They rode through the dark to United, along winding roads with rounded hills occasionally outlined in dimly seen snow. Billy watched the roads and tried to recognize where they were going, but apart from the darkness he didn’t take this ride enough to remember it. He knew the route to Arnwood pretty well but not this one. When they suddenly slowed down and turned down a road with houses around it he was surprised. When they got out of the car, mummy pointed high behind them. “Look, Billy,” she said. “You can see the coke ovens.”
“Where? Where?” he cried and then he saw the orange glows in the distance.
“You can see them better on the way home. We’ll pass a little closer.”
They were parked on the hard black coal dust in front of Uncle Bug’s yellow, one- story wood frame house. But only the Christmas lights were on there. Instead they walked up the dark brick walk to the tall gray wood house where Aunt Beatty and Uncle Joe lived with his other grandfather, granpap. Inside were Uncle Bugs and Aunt Rella and their daughter, Beverly, who was Billy’s age. Uncle Bill and Aunt Carmella were there, too. They had a baby, a girl, named Carmen. Aunt Beatty had a baby, too, another girl, also named Kathy. Everyone said hello to him, and said how big he was getting.
Uncle Bugs and Aunt Rella were the nicest ones, though Aunt Rella talked really loud sometimes. But she laughed a lot, too. Uncle Bill and Aunt Carmella talked a lot, and so did daddy when he was with big people, but Aunt Beatty and Uncle Joe were quiet. They kept their heads down and didn’t move them much, they just moved their eyes.
After a little while, Walt took Billy down to the basement where granpap was. Granpap was very glad to see him. He had shiny black and gray hair, and when he smiled Billy saw gaps in his teeth. He looked at Billy a long time, his eyes shining and his face all bright. Then he joked back and forth with Walt while Billy looked around. There wasn’t much to see, and the ceiling was even lower than upstairs. Pretty soon they went back up.
The adults sat and stood in the kitchen talking with one another and it was not long before Billy was restless. He sat for awhile by himself in the living room, looking up at the low ceilings. His cousin Beverly didn’t talk to him but stayed with her mother and the babies. There was nothing to do and no one to talk to. By now he had to go to the bathroom, but it was a long time before his father would take him out to the outhouse. It was dark and cold and he was a little frightened, but he was glad he only had to do number one.
Daddy said he was old enough to go by himself but he would watch him from the door. He had his coat on but it was still cold. The porch light didn't go the whole way but almost. He opened the outhouse door and it was dark and smelly inside. He went as fast as he could. On the way back up the walk he could see daddy in the door, looking behind him and then looking out towards him. When he got back inside he noticed the pump that was now inside the house. Grandma in Youngwood had a pump outside in the back, but it was just for watering the garden. Here it was where all the water came from.
The adults were sitting around the kitchen table playing canasta and talking. He watched them for awhile.
“So does Santa know you’re living upstairs now?” Uncle Bugs asked him.
Billy wondered that, too. “Yes, he does,” Flora said. “We wrote to him, didn’t we, Billy? And now we have a real chimney for him to come down.”
“Is Father Stephen coming around this year? I mean, the Star Man?” Uncle Bill asked as they played.
“Father Stephen isn’t here anymore,” Uncle Joe said. “Not for a couple of years. The new one doesn’t do it.”
“He scared the hell out of me when I was a kid,” Uncle Bugs said. “With that big hat and long robe. I never knew the answers, either.”
“Well, he shoulda asked you about rabbit hunting, not religion,” Uncle Bill said. “You got the candy anyway, didn’t you?”
“He scared me, too,” Aunt Beatty said, “but still, it was kind of nice. The altar boys carrying that lantern with all the stars, you know, cut out so the light came through.”
“Hey, Billy, what does your other grandfather tell you about--whatshername--Befana?”
Billy looked at his mother but she was looking at Uncle Bill.
“Just what are you talking about, Bill?” Aunt Carmella said. “What do you know about Italian things?”
“I work with Italians,” he said. “This one guy told me that when he was little his mum and dad used to scare the shit out of him talking about Befana--or something like that. A witch. An old witch who comes down the chimney and leaves sacks of ashes and coal for bad kids.”
“That’s terrible,” Aunt Rella said. “Terrible thing to tell a kid on Christmas.”
“So?” Uncle Bill said. “I didn’t make it up. This guy told me.”
“Well, he must be Sicilian,” Flora said, and they all laughed.
Then Billy’s grandfather came up from the basement where he stayed most of the time and everyone gathered around the kitchen table, even Beverly. They all had little glasses and drank a toast. Billy’s glass had root beer in it. Then a big, very thin white wafer was passed around. Everyone wished each other a merry Christmas as they broke off a little piece of it and ate it. They said it was bread but to Billy it tasted like cardboard.
Then it was time to go. Flora got Kathy from the bed upstairs where she’d been sleeping. Kathy cried a little when Flora got her into her coat, but she fell asleep again as soon as the car started up. Billy was almost asleep himself when he suddenly looked up to see the coke ovens glowing on the mountain. It was like orange fires in caves, but all the same size. He watched until he couldn’t see them anymore. He felt himself falling asleep for sure now, but before he did he reminded mummy about the cocoa and cookies for Santa. She said she would remember.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Billy awoke early the next morning in his own bed in his own room. He wondered if it was too early, but he was awake right away. He had a double bed, his mother had told him, because someday he might have a brother. Kathy had her own room, too, but she slept in a crib that mummy said had been his. Kathy is still a baby, just learning things. He has to help her once in awhile because he is older. She is too little to understand what today is. He is going to go to school after the next summer. He thought about that more and more.
The sun was on the other side of the house, but he could see out his own window that it was day. He got up, opened his door and listened. Everybody else was still asleep. He went into the hall and towards the light coming through the picture window into the living room. He saw the tree in the corner, the same as yesterday. And he saw what was different: the packages under the tree.
His eyes immediately went to something that wasn’t wrapped. That meant it was from Santa Claus, mummy told him. It was large, a kind of box, yellow, with blue and red lettering. He knelt down to touch it. The surface was slightly rough. He opened the top. Inside the cover had a red and white stripped picture of Howdy Doody, and then he saw what it was: a phonograph. A Howdy Doody Phono-Doodle.
He ran to get his records. His big record, Tubby the Tuba, was already scratched and worn from use. He had other little records, some bought for him but most that used to be mummy’s and she gave him or let him play. But when he got them he couldn’t play them. Everybody else was still asleep.
He stood up, not knowing what to do. It was then that he saw it on the coffee table: an empty cup with a brown ring around the inside, and a saucer with a little bit of a cookie left on it.
Flora heard Billy in the living room, and not wanting to miss his discovery of his presents, she poked Walt once and got up. To her surprise, he started getting up, too.
As she wrapped the robe around her she glanced out the picture window. It looked cold, but there weren’t as many clouds as yesterday. It was going to be a sunny Christmas.
As Billy found more toys—a Hopalong Cassidy gun and holster set, a cowboy hat and a tin painted gas station--he turned around to see his mummy and daddy in their robes sitting down on the sofa. Mummy smiled at him, and daddy did too, sometimes.
He watched mummy show Kathy her toys—a big yellow duck on a string caught his eye, but mostly he was waiting to open his packages from mummy and daddy, and the ones that Ant Toni had sent. They were mostly all clothes. He went through them fast but mummy wanted to see everything. Then mummy gathered up the paper and put it in a bag. “Are we going to have a fire in the fireplace?” Billy asked. “Not today,” she said. “But sometime this week.” At Thanksgiving, daddy made a fire and put something extra in it that made colors in the flames, like green and blue. He liked looking at the fire anyway, though he was careful not to get too close. But he liked looking for those colors, flickering bright and disappearing.
When mummy went into the kitchen to make coffee, daddy showed him how to work the phonograph. Pretty soon he was playing a new little record, all red, of Gene Autry singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He wanted to play more but mummy said it was time to eat breakfast and get ready for church.
There were mostly big people in church, and they stood and knelt and sat at different times, all together. Billy had been to church before but he was more interested today because he understood that the church they went to was downstairs from the school where he might be going. Sometimes Billy could see the priest and the altar boys and sometimes he couldn’t. But he could always see the six candles lit above the altar, and he heard the organist singing. She sang in Latin. He didn’t understand her, but as the Mass went on and on, he began to make up a story to the way the words sounded. It was about a mother telling her boy to do something. First she called him--
Agnus Dei
I thought I told you, she said:
qui tolis pecatta mundi
and the boy answers no--
me say ray ray no bis
--maybe because he didn’t hear her.
They went from church down to Arnwood. The sun glinted off the snow, though there were patches of brown peeking through. Flora listened as the radio in the Singer truck said there was more snow was on the way, maybe even tonight. She would keep an eye on the weather and try to get them home before it started. She didn’t want to get stuck on the road with two sleepy, stuffed and cranky kids.
The big meal on Christmas day was just after noon. Although Christmas Eve was more elaborate, there was still plenty to do for Christmas Day, especially since mum saved the best desserts for then. They would be eating all day, but first everything had to be made ready.
But mum and dad had presents for the kids, and they stopped their preparations to watch them. Billy was so completely amazed by the Hopalong Cassidy cowboy outfit mum and dad gave him. There were pictures of Hopalong Cassidy on the western style shirt, and a picture of him on his horse with a lariat that spelled out Hoppalong Cassidy on the chap-style pants. They even got him a pair of black cowboy boots to go with it. Knowing this, Flora had brought along his cowboy hat and guns and holster set. Billy ran upstairs to change out of his church clothes and into the cowboy suit.
When he came downstairs, his grandfather greeted him. “Hey! It’s Hopalong Que-ce-dice!” Everybody laughed, as Billy drew his guns.
Her grandmother held Kathy, who gripped her new stuffed doggie and kicked her legs in excitement. She wriggled until she got down, and pup pup got his camera. Walt pulled the piano bench in front of the Christmas tree. Billy sat down with Kathy on his lap. Billy held her with one hand, and pointed a gun at the camera with the other.
Mum asked her about the morning. Flora told her about the phonograph. “He knows the names of all my records,” she said, explaining why she got it for him. “Even the instrumentals. I don’t know how.”
Uncle Carl came downstairs and after they had opened all their presents, Billy asked if he was going to play the piano. So he sat down and played some Christmas carols. His hands and long fingers moved fast across the keys. Somehow they were making the music he heard but he couldn't keep up with Uncle Carl's hands. Sometimes it looked like the keys were still moving by themselves after Uncle Carl's fingers were already gone.
Then after he stopped, he and Kathy were left alone in the living room for awhile until mummy came back in from the kitchen and told them pup pup was taking them for a walk and when they got back it would be time to eat. She bundled them up and they went outside with pup pup. They were going to walk down to the railroad tracks. They went slow because of Kathy. Pup pup kept hold of her hand so she couldn’t try to run after Billy, but pup up didn’t want him to run too far ahead either, so he kept circling back. That was until they got to the end of the street, past where Timmy and Mary Ann lived.
Then pup pup said Billy had to hold his other hand because they were crossing over the railroad tracks. Then they got to the trolley tracks but to Billy’s amazement they didn’t turn back. They were going on to the stone bridge over the little creek. They stood on the bridge and Billy looked down, but mostly he looked beyond. On the other side of the bridge there was only the road disappearing into the trees. There was heavy brush there. In the summer when he stayed over at grandma’s he could hear strange sounds that grandma said were frogs. Those frogs lived in the brush there, pup pup said. Billy looked at it, trying to imagine what wild animals might be in there and in the woods beyond. This was as close as he had been.
As they walked back to the house Billy wondered if they would go past it, and up the street to where the drug store and the other ice cream places were. Pup pup took them there in the summer, when his cousin Dicky was here. But this time when they got to the house they went inside.
Dinner began with mum’s soup, the only kind of soup she ever served. Some people called it wedding soup, but hers was a little different, and it was another one of those things she never gave a completely accurate recipe for, Flora thought. She knew it had egg, endive and little meat balls, but Flora never attempted to make it herself. Her mother was just too vague about how it was done.
Then came the homemade ravioli with homemade sauce. Some were filled with cheese, others with meat. Billy cheerfully had several helpings at the smiling insistence of his grandmother. Anything less than several helpings she treated as an insult. Plates of meat balls and roast beef in the same meat sauce were passed around and then kept on the table. Another plate of meat balls without sauce made the rounds.
Then the roast chicken, roast potatoes and carrots. Side dishes appeared. Of these, Billy liked the breaded veal cutlets the best. He also liked salad, which he especially enjoyed with his chicken and cutlets. He didn't eat much of the cooked vegetables, Flora noticed.
Then came the coffee and the sponge cake, the Christmas pannettone, a yeasty, egg cake that Flora’s mother still made herself, even though you could buy it now. There were piles of pizelles, which they had spent hours that morning making downstairs with two large black pizelle irons held over the burners of the stove. There were single pizzelles, some brownish, some light and crumbly. Some had an almond taste, some tasted of vanilla, and some of anise. Some were made into sandwiches with a fig paste between two pizelles.
But now specialty cookies could be more easily bought in nearby stores, some baked in Pittsburgh or closer, and some imported from Italy. The hard and the soft biscotti were easy to find, and assortments of small cookies that appeared at various times of the year. But the imported cantuccini sapori-- the chocolate covered cookie with hazlenuts inside--and the torrone--nougat candy in flavors of vanilla, lemon and orange--were only for Christmas.
And of course, the jello. Even after all that food, Mum was still insulted if everyone didn’t eat the Jell-O.
All day the cookies and candies stayed on the dining room table. Flora put some of her cookie out, too--the snicker doodles, the Christmas sugar cookies in different shapes decorated with icings with different food coloring. Ant was even represented with the nut roll she’d made and sent through the mail.
Late in the afternoon and in the evening they would crack walnuts and hazelnuts. There was always fruit--pears, apples, oranges and tangerines. Billy liked the tangerines best, and then the pears. The relish tray also reappeared, with a special addition next to the celery: fresh anise, which looked just like celery but had its own particular flavor. Billy tried it, and seemed to like it.
He also liked to look at the pictures on the little torrone boxes, of the hand colored cameos of women with the blue ribbons in their hair and men with red vests and bow tie, and the scenes on the other side, of statues and buildings against white clouds and blue sky, or a scene Billy said was of pirates, but that was because the man wore an open blue shirt and white pants with high black boots that Billy only knew from pirate tales on TV.
After dinner, as dad and Walt dozed in the living room and Kathy had her nap while Flora and mum cleaned up, Billy was sent off to the movies with two neighbor kids, Timmy and Mary Ann. Pup pup gave him a nickel for his admission, and he gave nickels to Timmy and Mary Ann for taking him. They walked up the street, and down to where Billy had never been except to go to the movies, though it wasn’t far to walk.
“What they see today?” mum asked as they washed and dried the dishes.
“Cinderella,” Flora said. “ The Walt Disney cartoon.”
“Yes, I hear about it,” mum said. “suppose to be good. Lots music.”
“Yes, that ‘Bibbety Boppity Boo’ song is in it. I hope they don’t make it too scary. When Billy saw “Sleeping Beauty” the witch and her poisoned apple really scared him. That’s when he started imagining the mirror upstairs was a monster’s face.”
