City life, cafe life eludes me.

I mostly still entertain at home...including entertaining myself.

You've seen those little tykes in grocery stores with their tiny carts and the tall flags that say, "Shopper in training"? Well, we were never trained to shop. We were trained to work: to make and grow and fix and mend what we needed.

"Do myself" was the family motto.

"Waste is sin" the subtext to the string drawer. "Waste not, want not" sewn inside our skins.

James H. Cone's quotation set the tone of Rev. Wright's conversation with Moyers:

Black churches are very powerful forces in the African American community and always have been. Because religion has been that one place where you have an imagination that no one can control. And so, as long as you know that you are a human being and nobody can take that away from you, then God is that reality in your life that enables you to know that.

Moyers showed the entire sermon that has created such a firestorm and clipped to death. In context, it means something different from what the soundbiters would have us believe.

People, let's use our critical intelligence here. Cultural critiques can come in passionate forms, but let us not condemn the messenger nor the message. Let's examine what's being said. Let's examine the rhetorical history of the vehicle that delivers the message. Let's drop our search for drama, spectacle, and sensationalism.

"Ironically, our appetite for 'reality' fare has created an audience for the phony memoir," says Rubén Martínez in today's L.A. Times article "Why we fall for the fakes." Click here to read the entire, excellent article.

First off, let me say I consider that the reader section on the Amazon book product pages are, for the most part, best termed as "comments" rather than "reviews"---which usually would be rather over-stating the case.

Secondly, I am frequently appalled by the casual way in which readers in these comment sections reveal their ignorance, not even knowing they are doing so.

If you want to sample the state of literacy and literateness in America today, just turn to the Amazon Jungle of Democratic commentary, complete with voting buttons.

Obviously, I am in a Cultural Curmudgeon mood. What has so twerked me off? I've just come from looking at the Amazon book product page for Wole Soyinka's newest memoir, "You Must Set Forth At Dawn."

Soyinka's newest memoir, "You Must Set Forth At Dawn"

Here is one of the clunkers pucking my last nerve, which can be summarily dismissed as completely missing the point:

1) Craig Kenworthy asks, "Ever have a friend who tells great stories but takes too long to get to the point?" and states: "This is a good book that could have been..a little less self centered, if self-centered can be a fair criticism of a memoir."

2) Jimi Oke responds, "I completely disagree with those who complain that Soyinka is too wordy and dawdles over many unnecessary details before getting to the real thing. What real thing are they searching for, anyway? This, after all, is a memoir. Moreover, every page, every word was an absolute treat. Solidly written, with a plethora of hilarious, as well as sobering anecdotes, and a masterful deployment of literary devices, this, surely is a chef-d'oeuvre. However, this book is not only an autobiography but an excellent historical account of Nigeria's political history since independence in 1960.

Wole Soyinka

"Catapulted right into the middle of the action and intrigue that took hold of the nation, I learned new things and gained a lot of useful insight into how the nation became to be what it is today and the various roles of those involved in shaping its destiny.

"I grabbed this book because I wanted to learn more about the history of my country from the mouth of a seasoned literary figure. I was astounded to discover that he was completely involved in the struggle right from the beginning. What is more, I was rewarded with a distinctive literary style and all the rewards it brings---new vocabulary, new expressions, and more knowledge."

3) Michael Crown, in an otherwise positive review, says, "Mr. Soyinka's style tends to be a little heavy on grammar..." Hello? What could this possibly mean? Heavy on grammar?

4) Maxine Lederman complains that it took her almost 250 pages before she "could really get into the book. It was very wordy and nothing said really kept you wanting to go forward. Our reading group decided to read this and none of us could finish the book and many never started. Our discussion leader was very determined and forced herself to read until the end. She was kind enough to point out some good parts. On pages 436-440, his thoughts were timely as to the world situation today. This is a read for someone who really likes a challenge!"

Maxine...let me just say, Soyinka has my complete and heartfelt attention from the first sentence onward! "Outside myself at moments like this, heading home, I hesitate a moment to check if it is truly a living me." (chapter one :For Those Who Went Before, p. 5) Maxine, honey, I'm in love from the get-go, and his words of wisdom continue with constancy throughout.

5) Hedzoleh is another reader, like Jimi Oke above, who is able to meet Soyinka with informed intelligence:

"Soyinka skilfully offers refreshing glimpses into his life as a humble, honest and courageous individual. He is deeply spiritual but definitely not a holier-than-thou prude. Soyinka's infectious enjoyment of life comes across in his passion for hunting, wine, music, art and, of course, women. It seems that it is this enduring appreciation of the immense possibilities of life that drives his resistance to dictatorship and systems that seek to rob the individual of the opportunity to partake in the sacrament of life. The man, his art and his politics are inseparable."

