the fountain of youth

In the autumn of time
All that is left is but to make
the bed of our final rest

Gauf is a way for some, and a torment to the rest

Shinny (Rooster)

“More than 200 years ago, Indians throughout the United States played a variety of club and ball games described as ‘Shinny.’ Translation of the various Indian appellations given the game include ‘The Club of the War Gods’ or ‘the yielding stick’ but it was popularly known as ‘Rooster’ amongst the Tashuan tribe where it is said to have first originated and had a shortlived, but well-documented history amongst its people.

Introduced to the Tashwans by a seaman second class by the name “Shanks” McNaught who claimed he was washed ashore after riding a great white whale with his Captain Jonah, after the wreck of the whaler, The Raven out of Turro, Massachusetts. Rooster was more akin to dueling than to the game of golf as we now know it. In the game of Rooster - two contestants compete head-to-head in a match of ‘fool-hardy will and dubious courage.’ Each player armed with a wooden club called a baffer, which has a leather grip at one end, and a bent, gnarled, spoon-like head at the other. If the contestants were to smote each other with these baffing clubs they might have caused considerable damage, but the rules of Rooster strictly forbade striking your opponent directly with the business end of the club. Rather, the rules of the game required the contestants to stand 216 paces distant from each other and to “flayel the baffer, thereby striking the baul at yourn foe in the wee hope of goffin ‘im in the noggin.” “Wee hope,” being the operative words. For the most part, it is said Rooster contests devolved into utter frivolity, as few of the players were capable of striking the baul with any degree of certainty, much less inflicting any damage upon a foe so far afield.

Games of the North American Indians was first published in a U. S. Government document titled Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Smithsonian Institution, 1902-1903, by H.W. Holmes.

a true man of no title

sunset at st. andrews

Is it true, that I transcribe my memories by hand with a quill honed from the bone of a great white whale and ink from the dust of my ancestor’s bones. Does it matter? My life is a tale so fantastic that none believe it, when it is told. And, yet, for posterity’s sake, I transmit the story for the sake of my people, while briefly noting, for vanity’s sake, my family’s rightful place in the golfing records.

My father was Jonah Shipman, he was the second son of the infamous Kyntire lightkeeper and golfer of small note, Seamus Shipman (Old Seamus in his later years). When my grandfather was a younger man, he beat everyone at match play, including and especially Tom Morris. Before my grandfather became the Kyntire light keeper, he was one of the first makers of the gutta percha golf ball, a ball that revolutionized golf in its day.

In those early Prestwick days, my grandfather Seamus was a fierce competitor. He won often and some suspected with outside agency, but always with gamesmanship and brinksmanship. His matches often required a rules decision to settle the matter. After the brawl, of course. My grandfather was also prone to rubbing salt in the wounds of his vanquished a little too strenuously when in his cups in the clubhouse. That too, was often.

Old Tom Morris never beat Old Seamus at matchplay head-to-head, but got everything else he competed against Old Seamus for, namely, the pro's job at Prestwick in 1858. It drove my grandfather out of the golf business and into light keeping on the Irish side of the island. The Old Tom got the job at the Old Course and then won Open Championships, that were followed by Young Tom's championships.then his sons championships.

The feud between the two men went back to the early days of Prestwick, guess it wasn't much of a feud in anyone's head by Old Seamus, but he couldn't let it go.
, there was a feud between Old Tom and Old Seamus, a feud that dates back to the early days of Prestwick that came to tragedy off the coast of Machrihanish.

For a brief time, when challenge matches were the major competitions, he was unbeaten. But was never competitive when competition turned to counting strokes


. who fled Scotland, when the English Courts called him to testify in the wake of a shipwreck caused by the failure of the Kyntire lighthouse in 1871.

My grandfather was Seamus Shipman (Old Seamus in his later years), a noted golfer in his brief time, but forgotten now. When Old Seamus was a younger man, he used to beat everyone, at match play, including and especially Old Tom. He was master club maker and wielder of hickory sticks, the best "stuffer of feathers", and an irrascible and fierce competitor who won often. Unfortunately, my grandfather was also prone to rubbing that fact in a little too strenuously when in his cups, which was often. So there was a feud between Old Tom and Old Seamus, a feud that dates back to the early days of Prestwick that came to tragedy off the coast of Machrihanish.