When Billy got home from the movies, his eyes full of color and head full of songs, everybody was in the dining room playing a game. He thought it was cards but it wasn’t. Everybody had a cardboard square.
“It’s called Tombala,” mummy explained. “It’s like bingo. You’ve never seen it before--or you don’t remember seeing it--because we only play it on Christmas.”
Kathy was sitting on mummy's lap watching but then she tried to get down. Mummy held her and began to bounce her up and down and sang to her:
How much is that doggie in the window
Woof! Woof!
The one with the scraggily tail?
How much is that doggie in the window
I do hope that doggie's for sale.
Kathy laughed. When mummy stopped to play the game Billy began singing, imitating Jimmy Durante shaking his head and singing Inka Dinka Do. Everybody in the family liked Jimmy Durante. Billy watched him every time he was on Colgate Comedy Hour (though he usually hoped for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.) Jimmy Durante always did a big number at the end with his friend Eddie who wore a big top hat, when they marched all around the stage, waving their hats. Then at the very end Jimmy put on his rain coat and hat and said, "Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are," and walked away through pools of light. Billy wondered if he ever would say who Mrs. Calabash was. He didn't want to miss that.
When they laughed he tried to roll his eyes all around like Eddie Cantor. Kathy looked at him for awhile but turned away. He started singing to her like Vaughn Monroe. He did it by putting his tongue at the roof of his mouth way in back. "Silly Billy," mummy said, smiling.
They were all waiting for Aunt Toni to call from Maryland, so when the phone rang the game stopped and pup pup turned down the radio. Everybody took turns talking to Ant Toni, though not for very long because it was long distance and cost a lot of money. Billy tried to imagine how far away Maryland was. He got a turn to talk to Aunt Toni and to Dickie. He told Dickie about going down past the railroad tracks and Dickie said he wanted to do that when they came up in the summer. They were just getting used to talking on the telephone when Billy had to get off.
It was getting dark when they were all in the living room. First Billy bounced on pup pups knee, pretending he was Hopalong Que ce dice going after bad guys. Grandma had Kathy on her lap, playing patty-cake. Then they switched, and Billy and grandma sang:
ting a ting un violino
pling a pling un mandolino
toot toot toot la saxaphona
tippety tippety top!
But when Billy played the drum he got for Christmas, daddy told him to stop. “That’s enough now,” he said. But Billy looked around and nobody else got mad, so he stopped for awhile and then started playing it again. Nothing happened so he kept playing, and this time daddy really yelled. “I told you stop that now!” Billy started to cry. His father got even more mad. “Stop that or I’ll give you something to cry about!” he shouted.
Billy ran upstairs and lay down on the bed in the middle room and cried. Later he went back downstairs and stood out in the hall. Grandma saw him and told him he could go sit at the desk if he wanted, and later pup pup would get out the viewmaster. He nodded solemnly and went to the desk next to the living room windows. He turned on the desk lamp. The desk was very shiny and clean, not like the rough, banged up desk at home. He usually wasn’t allowed to sit there or ever to play there because it was good furniture. But he could sometimes if he was careful. Grandma gave him some paper and a pencil and he sat drawing for awhile. He drew a man standing on the ground, with the sun above him, and a house behind him. He drew a tree and a bird in it. Trees were where birds live. Maybe the bird was a robin. They were called robin red-breast in the Book House books, but really they were orange.
Then pup pup got out the viewmaster. It was black and heavy, but not too heavy for Billy to hold up to his face by himself. Pup pup put one of the white flat circles into it and Billy put his eyes to the two places to look, and when his eyes got used to it he could see a color picture of mountains. He pushed the clicker and another picture came on.
By the time grandma’s rosary came on the radio, Billy was very tired. When it was over, he lay down on the sofa. Just then the doorbell rang, and a big man in black came in. It took a minute for him to recognize Father Derrick.
“Flora, Merry Christmas,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here, but I was up at Holy Cross today--one of their priests went home to see his parents and I was filling in. So I thought I’d stop, but I got held up until now. How’s Walt? How are the children?”
They talked some more and then suddenly Father Derrick was in the living room. He looked huge standing above him. Billy didn’t know what to say, so he answered Father Derrick’s questions very quietly. He was just starting to get interested when he felt a big hand on his head and saw that Father Derrick was saying a prayer and making the sign of the cross over him with his other hand. Then he squeezed his shoulder hard, and he was gone, into the dining room.
Billy dozed until mummy told him quietly they were going home and to get his coat on. Daddy had already put all his presents in the truck. He kissed grandma and pup pup goodbye and said thank you. They hugged him and said Merry Christmas once more.
The truck was cold but he could lay down in the back, and the thrum of the engine put him to sleep again. He awoke once and for a second he didn’t know where he was. He was confused and a little mad but then he realized he was on his way home, and soon they would walk up the steps in the cold night, he would get ready for bed, his mother would kiss him goodnight, and nothing else would happen, he would be asleep in his bed in his room in his home.
The sun was on the other side of the house, but he could see out his own window that it was day. He got up, opened his door and listened. Everybody else was still asleep. He went into the hall and towards the light coming through the picture window into the living room. He saw the tree in the corner, the same as yesterday. And he saw what was different: the packages under the tree.
His eyes immediately went to something that wasn’t wrapped. That meant it was from Santa Claus, mummy told him. It was large, a kind of box, yellow, with blue and red lettering. He knelt down to touch it. The surface was slightly rough. He opened the top. Inside the cover had a red and white stripped picture of Howdy Doody, and then he saw what it was: a phonograph. A Howdy Doody Phono-Doodle.
He ran to get his records. His big record, Tubby the Tuba, was already scratched and worn from use. He had other little records, some bought for him but most that used to be mummy’s and she gave him or let him play. But when he got them he couldn’t play them. Everybody else was still asleep.
He stood up, not knowing what to do. It was then that he saw it on the coffee table: an empty cup with a brown ring around the inside, and a saucer with a little bit of a cookie left on it.
Flora heard Billy in the living room, and not wanting to miss his discovery of his presents, she poked Walt once and got up. To her surprise, he started getting up, too.
As she wrapped the robe around her she glanced out the picture window. It looked cold, but there weren’t as many clouds as yesterday. It was going to be a sunny Christmas.
As Billy found more toys—a Hopalong Cassidy gun and holster set, a cowboy hat and a tin painted gas station--he turned around to see his mummy and daddy in their robes sitting down on the sofa. Mummy smiled at him, and daddy did too, sometimes.
He watched mummy show Kathy her toys—a big yellow duck on a string caught his eye, but mostly he was waiting to open his packages from mummy and daddy, and the ones that Ant Toni had sent. They were mostly all clothes. He went through them fast but mummy wanted to see everything. Then mummy gathered up the paper and put it in a bag. “Are we going to have a fire in the fireplace?” Billy asked. “Not today,” she said. “But sometime this week.” At Thanksgiving, daddy made a fire and put something extra in it that made colors in the flames, like green and blue. He liked looking at the fire anyway, though he was careful not to get too close. But he liked looking for those colors, flickering bright and disappearing.
When mummy went into the kitchen to make coffee, daddy showed him how to work the phonograph. Pretty soon he was playing a new little record, all red, of Gene Autry singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He wanted to play more but mummy said it was time to eat breakfast and get ready for church.
There were mostly big people in church, and they stood and knelt and sat at different times, all together. Billy had been to church before but he was more interested today because he understood that the church they went to was downstairs from the school where he might be going. Sometimes Billy could see the priest and the altar boys and sometimes he couldn’t. But he could always see the six candles lit above the altar, and he heard the organist singing. She sang in Latin. He didn’t understand her, but as the Mass went on and on, he began to make up a story to the way the words sounded. It was about a mother telling her boy to do something. First she called him--
Agnus Dei
I thought I told you, she said:
qui tolis pecatta mundi
and the boy answers no--
me say ray ray no bis
--maybe because he didn’t hear her.
They went from church down to Arnwood. The sun glinted off the snow, though there were patches of brown peeking through. Flora listened as the radio in the Singer truck said there was more snow was on the way, maybe even tonight. She would keep an eye on the weather and try to get them home before it started. She didn’t want to get stuck on the road with two sleepy, stuffed and cranky kids.
The big meal on Christmas day was just after noon. Although Christmas Eve was more elaborate, there was still plenty to do for Christmas Day, especially since mum saved the best desserts for then. They would be eating all day, but first everything had to be made ready.
But mum and dad had presents for the kids, and they stopped their preparations to watch them. Billy was so completely amazed by the Hopalong Cassidy cowboy outfit mum and dad gave him. There were pictures of Hopalong Cassidy on the western style shirt, and a picture of him on his horse with a lariat that spelled out Hoppalong Cassidy on the chap-style pants. They even got him a pair of black cowboy boots to go with it. Knowing this, Flora had brought along his cowboy hat and guns and holster set. Billy ran upstairs to change out of his church clothes and into the cowboy suit.
When he came downstairs, his grandfather greeted him. “Hey! It’s Hopalong Que-ce-dice!” Everybody laughed, as Billy drew his guns.
Her grandmother held Kathy, who gripped her new stuffed doggie and kicked her legs in excitement. She wriggled until she got down, and pup pup got his camera. Walt pulled the piano bench in front of the Christmas tree. Billy sat down with Kathy on his lap. Billy held her with one hand, and pointed a gun at the camera with the other.
Mum asked her about the morning. Flora told her about the phonograph. “He knows the names of all my records,” she said, explaining why she got it for him. “Even the instrumentals. I don’t know how.”
Uncle Carl came downstairs and after they had opened all their presents, Billy asked if he was going to play the piano. So he sat down and played some Christmas carols. His hands and long fingers moved fast across the keys. Somehow they were making the music he heard but he couldn't keep up with Uncle Carl's hands. Sometimes it looked like the keys were still moving by themselves after Uncle Carl's fingers were already gone.
Then after he stopped, he and Kathy were left alone in the living room for awhile until mummy came back in from the kitchen and told them pup pup was taking them for a walk and when they got back it would be time to eat. She bundled them up and they went outside with pup pup. They were going to walk down to the railroad tracks. They went slow because of Kathy. Pup pup kept hold of her hand so she couldn’t try to run after Billy, but pup up didn’t want him to run too far ahead either, so he kept circling back. That was until they got to the end of the street, past where Timmy and Mary Ann lived.
Then pup pup said Billy had to hold his other hand because they were crossing over the railroad tracks. Then they got to the trolley tracks but to Billy’s amazement they didn’t turn back. They were going on to the stone bridge over the little creek. They stood on the bridge and Billy looked down, but mostly he looked beyond. On the other side of the bridge there was only the road disappearing into the trees. There was heavy brush there. In the summer when he stayed over at grandma’s he could hear strange sounds that grandma said were frogs. Those frogs lived in the brush there, pup pup said. Billy looked at it, trying to imagine what wild animals might be in there and in the woods beyond. This was as close as he had been.
As they walked back to the house Billy wondered if they would go past it, and up the street to where the drug store and the other ice cream places were. Pup pup took them there in the summer, when his cousin Dicky was here. But this time when they got to the house they went inside.
Dinner began with mum’s soup, the only kind of soup she ever served. Some people called it wedding soup, but hers was a little different, and it was another one of those things she never gave a completely accurate recipe for, Flora thought. She knew it had egg, endive and little meat balls, but Flora never attempted to make it herself. Her mother was just too vague about how it was done.
Then came the homemade ravioli with homemade sauce. Some were filled with cheese, others with meat. Billy cheerfully had several helpings at the smiling insistence of his grandmother. Anything less than several helpings she treated as an insult. Plates of meat balls and roast beef in the same meat sauce were passed around and then kept on the table. Another plate of meat balls without sauce made the rounds.
Then the roast chicken, roast potatoes and carrots. Side dishes appeared. Of these, Billy liked the breaded veal cutlets the best. He also liked salad, which he especially enjoyed with his chicken and cutlets. He didn't eat much of the cooked vegetables, Flora noticed.
Then came the coffee and the sponge cake, the Christmas pannettone, a yeasty, egg cake that Flora’s mother still made herself, even though you could buy it now. There were piles of pizelles, which they had spent hours that morning making downstairs with two large black pizelle irons held over the burners of the stove. There were single pizzelles, some brownish, some light and crumbly. Some had an almond taste, some tasted of vanilla, and some of anise. Some were made into sandwiches with a fig paste between two pizelles.
But now specialty cookies could be more easily bought in nearby stores, some baked in Pittsburgh or closer, and some imported from Italy. The hard and the soft biscotti were easy to find, and assortments of small cookies that appeared at various times of the year. But the imported cantuccini sapori-- the chocolate covered cookie with hazlenuts inside--and the torrone--nougat candy in flavors of vanilla, lemon and orange--were only for Christmas.
And of course, the jello. Even after all that food, Mum was still insulted if everyone didn’t eat the Jell-O.
All day the cookies and candies stayed on the dining room table. Flora put some of her cookie out, too--the snicker doodles, the Christmas sugar cookies in different shapes decorated with icings with different food coloring. Ant was even represented with the nut roll she’d made and sent through the mail.
Late in the afternoon and in the evening they would crack walnuts and hazelnuts. There was always fruit--pears, apples, oranges and tangerines. Billy liked the tangerines best, and then the pears. The relish tray also reappeared, with a special addition next to the celery: fresh anise, which looked just like celery but had its own particular flavor. Billy tried it, and seemed to like it.
He also liked to look at the pictures on the little torrone boxes, of the hand colored cameos of women with the blue ribbons in their hair and men with red vests and bow tie, and the scenes on the other side, of statues and buildings against white clouds and blue sky, or a scene Billy said was of pirates, but that was because the man wore an open blue shirt and white pants with high black boots that Billy only knew from pirate tales on TV.
After dinner, as dad and Walt dozed in the living room and Kathy had her nap while Flora and mum cleaned up, Billy was sent off to the movies with two neighbor kids, Timmy and Mary Ann. Pup pup gave him a nickel for his admission, and he gave nickels to Timmy and Mary Ann for taking him. They walked up the street, and down to where Billy had never been except to go to the movies, though it wasn’t far to walk.
“What they see today?” mum asked as they washed and dried the dishes.
“Cinderella,” Flora said. “ The Walt Disney cartoon.”
“Yes, I hear about it,” mum said. “suppose to be good. Lots music.”
“Yes, that ‘Bibbety Boppity Boo’ song is in it. I hope they don’t make it too scary. When Billy saw “Sleeping Beauty” the witch and her poisoned apple really scared him. That’s when he started imagining the mirror upstairs was a monster’s face.”
When Billy got home from the movies, his eyes full of color and head full of songs, everybody was in the dining room playing a game. He thought it was cards but it wasn’t. Everybody had a cardboard square.
“It’s called Tombala,” mummy explained. “It’s like bingo. You’ve never seen it before--or you don’t remember seeing it--because we only play it on Christmas.”
Kathy was sitting on mummy's lap watching but then she tried to get down. Mummy held her and began to bounce her up and down and sang to her:
How much is that doggie in the window
Woof! Woof!
The one with the scraggily tail?
How much is that doggie in the window
I do hope that doggie's for sale.
