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Monday, October 31, 2011

Halloween offering: "Colloque sentimental," by Paul Verlaine

Img2422_wildoats_800pix1_1


Today, a poem.  Those of you who are purely Anglophone can skip to the translation below, by A. S. Kline.  It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than anything I could manage on the spur of the moment, and it rhymes, and it will give you an idea of the very lovely and sad and Halloweeny original. 

 

 

(One thing in the last couplet: “avoines folles” are “wild oats,” which I am sure you know by sight at least, and which I have given you in the above image.  They are a far more atmospheric background for our two ghosts than “wild herbs,” but Kline used “herbs” to rhyme with “words,” and I understand and sympathize and am glad I can read French, and that’s why translation is a crazy bitch.)

 

*

 

Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé
Deux formes ont tout à l'heure passé.


Leurs yeux sont morts et leurs lèvres sont molles,
Et l'on entend à peine leurs paroles.


Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé
Deux spectres ont évoqué le passé.


--Te souvient-il de notre extase ancienne ?
--Pourquoi voulez-vous donc qu'il m'en souvienne ?


--Ton coeur bat-il toujours à mon seul nom ?
Toujours vois tu mon âme en rêve? --Non.


--Ah! les beaux jours de bonheur indicible
Où nous joignions nos bouches! --C'est possible.


Qu'il était bleu, le ciel, et grand l'espoir !
--L'espoir a fui, vaincu, vers le ciel noir.


Tels ils marchaient dans les avoines folles,
Et la nuit seule entendit leurs paroles.


*

 

In the lonely old park’s frozen glass

Two dark shadows lately passed.


 

Their lips were slack, eyes were blurred,

The words they spoke scarcely heard.


 

In the lonely old park’s frozen glass

Two spectral forms invoked the past.


 

‘Do you recall our former ecstasies?’

‘Why would you have me rake up memories?’


 

‘Does your heart still beat at my name alone?’

‘Is it always my soul you see in dream?’ – ‘Ah, no’.


 

‘Oh the lovely days of unspeakable mystery,

When our mouths met!’ – ‘Ah yes, maybe.’


 

‘How blue it was, the sky, how high our hopes!’

‘Hope fled, conquered, along the dark slopes.’


 

So they walked there, among the wild herbs,

And the night alone listened to their words.

 


 

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Sunday blog: A humanity test

Britain-blind-dog-460x307


In “Dune” (both the book and the David Lynch movie), there’s a scene in which the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam tests young Paul Atreides to see if he’s a human being.  She makes him put his hand in a black box.  “What’s in the box?” Paul asks.  “Pain,” the Reverend Mother replies.

 

 

Paul passes the test.

 

 

Here is a test for you.  Go to the following link.  If you do not feel something very powerful tugging at your heart, then you are not very human, and you should stuff yourself in a dumpster immediately, or volunteer for medical experiments.

 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051780/Blind-Great-Dane-Lily-needs-home-space-HER-guide-dog-Maddison.html

 


 

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Science and economics: getting there is half the fun

Up-down-graph


I have been inundated with science magazines lately.  I think I must be signing up for subscriptions in my sleep. 

 

 

In any case, I am learning a lot. 

 

 

For one thing, according to an article in a recent issue of Science, population growth turns out to be not a problem; people adapt to it, as technology continues to improve

 

 

Aren’t you delighted to hear this?

 

 

This study was based on a location in Kenya where, in the early twentieth century, overfarming and overgrazing looked as if they might overwhelm a whole area.  Experts were gloomy.  But!  Technology rescued everyone!  (After a while.)  Nowadays, it’s a thriving area!

 

 

Everything about this story is wonderful, except that middle term: “after a while.”  There was considerable human suffering and stress for perhaps ten, twenty, thirty years. 

 

 

That middle term worries me.

 

 

Macroeconomics has the same middle-term blind spot. Allow me to oversimplify: “Markets shift.  There are busts, and booms.  If you can just hang on long enough, recessions and depressions will ease, and the market will shift to an upward trend.”

 

 

Ah yes.  If you can hang on long enough.

 

 

And getting there is half the fun.

 

 

Re the Kenya story: how many people suffered / starved / died before the present optimal state was achieved?  Re the macroeconomics theory (let’s take the 1930s in the USA for an example): how many people suffered / starved / died before the economy recovered?

 

 

One does not have the numbers at one’s fingertips, but one seems to recall that, during the 1930s here in the USA for example, the human-suffering level was significant.

 

 

So: problem leads to solution.  The laws of nature, and demographics, and economics, take their course.

 

 

But getting there is half the fun.

 

 

And you had better dearly hope that you are not one of the (statistically insignificant) people who suffer, or starve, or die in the middle of the equation, during the time in which the situation is correcting itself from negative to positive . . .

 

Ah me.

 

 

Hang on.  It’s going to be a bumpy ol’ ride.


 

 

Friday, October 28, 2011

Literary tattoos

Tattoo


I don't have any tattoos, but I like seeing them on other people. Especially men. Most especially attractive men.

 

 

The health club is a good place for this, but there's too much flesh in motion out on the fitness floor; you can't get a focus on the most of the time. There's one lean muscular guy who has something – what? An eagle? A military insignia? A cartoon character? - on his left arm. I cannot make it out for the life of me, and I have not (so far) gotten close enough to him to make out the detail. I think I will have to come up with something like an epileptic fit, so that I can collapse into his arms and get a good look at it.