In 1858, Old Seamus took the job as Kyntire lighthouse keeper and moved his family to the westernmost finger of Scotland. Wouldn’t you know it, not two years later, Old Tom helped set up the first, so-called, British Championship in 1860 and finished second, but Old Seamus really hit the roof when he heard that Old Tom won it in 1861. And things didn’t get much better as the decade progressed. Old Tom won the belt three more times, and then, to make matters worse, the son took up where the father left off and capped it by winning possession of the belt with his third consecutive victory.

Old Seamus just bristled that those Easterners, as he called them, (Old Tom and the younger) were hogging all the gaufing glory simply because he and his eldest couldn’t get time off from lighthouse duties to play in these so-called Open Championships. and everyone knew that "the true game of gauf is match play, not stroke, spell it anyway you like."

So in the Spring of 1871, when the membership of Prestwick declined to offer up a new prize, Old Seamus wrote a withering letter to his old club and challenged his rival to a challenge match, pitting the best of the east (Young Tom) against the best of the west (Young Seamus) for a prize to be determined.

Of course, there was no golf course on this westernmost finger of Scotland, except for the sheep pasture where Old Seamus taught his sons to play the ancient game. But Old Seamus was determined to have the match played on home turf, so he bought the farm and spent all that spring fashioning a rough ten-hole course on which to hold the competition. As they say, there's no rivalry like the rivalry of Old Men; and Old Tom leapt at the chance to put his old nemesis in his place, even if it was just a match played between their sons.

My father, Young Seamus and Young Tom Morris played a thirty-hole (three times around a ten-hole circuit) match which ended all square, never one in front of the other by more than a hole the entire way. But, the weather was turning might nasty at the end and so play was suspended while a great storm was rolling in off the Irish Sea. The stoppage imposed by the rule committee, but objected to by both players who were eager to finish.

Old Seamus ordered my father back to to the lighthouse to the tend the signal, whilst he and Old Tom and the committee retired to the nearest establishment to codify the terms of continuance, planned the next morning, if the storm did not pass.

As neitherYoung Seamus, nor Young Tom wanted to quit.
And so, they lingered on the links as the crowd dispersed,
and then decided to continue, sanction or not.
And so, my father sent his young brother of nine
--the lad had carried the bags for the thirty hole match--
to the lighthouse in his stead.
Something that was not 'officially' allowed, but oft happened.
and Seamus and Tom, continued on...

But young Seamus's younger brother, 'his bother' as he called him for the boy was a "bit light in the head, if not in the shoes", couldn’t bear to miss the finish of the match either, for it had been one for the ages, so far. And so the boy hid in the weeds to bear witness to the conclusion of the match, neglecting his older brother's instructions and the family duty.

For six long holes, in the screaming wind and rain it went, until Young Seamus, hit a knock-down cleek from 108 yards into 54 mile an hour gale and watched it drop into the hole for an eagle to win the match on the 36th hole.

But the glory was short-lived.

The son had disobeyed the father,
and brother neglected brother,
one stayed to play,
the other to watch.
And eighteen souls (sailors)
were set adrift at sea
drowned (or so it was thought)
off the Kyntire coast.

Fearing the vengeance of Her Majesty's Courts, my father fled Scotland, to Ireland and then on to America, by hiring out on a whaling ship. He made his way to Newfoundland, and then on to Massachussetts where he prospered in Turro in the whaling business. In 1885, he set sail on one last whaling season but he never made it back to port…the last entry found in the ship’s log noted that “The Raven" (his whaling ship) hunts a great whale..”

1st tee of Machrihanish

I learned all this from my father's younger brother, Jonah B. Shipman, when I was at Carnoustie with the Hawk. (Number 15).


James Boles Shippen Jr.