Kathy laughed. When mummy stopped to play the game Billy began singing, imitating Jimmy Durante shaking his head and singing Inka Dinka Do. Everybody in the family liked Jimmy Durante. Billy watched him every time he was on Colgate Comedy Hour (though he usually hoped for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.) Jimmy Durante always did a big number at the end with his friend Eddie who wore a big top hat, when they marched all around the stage, waving their hats. Then at the very end Jimmy put on his rain coat and hat and said, "Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are," and walked away through pools of light. Billy wondered if he ever would say who Mrs. Calabash was. He didn't want to miss that.
When they laughed he tried to roll his eyes all around like Eddie Cantor. Kathy looked at him for awhile but turned away. He started singing to her like Vaughn Monroe. He did it by putting his tongue at the roof of his mouth way in back. "Silly Billy," mummy said, smiling.
They were all waiting for Aunt Toni to call from Maryland, so when the phone rang the game stopped and pup pup turned down the radio. Everybody took turns talking to Ant Toni, though not for very long because it was long distance and cost a lot of money. Billy tried to imagine how far away Maryland was. He got a turn to talk to Aunt Toni and to Dickie. He told Dickie about going down past the railroad tracks and Dickie said he wanted to do that when they came up in the summer. They were just getting used to talking on the telephone when Billy had to get off.
It was getting dark when they were all in the living room. First Billy bounced on pup pups knee, pretending he was Hopalong Que ce dice going after bad guys. Grandma had Kathy on her lap, playing patty-cake. Then they switched, and Billy and grandma sang:
ting a ting un violino
pling a pling un mandolino
toot toot toot la saxaphona
tippety tippety top!
But when Billy played the drum he got for Christmas, daddy told him to stop. “That’s enough now,” he said. But Billy looked around and nobody else got mad, so he stopped for awhile and then started playing it again. Nothing happened so he kept playing, and this time daddy really yelled. “I told you stop that now!” Billy started to cry. His father got even more mad. “Stop that or I’ll give you something to cry about!” he shouted.
Billy ran upstairs and lay down on the bed in the middle room and cried. Later he went back downstairs and stood out in the hall. Grandma saw him and told him he could go sit at the desk if he wanted, and later pup pup would get out the viewmaster. He nodded solemnly and went to the desk next to the living room windows. He turned on the desk lamp. The desk was very shiny and clean, not like the rough, banged up desk at home. He usually wasn’t allowed to sit there or ever to play there because it was good furniture. But he could sometimes if he was careful. Grandma gave him some paper and a pencil and he sat drawing for awhile. He drew a man standing on the ground, with the sun above him, and a house behind him. He drew a tree and a bird in it. Trees were where birds live. Maybe the bird was a robin. They were called robin red-breast in the Book House books, but really they were orange.
Then pup pup got out the viewmaster. It was black and heavy, but not too heavy for Billy to hold up to his face by himself. Pup pup put one of the white flat circles into it and Billy put his eyes to the two places to look, and when his eyes got used to it he could see a color picture of mountains. He pushed the clicker and another picture came on.
By the time grandma’s rosary came on the radio, Billy was very tired. When it was over, he lay down on the sofa. Just then the doorbell rang, and a big man in black came in. It took a minute for him to recognize Father Derrick.
“Flora, Merry Christmas,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here, but I was up at Holy Cross today--one of their priests went home to see his parents and I was filling in. So I thought I’d stop, but I got held up until now. How’s Walt? How are the children?”
They talked some more and then suddenly Father Derrick was in the living room. He looked huge standing above him. Billy didn’t know what to say, so he answered Father Derrick’s questions very quietly. He was just starting to get interested when he felt a big hand on his head and saw that Father Derrick was saying a prayer and making the sign of the cross over him with his other hand. Then he squeezed his shoulder hard, and he was gone, into the dining room.
Billy dozed until mummy told him quietly they were going home and to get his coat on. Daddy had already put all his presents in the truck. He kissed grandma and pup pup goodbye and said thank you. They hugged him and said Merry Christmas once more.
The truck was cold but he could lay down in the back, and the thrum of the engine put him to sleep again. He awoke once and for a second he didn’t know where he was. He was confused and a little mad but then he realized he was on his way home, and soon they would walk up the steps in the cold night, he would get ready for bed, his mother would kiss him goodnight, and nothing else would happen, he would be asleep in his bed in his room in his home.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
On Jane Day
It's Jane Austen's birthday. We recently saw two of the Austen-themed movies on DVD. Becoming Jane was ostensibly about Austen, puffing up what biographers consider a brief acquaintance into a major love affair. Apart from that, it was somewhat true to Austen's life. We see her madly writing Pride and Prejudice in response to this affair. Though she didn't publish Pride and Prejudice first, she probably wrote the first version of that novel before the first version of her first publication, Sense and Sensibility. She did not write under her own name, and so her identity was unknown to her reading public until after her death. Her family was larger than in the film--in fact, her older brothers helped support her. Though she made some money from her books, it was not enough to make her financially independent.
The movie itself is well done, lush to look at, and despite the fairly predictable romance, it was well written, acted and shot. The Jane of the film was interesting, and her process as a writer was better than the usually embarrassing idea of how a writer writes in films, especially biographies. But it wasn't Jane Austen, and in the end it seemed fairly forgettable. The special features of the DVD are ok, though the Austen bio is mediocre.
So having seen this, I suppose I didn't have particularly high hopes for The Jane Austen Book Club, which had the air of gimmickry in its contemporary story of what I assumed would be those madcap mismatched people and their romantic lives, linked by the slender thread of being fans of Austen. So this film surprised me, and even beyond the pleasant surprise, I really admire in particular the work of Robin Swicord, a veteran screenwriter whose adaptation of the book by Karen Joy Fowler was deft, creative and inspired--and she also directed the film (her first) with great sense and sensibility.
In matching the stories of the characters to Austen novels in often subtle ways, she managed to be truer to Jane than Becoming Jane was. The acting in this ensemble movie was terrific, so together with the writing the characters were absorbing and dimensional. The tone was Austenly austere--dramatic but not over the top, romantic ditto--with bits of Jane's wit and social satire.
The DVD extras were also generous and excellent, including a far better Austen bio. So if you're in the mood to celebrate Jane, I'd choose to see The Jane Austen Book Club over Becoming Jane. Particularly since the Book Club movie is more likely to send you back to Jane's books.
It's Jane Austen's birthday. We recently saw two of the Austen-themed movies on DVD. Becoming Jane was ostensibly about Austen, puffing up what biographers consider a brief acquaintance into a major love affair. Apart from that, it was somewhat true to Austen's life. We see her madly writing Pride and Prejudice in response to this affair. Though she didn't publish Pride and Prejudice first, she probably wrote the first version of that novel before the first version of her first publication, Sense and Sensibility. She did not write under her own name, and so her identity was unknown to her reading public until after her death. Her family was larger than in the film--in fact, her older brothers helped support her. Though she made some money from her books, it was not enough to make her financially independent.
The movie itself is well done, lush to look at, and despite the fairly predictable romance, it was well written, acted and shot. The Jane of the film was interesting, and her process as a writer was better than the usually embarrassing idea of how a writer writes in films, especially biographies. But it wasn't Jane Austen, and in the end it seemed fairly forgettable. The special features of the DVD are ok, though the Austen bio is mediocre.
So having seen this, I suppose I didn't have particularly high hopes for The Jane Austen Book Club, which had the air of gimmickry in its contemporary story of what I assumed would be those madcap mismatched people and their romantic lives, linked by the slender thread of being fans of Austen. So this film surprised me, and even beyond the pleasant surprise, I really admire in particular the work of Robin Swicord, a veteran screenwriter whose adaptation of the book by Karen Joy Fowler was deft, creative and inspired--and she also directed the film (her first) with great sense and sensibility.
In matching the stories of the characters to Austen novels in often subtle ways, she managed to be truer to Jane than Becoming Jane was. The acting in this ensemble movie was terrific, so together with the writing the characters were absorbing and dimensional. The tone was Austenly austere--dramatic but not over the top, romantic ditto--with bits of Jane's wit and social satire.
The DVD extras were also generous and excellent, including a far better Austen bio. So if you're in the mood to celebrate Jane, I'd choose to see The Jane Austen Book Club over Becoming Jane. Particularly since the Book Club movie is more likely to send you back to Jane's books.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Pema's Progress
My last Pema update was nearly two years ago, and I said that our previously semi-feral cat was near to discovering laps-- optimistically, as it turned out. Because she only became clear on the concept within the last couple of months. And of course, she now owns it.
I think it may have happened because we got rid of our old couch before we got a new one, and substituted two chairs for the ritual evening DVD/recorded TV show hour. Suddenly she had nowhere to sit. She was comfortable sitting behind Margaret on her chair at the kitchen table, but that didn't work in the living room. So that's probably what led to Pema's discovery of the lap.
First Margaret's, then mine. She favors mine at the moment, probably because it's easier for her to jump up to and jump down from my chair, and because Margaret is often knitting, while my hands are free to be dedicated solely to Pema. Though it took her three years to discover laps, I now barely am seated before she jumps up on mine.
Pema goes outside and has learned her circumscribed permissible area--mostly where she's visible from the back door. She's a bit more curious about other people when they're in the house, though she tends to reconnoiter quickly before retreating to her safety zone. Otherwise, she's retained some curious ways. She still won't drink water, except as part of a soupy mixture with soft catfood. And when her soup dish is picked up for filling, she still goes out of the kitchen and sits under the dining room table (she is never fed anywhere near there) for reasons still mysterious to my poor human intelligence.
The next step is for Pema to get comfortable being picked up. She's a little more relaxed about it now, but she still won't allow herself to be held. Tess didn't like it much either, except by me: she liked to rub her head on my beard. I don't know about Pema. Maybe by next Christmas.
My last Pema update was nearly two years ago, and I said that our previously semi-feral cat was near to discovering laps-- optimistically, as it turned out. Because she only became clear on the concept within the last couple of months. And of course, she now owns it.
I think it may have happened because we got rid of our old couch before we got a new one, and substituted two chairs for the ritual evening DVD/recorded TV show hour. Suddenly she had nowhere to sit. She was comfortable sitting behind Margaret on her chair at the kitchen table, but that didn't work in the living room. So that's probably what led to Pema's discovery of the lap.
First Margaret's, then mine. She favors mine at the moment, probably because it's easier for her to jump up to and jump down from my chair, and because Margaret is often knitting, while my hands are free to be dedicated solely to Pema. Though it took her three years to discover laps, I now barely am seated before she jumps up on mine.
Pema goes outside and has learned her circumscribed permissible area--mostly where she's visible from the back door. She's a bit more curious about other people when they're in the house, though she tends to reconnoiter quickly before retreating to her safety zone. Otherwise, she's retained some curious ways. She still won't drink water, except as part of a soupy mixture with soft catfood. And when her soup dish is picked up for filling, she still goes out of the kitchen and sits under the dining room table (she is never fed anywhere near there) for reasons still mysterious to my poor human intelligence.
The next step is for Pema to get comfortable being picked up. She's a little more relaxed about it now, but she still won't allow herself to be held. Tess didn't like it much either, except by me: she liked to rub her head on my beard. I don't know about Pema. Maybe by next Christmas.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
So far, so good: in their first big test of these final five games, the Pittsburgh Steelers used opportunistic defense and offense to dominate the New England Patriots, 33-10 at Foxboro. Considering that the Patriots have routinely dashed the Steelers' playoff hopes in past year, this one was especially sweet. The Steelers stay atop their division at 9-3, while the Patriots may have lost their playoff chances.
Update: The second test, passed. Down by 10 points with 7 minutes to go at a frigid, windy Heinz Field, the Steelers engineered two drives and an interception and defensive touchdown to shock the Dallas Cowboys (and there's no team I enjoy defeating more), 20-13.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Steeler Update
Despite injuries to key personnel, a sub-par year for (injured) quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, and a schedule that is acknowledged to be the toughest for any team in the NFL this year, the 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers are currently 8-3 and leading their division.
I pause to note this now, because this could be the high point of their season. The toughest part of that tough schedule is coming up, and it is conceivable that they will win only one of their remaining 5 games. They play New England on Sunday, followed by Dallas the following week--two talented teams that looked beatable earlier in the season, but are coming off their most impressive performances. Then Baltimore, their division rival that always plays them tough, and Tennessee, which has lost only one game. Even their last game with Cleveland is not a total lock, given the inconsistency of the Steelers offense this year.
Of course, they could very well win 3 of those games, and possibly all five. They have the top rated defense in the NFL, and if key personnel stay healthy (which was a problem last season), they can keep games close. The offense is a bigger problem. Injuries to offensive line players, running back Willie Parker and the nagging shoulder injury to Big Ben, make the offense truly unpredictable. Ben and other skill players (including back-ups in newly prominent roles) can make brilliant plays, but it's hard to count too much on improvization.
The coaching has also been inconsistent this year: seemingly brilliant at times, and pretty bad at others (the loss to the Philadelphia Eagles the most obvious case in point.)
The Steelers were inconsistent in their 05 Super Bowl season as well, until they got healthy at the end of that season, just in time for their incredible post-season. That seems unlikely this year, but they do appear to be a better team than last year, and if they can win their division, anything can happen.
As for my sportitude, I find myself less patient with the aggravations of broadcast games--the inconsistent officiating, as well as the frequent and long commercial breaks--and the injuries impinge more and more on the game. So I've mostly recorded the games, read the accounts so I could isolate the parts of the games I want to see, and I watch those. I haven't watched a game live all season, though I've kept up with the score via computer. I will say in my own defense as a fan, most of the games have been pretty ugly. Steeler defense can be fun to watch, but that can turn grim if the offense isn't clicking.
So to sum it up: the Steelers could still end up with a mediocre record, but they have enough potential and proven ability that, with some luck, they could go all the way.
Despite injuries to key personnel, a sub-par year for (injured) quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, and a schedule that is acknowledged to be the toughest for any team in the NFL this year, the 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers are currently 8-3 and leading their division.
I pause to note this now, because this could be the high point of their season. The toughest part of that tough schedule is coming up, and it is conceivable that they will win only one of their remaining 5 games. They play New England on Sunday, followed by Dallas the following week--two talented teams that looked beatable earlier in the season, but are coming off their most impressive performances. Then Baltimore, their division rival that always plays them tough, and Tennessee, which has lost only one game. Even their last game with Cleveland is not a total lock, given the inconsistency of the Steelers offense this year.
Of course, they could very well win 3 of those games, and possibly all five. They have the top rated defense in the NFL, and if key personnel stay healthy (which was a problem last season), they can keep games close. The offense is a bigger problem. Injuries to offensive line players, running back Willie Parker and the nagging shoulder injury to Big Ben, make the offense truly unpredictable. Ben and other skill players (including back-ups in newly prominent roles) can make brilliant plays, but it's hard to count too much on improvization.
The coaching has also been inconsistent this year: seemingly brilliant at times, and pretty bad at others (the loss to the Philadelphia Eagles the most obvious case in point.)
The Steelers were inconsistent in their 05 Super Bowl season as well, until they got healthy at the end of that season, just in time for their incredible post-season. That seems unlikely this year, but they do appear to be a better team than last year, and if they can win their division, anything can happen.
