Photo by Mike Sepelak.
I fished the other day in a special spot, with a good friend. Today, in his blog, Mike’s Gone Fishin’ … Again” he reflects upon place and, very kindly, friendship. Mike is not only a gifted writer, he also takes some great pictures. Check out his latest blog entry here: http://www.mikesgonefishing.com/2013/09/i-forget.html.
Actually, I think she’s already perfect.
Megan Boyd was a legendary, Scottish tier of salmon flies. As a boy, I saw a picture of her in an article about Scotland, and I have been somewhat fascinated with this amazing and eccentric woman ever since (when she was to be awarded the British Empire Medal by Queen Elizabeth II, she declined the invitation to Buckingham Palace, claiming there was no one to watch her dog). Her life and the stories surrounding her are summed up well in her 2001 New York Times obituary.
Soon, a biographical film about Boyd will be released. Judging by the trailer, it will be an interesting and even beautiful film about a unique woman. The film, Kiss the Water, is made by American Eric Steel. Steel, though not a fly fisher and having no ties to Scotland, was captivated by Boyd’s NYT obituary and, many years later, decided to make a documentary about her. You can visit the film’s website to learn more about it and to see some of Boyd’s incredibly beautiful flies.
“The Giant’s Fishing”
by Sir William Davenant
This day, a day as fair as heart could wish,
This giant stood on shore of sea to fish.
For angling rod he took a sturdy oak,
For line a cable that in storm ne’er broke;
His hook was such as heads the end of pole,
To pluck down house ere fire consumes it whole.
This hook was baited with a dragon’s tail;
And there on rock he stood to bob for whale,
Which straight he caught and nimbly home did pack
With ten cart load of dinner on his back.
William Davenant or D’Avenant (1606-1668) was a contemporary of Izaak Walton’s and lived through the same tumultuous times surrounding the Civil War(s) in England. Davenant, a monarchist and Anglican, who later converted to Roman Catholicism, did not negotiate the social upheavals quite as smoothly as Walton did. He was imprisoned several times, yet he eventually overcame each political difficulty. In fact, he served as a politician himself on several occasions.
The poem above, certainly not Davenant’s most profound work, is part of his masque, Britannia Triumphans. While the poem is lighthearted, Britannia was a serious piece of writing, produced in serious times. It was the first masque to be performed at the Palace of Whitehall, on 17 January 1638, after a two-year suspension of masqueing. King Charles I enacted this suspension primarily because the Banqueting House at the Palace was dirty from consistent use. He may have decided to have masqueing resume, however, for political reasons. The image driven masques were a way of controlling the perception of the monarchy held by those elite persons invited to attend (and perhaps of reinforcing Charles illusions, as well). Notably, the great architect Inigo Jones, who also collaborated (and feuded) with playwright and poet Ben Jonson, designed the scenery and costumes for Britannia. As it happens, he designed the banqueting hall for Charles’ father, James I, as well.
Incidentally, Charles I was executed by the Rump Parliament, in front of the Banqueting House, in 1649. Davenant was imprisoned the following year, and remained in the Tower of London until the Civil War(s) concluded (though he was imprisoned again, later).
Abel Reels is now releasing a limited number of reels featuring a licensed image of the Grateful Dead’s “Steal Your Face” logo. I am not generally a great admirer of Abel’s painted finishes, but this one is a beauty. It does not seem to be available on every series of reels offered by Abel. Those on which it is available are beyond my current means, especially when you add the $300.00 premium for the logo. All the same, the art is something to admire. You can take a look at the following link:
Abel Reels – Limited Edition Grateful Dead ® Reel.
The only Abel reel in my possession actually belongs to my daughter. A good friend gave it to me to pass on to her, when she is old enough to use it (thank you, John Henry). I see that Abel now offers commemorative “Newborn Baby Reels.” Perhaps if we have another child I can find someone to give me another Abel. Kidding, of course …. sort of.
At our family cabin, I spend a lot of time looking out at the lake in the evenings, waiting to spot rising cutthroat trout. In the dog days of summer, the wait can be long. There have been, and still are, times when the wait is difficult, due to my eagerness to fish. However, watching the activity on and around the lake with my daughter, her hand in mine, makes for a very different experience. The wait almost disappears altogether, and the time becomes one of appreciation for what already is.
I’m proud to have a three-year-old daughter who knows such things as the difference between a grizzly bear and a black bear. A daughter who knows the difference between a rod and a pole. A daughter who knows what patience is and how one can best pass the time, when waiting at such places as our cabin. I have taught her some of these things. But she has taught me others.
