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Thursday, January 31, 2013

The inevitability of mortality

Mortality


I realized, around the age of seven, that I was going to die someday. I spent some awful sleepless nights around that time. I assured myself that, by the time I was an adult, I’d have figured out a way around it.

 

 

Well, I’m fifty-five years old, and I still haven’t figured out a damned thing.

 

 

What a pity that we have to die. What? You don’t like me mentioning it? I know. I don’t like thinking about it.

 

 

But I think it bears thinking about.

 

 

Here are some important philosophers on the topic of the inevitability of death:

 

 

From “Through The Looking Glass,” by Lewis Carroll:

 

 

 

`Crawling at your feet,' said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in some alarm), `you may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.'  

 

 

`And what does it live on?'  

 

 

`Weak tea with cream in it.'  

 

 

A new difficulty came into Alice's head. `Supposing it couldn't find any?' she suggested.  

 

 

`Then it would die, of course.' 

 

 

`But that must happen very often,' Alice remarked thoughtfully. 

 

 

`It always happens,' said the Gnat. 

 

 

 

Then there’s Bart Simpson: “You gotta get murdered someday.”

 

 

 

But here’s my very favorite, which actually comforts me a little, taken from Ogden Nash’s “Carnival of the Animals”:

 

 

 

At midnight in the museum hall,
The fossils gathered for a ball.
There were no drums or saxophones,
But just the clatter of their bones,
A rolling, rattling carefree circus,
Of mammoth polkas and mazurkas.
Pterodactyls and brontosauruses
Sang ghostly prehistoric choruses.
Amid the mastodonic wassail
I caught the eye of one small fossil.
“Cheer up, sad world,” he said, and winked.
“It’s kind of fun to be extinct.”

 

 

 

I certainly hope so. I expect to be extinct for a very long time.


 

 

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Becoming a writer

Becoming_a_writer


Sometimes I ask myself: What do I want to be when I grow up? And the answer is always: I want to be a writer.

 

 

Writers are great. They lounge around in smoking jackets and smoke and drink, and somehow – magically – they produce poetry and prose and dramas. And then they smoke and drink some more.

 

 

Who doesn’t want that kind of life?

 

 

When I was younger, I wrote and wrote. I wrote bad short stories and abortive novels and really atrocious poetry. Worse: I got a few things published in small (very small) publications when I was in my twenties, which convinced me that it was only a matter of time. Smoking jacket, here I come!

 

 

But then I discovered that writing is hard work. Also, a little talent doesn’t hurt, and I began to wonder if I had any talent at all.

 

 

I have a friend who is a real writer, with several books (real books!) to his credit. He does not generally wear a smoking jacket. He works at a regular job, and has a family. He writes when he can: late at night, during odd moments in the day. But he never really stops.

 

 

Aha! I thought. I can do that, at least! I may not have any talent, but I have a huge amount of stubborn perseverance!

 

 

So I began this blog in 2010: one page a day. I have never missed a day yet. I’m a writer at last! Who needs a publisher? I can publish myself! I can edit myself! I can write about any damn thing I please, no matter how silly or irrelevant!

 

 

And here we are. I’m still producing the blog, a page a day, silent and grim as death.

 

 

I must be a writer by now, right?

 

 

Right?

 

 

Here’s Frank O’Hara’s “Autobiographia Literaria”:

 

 

When I was a child
I played by myself in a 
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.


I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds 
flew away.


If anyone was looking 
for me I hid behind a 
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan."


And here I am, the 
center of all beauty! 
writing these poems!
Imagine!


 

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Wanda

Wanda


I discovered lately that a co-worker’s middle name is Wanda. “It was my Polish grandmother’s name,” she said. “I told my mother: why did you name me Kathleen Wanda? And she said: just be glad I didn’t name you Wanda Kathleen.”

 

 

I had an aunt Wanda. She was full-blooded Polish. My grandmother was Polish, and her first husband was Polish, so her first three children (my half-aunts and half-uncle) were full-blooded Polish too: Maryann, Wanda, and Tony.

 

 

Great-aunt Wanda I met only once or twice. She was a handsome Polish woman who lived in northern California, and she has many descendants in the current generation.

 

 

Does anyone name his/her children Wanda these days? It’s an evocative name.

 

 

The only famous Wanda I can think of is Wanda Toscanini Horowitz. She was the temperamental daughter of the temperamental orchestra conductor Arturo Toscanini, and she married the pianist Vladimir Horowitz.

 

 

Here is a brief YouTube video of Vladimir Horowitz playing a Rachmaninoff prelude. As the camera circles, you can see Wanda lounging on the couch, listening:

 

 

 

 

Who says Wanda isn’t a pretty name?


 

 

Monday, January 28, 2013

Movie review: "Zero Dark Thirty"

Zero


Partner and I have not seen many of the Oscar-nominated movies this year. We wanted, however, to see “Zero Dark Thirty,” and we finally saw it yesterday.

