Look! A pie-contest review!

I'm so pleased about the rich Moby-Dick conversation that took place while I was incommunicado at the Harmony Fair (see the comments beneath my September 3 post). Myself, I'm feeling more and more enthusiastic about undertaking this novel, which, as all of your comments reinforce, already feels strangely pertinent to so much in this world.

And now I'd like to get started on Great Expectations; but for me, today must be dedicated to post-fair recovery--i.e., driving to Skowhegan to buy dog food, allergy medicine, and a tire. The Harmony Elementary kids get an extra day of sleep (otherwise known as "teacher workshop day"), but the Harmony high schoolers are whining and complaining and dragging themselves to school. Both my boys lived life to the fullest all weekend: Paul won Best of Show for his pickled dill beans, and he also won the pie-eating contest (ages 9-14 category). James and his best friend Sam covered themselves in glory by winning the ever-popular doubles competition known as the Gross Games (sample event: rubbing your face in a plate of corn syrup and then picking up Froot Loops with your head; no hands allowed). I am sorry to say that I've been left to deal with the shirts.

Meanwhile, I ran the Exhibit Hall, which, after the flurry of setup and judge management, devolved into sitting in a lawn chair and reading/socializing/telling kids not to bounce balls inside the building. I did have a slightly sheepish, sigh-filled moment, when one woman made the mistake of asking me what I was reading.

"Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire," I replied.

"Oh," she said. "Is that part of a series?"

A sort of mediocre review of Crimes, but I've seen far more cutting ones from this reviewer, so things could be worse.

Today is the day the Harmony Fair holds its annual State of Maine-sponsored two-crust apple pie contest. And this year two of my judges are high school English teachers and lovers of poetry who also happen to be skilled bakers. Amazing, wouldn't you say?

Therefore, for the first time ever, the apple pie judging will begin with a poem: "Ray," by Hayden Carruth. It's about pie, of course, and also contains literary referents, which English teachers love.

P.S. Moby-Dick readers: don't make me nag.

Moby-Dick, chapter 1

Because I'll be enmeshed in the Harmony Fair this weekend, I'm opening Moby-Dick comments early so that you can (1) stop procrastinating and finish the chapter (come on; you can do it; it's short) and (2) have a few days to get your thoughts down on "paper" (i.e., the comment form). Please don't forget to comment, even if you hate what you've read or have no idea what's happening. I'm delighted to host this reading party, but I do not want to be the whip-cracker. I already do plenty of whip-cracking around the house.

So, to begin, I'll mention Ishmael's intriguing thoughts about the nature of work. What's your response?

Dinner tonight: fair hotdogs and elderly coffee.

For next week: Read chapter 1 of Dickens's Great Expectations. I hope to say more about that novel this weekend, but who knows what fair morass will have swallowed me?

Internet down for almost 24 hours = no post this morning. Sorry.

However, here's a capsule summary of what I was doing instead of writing to you:

1. Not editing.

2. Making bread-and-butter pickles.

3. Reading Nabokov's Pale Fire.

4. Not writing.

5. Making catsup.

6. Making lunch for my friend Nick, who came all the way from New York City to have lunch with me. I'm so incredibly flattered.

Notice that I'm making catsup, not ketchup. Just pointing that out.

Well, here in Harmony we are on fair countdown. Labor Day Weekend is always crammed with Labor in this town, and our annual fair is the most exciting thing that ever happens. We have a demolition derby (also featured on the cover of my new poetry collection); we have a truck pull; we have a horse show; we have lame inflatable rides; we have hotdogs and French fries; we have a skillet toss (for the ladies) and a hammer throw (for the men). Last year saw the introduction of the Gross Games (primarily for middle school students and wacked-out parents), which involve eating lots of squishy nasty food at top speed without using your hands. And we have my own particular Labor-intensive project: the exhibition hall . . . a.k.a, the tomatoes, the bread-and-butter pickles, the two-crust apple pies, the 4-Hers' explanation of how to groom a sheep, the guinea fowl eggs, the needlepoint cow. . . .

This year we also, apparently, have Hurricane Earl. So wish us luck.

Here's my Harmony Fair poem, from Boy Land. I've posted it more than once; but like the fair, it's turning into an annual event.

The Skillet Toss

Dawn Potter

Harmony Fair, September 2002

A loose, laughing huddle of women

gathers alongside a swath of packed dirt,

hot children milling underfoot

clutching half-empty cans of soda;

and now husbands drift over, and we

arrive, who don’t throw skillets,

ready to cheer on our friend Tina,

who baby-sits our kids and doesn’t take shit.

Ask the contestants what they’re aiming at

this year, they’ll all say husbands.

Men are proud to have a wife who can

fracture skulls, if she thinks it’s worth her while.

They watch, amused but unsurprised—

married too long to doubt the plain lack

of vanity a high school sweetheart

acquires by forty. Tina practices her swing,

all knees and elbows under the sun;

the crowd watches, relaxed

and easy-tempered in the heat,

last hurrah of a Maine summer:

such weather can’t last; frost on the way:

in this town we never forget January;

so oh, the pleasure now of watching

sweat run down a brown arm,

first arc of a skillet in the heavy air

and the slow rise of dust when it lands:

Applause, laughter; Tina wipes

her forehead and takes aim for the next,

all eyes on her target: invisible Everyman

in the haze, asking for it, his voice

a low grumble of content, like oxen

flicking their tails in the barn—

and just fool enough to turn his back,

bare elbows propped on the fence,

watching a couple of ponies drag

their burden of concrete across the ring.

[from Boy Land & Other Poems (Deerbrook Editions, 2004).]

And if you haven't seen Tom's fair pictures, look here.

Dinner tonight: gazpacho, and plenty of it.