Our first memories

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Our first memories are often fractured and obscure. I myself have a dim (but vivid) memory of lying over my mother’s shoulder and being rocked. I was looking toward the kitchen, in which one yellowish light was burning. She was rocking too fast, and it bothered me.

Is it a real memory? I think so. I can’t imagine how I would have made it up.

Here’s a little story about Jean Piaget.

Piaget was one of the first and best developmental psychologists. He had a vivid memory of having been kidnapped when very young:

 “I was sitting in my pram, which my nurse was pushing in the Champs Élysées, when a man tried to kidnap me. I was held in by the strap fastened round me while my nurse bravely tried to stand between me and the thief. She received various scratches, and I can still see vaguely those on her face. Then a crowd gathered, a policeman with a short cloak and a white baton came up and the man took to his heels. I can still see the whole scene, and can even place it near the tube station. When I was about fifteen my parents received a letter from my former nurse saying that she had been converted to the Salvation Army. She wanted to confess past faults, and in particular to return the watch she had been given on this occasion. She had made up the whole story, faking the scratches. I, therefore, must have heard, as a child, the account of the story, which my parents believed, and projected it into the past in the form of a visual memory.”

Does this make you wonder about your early memories?

It makes me wonder about mine.

And maybe it makes me wonder about how accurate our memories are in general.

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Green thumb

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All kinds of weird talents run in my family. My aunt Louise channels entities who tell her about life on other planets and who have shown her the history of Atlantis. Mom could tell when I was sick, without even seeing me: I’d come home from school feeling ill, and she’d already have the bed turned down for me.

But I never had the green thumb.

Mom and my sister Darlene had the green thumb. They could take a leaf – one leaf! – from a plant (usually stolen, from a doctor’s office or a restaurant) – and put it in a pot of unpromising soil, and it would grow. And in no time they’d have a whole garden full of – whatever.

I had the black thumb – the opposite of the green thumb – for many years. I’d buy a potted plant, and it would keel over within days. I’d plant seeds, and nothing would happen. If I repotted something, it died within weeks.

Except that, over the past few years, something has happened. Evidently the stars have realigned. Now I can make things grow!

Example: I put a potted Pereskia aculeata (“Barbados gooseberry”) in my office window a few years ago. Within months it was climbing up the Venetian blinds. It has now made its way all the way to the ceiling (well over ten feet), and is thriving. Regardez:

Example: I took a few Sansevieria leaves out of the garbage-can at work, and a few stems of Epiphyllium that someone threw away, and potted them. The Sansevieria grew at approximately sixty m.p.h., and is huge now. The Epiphyllium is thriving, and I even gave some to Partner’s sister. This is the Sansevieria:

Final example: a departing staff member gave me his dying Dracaena. It looked moribund when I took it in. I repotted it, and gave it some nourishing plant-food and a little water. It returned from the dead within days. It’s thriving now.

Finally: I’m making amends for all of the plants I’ve killed over the years.

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MUFAs

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Do you not recognize the title of this blog? Well, I’ll tell you what it means: MonoUnsaturated Fatty Acids.

These are found in olives, and olive oil, and avocadoes, and nuts, and a few other places.

MUFAs are good for you. They defeat heart disease, and (some say) even cancer. They are very good for your cholesterol. They even help you control your weight.

MUFAs are the latest recruits in the nutrition wars. Remember “superfoods”? The list keeps growing. Recently, in the Providence Journal, they featured something called “seaberries” (also called “sea buckthorn,” Hippophae). They are said to have a “citrus-like” flavor that’s “somewhat unpleasant.”

But they’re good for you!

Remember goji berries? And acai? Also very unpleasant-tasting. I also find pomegranate juice unpleasant, unless it’s mixed with raspberry or something more palatable. All three of the above – goji, and acai, and unadulterated pomegranate – taste (to me) like dirt laced with motor oil.

But they’re good for you!

My student employee Joshua recently brought in a whole papaya, which he tried to eat. Papayas are a superfood, right? But his papaya (he told me later) was a little unripe: hard and sour. He ended up throwing much of it away.

But they’re good for you!

Here’s the thing about foods with MUFAs: we know them already, and they taste good. I like olives, and olive oil, and avocadoes, and cashews, and walnuts, and peanuts, and dark chocolate.