 

 

It is excellent. It is beautifully filmed, and tense, and moves along like lightning. I saw in the notes that it was more than two and a half hours long, and my heart sank a little bit, but don’t worry: it’s 160 minutes very well spent.

 

 

It is about (as you no doubt already know) the CIA’s search for Osama bin Laden, culminating in the Navy Seals’ attack on the Abbottabad compound in Pakistan where bin Ladin lived.

 

 

So: it’s one of those movies like “Titanic” and “From Here to Eternity” in which you know the outcome.

 

 

And yet you will sweat heavily along the way, wondering if everything is going to go right.

 

 

The movie is notable for its lack of human interest and warmth. Its focal character is a CIA operative named Maya (no last name), who comes to Afghanistan in 2003 to join the hunt for Al Qaeda commanders. She becomes convinced that one man – a courier – is the link to Osama himself, and follows that link singlemindedly for almost ten years.

 

 

She is proven right.

 

 

We know nothing about Maya (played by an excellent and Oscar-worthy Jessica Chastain), except that she was recruited by the CIA when she was very young, and seems to have no personal life. We know nothing of her motivations. There’s one teasing scene halfway through the movie in which a fellow operative nudges her to open up about her life; the scene is interrupted by a terrorist bomb-blast.

 

 

The climax of the movie is the Abbottabad raid itself. There’s an eerily beautiful nighttime helicopter flight, followed by an almost-real-time recreation of the raid on the compound. When the Seals are wearing night-vision goggles, that’s how you see the action; when they take the goggles off, suddenly you see the action the way they do. You’re there, with them, inside the compound, every moment, from landing to escape.

 

 

The cinematography is unexpectedly beautiful. Pakistan’s cities – Rawalpindi, Peshawur, Islamabad – overflow with color and life. The helicopters flying through the night are gorgeous, like huge silent birds.

 

 

Does this sound humorless? There are moments of incongruity which almost made me laugh: a Muslim CIA director praying in his office; a cheerful-looking German shepherd riding in one of the Seals’ helicopters on the way to the Abbottabad raid; an almost-comical scene in Kuwait City, in which a CIA operative buys an informant by giving him a bright-yellow Lamborghini.

 

 

Now let’s talk about the politics of the movie.

 

 

Critics have been greatly at odds over the movie’s message. Is this a defense of torture as a method of gaining information? Is it “triumphalist”? Is it a subtle criticism of the US’s methods?

 

 

Well, it’s all of the above, and none.

 

 

War movies used to be easy, right? If John Wayne was fighting, you knew which side the good guys were on. There were “pacifist” movies like “All Quiet on the Western Front,” but they were long ago and far away. Then there were the Vietnam movies like “Hamburger Hill” and “The Deer Hunter” and “Platoon,” full of contradictions and personal angst.

 

 

This is none of the above. “Zero Dark Thirty” shows Americans torturing Middle Easterners for information, unapologetically. It rubs our nose in it. It shows a shift in 2009, after Obama became president. “The president is thoughtful,” one of the characters says in the latter half of the movie. “He needs proof.”

 

 

The movie mentions one solution: a bomb could have easily been dropped on the Abbottabad compound, killing all residents, including all of the women and children.

 

 

But the administration chose to go another (riskier) way.

 

 

This movie says: Osama bin Laden’s death doesn’t solve everything. War is horrible, and it never ends.

 

 

Go see it.


 

Sunday, January 27, 2013

For Sunday: the Gap Band invites you to board the “Party Train

Party_train

This is a cute little song / dance video from the 1980s. I like the different kinds of dancing, and the way it shows all kinds of people: black people, white people, Buddhist monks, children, adults, policemen, bodybuilders, crazy Uncle Sams on roller skates.

 


 

Saturday, January 26, 2013

The miracle of Xanax

Alprazolam_0


I have spoken before about my use of brain medicine: specifically, that I take a daily pill that makes me just a bit calmer and more – well, human.

 

 

But wait! There’s more!

 

 

Long before I went on my current medication – back around 2000 – I was going through a rough patch: a stressful period at work, my mother’s illness and death. I talked to my doctor, and he gave me a wonderful little prescription for alprazolam, also known as Xanax. The prescription reads (to this day): “Take one to three tablets daily, as needed.”

 

 

Over the last twelve years, I have availed myself of this medication, as needed.

 

 

Xanax, when used correctly, is wonderful. It creates perspective. You know, when you’re worried about something, how it becomes obsessive and nasty and threatening? Xanax takes the threat away. You’re confronting the same problem, but without the accompanying angst. You can look at the world calmly, without freaking out.

 

 

The problem, of course, is that you really can’t take it every day. It’s not a narcotic, but it’s addictive in its own way; you begin to rely on it. I’ve always tried not to take it more than two days in a row.

 

 

Since 2010, when my doctor prescribed the Wonder Drug Citalopram, I have not used Xanax much. I was worried, at first, that they might interact and send me into a coma. “No,” my doctor reassured me. “They don’t work that way. You can take both in the same day.”

 

 

I actually tried, one day, just to see. He was right. Nothing happened.