As for my sportitude, I find myself less patient with the aggravations of broadcast games--the inconsistent officiating, as well as the frequent and long commercial breaks--and the injuries impinge more and more on the game. So I've mostly recorded the games, read the accounts so I could isolate the parts of the games I want to see, and I watch those. I haven't watched a game live all season, though I've kept up with the score via computer. I will say in my own defense as a fan, most of the games have been pretty ugly. Steeler defense can be fun to watch, but that can turn grim if the offense isn't clicking.
So to sum it up: the Steelers could still end up with a mediocre record, but they have enough potential and proven ability that, with some luck, they could go all the way.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Math Misapplication
I'm not exactly a math whiz. I can still remember the day in grade school when I looked up at the long division examples strung out in a display above the blackboard, and I realized this was a language that was rapidly getting beyond me. So that's my disclaimer, and take the rest of this for what it's worth.
Math likely began as a way to describe and use elements of the real world. This remains its justification to most people. But mathematics is at bottom a closed world. It deals mostly with its own assumptions, its axioms, and with its own procedures. (I wish I could remember how I did it, but in high school I proved, by using mathematical logic, that mathematical logic is illogical. Or at least absurdly circular.)
We see the perils of too much faith in math as description of the real world in today's economic meltdown. The economic theories emerging from the University of Chicago and likeminded academies were politically potent, but they became dominant at least within the field through irrefutable mathematical formulas and proofs.
Even before the real world proved them wrong, economics was slowly being influenced by psychology--slowly, painfully and awkwardly, since these gently suggested insights are elementary and simplistic compared to common knowledge and especially to what advertising and marketing has been doing for decades to functionally if somewhat accidentally support these economic theories in the real world.
These theories were deified partly because they advantaged the already advantaged, possessed by greed for wealth and power. They became the handy instrument of the Shock Doctrine. But they attained academic preeminence through math proofs. Math proved they were right. The real world--as well as common sense--proved they are wrong. And now, tragically wrong.
There are some--including author Sheilla Jones in the opening chapter of her book, The Quantum Ten (Oxford)--who fear that physics is also falling into the trap of relying too much on formal, abstract mathematics, and not enough on real world proofs.
In any case, it's a caution, and maybe something useful to throw back in the face of those who believe that literature, philosophy etc. are self-referential unrealistic dreaming, and only math and science tell us about the real world.
I'm not exactly a math whiz. I can still remember the day in grade school when I looked up at the long division examples strung out in a display above the blackboard, and I realized this was a language that was rapidly getting beyond me. So that's my disclaimer, and take the rest of this for what it's worth.
Math likely began as a way to describe and use elements of the real world. This remains its justification to most people. But mathematics is at bottom a closed world. It deals mostly with its own assumptions, its axioms, and with its own procedures. (I wish I could remember how I did it, but in high school I proved, by using mathematical logic, that mathematical logic is illogical. Or at least absurdly circular.)
We see the perils of too much faith in math as description of the real world in today's economic meltdown. The economic theories emerging from the University of Chicago and likeminded academies were politically potent, but they became dominant at least within the field through irrefutable mathematical formulas and proofs.
Even before the real world proved them wrong, economics was slowly being influenced by psychology--slowly, painfully and awkwardly, since these gently suggested insights are elementary and simplistic compared to common knowledge and especially to what advertising and marketing has been doing for decades to functionally if somewhat accidentally support these economic theories in the real world.
These theories were deified partly because they advantaged the already advantaged, possessed by greed for wealth and power. They became the handy instrument of the Shock Doctrine. But they attained academic preeminence through math proofs. Math proved they were right. The real world--as well as common sense--proved they are wrong. And now, tragically wrong.
There are some--including author Sheilla Jones in the opening chapter of her book, The Quantum Ten (Oxford)--who fear that physics is also falling into the trap of relying too much on formal, abstract mathematics, and not enough on real world proofs.
In any case, it's a caution, and maybe something useful to throw back in the face of those who believe that literature, philosophy etc. are self-referential unrealistic dreaming, and only math and science tell us about the real world.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Still a Mystery
In 1967-68, I was the go-between on my campus for an experimental film series. Compilations of films were sent from Hollywood or somewhere, and I booked the room, put up the posters and, not incidentally, saw all the films.
They were short films, probably a lot of student work. As I recall, there was a lot of trippy animation and even trippier live action films, all very psychedelic. There was one short film in the first bunch, a narrative so straight that it was almost embarrassing. But it had charm, reality, and a line that I loved and still remember. It was about a guy hitch-hiking.
Several years ago I read something about Steven Spielberg, that he made his first film in 1968, called "Amblin'," which is also the name of his film company, and that it was a short film about a hitch-hiker. So I immediately thought of those experimental film packages and that one short film I remembered.
But "Amblin'" was unavailable, at least where I happened to be. (In Cambridge years ago, I actually saw director Brian DePalma's student film projected on a barroom wall--it was this weird combination of Godzilla and Beowulf done with like clay models.) I hoped I'd run into it sometime, or at least someone who'd seen it.
I was lamenting this the other day when I suddenly realized: oh yeah, YouTube. Sure enough, there it was, all 25 minutes of it. Not a great transfer, and really, not a great film. I was glad to see that Speilberg's youthful insecurities and neuroses were as obvious as mine probably were in my "art" of the period. He was probably more honest about his relationship to the counterculture than I was.
Anyway, big disappointment: it's not the same film. "Amblin" is about this sort of Paul Simon lookalike shy neurotic, hitching with this willowy very 60s and very English looking beautiful young wish fulfillment hippie chick. And it was kind of trippy, in a hey hey we're the Monkees kind of way.
But the movie I remember was about a guy (not particularly freaky in the long-hair sort of way) hitching, who is picked up by a beautiful young woman in like a sports car, and they spend the night in a romantic cabin, or anyway, I remember a fireplace. But when he wakes up in the morning, she's gone. And the last shot is of him sitting on a hillside, looking down at the highway.
Here's the line I remember. She asks him more or less what he wants to do with his life. He doesn't know, but he confesses, "I'd like to be a Beatle."
Well, of course. That's exactly what I wanted to be--what we all wanted to be! In 1967-68, absolutely!
So now I'm disappointed that I wasn't one of the first to spot Speilberg's genius, or even that I now knew that he made this movie and I could see it again, to see how it matches up with my recollection.
And it leaves me with the mystery: who did make this movie? What's it called? Is it on YouTube?
In 1967-68, I was the go-between on my campus for an experimental film series. Compilations of films were sent from Hollywood or somewhere, and I booked the room, put up the posters and, not incidentally, saw all the films.
They were short films, probably a lot of student work. As I recall, there was a lot of trippy animation and even trippier live action films, all very psychedelic. There was one short film in the first bunch, a narrative so straight that it was almost embarrassing. But it had charm, reality, and a line that I loved and still remember. It was about a guy hitch-hiking.
Several years ago I read something about Steven Spielberg, that he made his first film in 1968, called "Amblin'," which is also the name of his film company, and that it was a short film about a hitch-hiker. So I immediately thought of those experimental film packages and that one short film I remembered.
But "Amblin'" was unavailable, at least where I happened to be. (In Cambridge years ago, I actually saw director Brian DePalma's student film projected on a barroom wall--it was this weird combination of Godzilla and Beowulf done with like clay models.) I hoped I'd run into it sometime, or at least someone who'd seen it.
I was lamenting this the other day when I suddenly realized: oh yeah, YouTube. Sure enough, there it was, all 25 minutes of it. Not a great transfer, and really, not a great film. I was glad to see that Speilberg's youthful insecurities and neuroses were as obvious as mine probably were in my "art" of the period. He was probably more honest about his relationship to the counterculture than I was.
Anyway, big disappointment: it's not the same film. "Amblin" is about this sort of Paul Simon lookalike shy neurotic, hitching with this willowy very 60s and very English looking beautiful young wish fulfillment hippie chick. And it was kind of trippy, in a hey hey we're the Monkees kind of way.
But the movie I remember was about a guy (not particularly freaky in the long-hair sort of way) hitching, who is picked up by a beautiful young woman in like a sports car, and they spend the night in a romantic cabin, or anyway, I remember a fireplace. But when he wakes up in the morning, she's gone. And the last shot is of him sitting on a hillside, looking down at the highway.
Here's the line I remember. She asks him more or less what he wants to do with his life. He doesn't know, but he confesses, "I'd like to be a Beatle."
Well, of course. That's exactly what I wanted to be--what we all wanted to be! In 1967-68, absolutely!
So now I'm disappointed that I wasn't one of the first to spot Speilberg's genius, or even that I now knew that he made this movie and I could see it again, to see how it matches up with my recollection.
And it leaves me with the mystery: who did make this movie? What's it called? Is it on YouTube?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Mad Men
I'd seen ads for the AMC series Mad Men, but missed the first few, so I gave up trying to follow it. Too bad, because we enjoyed their previous original series, Remember WENN (about a fictional early-- Pittsburgh radio station; in fact, Pittsburgh had one of the first radio stations and a couple of the first TV stations in the country.) That was back in the days before AMC started running commercials, which is when I stopped watching its movies.
Ironically of course, Mad Men is about advertising. Now we're watching the first season on the commercial-free DVDs. All I knew about it was that it was set in 1960, and prided itself on fanatical attention to period detail, right down to not having a child play with an etch-a-sketch, because the episode was set just months before that toy was introduced.
Well, we've seen a half dozen episodes, and we like it: the writing and acting, and much of the period stuff. Although from our perspective now it doesn't seem possible that people could smoke so much, but, well, we probably did. (Not me in 1960 exactly--I was 14-- but later in the 60s.)
But I have found some period details that are wrong. I remember most of the clothes and furnishings, but I couldn't really tell you when they changed (except hats for men--they would disappear in January 1961, with JFK, and astoundingly, never appear again as standard attire .) But some of the music seems off. It's possible that they were dancing to Chubby Checker's version of The Twist in the spring of 1960, although it didn't really become a big hit until August, after the Democratic convention that nominated JFK. The timing in the show is a little ambiguous. But it's close. Still, some songs on the sound track seemed premature.
What isn't close however, is a reference to the term, "the medium is the message." That was from Marshall McLuhan, and it wouldn't become part of the national argot for five whole years. (To be fair, McLuhan did publish the phrase in a journal in 1960. But it didn't become widely known until after his book Understanding Media was published in 1964--really not until 1965 and 66.)
But nice try, Mad Men.
I'd seen ads for the AMC series Mad Men, but missed the first few, so I gave up trying to follow it. Too bad, because we enjoyed their previous original series, Remember WENN (about a fictional early-- Pittsburgh radio station; in fact, Pittsburgh had one of the first radio stations and a couple of the first TV stations in the country.) That was back in the days before AMC started running commercials, which is when I stopped watching its movies.
Ironically of course, Mad Men is about advertising. Now we're watching the first season on the commercial-free DVDs. All I knew about it was that it was set in 1960, and prided itself on fanatical attention to period detail, right down to not having a child play with an etch-a-sketch, because the episode was set just months before that toy was introduced.
Well, we've seen a half dozen episodes, and we like it: the writing and acting, and much of the period stuff. Although from our perspective now it doesn't seem possible that people could smoke so much, but, well, we probably did. (Not me in 1960 exactly--I was 14-- but later in the 60s.)
But I have found some period details that are wrong. I remember most of the clothes and furnishings, but I couldn't really tell you when they changed (except hats for men--they would disappear in January 1961, with JFK, and astoundingly, never appear again as standard attire .) But some of the music seems off. It's possible that they were dancing to Chubby Checker's version of The Twist in the spring of 1960, although it didn't really become a big hit until August, after the Democratic convention that nominated JFK. The timing in the show is a little ambiguous. But it's close. Still, some songs on the sound track seemed premature.
What isn't close however, is a reference to the term, "the medium is the message." That was from Marshall McLuhan, and it wouldn't become part of the national argot for five whole years. (To be fair, McLuhan did publish the phrase in a journal in 1960. But it didn't become widely known until after his book Understanding Media was published in 1964--really not until 1965 and 66.)
But nice try, Mad Men.
Friday, July 25, 2008
R.I.P. Valjean
I mentioned her to someone earlier today, so tonight it occurred to me to check the blog she started when she was diagnosed with lung cancer last December. The last time I checked, she had successfully completed her final round of treatments.
But it turns out that earlier today, her ashes were buried in Chicago. Valerie Jean McLenighan died on July 9. She was 60. Fortunately, she had more devoted friends than I who took very good care of her since her diagnosis.
The photo of her above was taken in Mexico this spring. It's not entirely clear, but it seems things started to get worse upon her return, perhaps on the trip itself. But that photo is how I will remember her.
I hadn't seen her for something like 35 years. We knew each other in college, and then saw each other when we were both in graduate school at the University of Iowa. I don't recall how we got back in touch in the late 80s or early 90s--it was probably at her instigation. She was reconnecting with Knox classmates, urging people to attend the next reunion. We talked on the phone a bunch of times (she did attend that reunion, and told me about it), from when I lived in Pittsburgh to after I moved to California. She almost visited here when she was in San Francisco, but it never worked out. We also emailed, and in one of hers, just before the Democratic Convention in 2004, she told me to watch the speech by a state legislator named Barack Obama, because he was something special.
I have a number of specific memories of Valjean. But at the moment I can't write about them. I'm just grateful that she had good medical care and lots of loving care from her friends. Her engagement with people was amazing--she was so much more outgoing than I ever was, and yet she had such a deep internal life. And I guess I'm a little daunted, too. I expect my death will be a good deal lonelier.
Valjean was a practicing Buddhist, and there will be a memorial service for her at her Zen Center this Sunday. But in August, there will also be a Mass for her, and a memorial in Chicago being organized by her friends. If there are others from Knox checking in here who didn't know about this and are interested in the memorial, information will be posted on her blog.
On the day she died, a friend of hers named Steve McCabe posted a poem by Wallace Stevens he said was one of her favorites. It means a lot to me, too--there's a copy of it just a few feet away. Valjean and I were in a class together, taught by Doug Wilson, on the poetry of Walt Whitman and Wallace Stevens. So we came to this poem together:
Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour
Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.
Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one...
How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Seventh Inning Stretch
Apart from these personal reflections (below) on my birth and that year, I feel an urgency that given my status in life is faintly embarrassing. Although nobody else seems to care one way or another whether I accomplish anything more, or leave anything behind, it matters a great deal to me.
I want to make something of my past, so that it survives for those who may not be all that interested at the moment, and may never be interested, but at least they'll have the evidence, the opportunity.
But also, I want to contribute to the future.
Since no one is expecting anything from me really--any more writing, other than press releases and reviews of other peoples' creations, or anything in any other form I've worked in over the years--it seems quixotic, if not pathetic.
But apparently I'm not alone. Here are a few quotes I've lifted from a recent web column by Patricia Zohn. She writes mostly about women she knows (these are my emphases and edits):
"The Boomer women are the most ambitious of my acquaintance. They are working harder than anyone else, desperate, it seems, to claim a place for themselves, aspirational to an unimaginable degree, as if they had spent so much time serving (children, husbands, politics, being the best, ideals of one sort or another) that a new kind of ticking clock has emerged, one about leaving your mark on the world and not just your genetic material in the form of offspring. ."