It’s like the old canard about American moms and French moms: “American moms tell their kids: ‘Eat it! It’s good for you!’ But French moms say: ‘Eat it! It’s good!’”

I’m with the French moms on this one.

Eat more MUFAs. They’re not just good for you; they’re good.

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Eat more goat

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I have eaten goat three times in my life (so far as I know).

The first time was in Morocco in 1984. I was visiting my friend Dave in Asilah, a lovely town on the northern Atlantic coast, and we decided impulsively to buy some goat meat and cook it.

We had no idea what we were up against. Goats (in Morocco at least) are tough. We cooked it for quite a while, but we still couldn’t eat it; the meat was wrapped around the bones like thick rubber bands. We gnawed on it for a while, but it was too tough for us. I think we threw it out and ate in a restaurant that evening.

The second time was here in Providence, maybe ten years ago. A work friend and I had heard about a good (and authentic) Mexican place on the West Side. Okay. Well, what do you order: something you could make at home, or something interesting?

They had goat on the menu. So I ordered the goat.

It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t wonderful, but it wasn’t bad.

The third time was just the other day. My student employee invited me to lunch at the Jamaican place across the street. They had “curry goat” on the menu. Well, once again: why not order something interesting?

“Curry goat” was delicious, and very tender. There were bits of gristle in it, and odd pieces of bone, but I think (when you’re eating goat) those are the rules of the game. Also, it came with fried plantains, and rice-and-beans, Caribbean style.

I’d order it again.

But oh my God: think of the poor little goat who died for this!

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George Steiner

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I like pictorial books: graphic novels, et cetera. I agree with Alice Pleasance Liddell: “What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?”

Recently I picked up a little book called “Philosophy: A Discovery in Comics,” by a Dutchwoman named Margreet de Heer. It’s a nice mini-summary of Western philosophy, done mostly through illustrated biographies of major philosophers like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle up through Erasmus and Spinoza.

She does a nice little summary of George Steiner which makes me want to learn more about him. He’s a deeply intelligent man, a polyglot who knows everything and has memorized everything, and who has made some very intelligent pronouncements about the modern world.

Steiner says that all of us should have a suitcase packed at all times. We need to be ready for the worst; we need to be ready to move along. We need to acknowledge to ourselves that nothing lasts forever, and that sometimes terrible things happen, and when they do, we have to get away, the quicker the better.

He also speaks (very eloquently) about the need to memorize things. Once you’ve memorized something, it can never be taken away from you. Who cares if they burn the books? You have the books in your head.

Here’s Steiner himself talking about the importance of memorization:

The world is a wonderful and perilous place. So it’s probably a good idea to have a suitcase packed.

Because you never know.

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Bird's nest

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There is a bird’s nest in the dogwood tree just outside our courtyard door.

I first noticed it not long ago, because all of a sudden there was a big puddle of birdsplat on our walkway, in front of our door. I looked up, and –

There it was!

Stupid mama bird. She built her nest no more than seven or eight feet off the ground, in the branches of that silly tree. Did she think her kids would be safe there? Some scheming badger or cat or raccoon will surely see it and pull it down sooner or later.

Then I looked up the other morning and saw this:

I hope these children live to see adulthood.

I hope they don’t die of the heat.

I hope their mamma brings them something.

I hope they learn to fly.

(Postscript: a few days after I took the above photo, the kids weren’t there anymore. Either they’ve been eaten by a predator, or they’ve flown away.

(I hope it’s the latter.)

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For Sunday: Cat Stevens sings "Peace Train" (1976)

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Cat Stevens has always been one of my favorite singer/composers. His first five albums were bliss. He became a little more hit-and-miss after that, but I still find something to listen to on every album.

Cat, born of Greek parentage in England, has been on a long journey: he was a Buddhist for a long time, then Baha’i, and now Muslim. He even changed his name to Yusuf Islam (though Cat Stevens wasn’t his real name either; he was born Steven Demetre Georgiou).

He has always been unapologetic about voicing his beliefs. He got into trouble some years ago for mixing himself up with the whole Salman Rushdie / fatwa thing.

But there has always been a freshness and purity in his music. And he is often strangely profound, and he is also often powerfully spiritual.

