Me and Poetry.
We're starting a new work learning experience that is already starting to torture me: Poetry. If you know me, you know I like poetry. I did a poetry workshop with children.* Anyway, we had our first meeting at lunchtime yesterday and we were asked what our first experience with Poetry was - and for me it was my dad's recitations at the dinner table. "Gunga Din" was probably interesting the first 2,000 times, but it's a long poem and I wanted to go out an play after dinner. Seeing it done by Mr. Magoo made me understand it better, but it was torture after a while. When my dad was elderly, I could recite "The Incident of the French Camp" with him and help him when he faltered. "You know we French stormed Ratisbone ..." - love that poem because of the punchline, "And smiling the boy fell dead." Despite this, I like poetry that tells a story and some rhyme and the tumty-tumty-tum.
But I also like contemporary Word. As you can tell from the March 19 post, my husband and I - a couple of round, very very white, very very middle-class caricatures - attend poetry nights, making the denizens nervous by our pasty-white presence. In all honesty, we can take the strong language, the political and racial backlash, but the religious stuff makes us wince. We have heard poetry so emotionally evocative, so hair-raising, wry, ironic, sad and funny that we exit stunned and amazed by the power and the talent of local people. How dearly I would love to host a salon of these people each week! How rewarding it would be to provide them a safe and stable place to speak their hearts. Even the religious ones.
Anyway, thinking back to early poetry in my life, I recalled having a copy of A Child's Garden of Verses ... and being unable to relate to it. Here I am, subjected to versification at length ("A bunch of the boys were whooping it up at the Malamute Saloon ..."!) on a regular basis and these gentle poems turn out to be totally unmemorable, except the one about the wooden spoon or shovel and digging in the sand and the sea filling it in - something I could relate to having tried to dig in the sand and having the ocean fill it up and destroy my handiwork.
Four languages later, I find I have accumulated some foreign favorites that I can still recite. My mother's cousin used "Du bist wie eine Blume" as a curse: "Ohhhh, dubistwieineblume!" so that resonated with me. I cultivate white roses with José Martí. I used "Venez a ma jubilé" for the invitation to my 50th birthday party. I have The Oxford Book of French Verse all post-it noted and went back this weekend looking for something appropriate for the "Poetry and Pints" meeting in Second Life and amazed myself that I understood any of the poems (much of it 700 year old French) enough to mark them as a favorite.
The first leg of our adventures in "Poultry" (as I relentlessly like to call it, the same way my sister always talked about "Taco Hell" instead of Taco Bell) will be through the Leaves of Grass section called "Song of Myself." I should withhold my applause until the end, I guess, and post it at the appropriate place (the Staffdevelopomendo blog). This particular work of Whitman was probably thrusting, avant-garde stuff when it was first written, both titillating and evocative, but it's an uphill slog for me now. I can mark bits of it I find pithy or expressive, but the totality of it is wearing me down. I hate being oppressed by something I really love. Bring back the stories and the tumty-tumpty-tum!
*Despite the age limitation I put on the sign-up sheet, my workshop contained children who could not read, much less write poetry, because their doting, idiotic, hare-brained parents [puts hand over heart and tries to calm down] insisted that Their Child was Advanced. I have gotten a call about signing up for workshops for this summer already (in April at the time) from a mom who insisted that her five year old was good with scissors and it would be totally appropriate to leave her in a room filled with older children more capable than the child working on some as yet undescribed project of unknown age-appropriateness. I had one of those kids in a program this winter who ended up sobbing her little heart out. Not in my workshop, lady! I want six year olds minimum! These programs are for school-age kids, not for your "Advanced" pre-schooler/toddler. [Looks under desk for bottle of bourbon - none there. Despair!]
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
By the Footprints In the Jell-O!
Derby Day upcoming, "I am always remember the day I first meet" the parents of a very good friend of mine. He had won me in my first annual "Win A Marf Contest" by submitting many pages of what he would do with me when I got there, letters of recommendation, and an 8" x 10" glossy. My fingers are drumming the keyboard now as I try to remember why my then boyfriend had not won. I think I recall a letter saying, "If you want to come visit, why don't you just say so?" That was not what I was looking for, but says a lot about that relationship.
My friend had me for a week of my vacation from the library. As a house-warming gift, I brought him a glass mug on which I had had etched "I've Been Sacked By" and the name of his employer. To be fair, he'd argued his way back into the job ... for the satisfaction of quitting. The sentiment, though, was appreciated. This was the first time I spent any extended time with this, one of my best friends. It was definitely the first time I stayed over. I hadn't thought much about that, what it entailed. He was renting a part of a house that had two bedrooms (one occupied by a roommate who was even more slovenly), a bath with a tub, and a kitchen. The kitchen was fairly roomy and had a table with chairs, so it was the social point of the ménage.
His bedroom consisted of a mattress on the floor, and a floor covered in loose change. Apparently, when he undressed at night, the change fell out of his pockets and he never bothered to pick it up. I spent each morning lying next to his slippers and desultorily picking up the coins and putting them in the slippers.
I thought it odd that such a young man would have bedroom slippers until I made note of the state of the floors in the place. Each morning he would rise, attempt to put on coin-laden slippers, swear, pour them out, and go on as if nothing unusual had happened. I asked him about it later and he had apparently not been awake enough to register the addition of the coins.
Slippers were a wise choice. Neither of these guys was big on cleaning and the bathroom had dust woofies in it that were about 3 or 4 feet long. Every zephyr that ran through the house and under the door caused these ephemeral caterpillars to ripple. I had this terror of being in the tub and someone opening a door to the outside, causing a woofie to raise its head over the edge of the tub and attach itself to my wet body. Bleagh bleagh bleagh!!!!
I would stay in bed until I ran out of small change to put in the slippers and then get up and cast about for something to do. The kitchen was a disaster. My friend had tried to make rice the week before and lost tract of time. The rice had burned to the bottom of the pan, and about an inch and a half up. He'd scraped out most of it, but just filled it with water and left it in the sink. That pan was the worst of it. I cleaned all the other dishes and worked assiduously on the rice pan.
I was up early one morning, probably a Sunday, when there was a knock at the door. I opened it and saw this very surprised looking middle-aged couple standing outside. They were his parents. They asked to see him. He was still in bed, so I had to let them in and go get him. This was the awkward part for me. I was going to have to wake him up, which was not an easy task. It was embarrassing for me that he was still slug-abed and his parents had come. I didn't realize until a little bit later that they didn't know I was visiting.
Hearing that his parents were there helped to wake him a bit, but not totally. He had to get up, dump the coins out of his slippers, swear, and get dressed. Eventually, we all sat down at the kitchen table for what I expected to be the typical semi-awkward cross-generational conversation.
My insouscience probably made me come across as a shameless Jezebel. This is nice, I thought, I get to meet his parents, who were a bit younger than mine, but I had always gotten on well with older people. I really had totally the wrong attitude and I'm sure they left thinking the worst of me, little realizing the relative innocence of our relationship. If anything embarrassed me, it was my friend using a credit card to wine and dine me ... which his parents apparently paid for him.
Anyway, we had a wonderful time other than the parental visit. I laughed myself sick quite a few times while he told elephant jokes, which he normally would not consider to be funny. It got to the point where he could just say, "Shoehorn!" to set me off again. We would sit at the kitchen table and talk and just enjoy each other.
He was making brownies one night, and almost proudly showing his self-sufficiency in opening the box and handling the whole deal himself. In an unusual fit of tidiness, he not only threw the box away, but decided the trash can was full, closed up the bag, and took it out to the bin. He was quite carefree in the process, and I started wondering if he had made note of the time or how long the box said they needed to cook. No matter, I was a brownie expert.
His roommate came into the kitchen, having smelled the brownies.
"Wow, brownies! When will they be done?"
"I don't know," my friend said.
"How long are they supposed to cook?"
"Dunno."
"When'd you put 'em in?"
"Don't remember."
"Where's the box?"
"Threw it away."
"Oh." Pause.
"I took it out to the bin."
"Ah."
Soon they were both gathered around the oven door, peering inside.
"How do you know when they're done?"
"I think you put a knife in and see if it comes out clean."
His roommate lost interest and wandered off again. My friend returned to the kitchen table where I was biting my lip and my shoulders shaking.
"Wha-at?" he said.
"You know how you can tell if the brownies are done?" I asked.
He paused and considered it. "By the footprints in the Jell-O?" And I lost it. I was laughing so hard and he kept asking, "No, really - how do you tell?" And somehow, "When they pull away from the sides" sounded even funnier. Okay, you had to have been there.
"No, really. Tell me! How can you tell when the brownies are done?"
My friend had me for a week of my vacation from the library. As a house-warming gift, I brought him a glass mug on which I had had etched "I've Been Sacked By" and the name of his employer. To be fair, he'd argued his way back into the job ... for the satisfaction of quitting. The sentiment, though, was appreciated. This was the first time I spent any extended time with this, one of my best friends. It was definitely the first time I stayed over. I hadn't thought much about that, what it entailed. He was renting a part of a house that had two bedrooms (one occupied by a roommate who was even more slovenly), a bath with a tub, and a kitchen. The kitchen was fairly roomy and had a table with chairs, so it was the social point of the ménage.