She concludes: "And by the way, it's not just women: a good friend, male, who used to run publishing companies and is now a best-selling author says it's because we are all finally having our moment. "
Now I've got a lot of caveats about Zohn's point of view, and her social milieu is miles from mine. There is an undeniably personal quality to this urgency, but it can't be dismissed as simply egotistical anxiety. There is something about meaning in all this, as well as about making a big noise before the big sleep.
I saw Lewis Black (comic and author, best known perhaps for appearances on the Daily Show) on some TV program about self-centered Boomers, and while he admitted that the Boomer generation accomplished a lot less than we hoped or thought we would in the 60s, that we still have some time to pull it together. He said it's the seventh inning stretch, and we can still win it in the late innings--but it's going to take concentrated effort.
That's how I feel about it, even as the time goes winging by without my urgency being reflected in my day, and certainly not in the eyes of others. But the urge is there, and this is the defining task.
I'm especially conscious of how quickly my current level of strength can turn into real old age by a serious illness or injury--not to mention the impossibility of paying for it. Still, I suppose I'm fortunate in one respect. It doesn't take much in the way of resources--like money or the belief of others--to write things down. To tell a story or two.
Apart from these personal reflections (below) on my birth and that year, I feel an urgency that given my status in life is faintly embarrassing. Although nobody else seems to care one way or another whether I accomplish anything more, or leave anything behind, it matters a great deal to me.
I want to make something of my past, so that it survives for those who may not be all that interested at the moment, and may never be interested, but at least they'll have the evidence, the opportunity.
But also, I want to contribute to the future.
Since no one is expecting anything from me really--any more writing, other than press releases and reviews of other peoples' creations, or anything in any other form I've worked in over the years--it seems quixotic, if not pathetic.
But apparently I'm not alone. Here are a few quotes I've lifted from a recent web column by Patricia Zohn. She writes mostly about women she knows (these are my emphases and edits):
"The Boomer women are the most ambitious of my acquaintance. They are working harder than anyone else, desperate, it seems, to claim a place for themselves, aspirational to an unimaginable degree, as if they had spent so much time serving (children, husbands, politics, being the best, ideals of one sort or another) that a new kind of ticking clock has emerged, one about leaving your mark on the world and not just your genetic material in the form of offspring. ."
She concludes: "And by the way, it's not just women: a good friend, male, who used to run publishing companies and is now a best-selling author says it's because we are all finally having our moment. "
Now I've got a lot of caveats about Zohn's point of view, and her social milieu is miles from mine. There is an undeniably personal quality to this urgency, but it can't be dismissed as simply egotistical anxiety. There is something about meaning in all this, as well as about making a big noise before the big sleep.
I saw Lewis Black (comic and author, best known perhaps for appearances on the Daily Show) on some TV program about self-centered Boomers, and while he admitted that the Boomer generation accomplished a lot less than we hoped or thought we would in the 60s, that we still have some time to pull it together. He said it's the seventh inning stretch, and we can still win it in the late innings--but it's going to take concentrated effort.
That's how I feel about it, even as the time goes winging by without my urgency being reflected in my day, and certainly not in the eyes of others. But the urge is there, and this is the defining task.
I'm especially conscious of how quickly my current level of strength can turn into real old age by a serious illness or injury--not to mention the impossibility of paying for it. Still, I suppose I'm fortunate in one respect. It doesn't take much in the way of resources--like money or the belief of others--to write things down. To tell a story or two.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Birth Day
I was born into a much different America on this date in 1946. There were half as many people in it, and these days it seems they were also about half the size of people today. Since I was the first born of my generation on both sides of the family, there were a lot of relatives who came to see me. My grandfather Severini was just 53, and he had survived poison gas in World War I in Italy. If there was anyone who was 85 year old among my visitors, that person would have been an toddler when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
1946 was a miserable year in Europe, but a good one and a hopeful one in the United States. I was born less than a year after Hiroshima, and there was still an international consensus--including the U.S. government and U.S. military--that atomic weapons would have to be banned. A couple of weeks before I was born, the United Nations Commission on Atomic Energy met for the first time, and discussed proposals for international control of atomic energy put forward by the U.S. and by the Soviet Union. Even two years later, U.S. General Omar Bradley would observe, "The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."
That hope probably died the day I was born--with the first big postwar atomic bomb tests in the Pacific, called Crossroads. And indeed it was the crossroads. America and the Soviet Union would pursue nuclear supremacy, and soon Omar Bradley would be lobbying for the U.S. to develop the hydrogen bomb. The world has been living on borrowed time ever since, though that was much more a part of conscious life, and the national unconscious erupting into sudden panics and bug-eyed monster movies, when I was a child, adolescent, student.
As for my personal history, it seems I almost did not live beyond my first week after my birth on that Sunday afternoon. Some ten or so years ago, when I first researched what might have been wrong based on the few clues I'd had over the years, there wasn't a whole lot readily available. Now there's so much more on the Internet. And I found a book in the university library entirely devoted to the research on what came to be known by various names, most simply as Rh Disease.
This disease generally occurs when the mother has Rh negative blood, and the father Rh positive. (The - and + after the ABO blood types indicate this separate Rh Factor.) The cause is somewhat complicated. If the mother has been exposed to Rh positive blood, through a transfusion or a prior childbirth, her blood may develop antibodies to fight off Rh. If a subsequent child is Rh positive, these antibodies may then attack his or her blood.
The result is often catastrophic. Some die in the womb or are stillborn. This may have been a major cause of stillbirths for centuries--Hippocrates mentions something like this disease. But it can attack after birth as well, usually within hours. I knew that babies die of this--some say up to 90%. What I didn't know was the effects some children who live may carry with them, which includes severe organ damage and severe brain damage.
I am missing quite a bit of specific information about my "case," including the mystery of why I was part of a very small minority of first-borns to have this affliction. But the family legend is very clear on one point: everyone was exclaiming on my appearance. My skin was golden. Only my grandmother understood that this meant something was wrong. The golden color is often the first sign of Rh Disease: it indicates jaundice. And things get worse from there.
I know that I received a blood transfusion. I know that the appropriate blood wasn't on hand, and my mother kept a list of names--I think there were six--of possible donors, including the one who donated the blood that was soon placed in my veins.
What I don't know is what kind of transfusion this was. Various kinds were tried for this disease over at least a decade, with limited success, but the most effective ones weren't developed until 1944 and 1945, even 1946. They were various methods of "exchange transfusions," in which nearly all the baby's blood is removed while new blood is dripped in. Standard transfusions had limited success; exchange transfusions were much more effective, and saved hundreds of thousands of lives before a preventive vaccine was developed in the mid 1960s.
Few people now even know of the existence of this disease. But it was once a very, very serious matter. It led to suggestions that Rh incompatible couples should not be permitted to have children. Various states introduced legislation that came close to this eugenics approach.
The research to find a vaccine led to many other innovations. Before this, there was no fetal medicine or fetal research. It was considered too invasive. The amniocentesis that's become standard for pregnant women today was developed as a direct result of Rh Disease research.
But it's especially striking to me that so much happened regarding this condition around the year of my birth. The Rh Factor itself had been discovered only in 1940. Blood Banks in general wouldn't be routinely testing for it until 1950. It is just barely possible that some form of exchange transfusion was being done by the end of June 1946 at the western Pennsylvania hospital where I was born. I hope to find out whether that's what I received. It could be that my case was mild enough to respond to a standard transfusion.
It's very rare for a first-born to have this, unless the mother had a transfusion with Rh positive blood earlier in her life. But it wasn't unknown, and the theory was that an even more rare trait of the father's blood was responsible, but these cases usually were comparatively mild. So I might not have been in such mortal danger.
I've pieced together enough to be pretty sure that I was transfused with Rh negative blood. It was probably done over three days. The only effect of the disease that's shown up so far is probably my one deaf ear. I don't know if this exactly qualifies as borrowed time. But it does seem that from the beginning my life was very much embedded in its time and place.
I was born into a much different America on this date in 1946. There were half as many people in it, and these days it seems they were also about half the size of people today. Since I was the first born of my generation on both sides of the family, there were a lot of relatives who came to see me. My grandfather Severini was just 53, and he had survived poison gas in World War I in Italy. If there was anyone who was 85 year old among my visitors, that person would have been an toddler when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
1946 was a miserable year in Europe, but a good one and a hopeful one in the United States. I was born less than a year after Hiroshima, and there was still an international consensus--including the U.S. government and U.S. military--that atomic weapons would have to be banned. A couple of weeks before I was born, the United Nations Commission on Atomic Energy met for the first time, and discussed proposals for international control of atomic energy put forward by the U.S. and by the Soviet Union. Even two years later, U.S. General Omar Bradley would observe, "The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."
That hope probably died the day I was born--with the first big postwar atomic bomb tests in the Pacific, called Crossroads. And indeed it was the crossroads. America and the Soviet Union would pursue nuclear supremacy, and soon Omar Bradley would be lobbying for the U.S. to develop the hydrogen bomb. The world has been living on borrowed time ever since, though that was much more a part of conscious life, and the national unconscious erupting into sudden panics and bug-eyed monster movies, when I was a child, adolescent, student.
As for my personal history, it seems I almost did not live beyond my first week after my birth on that Sunday afternoon. Some ten or so years ago, when I first researched what might have been wrong based on the few clues I'd had over the years, there wasn't a whole lot readily available. Now there's so much more on the Internet. And I found a book in the university library entirely devoted to the research on what came to be known by various names, most simply as Rh Disease.
This disease generally occurs when the mother has Rh negative blood, and the father Rh positive. (The - and + after the ABO blood types indicate this separate Rh Factor.) The cause is somewhat complicated. If the mother has been exposed to Rh positive blood, through a transfusion or a prior childbirth, her blood may develop antibodies to fight off Rh. If a subsequent child is Rh positive, these antibodies may then attack his or her blood.
The result is often catastrophic. Some die in the womb or are stillborn. This may have been a major cause of stillbirths for centuries--Hippocrates mentions something like this disease. But it can attack after birth as well, usually within hours. I knew that babies die of this--some say up to 90%. What I didn't know was the effects some children who live may carry with them, which includes severe organ damage and severe brain damage.
I am missing quite a bit of specific information about my "case," including the mystery of why I was part of a very small minority of first-borns to have this affliction. But the family legend is very clear on one point: everyone was exclaiming on my appearance. My skin was golden. Only my grandmother understood that this meant something was wrong. The golden color is often the first sign of Rh Disease: it indicates jaundice. And things get worse from there.
I know that I received a blood transfusion. I know that the appropriate blood wasn't on hand, and my mother kept a list of names--I think there were six--of possible donors, including the one who donated the blood that was soon placed in my veins.
What I don't know is what kind of transfusion this was. Various kinds were tried for this disease over at least a decade, with limited success, but the most effective ones weren't developed until 1944 and 1945, even 1946. They were various methods of "exchange transfusions," in which nearly all the baby's blood is removed while new blood is dripped in. Standard transfusions had limited success; exchange transfusions were much more effective, and saved hundreds of thousands of lives before a preventive vaccine was developed in the mid 1960s.
Few people now even know of the existence of this disease. But it was once a very, very serious matter. It led to suggestions that Rh incompatible couples should not be permitted to have children. Various states introduced legislation that came close to this eugenics approach.
The research to find a vaccine led to many other innovations. Before this, there was no fetal medicine or fetal research. It was considered too invasive. The amniocentesis that's become standard for pregnant women today was developed as a direct result of Rh Disease research.
But it's especially striking to me that so much happened regarding this condition around the year of my birth. The Rh Factor itself had been discovered only in 1940. Blood Banks in general wouldn't be routinely testing for it until 1950. It is just barely possible that some form of exchange transfusion was being done by the end of June 1946 at the western Pennsylvania hospital where I was born. I hope to find out whether that's what I received. It could be that my case was mild enough to respond to a standard transfusion.
It's very rare for a first-born to have this, unless the mother had a transfusion with Rh positive blood earlier in her life. But it wasn't unknown, and the theory was that an even more rare trait of the father's blood was responsible, but these cases usually were comparatively mild. So I might not have been in such mortal danger.
I've pieced together enough to be pretty sure that I was transfused with Rh negative blood. It was probably done over three days. The only effect of the disease that's shown up so far is probably my one deaf ear. I don't know if this exactly qualifies as borrowed time. But it does seem that from the beginning my life was very much embedded in its time and place.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Waters Rising
We were about an hour from Burlington, Iowa--the first photo, pictured today--and I went there a few times when I was a student at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Out of the five years I was in the area (there and at the U. of Iowa in Iowa City), I can recall going out to fill sandbags and so on during three springs.
That's sandbagging this week in Iowa City in the second photo, and part of the flooded U. campus in the third.
It was never this bad when I was in the area. I was a freshman at Knox stuck on campus during spring break when I went out with a few other students to help on some levees in the hot sun. A Red Cross truck came by with food and drink, and that's still one of the best meals of my life. Another year we sandbagged at Acquaca, after which we repaired to the Blue Parrot bar. Never anything like this. My thoughts are with those folks today.
Update 6/27: Flooding has been widespread and it continues. I remember being out there on the levee where we were told to fill up muskrat holes. I thought that was kind of silly. But not today--when a single muskrat hole in Winfield, Missouri led to a levee breach, and a town flooded.
We were about an hour from Burlington, Iowa--the first photo, pictured today--and I went there a few times when I was a student at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Out of the five years I was in the area (there and at the U. of Iowa in Iowa City), I can recall going out to fill sandbags and so on during three springs.
That's sandbagging this week in Iowa City in the second photo, and part of the flooded U. campus in the third.
It was never this bad when I was in the area. I was a freshman at Knox stuck on campus during spring break when I went out with a few other students to help on some levees in the hot sun. A Red Cross truck came by with food and drink, and that's still one of the best meals of my life. Another year we sandbagged at Acquaca, after which we repaired to the Blue Parrot bar. Never anything like this. My thoughts are with those folks today.Update 6/27: Flooding has been widespread and it continues. I remember being out there on the levee where we were told to fill up muskrat holes. I thought that was kind of silly. But not today--when a single muskrat hole in Winfield, Missouri led to a levee breach, and a town flooded.
Sports Update
Tiger Woods held off Rocco Mediate in a marathon U.S. Open. How Woods did it, while dealing with knee pain, for an extra 18 holes and then a sudden death hole, is quite an epic story. But so is Rocco, at least where I come from. He's from Latrobe, PA, about 10 miles from where I grew up, and where one of my sisters and her husband have pretty much always lived. Latrobe was also the hometown of golf legend Arnold Palmer (the Latrobe airport is named after him now) but though he's cultivated a western PA image, he's more of the Rolling Rock Country Club set than the Rolling Rock Beer plant guys. But a guy named Rocco Mediate, that's more like it. Rocco is 45, pretty old to be out on the tour, and he's made a life for himself playing golf, despite the fact that he rarely wins a tournament. This was his big, big chance. I suppose it satisfies some working class hero dynamic to come close, but not be the winner. But if he had won, that would be quite a story, too.
