flew Through the Porthole: A Sailing Adventure Narrated By a Very Reluctant Sailor" by Gerri Miller; "Fools Rush In: A True Story of Love, War, and Redemption" by former Chicoan Bill Carter (about U2 and the siege of Sarajevo in the mid-1990s); "Ishi in His Second World: The Untold Story of Ishi in Oroville" by Feather River College anthropologist Richard Burrill; "Bonhoeffer As Martyr: Social Responsibility and Modern Christian Commitment" by Simpson University theology professor Craig J. Slane; "Jones At War: A Sailor's Story, 1935-1956" by Los Molinos resident Roy Lee Jones; and "As I Remember: A Collection of Newspaper Columns" and "Still Remembering," both by Willows resident Shari Edwards.

For the outdoors: "Wildflowers of Table Mountain" by Samantha Mackey and Albin Bills of Butte College; "Geology Trails of Northern California" by Robin C. Johnson and Dot Lofstrom; "Reading the Trail: Exploring the Literature and Natural History of the California Crest" by University of Nevada, Reno, environmental literature instructor Corey Lee Lewis; and the sumptuous "Creative Fly Tying" by Mike Mercer of Redding.

A variety of religious perspectives: "Deceived On Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church" by former Paradise resident Warren Smith; "Relax, You're Already Home: Everyday Taoist Habits for a Richer Life" by retired Chico State biologist Raymond Barnett (no relation); "Lucid Living: by Timothy Freke (which I found far from lucid); and "The Problem of Pain" by C. S. Lewis (the writer of the Narnia tales).

Poetry: "Confessions of the Hare and Other Old Tales" by Skyway poet Joy Harold Helsing" and "Skunk Talk" by Albert Garcia (who grew up south of Red Bluff).

Next, two Hollywood guidebooks from former Chicoan Kristin Burke: "Going Hollywood: How to Get Started, Keep Going and Not Turn Into a Sleaze" and "Costuming For Film: The Art and the Craft" by Burke and Holly Cole.

In the category of true crime: "Justice Waits: The UC Davis Sweetheart Murders" by Davis resident Joel Davis.

Humor: "Good Spousekeeping: A His and Hers Guide to Couplehood" by Dave Meurer, a field representative for Republican Congressman Wally Herger.

Computers? "The Culturally Customized Web Site: Customizing Web Sites for the Global Marketplace" by Nitish Sing (Chico State Associate Professor of Marketing) and Arun Pereira.

Photography? "Third Views, Second Sights: A Rephotographic Survey of the American West)" with contributions by Byron Wolfe, Associate Professor of Photography and Digital Imaging at Chico State.

Food? "Some Like it Hot: Dining In and Out of Chico" by "Henri Bourride."

Finally, two collections: "Under the Big Top," essays, reminiscences and poetry written by members of Hannie Voyles' senior writing class; and "Best Christian Writing 2006" by former Paradise resident John Wilson.

Read on!

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2005 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Former Paradise resident publishes new edition of 'Best Christian Writing'

By DAN BARNETT

It's been more than 10 years now since John Wilson began editing the bimonthly "Books and Culture: A Christian Review," published by Christianity Today, Inc. out of Chicago. The answer to the secularist New York Review of Books, Books and Culture is far less predictable in the books it reviews and the reviewers selected.

The November-December 2005 issue, for example, boasts an appreciation of Jan Karon's "Mitford" novels, an examination of Hebraic purity laws, reviews of the latest Harry Potter tome and books about polio, and an essay on mythologizing Einstein. Reviewers come from Calvin College, Yale University, Duke Divinity School, and the Christian Vegetarian Association.

Wilson's picture shows up in the 1965 "Argo," the Paradise High School yearbook. He's a junior; I was a sophomore. He went on to become, in the words of an article a few years ago in The Atlantic, a "polymath"; I went on to become someone who had to look up the word "polymath." But God's ways are past finding out and over the last few years I've been graced by being in John's company.

"The Best Christian Writing 2006" ($17.95 in paperback from Jossey-Bass), edited by Wilson, with an introduction by Wheaton College historian Mark Noll, is another grace. The 20 pieces here assembled offer spiritual reportage from the trenches, but by "spiritual" I don't mean a nebulous new-agey focus on the ethereal. I mean instead the attempt by Christians of many stripes -- Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant -- to come to grips with the call of God on their lives.