 

 

Sometimes, however, they walk right up to you.

 

 

The other evening in the locker room, I was alone with a sort-of-cute younger guy – lean/muscular, beard, a little hairy. He had his back to me as he undressed. I glanced (?) up, and I saw a lovely tattoo, in beautifully-executed calligraphy, on his left shoulder-blade. “ . . . Paradise,” I read in my quick glance.

 

 

Oh, surely not!

 

 

But I took another look (I was cautious, because you never know if they'll take offense at being examined). And I saw “And drunk the milk . . .”, and it was enough.

 

 

I got up to leave, just as he was wrapping his towel around his lean little waist to go into the showers, and I couldn't resist. I turned back, as we were parting ways – and my goodness, he was a little more muscular than I'd thought! - and I said: “I really like your tattoo.”

 

 

To my delight, he lit up. “Really? You recognize the poem?”

 

 

“But naturally,” I said. “'A damsel with a dulcimer in a vision once I saw . . .'”

 

 

He laughed and thanked me.

 

 

How often does that happen?

 

 

And what inspired him to get those particular lines of poetry tattooed on his shoulder?

 

 

No matter. He was adorable, and giggly, and pleased that I'd recognized the poem.

 

 

(Which I will not identify here, because it is a Classic of English Literature, and you should have recognized it by now, and if you don't recognize it from the clues I've dropped so far, you should be ashamed of yourself.)

 

 

(One more clue: “Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair!”)

 


 

 

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Popol Vuh

Popol


I love old religious texts.

 

 

I know, I’m a nonbeliever.  So go sit on it.  I love the color and invention that all of earth’s cultures have thrown into the business of figuring the world out, on (admittedly) limited information.

 

 

I have read the Shinto stories about Izanami and Izanagi dancing around the pillar together. And doing it wrong.  And having children that don’t turn out quite right, and putting them in a boat to get rid of them.

 

Epic of Gilgamesh!  Classic.  Lots of running around.  Gilgamesh has a big Incredible-Hulk best friend named Enkidu (they pound on each other for a long time, then decide they like each other), and they go off to defeat the Huwawa.

 

 

I used to own Prichard’s edition of “Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament.)  Both volumes!  Delicious stuff.  (I had to get up just now to make sure I don’t still have them; I can’t believe I was such a fool as to get rid of them.)  I have a dim pleasant memory of a Sumerian text called the Ludlul Bel Nemeqi – “I will praise the lord of wisdom.”  It is a sad gentle psalm to the gods, from someone who’s suffering.  Some things never change, do they?

 

 

The Egyptians had lots of early stories, lots of mythologies.  Too much to put together!  The Osiris-Isis- Horus-Set one is probably the best-represented.  But there’s the Ra story (which I think Isis sort of preempts later), and the Ptah story (not sure why this one didn’t get more play).  Also the wonderful folktales.  “I shall enchant my heart, and shall place in on top of the flower of the cedar . . .”

 

 

But my real favorite is the Popol Vul.

 

 

It is, to translate, “The Book of the Council Mat.”  It is a document written down sometime (perhaps) in the 1600s by a member of the Quiche Maya people of Mexico and Guatemala, detailing many of their origin stories and root myths.

 

 

I wish I knew enough Quiche to read it in the original.  Even in English it’s fascinating.  It has characters with names like Xpiyacoq and Xbalanque and Xmucane and Ixquiq.  People are always playing ball games, and eating other people’s hearts, and getting pregnant by eating special gourds, and sleeping in the House of Knives. 

 

 

And then, strangely, even after all of the fighting and chopping up bodies, the main characters rise into the sky, and become the sun and moon and the evening star.

 

 

Now that’s creative.


 

 

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Maryhill Museum

 

Maryhill

If you drive eastward along the Washington side of the Columbia River from Portland, you will encounter dramatic shifts of scenery.  The forested hills of Clark and Skamania county turn craggy as you pass through the Cascades, and the cliffs grow higher on either side of the river; then you see an odd shimmer in front of you – it never fails – and suddenly you pass from the damp greenery of Western Washington into the deserty hills of Eastern Washington. 

 

 

The cliffs in the gorge are spectacular.  One of the most spectacular places is Wishram Heights, which overlooks (more or less) a stretch on the Columbia which used to be a tumbling rapids called Celilo Falls.  The damming of the Columbia filled the waterfall, and it's a lake now.  (Don't be sad.  Someday the dams will fall, and Celilo Falls will still be there.)

 

 

A wealthy railroad man named Sam Hill loved this stretch of the riverside.  He built two things here: a replica of Stonehenge, and a huge rambling house, which he named after his wife Mary.  It is a windy lonely place now, and it must have been twenty times as lonely when Sam and Mary lived here.

 

 

The Stonehenge replica is no mere reproduction; it is a depiction of the original Stonehenge, with all of the stones in place.  Klickitat County, Washington (Partner calls it “Clicketyclack,” just to peeve me) made it their World War I memorial; my great-uncle Dewey Bromley is commemorated on one of the upright stones.  (Dewey died on a ship, either en route to the war or returning from it.)

 

 

The big house is now a museum, with a huge beautiful garden, and a state park attached.  Sam Hill knew Queen Marie of Romania quite well, and ended up (not quite sure how all this worked) with a whole bunch of Marie's stuff – her memorabilia, her traveling throne, her portrait collection, gifts from her grandmother, Queen Victoria. 