His bedroom consisted of a mattress on the floor, and a floor covered in loose change. Apparently, when he undressed at night, the change fell out of his pockets and he never bothered to pick it up. I spent each morning lying next to his slippers and desultorily picking up the coins and putting them in the slippers.
I thought it odd that such a young man would have bedroom slippers until I made note of the state of the floors in the place. Each morning he would rise, attempt to put on coin-laden slippers, swear, pour them out, and go on as if nothing unusual had happened. I asked him about it later and he had apparently not been awake enough to register the addition of the coins.
Slippers were a wise choice. Neither of these guys was big on cleaning and the bathroom had dust woofies in it that were about 3 or 4 feet long. Every zephyr that ran through the house and under the door caused these ephemeral caterpillars to ripple. I had this terror of being in the tub and someone opening a door to the outside, causing a woofie to raise its head over the edge of the tub and attach itself to my wet body. Bleagh bleagh bleagh!!!!
I would stay in bed until I ran out of small change to put in the slippers and then get up and cast about for something to do. The kitchen was a disaster. My friend had tried to make rice the week before and lost tract of time. The rice had burned to the bottom of the pan, and about an inch and a half up. He'd scraped out most of it, but just filled it with water and left it in the sink. That pan was the worst of it. I cleaned all the other dishes and worked assiduously on the rice pan.
I was up early one morning, probably a Sunday, when there was a knock at the door. I opened it and saw this very surprised looking middle-aged couple standing outside. They were his parents. They asked to see him. He was still in bed, so I had to let them in and go get him. This was the awkward part for me. I was going to have to wake him up, which was not an easy task. It was embarrassing for me that he was still slug-abed and his parents had come. I didn't realize until a little bit later that they didn't know I was visiting.
Hearing that his parents were there helped to wake him a bit, but not totally. He had to get up, dump the coins out of his slippers, swear, and get dressed. Eventually, we all sat down at the kitchen table for what I expected to be the typical semi-awkward cross-generational conversation.
My insouscience probably made me come across as a shameless Jezebel. This is nice, I thought, I get to meet his parents, who were a bit younger than mine, but I had always gotten on well with older people. I really had totally the wrong attitude and I'm sure they left thinking the worst of me, little realizing the relative innocence of our relationship. If anything embarrassed me, it was my friend using a credit card to wine and dine me ... which his parents apparently paid for him.
Anyway, we had a wonderful time other than the parental visit. I laughed myself sick quite a few times while he told elephant jokes, which he normally would not consider to be funny. It got to the point where he could just say, "Shoehorn!" to set me off again. We would sit at the kitchen table and talk and just enjoy each other.
He was making brownies one night, and almost proudly showing his self-sufficiency in opening the box and handling the whole deal himself. In an unusual fit of tidiness, he not only threw the box away, but decided the trash can was full, closed up the bag, and took it out to the bin. He was quite carefree in the process, and I started wondering if he had made note of the time or how long the box said they needed to cook. No matter, I was a brownie expert.
His roommate came into the kitchen, having smelled the brownies.
"Wow, brownies! When will they be done?"
"I don't know," my friend said.
"How long are they supposed to cook?"
"Dunno."
"When'd you put 'em in?"
"Don't remember."
"Where's the box?"
"Threw it away."
"Oh." Pause.
"I took it out to the bin."
"Ah."
Soon they were both gathered around the oven door, peering inside.
"How do you know when they're done?"
"I think you put a knife in and see if it comes out clean."
His roommate lost interest and wandered off again. My friend returned to the kitchen table where I was biting my lip and my shoulders shaking.
"Wha-at?" he said.
"You know how you can tell if the brownies are done?" I asked.
He paused and considered it. "By the footprints in the Jell-O?" And I lost it. I was laughing so hard and he kept asking, "No, really - how do you tell?" And somehow, "When they pull away from the sides" sounded even funnier. Okay, you had to have been there.
"No, really. Tell me! How can you tell when the brownies are done?"
Monday, March 22, 2010
Ummm ...
Must be some other "marfita" - what do you think? Got this from my Lijit.com stats. If you aren't "lijit" you might want to consider it. It tracks who (only as in-depth at the above example, so don't think I have your name or IP address or nuffink) visits my various websites, how they got there (hmmm ...), and what they search for further after they cam-, ummm, after they ente-, ummm ...Anyway, if you're interested, subscribe to my blogs for Omssake! Put it on your blogroll. I don't blog so often that I'm a nuisance. Yompin' Yiminy!
Friday, March 19, 2010
Crazy White Girl
Crazy White Boy and I did it again last night: we infiltrated a black poetry stronghold. We've done this before, of course. The first time I was really nervous. I had heard there was a regular poetry night going on (my old one had faded away) at the Coffee and Dessert place in the desanctified church and we waltzed in on what I feared was a black sorority meeting. They were, however, very welcoming to us and in time they encouraged CWB to go back to playing guitar.
The group eventually broke up and we missed meeting with them each week. We missed being their pet white folk.
So when one of our old poetry friends told me that there was another poetry group starting up, we dusted off our poetry ears, turned off our computers, and sallied forth. It didn't have the swank of a coffee shop, being in a barber college, and there wasn't anyone we knew. I had been falling asleep right after dinner and we were planning a discreet retreat early (our source said it ran from 7 to many 9 or 10 pm) so I could be put to bed at a decent hour for a change.
Again, they were welcoming although they didn't know who we were. There was a $5 cover charge each and they tried many times to get us to taste the refreshments, but we'd just eaten a huge meal and were full to bursting.
The emcee seemed a bit nervous about us - warning us about the rap style of someone coming up, but I must admit that we do look like a couple of pasty-white, middle-class nerds. I didn't want to protest, "Oh, no! Go ahead and do your worst. We can take it." We're subversive in our own quiet way.
There was a low turn-out, but one of them was an old friend whose handle is "Spoken." There were about 5 reader/speakers and a couple of singers. One brought a keyboard. The next gathering is March 31st. Again, the quality of their creations can be stunning. I was brought to the edge of tears twice. Okay, maybe I was just a bit tired, but the writing is compact and moving.
They were again very nice when we left, shaking our hands and expressing the hope that we would return. I wondered if they packed up, hugged us and each other, waited until we were out of the parking lot, sighed, and turned the lights back on. CWB didn't think so.
The group eventually broke up and we missed meeting with them each week. We missed being their pet white folk.
So when one of our old poetry friends told me that there was another poetry group starting up, we dusted off our poetry ears, turned off our computers, and sallied forth. It didn't have the swank of a coffee shop, being in a barber college, and there wasn't anyone we knew. I had been falling asleep right after dinner and we were planning a discreet retreat early (our source said it ran from 7 to many 9 or 10 pm) so I could be put to bed at a decent hour for a change.
Again, they were welcoming although they didn't know who we were. There was a $5 cover charge each and they tried many times to get us to taste the refreshments, but we'd just eaten a huge meal and were full to bursting.
The emcee seemed a bit nervous about us - warning us about the rap style of someone coming up, but I must admit that we do look like a couple of pasty-white, middle-class nerds. I didn't want to protest, "Oh, no! Go ahead and do your worst. We can take it." We're subversive in our own quiet way.
There was a low turn-out, but one of them was an old friend whose handle is "Spoken." There were about 5 reader/speakers and a couple of singers. One brought a keyboard. The next gathering is March 31st. Again, the quality of their creations can be stunning. I was brought to the edge of tears twice. Okay, maybe I was just a bit tired, but the writing is compact and moving.
They were again very nice when we left, shaking our hands and expressing the hope that we would return. I wondered if they packed up, hugged us and each other, waited until we were out of the parking lot, sighed, and turned the lights back on. CWB didn't think so.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Here We Go Again
I thought we were past this, but it's raised it's giant head of stupidity again. I was asked "Why do all the new buildings look like mosques?"
Well, there is actually a good answer to that, and it's "Because y'all have mosques on the brain!" You go for decades without seeing a mosque, suddenly parts of the world where these buildings are prevalent are relentlessly in the news, and when you drive down the street, you see something new that doesn't look like a box with a storefront so you immediately connect it with these other "foreign" objects.
Here's a quiz for y'all. Mosque or Not-Mosque?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Answers are below. How'd you do?
Well, there is actually a good answer to that, and it's "Because y'all have mosques on the brain!" You go for decades without seeing a mosque, suddenly parts of the world where these buildings are prevalent are relentlessly in the news, and when you drive down the street, you see something new that doesn't look like a box with a storefront so you immediately connect it with these other "foreign" objects.
Here's a quiz for y'all. Mosque or Not-Mosque?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Answers are below. How'd you do?
Monday, October 12, 2009
Gobsmacked
The group was gobsmacked. They had been working on the project for two weeks and it was almost finished. And Farhad had asked to be moved to another group.
"Why?" asked Bev, because she was always the one who had no governor on her mouth and said the first thing that came into her head - the things that other people wanted to say but couldn't.
Farhad raised his head but did not look any of them in the eye. He looked to his side, as if someone was there to give him support. "My father says I cannot be in this group."
Eve became very still. Her eyes searched Farhad, but he wasn't looking at her either.