My wife and I have been exploring Washington State University and the surrounding communities this past week. We have been considering relocating and taking jobs at WSU. Of course, I sought out some fly fishers to get as much information as possible about local fishing (the answer, in short: lots of steel head).
One of the fly fishers with whom I spoke mentioned that the WSU library had one of the largest collections of angling literature in the world. Since I had never heard this before, I was a bit skeptical. So, after a meeting today, I swung by the Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections Department in library.
Sure enough, WSU received 15,000 volumes over the past two years, donated by Joan and Vernon Gallup (no doubt, many of you already knew this). These, as yet, mostly uncatalogued texts will be added to the existing collections of angling and other outdoor literature. I direct you to a news release published by the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, since ILAB is such a strong source of information on these matters: “Largest Rare Book Collection ever Donated to Washington State University.” While the Gallups are described in this and other news releases as Spokane residents, my understanding is that the collection may have been housed at their home in Bigfork, Montana.
I was stunned by some of the titles found in WSU’s storage stacks. The number of editions of the The Compleat Angler alone is absolutely staggering. When I woke up this morning I had no idea I would be perusing two first editions (1653) of Izaak Walton’s masterpiece by the end of the day.
Two first editions of The Compleat Angler, on the far left (one rebound and the other in a black clam-shell box).
My “home water,” flowing from the Scapegoat Wilderness in Montana.
“The Peace of Wild Things.”
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry, from Collected Poems, 1957-1982.
A wild, native denizen of my “home water.”
A Wheatley fly box, a Thebault silk fly line, a classic Sigg bottle, and a Pendleton blanket. None of them are plastic. All of them will serve their purpose for a century or more.
The influential French thinker Roland Barthes examined what he considered as the ideologies connected to numerous materials in his 1957 text, Mythologies. The text, translated to English in 1972, served as an important stepping stone in the development of what we now know as postmodern philosophy, which emerged in the 1970’s. Among other things, Postmodernism contested the “Western” cultural narrative of scientific “progress,” which, among many other things, suggests that humans might move away from a reliance upon natural materials, as they achieve greater ability to manipulate more artifactual materials. Postmodernism has lost much of its influence, in part because it became an odd sort of narrative of progress itself. And the narrative of scientific progress still dominates much of the world. In regards to how this latter persistent narrative still shapes our view of material, just think about the excitement displayed over the development of 3D printing.
In one of the essays included in Mythologies, Barthes wrote critically about the highly artifactual material–what he called an “imitation material”–plastic:
In the hierarchy of the major poetic substances, it figures as a disgraced material, lost between the effusiveness of rubber and the flat hardness of metal; it embodies none of the genuine produce of the mineral world: foam, fibres, strata. It is a ‘shaped’ substance: whatever its final state, plastic keeps a flocculent appearance, something opaque, creamy, curdled, something powerless ever to achieve the triumphant smoothness of Nature. But what best reveals it for what it is is the sound it gives, at once hollow and flat; its noise is its undoing, as are its colours, for it seems capable of retaining only the most chemical-looking ones.
I am not a postmodernist. I am not a post-anything. But, like Barthes and later philosophers, I am concerned about the dominant narrative of “progress.” And, simply put, I’m not a fan of plastic. I should note for flyfishing readers that I am also not one of those elitists who maligns graphite rods by mislabeling them as “plastic.” Clearly, graphite rods do not fit into Barthes’ descriptions of plastic. I like graphite, glass, and bamboo rods, so long as all of them are things have been crafted or worked with care, rather than simply molded or “shaped.”
Why am I then rambling on about such things, you may ask. It is because I was recently thinking about how much I enjoy things that are crafted to last–to take hard knocks but to still function for many, many years. Plastic lasts, of course. But it also breaks, deteriorates, and otherwise ages in ways that make it no longer useful. What prompted me to think about all of this was my putting some flies into a Wheatley fly box. These boxes have been made for well over a hundred years, and many of the earliest examples are still perfectly functional. Dented and scuffed, yes. But irreparably broken? No.
Part of the narrative of progress seems to involve a movement toward greater convenience and disposability. For many of the same reasons that Roland Barthes criticized the world around him, I reject that narrative.
All of us love to read. Unfortunately, someone has to write the books, articles, and essays that entertain or challenge us. These last couple of weeks I have been stuck in a university library, working on a chapter for an academic book. I’m starting to get a little restless, and my mind keeps wandering to the mountains. But the deadline for the chapter is looming and the streams are swollen with rain water right now. So, after this brief break, I go back to writing. I will try to limit the wanderings of my mind by reminding myself I will be home in Montana next week and this chapter will be done soon.
The Literary Fly Fisher 