 

 

Lately, I’ve been having some stress. Nothing world-shattering, but it’s been making me nervous and cranky.  So I dipped into the Xanax reserves again.

 

 

Oh my! I’d forgotten how it felt!

 

 

I took one just the other day, at seven-thirty in the morning, anticipating a tense active day. By eight I was Jesus and Gandhi in one cheerful package, and I think I could easily have cured scrofula with a touch of my hand. The day passed in a glow of benevolence. “You know,” my student assistant Gunnar said around four forty-five in the afternoon, “you were in a really good mood today.”

 

 

“I confess,” I said. “I took something this morning.”

 

 

“Muscle relaxer?” he asked.

 

 

Brain relaxer,” I said.

 

 

He laughed explosively. He wasn’t expecting that.


 

Friday, January 25, 2013

The ACHOO gene

Photic_sneeze


Years ago, my mother used to hang her laundry out on the line in our backyard to dry. She wore sunglasses, even in the weak Northwest sunlight, because the sunlight made her sneeze.

 

 

It makes me sneeze too. Not every time, but often.

 

 

This is the “photic sneeze reflex.” It has a couple of other names, including (seriously) the Autosomal-dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst reflex (ACHOO!), as well as the Peroutka Sneeze Reflex.

 

 

Why? I’ve read many explanations over the years. First, it was said that blue-eyed people were prone to this, because (somehow) our pale irises let more light into the eyeball, which was somehow irritating. Well, I’m blue-eyed, so fine. But my mother was brown-eyed. So let’s try again.

 

 

How about this one? When you look into bright light, your pupils contract very suddenly. The muscles which control this don’t usually work that fast or that hard, and they twitch. This feels like a tickle inside your nose, and – achoo!

 

 

This theory doesn’t hold up experimentally either, apparently.

 

 

The reflex appears to be genetic. 23andMe, the genetic-assay project which both Partner and I joined recently, tests for this, and - guess what? - I have the gene.

 

 

So it's genetic. So what?

 

 

What else can you think of that's genetic and caused by sudden exposure to light?

 

 

How about epilepsy?

 

 

(And this, brothers and sisters, is what genetic research is all about.)

 

 

(And - you see? - I'm a mutant after all.)


 

 

 

 

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Democrat stuffed animals and Republican stuffed animals

Stuffed_animals


(Warning! If you are nauseated when you read about grown adults playing with stuffed animals, and making them talk, and pretending that they’re real ladies and gentlemen, then look away. This is icky-poo stuff, and you should look elsewhere for something more adult.)

 

 

(Still here? Okay.)

 

 

Partner and I have noticed lately that the stuffed animals in our household are drifting apart. They all began in the bedroom, where we’re most comfortable, but some have lately migrated to the living room, where they seem to feel more comfortable.

 

 

We recently discovered that this was for political reasons. The bedroom animals are Republicans; the living-room animals are Democrats.

 

 

Well, first of all, we found that the bedroom animals were almost always having secret meetings under the bed, and when we dragged them out, they were very tight-lipped about their conversations. And who are they? The moose, whom we acquired in New Hampshire (a Republican state). The polar bear. (He’s white. Enough said.) And the shark (whom we bought at Ikea, okay, but who’s a shark, which means he almost certainly has Wall Street connections). There’s also an Ikea rat in the corner, peeking at the rest of them (probably a lobbyist).

 

 

In the living room, we have a jaguar (whose manufacturing tag informs me that his name is JAMAL, which means he’s either a Muslim or an African-American), and a lion whom we purchased in New York City (liberal enough for you?). Also Pluto from DisneyWorld, who’s a moderate, but with Hollywood connections. And a purple platypus, whom we believe to be emotionally disturbed. In brief: the Democratic caucus.

 

 

They have taken to shouting at one another from one room to another. It started with: “Vote Republican!” “Vote Democrat!” It’s gotten uglier lately: they’ve taken to name-calling. Nasty stuff!

 

 

It’s a shame when fuzzy little stuffed animals can’t agree.

 

 

I fear for the future of the American republic.


 

 

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

23andMe.com

23_and_me


A year or more ago, Partner and I bought into a very bad gene-testing thing, which told us (ridiculously) that we were both of Iraqi origin. It turned out that the test was the same one that the FBI uses: it’s very good for identification, but it doesn’t really give you any information on heritage, or disease, or anything else.

 

 

Well, okay. I only paid about $40 for testing for the two of us, so I got what I paid for.

 

 

Now: behold! The much more reputable 23andMe.com is offering its much more comprehensive testing for only $99 per person! They give you info on your heritage, and your Neanderthal inheritance, and your likelihood to develop genetic conditions. They are very thorough.

 

 

For Xmas, I bought lifetime memberships for both myself and Partner.

 

 

Well, my results have come in. I can summarize them as follows:

 

 

1)    I have DNA.

2)    It appears to be human.

 

 

I have no genetic predisposition toward either Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease. This lowers my chances of contracting either, although nothing is certain.