There, now I feel better. Back to my reading. The next chaper beckons: "The Conquest of Civilian Pride."

Tracking the Fallout of (Another) Literary Fraud By MOTOKO RICH

Click here to read about the author of “Love and Consequences” who confessed she "made up the memoir about her supposed life as a foster child in gang-infested South-Central Los Angeles, the focus turned to her publisher and the news organizations that helped publicize what appeared to be a searing autobiography."

Seltzer is following in the steps of the likes of James Frey and Laura Albert (aka J.T. Leroy---who turns out to be more of a drama troupe)...and too many others to name here.
See Slate's round-up by clicking here.

Memorist might like to consult Guardian columnist Levi Asher published guidance for authors about how to avoid memoir scandals by clicking here.

What I forsee, since there have been such a rush of these memoir hoaxes accreting over the past two years is that the field is ripe for a book on this subject, bringing them all together. It's not my book, but the book is out there, and we'll be seeing it sometime soon.

The big question most memoir writers and readers ask, is "why?" Is it a marketing issue that writers think their work will sell more as memoir rather than positioning it as fiction straight-up first time around?

Is it linked-in to the reality show craze? Is there something in the American water supply? What's happening to us as a culture that's leading writers to take these desperado courses of action?

A sensible book explaining and defining genre categories and many other issues serious memoirist fret over is Judith Barrington's Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art. I cannot recommend it strongly enough:

WRITING THE MEMOIR: From Truth to Art
By Judith Barrington
Published by The Eighth Mountain Press
ISBN 0-933377-50-9, trade paperback, $14.95
The bestselling book on writing memoir, now in its second edition with over 100,000 copies sold.

This is by far the best book on memoir writing I've ever read in that it is the most sensible.

Memoirist will find great advice on all manner issues we fret about in these pages. It's such a classic it's likely to be in your local library, so check there first, but you may well want it in your personal library and it's not very expensive.

Burying the Secret, by Carol Rutter

Within the framework of responding to Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret," Carol Rutter's "Burying the Secret" weaves autobiography, expose, searching cultural commentary, and an analytical compendium of helpful books on important psychological and spiritual issues. If you liked "The Secret," read this book. If you didn't like "The Secret," read this book. If you care nothing at all about "The Secret," but are interested in knowing more about American culture and human nature, read this book. The 10-page exercise at the back of the book is worth the price alone.

In Rutter's reply to Byrne's book is just the jumping off point. This frame holds the book, but contains so much more. I'll be sending a copy to a friend who moved from Oregon to Florida last year (via Texas) and suffered in a similar way to Byrne's story. She often emailed me in anguish during this time concerning the deluge of "The Secret" and the law of attraction and we dialogued about it throughout her transition period.

Each of us contains our own secret to spiritual development. That secret path may be encrusted with riches, and it may be a much more humble path. Fast and easy sells, but is not the complete truth. Overall, commonsense must reign, or ruin follows.

Our holiday spirit is a quiet one...dedicated to continuing to do the things we usually do...and keeping it all on a small, human scale.

Last night was one of those quiet moments as I'm over on the Illinois side, visiting my father. He tutors a family friend, N.; she's at the school where I attended 6th grade, when that school was new. The teacher just Didn't Understand Me.

Last night, though, in the luxury of the one-to-one student-teacher ratio, N. was generously understood and grateful for it. She is a beautifully-mannered young girl trained in "please" and "thank you" under her mother's eye in the same old-fashioned manner my mother's childeren were. She wins my heart with her quiet poise that retains her childhood within it. "She's a doll," Pop says, and it's true.

Her evening with us includes Pop's tutoring time with her...social studies and spelling last night...a simple breakfast-style supper...and a turn on the piano picking out Christmas carols and holiday songs.

Pop has discovered that when they put her spelling words up on the computer and she has to respond by keyboard that she focuses better and does 100 percent better in learning.

At the piano she showed me tunes she learned from her sister and then we went on to learn "Jingle Bells," in the key of C. What I love about teaching is that I always learn something. Last night I learned that the chorus of "Jingle Bells," when played within the key of C lies completely withing the span of that chord---between C and G. What a wonderfully simple song structure, that relies on the rhythm for its zip.