This song (in live performance in 1976) is all of the above: fresh, pure, profound, and spiritual. And I still find it powerfully moving.

Ev’rybody jump upon the peace train.

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Mister Ed

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There is a current TV series called “Wilfrid,” in which a man (played by Elijah Wood) owns a dog whom he sees as a person. The dog, Wilfrid (played by the Australian Jason Gann) is willful, and angry, and tricky. Wilfrid pretends to be Elijah’s friend, but he’s not. Wilfrid tricks Elijah repeatedly, and plots against him.

It makes me long for Mister Ed.

Mister Ed was the title character of a TV show back in the 1960s. He was a very charming horse who lived in a stable belonging to Wilbur Post (played by Alan Young), who’d bought the house / stable / horse from a previous owner. Wilbur was shocked when Mister Ed spoke to him. But Mister Ed said: “I only speak when I’m with someone I feel like speaking to.”

Mister Ed could dial an old rotary telephone (with a pencil in his mouth). When he read, he wore giant glasses! (Where did he get them, do you suppose? The Secret Talking Horse Optometrist?)

Mister Ed wasn’t stupid. He knew about most things. He did (in one episode) fall in love with another horse he’d seen in the park, but who hasn’t had that experience?

Mister Ed was a remarkable horse.

Of course, of course.

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Tired of summer

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It’s right around now, in late August, when I become tired of summer.

I am tired of humidity, and heat, and perspiration, and intermittent hot rainstorms. I am tired of this blurry blue / gray sky that doesn’t mean anything – not sun, nor cloud, nor rain. I am tired of feeling filthy and sweaty every day.

It was the same (but different) back in North Africa in the 1980s. There, it was dry from April to October. The temperature (in Kenitra, and Casablanca, and Tunis) wasn’t extreme – not like the Sahara, thank god – but the heat just went on and on. And the dust kept blowing in from the desert. By mid-August, everything was dull and dusty and filthy and too warm.

(Question: why do I keep ending up in warm climates? Why am I not living in Greenland, where I’d be deliriously happy?)

Here in New England, I start hearing crickets and grasshoppers in August, and it gives me some hope. I hear them first thing in the morning when Partner and I leave for work, and although it’s too warm, I take heart. It’s late August, I think. Not much longer until September, and cooler weather.

Autumn is the loveliest season here. It’s long and temperate and pleasant. The trees lose their leaves, slowly, north to south; Vermont and New Hampshire have their foliage season in September, but we don’t see it until early October. And apple season comes in September. (Partner and I passed a pear tree on a nearby street recently with pears that looked pretty much ripe. In August!)

It’s still summer, but autumn is right around the corner.

I can hardly wait.

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My memorandum book

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I’ve tried all kinds of memory aides. But now I’m just writing things down.

I have a nice little memorandum book in my pocket, in which I write everything down: things I have to do at work, random thoughts, ideas for a blog, things to send to people, Christmas gifts.

I used to rely on my memory. Such a nice big powerful six-cylinder memory it was!

But now it’s gone. Between age and alcohol and blows to the head, it’s gone.

So I’ve come to rely on surrogates, like my little memorandum book.

My little memorandum book is great, so long as I remember to carry it with me. And a pen. (I still have to remind myself to keep those two things with me.)

The system’s not perfect yet, but it’s working. I’m remembering things.

But I ask myself: what happens on the days when I forget my memorandum book?

Apocalypse. Disaster. The universe itself may cease to exist.

Pray for me, children.

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Sleepwalking

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When I was very young, I used to sleepwalk occasionally. My mother told me that she found me wandering up and down the hallway in our house, muttering something about “fifty cents for stamps.” (I was a stamp collector, and I used to buy stamps by mail-order, so I was probably wishing for some more money for that.)

I haven’t sleepwalked for decades, so far as I know.

Until recently.

I was watching a movie the other night, and when it ended – at a reasonable hour, maybe 10:30pm – I turned off the TV, and put my drinking glass in the kitchen, and –

I woke up in the wrong bedroom.

We keep a separate bedroom, because the apartment has two. I keep my books in there, and my clothes, and a daybed, because sometimes I nap in there during the day. Partner and I sleep together at night in the main bedroom.