 

 

Oh, and Sam knew Loie Fuller too.  And ended up with quite a few of her things. 

 

 

Have I mentioned that all of this Byzantine treasure is on display in a drafty old house in a remote corner of Washington state, visited by few? 

 

 

I think a lot of people drive along that highway, above those really amazing Columbia Gorge bluffs, and suddenly catch sight of that big house and that bizarre circle of standing stones, and think: Did I really just see that?

 

 

But once you’ve caught sight of it and had time to wonder about it , it's gone.  You're in the wilderness again.

 

 

This must be a metaphor for something.  Let me think.

 


 

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Chicken skin and beef marrow

Beef-marrow-bones


I have written before about guts, and how delicious they are.

 

 

Well, here’s something new: an New York Times article revealing that lovers of chicken skin have finally come out of the closet.

 

 

I don’t know if you love chicken skin as much as I do.  I peel it off and eat it in long strips.  It’s full of fat and flavor.  And now chefs are using it as a flavoring ingredient.  (Actually it’s nothing new: I just saw the recipe for Shepard’s chicken croquettes, from a long-defunct restaurant in downtown Providence, and one of the ingredients is ground-up chicken skin!)

 

 

Which leads us, of course, to beef marrow.

 

 

As a kid, I had red meat nearly every night at dinner.  We used to raise and slaughter our own beef cattle; a family friend would cut and wrap the meat, which was sometimes cut rather haphazardly; the bones in the steaks were cut open so that they were perfect little cups, full of a jellylike whitish material that was wonderfully savory. 

 

 

Primates love marrow; it’s full of protein and fat. 

 

 

I suppose you might find that disgusting. 

 

 

But it’s so good!

 

 

Now: are you going to eat that chicken skin?  Because I’ll eat it if you don’t.


 

 

Monday, October 24, 2011

Three o'clock in the morning music

Beethoven-the-late-quartets-539629-991


I used to subscribe to Stereo Review in the early 1970s, and I read their articles – especially their record and music reviews – very religiously; they were a huge part of my musical education. (Oh my god, was it really forty years ago?) Anyway, one of the reviewers, when discussing one of the Schubert piano sonatas, described it as “three o'clock in the morning music.” And I knew what he meant: dry intimate personal quiet music. I think each of us must have his own type.

 

 

I don't want to sound like a snob, but my three-in-the-morning music is the Beethoven quartets (especially the late ones) and the Scriabin piano music.

 

 

Why? It's like listening to the musical equivalent of Morse code. There's rhythm and harmony there, and sometimes even (especially in Beethoven, but in Scriabin too) something like melody, but the reasoning – the logic that leads from note to note, passage to passage – goes beyond words.

 

 

I've been listening to the Razumovsky quartets every evening now for about two weeks. I turn on the CD around 10:00 pm. I don't really listen – not intently – but then again, yes I do. I know it by heart, and it throbs in my head. It's quiet, and intense, and gentle. It's playing right this moment as I write this.

 

 

There's a famous moment in Aldous Huxley's “Point Counter Point” in which a character listens to the third movement of the Beethoven A minor quartet, having arranged his own death and while waiting for his killers to arrive. For him, the music is perfect – so much so that everyday life, in comparison, become worthless.

 

 

I get quite the opposite message from this music. Beethoven called it his “Heiliger Dankgesang,” his Holy Song of Praise. It is quiet and lovely and passionate. I hear nature, and humanity, and simple earthy gestures, and simple tunes that weave together to make a grand perfect structure.

 

 

What's that line from Auden? “Nothing is better than life.”

 

 

I agree.

 

 

And I think Beethoven (and even poor crazy Scriabin) agree also.

 

 

Even at three o'clock in the morning.

 


 

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Sunday blog: "Low Rider," by War

War_lowrider


 Hey!  Another old video!

 

 

 

Hey! It’s got a nice backup, and a nice rhythm.  And, according to Wikipedia, this song has been featured in at least thirteen movies, including “Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke.”

 

 

 

So there!

 

 

 

 


 

Saturday, October 22, 2011

The Arbor Day Foundation

Images


 I have pretty much given up on charitable giving.  This is ironic, since I work for the fundraising division of a not-for-profit enterprise.  Oh, I still give away a few bucks here and there.  I give to my employer, of course, just to be nice.  I don't give much; I figure I've given the last quarter-century of my working life to them, which should count for something.

 

 

 

I used to give to every charity that sent me a note: illnesses, injuries, religious groups.  Some of them fill their appeal envelopes with the most ridiculous chotchkes.  Partner gets stuff from an organization callled Saint Joseph's School, a religious school for Native Americans, and they're always sending him dreamcatchers and such.  A few years ago, however, they stupidly sent their yearly financial statement, which revealed that they were spending an unconscionable amount of money on, you guessed it, overhead like fundraising and administration.  All those little gifts from sympathetic people around the country weren't going to the children after all; they were going to purchase Chinese-manufactured dreamcatchers, to send to people all over the country and make them feel guilty.

 

 

Even some of my favorites have gone by the wayside.  I have given up the Smithsonian, and the Planetary Fund.  I still give my alma mater Gonzaga University a few bucks a year, because I was a scholarship student there – back when tuition was less than five thou a year – and I can only imagine what modern students (and parents) are paying now.

 

 

But I still renew my yearly membership in the Arbor Day Foundation.

