Ampersand Gazette #40
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“What we do is a craft,” [John Kander] insisted. “I mean you can have a great inner talent, and a lot of people do, but without craft it’s very hard for the talent to emerge. Also the reverse is true.”
from an article about John Kander in The New York Times
“At 96, a Broadway Legend Is Making a Brand-New Start of It”
April 5, 2023
John Kander, and his long-time partner, the late Fred Ebb, writes musicals. Amongst them are Cabaret and Chicago. Now known as Chicago—The Musical, it’s the longest-running American musical on Broadway
I very much like the distinctions he’s made in this simple quote about talent and craft and the symbiotic relationship they, of necessity, have. The notion can be applied to any sort of expression—artistic, certainly, but also in other arenas.
Writing a technical manual certainly takes the ability to string together a sentence—craft. No one would argue that, but it also takes the ability to understand the subject in the first place—talent.
Where I’m going with this is simple: I believe each and every single one of us has a place within where talent and craft meet and make something magical. Call it purpose, call it one’s gift, call it magic, call it what you will, I think we humans are sorely mistaken when, as we so often do, we claim not to be talented.
I always want to say au contraire. The fact is that both talent and craft have a mandate—a matching one—both require attention. Without it, both wither and die.
It seems no mistake to me that the ancients used the word talent as a unit of measure. Its roots mean weight. That too applies to our talents. To have a talent for anything is to bear the weight of it. Part of that weight is developing the craft to go with it.
As Mr. Kander says, the reverse is true. To have a craft for anything is also to bear the weight of it. Part of that weight is developing the talent to go with it.
Talent, Beloved, is inherent in the species. Each of us has at least one, and sometimes several. That is not at issue. What’s at issue is whether we make the time, the effort, the space to let it grow and develop. Part of the way to do that is to practice, which improves both talent and craft.
The roots of practice are Latin; they mean to carry out.
The delicious point here is that with talent comes the responsibility to foster it. Practicing the craft that supports talent is one way to get that done. There is no harm done to anyone but you when you ignore a talent. You’ll just get to care for it next time.
What I’m asking at this just past the half-year mark of 2023 is: is there a talent you know you have that needs some practice? Make the time, make the space, make the effort because the world needs your talent. I promise. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have it.
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To the Editor:
Maureen Dowd compares Donald Trump to Hamlet. But he’s more Macbeth or Richard III, men who violate higher moral laws to grasp power. And in many ways Mr. Trump ticks the boxes of the tragic protagonist: a man of high estate whose reversal of fortune flows from fatal flaws, usually overweening pride and blindness to his own weaknesses.
What remains to be seen is if Mr. Trump’s downfall will bring about an anagnorisis, the tragic hero’s recognition that he brought it all upon himself. Will a playwright or opera composer or movie director portray him tragically? Or will he only inspire satire. “Springtime for Trump”?
Arnold Wengrow
Asheville, N.C.
The writer is professor emeritus of drama at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
from a Letter to the Editor in The New York Times
June 24, 2023
Isn’t that a delicious word? Anagnorisis.
Strangely, for all the classical drama I’ve studied over the years, and there’s been a lot of it, I’d never heard it till this retired drama professor used it in The New York Times. I love to learn new words.
Perhaps that’s not exactly the whole truth. It’s actually a word I use all the time—in spiritual work—except I express it differently.
The roots of anagnorisis are late 18th century Greek, and, according to the OED, mean literally recognition.
This is one of the primary tools of spiritual work. Based on the premise that nothing occurs in a vacuum, that all of us participate in the things we experience in one way or another. Recognition —literally, the re-knowing of something is part of taking responsibility.
X happens. How did I help to create that?
It applies to everything: from the weather to a break-up to a breakdown.
To take the original apart a little more …
ana- = back + gnorisis = making known
in proper etymology, but I see the second half of the word slightly differently. Come with me into spiritual etymology (which is the basis for my book God’s Dictionary. That’s the 20th Anniversary Edition to the left.)
Let’s take the word apart this way:
gno- = knowledge + -risis = crisis.
Hence, a crisis of knowing. And isn’t that why all of us seek help understanding things sometimes? When we look back over our past in the need of understanding, it’s usually because of some sort of crisis of knowing.