But apparently I became confused, or something.

Partner woke me around 2am. “What are you doing in here?” he hissed. He’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, and was confused to find me in the wrong room.

“I don’t know,” I said groggily, still half-asleep. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

And I dragged myself into the right bedroom.

So I’m sleepwalking again.

Wonderful.

Look for me in your neighborhood soon.

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Going home, genetically

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More than twenty years ago, my then-boss Sharon took a trip to Africa. She took a balloon trip across the Serengeti, and did everything that moderately wealthy people do when they visit Kenya; I think she even stayed at Treetops.

As she showed me the pictures she took there, she said something that echoes in my head to this present day: “It was strange there. It felt familiar. They say our first ancestors came from Africa, and maybe we feel at home there.”

I’ve thought about that statement many times since.

My friend Bill, Irish by descent, spent his honeymoon in Ireland. He visited the Burren in the western part of the country – a strange stark landscape, with limestone moonscapes – which also happened to be the traditional ancestral country of his family. “It was eerie,” he told me. “It was like going home.”

And then there’s me.

Last October Partner and I went to France, and spent four or five days in Normandy. I loved it. It was perfectly wonderful: green fields, grey seashores, tiny fussy villages, narrow streets, ancient farmhouses, medieval ruins.

I felt at home there.

My DNA analysis from 23andme.com tells me that my mother’s DNA stems from Doggerland, a now-submerged country along the North Sea, contiguous with Normandy.

Well, what do you know about that?

My genes felt at home there.

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Movie review: "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954)

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“Creature From the Black Lagoon” came up on Turner Classic Movies not long ago. Apollonia shrieked when I mentioned it. “My favorite horror movie!” she said. “I was so scared when I first saw it!”

For those of you who haven’t seen it: it’s about a group of scientists who go to the Amazon to investigate some odd fossils they’ve found. There appears to be a humanoid creature with webbed appendages living down there. And you know what? There is!

The Creature is pretty tame, looked at from the standpoint of the year 2013. In its own time, however (I rely on Apollonia’s testimony for this), it was terrifying.

Now let’s talk about some of the other stuff going on here.

I don’t know if the director was gay, but the camera dwells upon the half-naked bodies of Richard Carlson and Richard Denning. There are lots of interesting views of the bodies of muscular men – Carlson and Denning, and others – all through the movie.

Hmm!

As I did research on this movie, the best surprise was the man who played the Creature. He was a diver / swimmer named Ricou Browning, and he was very handsome, and very well-built. Here’s a picture of him halfway in costume:

Browning was involved with a lot of water-related productions in Florida, including “Sea Hunt” and “Flipper.” He was a nice guy who was very serious about his underwater adventures.

And he looked good underwater.

Incidentally, the Creature is the only character in the movie who seems really interested in Julie Adams, the female lead. Denning and Carlson seem mostly interested in tussling with one another, and helping one another out of their scuba gear.

(There are lots of books about gay themes in cinema. I think someone needs to add a chapter about “Creature from the Black Lagoon.)

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For Sunday: "I Hate People," from "Scrooge"

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“Scrooge” was an interesting movie. (I know it’s a Christmas movie, but the heat of summer makes me long for midwinter.) It had some decent songs, and a couple of great characterizations (Dame Edith Evans as a starchy grandmotherly un-Dickensian Ghost of Christmas Past, and Kenneth More as a huge Dickensian Ghost of Christmas Present).

This song is one of my favorites. I sing it to myself, under my breath, on most workdays, a little.

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Tyrone Power

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I’ve written often enough about good-looking actors: Cam Gigandet, Aldo Ray, Henry Cavill. There has never been any lack of handsome actors in Hollywood. That’s kind of what Hollywood is all about. Some of these guys have some acting ability too (all three of the above can act).

But sometimes their looks make more of an impression than their acting.

Bradley Cooper, I think, is one of this type. He did a tremendous acting job in “Silver Linings Playbook,” but all I could think of while watching the movie was: Wow, he’s cute!

Let us now turn to Tyrone Power.

He was an actor of the 1930s and 1940s. He was, to quote IMDB, “startlingly handsome.” (Ah well: some of us are born “startlingly handsome” and some are not. You either have it or you don’t.)