An interview with Eugene Peterson (author of "The Message" Bible paraphrase) makes this clear. Peterson tells Mark Galli, managing editor of Christianity Today, that "spirituality" defined as "becoming emotionally intimate with God" is "a naive view of spirituality. What we're talking about is the Christian life. It's following Jesus. Spirituality is no different from what we've been doing for two thousand years just by going to church and receiving the sacraments, being baptized, learning to pray, and reading Scriptures rightly. It's just ordinary stuff.

"This promise of intimacy is both right and wrong. There is an intimacy with God, but it's like any other intimacy; it's part of the fabric of your life. In marriage you don't feel intimate most of the time. Nor with a friend. Intimacy isn't primarily a mystical emotion. It's a way of life, a life of openness, honesty, a certain transparency."

Arranged by the authors' last names, the book juxtaposes the "Confessions of a Traveling Calvinist" (by Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw) with "The Persistence of the Catholic Moment" (by First Things editor Richard John Neuhaus, a former Lutheran). Canadian Gideon Strauss writes of "My Africa Problem ... and Ours" (about the contemplation of action) which abuts American Daniel Taylor's meditation on a visit to the former monastery on Skellig Michael, "a seven-hundred-foot-high pinnacle of water-and-wind-worn rock that rises like Excalibur out of the Atlantic waves off the southwest coast of Ireland" (about the action of contemplation).

The authors of the selections try to think "christianly" about their world -- about Islam; about what children are for; about those with mental illness.

Two articles confront Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." Frederica Mathewes-Green, from an Orthodox perspective, sees the bloody crucifixion in the film as a focus foreign to the New Testament Gospels. Gregory Wolfe, publisher and editor of Image: A Journal of the Arts & Religion, has a different take. "However individual and controversial and subject to criticism his rendition may be, Mel Gibson's message is nourished and shaped by his respect for an ancient tradition. And at the heart of that tradition is the belief in the unimaginable depth of God's passion for us."

This is echoed in "Brother John" by August Turak, the winner of the John Templeton Foundation's "Power of Purpose" international essay competition. The author reflects on his frequent visits to Mepkin Abbey near Charleston, S.C., and specifically on Brother John, a monk who one evening offers an umbrella to the visitor who has forgotten his own. The essay quotes a line from Pascal, as if God is speaking, and looks to the great gift that is celebrated this, and every, Christmastide:

"You would not seek Me if you had not already found Me, and you would not have found Me if I had not first found you."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2005 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

In Chinese edition, Butte College instructor defends Bush 41's political pragmatism

By DAN BARNETT

In 1999 Butte College history instructor Dan Ostrander published "'Read My Lips: No New Taxes.'" The book, reviewed in this column, defended George H. W. Bush's signing of the "budget deal of 1990" which, writes the former president in his foreward, "included budget cuts and a tax increase of almost $500 billion (over five years). ... Along the way, I lost the support of many people in my own party, and also had to break my pledge of 'no new taxes' from the 1988 campaign."

Rather than see this as a failure of leadership, Ostrander celebrates the budget deal as the triumph of political pragmatism in which a leader rises above partisan commitments to do what is best for the country -- at great political risk to himself.

It was this pragmatism that earlier led Bush to become ambassador to China in the mid-1970s, living in Beijing and endeavoring to widen the opening made by Richard Nixon in his controversial trip to China in 1972.

Last month both Bush and Ostrander attended a conference in China in which the bilingual edition of Ostrander's book was unveiled. The handsome hard-bound features photographs of Bush meeting with various Chinese leaders, including Chairman Mao, Deng Xiaoping and President Hu Jintao.

With the English text on the left and the Chinese translation on the right, the book, which sells for 48 Yuan (about $6), includes a new foreward "to the Chinese people" from the former president, a foreward to the Chinese edition from economist Li Yining of Peking University, a new foreward by Ostrander, a commentary on China-United States relations by translator Su Shijun of the Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication and Ostrander's recounting of the development of political pragmatism in the Chinese government. As far as I know, the book (ISBN 7-300-06919-3) is not distributed in the United States, but, for those who read Chinese, it is listed at http://sinobook.com.cn.

President Bush writes in his new foreward that "successful world leaders throughout history have learned through experience that they often have to make pragmatic, and often unpopular, decisions that will benefit their country in the long-term."