 

 

 

believe in trees. I believe in growth, and renewal.  I believe that, no matter what happens to the human race, there will still be trees around to witness what happens next.

 

 

Take a look at their website, please.  And remember what trees do for you.  And give some small money to them.

 


 

 

Friday, October 21, 2011

It ain't easy being mean

 

Mean


I am sometimes truly wicked, I suppose. I do horrible things casually, and I can justify them to myself somehow.

 

 

But then there are the little mean things I do.

 

 

Apollonia was telling some long-winded story the other day about being in the produce department and squeezing all of the canteloupes, because she wanted one that was perfect. “And I didn't want to drop them,” she said.

 

 

I snorted. “Roll them on the floor,” I said. “That's what I do. Who cares? I throw 'em in every direction when I'm done with them.”

 

 

She looked at me incredulously, but with some appreciation. I suspect the managers in Apollonia's local market are in for some trouble soon.

 

 

Also I have difficulty with fools. Recently a very nice young woman in my department arranged an ice-cream social: free Popsicles, free ice-cream sandwiches. She sat at a little table and very graciously handed them out. I was a good boy and had only one of each. But then some nasty-looking people from another building came over and helped themselves. “Hey, Loren!” the ringleader challenged me. “What's your riddle?”

 

 

“Excuse me?” I said.

 

 

“On your Popsicle stick!” she said.

 

 

I looked down, and sure enough, there was a riddle on my Popsicle stick. “'What bird is the rudest bird?'” I read aloud.

 

 

Nasty-Looking Person From Another Department looked befuddled. “I don't know. What?”

 

 

I glanced at her briefly, then threw the stick in the trash. “Who cares?” I said.

 

 

(Naturally I enjoyed the look of utter confusion on her face. I love doing that to people.)

 

 

Well, that was mean, I know. Not, probably, a mortal sin. But unpleasant and unneighborly.

 

 

But, as I said:

 

 

Who cares?

 


 

Thursday, October 20, 2011

I hate purses: or, The lost art of conversation, and why it will probably remain lost

Hopper


 “I hate purses,” Apollonia sighed.  “That’s why I have so many of them.  I have a compulsion to buy them, and then I hate myself for buying them, and then I buy another one.”  She buried her face in her hands.  “It’s a sickness.”

 

 

“Do you have a pencil?” I said, pulling out my pocket diary.  “That particular gem is too perfectly twisted to go unmemorialized.  It needs to be written down.”

 

 

“You’d better not put that online –“

 

 

“Too late, babe.  Once you’ve said it out loud, it’s public domain.”  I mimed a butterfly springing out of my mouth and fluttering around the room.  “It’s everywhere now.”

 

 

“Great,” she grunted.  “You’re a regular Hedda Hopper.”

 

 

“I take that as a compliment,” I said.

 

 

“Except," Apollonia said, her eyes glittering, going in for the kill, "that she was more attractive than you.”

 

 

And this is how we spend our idle moments.

 

 

It’s a pity that this witty banter is lost; that’s why I like to note it down. 

 

 

And, kids, who even remembers Hedda Hopper anymore, except for Apollonia and me?

 

 

Happy Thursday.

 

 

(If you think of it, send Apollonia your old purses.  She hates them.  And, by that, I mean she loves them.)

 


 

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The Magic Kingdom, pro and con

Winnie

 

To paraphrase Julius Caesar: all Disney World is divided into four parts. 

 

 

You’ve got Epcot, which is nerd paradise.  I could happily wander in circles there for days at a time.  There are a few rides here and there, but it’s mostly educational, which is not so good for children.  (I recommend Spaceship Earth, a slow-paced trip through the past and future narrated by Judi Dench, that ends with a crazily funny video featuring you!)

 

 

You’ve got the Animal Kingdom, the nicest zoo I’ve ever seen.  They added Mount Everest since I last visited, and it is beautiful.  I love the India area in general (they call it “Anandapur,” pretending that it’s an independent principality in the Himalayan hill country).  Although Africa is nice too.

 

 

You’ve got the Hollywood Studios.  As far as I’m concerned, this park lacks cohesion.   It’s like Disney’s reply to Universal, you know?  There’s one good ride – the Tower of Terror – and some good miscellaneous stuff. 


 

And then you’ve got the Magic Kingdom.

 

 

Pro: It’s the heart of Disney.  It’s Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Goofy.

 

 

Con: It’s ten thousand bawling children (only three of whom appear to be having fun), and five thousand zombiesque parents, and a thousand grandparents trying to keep up with the family.  (I heard a little girl scream from her stroller: “Keep up, Nana!”, to her exhausted grandmother in a wheelchair. )

 

 

Pro: Cinderella’s castle.

 

 

Con: Approximately a million people surrounding Cinderella’s Castle watching the inane show they put on every hour.  “But I beweeve in dweams!” I can still hear Donald Duck squealing.  (We always seemed to pass by the castle right at that moment.)

 

 

Pro: The Haunted Mansion, which is still fun even after all these years.

 

 

Con: The 45-minute wait to get into the Haunted Mansion, while standing in the hot Florida sunshine.

 

 

Pro: Splash Mountain!  The Big Thunder Railroad!

 

 

Con: Two burgers, two fries, and two Cokes, for thirty dollars!