"But why, why does he say that?" Bev slogged on, crashing all social barriers as she went.
Farhad looked pained. He looked as if he were barely keeping his face from crumbling. His wide brown eyes became even wider and his forehead seemed to be performing some minimalist gymnastics feat.
"Why this group but not another?" Bev continued, and Tony shook his head at her. She glared back at him. "I want to know. I bet everyone wants to know." She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest. "But I'm the only one with the nerve to ask. Why, Farhad?" And she was about to go on when Eve made a hesitant noise that was more a gasp than a throat-clearing.
"It's me, Bev."
All eyes immediately went to her. Eve's arms hung like wooden forks. She didn't dare move for fear she would start shaking. With everyone's eyes elsewhere, Farhad relaxed too soon. The group's eyes shot straight back to him like spectators in a tennis match. Now he looked hunted.
"You ... you mean you two - " Tony began.
"No!" Farhad said, too emphatically. He grimaced and tried his adult voice again. "No, no, it's not like that - "
"We're not - " Eve interrupted.
Net ball.
The group began to breathe. Then Caleb stuttered, "Because she's J-jewish?"
Farhad could not answer him.
"That's just - that's ... silly," said Tiff.
"You don't understand," Farhad began, wanting to defend his father even though he was angry with him. "He is my father. I respect his decisions even if - "
"They're stupid?" Bev added, again with no governor on her mouth.
"No, even if I do not agree. It is called respect."
Tiff shook her head, "Farhad, that's medieval!"
"No, it's not," said Caleb. Then he blushed when they all looked at him. "There's lots I'd like to do but my parents won't let me. They do it for my own good," he added, echoing something he had heard many times.
"Like what?" Bev's inquiring mind never stopped.
"This isn't what group projects are about," groused Tiff. "We're supposed to learn to work together. If it's not sex," and here Farhad looked shellshocked, "I don't see the problem."
Another polite, if strangled cough, came from Eve. "I do." She flapped her wooden arms aimlessly. "My parents ... my parents told me to find another group, too." Farhad's head jerked up.
"What did you tell them?" Tony blurted out.
Eve wriggled a bit under the stares. "I lied." Plucking up some courage she continued. "I told them I was in Anna's group now."
"Great," said Bev, grasping the positive, "problem solved. Farhad, just tell your dad you switched groups and stick with us."
But Tiff was still working on the previous thread. "Let me get this straight - Your parents wanted you out of this group, why? Because of Farhad? Because he's Iranian?"
Eve glared at her. "My uncle is in Iraq, remember." Then she caved. "But, yes. That was it. Farhad's Iranian, he's a Moslem. They say he - " and she stopped. She couldn't bring herself to express it.
"I can't, Bev," Farhad said, breaking the silence. "I have to do what my father tells me to do. I'm not like you. The truth isn't something that's ... " he gestured with his hands trying to find the word, "that's elastic." It came easier now. "I respect my father because he is my father. I also respect you, and I respect Eve. Most importantly, I respect myself."
Eve's face attempted a smile. "So do I. I was angry with my parents and my first thoughts were to defy them. What they wanted me to do wasn't right. Farhad isn't - Farhad is a good student and he brings a lot to this project. We had a chance of getting a really good grade on this." She blushed. "Not that it's all about grades. It was just wrong to label him. And they wouldn't listen to me." She sniffed and started rolling her eyes around. Tears were forming. "It would have been embarrassing to ask Mr. Lynch to move me to another group. I couldn't explain it, I couldn't tell him why." She fixed her eyes on Farhad. "What did you say? What did you tell Lynch?"
Farhad lowered his eyes. "I said that for personal reasons I wanted to be moved to another group."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing. He just looked at me for a long while and then said yes."
Tiff huffed. "He knows."
Caleb agreed. "You bet he knows," said Tony.
Eve nodded. She sniffed again. "Farhad, I'm - "
"It's okay," he said quickly. "I too am sorry. I liked this group. Maybe not at first," he admitted. "But if things were different ..." And he walked away.
Tony shook his head. "He's just ... " but he had no words.
Tiff repeated her "Just medieval, man!" She turned to Eve. "You did the right thing."
"Did I?" Eve said.
Caleb sighed. "Maybe the right thing but the wrong way."
Tiff looked at Caleb in a sidelong way. "What about you, Caleb? How did your parents feel about you being in the same project as Farhad?"
Caleb started at the question and looked at the others. They knew he had lobbied long and hard to go to public school after being homeschooled most of his life. "Yes, well, about that," he began and then faltered.
"Yes?" prompted Tiff.
"Actually, I didn't tell them."
"Why?" asked Bev, because she was always the one who had no governor on her mouth and said the first thing that came into her head - the things that other people wanted to say but couldn't.
Farhad raised his head but did not look any of them in the eye. He looked to his side, as if someone was there to give him support. "My father says I cannot be in this group."
Eve became very still. Her eyes searched Farhad, but he wasn't looking at her either.
"But why, why does he say that?" Bev slogged on, crashing all social barriers as she went.
Farhad looked pained. He looked as if he were barely keeping his face from crumbling. His wide brown eyes became even wider and his forehead seemed to be performing some minimalist gymnastics feat.
"Why this group but not another?" Bev continued, and Tony shook his head at her. She glared back at him. "I want to know. I bet everyone wants to know." She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest. "But I'm the only one with the nerve to ask. Why, Farhad?" And she was about to go on when Eve made a hesitant noise that was more a gasp than a throat-clearing.
"It's me, Bev."
All eyes immediately went to her. Eve's arms hung like wooden forks. She didn't dare move for fear she would start shaking. With everyone's eyes elsewhere, Farhad relaxed too soon. The group's eyes shot straight back to him like spectators in a tennis match. Now he looked hunted.
"You ... you mean you two - " Tony began.
"No!" Farhad said, too emphatically. He grimaced and tried his adult voice again. "No, no, it's not like that - "
"We're not - " Eve interrupted.
Net ball.
The group began to breathe. Then Caleb stuttered, "Because she's J-jewish?"
Farhad could not answer him.
"That's just - that's ... silly," said Tiff.
"You don't understand," Farhad began, wanting to defend his father even though he was angry with him. "He is my father. I respect his decisions even if - "
"They're stupid?" Bev added, again with no governor on her mouth.
"No, even if I do not agree. It is called respect."
Tiff shook her head, "Farhad, that's medieval!"
"No, it's not," said Caleb. Then he blushed when they all looked at him. "There's lots I'd like to do but my parents won't let me. They do it for my own good," he added, echoing something he had heard many times.
"Like what?" Bev's inquiring mind never stopped.
"This isn't what group projects are about," groused Tiff. "We're supposed to learn to work together. If it's not sex," and here Farhad looked shellshocked, "I don't see the problem."
Another polite, if strangled cough, came from Eve. "I do." She flapped her wooden arms aimlessly. "My parents ... my parents told me to find another group, too." Farhad's head jerked up.
"What did you tell them?" Tony blurted out.
Eve wriggled a bit under the stares. "I lied." Plucking up some courage she continued. "I told them I was in Anna's group now."
"Great," said Bev, grasping the positive, "problem solved. Farhad, just tell your dad you switched groups and stick with us."
But Tiff was still working on the previous thread. "Let me get this straight - Your parents wanted you out of this group, why? Because of Farhad? Because he's Iranian?"
Eve glared at her. "My uncle is in Iraq, remember." Then she caved. "But, yes. That was it. Farhad's Iranian, he's a Moslem. They say he - " and she stopped. She couldn't bring herself to express it.
"I can't, Bev," Farhad said, breaking the silence. "I have to do what my father tells me to do. I'm not like you. The truth isn't something that's ... " he gestured with his hands trying to find the word, "that's elastic." It came easier now. "I respect my father because he is my father. I also respect you, and I respect Eve. Most importantly, I respect myself."
Eve's face attempted a smile. "So do I. I was angry with my parents and my first thoughts were to defy them. What they wanted me to do wasn't right. Farhad isn't - Farhad is a good student and he brings a lot to this project. We had a chance of getting a really good grade on this." She blushed. "Not that it's all about grades. It was just wrong to label him. And they wouldn't listen to me." She sniffed and started rolling her eyes around. Tears were forming. "It would have been embarrassing to ask Mr. Lynch to move me to another group. I couldn't explain it, I couldn't tell him why." She fixed her eyes on Farhad. "What did you say? What did you tell Lynch?"
Farhad lowered his eyes. "I said that for personal reasons I wanted to be moved to another group."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing. He just looked at me for a long while and then said yes."
Tiff huffed. "He knows."
Caleb agreed. "You bet he knows," said Tony.
Eve nodded. She sniffed again. "Farhad, I'm - "
"It's okay," he said quickly. "I too am sorry. I liked this group. Maybe not at first," he admitted. "But if things were different ..." And he walked away.
Tony shook his head. "He's just ... " but he had no words.
Tiff repeated her "Just medieval, man!" She turned to Eve. "You did the right thing."
"Did I?" Eve said.
Caleb sighed. "Maybe the right thing but the wrong way."
Tiff looked at Caleb in a sidelong way. "What about you, Caleb? How did your parents feel about you being in the same project as Farhad?"