Sunset at St. Andrews

Zen and the Art of Divot Replacement

by James Boles

  

Golf is a powerful metaphor in my life and a complicated relationship. More than a game, sport or competition—at my best it is a meditation, but more often it devolves into a confrontation with my mental affliction—the wedge: scooping, decelerating short game.

The best driver of the ball you have ever seen…a streaky putter…but the short game is an affliction…Can you hold one thought, one swing, one shot in your mind from waggle to impact? Or will you succumb to the impact zone yips, the fatal chase move...but we are not discussing my swing flaw, or rather, my scoring flaw…

I have come to believe in the four noble truths;

and I play golf as a metaphor—a means to teach

an unmasterable game— enlightenment

The grounds for gauf

The rules of gauf

The true match

One swing, one shot

My teacher, a master of zen,

put it more eloquently when he told me,

“one shot to test your understanding,

and eighteen holes to polish the soul.”

I took up the game of golf faster than some, earlier than most but not all. It was the summer of my ninth year, when a friend up the street started taking golf lessons at the Dallas Country Club. He invited me out to the grounds of Dover Elementary School to demonstrate what he had learned, and together we fashioned a two-hole course between the baseball diamonds on the playing fields. My re-collection, is that I beat my friend with his own clubs, first time out­­ over that makeshift layout. The friendship did not survive that first match, but my passion for the game did.

Soon thereafter my family left Richardson, Texas, and moved overseas when my father accepted a European assignment with the Department of Army. Our family spent the next three years in Italy, just outside Livorno, port city to Florence and then two more in Heidelberg, Germany, headquarters of NATO High Command. Most of my summer weekends I spent on the golf course, either caddying for my father on one of his golfing trips to Punta Alla in Italy; or caddying for the generals in Heidelberg—lessons in how not to play the game.

When we got overseas, my father also took up golf. My father was not a very good golfer. He was a leftie, and so played the game from the other side of the ball at a time when there was only one lefty in the pros. When he was on he could drive the ball with power, but seldom did he have the accuracy to match his length. His touch around the greens could be quite abysmal as well, but he keep fidelity with the rules. He counted every stroke and never improved his lie.

It was an important lesson to me.

When I reached my middle years, a phase my wife claims began shortly after my 37^th birthdate and continued without cessation until the end of my fiftieth year, golf became a weekend obsession…an escape from the pressures of the job or lack of one, and tension in the family unit.

I was also trying to re-activate a writing career that had laid dormant too long. A novel had sprung into my head about the story of a half-black, Shinnecock caddie by the name of Jobe ‘one shot’ Shipman who carried the bag for eighteen Open winners.




Metro-North Eastward, from the northside platform, Stratford, Ct

 

the last train by j.b. mcneely

Tomorrow, I go to get the keys.

Then the prodigal officially returns to the Upper West Side.

75th and Columbus, up two streets.

The frame store is still there, but Bernard has retired

The Chinese/Argentinian restaurant persists

and the framed painting of my master's ki remains

Return to training and the circle is complete.



     And so, the weed-hopper, returns to his first teacher, M. Crevani, student of Heshiki Sensei, 72nd Street Dojo, Matsu-bayashi, karate-do. Those were my garrot years in the city that never sleeps when I first began my training in the art of the fist some thirty years ago. (Not really a garrot, no. On the second floor of four-floor brownstone on 73rd Street, except that when the third floor shower was used, it rained in my kitchen.)

These are the years that I am told now that I will look back on with fondness. Perhaps, in a Proustian sense, it can almost be, whatever I make of it and such is the fragility of memory. These pages, these pages of my 'Burn This' years, of theatre on the sleigh, sleight of hand, slight of mind.



Joe McNeely as Lee Harvey Oswald
The Sixth Floor
The Douglas Fairbanks Theatre



Hard now to remember the time when I was that thin. Those were the years of training. Long stretches of framing, bartending, waiting, and the occassional audition or show, sometimes even under union contract.  Princes and assassins.. Henry V and Lee Harvey Oswald. And those were some venues. Henry V, off-Broadway, 42nd Street, Theatre Row;  The Sixth Floor at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre.