 

 

I have a heightened susceptibility toward several cancers, including melanoma, prostate cancer, and especially stomach cancer. (There’s lots of cancer in my family, but none of these three. I am fascinated by this. There are risk factors that I can avoid for all three, and I need to think about this.)

 

 

I am genetically sensitive to the medication Coumadin / Warfarin, which is a commonly-prescribed blood thinner, which means that a regular dose would be too much for me, and I should be prescribed a lower dose. (I should tell my doctor. But will he listen, or just smile and pretend to listen?)

 

 

I have a three-times heightened likelihood to develop an especially nasty kind of glaucoma. Uh-oh. I’ve always had vision problems.

 

 

I am slightly taste-blind, especially toward bitter tastes. This is exactly correct. I love bitter flavors, and this is probably because I can’t taste them very well. People with “supertaste” can’t stand bitter tastes; they spit them out immediately.

 

 

I probably have blue eyes, moderately straight hair with a wave, B-positive blood, and I do not tend toward male pattern baldness. Correct, correct, correct, and correct.

 

 

They’ve churned up my national heritage too. I have a lot of northern European ancestry (my mitochondrial DNA hails from Doggerland, a place submerged beneath the North Sea, halfway between England and the Netherlands). I have a drop of Italian (not much), and lots of crazy eastern European (Czech, Hungarian, Russian, “Balkan”), and a surprising amount of Scandinavian.

 

 

Also I share tiny bits of other lineages. A tenth of a percent of something that might be Ashkenazi Jewish. A tenth of a percent of something that might be sub-Saharan African.

 

 

Gandhari says in the Mahabharata: Origins are obscure.

 

 

But sometimes we learn things about our origins, and they become a little clearer.


 

 

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Candy

59921668_4aec8749c8


I have written about Apollonia and her sister Augusta. There is also a third sister, named (for the purposes of this blog) Agrippina.  

 

 

(All great comedy groups come in threes. Think of the Ritz Brothers. Think of the Marx Brothers. Think of the Three . . . well, you know who I mean.)

 

 

Anyway: “So we’re in the hospital,” Apollonia says. “It’s very late. Agrippina says, ‘Go get me some candy. Licorice. I want licorice.’ I said to her: ‘It’s after midnight. Where in the hell am I going to buy licorice for you?’ And, very calmly, she says: ‘Go to a movie theater.’”

 

 

Apollonia and I are silent for a moment. “That’s brilliant,” I said. “I never would have thought of that.”

 

 

“Yeah, well,” Apollonia said wearily, “listen to this. I said: ‘You think I’m gonna go out to a movie theater and get you licorice?’ And she says: ‘Yeah. And I want that kind – you know? – with the pieces that are all different shapes. You know. With the little candies stuck to them.’” Apolllonia goggled at me. “What in the hell was she talking about?”

 

 

“Allsorts,” I said, quick as a flash.

 

 

“What?” Apollonia croaked.

 

 

I was sitting in front of my desktop computer at the time, so I quickly Googled an image (see above). “Licorice allsorts,” I said. “My favorite. I loved them as a child. Not commonly available. Buy them when you can.”

 

 

“Oh my God!” Apollonia moaned. “You know about this stuff too!”

 

 

That same day, I went to two CVS locations, and a Bed Bath & Beyond, and a RiteAid, and two other places, and I’m still looking for licorice allsorts. (I’m sure they’re available online, but that’s like shooting fish in a barrel. I want to find them in the wild, in their natural environment.)

 

 

When you’re a child, what do you want? Candy. But adults won’t let you have it.

 

 

The most wonderful thing about adulthood is that you can buy yourself all the candy and toys you like, and no one can stop you or say no.

 

 

I will find licorice allsorts. And I will buy a package for Agrippina, and five or six packages for myself, and maybe some bubble gum for Apollonia (she’s a big Bazooka fan, though she will settle for Dubble Bubble).

 

 

And we will all be childishly happy.


 

 

Monday, January 21, 2013

What not to do in a job interview

Job_interview


I interview people regularly. Most of my interviewees (whether for student jobs or regular jobs) are very well-behaved and charming. Some are nervous, naturally, and I always make allowance for that; I’m a terribly nervous person myself (although I control it with various medications), and I understand when people are jittery in new and/or unfamiliar situations.

 

 

But there are things that just go beyond the pale.

 

 

Let’s list some of them, shall we?

 

 

Chewing gum during the interview. You should at least offer me some.

 

 

Taking a phone call during the interview. I understand that cellphones are ubiquitous, but – really?

 

 

Eating during the interview. I’ve never had anyone this rude, but I’ve heard of this happening. I can hardly believe it, but then again, I have seen a little of everything.

 

 

Challenging the interviewer’s skills. Some time back, on “Jeopardy!”, a contestant recounted how he’d prepared for an interview as a proofreader by acquiring a couple of issues of the company’s publication and proofreading them. Problem: the person interviewing him was the person who’d proofread those very issues. Uh-oh!

 

 

Speaking badly of former employers. You may think you’re being terribly entertaining when you tell me how awful your current boss is, but you sound creepy. Cut it out.