 

 

Pro: Toontown, where Mickey and Minnie live, and you can sit in Minnie’s big heart-shaped chair, and tsk at Mickey’s kitchen, which is being (chaotically) remodeled by Donald and Goofy.

 

 

Con: As of this year, Toontown is closed.

 

 

I could go on forever. 

 

 

However:

 

 

We happened to stop into one of the photo-op places where some of the characters were posing with children.

 

 

One child – really just a baby – was completely entranced with Winnie-the-Pooh.  It was one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever seen.  You could tell that the baby was completely delighted by this big soft smiling creature, and was laughing and smiling the whole time.  He/she was just old enough to believe that this big soft gentle smiling creature was one of his/her own toys come to life – just like in the story! – and the person in the Winnie suit was playing with the baby adorably, rolling on the floor with him/her.

 

 

It tore our hearts out to watch it.

 

 

And that’s maybe why you should visit the Magic Kingdom.

 

 

Just make sure you have thirty bucks in your pocket for burgers and fries.

 

 

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The magic road to recovery; or, Look like a zombie in only three days!


Colin_zombie


 Recovery from an illness is very nice, of course.  But there are very many things you have to take into account.

 

 

Your looks, for example.

 

 

I am not a beefy specimen to begin with.  So three days of fever and almost no food made me lose another three pounds.  I looked in the mirror yesterday morning before work and saw a cast member of “The Walking Dead.”  (The strange flyaway hair didn’t help, nor did the interesting green/gray/pale skin tone.)  It is almost a miracle that people didn’t rear back from me and shriek when they saw me.  Actually, one did, my Truthsayer Gaius Helen Mohiam AKA Apollonia, who lifted her eyes to me, bellowed, and said, “You look horrible!  But not in a bad way.”  (I tried lunging at myself and snapping when I saw myself in the bathroom mirror, and it was pretty effective.  If I can hold onto this look for another two weeks, I can save money on Halloween makeup.)

 

 

My posture, never good, has now become a staggering lurching horror, like the shadow chasing you down the hallway in a Hitchcock movie.  Again, I like this.  Anything to bring fear to the hearts of those around me. 

 

 

But you know what?  It’s all right.  One of the founders of modern common sense, Judith Martin (better known as Miss Manners), once wrote (I can only paraphrase, I don’t have the books here) that, if you must work sick (or as I was today, not sick exactly, but just not feeling terrific), you should look sick.  This will arouse Fear and Pity in those around you, and they will keep a dignified distance from you.  This will be good for them, in case you are still contagious; it is certainly good for you, because any bozo repellent is good bozo repellent. 

 

 

Sadly, I am continuing to recover.  Thank God I have some raw avocado in the fridge.  That should keep the green color going for a couple of days . . . .

 


 

 

Monday, October 17, 2011

Contagion: the update

Cochemar


 Only a few days ago I posted an entry about flying to Florida and back, and all the dangers of contracting an illness.  But I hadn’t gotten sick yet, so ha ha!

 

 

Well ha ha ha.

 

 

Let this be a lesson, kids: if you’re okay, keep your mouth shut about it.  Otherwise something will happen.

 

 

I felt more or less okay until about Thursday of last week.  I joshed around with Apollonia and the merry crew at lunchtime that day, and then I went back to my office and –

 

 

And I really didn’t want to be there anymore.  I felt bone-tired and listless and strangely aucch.

 

 

So I let my boss know, and I went home around 3pm, and I lay down and slept.

 

 

I maintained a pretty constant vegetative state for about forty-eight hours, mostly lying on my left side, my hands cupped under my head.  I got up once in a while to get some water or try to eat something (usually a mistake), but inevitably groped my way back to my little futon.

 

 

I was running a pretty high fever (which finally broke sometime on Saturday night, praise the Lord Buddha).  I alternated sweats and chills.  The sweats were just sort of non-aesthetic; the chills were actually scary.  I felt like I was having spasms. 

 

 

My dreams were stupendous.  They went so fast that they were exhausting.  Sometime I was having three at once!  One of them was entirely in the form of printed pages of dialogue flying all around.  They were literally exploding out of me: I’d just close my eyes, and it was like standing over the crater of a volcano, watching the lava rushing straight up for you.

 

 

On Sunday, I finally felt better, a little.  I had some meager Annie’s Shells and White Cheddar, which is not really my favorite food, but it sufficed.  And some of Partner’s much more interesting pasta dish with meatballs and Italian sausage, which I somehow managed to tuck away when he wasn’t looking.

 

 

Listen: I lost at least two pounds in the last three days.  I need sustenance.

 

 

Anyway: I’m still alive.  Just so you know.


 

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Sunday blog: Elvis Costello sings "Green Shirt"

Armed_forces


I'm pretty sure I've done Elvis Costello before – didn't I give you “New Amsterdam”? - but here's another song. This is from his 1979 album “Armed Forces,” which is as bitter and tense and terrific as any of his early albums. I seem to remember that this was about some newsreader in the UK that Elvis thought was pretty – but of course he brought Fascism into it . . .

 

 

And it contains my friend Joanne's favorite line: “Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?”

 

 

05_Green_Shirt.m4a Listen on Posterous

 


 

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Contagion: the reality show

Slide0769_image013


Partner and I go to the movies a lot. We see most of the blockbusters, as we both like bright objects and fast cars and big cute action heroes. 

 

 

We did not, however, see “Contagion.”