Ostrander writes that "during my (first) visit to China in 1979 I was impressed by how well the Chinese government and its leaders had provided adequate food and clothing for almost 1 billion people. ... Certainly this was an improvement over what most of the Chinese people had experienced before Mao. What all of this meant to me was that there is not one system or one way of thinking that will meet the needs of both countries and it is a mistake to judge the choices of one country by the standards of the other. The choices of a country's leader should not be judged by ideology but by their impact upon the quality of life their leadership provides for their people as well as the impact it has upon humankind."

For Ostrander the 1990 budget agreement represents visionary leadership and flexible attitude. "China's leaders too have demonstrated pragmatic leadership. ... China's annual per capita income has risen ... from over $1,000 in 1990 to $5,806 in 2004. As China's leaders have tried to reach their 'greater goal' things have not always been easy and will not always go well as this economic transition continues. A basic principle of leadership is for the leaders to have the courage of their convictions. China's leaders need to have faith in their vision and the direction in which they are moving the country."

If there is a hero in the evolution of Chinese communism it is Deng Xiaoping, who famous said, "it doesn't matter if it is a black cat or a white cat. As long as it can catch mice, it's a good cat." Ostrander writes that "Deng's pragmatism led to China's new economic policy of a 'socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.' ... Deng in his December 1978 speech urged the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) to focus on development and modernization and let facts, not ideology, guide the country's development." Ostrander says that "Deng's pragmatic leadership and reform policies, 1979-1994, have brought about the biggest single improvement in human welfare in history."

In his book's introductory materials Ostrander offers an intriguing glimpse into geopolitical reality, into a world in which the "American century" may well give way to the "Chinese century."

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2005 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

A first novel introduces three young sisters and their adventures in Orland

By DAN BARNETT

Jonathan Perez is a writer worth watching. According to an author's note, he lives in Orland with his three daughters, Suede, Alex, and Sara, and has just published a book about the fictional Piper family. James is a divorced father of three girls named, curiously enough, Suede, Alex and Sara. Together they live in a small and rather rundown house in the Orland countryside, right near the Robbins Deli and down the road a bit from the Shady Oaks trailer park, where young Nitsy Blu lives with her divorced mom.

Nitsy is something of a rival who calls Suede, Alex and Sara Piper "SASP" for short. "SASP" ($13.95 in paperback from Stansbury Publishing in Chico), illustrated by Steve Ferchaud and appropriate for pre-teens, tells two tales, "The Yellow Road" and "Honey Jar."

"Suede was 10, the oldest of the three," Perez writes. "Besides her sisters, she had two very special friends: a tattered beige bear named Colby, given to her by her mother, and a little wooden sword, given to her by Grandma Cookie (who, we are told "could do just about anything except bake cookies"). Suede was tall and thin with milky white skin and her eyes were two different shades of brown.

"Alex was 8. Being the middle child was at times difficult for her. She was too young to have the same privileges that Suede had and too old to get away with the things that Sara got away with. Her chocolate eyes matched her wavy chestnut-colored curls and dark skin. Unlike Suede and Sara, Alex referred to her dad by his first name. James didn't seem to mind.

"Sara was 6, the youngest of the three and quite the jester. To get a quick laugh, she would stick her spaghetti strand hair in the corners of her almond shaped mouth, then put two fingers under her upper lip and stretch her bottom eyelids down with the other hand. If this didn't work, she'd flare her freckled button nose and cross her eyes."

The first tale has the sisters, egged on by Nitsy, sneaking out of the house early one morning after a heavy rain to look for the legendary "yellow road," allegedly guarded by the white droll, near Stony Creek on the outskirts of Orland.

A droll? Why, part deer and part troll, of course.

The children were not growing up privileged. James made an honest living at one of the two tire shops in Orland. The roof leaked on the family's house and Suede had holes in her socks.

Nitsy fared no better. "She was wearing an old torn jacket that had a broken zipper," Perez writes. "She was using safety pins to keep the flaps of her jacket closed, but as she moved around, they would separate, letting in the coolness of the morning. Her jeans had holes in the knees and her beanie looked more like an old sock that was stretched to fit just the top of her head."

As the reader might guess, all does not go well in the quest for the yellow road, the "trail of gold." There are hijinks aplenty and the author has opportunity to talk about the various stages of fear as the children seem to encounter the stuff of legend.

The second and longer tale takes place in springtime, and Perez revels in description: "Like melting snow, the shadows of early morning dripped away with the light of a new day. In an open field, just outside of Orland, wild daisies, daffodils and orange poppies were awakening. They stretched, opened and reached for the sun's warmth with their oblique petals. Opposite the field was an almond orchard in full bloom. Like specks of pepper, droning honeybees slowly appeared on the bouquets of white and pinkish blossoms."