I've begun watching the Lakers again, who got into the finals with the Boston Celtics. I started watching NBA basketball in the first place when these two teams played each other in the finals just about every year, and the games were tape-delayed and shown late at night. Magic, Kareem, Bird. Some really great games. This year's Lakers looked good in the western semis and championship, but once again they aren't measuring up to an Eastern team that had less formidable competition and had a tougher time with it. The Lakers lost two in Boston, although they came back from 20 behind to almost win the second. They won the third at home, and had a huge lead early in the fourth, but Boston came back to win it, the biggest collapse in NBA history. They got a big lead in the fifth game (also at home) and almost lost that. In his postgame interview, Kobe said the cocky words about going to Boston and winning both games, but I could see he didn't believe it himself. LA has a good team but they're inexperienced, and for the Celtics Doc Rivers is a very good coach, with more seasoned players. I don't see this going past the sixth game.
Tiger Woods held off Rocco Mediate in a marathon U.S. Open. How Woods did it, while dealing with knee pain, for an extra 18 holes and then a sudden death hole, is quite an epic story. But so is Rocco, at least where I come from. He's from Latrobe, PA, about 10 miles from where I grew up, and where one of my sisters and her husband have pretty much always lived. Latrobe was also the hometown of golf legend Arnold Palmer (the Latrobe airport is named after him now) but though he's cultivated a western PA image, he's more of the Rolling Rock Country Club set than the Rolling Rock Beer plant guys. But a guy named Rocco Mediate, that's more like it. Rocco is 45, pretty old to be out on the tour, and he's made a life for himself playing golf, despite the fact that he rarely wins a tournament. This was his big, big chance. I suppose it satisfies some working class hero dynamic to come close, but not be the winner. But if he had won, that would be quite a story, too.
I've begun watching the Lakers again, who got into the finals with the Boston Celtics. I started watching NBA basketball in the first place when these two teams played each other in the finals just about every year, and the games were tape-delayed and shown late at night. Magic, Kareem, Bird. Some really great games. This year's Lakers looked good in the western semis and championship, but once again they aren't measuring up to an Eastern team that had less formidable competition and had a tougher time with it. The Lakers lost two in Boston, although they came back from 20 behind to almost win the second. They won the third at home, and had a huge lead early in the fourth, but Boston came back to win it, the biggest collapse in NBA history. They got a big lead in the fifth game (also at home) and almost lost that. In his postgame interview, Kobe said the cocky words about going to Boston and winning both games, but I could see he didn't believe it himself. LA has a good team but they're inexperienced, and for the Celtics Doc Rivers is a very good coach, with more seasoned players. I don't see this going past the sixth game.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Father
My father and I had a difficult and incomplete relationship. Now I'm in the decade of my life that was the last of his.
There are times that I am astonished by his life. He came from a coal patch, growing up in a company owned house. By then the coal was about played out there. He was young in the depths of the Depression, when people in such places were starving. The only story I know about him as a young man--which I heard as a child, told by his brothers around a card table with their wives, as well as my father and mother--had him driving somewhere, perhaps West Virginia, looking for work, sleeping in his car, washing his socks in a stream or maybe a gas station rest room, and hanging them on the car windows at night. The socks hanging from the car windows--that's the image that remains.
But he did join the Civil Conservation Corps, and several times during his life I remember him extolling the virtues of the CCC. He was also editor of a camp newspaper, something I don't remember him talking about--but I still have the mimeoed copy of one of these stapled-together, magazine- like periodicals.
He worked all his life, although from a few years after my youngest sister was born, my mother had to work as well, to support the family and our home. He lived long enough to have several grandchildren, although his relationship with them was as distant as it was with his children. Still--supporting a family, buying and maintaining a home, going to a job every day, children and grandchildren--I have done and had none of these. However grudging his support was at times, I always had a roof.
His final illness was ugly and humiliating. At the end he was in the condition of a crippled infant. Although ALS is not supposed to affect the mind, I think it diminished his substantially.
Not long after he died I saw him in a dream. His eyes were very blue. He was smiling; he glowed. He looked at me as if to say, this is the real me.
I remember times in life when his eyes looked almost as blue as that. Is the potential the real? Perhaps after death it is, or in dreams.
After his death, the corneas of his eyes were taken to be used by someone else. Now perhaps someone else in the world is looking out from my father's eyes.
My father and I had a difficult and incomplete relationship. Now I'm in the decade of my life that was the last of his.
There are times that I am astonished by his life. He came from a coal patch, growing up in a company owned house. By then the coal was about played out there. He was young in the depths of the Depression, when people in such places were starving. The only story I know about him as a young man--which I heard as a child, told by his brothers around a card table with their wives, as well as my father and mother--had him driving somewhere, perhaps West Virginia, looking for work, sleeping in his car, washing his socks in a stream or maybe a gas station rest room, and hanging them on the car windows at night. The socks hanging from the car windows--that's the image that remains.
But he did join the Civil Conservation Corps, and several times during his life I remember him extolling the virtues of the CCC. He was also editor of a camp newspaper, something I don't remember him talking about--but I still have the mimeoed copy of one of these stapled-together, magazine- like periodicals.
He worked all his life, although from a few years after my youngest sister was born, my mother had to work as well, to support the family and our home. He lived long enough to have several grandchildren, although his relationship with them was as distant as it was with his children. Still--supporting a family, buying and maintaining a home, going to a job every day, children and grandchildren--I have done and had none of these. However grudging his support was at times, I always had a roof.
His final illness was ugly and humiliating. At the end he was in the condition of a crippled infant. Although ALS is not supposed to affect the mind, I think it diminished his substantially.
Not long after he died I saw him in a dream. His eyes were very blue. He was smiling; he glowed. He looked at me as if to say, this is the real me.
I remember times in life when his eyes looked almost as blue as that. Is the potential the real? Perhaps after death it is, or in dreams.
After his death, the corneas of his eyes were taken to be used by someone else. Now perhaps someone else in the world is looking out from my father's eyes.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Origins
Why did human beings need religion? Most attempts to imagine origins of human behavior in pre-historic times are remarkably uninformed. People make suppositions based on imagining the thousands of years when we became human about on the level of a Flintstone cartoon.
I don't claim deep knowledge but thanks primarily to reading Paul Shepard I can do better than that. So my answers may be a little different. I surmise that our ancestors at the dawn of humanity had to find ways of dealing with these perplexing observations:
1. I who am alive will die. All living things die.
2. Beings live by the death of other beings, other living things. The animals we admire and learn from, the animals we fear and strike us with awe, we must kill in order to live.
3. In the human realm, people can be good, generous, honorable, just and reasonable. And people can be cruel, vicious, unjust, and their victims are often innocent.
These are basic problems of human existence. They are the more pressing and practical conundrums, although the cosmic questions may have also soon arisen: How did everything get here? Is there anything beyond what I can see? Is there knowledge that can reveal the truth of all this?
Dealing with these paradoxes can be seen as the root of human civilization as well as religion. How they both developed is another story. Perhaps with its root in primate behavior, both civilization and religion became centered on authority figures, on kings. But apart from gods and kings, dealing with these paradoxes is fundamental to human life and human civilization.
Why did human beings need religion? Most attempts to imagine origins of human behavior in pre-historic times are remarkably uninformed. People make suppositions based on imagining the thousands of years when we became human about on the level of a Flintstone cartoon.
I don't claim deep knowledge but thanks primarily to reading Paul Shepard I can do better than that. So my answers may be a little different. I surmise that our ancestors at the dawn of humanity had to find ways of dealing with these perplexing observations:
1. I who am alive will die. All living things die.
2. Beings live by the death of other beings, other living things. The animals we admire and learn from, the animals we fear and strike us with awe, we must kill in order to live.
3. In the human realm, people can be good, generous, honorable, just and reasonable. And people can be cruel, vicious, unjust, and their victims are often innocent.
These are basic problems of human existence. They are the more pressing and practical conundrums, although the cosmic questions may have also soon arisen: How did everything get here? Is there anything beyond what I can see? Is there knowledge that can reveal the truth of all this?
Dealing with these paradoxes can be seen as the root of human civilization as well as religion. How they both developed is another story. Perhaps with its root in primate behavior, both civilization and religion became centered on authority figures, on kings. But apart from gods and kings, dealing with these paradoxes is fundamental to human life and human civilization.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Moments
We partake of timelessness even in the rushing flow of time. What is “the moment” but a piece of timelessness? It cannot be measured. Once it is perceived, it is over. Yet we return to certain moments all our lives, even unconsciously. How are they time? And how are they not? Neither apart from time nor of it, the moment stands in for nearly everything else of significance in our lives. Its nature is saturated with shifting multiplicity, and therefore mystery.
We partake of timelessness even in the rushing flow of time. What is “the moment” but a piece of timelessness? It cannot be measured. Once it is perceived, it is over. Yet we return to certain moments all our lives, even unconsciously. How are they time? And how are they not? Neither apart from time nor of it, the moment stands in for nearly everything else of significance in our lives. Its nature is saturated with shifting multiplicity, and therefore mystery.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
The Cruelty of Hope
In 1968, this was a happy day. There weren't many that year. But the night before, on March 31, President Johnson ended a TV address with the words we thought we would never hear, "I will not seek, and I will not accept" the Democratic nomination for reelection to the presidency.
I watched it on the nearest TV set, which was several doors down First Street in Galesburg, Illinois, at the home of my writing professor (who was married, with two young daughters, and not more than 5 years older than me.) It was literally shocking, the kind of statement that displaces time: you feel you started to hear the words before he said them, and then afterwards you can't believe that he actually said them.
LBJ was stubbornly expanding and prosecuting the Vietnam War, and the demonstrations that were growing in size and emotion routinely included the chant, "LBJ, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" But now, in an instant, he was not going to be there, and the only two declared Democratic candidates were running to end the war: Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. We were really going to end the war!
Of course, I knew that in some ways it wasn't going to be soon enough for me. I'd already had my pre-induction draft physical, and despite total deafness in one ear, and to the complete shock of several sets of draft counsellors I saw in Chicago, I'd passed. (They were already telling me about how to appeal.) I was a senior in college, and in a few months, my student deferment would end, and with draft calls still very high, I'd probably be drafted. I still hadn't decided what to do, except I knew what I wasn't going to do--I wasn't going to kill any Vietnamese. There was a lot of talk about options, but in the end no one else could really understand this decision--not parents or teachers, friends or certainly girlfriends. You were alone on this one.
But that was a couple of months away at least. I was about to direct a play I'd written, with its own statement about all this, and after that I could probably tie up the draft process long enough to somehow work for Robert Kennedy's campaign. And it was April--spring was short but intensely beautiful in Galesburg--and the barrier of LBJ was gone.
There'd been dancing in the streets on campuses across America the night before. There hadn't been anything that public on our small campus, but we'd probably celebrated enough to be seeing the first April morning through a slight fuzz. There was hope now-- the war might end, and that immense burden on every single hour of every day.
April 1--April Fool's Day. Before the month was out, Martin Luther King would be assassinated, and hardly more than a month after that, I would spend my graduation day watching Robert Kennedy's funeral. Then would come the hot shambles of the Chicago convention, Humphrey, Nixon and more war--much more war. "April is the cruelest month," T.S. Eliot wrote, as we students of literature well knew.
In 1968, this was a happy day. There weren't many that year. But the night before, on March 31, President Johnson ended a TV address with the words we thought we would never hear, "I will not seek, and I will not accept" the Democratic nomination for reelection to the presidency.
I watched it on the nearest TV set, which was several doors down First Street in Galesburg, Illinois, at the home of my writing professor (who was married, with two young daughters, and not more than 5 years older than me.) It was literally shocking, the kind of statement that displaces time: you feel you started to hear the words before he said them, and then afterwards you can't believe that he actually said them.
LBJ was stubbornly expanding and prosecuting the Vietnam War, and the demonstrations that were growing in size and emotion routinely included the chant, "LBJ, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" But now, in an instant, he was not going to be there, and the only two declared Democratic candidates were running to end the war: Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. We were really going to end the war!
Of course, I knew that in some ways it wasn't going to be soon enough for me. I'd already had my pre-induction draft physical, and despite total deafness in one ear, and to the complete shock of several sets of draft counsellors I saw in Chicago, I'd passed. (They were already telling me about how to appeal.) I was a senior in college, and in a few months, my student deferment would end, and with draft calls still very high, I'd probably be drafted. I still hadn't decided what to do, except I knew what I wasn't going to do--I wasn't going to kill any Vietnamese. There was a lot of talk about options, but in the end no one else could really understand this decision--not parents or teachers, friends or certainly girlfriends. You were alone on this one.
But that was a couple of months away at least. I was about to direct a play I'd written, with its own statement about all this, and after that I could probably tie up the draft process long enough to somehow work for Robert Kennedy's campaign. And it was April--spring was short but intensely beautiful in Galesburg--and the barrier of LBJ was gone.
There'd been dancing in the streets on campuses across America the night before. There hadn't been anything that public on our small campus, but we'd probably celebrated enough to be seeing the first April morning through a slight fuzz. There was hope now-- the war might end, and that immense burden on every single hour of every day.
April 1--April Fool's Day. Before the month was out, Martin Luther King would be assassinated, and hardly more than a month after that, I would spend my graduation day watching Robert Kennedy's funeral. Then would come the hot shambles of the Chicago convention, Humphrey, Nixon and more war--much more war. "April is the cruelest month," T.S. Eliot wrote, as we students of literature well knew.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Christmas Past Present
We had a quiet but good Christmas. We visited with our far-flung families by phone: I talked with my sisters in western PA., Margaret with her mother in Virgina, son in New Mexico and daughter in San Francisco. They and their families, and the rest of our families, all are healthy and solvent, so that's a good Christmas right there.
Our Christmas dinner included wild salmon, a very North Coast dish. My childhood Christmas memories also include fish, but on Christmas Eve at my Italian grandparents. They both came over from the same village in Italy (they'd grown up on the same street) in the 1920s (my grandfather first, then he sent the money back to bring my grandmother and my mother, who was not yet 4.) There were a number of families from their village who came at around the same time to settle in the same town, or a nearby one. In fact much of the substantial Italian immigrant population in our western Pennsylvania county came from the same region of Italy, the Abruzzi.
Theirs was the tradition of the meatless Christmas Eve--or vigil--dinner. Many Italian regions shared it, with variations. There were a variety of seafood dishes--different kinds of fish and other seafood (including squid), prepared in various baked, broiled and fried ways, served in the meal or just passed around as appetizers and complements to the main dishes, plus pasta with a fish sauce.
This tradition seems all but unknown where I am now, along with other food connections to my Italian family past. There are Italians here--including our nearest neighbor, who was born there--but they are mostly northern Italians who came here as diary farmers. Their food is much different. They would think of us as southern Italians, although geographically the Abruzzi is about dead center on the boot, on the Adriatic side. Sort of how San Francisco is called northern California, though we are almost as far north from the Bay as SF is from LA.
On my own, I tried to maintain some of the vigil tradition when I lived in Pittsburgh, where it was much easier. The fish dish I liked the best as a child was the fried smelts, and when I tried to find smelts here in Arcata, at first nobody had heard of them, and then someone told me, "around here, we call that 'bait.'" So I didn't ask for them again. (But it looks like the lowly smelts are about to have their environmental revenge.) These days the most I do to stay somewhat connected with those days is bake some jumbalone, which is a family recipe for a rather simple but tasty cookie/cake kind of thing.
