Mea culpa to a deliver-on-time literati circle

When I took my first steps into the world of journalism, no self-respecting newspapers in the UK would hire even the most junior  reporter without a diploma guaranteeing a shorthand speed of at least 120 words a minute. 

There was also a golden rule to transcribe the squiggles from  a flip back notebook to the keyboard of a clattering mechanical typewriter before day’s end. Added to the the clatter of telex machines, the urgent shrieking  of  phones and the noise of copy editors bellowing “boy” through the haze and across the desks of chain smoking scribes, newsrooms were neither quiet or healthy places.

Today, reporters on assignment carry tiny recording devices with the advantage and disadvantage of capturing “everything”.
I still find that using what’s left of my shorthand skills to jot down the salient points of interviews and meetings without umms, errs, throat clearing and tautology  has the advantage of spotlighting my impressions and providing usable quotes, without the chore of playing back the whole event.
This, alas, doesn’t work when the golden "same day" transcribe rule is diverted by other projects and the  notes recorded with Mr Pitman’s dots, dashes, lines curves and tiny circles, become lost in a sea of half remembered allusions.
Left to molder for three months the notes are like twinkling stars in a far off galaxy, titillating, but not providing any answers.
All of this  has been a mea culpa and a lead up to a long delayed report  on a fascinating morning with the group of ladies who form the Books and Arts Circle  and meet once a month at  Exedra Books. The organizer, and chairlady Laraine Chaplin decided when she founded the group seven years ago, that it would be ladies only to avoid any chance of creating unwanted tensions inside or outside the home. Being on the wrong end of a hurled book or a barbed comment can be a painful experience.
The format of the meetings is pre-ordained as all the participants have been given an early  briefing  of the requirements  for their presentations at the meeting, and what contributions  they have turned out to be on the  occasions I have visited. When more than a dozen readers with the same guide lines sit around a table you would expect some overlap, but each speaker has chosen her own path, illuminated  with her own views and comments, and pointing  the way for others to make their ownexploration.
The subject on the day I visited last October was "A book about cultural myths, legends and/or practices – and although my fractured notes don’t tell the whole story some salient points are still fresh.
The first speaker introduced us to netsuke, tiny Japanese carvings a collection of which had been passed down through five generations of the Ephrussi family to Edmund de Waal leading him to chronicle in The Hare with Amber Eyes, the story from 1871-2009 of a once powerful banking family who lost all to Hitler’s Nazis. except a 264 piece netsuke collection hidden in a mattress through the war years by a loyal maid
Washington Irving, and the The Legend of Sleepy Hollow were the subject of an erudite mix of the life of the author who was the first American writer to get good reviews in Europe, and of his resting place in Sleepy Hollow NY, renamed from North Tarrytown in 1996 in his honor.
No discussion of myths and legends can be complete without a local touch and one presenter revealed some of the legends of Panama replete with apparitions and howls of owls. There are some scary places on the Isthmus.
For every good legend there’s a debunker at hand and we learned of Charles Mann putting to rest some of the treasured beliefs about the Pilgrim fathers with Americas Before Columbus.
One of the strongest living legends in English titerature, King Arthur and The Knights of The Round Table, It got its going over in the 900 pages of the Mists of Avalon by Marron Zimmer Bradley.
Myths about medical science and urban legends about vaccinations creating autism got their airing in The Magic of Reality, and anyone aware of the recent killings of aid workers offering polio shots on the Asian sub-continent will know that myths can be deadly.
With a British lady at the helm on October 25, and less than two weeks to November 5 it would have been a surprise if some light had not been shed on Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators and their attempt to blow up the House of Lords. ”Please to remember the fifth of November is the annual rallying cry of hundred s of thousands of young children in Britain at that time of year and the  burning of his effigy has many believing that he died at the stake.  That was one of the myths uncovered for the benefit of the attentive group around the table. Another was that  Guy was the ringleader, instead  it seems, he was  was the plotter caught with his hand in the cookie jar (ie., guarding the gunpowder) so his name lives on creating good annual business for the fireworks industry.
My visit was another refreshing learning  experience with a group of people who really do know what they are talking about and, in spite of my tardiness, I hope that  before the year is out,  I again get the opportunity to gain some more  sparkling gems of information from those who deliver on time.  As for me I will try to follow the words sometimes written in my school report book: "Must try harder"

If “literati”in the heading sounds too upscale to you, don’t worry. All the circle members are down to earth residents who lead active lives in the community, but they do make time to read.
You are free to attend any of the monthly sessions as a participant or observer, for more details of upcoming subjects go to newsroompanama.com and click on “Coming events”