Believe it or not, “Tyrone Power” was his real name. He was actually Tyrone Power III, in fact. His son was (and is) T. P. IV, and there’s a grandson who’s Number Five.

Tyrone’s father was an Irish actor of some acclaim. Tyrone himself, in the movies, was always something brave: a gallant soldier, or Zorro, or a pirate, or something heroic.

His body wasn’t that great, but his face was spectacular.

My favorite Tyrone Power move is “The Rains Came,” in which he plays an Indian(!) army major / doctor. They darkened his skin a bit for the role. (Hollywood was very unthinkingly racist in those days. “The Rains Came” is set in India, but I see only one Indian actor on the IMDB cast list, and he’s in a very small role.)

Anyway: Tyrone.

Go seek out Netflix or Amazon or something, and seek out “The Rains Came,” and gaze upon him.

You’ll be very impressed, I guarantee. Maybe not with his acting. But you’ll see what I mean.

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Movie review: "Holiday" (1938)

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Partner told me that, at a recent training session, the trainer asked each member of the class: What’s your favorite movie?

  Partner found it an impossible question. Who has just one favorite movie, after all?

  I agree completely. I have about twenty favorite movies, a few of which I’ve spoken about here: “Annie Hall,” “The Mask of Dimitrios,” “Dodsworth.”

  But, absolutely, “Holiday” (the 1938 version with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant) is on my list.

  It’s a witty little Philip Barry play from the 1920, which was first made into a 1930 movie, and then (immortally) into this 1938 movie. The movie didn’t do well, supposedly because late-Thirties audiences didn’t want to see a movie in which the hero didn’t want to work. Also, Katherine Hepburn had recently been declared "box-office poison."

  Piffle.

  Summary: Wealthy-by-birth Doris Nolan meets wealthy-by-hard-work Cary Grant at Lake Placid, and brings him back to New York City as her fiancé. Cary meets Doris’s carefree sister Katherine Hepburn, and realizes within a few days that he’s in love with the wrong sister.

  There are lots of things to admire here: Lew Ayres as alcoholic brother Ned, who’s pathetic but brave; Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon as Cary Grant’s funny best friends; George Cukor’s quiet sympathetic direction.

  Best of all, however, is the dialogue. Many of the best lines are given to Hepburn, as follows:

  Cary Grant has just admired an icky-poo doll once owned by his fiancé (Hepburn’s sister), saying “It even looks like her.” This follows:

  Linda Seton: [Hugging a toy giraffe] “Now don't you a word about Leopold, he's very sensitive.”
Johnny Case: “Yours.”
Linda Seton: “Looks like me.” [turning its head in profile]

  Or, when Hepburn’s horrible cousins appear in the doorway:   

Linda Seton: “Oh, for the love of Pete – it’s the witch and Dopey!”   

Or, questioning Cary on his family background:

  Linda Seton: “Do you mean to say that your mother wasn’t even a Whoozis?”

  This movie is a slice of lemon meringue pie, cool and refreshing. I could watch it morning, noon, and night.

  Do yourself a favor and take a look at it.

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More reasons that I am not a Christian

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I am no longer a practicing Christian, but I have some respect for the founder of the religion; he said some very profound things about how to treat other people, and how to think about our lives on earth.

Which is why I am so charmed by this comment, made by Stephen Colbert:

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”

Like most people, I love the idea of altruism. Sometimes I’m actually altruistic myself. I spent three and a half years of my life as a Peace Corps volunteer, which I suppose counts for something, but I have to admit it wasn’t exactly like spending time in prison; I had some pretty entertaining times in Morocco and Tunisia, and quite a few laughs.

Sometimes I try to help the needy. I contribute what I can, when I can. A British friend in Morocco gave me advice on how to deal with the armies of beggars there: “Choose one whom you see every day. Give him or her some money on a regular basis. You will have done your duty.” I still remember this. There’s one homeless woman in downtown Providence who sings and preaches on the street corner, and who always smiles when she sees me and says “God bless you.” I give her money when I have a bit extra.

But I’m also very selfish. I think of my own needs before those of others.

I am very far from being Christlike.