Beginning with my generation, family in western PA has mostly lost the vigil meal tradition, as have others removed from the direct immigrant experience and no longer living in the old towns and neighborhoods. But I was pleased to see in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that there's something of a revival underway---only now it requires a course in how to prepare this meal, known as the feast of the seven fishes (a name I hadn't heard before.) Calamari, Baccala and sphagetti with tuna sauce--I remember those, and more.
But I do occasionally make sphagetti with fish sauce--my mother often made it on Fridays, back when you went to hell for eating meat that day. But when I make it it's not with tuna sauce. I use salmon. I got the idea from a friend. Since he's Karuk (an Indian tribe indigenous to this place), I'm an immigrant in his country. But it's nice to share traditions, especially when they're tasty.
We had a quiet but good Christmas. We visited with our far-flung families by phone: I talked with my sisters in western PA., Margaret with her mother in Virgina, son in New Mexico and daughter in San Francisco. They and their families, and the rest of our families, all are healthy and solvent, so that's a good Christmas right there.
Our Christmas dinner included wild salmon, a very North Coast dish. My childhood Christmas memories also include fish, but on Christmas Eve at my Italian grandparents. They both came over from the same village in Italy (they'd grown up on the same street) in the 1920s (my grandfather first, then he sent the money back to bring my grandmother and my mother, who was not yet 4.) There were a number of families from their village who came at around the same time to settle in the same town, or a nearby one. In fact much of the substantial Italian immigrant population in our western Pennsylvania county came from the same region of Italy, the Abruzzi.
Theirs was the tradition of the meatless Christmas Eve--or vigil--dinner. Many Italian regions shared it, with variations. There were a variety of seafood dishes--different kinds of fish and other seafood (including squid), prepared in various baked, broiled and fried ways, served in the meal or just passed around as appetizers and complements to the main dishes, plus pasta with a fish sauce.
This tradition seems all but unknown where I am now, along with other food connections to my Italian family past. There are Italians here--including our nearest neighbor, who was born there--but they are mostly northern Italians who came here as diary farmers. Their food is much different. They would think of us as southern Italians, although geographically the Abruzzi is about dead center on the boot, on the Adriatic side. Sort of how San Francisco is called northern California, though we are almost as far north from the Bay as SF is from LA.
On my own, I tried to maintain some of the vigil tradition when I lived in Pittsburgh, where it was much easier. The fish dish I liked the best as a child was the fried smelts, and when I tried to find smelts here in Arcata, at first nobody had heard of them, and then someone told me, "around here, we call that 'bait.'" So I didn't ask for them again. (But it looks like the lowly smelts are about to have their environmental revenge.) These days the most I do to stay somewhat connected with those days is bake some jumbalone, which is a family recipe for a rather simple but tasty cookie/cake kind of thing.
Beginning with my generation, family in western PA has mostly lost the vigil meal tradition, as have others removed from the direct immigrant experience and no longer living in the old towns and neighborhoods. But I was pleased to see in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that there's something of a revival underway---only now it requires a course in how to prepare this meal, known as the feast of the seven fishes (a name I hadn't heard before.) Calamari, Baccala and sphagetti with tuna sauce--I remember those, and more.
But I do occasionally make sphagetti with fish sauce--my mother often made it on Fridays, back when you went to hell for eating meat that day. But when I make it it's not with tuna sauce. I use salmon. I got the idea from a friend. Since he's Karuk (an Indian tribe indigenous to this place), I'm an immigrant in his country. But it's nice to share traditions, especially when they're tasty.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Them Steelers 2007
Last night the Pittsburgh Steelers broke a two game losing streak in St. Louis, winning 41-24, but losing their star running back, Willie Parker, for the rest of the season with a broken leg. It's been that kind of season, in an odd kind of year.
The year is odd because there are several teams with exceptionally good records, and a number of teams with very bad ones. With three games left in the season, Miami became the last team not to have won a game. On the other end, several teams have lost only two or three, and the New England Patriots are undefeated, with a strong chance that they will end the season that way. For the uninitiated, this is pretty unusual.
So the Steelers, in their first year with new coach Mike Tomlin, seemed to be having a very good year by ordinary standards. They in fact led their league in several key categories, Willie Parker being the league-leading runner at the time of his injury. Several players, notably quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and receiver Hines Ward, broke single season and all time team records. They started well and at one time had a 7-2 record and then 9-3.
But their first losses of the season were to weaker teams, which suggested problems in the long run, especially with the dominance of New England, and the near-dominance of Indianapolis in their conference, with Dallas and the surging Green Bay Packers piling up wins in the other. So despite their record and statistical dominance, by mid season I had the feeling they weren't quite up to the standards of at least New England and Indianapolis.
Then they lost to a team that had only one win (the New York Jets in overtime), barely won against Miami when it was winless (though under horrible field and weather conditions), and then the past two games, fell hard to New England, and were outplayed in a close game by Jacksonville.
So their victory last night was important, though it hasn't on its own gotten them into the playoffs yet. The Steelers lost late season games and almost didn't get into the playoffs in 2005, when they became the first wild card team to run the table on the road and win the Super Bowl, defeating New England and Indianapolis to get there. That's less likely to happen this year. At this point in the season, the very good teams with the fewest injuries have the advantage, and in 2005 the Steelers were just getting injured players back in the lineup towards the end of the season, so they were able to peak at just the right time. Now, especially with the injury to Parker, that's not so true. Besides which, New England has been healthy all season, and they still are. It's unlikely anyone is going to beat them in the playoffs this year, as long as they stay that way.
But when they are playing well, the Steelers are still tremendous fun to watch. I could watch only the highlights of this game, since as a Pittsburgh exile sans satellite hookup, I am nowhere near a broadcast. (But it was exiles like me that comprised an estimated half of the crowd in St. Louis--when you hear the crowd roar on the Steelers' big plays, it sounds like a home game.) Big Ben has become a big play threat: backed up and throwing from the end zone in his first play of the game, he threw a pass fifty yards in the air and completed it for an 80 yard gain.
Right now, the Steelers have big time players in the skill positions, but uncharacteristically are weakest in the offensive line and lately in the defense, partly due to injuries. So while you can't count the Steelers out of any game with Big Ben and Hines Ward on the field, they may just have to survive this season with a taste of success and a hunger for it all next year.
Between last season and this, I spent a couple of weeks back in western PA, and even though it was late spring, the Steelers were always a presence. A bus boy in a cafe started a conversation with me about them. I accompanied my two best friends to a bar, where I was the surprised participant in a conversation about the Steelers as I used the urinal in the men's room, with a voice in the one stall, a complete stranger who I never saw. He was probably having a running conversation with everyone who came in. There was also a woman in the supermarket wearing a t-shirt that said, "If you ain't a Steeler fan, you ain't worth s--t."
So I could hardly be surprised when I read on a sports blog the reaction of a young woman who flew in to Pittsburgh for the first time, to see the Seattle Seahawks (the Steelers- 2005 Super Bowl opponent) play at Hines Field. She remarked that the first person she met on arrival was a knowledgeable football and Steelers fan. She doesn't encounter that many in Seattle. But within her first few hours in the 'burgh, she realized it wasn't a lucky coincidence: it is the norm. (And the Steelers won that game, 21-0.)
This season also marks the 75th year of the Steelers, one of the oldest teams in professional football, and a source of local pride and identity for much of that time. I suppose in every place that is a place, there is a point where the vulgar and the exalted meet, and where the present extends the past. For Pittsburghers wherever they may now be, it's the Steelers.
Update 12/26: As a result of games they didn't play, the Steelers are in the playoffs as their division champion, and their first round opponent will most likely be Jacksonville at home, a team they just lost to. But they're pretty evenly matched, and in that case, it's hard to beat a team twice. So it should be an interesting game, and if they win it, New England would likely be next. The Steelers play a now meaningless game this Sunday, while the New England Patriots could break the NFL record for the longest perfect regular season on Saturday. Meanwhile, Big Ben of the Steelers was named NFL Player of the Week on offense, with a "perfect" quarterback rating (whatever that means) in the Rams game.
Last night the Pittsburgh Steelers broke a two game losing streak in St. Louis, winning 41-24, but losing their star running back, Willie Parker, for the rest of the season with a broken leg. It's been that kind of season, in an odd kind of year.
The year is odd because there are several teams with exceptionally good records, and a number of teams with very bad ones. With three games left in the season, Miami became the last team not to have won a game. On the other end, several teams have lost only two or three, and the New England Patriots are undefeated, with a strong chance that they will end the season that way. For the uninitiated, this is pretty unusual.
So the Steelers, in their first year with new coach Mike Tomlin, seemed to be having a very good year by ordinary standards. They in fact led their league in several key categories, Willie Parker being the league-leading runner at the time of his injury. Several players, notably quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and receiver Hines Ward, broke single season and all time team records. They started well and at one time had a 7-2 record and then 9-3.
But their first losses of the season were to weaker teams, which suggested problems in the long run, especially with the dominance of New England, and the near-dominance of Indianapolis in their conference, with Dallas and the surging Green Bay Packers piling up wins in the other. So despite their record and statistical dominance, by mid season I had the feeling they weren't quite up to the standards of at least New England and Indianapolis.
Then they lost to a team that had only one win (the New York Jets in overtime), barely won against Miami when it was winless (though under horrible field and weather conditions), and then the past two games, fell hard to New England, and were outplayed in a close game by Jacksonville.
So their victory last night was important, though it hasn't on its own gotten them into the playoffs yet. The Steelers lost late season games and almost didn't get into the playoffs in 2005, when they became the first wild card team to run the table on the road and win the Super Bowl, defeating New England and Indianapolis to get there. That's less likely to happen this year. At this point in the season, the very good teams with the fewest injuries have the advantage, and in 2005 the Steelers were just getting injured players back in the lineup towards the end of the season, so they were able to peak at just the right time. Now, especially with the injury to Parker, that's not so true. Besides which, New England has been healthy all season, and they still are. It's unlikely anyone is going to beat them in the playoffs this year, as long as they stay that way.
But when they are playing well, the Steelers are still tremendous fun to watch. I could watch only the highlights of this game, since as a Pittsburgh exile sans satellite hookup, I am nowhere near a broadcast. (But it was exiles like me that comprised an estimated half of the crowd in St. Louis--when you hear the crowd roar on the Steelers' big plays, it sounds like a home game.) Big Ben has become a big play threat: backed up and throwing from the end zone in his first play of the game, he threw a pass fifty yards in the air and completed it for an 80 yard gain.
Right now, the Steelers have big time players in the skill positions, but uncharacteristically are weakest in the offensive line and lately in the defense, partly due to injuries. So while you can't count the Steelers out of any game with Big Ben and Hines Ward on the field, they may just have to survive this season with a taste of success and a hunger for it all next year.
Between last season and this, I spent a couple of weeks back in western PA, and even though it was late spring, the Steelers were always a presence. A bus boy in a cafe started a conversation with me about them. I accompanied my two best friends to a bar, where I was the surprised participant in a conversation about the Steelers as I used the urinal in the men's room, with a voice in the one stall, a complete stranger who I never saw. He was probably having a running conversation with everyone who came in. There was also a woman in the supermarket wearing a t-shirt that said, "If you ain't a Steeler fan, you ain't worth s--t."
So I could hardly be surprised when I read on a sports blog the reaction of a young woman who flew in to Pittsburgh for the first time, to see the Seattle Seahawks (the Steelers- 2005 Super Bowl opponent) play at Hines Field. She remarked that the first person she met on arrival was a knowledgeable football and Steelers fan. She doesn't encounter that many in Seattle. But within her first few hours in the 'burgh, she realized it wasn't a lucky coincidence: it is the norm. (And the Steelers won that game, 21-0.)
This season also marks the 75th year of the Steelers, one of the oldest teams in professional football, and a source of local pride and identity for much of that time. I suppose in every place that is a place, there is a point where the vulgar and the exalted meet, and where the present extends the past. For Pittsburghers wherever they may now be, it's the Steelers.
Update 12/26: As a result of games they didn't play, the Steelers are in the playoffs as their division champion, and their first round opponent will most likely be Jacksonville at home, a team they just lost to. But they're pretty evenly matched, and in that case, it's hard to beat a team twice. So it should be an interesting game, and if they win it, New England would likely be next. The Steelers play a now meaningless game this Sunday, while the New England Patriots could break the NFL record for the longest perfect regular season on Saturday. Meanwhile, Big Ben of the Steelers was named NFL Player of the Week on offense, with a "perfect" quarterback rating (whatever that means) in the Rams game.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
A Book Sale and Sadness
I recently attended a book sale at the Humboldt University Library, and not for the first time. They sell books that have been donated, and books the library is discarding. I have complex feelings about both categories, and the sale itself.
I don't mind buying books that have been donated, though when I donate books to the library, I mean for them to wind up on the library shelves, not in a jumble sale. On the other hand, I sometimes find myself buying discarded library books just so they won't be thrown away.
The whole idea of discarding books chills me. I mean discarding books that aren't going to be replaced with new copies. I suppose it makes sense to get rid of technical and scientific texts that are no longer useful except for historical documentation and interest. But other choices bother me. I noticed at this sale they had evidently cleared several shelves of books on the work of Henry James, as well as books on and by William Dean Howells. James does not happen to be an author I'm much interested in, although it's possible that I'll live long enough to develop an interest. One of several comments made by Norman Mailer (may he rest in peace) that stays with me is that a book and a reader have to be ready for each other, and that can change over time.
I am also reminded of a line in Wallace Shawn's play, The Designated Mourner, to the effect that a certain person who'd just died was the last expert on the poetry of John Donne. These days that's entirely possible.
So now where will I go for books on Henry James? I use this library a lot, and once I did encounter on the shelves, among the books I was examining for one of my personal quixotical research projects, several volumes with little pieces of paper sticking out of them, indicating that they were scheduled to be discarded. Scheduled for demolition! It's gotten so that I continue to renew several books I have just so they can't discard them.
Of course they need the money from the sales--especially because of budget cutbacks. This library bought no new books for several years, and buys few this year. I'm not sure if I were a prospective student, I would even consider coming to a school with a library that has stopped buying books.
And I'm no saint about the sale either. I usually go in the afternoon, make my selections, and wait for the closing bell when you get a grocery bag full of books for a buck. At which time I rescue as many books as I can. It's partly book greed, of course. It's been my major addiction for years. I have many more books than I will ever read.
Including one I got at this sale--a 1912 copy of Modern Instances, a novel by William Dean Howells. I got it as a helpless gesture of respect for the author. It's not the first time I've done that, although this is probably the one I am least likely to read. I have found books at this sale that I've read and enjoyed, books that I just enjoy owning, and books that have been helpful. Though I once actually found an obscure book I was looking for, I more often found helpful books I hadn't known existed. Serendipity has always been a good research method for me. This sale has helped build the house of books that shelters me, so I can't complain. But I do wonder just what it is I'm witnessing.
I recently attended a book sale at the Humboldt University Library, and not for the first time. They sell books that have been donated, and books the library is discarding. I have complex feelings about both categories, and the sale itself.
I don't mind buying books that have been donated, though when I donate books to the library, I mean for them to wind up on the library shelves, not in a jumble sale. On the other hand, I sometimes find myself buying discarded library books just so they won't be thrown away.