Caleb started at the question and looked at the others. They knew he had lobbied long and hard to go to public school after being homeschooled most of his life. "Yes, well, about that," he began and then faltered.
"Yes?" prompted Tiff.
"Actually, I didn't tell them."
Saturday, August 15, 2009
"I'm a Prat and I'm Proud"
There is a person (for lack of a better term) running for Congress in my area who is proud of having invented a new term of abuse and puts it on his campaign mailers as one of his achievements. That this term, when critically dissected, has no intrinsic pejorative connotations, or any more than say, the words "bunny" (so cute!) and "jungle" (connoting luxuriant growth) do when separate, is immaterial. Most people are not familiar with Hedonism and, if they look it up quickly, will equate it with debauchery. Besides, it sounds like "heathenism"! So they will see the terms "secular" (omigosh, that sounds like "sexual"!) and "hedonism" together and picture scandalous orgies, people with no morals (because many seem to believe you can't be moral without a belief in some god) revelling in lascivious wassails instead of living with an ethical code based on rationality ... and revelling in lascivious wassails.
As a Secular Humanist (because there are Humanists who also follow the religion of their choice), I am insulted by this. I don't think that this represents my lifestyle (based on my personal Hippocratic Oath of "First, Do No Harm.") and it hurts my feelings to have my way of life mislabeled and ridiculed in this fashion. My first inclination is to, of course, turn the other cheek. I dunno, heard that somewhere. Recently, though, I have learned that stigmatizing people (say, by giving them an epithet not of their own choosing) is the easiest method of creating solidarity within a group.
This person wants to improve the cohesiveness of his target group by creating a sense of disgust in that group for another group. Now, I know that too many crazy people try to demonize behavior like that by linking it to Nazi Germany, but that is precisely how the Nazis manipulated people. There are more positive ways to rally your troops, but the easiest way is this way: create a scapegoat. Blame them for all the problems. I'm not saying this is the eventual intent of this person. I'm not saying he pictures a Final Solution for all non-Christians. He just wants to get elected. I'm sure he thinks that when he is elected, he will be working for all of his constituents to improve their lives and that his god is behind him 1000%. He means no one any harm, he just thinks he invented something clever.
Let me put this question to him: if that clever epithet was a new one to describe African Americans, Native Americans, North Koreans, Jews, Muslims, investment bankers, or welfare recipients, would he have put it on his campaign literature? "This country is under threat from 'Kimchi Jong-Illers' - a term I invented." Not that he would have to worry about that voter segment in this population, but how would that look?
While it is now too late to take it back, I appeal to this person's profession of Christianity (which is all over his campaign mailer) and his better judgment to drop this name-calling of a segment of his constituency. It is beneath him. And, while it might be efficacious, it's denigrating and hateful and has made him look like a prat.
As a Secular Humanist (because there are Humanists who also follow the religion of their choice), I am insulted by this. I don't think that this represents my lifestyle (based on my personal Hippocratic Oath of "First, Do No Harm.") and it hurts my feelings to have my way of life mislabeled and ridiculed in this fashion. My first inclination is to, of course, turn the other cheek. I dunno, heard that somewhere. Recently, though, I have learned that stigmatizing people (say, by giving them an epithet not of their own choosing) is the easiest method of creating solidarity within a group.
This person wants to improve the cohesiveness of his target group by creating a sense of disgust in that group for another group. Now, I know that too many crazy people try to demonize behavior like that by linking it to Nazi Germany, but that is precisely how the Nazis manipulated people. There are more positive ways to rally your troops, but the easiest way is this way: create a scapegoat. Blame them for all the problems. I'm not saying this is the eventual intent of this person. I'm not saying he pictures a Final Solution for all non-Christians. He just wants to get elected. I'm sure he thinks that when he is elected, he will be working for all of his constituents to improve their lives and that his god is behind him 1000%. He means no one any harm, he just thinks he invented something clever.
Let me put this question to him: if that clever epithet was a new one to describe African Americans, Native Americans, North Koreans, Jews, Muslims, investment bankers, or welfare recipients, would he have put it on his campaign literature? "This country is under threat from 'Kimchi Jong-Illers' - a term I invented." Not that he would have to worry about that voter segment in this population, but how would that look?
While it is now too late to take it back, I appeal to this person's profession of Christianity (which is all over his campaign mailer) and his better judgment to drop this name-calling of a segment of his constituency. It is beneath him. And, while it might be efficacious, it's denigrating and hateful and has made him look like a prat.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Now I Lay Me Down
My sister used to enjoy making fun of how prudish I was. My nieces and their children look on me as some prim and proper creature who likes to turn film canisters into rockets but is otherwise dull. If I swear, my friends burst into fits of giggles. Avatars have given up hitting on me in Second Life (not that I'm complaining). How did I get here?
But is there anything wrong with being prudish at 13? Is it possible that their mother's stream of scorchingly blue vocabulary just made my limited use of "Aw, shit!" seem like no swearing at all to my nieces? Do I really swear that infrequently? I don't have a problem with swearing. Just today my husband and I were imagining David Sedaris's brother Paul as a spokesman for some product or another and both of us went through a conjugation of "mother-fuck" worthy of Carlos Fuentes. We chuckled at ourselves, not out of any kind of embarrassment or shock, but just at the juxtaposition of Paul (a person we don't know at all but seem to think we do) and, say, Aunt Ruby's Peanuts.
Okay, my first year of college, I have to admit that I consciously taught myself to say "Shit!" by repeating it over and over in the car on my way to class. And my sister's language did used to make me cringe. When she was dying, and her husband was playing the stereo too loud (or perhaps just the wrong music - she'd taken an unreasonable dislike to Leon Redbone years before), she raised her head up enough to tell me to go "Tell him to fucking turn that shit off!" I think my version of it was something in a hushed voice to the effect of, "She respectfully requests you turn the music down."
And I really do say, "Oh, sugar!" - but because I think it's funny.
I look back now and wonder why I should be the anomaly when I hardly recall our parents swearing. I could get into deep doo-doo for saying someone "crapped out," if my dad hadn't pointed out that it was a perfectly respectable gambling term. When I was eight or nine I clearly remember my mother starting to say "damn" and trying to turn it into "darn" and coming out with strange dipthong that sounded like "Darren." Sewing could even make her hurl out a very unusual "Hot damn!" which was worse, she informed me, than a regular "damn." I don't recall my dad swearing or even raising his voice. During their worst arguments, no matter how shrill my mother got, he remained calm and reasonable, and, boy! did that piss her off! The most I ever heard him say to her was, "Now, Ruth ..." Something like that would send her spinning out of control and lead to her calling him a "Buster" as in, "Look here, Buster! If you think ..."
So, as a young person, I had to resort to being whiny. I had no good vocabulary! I would stretch my sister's ordinarily monosyllabic name into three or four syllables and run it through my sinus passages. And she would call me names. She called me "The Modest Maiden." "You take that back! Mo-o-ommmmm!" I was also some kind of "virgin" as well, but I don't remember the adjective. This was because I liked to have the door closed when I was on the toilet. Silly me. What was that all about? To keep her from coming in, I started locking the bathroom door. It seemed as if she was always wanting to brush her hair when I was in the bathroom. Couldn't she keep a comb in her room? What was that dresser and mirror for? Geyahhhhd, Ayeeeunnn! It turns out she was just part cat. I can't go to the bathroom without a cat being upset if the door is closed.
Is this reaction so unusual? Am I the only person in the world who closes the bathroom door? I was in my family. I was also the only one who didn't scamper naked through the house. When we moved to the beach, we would shower off the salt and sand before entering the house after a swim. My dad would actually totally strip outside. At least my mom shed her suit in the laundry room. I often wondered how the neighbors felt about some seventy-year-old retiree rinsing his less-than beefcake form in the side yard. No one ever said anything to me.
How did I get this way?
The first year we went away for the summer vacation (always the same last two weeks is July like all IBMers and their vendors) without my sister, she went crazy. She had a week-long party. The nosy neighbor next door pumped her for information about it; she was sure there was an orgy going on. There was definitely a great deal of drinking, but that wasn't so unusual because drinking went on all the time in my family. My sister's friends came over and spent the night - and another night, and another and another ... We had three bedrooms in the house and they were all occupied. My sister told me that one of her friend's period started on my bed and that was the least of it.
Later on I went into my room and looked at my twin bed. It creeped me out that it had led a more interesting life than I had. I felt it had betrayed me somehow. How could I sleep on it again? My sister had thought it was a big joke: people having sex on her little sister's bed. I was disturbed, but not at her, which was the weird thing. I was upset with the bed. It didn't last long, though. You can only stay up watch television so long. Eventually, you have to go to bed.
I spent most of my life living down my sister's behavior. She wasn't a scholar, so I had to do well at school. This was something that was easier to achieve when she finally moved out of the house. She never did what she was told, so I was quick to obey. Her language made stevedores cringe; I spoke four languages (three of them badly). She had wild, unprotected sex, had children outside of marriage, died from cervical cancer; I couldn't get a date or even probably wanted one. She did the right thing and finally got married, had two children, and stayed home to be the perfect mom; I ran off to New York City to break into acting.