Which is why I shudder with revulsion when I watch and listen to the soldiers of the Christian Right – people like the repugnant Pat Robertson – spout all kinds of hate and nonsense.

They claim Christ as their lord and savior, and then they act as if the New Testament and all of the things Jesus said and did were irrelevant.

They have created a religion in their own image.

They can have it.

As Ringo Starr said to the followers of Kahili in the movie “Help!”: “Get sacrificed! I don’t subscribe to your religion!”

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Cannas

I wrote recently about hostas, those garden-foliage favorites with dull purple flowers, and how dull they are.

Cannas are the opposite of hostas. They are the opposite of dull and ordinary. They are exciting and unusual.

I first saw them growing alongside my grandmother’s house in Selleck, Washington, back in the 1960s. I found them unbelievable: five-foot stalks with blazing crimson flowers, and gorgeous dark-green foliage.

They are huge and dramatic, and what’s the matter with a little drama in the summertime? They also seem to grow easily; I see them in sidewalk pots all over the city of Providence.

They always make me smile when I see them. Here, in Providence’s Wayland Square, merchants put them in pots, and they thrive.

They are the torches of summertime.

Rejoice in them.

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Botanizing

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In Tove Jansson’s Moomin books (which you should read, if you haven’t), there’s a character – a Hemulen, if that means anything to you – who collects stamps. He finally collects all of the stamps in the entire world. He despairs, because now his life has no purpose anymore. But then he realizes: he can start collecting plants instead! His life has meaning again!

I love plants. I don’t have a garden, which means I subsist on a few houseplants and a few office-grown things (which I’m very proud of, as they’ve grown extraordinarily). So, when I walk back and forth to work, I examine the gardens and yards and fields I pass by, and I identify the plants I know, and I puzzle over the ones I don’t know.

The one above, for example. What is it? Yellow vetch? Alfalfa?

Nope. I finally identified it. It’s Lotus corniculatus: bird’s-foot trefoil.

I walk by a field full of it every morning on my way to work. First I noticed them out of the corner of my eye, thinking I knew what they were. Then I took a closer look, and realized I wasn’t so sure.

I checked the leaves the other day, and now I’m sure. It’s L. corniculatus, all right.

Any day upon which I identify a strange plant is a good day. It gives my life a tiny bit of added meaning.

I think I must be a Hemulen.

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Insults

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I have been doing this fasting-diet thing lately. It’s all the rage in the UK. I’ve been losing about a pound a week, so I’m pleased.

But it has unexpected side effects.

Following the diet’s regime, I eat only a very restricted number of calories two days a week. I can still drink coffee, however. This makes me very hyper. I get extremely excitable, and very talkative, as the day goes on. “Jesus Christ!” Apollonia shrieked at me the other day. “Do you ever stop talking?”

“I can’t help myself,” I said. “It’s my body chemistry. So sue me. And it’s not like you don’t talk incessantly. And –“

“Jesus Christ!” she shrieked again. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

(This counts, between us two, as witty dialogue.)

Later, after some thought, Apollonia came back to me with the following well-planned insults:

“You know, I think there’s a tea named after you. It’s called ‘Constant Comment.’”

“Remember that LifeAlert commercial – ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’? Well, in your case, it’s ‘I’m talking and I can’t shut up.’”

Insults. I love ‘em. They’re like vitamins. They invigorate me.

After several of these, I finally decided to strike back, feebly. I said: “You know what that reminds me of? The word ‘gullible.’ Did you know that it’s not in the dictionary?”

Apollonia looked stricken for a moment. “Really?”

Just as she said it, I hear a snicker from a nearby cubicle. I watched Apollonia’s face crumble as she realized she’d been had. “Really,” I said. “I haven’t gotten a laugh on that joke since the fifth grade.”

“Can I have it?” she said.

“What? The ‘gullible’ joke? Go wild. I assure you that there’s no one in the Western world who hasn’t heard it already.”

“My sisters,” she said positively. “If I haven’t heard it, they haven’t heard it.”

So this is how stupid jokes live into the next generation.

If you’ve never heard it, it’s a new joke.

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For Sunday: Leon Redbone sings "Mister Jelly Roll Baker"

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I first saw (and heard) Leon Redbone on “Saturday Night Live” in the 1970s. I loved him devoutly upon first hearing him, and listened to his first two albums over and over again.