 

 

Normally I love an end-of-the-world movie.  In this case, however, with the gasping and the groaning and the blood gushing out of people’s eyeballs, I gave it a pass.  I have just become too delicate for that kind of thing.

 

 

The gimmick of the movie, apparently, is that the deadly disease is spread from person to person, often while travelling.  Just a casual touch or cough or sneeze is enough to give you the Creeping Death.

 

 

I don’t need to see that.

 

 

I already saw it on the flights Partner and I took to Orlando and back.

 

 

What can I tell you?  It is like being trapped on Level Five of the Center for Disease Control.  There was a woman sitting in front of us who, from the sound of it, was coughing up chunks of lung.  There was a plump young woman from Maine with a desperate fear of flying sitting right next to me, heaving and sobbing and generally throwing fluids in all directions.  There was a little girl who, I swear, kept wiping her nose on my sleeve when I wasn’t looking.

 

 

Partner came down with a head cold while we were in Orlando, but he thinks he got it from a co-worker before the trip.  So far I’m okay (apart from the occasional heart attack, naturally), but who knows what I might come down with, after all that exposure?

 

 

My eyeballs could start gushing blood at any moment.


 

 

Friday, October 14, 2011

American fatness

Obese-man


There are lots of foreign tourists in Disney World and at Universal – an amazing number, actually.  I noticed this trip that they’re starting to put both Spanish and Portuguese on the signs; I assume this is for Brazilian tourists.   There are Brits and Dutch everywhere, and Chinese and Japanese and Koreans.  (There was a Dutch group at our hotel, and I know it’s horrible and bigoted of me, but when I see a skinny Dutchman light a cigarette and hold it between two fingers while surveying the room, I can only think of every villain in every World War II movie I’ve ever seen.) 

 

 

But here’s the thing: most of the foreign tourists are not overweight.  Some of the Brits and Brazilians are rugby-player stocky, but they are almost never fat.

 

 

For real honest-to-God fat, you really need to go American.

 

 

My dear lord!  When you’re walking in a group of Americans, it’s like a herd of mastodons.  The bellies!  The butts!  What do they eat?  How much do they eat?  Are they aware that they look like circus freaks?

 

 

Then you notice the people on scooters.  For grandmas and grandpas, and for the handicapped, scooters are great.  But then you see these mammoth sacks of flesh driving their little scooters down the main drag, presumably just because walking is just such a hassle, and you want to knock them over.

 

 

Naturally there are a lot of Southern tourists in Florida.  A lot of the men look like football coaches or ex-players: you know, tall, sunglasses, sort of brawny.  But there always seems to be that gigantic belly in front, which sort of ruins the jock image.

 

 

And then there are the wives. 

 

 

Also (and most sadly of all) there are the children.  There was a Minnesota family near us at the airport gate in Orlando, with two small very active boys.  And both of them had adorable little pot-bellies sticking out in front.  And, judging from the looks of Grandpa and Dad sitting nearby, those adorable little pot-bellies aren’t going away any time soon.

 

 

Honestly, folks: why are we doing this?  I tell you that this is not normal.  We need to reassess our national diet and our national approach toward nutrition, but immediately.

 

 

And, while you're reassessing, pass me them there Cheez Doodles.


 

 

Thursday, October 13, 2011

A Florida state of mind

Funny-pictures-spring-break-crocodile

 We all like to believe that our own home town / state / country is the ding-dang screwiest place on earth.  It’s a point of pride.  Recently, for example, I could only nod in agreement as Partner read me a newspaper article saying that the incidence of serious mental illness in Rhode Island is nearly double the national average.  Well, of course it is!  We’re a bunch of lunaticsButler Hospital, which used to be the local mental hospital and is now a well-respected research center, is still remembered in local speech; we still say, after a hard day, that “we’ll be headin’ for Butler any time now.”

 

 

But I just came back from Florida, and I tell you, it’s a wacky world down there.

 

 

Social commentators like Carl Hiaasen and Chelsea Handler have plastered DANGER stickers all over the state of Florida.  But I think you have to experience it to believe it. 

 

 

First of all, I do not think I have ever seen billboard advertisements for psychiatrists before.  Now I have seen three.  One of them featured a nice family photo: Mom and Pop and the kids, all with horrible frozen smiles.  I think Pop was the psychiatrist, although - who knows?

 

 

Then I noticed a skywriter over the Disney property.  “What’s he writing?” I asked Partner.  “It can’t be English.  But – “

 

 

Ah.  TRUST JESUS.

 

 

The writing went on all afternoon.  By the time he’d get a word done, most of the previous word had blown away, leaving a lot of merry gibberish.  It was extremely devout of the pilot, however, and you had to give him credit for trying.

 

 

Also Florida has the most interesting stores.  Just in the neighborhood of our motel, I saw a light-bulb store, and a Murphy-bed store, and a swing-set emporium.  I also saw a Chinese restaurant called CHINESE RESTAURANT, which is either the greatest victory of minimalism I’ve ever seen, or just an instance of giving up.

 

 

Anyway: if you’ve never gone to Florida, you owe yourself a trip.

 

 

It will keep you entertained, and you will feel much better about your home town when you get home.

 

 

See you at Epcot!


 

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Columbus Day

Mister_day


Charlie Brown's sister Sally thought Columbus Day was a person's name. “'I can give you three ships, Mr. Day,' said the Queen.” Et cetera.

 

 

I have always felt tenderly toward Mr. Day.