Often, people seek validation. Often, people seek understanding. But the deeper reason to look back is to figure out what part of the responsibility for creating whatever it was is yours, and how to do that again and again, because it’s something you want. Or, how not to do that again ever, because it’s something you don’t want.
Spiritual shorthand for this is: What’s the lesson?
But I’ve come to think that lessons lessen, so today I’m inaugurating a new word:
Blesson.
It means … what’s the blessing in the lesson? Predicated on the late Representative John Lewis’ noted question: Why did this happen for me not to me?
Given the state of the news lately, I decided to go straight-up spiritual for this fortieth issue of The Ampersand Gazette. It’s more vital than ever that we all choose and live an ampersand life these days, Beloved—that’s a life in a world where everyone’s included. No exceptions.
What do you suppose the blesson is for our times?
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And in publishing news …
The edits for Jasmine Increscent went so fast that I was amazed when I was finished. Tony Amato (full disclosure, beloved husband) has been editing my writing for so long that I very rarely even have a question for him. I just take his word for it.
We did sit down, mind you, for under an hour (!), for some things I didn’t understand, but bingo, done!
It look just half a day to finish the final notes, run spellcheck (Argh! I wish sometimes that I could tell Microsoft’s spelling and grammar function, MYOB!), and format the book in Vellum. 813 pages! We started the read-aloud proofing portion of the work two days ago. That’s one of my favorite parts of the publishing process.
If you haven’t yet read Jezebel Rising, put it on the top of your TBR (to-be-read) pile. It’ll make Jasmine that much richer when you get to read her story. And for those who missed it …
Here is the ebook cover for Jasmine Increscent!!! Victoria Davies did a stellar job capturing Jasmine, the oldest of the Bailey sisters, now that her older sister is … well, her older brother. You’ll read his story in Jacqueline Retrograde & Jaq Direct.
Here’s the blurb (to whet your appetite)—
A wedding. Increasing. And it’s time to start her vicety … it’s a three-ring circus—oh, my.
Jasmine Bailey is the second eldest of the Bailey siblings, yes, those Baileys. Known for being much more in the present than the future, years earlier she’d begun a one-woman mission to serve mothers who’d been abandoned by their spouses in the worst slum ever to darken New York City: Five Points. Universally recognized by her honorific, Lady Jasmine, throughout Gilded Age society, the wealthy take their checkbooks in hand whenever they see her strawberry blonde braid and her lissome figure coming.
Now it’s time for Jasmine’s vicety—the second of four the sibs had planned upon the death of their beloved father four years earlier. Since then, Jezebel’s pair of viceties—The Obstreperous Trumpet, a saloon, and The Salacious Sundae, an ice cream parlor—were going great guns. Jasmine had originally intended to create a high-end gambling hell. Except ... her wedding is scheduled in less than a month, and she’s increasing. There’s, uh, a lot on her plate.
Jasmine’s research takes her from the lowest of the low policy shops in Mulberry Bend to an outré visit to the most elite gambling institution in town. Still, she’s struggling with what is in her heart about starting this vicety. A chance sentence, if you believe in that sort of thing, overheard whilst at breakfast one morning changes everything.
Will her struggle with gambling resolve to her satisfaction, or will Jasmine have to scrap every idea she ever had about it to start over again? Sure, no doubt she could, but does she want to, and how will that affect her siblings and their nefariously well-meant agenda in Chelsea Towers?
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Just yesterday, I decided that I needed to re-read Gemma Eclipsing, so I can get a handle on what to do next. I said to a writer friend the other day, “I feel like I’m at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and can’t make up my mind. I want one of each.” That will never do.
I’m still almost daily coming across little helpful things in the public arena. My husband says that this is what happens when I’m in it. I think the whole world becomes a conspiracy for my book. I no longer think this, I know it.
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Christian de la Huerta was the host for the Reclaiming Our LGBTQ Spiritual Heritage virtual summit, June 17-24. You can view our interview here.
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There seems to be a lot of outrage in the press these days, a lot of huffing and puffing and blowing the house down. I get it, and it’s not a good long-term strategy.
Let me remind you, Beloved, that things change. One of the ways they change is when we choose to see them differently, so put on your magic superpower and begin, even if just for brief moments, to see the world as you want it to be. And in the meantime, be ampersand, S.