Now that our parents are gone, I don't have to live a contrary life, but I have done so for so long, I don't know what sort of life I would have wanted. There are things I don't attempt because she was good at them: pottery, mothering, training horses, pies. Okay, I do make pies, but they will never be as good as hers. I had a boyfriend (such a juvenile term!) who was so fascinated by one of her pies that he pried off the pastry layer by layer. "If you don't want that, I'll eat it," I told him. No way, he wasn't giving up that pie. He'd never seen anything like it. No one ever will.
I don't say these things about my sister to be mean. This is my last chance to contrast myself with her. From now on, I will be treading in virgin (so to speak) territory. I am taking the path she never took, going through the menopause she never achieved, getting old without her to forge the path for me. And really, the only thing I can think of to say is, "Oh, shhhhhugar!"
But is there anything wrong with being prudish at 13? Is it possible that their mother's stream of scorchingly blue vocabulary just made my limited use of "Aw, shit!" seem like no swearing at all to my nieces? Do I really swear that infrequently? I don't have a problem with swearing. Just today my husband and I were imagining David Sedaris's brother Paul as a spokesman for some product or another and both of us went through a conjugation of "mother-fuck" worthy of Carlos Fuentes. We chuckled at ourselves, not out of any kind of embarrassment or shock, but just at the juxtaposition of Paul (a person we don't know at all but seem to think we do) and, say, Aunt Ruby's Peanuts.
Okay, my first year of college, I have to admit that I consciously taught myself to say "Shit!" by repeating it over and over in the car on my way to class. And my sister's language did used to make me cringe. When she was dying, and her husband was playing the stereo too loud (or perhaps just the wrong music - she'd taken an unreasonable dislike to Leon Redbone years before), she raised her head up enough to tell me to go "Tell him to fucking turn that shit off!" I think my version of it was something in a hushed voice to the effect of, "She respectfully requests you turn the music down."
And I really do say, "Oh, sugar!" - but because I think it's funny.
I look back now and wonder why I should be the anomaly when I hardly recall our parents swearing. I could get into deep doo-doo for saying someone "crapped out," if my dad hadn't pointed out that it was a perfectly respectable gambling term. When I was eight or nine I clearly remember my mother starting to say "damn" and trying to turn it into "darn" and coming out with strange dipthong that sounded like "Darren." Sewing could even make her hurl out a very unusual "Hot damn!" which was worse, she informed me, than a regular "damn." I don't recall my dad swearing or even raising his voice. During their worst arguments, no matter how shrill my mother got, he remained calm and reasonable, and, boy! did that piss her off! The most I ever heard him say to her was, "Now, Ruth ..." Something like that would send her spinning out of control and lead to her calling him a "Buster" as in, "Look here, Buster! If you think ..."
So, as a young person, I had to resort to being whiny. I had no good vocabulary! I would stretch my sister's ordinarily monosyllabic name into three or four syllables and run it through my sinus passages. And she would call me names. She called me "The Modest Maiden." "You take that back! Mo-o-ommmmm!" I was also some kind of "virgin" as well, but I don't remember the adjective. This was because I liked to have the door closed when I was on the toilet. Silly me. What was that all about? To keep her from coming in, I started locking the bathroom door. It seemed as if she was always wanting to brush her hair when I was in the bathroom. Couldn't she keep a comb in her room? What was that dresser and mirror for? Geyahhhhd, Ayeeeunnn! It turns out she was just part cat. I can't go to the bathroom without a cat being upset if the door is closed.
Is this reaction so unusual? Am I the only person in the world who closes the bathroom door? I was in my family. I was also the only one who didn't scamper naked through the house. When we moved to the beach, we would shower off the salt and sand before entering the house after a swim. My dad would actually totally strip outside. At least my mom shed her suit in the laundry room. I often wondered how the neighbors felt about some seventy-year-old retiree rinsing his less-than beefcake form in the side yard. No one ever said anything to me.
How did I get this way?
The first year we went away for the summer vacation (always the same last two weeks is July like all IBMers and their vendors) without my sister, she went crazy. She had a week-long party. The nosy neighbor next door pumped her for information about it; she was sure there was an orgy going on. There was definitely a great deal of drinking, but that wasn't so unusual because drinking went on all the time in my family. My sister's friends came over and spent the night - and another night, and another and another ... We had three bedrooms in the house and they were all occupied. My sister told me that one of her friend's period started on my bed and that was the least of it.
Later on I went into my room and looked at my twin bed. It creeped me out that it had led a more interesting life than I had. I felt it had betrayed me somehow. How could I sleep on it again? My sister had thought it was a big joke: people having sex on her little sister's bed. I was disturbed, but not at her, which was the weird thing. I was upset with the bed. It didn't last long, though. You can only stay up watch television so long. Eventually, you have to go to bed.
I spent most of my life living down my sister's behavior. She wasn't a scholar, so I had to do well at school. This was something that was easier to achieve when she finally moved out of the house. She never did what she was told, so I was quick to obey. Her language made stevedores cringe; I spoke four languages (three of them badly). She had wild, unprotected sex, had children outside of marriage, died from cervical cancer; I couldn't get a date or even probably wanted one. She did the right thing and finally got married, had two children, and stayed home to be the perfect mom; I ran off to New York City to break into acting.
Now that our parents are gone, I don't have to live a contrary life, but I have done so for so long, I don't know what sort of life I would have wanted. There are things I don't attempt because she was good at them: pottery, mothering, training horses, pies. Okay, I do make pies, but they will never be as good as hers. I had a boyfriend (such a juvenile term!) who was so fascinated by one of her pies that he pried off the pastry layer by layer. "If you don't want that, I'll eat it," I told him. No way, he wasn't giving up that pie. He'd never seen anything like it. No one ever will.
I don't say these things about my sister to be mean. This is my last chance to contrast myself with her. From now on, I will be treading in virgin (so to speak) territory. I am taking the path she never took, going through the menopause she never achieved, getting old without her to forge the path for me. And really, the only thing I can think of to say is, "Oh, shhhhhugar!"
Sunday, April 12, 2009
At Last!
Someone must be mellowing in their Old Age. No longer can This Certain Person complain about the Season's Greetings cards I send out. I feel that now, and only now, Peace on Earth is within our grasp. And why is this? What is this magic, is it the Ineffable? Is it Easter?
No, of course not, it's My Birthday and I will thank everyone in the world to set aside their stupid, petty prejudices and join hands for a big lovefest in my name, amen.
Don't make me send you a card!
Saturday, December 27, 2008
We Can't Have It Both Ways, Can We?
The opinion on Christmas from B.S., former speech-writer for President N., [I'll just let both of those hang and make of it what you will] is making the rounds of the e-mail in-boxes again, although it's several years old. It seems to work in nicely with a previous post of mine, so I'll complain about it here. Mr. S., although Jewish to the bone, doesn't mind being wished a Merry Christmas because it makes him feel all warm and cozy about his fellow Judeo-Christian [Where's the Islam there? Shouldn't it be Judeo-Christ-Islamist?] believers and that's what I was talking about earlier. That's very broad-minded of him to accept the greeting as kindly meant and good taste of him to enjoy those over-decorated trees.
Where he crosses the line, though, is to expect everyone to feel that way, especially atheists. He describes how Christians probably feel pushed around about showing their religion and equates it to how he doesn't like being pushed around for being Jewish. It seems, though, that he is completely unaware that non-religionists have been pushed around. Atheists are supposed to take it. Sitting in his "beach house" (to separate that from some other house he might have) he feels sorry for Christians, a vast majority, and not for the little people who are starting to push back. I don't like being pushed around for being an atheist, and so for years I just didn't mention it. Even as a child brought up Christian I had trouble with public displays of my religion because I was only too aware that there were people who didn't subscribe and I could see myself in their shoes. Mr. S. seems to think looking at it from his shoes alone is good enough.
I'll grant you that some of our number could stand to shut up, even some intelligent high-profile ones. And Christians are free to complain about political correctivity swinging the wrong way on them, but they've had their day in the sun and their chance to run things better. And there were still hurricanes, floods, famines, and pogroms.
We worry about current events precisely because they are current and we base past experience on our childhood memories of being totally clueless. The 1950s were not the halcyon days of nuclear families and religious devotion. They were years of Cold War and witch hunts, peoples' lives ruined by rumor mongering. Do I remember any of that? Of course not, I was sent to bed before Huntley and Brinkley came on! The 1960s were years of political upheaval over the Vietnam War and Civil Rights. I do remember that, because I was sickened by images of war during the dinner hour. Fortunately, our area of Kentucky was not torn apart by riots ... like those of the white Bostonians rejecting school integration. This means, however, that I put out of my mind what wasn't happening in my happy little galaxy. I remember my home and family.