It's a story of "two of Fairview Elementary School's meanest bullies," Billy Jones and Mickey Stalls (whose parents refuse to believe their children could do anything wrong). Most of the action takes place at Mr. Robbins' store and in the end the sisters find they have more things in common with Nitsy Blu than they thought. Everyone learns a honey of a lesson -- even James, who comes to understand the importance of listening to his daughters.

"SASP" is an engaging escapade; I look forward to more of the Piper family adventures.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2005 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.

Former Chicoan's poems offer quiet and captivating glimpses of small-town life

By DAN BARNETT

Bear Star Press, founded in 1996 and based in Cohasset, has as its mission the publication of "the best poetry it can attract" from Western and Pacific states.

The other day, publisher Beth Spencer wrote me about Albert Garcia, who "was born in Chico and grew up on a walnut orchard just south of Red Bluff." She has just published his new book, "Skunk Talk" ($14 in paperback from www.bearstarpress.com) which collects many of his poems previously published in anthologies and literary magazines.

Garcia, Spencer wrote, "fell in love with poetry while attending Chico State University (he was a student of Gary Thompson) and later obtained a master's degree from the University of Mon-tana. After teaching for many years at Sacramento City College, he is now dean of its Language and Literature Divi-sion. He lives with his wife, artist Terry Steinbach-Garcia (who provided the cover painting), and their three children in the small farming community of Wilton, where he tends fruit trees and a garden."

Garcia will appear at 7 p.m. Friday at Lyon Books in Chico to read from "Skunk Talk." The public is invited. If you think you don't like poetry because it's too difficult to understand, Garcia will change your mind. His conversational poetry is accessible but never trite; the words seem to flow effortlessly onto the page as they celebrate nature (figs and ficus and especially melons) and humanity (wives and children, gardeners and grandfathers).

One poem in particular, "August Morning," has pride of place in the book and, says Spencer, will be featured this coming spring by Ted Kooser, the nation's current poet laureate, in his syndicated column "American Life in Poetry."

The poem begins with sweetness.

It's ripe, the melon

by our sink. Yellow,

bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes

the house too sweetly.


It's early morning, and he poet has awakened: "What is happening in the silence / of this house?"


I wander from room to room

like a man in a museum:

wife, children, books, flowers,

melon. Such still air. Soon

the mid-morning breeze will

float in

like tepid water, then hot.

And then the poet asks, amid the smell of sweetness: "How do I start this day. ... ?"

And, one might ask, how does one continue the day? What new relationships will be established, what relationships broken? The poem that follows, "I Watch You Paint," is my favorite.

The poet watches as the artist paints a man and a woman.

I see now

the man's hand

is on her shoulder. There

is wind. Her white dress

blows tight against her body.

I want to ask you

what is happening

but it seems

the wind is in you.

And then the poet realizes the man

... has the very expression

I sometimes get when I'm

angry.

You hate that look,

but there it is

in the man's eyes, ...

I haven't spoken

for hours.

The man clearly

is losing the woman.

You've washed

a darker gray

into the sky.

Finally, you sit back

and look across the room.

Then you glance at me,

and it seems

I haven't seen you in years.

I say the painting is sad.

You say

it's not finished.

In another poem, the poet has some fun at his own expense. The title is also the first line.

The Day I Was Born

the shad were running.

On a slow green stretch of river

a man hoisted three pounds

of flapping, mouth-gaping silver

onto hot smooth rocks

the way God, I imagine, lifted

me from nothingness

and plopped me gasping

into Enloe Hospital, Chico, California. ...

I want to say something extraordinary occurred --

a cure for a disease,

the discovery of a new species.

But I've researched the date: nothing happened.

I've even made up the part

about the shad fisherman.

Sometimes one's lazy banter can carry on a bit too long.

"We're talking skunks. I say / I like the smell--not / the overbearing fog / left on a dog's snout, / but the gentle scent / they carry everywhere. // She says I'm nuts. They stink / plain and simple. She / wants more wine. ... // She won't look at me / and hums softly to herself."

The poems are wise and luscious, evoking what Garcia calls "days of ordinary wonders." Feast.

Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. To submit review copies of published books, please send e-mail to dbarnett@maxinet.com. Copyright 2005 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.