 

 

Condescension. I especially like it when people look at me with that look that says: Really? You’re interviewing me? I should be interviewing you! Except, hon, that you’re not. So get over it.

 

 

I was looking for something to tie this blog together when I found the perfect thing: a dialogue written by the always-funny Anthony Giffen (AKA wellthatsjustgreat on Tumblr), describing his dog Ducky going on a job interview.

 

 

I’d hire this dog. He knows how to poop, and how to look disappointed in human beings. Those are powerful skills.

 

 

Interviewer: So Mr…Ducky, is it?

Ducky: Yes.

Interviewer: What are your three greatest strengths?

Ducky: Oh, I’d say I’m pretty good at communicating when I’m hungry and when I need to poop. And if I had to name a third strength, I’d say I’m great at looking thoroughly disappointed in humans.

Interviewer: And three areas of possible improvement?

Ducky: Um, I wish I could figure out how to open the container with my food.  And the treat one too. Does that count as two or just one?

Interviewer: That can be two.

Ducky: OK. Well, I guess I’d like to be able to spread my legs out just a little further at bath time. I swear, I think two more inches would make it impossible to get me in that tub.

Interviewer: Thanks for coming in. We’ll be in touch.

 


 

 

Sunday, January 20, 2013

For Sunday: "Tuxedo Junction," sung by the Manhattan Transfer

Tuxedo_junction


This is a cute little song, sung by a group that made a valiant effort in the 1970s to show that good songs are timeless.

 

 

I love ‘em still.

 

 


 

Saturday, January 19, 2013

2016

2016

I’ve already written about the 2016 Presidential election, and Chris Christie, who already appears to be signaling that he’d very much like to be president after Obama. 

 

 

Charming. Maybe, if Chris Christie is a good boy, we’ll look him over and kick his tires and see if he’s the man for the job, so long as we’re all still alive in 2016.

 

 

But, as I wrote in my previous entry: please God, don’t subject us to this yet!

 

 

I am one of those people who just want elected politicians to govern. I want them to state their goals, and work toward them, and compromise (as necessary) until those goals (or some form of them) are achieved. I don’t want it to be all about us/them, for at least two years, and preferably for at least four years.

 

 

But there are political junkies who are really only excited by the competition, by the us/them. Sadly, some of our best political commentators are among them. Chris Matthews is talking about 2016 almost every night; he’s already talking about the facedown between Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie, and what a great race it’s going to be.

 

 

You’d think that a man as smart as Matthews is supposed to be would realize that a lot of things can happen in four years. The parties often alternate the Presidency, for one thing. Also, the economy (while just beginning to show signs of recovery) isn’t quite well yet, and Europe is still teetering, which could bring trouble to the USA also.

 

 

Chris Todd on NBC is another one; he’s not as bad as Chris Matthews, but he becomes visibly excited when he starts talking about the chances of one side versus another. The late Tim Russert, with his little handheld whiteboard on which he wrote numbers and vote counts, was another. They all love the struggle, and the numbers, and the victory.

 

 

The rest of us get tired easily, and just want to know that our rights are being protected, and our retirement and health care aren’t in jeopardy. We don’t care so much who’s in office, so long as the right things are being done. We mostly understand that things keep inching forward. The War on Drugs is showing (very belated) signs of dying, or transforming into something more realistic – not a war on potheads, but an attempt to keep cocaine and meth off the streets, the really dangerous drugs. Gay identity and gay marriage are both becoming less of an issue and more of a reality. And, as the most recent election mostly demonstrated, while people in general deplore abortion, it’s a fact of life, and a necessity. Theology (AKA “personhood of the fetus”) can’t be used to determine public policy; if a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant, it’s her choice, and no one else’s.

 

 

The old world dies, and we are born into the new world.

 

 

The birth pangs are painful.

 

 

Let’s not relive them, or pretend how they’re going to feel in four years’ time.

 

 

Let’s just try to get things done.

 

 

Okay?


 

 

Friday, January 18, 2013

Retirement

Retirement


 

A few months ago, I ran into my old friend Violet. Violet retired from the University only a few years ago, after working there for over thirty years. She was one of those people who knew everyone, and knew how to do everything. She was smart, and quiet, and calm, and always seemed to be completely unfazed by everything.

 

 

 

So, after we exchanged a few pleasantries, she asked me: “What are you doing now?”

 

 

And I said: “I’m you.”

 

 

And we both laughed.

 

 

But it’s true. I’ve been there for over twenty-five years. I know everyone, and I know how to do everything. And, if I don’t, I know who to call. And I know their phone numbers by heart.

 

 

I have a funny little gadget on my office wall, which was given to me by a pension firm. It’s headed YEARS TO RETIREMENT, and it’s a big stupid dial, which you can turn from 2015 to 2040.

 

 

Naturally I have it set on 2040. I point it out to people from time to time, just for laughs.

 

 

Do you remember the Harry Potter character, the professor who’s actually a ghost? He was a regular professor once, but he died while teaching, and his ghost just kept teaching. So he’s still there.