What is happening, contrary to what Mr. S. believes, is that there is a whole lotta demagoguery going on. People are being whipped up on both sides by individuals who enjoy power. These people scaremonger, but not with anything so blatantly ridiculous as the destruction of Christianity, because only the mentally ill would believe that could possibly happen (and on the other side, only the mentally ill atheists could believe Christianity in particular or religion in general can be toppled), but they start with little things, like the alleged War on that Holiday celebrating the birth of You Know Who. Everybody can get behind Christmas! Christmas is harmless! Why, even that Jewish guy with the beach house likes Christmas! If you can get people to believe the little lies, then the big ones becomes that much easier to swallow. If you believe the atheists are out to ban That Holiday, you can be easily led to believe that all religious holidays are up for the chop. And then you can believe these people are un-American. Then you think your elected officials should take a stand on the issue, and their seasonal greetings should say a certain phrase. And then you start scrutinizing what these officials do about their greeting cards, totally missing what they're up to on matters that do fall within their purview, like fixing the economy, or at least making sure that greed will not be given free rein to create "exotic financial speculations" again.
So what are atheists up to? Hell's bells, even if we were organized it would be impossible to say. There are as many kinds of atheists as there are religions. They all become atheists different ways: some are born into atheist families, some wake up one day and ask themselves whether they really believe all that, some wrestle with their beliefs ... and win, and some have had bad experiences. Some drop their faith suddenly, sometimes faith fades slowly away. Mostly I think these people want the right not to be marginalized. We're all hopping on that civil rights bandwagon that seems to be so handy. You wouldn't fault black people for having been marginalized all those centuries, would you? You wouldn't say, "Look, there are just more white people, so just go with the flow and keep your mouth shut. We're tired of hearing about all we've done wrong or are doing wrong and we aren't going to change anything just to make you happy. 'Majority,' ever hear of it? So stop making us feel bad."
Okay, maybe some of you would say that.
Oops, forgot to post this ages ago!
Where he crosses the line, though, is to expect everyone to feel that way, especially atheists. He describes how Christians probably feel pushed around about showing their religion and equates it to how he doesn't like being pushed around for being Jewish. It seems, though, that he is completely unaware that non-religionists have been pushed around. Atheists are supposed to take it. Sitting in his "beach house" (to separate that from some other house he might have) he feels sorry for Christians, a vast majority, and not for the little people who are starting to push back. I don't like being pushed around for being an atheist, and so for years I just didn't mention it. Even as a child brought up Christian I had trouble with public displays of my religion because I was only too aware that there were people who didn't subscribe and I could see myself in their shoes. Mr. S. seems to think looking at it from his shoes alone is good enough.
I'll grant you that some of our number could stand to shut up, even some intelligent high-profile ones. And Christians are free to complain about political correctivity swinging the wrong way on them, but they've had their day in the sun and their chance to run things better. And there were still hurricanes, floods, famines, and pogroms.
We worry about current events precisely because they are current and we base past experience on our childhood memories of being totally clueless. The 1950s were not the halcyon days of nuclear families and religious devotion. They were years of Cold War and witch hunts, peoples' lives ruined by rumor mongering. Do I remember any of that? Of course not, I was sent to bed before Huntley and Brinkley came on! The 1960s were years of political upheaval over the Vietnam War and Civil Rights. I do remember that, because I was sickened by images of war during the dinner hour. Fortunately, our area of Kentucky was not torn apart by riots ... like those of the white Bostonians rejecting school integration. This means, however, that I put out of my mind what wasn't happening in my happy little galaxy. I remember my home and family.
What is happening, contrary to what Mr. S. believes, is that there is a whole lotta demagoguery going on. People are being whipped up on both sides by individuals who enjoy power. These people scaremonger, but not with anything so blatantly ridiculous as the destruction of Christianity, because only the mentally ill would believe that could possibly happen (and on the other side, only the mentally ill atheists could believe Christianity in particular or religion in general can be toppled), but they start with little things, like the alleged War on that Holiday celebrating the birth of You Know Who. Everybody can get behind Christmas! Christmas is harmless! Why, even that Jewish guy with the beach house likes Christmas! If you can get people to believe the little lies, then the big ones becomes that much easier to swallow. If you believe the atheists are out to ban That Holiday, you can be easily led to believe that all religious holidays are up for the chop. And then you can believe these people are un-American. Then you think your elected officials should take a stand on the issue, and their seasonal greetings should say a certain phrase. And then you start scrutinizing what these officials do about their greeting cards, totally missing what they're up to on matters that do fall within their purview, like fixing the economy, or at least making sure that greed will not be given free rein to create "exotic financial speculations" again.
So what are atheists up to? Hell's bells, even if we were organized it would be impossible to say. There are as many kinds of atheists as there are religions. They all become atheists different ways: some are born into atheist families, some wake up one day and ask themselves whether they really believe all that, some wrestle with their beliefs ... and win, and some have had bad experiences. Some drop their faith suddenly, sometimes faith fades slowly away. Mostly I think these people want the right not to be marginalized. We're all hopping on that civil rights bandwagon that seems to be so handy. You wouldn't fault black people for having been marginalized all those centuries, would you? You wouldn't say, "Look, there are just more white people, so just go with the flow and keep your mouth shut. We're tired of hearing about all we've done wrong or are doing wrong and we aren't going to change anything just to make you happy. 'Majority,' ever hear of it? So stop making us feel bad."
Okay, maybe some of you would say that.
Oops, forgot to post this ages ago!
Friday, December 26, 2008
Just a Quick Kvetch
I was buying a large jar of catnip (I can mention this now that the presents have been handed out) at K-Mart (where I go first before braving the insanity that is Wal-Mart) and was actually being checked out in a timely fashion (!!!) when the clerk asked me what catnip did to cats. "Oh, it gets them all excited and then they go all relaxed," I said, because I don't think anyone has successfully written a government grant to study this. I added, "My grandmother used to drink a cup of catnip tea when she wasn't feeling well."
The woman behind me said, "You know what catnip really is?"
And right there I was glad that I didn't add my grandmother used to meow after taking a sip to tease my mom.
"A phamacist told me," she announced smugly, "that catnip is the bad stuff left over from the marijuana. I used to let my son make tea with it, but I don't anymore. Not after hearing that." [As if there's a "bad" part to marijuana that's thrown away.]
I humphed. "No, it's not. Catnip is a plant from the mint family. I've grown it. It's nothing like marijuana."
"Well that's what the pharmacist told me."
I let that go. I'm still wondering how that information got garbled.
Did she make it up out of whole cloth?
Was the pharmacist pulling her leg thinking she'd be much to intelligent to really fall for that?
Was he suspecting that her son only called the stuff catnip because she'd found some substance in his room and gave it to said pharmacist to check it out?
Did the pharmacist actually mean "It's the equivalent of 'marijuana' for cats"?
For the rest of y'all, be assured that catnip is an herb from the mint family with the familiar square stem of the rest of the mints. You can buy it anywhere, including economically large jars of it at K-Mart. You can grow it in your yard without experiencing any awkward visits from Drug Enforcement (unlike those who grow the harmless and useful hemp plants that look like marijuana, have absolutely no drug effects, but are still illegal because of the resemblance).
Decades ago when the anti-drug programs were being foisted (and, I thought, wasted) on me, I wondered why I needed to know what uppers, downers, LSD, and marijuana looked like. Even as a teen I thought this would only make it easier to make a drug transaction (not falling for the oregano ... OR CATNIP in the baggie). I was a sanctimonious little horror for whom pressing her eyeballs until she saw colors was interesting enough. But now I see it would have been important so that when I became a mother and I chanced upon a ziploc of dried herb while nosing through my child's room I would not fall for the old, "It's just catnip to make tea!" And then, when that child wanted to know how I got so I could tell the difference, I could say, "When I was your age, they showed us what it looked like in special drug-identification classes." And I'd go mix me a margarita and put my feet up.
Yeah, lady, I was a child of the 60s! Don't try to tell me about catnip!
See if you can tell the difference!
The woman behind me said, "You know what catnip really is?"
And right there I was glad that I didn't add my grandmother used to meow after taking a sip to tease my mom.
"A phamacist told me," she announced smugly, "that catnip is the bad stuff left over from the marijuana. I used to let my son make tea with it, but I don't anymore. Not after hearing that." [As if there's a "bad" part to marijuana that's thrown away.]
I humphed. "No, it's not. Catnip is a plant from the mint family. I've grown it. It's nothing like marijuana."
"Well that's what the pharmacist told me."
I let that go. I'm still wondering how that information got garbled.
Did she make it up out of whole cloth?
Was the pharmacist pulling her leg thinking she'd be much to intelligent to really fall for that?
Was he suspecting that her son only called the stuff catnip because she'd found some substance in his room and gave it to said pharmacist to check it out?
Did the pharmacist actually mean "It's the equivalent of 'marijuana' for cats"?
For the rest of y'all, be assured that catnip is an herb from the mint family with the familiar square stem of the rest of the mints. You can buy it anywhere, including economically large jars of it at K-Mart. You can grow it in your yard without experiencing any awkward visits from Drug Enforcement (unlike those who grow the harmless and useful hemp plants that look like marijuana, have absolutely no drug effects, but are still illegal because of the resemblance).
Decades ago when the anti-drug programs were being foisted (and, I thought, wasted) on me, I wondered why I needed to know what uppers, downers, LSD, and marijuana looked like. Even as a teen I thought this would only make it easier to make a drug transaction (not falling for the oregano ... OR CATNIP in the baggie). I was a sanctimonious little horror for whom pressing her eyeballs until she saw colors was interesting enough. But now I see it would have been important so that when I became a mother and I chanced upon a ziploc of dried herb while nosing through my child's room I would not fall for the old, "It's just catnip to make tea!" And then, when that child wanted to know how I got so I could tell the difference, I could say, "When I was your age, they showed us what it looked like in special drug-identification classes." And I'd go mix me a margarita and put my feet up.