 

 

For one thing, Chris (aka Cristoforo Colombo) was a paesano from Genoa. My maternal grandfather was (probably) from somewhere in northern Italy, so Mr. Day and I are probably seventeenth cousins, or something.

 

 

Also, I have fond memories of my two first-grade teachers of sainted memory, Miss Plowman and Miss Marvin, giving us fat first-grader crayons to color pictures of the Nina and the Pinta and the Santa Maria, which were displayed (very judgment-free!) on the wall.

 

 

And there was really no need for judgment, because they were all beautiful.

 

 

Since then, however, the world has become stormy and sad.

 

 

My employer, Brown University, has renamed Columbus Day the “Fall Weekend.” Mr. Day, you see, was the harbinger of all bad things: disease, and slavery, and dispossession. They think it best not to mention him.

 

 

Indeed all those things followed on his “discovery.” I cannot deny it.

 

 

And yet: here we all are, in the New World that Mr. Day scouted out, with his three ships.

 

 

I am torn. I understand the revisionists' point: much of what happened over the next few hundred years was a sin and a shame, and the native inhabitants (I am very fond of the Canadian term “First Nations”) were ravaged and decimated – more than decimated – by the European immigration.

 

 

And yet: here I sit, a descendant of those immigrants and their relatives.

 

 

Frankly, speaking as a radical socialist / anarchist, I'd gladly give the First Nations back their land. I would, like William Blackstone and Roger Williams (the kooky founders of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations), be glad to live side by side with them, on their terms, with the explicit understanding that it was their land long before my folks arrived.

 

 

Mr. Day was a venal businessman, and did in fact send back some poor West Indies tribesmen to Spain for display. He bragged about being a warrior “who never once put down the sword.”

 

 

But he did not (I think) intend genocide. 

 

 

And he reached out to the New World.

 

 

And then a bunch of stuff happened. And now: here we all are.

 

 

We are all very sorry for what our very stupid ancestors did.

 

 

Let's not let it get us down. We are all at least as stupid as they were.

 

 

Let us celebrate Columbus Day, and resolve to do better.

 


 

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Mindfulness of cancer

Cancer


I recently saw this on Facebook:

 

 

Okay ladies, it's that time of year again, it's breast cancer awareness month. So we all remember last years game of writing your bra color as your status? Well this year it's slightly different. You need to write your shoe size (just the number) followed by the word 'inches' and then sad face. Remember last year so many people took part it made national news and, the constant updating of status reminded everyone why we're doing this and helped raise awareness. Do NOT tell any males what the status's mean, keep them guessing And please copy and paste (in a message ) this to all your female friends to see if we can make a bigger fuss this year than last year...................

 

 

 

My family has cancer on both sides. Dad's family was mostly lung cancer – just the smokers, but still, it hit Dad and my uncles in their 50s and 60s, and it was very nasty, and it killed them. Mom's family contributed a horribly twisted gene that manifests in aggressive ovarian cancer: my sister Susan died of it in 1995, Mom in 1999, my sister Darlene in 2005, and (youngest of all) my niece Kimberly in 2009, at the age of 40. Kim knew she carried the bad gene and had her ovaries removed as a preventive measure, but somehow the cancer grew anyway. She left two daughters, both of whom are at risk.

 

 

I need no reminding about cancer.

 

 

Awareness programs like the above are worthwhile if they get even a little good work done, and I don't doubt the seriousness and sincerity of the people who participate.  But sometimes the nature of the programs has little to do with the nature of the problem itself, or the search for a solution. (I'm thinking of things like wearing pins and red bows for cancer and AIDS, or changing your Facebook photo to a cartoon character to show your opposition to child abuse. Do you need to show your opposition to these things? Are you afraid that someone might think you're pro-AIDS or pro-breast cancer?  And, yes, I'm a lemming, I wear them too.)

 

 

Here are some excellent things to do and places to visit:

 

 

The Gilda Radner Foundation, which began fighting ovarian cancer, and has branched out wonderfully.

 

 

For those of you in Rhode Island: The Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Foundation.

 

 

Hospice, for those who need it. (Mom and Susan both used Hospice, and it is amazing how much they helped.)

 

 

Here's hoping for a cure.

 

 

Or a whole passel of cures.

 


 

Monday, October 10, 2011

Twenty-four years at the same job!

Sleep


I began working at Brown University in August of 1987, a little more than twenty-four years ago.

 

 

If I make to my twenty-fifth anniversary next year – and then to January first of 2013! - I will receive a gift from the University: a chair, or a mirror, or a gift certificate. My choice! Also some extra vacation time, so that I can go shopping for a coffin.

 

 

Some years ago I hired an office assistant who was (at the time) just shy of her twentieth birthday. She was born in 1989, two years after I started at Brown.

 

 

And of course it continues. One of my recent student assistants, Noah, was born in 1991, only a little more than twenty years ago. (I think of this as the “Goodbye, Mister Chips” paradox: those of us who work in education keep getting older and older, whereas the students never age at all. The seniors graduate, and are replaced by freshmen, and so on, and so on. You keep hoping for the students to grow up and mature – and they never quite do, because as soon as they mature a little bit, they're gone, and they're replaced by new – and younger – and less mature – students.)

 

 

Ay caramba!

