The Roman Definition of a Fool

"He neither reads nor swims."

I just found that in an old notebook from 1995.

I'm wondering where I found that characterization originally. In Horace's odes? In Juvenal's satires? In the histories of Tacitus or Livy? Could Virgil have composed such a characterization in The Aenied or The Georgics? Or, was it quoted in Barton on gladiators or in Sprawson on swimmers? Barton--where is that book--provides that other wonderful proverb: "The gladiator takes his counsel in the sand." Does Sprawson even cover the Romans? Horatio on the bridge? Cloelia across the Tiber? Or was that Macauley in those Latin lays?

In life, Julius Caesar was a strong swimmer, much stronger than in Shakespeare's version (though Cassius is probably lying anyway). Did Caesar pause in the assault on Gaul to offer such a thought?

Touchstone: Byron and the Hellespont

"A Bolognese physician is to be presented tomorrow at his own petition having heard that I am the celebrated aquatic genius who swam across the Hellespont when he was at Abydos. I believe the fellow wants to make experiments with me in diving."

----Lord Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, November 26, 1810.

This entry, from the second volume of Byron's Letters and Journals, I had marked down (and recently found) in a notebook from 1995. Byron was justly proud of his aquatic feat, swimming from Sestos to Abydos across the strait, and he let everyone know about it: "I plume myself on this achievement more than I could possibly do on any kind of glory, political, poetical, or rhetorical." The swim took two tries, the first failing due to weather and rough water, and Byron took care to share his aquatic success in at least a dozen letters in the three or four months following the event and in a poem, presenting himself as a mere mortal in comparison with Hero's Leander. He told his mother, his friends, and the world, sure, but then wouldn't you?

Edgar Allan Poe, a fellow more athletic than most would imagine, was so sensitive of the spectre of Lord Byron that he set himself to outdo the English poet in more than letters. Poe never made his way to Turkish waters (despite the stories he told, the claims he made), but he gave his all in American rivers. I imagine that Poe's "A Descent into the Maelstrom" arose from his recollection of challenging those strong currents as he swam, always, upstream.

Sometimes, I toy with imitating Lord Byron's feat for my 50th birthday. Not too soon, but not too far off either. Maybe if I talk my friend Chad into joining me in the aquatic excursion. (He is a Byronist and an athlete, after all.)

I need to swim tomorrow. And the next tomorrow.

P.S. My favorite nonfiction book on the subject is Charles Sprawson's Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero, published by Pantheon Books in 1992. For fiction regarding open water swimming, I'm partial to Jenifer Levin's Water Dancer.

Mythical Midterm Examination

Read the eight quotations below.

As Task #1, for each quotation, commit yourself. Is the statement true or false? Explain: demonstrate; defend; convince.

Then, as Task #2, in a single essay, link at least four of the eight quotations to codify your vision of the world. Aim at unity, range, depth, complexity, uniqueness, correctness, compassion, humor, and soul. Fruitful digressions will be appropriately rewarded.

1. "Truth is born as lightning strikes." Archilochos.

2. "What we want from stories, of course, is to have eternal passion revealed in that heart where before all seemed known and discovered." Richard Ford

3. "Whole sight; or all the rest is desolation." John Fowles

4. "I myself picture all this so clearly, but you are not I, and therein lies the irreparable calamity." Vladimir Nabakov

5. "The body contains the life story just as much as the brain." Edna O'Brien

6. "Resolution by itself is not enough; we are what we do, not what we think and feel." James Lee Burke

7. "A bow is alive only when it kills." Herakleitos

8. "This tolerance for mystery invigorates the imagination; and it is the imagination that gives shape to the universe." Barry Lopez

You have an hour to complete the examination. Good luck.

*If you are taking this "mythical midterm" as an extra credit assignment, I recommend reading through the test, letting the quotations and the tasks rest in your mind for a while, and then working out your responses in a hour or two, as needed.

Too Far from the Water

I should be out in the water more. Been dry-docked lately. Here's how close I managed to get this weekend.

Not close enough by far.

(That's me back in August 2008; photo taken by the legendary Richard Schmidt as part of his Surf Camp Santa Cruz. Great time; great people. I'm the first to emphasize that I belong under the water rather than up on a board, but good fun, nonetheless.)

Postcard: The Merman's Knuckles

I've been making mermen almost as long as I've been making mermaids.

Here is the first one, from years back, made from two pieces of clay: one for the merman, one for the fish he's holding. Back then, as a rather complete novice, I hadn't figured out that I could add clay to clay, that I could assemble figures from multiple pieces, that I could put something together a step at a time, piece by piece. I thought I needed to form my figures--mermaid, fish, fetish, or merman--from a single piece of clay in a single action, a swoop, before I would overwork the clay or allow it to become too dry. How naive, yes? (I was taking pottery classes, working with the wheel, and playing with clay, making figures, on the side. Later I learned to seek help.)

That particular naivete led to particular benefits. The figure here is one piece of clay from helmet to tail-fin, worked quickly into shape, and finished in twenty or twenty-five minutes only. The piece is strong, not liable to easy breakages. Also, the short craft period explains the roughness of the features and allowed me to stop when I might have been tempted to overwork the piece, attempting to refine the features beyond my then-capabilities. Working under that self-imposed and unnecessary constraint, I started and finished figures, and finishing is a good thing, harder than some people may imagine. With this merman, I worked fast and aimed at catching gesture and flow in the clay.


I scaled the fellow using a silver ring with a Celtic pattern, and I'm particularly pleased with the way I used the ring to help me form the creature's hands. Check out those knuckles.


Stoneware; glazes in green,blue, and gray. Note the blotchy chest. I dripped glaze on top of glaze in hopes of gaining the texture and color of kelp; I got lucky. But check out those knuckles again.

The Merman's Head

Sculpture mix; oxide (cobalt or copper carbonate?) underneath white glaze.

Channel-Surging

I like swimming through surge-channels, feeling and resisting the force of the water, wondering how it must be for an otter or fish to live in the midst of this liquid medium. When my resistance fails, when my kicking doesn't matter, and I'm shoved deep into the crevices and crannies of the rocks, I'm not unhappy; rough handling is part of the deal, and the wetsuit's padding helps against the sharp edges of barnacles and mussels, the spines of urchins. Sometimes, my resistance works and I hover, balanced amidst the vortex. Of course, then another wave breaks, and another. Thrown about or poised, I don't ignore my surroundings. I'll mimic the fish or the limpet, as needed, or with the scant grace at my command, embrace in succession the fluidity of the kelp, the stolidity of the mussels with their byssal thread anchors, and the reflexive exuberance of the otters and seals, true marine mammals.

Underwater tidepooling: I move against and through the surge funneled by the wall-like rocks, kicking firmly and angling downward beneath the fullness of the sea's flexing to avoid being shoved and thrown like mere flotsam. I dive below that surface, but the shallowness here keeps me in the surge, which I like, which is why I'm playing in among these rocks rather than out in deeper water. Submerging here intensifies that sense of being held in the water's palm, that sense of being otterlike, for a moment, being merman instead of mere Matt.

This was a rather mild day at the beginning of summer, neither hot nor cold, cloudy but clearing. I was swimming along the shore near Coral Cove in Pacific Grove with camera, disposable, and curiosity, indispensable. What did Dictionary Johnson say? "Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind."

That quotation, these simple photos with their otter-pov, and the experiences of that day (and so many other days like that one) all please me, but my words here (despite revisions) feel forced, still too static and rigid. I'll have to work on that. A more current kelp-bath is called for to refresh my memory, to invoke the salt of the mer-muse.