We're playing without music, so N. and I do some ear training as well as just plain old-fashioned practicing. Repetition builds mastery. The ear training is simple. In one method we sing the tune together. Does this next note go up or down? Okay then, that tells you what you need to do with your finger on the piano."

At the end of our session, she's pretty much got it. I run her down the hill in my little car...she reminds me she needs to sit in the back...and with her winning old-fashioned courtesy, as she alights, she thanks me for teaching her to play Jingle Bells.

Tell us about a situation in which you found you had to just shut up, or you'd be in really big trouble, one way or another, or just a big bore, or unkind.

For John Flinn, it was that no place is ever as good as it used to be...if you got there first...but, what do you say to the folks who got there after you?

"So," I said, trying to keep a neutral tone, "what do you think of Kathmandu?"

( from San Francisco Chronicle, G3, Sunday, June 10, 2007)

For me, someone came up to me on the retreat to apologize for something that happened here last year. Fortunately, whatever it was, I'd forgotten all about it. She was just doing her best, to the best of her capacity, to follow the teachings on taking responsibility and being kind. My kindness was to let her check me off her apology list.

But, truly, I think there should be a statute of limitations on offering apologies...except for the big stuff...otherwise, the little slings and arrows of life I've previously let go of (and in the tradition of my family I'm a great grudge-holder, so letting go of awkward moments is a big accomplishment for me) just come back to rub, like sand rubbing a tender foot inside new shoes.

But, me? It almost killed me to do so, I just kept my mouth shut and allowed her this moment of her version of kindness. And, moved on to re-forgetting the original incident. Forgiveness is easy. It's the forgetting that's hard.

So, what did you keep your mouth shut about recently?

Tonight I just came back from a presentation at my local library; I caught the tail end, and that may have been one of the juicer parts, who can say? The audience was primarily African-American and they were firing questions at the speaker in a hunger to know more about the continent the African part of their heritage came out of.

A question came about a stool on view, similar to the image below. The speaker said it was made as a wooden pillow for women to sleep on, because women in Africa would go to any lengths for beauty.

The young African-American man beside me had his face screwed up, trying to picture how that worked, physically, because these stools are much higher than any neck could stretch. "Look, " I whispered, "I don't want to contradict him, but that's an Ashanti stool from Ghana in West Africa. Those are crocodiles on the base. The crossed crocodiles are from the Adinkra symbol system also used for printing cloth; they symbolize the Ashanti proverb,We share one stomach, yet we fight over food." Then, we smiled and later he sat on it after the program was over.

When the speaker continually referred to Africans as "they," it bugged me, but when he said that women were not equal in power to men in Africa and that's why polygamy existed, I considered whether to stay or leave...whether to speak. I did stick up my hand and stuck my neck out to say, "Africa is a continent, not a country and there is so much variation. There are matriarchial societies with matriarch lineages...also, there are differing ideas of what power is and how it is wielded. Wherever I lived and worked in Africa the women were strong and held their own kind of power. For instance, a man might be a tribal leader, but women were often the community leaders. Equality isn't just about who does the dishes."

Afterwards I spoke with octegenarian Mr. Swink who had spent three weeks in Eastern Africa, and had experienced the transforming love and care there that comes from deep-standing culture. He had been robbed in the seedier side of Niarobi, Kenya, but that had brought out a fierce protective instinct in everyone who had anything to do with him afterwards and the culprits were caught and brought to justice.

"I'm going back," said Mr. Swink. "I have a dream of bringing water from Mt. Kilamanjaro to the Western world and calling it Water from Heaven. Isn't that a beautiful name?"

My top language peeve at the moment is the phrase "I know,"---said not with an understanding nod and a sympathetic voice, but with an attitudinal toss of the head and an implied "why are you bothering to tell me this?"

When I hear this, I feel discarded...as if what I know is of no use. And, I know it's a little pathetic for a grown woman, but it sorta sends me back to the playground and I'm torn between tears and punching the person's lights out. You get the drift...hurts my feelings. It's like saying, "Shut up." And our connection quivers, just like that.

I've been thinking of alternatives. What if the person said, "Oh, yes, I've heard of that before. Tell me more. What's your take on it?"

What if there was an attitude of curiosity instead of close-mindedness? What if there were room to know more? What if knowing were more than just about facts, information, and something on the surface? What if knowing were about sharing, not about superiority or who can show up whom? Not about who gets the better grade on the test?

What if knowing were about knowing the person more fully, more deeply? What is knowing was one thread in closer connection...closer union?