 

 

Noah finished his stint in the office in mid-August. He enjoyed his time with us, I think; it was his first summer job away from home, and he spent most of his weekends with his friends doing all kinds of young athletic acrobatic things. We all enjoyed him too, because he was young, and we liked listening to his stories: it was a chance for all of us to relive what it felt like to be young, and have the entire future be open before you.

 

 

“This isn't bad,” Noah said one day. “Working, I mean.”

 

 

“Ah,” I said. “Because, for you, it has an end date. For me, not so much. The end date is probably when I die in my office chair.”

 

 

Noah laughed, but a little uneasily. He could hear the slight bitterness in my voice.

 

 

But what am I complaining about? I'm happy. I have a good job, in which I feel productive. I'm advancing the interests of a prominent university. I make enough money to get by.

 

 

But Noah is looking out into a future of infinite possibility.

 

 

And I am looking out into a future of – what? More of the same. Until I die of a stroke in my chair. Until -

 

 

Oh, let's stifle that.

 

 

Here's to another twenty-five years of the same!

 


 

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Sunday blog: Alice Cooper sings "Poison"

Alice_cooper1


This is one of those awful videos I watch when I'm on the treadmill at the health club.

 

 

I don't care! I love it! It's grandiose and wonderful.

 

 

“I wanna taste you, but your lips are venomous . . .”

 

 

 


 

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig

Tour_house

 

 

Nous sommes revenus, mes petits animaux!

 

 

(Just got home about two hours ago.  We unpacked, and Partner is already asleep.  I'm too jazzed to sleep.  I absorbed lots of information while in Florida.)

 

 

(More soon.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday, October 8, 2011

The lady on the bus

Paris-hilton-dirndl


Sometimes Partner and I ride the trolley to work. It's not really a trolley; it's just a squatty little city bus with shellacked wooden seats that send you flying if the driver takes a corner too fast. But it's crafted to look like a trolley, and it's a pleasant ride, especially on a sunny morning. Naturally there's a cast of characters: the driver (usually a blonde woman sucking a lollipop); an old man with withered legs and a big smile; a rumpled academic with a huge head of hair who naps surreptitiously.

 

 

Lately there's been a new addition: a woman about our age, who dresses in lots of layers of crepe and chiffon and fabric. Think “aging hippie,” if you will. She's very brisk, she engages everyone in conversation, she's loud and gregarious. To the point of being A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G, especially on a quiet weekday morning.

 

 

This was a snippet from last week's conversation (she was sitting right behind us, I couldn't very well not hear it): “How are you?” another woman asked her.

 

 

“Oh,” Aging Hippie fluted theatrically, “I had a really awful day at work yesterday. I got a written warning. I think my boss wants to fire me or something. Anyway: that's neither here nor there. It is what it is. Oh, can I call you later, so that you can help me with that computer thing? You know I'm helpless with that computer stuff.”

 

 

I shudder with silent laughter, and I can't even look at Partner, his eyes are squeezed shut, he's trying not to laugh too.

 

 

Questions:

 

 

  • Do you find the expression “It is what it is” as loathsome as I do? I guess it's supposed to be deep: that's life, we have to accept it. But – sheesh!

  • What do you suppose was in the written warning she received? Did it have anything to do with her lack of computer skills? Her talkative nature? The fact that she's always calling friends on the phone from work?

  • Why is she even working in an office in the first place? I've seen her wardrobe. She could open a consignment boutique and market frilly dirndls to college girls. (Try saying those last five words over and over again, really fast.)

     

 

Anyway: she stopped riding the bus a few days ago. I think the written warning was followed by something a little harsher.

 

 

I will be looking for that consignment boutique in our neighborhood any time now!

 


 

Friday, October 7, 2011

Happy birthday, Partner

698504_enlrg


Today is Partner's birthday. If all is well, we should be in DisneyWorld (or Universal Studios) right this moment, having a wonderful time.

 

 

Our first meeting was a dinner date at Downcity in downtown Providence in 1995. (The place burned down a few years ago.) I ordered fish, which arrived burnt on one side and half-frozen on the other. I would have sent it back, but I didn't want to make a bad impression on Future Partner, whom (for some reason) I liked very much.

 

 

About a month later, we went to Newport Grand. We bet on a few jai-alai matches, and we put down some money on one of the Triple Crown races (either the Belmont or the Preakness – the records are unclear). I'd never bet on a horse race before, so he coached me. He pointed out that my birthday was July 10, and his was October 7, and his sister Peggy's was November 7, so it was obvious that the ideal trifecta bet was 7-10-11.

 

 

He was in line in front of me at the betting window. His theory about 7-10-11 sounded interesting, but – I mean, really? So I watched him bet those number, and then it was my turn, and I bet 1-2-3. (In Roseanne's words from the last season of her series, when her character won the lottery: “A perfect straight.”) And I thought no more about it.

 

 

Next morning came a call from Future Partner. “We won!” he yelled. “Twenty-two hundred dollars! How much did you bet?”

 

 

I was uncomprehending. “I'm glad you won,” I said. “But I didn't bet the same numbers you did.”

 

 

He was incredulous. “How could you not - ”

 

 

I didn't understand, you see. It was magical. He knew it right away. Me, it took a while.

 

 

That was sixteen years ago, when we were both young and foolish.

 

 

Now we are old and achy and irritable.

 

 

But we're still together.

 

 

Partner: I love you very much.

 

 

I hope you have a hundred more birthdays at least.

 

 

And I will still not bet the numbers you tell me to bet.