 

 

I have a tiny fear that this is exactly what might happen to me.

 

 

When Violet first told me about her decision to retire, a few years ago, here’s what she said: “One day last week, I got up at 5:00 am because I wanted to work in the garden. And I was out there on my hands and knees, and I watched the sun come up, and I thought: I’d better start getting ready for work. And then I thought: I don’t have to do that if I don’t want to. And I made up my mind right there and then.”

 

 

Maybe someday, like Violet, I will pack it in, and turn in all the necessary paperwork, and go do some serious gardening and reading and writing.

 

 

But not just yet.


 

 

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Unhygienic travel stories

 

Unhygienic


It’s lucky that most of us do our heavy-duty adventure traveling while we’re young. We’re more resilient, and can take it in stride, more or less, when strange things happen. (And we know that it’ll make a kick-ass story when we get back home.)

 

 

For example: my student assistant Jennifer told me that, in China, you can use a dirty public toilet for free, but you have to pay to use a clean one.

 

 

But that’s nothing.

 

 

How about the time I chased a rat down the hallway in Morocco, until I saw it jump into the toilet and disappear?

 

 

How about the time I was having kamounia at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Tunis, and found weevils cooked in with the couscous? (I just picked them out and put them on the side of the plate. I didn’t complain. I’d just paid twenty-five cents for dinner; I certainly didn’t expect the Waldorf-Astoria.)

 

 

How about those kvass dispensers in the USSR back in 1978? (Kvass is a light beer, very refreshing, and I wish they sold it here. I think they make it by soaking bread in water and fermenting the result.)  It was sold in drink machines, just like soft drinks and coffee in the US, except that everybody used the same glass. (There was a little water-spout you were supposed to use to wash the glass out when you were done.)

 

 

But the best story of all belongs to my friend Mike, back in Morocco, as follows:

 

 

He moved into a simple house in El-Jadida, a beautiful beach town on the Atlantic coast. The house had no toilet; you had to use a privy out in the garden.

 

 

His first night there, he went out in the dark to use the privy. As he sat, he could hear an odd rustling around him. This gave him the creeps, so he finished his business, went in the house for a flashlight, and came back out to see what the noise was.

 

 

It was bugs. The walls and ceiling of the privy were alive with insects, mostly huge flying cockroaches, more than he’d ever seen.

 

 

He shrieked, ran back in the house, grabbed the insect spray (which, in Morocco in 1984, was probably straight DDT), and ran back to the privy to kill the bugs.

 

 

Do you see the flaw in his reasoning?

 

 

He went into the privy and started spraying, and they all started dying. And as they died, they fell, by the dozens and the hundreds, all over him.

 

 

I still twitch whenever I think of that story.

 

 

I dare you to top it.


 

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The world is full of jerks

Jerks-swaggart-jerk-jerks-demotivational-poster-1210666673


I have hired, as I’ve said before, excellent students to work for me. They are smart, and often shrewd, and usually have excellent people skills.

 

 

But they are often not wise in the ways of the world. So I try to teach them the great lesson of my life: most people are jerks.

 

 

Most people in general. Everywhere. Not everyone, of course, but you never know. The people who call on the telephone, the people who visit, the people you work with. You just never know. So you have to be prepared.

 

 

My student employees are often astonished when someone calls and complains about a problem that (obviously) doesn’t exist, or that they caused themselves, or that isn’t within anyone’s control (“Why didn’t I get my letter? Where is it?”).

 

 

My students do their best to placate the caller, and they look at me pleadingly afterward: Did I do the right thing?

 

 

And I say, invariably: Of course you did. Those people were being stupid. You were patient and kind with them, and you listened to them. It’s the only thing you can do. Best of all, you didn’t tell them that they were being stupid. (I usually add: “That’s why I employ you. I’m old and cynical. I would have had a hard time holding back from telling them that they don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.”)

 

 

My student employees are always ultra-polite.  I recently had a hard time teaching one of them not to call me “sir” all the time. (Although I liked it.) I know that, at their age, I myself did not like to be given advice.

 

 

But sometimes you just have to hope that a few words will soak through, and they’ll take heed, and remember.

 

 

(And I hope they don’t think I’m a jerk for repeating myself so much.)

 

 


 

 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Romney: the sour-grapes candidate

Romney_bribed_with_gifts


There were many times during the 2012 election when Romney appeared to have lost the election. One of the most significant was the 47% video:

 

 

 

 

So, from this, we learn that Mitt Romney believes that almost half the American people are unrealistic, selfish, and greedy.  They can’t be enticed to vote for him, so he won’t bother talking to them.

 

 

Whether because of this video, or for many other reasons, he lost the election.

 

 

Most Presidential candidates shut up promptly after losing the election. The exceptions are interesting. Nixon complained in 1961 that Kennedy had stolen the election. Nixon then roared back in 1968 (and six years later resigned the Presidency in disgrace, having committed most or all of the crimes he’d accused Kennedy of in 1960). Al Gore didn’t shut up after 2000, with good reason; he’d won the popular vote, and the electoral vote depended on Florida, which was (effectively) decided by the right-leaning US Supreme Court.