This song, from “Double Time” (his second album), is a great introduction to his style.

Enjoy.

Geese gone wild

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When it rains, the geese take over the greenspace near the Providence River. There are usually at least a couple dozen of them – big fat waddlers, with beautiful light-and-dark markings. I took this photo yesterday morning:

Lots of good eatin’ there! But wild geese are tough. My sister and brother-in-law had some wild geese fly over their farm back in the 1970s, and shot a few, and Susan prepared one for Thanksgiving, and – well, we couldn’t even chew it. Wild geese get a lot of exercise.

And geese are rumored to be foul-tempered. I’m always a little timid when they’re standing in front of me on the sidewalk; I never know when I’m gonna get stampeded and squawked at. They’re smaller than me, individually, but they outnumber me. They could swarm me.

And then there are the poops. Kids, there is nothing in the world quite so vile-looking as a goose poop. It’s a big green slimy-looking thing about the size of a small cigar. And geese poop a lot. (My mother always used the expression “go like a goose.” Evidently she knew what she was talking about.)

But I like to watch them. The other day, I saw two of them pecking at one another, running around aimlessly in a circle and honking.

Get it? Wild goose chase.

Ha ha.

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I am a squid

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“What’s your spirit animal?” Apollonia asked me recently. (You have to understand that these kinds of queries are common, and even natural, between us.)

I considered briefly. “What’s yours?” I asked, to gain time.

“Wolf,” she said.

“She-wolf,” I said. “Appropriate.”

She shook her head. “Alpha wolf. Leader of the pack.”

I nodded. “I can see it. Okay. I’ve got mine. Squid.”

She grimaced, then nodded. “Okay. Reasons?”

“One,” I said. “It can swim, and I can’t. I’d like to be able to swim. Two: it can squirt ink at people with whom it’s pissed off. Three: it’s supposed to be very intelligent. Four: it’s delicious when fried with jalapenos.”

A few days later, I discovered why Apollonia asked this question: she was sending me an Amazon gift card for my birthday, and was trying to find an appropriate design (they offer quite a few). They don’t do squid, but they have a very cute octopus.

I still like squid better. They taste better, at any rate. Click here to see a video with Isabella Rosselini on the sex-life of the squid.

Except, maybe, after you see it, calamari won’t be so delicious anymore, even when fried with jalapenos.

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In memoriam: Cosmo "Gus" Allegretti

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You’ve seen me write about dead relatives, and the passing of friends, and even the passing of celebrities.

Well, a celebrity passed away a few weeks ago, though many of his fans didn’t even know his real name.

He was a puppeteer / actor / dancer named Cosmo Allegretti, known to his friends as Gus. He was a regular on the “Captain Kangaroo” program that ran from the 1950s into the 1980s. But you seldom saw him – during the first ten or fifteen years, anyway. He was always in disguise.

Sometimes he was Dancing Bear, who never spoke, but who communicated through clever little softshoe routines:

Sometimes he was fussy old Grandfather Clock, who had to be awakened very gently, and who told stories and recited poems:

Later in the show’s history, he was Dennis the Apprentice, always dressed in a painter’s whites, big and earnest and clumsy (though at least he didn’t have to hide his face anymore):

Best of all, he was Mister Moose and Bunny Rabbit. Bob Keeshan, writing about the show, said that “these two were surrogates for children, demonstrating their playful power over adults.” I loved them both: they were sneaky and dishonest without being really bad. The Captain was often frustrated with both of them, but you could tell that he loved them too, and they seemed to love him too.

Mister Moose was a practical joker. He was always tricking the Captain into saying things like “Let ‘er rip!”, at which point a couple hundred ping-pong balls would fall from the ceiling all over the Captain’s head. And then Mister Moose would go into raptures. (Personal note: whenever I do a puppet voice, it’s Mister Moose’s reedy falsetto. Why not?)

Bunny Rabbit was silent, like Dancing Bear. He was small and wore glasses. He’d get the Captain’s attention by rapping on the tabletop, and he always ended up stealing all of the Captain’s delicious carrots.

Here they are together, bamboozling the Captain one more time:

So many good memories.

Rest in peace, Gus.

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