Yeah, lady, I was a child of the 60s! Don't try to tell me about catnip!
See if you can tell the difference!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wrestling with Christmas
Kathy contemplates the Meaning of Sensitivity
In Re: Snarky comments from friends.
Comment #1: "For an atheist, you sure know a lot of Christmas songs."
Comment #2: "Funny how many atheists celebrate Christmas."
Snappy (okay, not so snappy, more dilatory) retort to #1: It wasn't my idea to sing Christmas songs all the way back from Spartanburg.
Snappy (ditto) retort to #2: Funny how many Christians are actually celebrating Solstice with a Jesus veneer.
As an atheist, I feel perfectly entitled to put up an evergreen tree in the manner of my Germanic ancestors and celebrate the return of the sun in a dark and gloomy time of year. If I still call this holiday "Christmas," it's out of habit. Without the tree, the decorations, the twinkly lights, the dark would be unbearable.
I was, however, cheered to hear Nina Totenberg singing a Christmas song on NPR this Saturday morning. I remember thinking, Gosh, I thought she was Jewish! And she is, but her mother liked Christmas songs and Christmas trees. And there is much to like about them. When I was growing up, we had a Christmas songbook in the house and although I was unable to read music, I could read the words and had a good memory for a tune. I spent many a December singing Christmas songs. I loved to sing and I prefer old songs to new ones.
So, anyway, if Nina Totenberg can put up a tree or sing Christmas songs, then I can too. But that doesn't mean I think everyone should. I wouldn't call an isolated instance of a Jewish family with a tree and a few songs reason for all Jewish people to start putting up trees and singing "Adeste Fideles." That's up to them. I can only govern my own behavior.
The New Madrigal Voyces Edition of the Blonde Shikseh
The above photo was taken during my madrigal group's Christmas concert in Beaufort, SC in the early 1980s. Didn't have a problem singing the Gaudete then, don't have it now.
As a civilized being, if someone wishes me a Merry Christmas, I will return the greeting, the same as if they wished me Happy Hanukkah or Eid or Kwanzaa or July 4th. I might even thank them. I will not, however, wear the "It's okay to say Merry Christmas" button, because it's okay to say it to some people and not to others, others who perhaps recall a history of persecution by misguided Christians. You wouldn't wish someone a Happy Mother's Day if they'd just lost a child, would you? It pays to know something about the person you're laying a loaded greeting on. I've seen bad reactions from Jewish friends to Christmas songs ("Please don't start singing them until December!" - well, I agree with that) and cards ("Why are you sending me a Christmas card when you know I'm Jewish?" - Did that card say "Christmas" on it anywhere? Don't be such a touchy butthole!).
It would be presumptive of me to think everyone should be open to this ... and a little presumptive of the other side to think I would mean ill by it, but the onus is still on my side of the net because I started it. Because I started it, I get defensive. And that is what I think is happening now. Having gone for decades of their lives wishing people a "Merry Christmas" willy-nilly, people are mystified to discover that occasionally this gesture was unwelcome for one reason or another. In typical human behavior (see my reaction to the holiday card above), we don't apologise. Instead, we blame the victim for being overly-sensitive when it is our own insensitivity that has caused the irritation. By God, they should accept that greeting! We hadn't meant any offense! Besides, they should believe in Jesus anyway! Do 'em some good! Lighten up, infidels! Because the President of a patchwork nation of different peoples puts "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" on the intensely impersonal bulk greeting card, some Christians are up in arms and start blaming ... the atheists. It's the atheists' fault that honest, well-intentioned Christians cannot go around wishing anyone they damn well please a Merry Christmas. And that is because the atheists have declared a War on Christmas. (Gosh! I missed that meeting!) There was an actual abolition of Christmas; it was by the Puritan parliamentarians in 1640, a bunch of Christian kill-joys if ever there were. They claimed (rightly) that Christmas wasn't a holiday mentioned in or commanded by the Bible and felt people were having too much food, drink, shenanigans, and goings-on. Instead, people should fast and think about their past sins. (Thinks about past sins and a dirty little smile sneaks across face.)
So what is my problem? You know what? I don't think I'm the one with the problem. What business is it of anyone else what holidays I celebrate and how? I'm not sacrificing chickens (nothing intrinsically wrong with that, it's just, well, yuck!) or dancing naked (okay, maybe I am, but you don't have to look). You mind your bidness and I'll mind mine. And let's try to live in harmony, which does not mean "all on the same note."
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Shhh! Don't Tell the Middle Schoolers!
On my other blog, the Staff Developomendo one, I have been reviewing books. I was required to start reading and reviewing YA/teen books and actually found some that were good, some that were really good, and some that were really good but I just couldn't bear to read them. My latest post there reviews a book about a Muslim girl who makes the choice to wear the headscarf (note I'm avoiding the use of terminology in case the darlings are searching on that term). I'm not putting the title in here because the little dickens hunt the internet for pre-fab book reports. In fact, according to Lijit.com, my book reviews are the most popular posts in any of my blogs.
The books I seem to enjoy the most are the ones that pat me on the back for my own world view and, consequently, wedge nicely into this blog.
The lead character's mother points out that some "people are paralyzed by their traditions and customs. It's all they know, so you can't judge them for following and believing what they know." She refers to Leila's mother discouraging school and wanting Leila to pick a husband and marry ... at age 16. But this is a lesson for all of us, especially me. Many of the people I see every day are like village people (not THE Village People, of course) who have only known this town, their friends and family, their religion. I should try harder to not judge them.
Also, the author makes an important point (one that I make, so you know it has to be important!) when Amal is asked to give a presentation explaining how Islam justifies the bombing in Bali. She retorts that she will do that if the Christian will give a speech on the Ku Klux Klan and then goes on to mention Israeli soldiers and the IRA. She left out the Jew who shot up the Mosque, and the Spanish Inquisition, and ... but you get the picture. I am grateful to her for the KKK reference, because although they were more recent I'd completely forgotten them and I just read Freakonomics which gave a detailed report of how many lynchings of blacks occurred per decade. Granted, they fell off as KKK membership increased, but only because the previous decades of violence had cowed the population. Not happy to terrorize just the black population, the KKK moved on to Jews and Catholics, because white and Protestant was considered "superior." Then there was the church bombing in Birmingham. Don't try to tell me Muslims arranged that! I can hear people crying out, "But they weren't real Christians; real Christians wouldn't do that!" Bingo. My point exactly. It takes all kinds to make up a world or a religion (or a non-religion). And you can't ... I mean, I can't go around blaming a whole religion for what a few did.
A few years back the annoying owner of an electronics store who likes to put annoying political messages on his sign put up something to the effect that while not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorists ... well, you can see where that's going. My husband and I were outraged. My husband went in and revoked his custom, as it were. He'd had equipment in for repair. The reaction was, "But you aren't Muslim." Even someone, a nice person, said, "But it's true."
You just want to bang your head on the counter. How soon we forget! And how completely.
The books I seem to enjoy the most are the ones that pat me on the back for my own world view and, consequently, wedge nicely into this blog.
The lead character's mother points out that some "people are paralyzed by their traditions and customs. It's all they know, so you can't judge them for following and believing what they know." She refers to Leila's mother discouraging school and wanting Leila to pick a husband and marry ... at age 16. But this is a lesson for all of us, especially me. Many of the people I see every day are like village people (not THE Village People, of course) who have only known this town, their friends and family, their religion. I should try harder to not judge them.
Also, the author makes an important point (one that I make, so you know it has to be important!) when Amal is asked to give a presentation explaining how Islam justifies the bombing in Bali. She retorts that she will do that if the Christian will give a speech on the Ku Klux Klan and then goes on to mention Israeli soldiers and the IRA. She left out the Jew who shot up the Mosque, and the Spanish Inquisition, and ... but you get the picture. I am grateful to her for the KKK reference, because although they were more recent I'd completely forgotten them and I just read Freakonomics which gave a detailed report of how many lynchings of blacks occurred per decade. Granted, they fell off as KKK membership increased, but only because the previous decades of violence had cowed the population. Not happy to terrorize just the black population, the KKK moved on to Jews and Catholics, because white and Protestant was considered "superior." Then there was the church bombing in Birmingham. Don't try to tell me Muslims arranged that! I can hear people crying out, "But they weren't real Christians; real Christians wouldn't do that!" Bingo. My point exactly. It takes all kinds to make up a world or a religion (or a non-religion). And you can't ... I mean, I can't go around blaming a whole religion for what a few did.
A few years back the annoying owner of an electronics store who likes to put annoying political messages on his sign put up something to the effect that while not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorists ... well, you can see where that's going. My husband and I were outraged. My husband went in and revoked his custom, as it were. He'd had equipment in for repair. The reaction was, "But you aren't Muslim." Even someone, a nice person, said, "But it's true."