 

 

But Mitt Romney won’t shut up.

 

 

He said, shortly after the election, that Obama won because he promised “gifts” to his followers. Please follow this link to hear that the Salt Lake Tribune had to say about that.

 

 

A MSNBC commentator made a very sensible point about this recently: of course Presidential candidates offer us “gifts”! They’re called campaign promises! If I’m presented with two candidates, and one of them promises to end legalized abortion, eliminate “unnecessary” programs in the arts and sciences and education, and opposes gay rights – I will tell him that these are not the “gifts” I require.

 

 

Most lately, Romney’s son Tagg (I love that name!) has stated that his father didn’t want to be President in any case. As follows:

 

 

“He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to . . . run,” Tagg Romney told the (Boston) Globe. “If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside.”

The Globe article also noted that “Tagg … worked with his mother, Ann, to persuade his father to seek the presidency.”

 

 

 

So what’s all this about? Did Mitt want the Presidency or not?

 

 

 

Perhaps, as the New Yorker recently remarked, the GOP really ought to have run someone for President who really wanted to be President.

 


 

 

Monday, January 14, 2013

The Rhode Island accent and the Pacific Northwest accent

Butta


I came to Rhode Island thirty-four years ago, and the accent baffled me for a long time. Then I understood it. Then I tried to imitate it.

 

 

Now, decades later, I can almost manage it.

 

 

It took me years to master the pronunciation of “Worcester.” It’s WUH-stah, with a funny breathy sound in the middle.  I said WOO-stah for a long time, and everyone laughed at me.

 

 

“Sure” is easy: SHOO-wah. I say it all the time; it’s my best Rhode Island word. It baffles the Brown students who work for me; they've never heard anything like it, and they’re sure I’m a local.

 

 

“Cheryl” is, of course, CHEV-vil. I kid you not.

 

 

It goes without saying that I came here from the Pacific Northwest with no accent at all.

 

 

Who am I kidding? I sounded like Huckleberry Finn when I first got here. When I go back to the Northwest, I listen to my relatives talk, and I think: Are we serious? Do we really sound like that? Did I ever really sound like that?

 

 

When my brother Leopold says my name – “Loren” – it comes out sounding something like “Lawwrn.”

 

 

I speak quickly and nervously. I probably always did. But quick and nervous is appropriate for the Rhode Island accent; a lot of people here speak too quickly for their own good. It’s okay if you only get a few words here and there; most of the time, it’s enough.  I have an acquaintance here who speaks so quickly, the words seem to overlap one another.

 

 

But, even after all this time, when I go back to the Northwest, or when I talk to someone from the Northwest, the local dialect starts coming back to me.

 

 

We have “groshry stores” instead of “grocery stores.” “Washington” is “Worshington.” It’s curtains for you if you say “O-ray-gone” instead of “Orrygun.”   “Idaho” is “EYE-dee-hoe.”

 

 

After I’d been in Rhode Island for a year, I called one of my banks in Worshington State to transfer some money. After a moment on the line, the bank lady said, sounding just like Ado Annie in “Oklahoma”: “YOO SHORE SOUND FAAR AWAAY. WHERE AARE YOOU?”

 

 

And, without thinking, I bellowed back: “AH’M IN RHUDE AAHLAND!”

 

 

Seriously.

 

 

Or, as we say here: Foh shooah!


 

 

Sunday, January 13, 2013

For Sunday: Derek and the Dominos sing "Layla"

Layla_derek_and_the_dominoes_coverart


This is one of the great rock songs of all time. I grew up with it on the radio all the time, and didn’t really notice it all that much. Now I listen to it, and I think: Wow!

 

 

It was written by Eric Clapton, because he was in love with George Harrison’s wife Pattie.

 

 

Enjoy.

 

 


 

Saturday, January 12, 2013

It’s this crazy weather we’ve been having; or, Rhapsody on a theme by John Ashbery

Crazy_weather


So (I says casually), did you see the photo on the front page of the New York Times on Friday? Snow in Jerusalem. Crazy, right?

 

 

And how about that heatwave in Australia? Pretty awful.

 

 

Not to mention the soaking rains they’ve been having in the UK.

 

 

And did I mention that it’s gonna be close to sixty degrees here in Providence over the next few days? In mid-January. Seriously, it feels like late March / early April outside.

 

 

You know where I’m going with this.

 

 

We’ve done it to ourselves. We didn’t mean to do it, but we did it. We have steadily warmed our climate, and now abnormal weather is the new normal: storms, droughts, temperature extremes. 2012 was the warmest year on record in the United States, by the way.

 

 

So what can we do about it?

 

 

Little enough. The damage is already done. The carbon dioxide is already out there, and the ozone is already torn up.

 

 

Good night and good luck, human race.

 

 

(But let’s end with something nice. I started with a John Ashbery quote, so let’s have the whole poem, and think – or hope – that humanity might not die out completely, or might at least leave behind something beautiful.)