Yes, back in the day when I strode down Broadway and everyone took me for a star, or was that just my imagination...running away with me.


Bob Hall directed. Founding member of The New 'Rude Mechanicals'. After this performance, I did a small role in A Midsummer Night's Dream, a cameo in the Scottish play, during which I found my love, the mistress of my heart, and then Prince, nay King Hal. Then the theatrical career kind of trailed out. Had an audition for Joyce's Ulysses, but traveled to the West Coast instead. Turned down a paying gig, to play the wordiest mother-f#%$er, William Shakespeare ever wrote.

And there in, lies a tale,
a tale but for some other time...
The story of the audition
the breakfast, the walk in the park, the I'll be looking into these eyes for the rest of my life.

january 21-22, 2012
arbor street
office of audioevolution, llc

Saturday, white morning written pages to the tune of a favorite concert (Koln concert by Keith Jarrett). All elements of the writer's trade at hand: smokes (though that must be done outside, and more on that later), music, the empty page and my fountation pen. Now, I could delay things immensely, as I used to in days past, to stop and take out my camera to show you pictures of all those elements, but is it not better that I leave it to your imagination.)

Words, words, words, the immortal character intones.

For him a mockery

For me an incantation

Interruption...

Off the shovel snow, and now the wife is gone. The house is mine.

Light them up. We will handle the storm of fury on her return. She is off to saturday sessions, listening to people. They share grief, pain, addiction, withheld feelings, hidden secrets, longings and desires whilst I grasp at

What is it that I grasp at?

Answers to unsolveable questions

forgiveness of past sins

the torments of personal failings

Scattered thoughts

a few gems to preserve on paper

while the rest sink like stones



first snow at Kilkare cottage

Looking out o'er the middle ocean
a three year hermitage
there were many words, words, words
written on the pages of the countless journals
Someday, soon I shall gather all the shards
and piece them back together
bind them, marry them
and it will be a song of creation
soon forgotten.

"Dissecting Gum" by Ariel

Post-Production by Jobe Jr.



*A commentary update from the audio publisher regarding A Disorder Peculiar to the Country


Monkey Mind*

 Update: January 19, 2012
It is my understanding that Ken Kalfus has been at work on a new novel. Of course, anyone in publishing already knows this, but this blog is not written for the likes of publishers marketplace and publishers weekly, but for the lonely audiophiles who straggle on to this site in the wee morning hours. The traffic that comes to this site is mostly myselfto write, my mother to see what else I might have said about her, or my father, sister, or nephew; and audiophiles. The confusion, audioevolution.com versus audioevolution.org.

"Audio Evolution,. heh that sounds cool, I need some new stereo equipment."__audiojoe

Original post March 2007

Ken Kalfus's post 9/11 novel, A Disorder Peculiar to the Country was a 2006 National Book Award nominee. A sly satire (dark) black comedy of war, terrorism and conjugal strife. Audiobook Details Author Interview

I first read this novel in manuscript when I was still the acquisitions director for Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC, now known as Macmillan Audio. Little did I know at the time how few the degrees of separation were between myself and the author, Ken Kalfus. I would come to find out later, that the book was dedicated (in part) to my wife's college roommate and that the two of them had attended NYU with the author. It is indeed "a small world after all." Published in contravention of all the accepted axioms of audio publishing (big first print, marketing budget and simultaneous with the hardcover). Why? Because: the novel spoke to me.

I found in it a voice that crystallized my inchoate concerns, thoughts and feelings post 9/11, especially about the direction the country was heading in its aftermath. As a nation, I believe that we responded to 9/11 with our collective hypothalamus, determined to avenge the stain upon our nation. We set reason aside, then our founding principles, and finally, our morality. There is nothing we have not sacrificed to achieve victory in the war on terror, nothing, not habeus corpus, due process, nor civil liberties. We sacrificed it all in an illusory quest, not for freedom from terror, but for freedom from the fear of terror. And all we have after four years and billions of dollars is more terror and more fear of terror as we sacrifice more and more of our freedoms. A black comedy, indeed.