The whole idea of discarding books chills me. I mean discarding books that aren't going to be replaced with new copies. I suppose it makes sense to get rid of technical and scientific texts that are no longer useful except for historical documentation and interest. But other choices bother me. I noticed at this sale they had evidently cleared several shelves of books on the work of Henry James, as well as books on and by William Dean Howells. James does not happen to be an author I'm much interested in, although it's possible that I'll live long enough to develop an interest. One of several comments made by Norman Mailer (may he rest in peace) that stays with me is that a book and a reader have to be ready for each other, and that can change over time.
I am also reminded of a line in Wallace Shawn's play, The Designated Mourner, to the effect that a certain person who'd just died was the last expert on the poetry of John Donne. These days that's entirely possible.
So now where will I go for books on Henry James? I use this library a lot, and once I did encounter on the shelves, among the books I was examining for one of my personal quixotical research projects, several volumes with little pieces of paper sticking out of them, indicating that they were scheduled to be discarded. Scheduled for demolition! It's gotten so that I continue to renew several books I have just so they can't discard them.
Of course they need the money from the sales--especially because of budget cutbacks. This library bought no new books for several years, and buys few this year. I'm not sure if I were a prospective student, I would even consider coming to a school with a library that has stopped buying books.
And I'm no saint about the sale either. I usually go in the afternoon, make my selections, and wait for the closing bell when you get a grocery bag full of books for a buck. At which time I rescue as many books as I can. It's partly book greed, of course. It's been my major addiction for years. I have many more books than I will ever read.
Including one I got at this sale--a 1912 copy of Modern Instances, a novel by William Dean Howells. I got it as a helpless gesture of respect for the author. It's not the first time I've done that, although this is probably the one I am least likely to read. I have found books at this sale that I've read and enjoyed, books that I just enjoy owning, and books that have been helpful. Though I once actually found an obscure book I was looking for, I more often found helpful books I hadn't known existed. Serendipity has always been a good research method for me. This sale has helped build the house of books that shelters me, so I can't complain. But I do wonder just what it is I'm witnessing.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Captain Toothpaste Returns
WHO IS CAPTAIN TOOTHPASTE? asked the bold print on the last page of the Knox Magazine spring 2007 issue. That’s easy. I am.
Or I was in 1968. I cut a record under that name, which was included in an issue of the Knox College literary magazine. The song was called “Nightdove.” Thanks to Knox Magazine, you can hear it yourself, right here. That’s me singing and playing guitar. I also wrote it--my real name is on the label as well, paired with a “J.Rider” as co-author. That was me as well.
I was also the co-editor of the magazine, with Wendy Saul. It was called “The Siwasher” then. Knox College was known as “Old Siwash” from stories written about it using that mythical name. It also turned out to be something of a racial slur which Native Americans found offensive. Our Spring 1968 issue was the last one with that name. Some years later, the school officially dropped references to Siwash, and adopted a new name for its sports teams.
The magazine had followed the same format for the years I was there: student stories, poems and reproductions of art works. After publishing such an issue in the fall, we decided to go multimedia. We broke out of the book with 8x10 reproductions of the work of four photographers, plus an art poster suitable for hanging. We talked a lot about how popular music in the 60s was a vital and representative art form for our generation, so we wanted to include records. We kept to our budget for all this by collecting the usual stories and poems in a booklet with a generic cover. And we put it all—book, photos, poster and two records---in a manilla envelope, with a poem by Howard Partner on the flap.
The record with the hot pink label (both were small but played at 33 1/3 format) featured Rick Clinebell’s rendition of the Joni Mitchell tune, “The Urge for Going,” on one side, and three cuts on the other side: a piano duet of an original work by Karen Janecek, a tune by the Knox folk group, Four in the Morning, and a rock tune by the Bushes.
The record with the yellow label had three tunes by the bluegrass Stoney Hollow Boys: Rick Lindner, Tom Stern and Mark Brooks, all from our class of '68. And on the other side, “Nightdove” by Captain Toothpaste.
Rick Clinebell was our music director. I was about to take the tapes of all the music to a record company in one of the Quad Cities (Davenport?) when he rushed me into a practice room in the Fine Arts Center with his guitar to re-record “Nightdove,” because something was wrong with the original tape. So I played and sang it just once, messed up the lyrics a little, but that was all the time I had. That’s what’s on the record now.
The recording studio where the tapes were turned into masters and then into records was run by an older gentleman and his wife. She loved the name “Captain Toothpaste.” She said she thought of it at night when she brushed her teeth and it made her laugh. While she was telling us this, her husband was at his mixing board, and asked me if I’d like some echo added to my song. I said sure. I was there with Wendy and Barbara Cottral. It was a sunny spring day. Later we had sandwiches at a little airport, watching small planes take off and land.
The print part of that last issue of the Siwasher were stories by Barbara Ann Cottral (now the famous story writer, Barbara Bean) and Jeremy Gladstone, a play by Sherwood Kiraly (now the famous novelist, Sherwood Kiraly), and poems by Nicholas Brockunier, Harvey Sadow (the world famous ceramicist), Wendy Saul (the famous writer,) Anne Maxfield, Bob Epstein, Phil Ralston, Linda Pohle and me. The next fall the magazine became “Catch.” I had a story in that first issue, too.
I don’t really remember but the whole multimedia thing was probably my idea. Influenced partly by Marshall McLuhan, I was fascinated with the idea of creating interrelated works in various media, specifically of publishing a novel that would be packaged with its own movie and soundtrack. It was barely practical then, and of course it’s much more doable now. I did something like it in the mid 1980s, when I recorded two songs (“The Malling of America” and “Mall Rats”) in the studio with musicians and backup singers, etc., to go along with my book, The Malling of America. The songs were a big hit at my speaking engagements for awhile, and actually got some radio play.
The “Captain Toothpaste” identity was very 60s, of course. Although there’s a homage in there to Howdy Dowdy, too, who was sponsored by Colgate toothpaste, creators of Happy Tooth and Mr. Tooth Decay. Also some satire on commercial culture that included the music industry.
Especially with that little echo added, “Nightdove” turned out to be kind of country surrealism. It reflects a lot I was feeling and thinking about at the time, especially in view of the world we were being drafted into a few weeks later.
Of course I’ve long since left such youthful preoccupations and pretensions behind. And I’m much too mature to call myself Captain Toothpaste. These days I’m known to readers of Daily Kos, Soul of Star Trek and everywhere on the Internet as Captain Future.
It is as Captain Future that I was invited to chair a panel this fall at the 40th anniversary Star Trek convention in Seattle, where I met some of my readers, including Walter Koenig (Chekov) and Jonathan Frakes (Riker). I’ve met Leonard Nimoy (Spock), Marina Sirtis (Troi), George Takei (Sulu), Levar Burton (Georgi LaForge) and Nichelle Nichols (Ahura), who introduced me to Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on ground not on this Earth. But Captain Future is not all about space. The Climate Crisis on the only world we’ve got is a primary preoccupation of my main site, Captain Future’s Dreaming Up Daily.
But Captain Toothpaste is a part of me, too. Save the nightdove, save the world.
Update 9/9/07: Just got the fall issue of the Knox Magazine, with their follow-up. I don't know why they won't mention blog addresses, especially since they basically got their information from a link to this post. They did add some information about the Stoney Hollow Boys. I don't remember Rick Lindner ever being called "Willy," but they name him and Tom Stern, but also Peter Schramm, former professor of biology, and Ken Pahel, another faculty member, as the string bass player. No mention of Mark Brooks. I distinctly remember him playing a washtub bass, the first I'd ever seen. I wonder whose memory is faulty here. I suppose I can be forgiven for forgetting Peter Schramm, since he failed me in a course which led to my never graduating. It was a course in evolution--pretty ironic, since failing the course selected me as not among the fittest, and doubly ironic because I've written a lot on the subject of evolution since, and have become the go-to guy for reviewing books on it--and science in general--at the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review. I also created the official web page for one of his predecessors, Paul Shepard, one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, about evolution and so much more.
I also see that our 1967 anti-war poetry reading got into the history of Old Main, and that the post-Kent State/Jackson State takeover of the deans offices in 1970 is described as "peaceful," which it was, apart from the rock band playing in the hall. It was scheduled to be less peaceful, when the college decided to call the cops and have me arrested (or so I'm told.) But we left before then--specifically we declared victory and went home, which was our solution for how to get out of Vietnam.
Though Knox likes to give "credit" for leading that action to former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, it was actually me. He wasn't even my chief of staff! Though they did get the name we called ourselves right--"The Students Are Revolting." I ask you, who else but me would have come up with that? I was reading about Dada at the time--and reading our generation's dadaist, Abbie Hoffman. But more about all that another time.
WHO IS CAPTAIN TOOTHPASTE? asked the bold print on the last page of the Knox Magazine spring 2007 issue. That’s easy. I am.
Or I was in 1968. I cut a record under that name, which was included in an issue of the Knox College literary magazine. The song was called “Nightdove.” Thanks to Knox Magazine, you can hear it yourself, right here. That’s me singing and playing guitar. I also wrote it--my real name is on the label as well, paired with a “J.Rider” as co-author. That was me as well.
I was also the co-editor of the magazine, with Wendy Saul. It was called “The Siwasher” then. Knox College was known as “Old Siwash” from stories written about it using that mythical name. It also turned out to be something of a racial slur which Native Americans found offensive. Our Spring 1968 issue was the last one with that name. Some years later, the school officially dropped references to Siwash, and adopted a new name for its sports teams.
The magazine had followed the same format for the years I was there: student stories, poems and reproductions of art works. After publishing such an issue in the fall, we decided to go multimedia. We broke out of the book with 8x10 reproductions of the work of four photographers, plus an art poster suitable for hanging. We talked a lot about how popular music in the 60s was a vital and representative art form for our generation, so we wanted to include records. We kept to our budget for all this by collecting the usual stories and poems in a booklet with a generic cover. And we put it all—book, photos, poster and two records---in a manilla envelope, with a poem by Howard Partner on the flap.
The record with the hot pink label (both were small but played at 33 1/3 format) featured Rick Clinebell’s rendition of the Joni Mitchell tune, “The Urge for Going,” on one side, and three cuts on the other side: a piano duet of an original work by Karen Janecek, a tune by the Knox folk group, Four in the Morning, and a rock tune by the Bushes.
The record with the yellow label had three tunes by the bluegrass Stoney Hollow Boys: Rick Lindner, Tom Stern and Mark Brooks, all from our class of '68. And on the other side, “Nightdove” by Captain Toothpaste.
Rick Clinebell was our music director. I was about to take the tapes of all the music to a record company in one of the Quad Cities (Davenport?) when he rushed me into a practice room in the Fine Arts Center with his guitar to re-record “Nightdove,” because something was wrong with the original tape. So I played and sang it just once, messed up the lyrics a little, but that was all the time I had. That’s what’s on the record now.
The recording studio where the tapes were turned into masters and then into records was run by an older gentleman and his wife. She loved the name “Captain Toothpaste.” She said she thought of it at night when she brushed her teeth and it made her laugh. While she was telling us this, her husband was at his mixing board, and asked me if I’d like some echo added to my song. I said sure. I was there with Wendy and Barbara Cottral. It was a sunny spring day. Later we had sandwiches at a little airport, watching small planes take off and land.
The print part of that last issue of the Siwasher were stories by Barbara Ann Cottral (now the famous story writer, Barbara Bean) and Jeremy Gladstone, a play by Sherwood Kiraly (now the famous novelist, Sherwood Kiraly), and poems by Nicholas Brockunier, Harvey Sadow (the world famous ceramicist), Wendy Saul (the famous writer,) Anne Maxfield, Bob Epstein, Phil Ralston, Linda Pohle and me. The next fall the magazine became “Catch.” I had a story in that first issue, too.
I don’t really remember but the whole multimedia thing was probably my idea. Influenced partly by Marshall McLuhan, I was fascinated with the idea of creating interrelated works in various media, specifically of publishing a novel that would be packaged with its own movie and soundtrack. It was barely practical then, and of course it’s much more doable now. I did something like it in the mid 1980s, when I recorded two songs (“The Malling of America” and “Mall Rats”) in the studio with musicians and backup singers, etc., to go along with my book, The Malling of America. The songs were a big hit at my speaking engagements for awhile, and actually got some radio play.
The “Captain Toothpaste” identity was very 60s, of course. Although there’s a homage in there to Howdy Dowdy, too, who was sponsored by Colgate toothpaste, creators of Happy Tooth and Mr. Tooth Decay. Also some satire on commercial culture that included the music industry.
Especially with that little echo added, “Nightdove” turned out to be kind of country surrealism. It reflects a lot I was feeling and thinking about at the time, especially in view of the world we were being drafted into a few weeks later.
Of course I’ve long since left such youthful preoccupations and pretensions behind. And I’m much too mature to call myself Captain Toothpaste. These days I’m known to readers of Daily Kos, Soul of Star Trek and everywhere on the Internet as Captain Future.
It is as Captain Future that I was invited to chair a panel this fall at the 40th anniversary Star Trek convention in Seattle, where I met some of my readers, including Walter Koenig (Chekov) and Jonathan Frakes (Riker). I’ve met Leonard Nimoy (Spock), Marina Sirtis (Troi), George Takei (Sulu), Levar Burton (Georgi LaForge) and Nichelle Nichols (Ahura), who introduced me to Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on ground not on this Earth. But Captain Future is not all about space. The Climate Crisis on the only world we’ve got is a primary preoccupation of my main site, Captain Future’s Dreaming Up Daily.
But Captain Toothpaste is a part of me, too. Save the nightdove, save the world.
Update 9/9/07: Just got the fall issue of the Knox Magazine, with their follow-up. I don't know why they won't mention blog addresses, especially since they basically got their information from a link to this post. They did add some information about the Stoney Hollow Boys. I don't remember Rick Lindner ever being called "Willy," but they name him and Tom Stern, but also Peter Schramm, former professor of biology, and Ken Pahel, another faculty member, as the string bass player. No mention of Mark Brooks. I distinctly remember him playing a washtub bass, the first I'd ever seen. I wonder whose memory is faulty here. I suppose I can be forgiven for forgetting Peter Schramm, since he failed me in a course which led to my never graduating. It was a course in evolution--pretty ironic, since failing the course selected me as not among the fittest, and doubly ironic because I've written a lot on the subject of evolution since, and have become the go-to guy for reviewing books on it--and science in general--at the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review. I also created the official web page for one of his predecessors, Paul Shepard, one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, about evolution and so much more.
I also see that our 1967 anti-war poetry reading got into the history of Old Main, and that the post-Kent State/Jackson State takeover of the deans offices in 1970 is described as "peaceful," which it was, apart from the rock band playing in the hall. It was scheduled to be less peaceful, when the college decided to call the cops and have me arrested (or so I'm told.) But we left before then--specifically we declared victory and went home, which was our solution for how to get out of Vietnam.
Though Knox likes to give "credit" for leading that action to former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, it was actually me. He wasn't even my chief of staff! Though they did get the name we called ourselves right--"The Students Are Revolting." I ask you, who else but me would have come up with that? I was reading about Dada at the time--and reading our generation's dadaist, Abbie Hoffman. But more about all that another time.
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