 

 

(Something like this:)

 

 

 

 

It’s this crazy weather we’ve been having:
Falling forward one minute, lying down the next
Among the loose grasses and soft, white, nameless flowers.
People have been making a garment out of it,
Stitching the white of lilacs together with lightning
At some anonymous crossroads. The sky calls
To the deaf earth. The proverbial disarray
Of morning corrects itself as you stand up.
You are wearing a text. The lines
Droop to your shoelaces and I shall never want or need
Any other literature than this poetry of mud
And ambitious reminiscences of times when it came easily
Through the then woods and ploughed fields and had
A simple unconscious dignity we can never hope to
Approximate now except in narrow ravines nobody
Will inspect where some late sample of the rare,
Uninteresting specimen might still be putting out shoots, for all we know. 


Friday, January 11, 2013

Asteroids

Asteroids


Partner and I saw something interesting the other night. A near-earth asteroid, Apophis, was making a near approach to Earth, and we watched it in real time, on a British website called Slooh.com, which operates a powerful telescope in the Canary Islands off Africa.

 

 

The images were peaceful enough: a tiny bright spot moving slowly against a background of stars.

 

 

Apophis will not trouble us this time; it’s too far away.

 

 

But Apophis is coming back. It will make another near-Earth approach in 2029, and again in 2036. There is a vanishingly small chance that, in 2036, Apophis will actually hit the Earth.

 

 

If it does, it would not be quite as bad as the dinosaur-killing asteroid that hit Earth sixty million years ago. It would be very bad, however.

 

 

But, as I said, the chances are very small.

 

 

Makes you feel uncertain, doesn’t it?

 

 

I don’t much care. In 2036, I’ll be 79 years old, if I’m not already dead.

 

 

But it makes me think of all the odd things that can happen, and the random horrible accidents that can really ruin your day.

 

 

And I used to like the asteroids.  I thought of them as a remote peaceful place, a planetary archipelago, kind of like the British West Indies.

 

 

I prefer them that way.

 

 

Here’s Diane Ackerman’s poem from the 1970s:

 

 

We imagine them


flitting


cheek to jowl,


these driftrocks


of cosmic ash


thousandfold afloat


between Jupiter and Mars.


Frigga,


Fanny,


Adelheid,


Lacrimosa.


Names to conjure with,


Dakotan black hills,


A light-opera


Staged on a barrier reef.


And swarm they may have,


Crumbly as blue-cheese,


That ur-moment


when the solar system


broke wind.


But now


they lumber


so wide apart


from each


to its neighbor’s


pinprick-glow


slant millions


and millions


of watertight miles.


Only in the longest view


do they graze


like one herd


on a breathless tundra.
 

 


 

 

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Things that might happen in European politics

Things_that_might_happen


In Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Gravity’s Rainbow,” there is a character who is writing a book called “Things That Might Happen In European Politics.” He writes very comprehensively about a particular thing that might happen, but – invariably – before he’s done – the thing happens. And he has to discard what he’s written, and start writing his book all over again.

 

 

It’s Zeno’s Paradox, in a sense: you can never reach the end of your journey, because it keeps moving farther away, faster and faster, before you can get there.

 

 

It is for this peculiar reason that I like reading outdated history and political-science books.

 

 

I prowl the second floor of the Providence Public Library looking for them. I can tell them by their old leathery bindings and their stamped printing and their quaint titles. I have read WILL CHINA SURVIVE? (1936). And STALIN MUST HAVE PEACE (1946). And AN AMERICAN IN THE RIF (1921). And many others.

 

 

A few observations:

 

 

-         Yes, China will survive. The 1936 book was written at a time when China was riven between Chiang Kai-Shek’s regime (which later went to Taiwan), and the Communists, and the Japanese (who had taken a big chunk of the north). The author was prescient enough to see that, if China survived the Japanese occupation (which it did), it would almost certainly go Communist. Ten points for accuracy!

-         Stalin had peace, but not for the reasons the author (the famous journalist Edgar Snow) assumed. His premise (which he maintained for 200 pages) was that the Second World War left Stalin too weak to struggle against the USA and Europe, and that Stalin would be no threat to anyone for at least five to ten years. He underestimated Stalin’s paranoia and power. The USSR had the atomic bomb by 1949, almost exactly four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oh, well. Zero points.

-         An older book about Morocco, written in the 1920s, was fascinating. Abdelkrim, the Napoleon of North Africa, the founder of the Rif Republic, who led a rebellion against Spain, was described as “passionate, but not a genius.” And so he proved to be; his Rif Republic collapsed soon after. The author also met Raisuli, the pirate king of Asilah, who captured the American diplomat Perdicaris at the turn of the century. The author described Raisuli (I paraphrase) as a “swollen hulk” near the end of his life, being carried around in a litter, palsied, dropsical, unable to speak, looking sadly and angrily at everyone around him.

 

 

It’s difficult to predict the future accurately. And even if you succeed, you seldom live to see yourself vindicated.

 

 

But it doesn’t stop anyone from trying.