Sunday, January 24, 2010

Odds and Ends

Saturday--beautiful ocean: deep blue, peacock blue, light (seafoam) green, and purple. very quiet and smooth. Sky: sun shining, cloud cover about 50%, with black bottomed cumulus clouds (but after a brief rain midday, it cleared).

Sunday--morning glories along the road between San Vicente and Airport Road. Rain midday. Plumeria in bloom. Beautiful pink sky after sunset.


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Greg Baka leaves island on Tuesday.

He was a lightning rod for criticism as an acting Attorney General during the Fitial Administration's first term (after Matt Gregory resigned). I disagree with him politically and was very disappointed in his positions for Fitial (opposing the Open Government Act request of Tina Sablan, for example). But I like Greg and recognize his many talents and positive attributes, too. Greg contributed a lot to Saipan during his years here. He was an assistant public defender; a law clerk for Judge Munson, and an assistant US attorney, serving many years in each of these capacities without controversy and doing many needed and important jobs. His wife, Cheryl, is personable and extremely hard-working. They have two handsome and smart sons, who attend Mount Carmel School.

Greg is always interesting in conversation, and sincere and intelligent. He will once again be working for the U.S. government (in San Francisco, this time).

I wish him well.

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Thanks to P. F. Kluge for elevating us out of the muck of the latest controversies and focusing on the beauty and value of stories. His book discussions are continuing--now on Monday and Wednesday evengings at 6 PM and Saturday mornings at 9 AM, at the American Memorial Park. We've finished with TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD; next up OLD MAN AND THE SEA.

And thanks to the Humanities Council for sponsoring this discussion of literature.

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Prayers for Wally Guerrero and the family he's left behind. There's something comforting and immortal in hearing the rosary and litany prayed and the songs sung during the nightly lisayu. No matter who dies here in the CNMI, this tradition is an integral part of the community response--in support of the family and as a recognition of the deceased.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi jane,

i really liked the start of this blog. very hemingway-ish in its simplicity of words yet broad in its depth of description. i met kluge over the weekend and he informed me about a short story that hemingway wrote that was 6 words in length.

"for sale. baby shoes. never used."

as for baka's departure, i will do as my mom used to tell me, "if you have nothin' good to say than don't say nothin' at all"

Saipan Writer said...

The "Hemingway short story" anecdote is questionable. http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/babyshoes.asp

(I've heard it before, but forgot the attribution.) It makes an effective illustration, whoever wrote it, of short-story writing.

cactus said...

You thank P. F. Kluge for "elevating us out of the muck of the latest controversies and focusing on the beauty and value of stories."

I guess that's one way of looking at it, but what impressed me about "The Edge of Paradise" was Kluge's ability to find in the muck of our controversies ("Commonwealth bullshit," as he put it) a story with beauty and value of its own.

Saipan Writer said...

Cactus, I also think Edge of Paradise tells a beautiful story of our life here, and throughout Micronesia. I suppose there may be a beautiful story somewhere in the present muck, but I'm missing it.

In my post, I was referring, not to Edge of Paradise, but to Kluge's recent book discussions (on 4 books--TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, OLD MAN AND THE SEA, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, and the last, which I haven't yet received or read--related to the Viet Nam War, I believe). Thankfully, there's been no mention of massage in any of the discussions, so far.

Anonymous said...
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Saipan Writer said...

ponzi scheme spam deleted.

Anonymous said...
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Saipan Writer said...

For some reason, this post is now attracting spam. One more spammy post here, and I'll turn off comments on this post, as it's already "old" news. Next post will be coming soon.

Angelo Villagomez said...

Some of my blogs attract SPAM, some don't. I don't know what sets off the SPAMbots.

KAP said...

It's hit-and-miss, though I notice the older posts that still get spammed are the most popular

(With most of them, I check 'delete permanently' so they don't take up space in the comments.)