You just want to bang your head on the counter. How soon we forget! And how completely.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Stupidy, Stupidy, Stupidy
I have this hanging over my desk at home, over my computer, as a reminder. I made it myself on Publisher, so the Greek isn't perfect - it ain't got the diacritical marks, or whatever they is. One day I saw this yardstick frame at Wal-Mart (back when I used to frequent Wal-Mart, before it became Wally-World, bigger than Alaska, requiring huskies and a GPS to navigate, and left an enormous empty shopping center on the other side of town) and thought it was perfect. I had also read an interview of Yehudi Menuhin in BBC Music Magazine and this quote jumped right out at me. So this is a primitive, real life mash-up.
The Greek means: Of all things the measure is man. I took Ancient Greek a coupla decades ago to see if Aristophanes was as funny in the original as in translation. (He is.) There's more to translation than just changing one word after another into another language, as those of us who use Babelfish or Google Translate or some other automatic device have come to understand. For one thing, there is interpretation. Protagoras does not mean that Man is the example from which all other things are judged. He means pretty much what Yehudi Menuhin is saying: that a person cannot judge anything except by his/her own experience. Menuhin takes a little longer to say that this experience colors that person's perception. Because Menuhin's interviewers had unhappy childhoods, they assume that his must have been unhappy as well.
I have taken this to heart, as you can tell by these framed quotes I keep in a prominent place (I spend hours in front of them). I use them as a yardstick for my own opinions and I have caught myself many times being guilty of this sort of prejudice. My main weakness is stupidity. I absolutely hate it when I am stupid, which is fairly often, really. This self-loathing can be debilitating, so instead of being more careful or more reflective, I project my anger on what I perceive as the stupidity of others. I try to stop myself doing this, take a breath, and remind little me that I make stupid assumptions also or act without thinking.
But ...
I can remain silent no longer.
Of all the stupid, stupid, stupid things I've heard lately is that this election of Barrack Obama is a signal of the End Times. I hear this at work (okay, not that strange, living in the Bible belt), read urban legend debunkings of Nostradamus spams, and I've even heard it on Second Life-of-all-places. In my memory, they've been presaging the End of the World since that idiotic The Late Great Planet Earth book came out in the 1970s and all the Christian-types in college were going on and on about it. Well, Hal Lindsey's deadline has done come and went, chilluns. I didn't give it much of a thought at the time because apparently the brand of Christianity espoused by my family was more of a Say Your Prayers, Behave Yourself and Be Considerate of Others flavor. I don't remember anyone making any kind of a fuss over the End Times, probably because they were like death - something you have no control over, so why worry about it?
I was asked at one point, "What would you think if 20% of the population suddenly disappeared one day?" Ummm, Good Riddance?
So naturally I'm greeting reports of people running out and buying up guns since the election results came out with my characteristic eye-rolling. It's all good for the economy, I suppose. In the midst of the Millennial Panic the most I did was buy a small, disposable alcohol stove which could come in handy in the event of another ice storm which we're prone to in this neck of the woods.
So what do I worry about? Oh, my retirement. I keep telling myself that economic thingummies are cyclical and this too shall pass. With any luck, I'll be able to retire during an upswing. Then again, maybe I'll drop dead before that. My mom said "You always worry about the wrong thing!" - meaning "you" in the sense of "a person." Me, I assiduously worry about everything hoping they will all turn out to be wrong.
And the rest of y'all? Use your heads, people! In the Middle Ages the Black Death killed off a minimum of 30% of the European population, a mini-ice age brought on starvation and was followed by global warming, the ruling classes plied their profession with rampant brutality, in the name of Faith torture and murder by Christians on their fellow Christians as well as non-believers were by-words, and if that didn't bring on the End of the World, I don't think we have anything to worry about now. It's All About You, innit? Well, it's time to look outside your house, your neighborhood, your church, your religion, your city, your state, your country, your landmass, your century ... and look at the Whole Picture. This world is going to end, and no one can know the time or the how. It might be one of them asteroidy things. So just shut up about it, mind your own p's and q's, help your fellow man whether here or somewhere you've never even heard of, and pray if you got 'em.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
I Stand Corrected
It has been pointed out to me that the loony Anti-Hallowienies are in a minority, even in this area, and that I'm not making anyone happier by complaining about them. The world is full of nice people, who are Christians, who enjoyed the make-believe of childhood and think the current crop of children deserve to have the same fun. Hurray for them and an eclair for both of us (yum)! They just don't come up to me after the Halloween storytime and say, "That was so much fun! Thank you for doing that."
No, wait. They do. In fact, they did that today.
Ummmmmmm ... nevermind. I take it all back.
But as happens everywhere, in all times, the retraction gets no recognition. The debunking of satanic abuse stories mined by Recovered Memory Therapy (now discredited as a technique because the therapist has ways of suggesting possible memories which the subject obligingly produces) squeaks away unheeded in the darkness.
No, wait. They do. In fact, they did that today.
Ummmmmmm ... nevermind. I take it all back.
But as happens everywhere, in all times, the retraction gets no recognition. The debunking of satanic abuse stories mined by Recovered Memory Therapy (now discredited as a technique because the therapist has ways of suggesting possible memories which the subject obligingly produces) squeaks away unheeded in the darkness.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Don't Listen to This Man
He just doesn't understand candy! Candy corn is one of my favorites (but ONLY this time of year) and make awesome vampire teeth, hillbilly teeth, nose plugs, etc.
The particular hard candies pictured used to be my favorites, but I can't eat them now because anything that requires sucking on rubs holes in my mouth. I can eat one hard candy per day maximum.
I'd eat Necco wafers all year long, and as for the fun-size candies - fun-size must refer to his ... brain.
We give out atomic fireballs at our house because we just love 'em and we hate greedy bastard children. Kids with a sense of humor will love the atomic fireballs either for a palette cleanser after all the cheap chocolate or to bring tears to the eyes of their friends.
I remember Hallowe'en as some of the happiest times of my life, even with apples, raisins, and those horrible popcorn balls. Categorizing the candy and rating it was part of the fun! And you ate the icky stuff first and put the Mars candy bars in the freezer because they were awesome frozen and shattered with a hammer.
So, don't listen to this Ed Levine idiot! Kids like quantity of candy and as long as they can have a few goodies they'll be happy.
The particular hard candies pictured used to be my favorites, but I can't eat them now because anything that requires sucking on rubs holes in my mouth. I can eat one hard candy per day maximum.
I'd eat Necco wafers all year long, and as for the fun-size candies - fun-size must refer to his ... brain.
We give out atomic fireballs at our house because we just love 'em and we hate greedy bastard children. Kids with a sense of humor will love the atomic fireballs either for a palette cleanser after all the cheap chocolate or to bring tears to the eyes of their friends.
I remember Hallowe'en as some of the happiest times of my life, even with apples, raisins, and those horrible popcorn balls. Categorizing the candy and rating it was part of the fun! And you ate the icky stuff first and put the Mars candy bars in the freezer because they were awesome frozen and shattered with a hammer.
So, don't listen to this Ed Levine idiot! Kids like quantity of candy and as long as they can have a few goodies they'll be happy.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
What in the Samhain?!
I don't even like zombie movies, but I dress up for Halloween in Second Life.
There was a slight problem with storytime recently. I had a family walk out on my "If you're scary and you know it" song because they "don't celebrate Halloween." I know these people are out there. Usually they don't come to storytimes during October. Five minutes later a grandmother showed up with a child who was allowed to "make a face, show his fangs, etc." so I got to do it after all. I don't suppose it would have bothered me to the point of lashing out at the mother if she hadn't kept repeating that she didn't "want to be disrespectful." That "but I will" hangs in the air, doesn't it? She said it over and over and all I was hearing was "disrespect" - although I'm not sure whose actions it described.
This is like when my dad was telling me I was a good girl. "You're a good kid, you are. You are awfully good! Awfully, awfully, awfully good." I heard the "awfully" part and I heard it as "awful." So what I was hearing from this mom was "disrespect." I told her it was all right, but that she didn't need to repeat it.
No, she could make her apologies and just leave quietly. I have nothing to say to someone from some bizarre cult that abjures innocuous celebrations because of ignorance and hearsay and thereby engenders unnatural fears in her children that this holiday silliness is real, lending it much more power than wearing masks and making believe ever could.
But I could be wrong.
Being an honest person, I feel compelled to investigate my knee-jerk reactions and hold them up to scrutiny. In the opinion of this town (if they were aware of it), I too belong to a cult. I am a non-Christian in the holes of the strap of the Bible-belt. I've been to meetings that start with Christian prayers. I'm hounded by proselytizers. I'm asked stupid questions ("Are Catholics Christian? My preacher says they worship Mary."). There's a fragmentary church on every corner, exhibiting the definition of paranoia, blaming everything outside yourself: Those people are wrong and are going to hell; we are the only ones who know the right way (and I'm not too sure about you). The churches get smaller and smaller. They believe slavishly what they are told. They don't want to think for themselves, either because they don't trust their abilities to reason or they're just plain lazy. Again, that's just my opinion.
Most of these people have not ventured far from home and don't realize that there are other valid ways of life. I'm not saying that going begging from house to house and accumulating more candy than someone should reasonably consume in six months and scarfing it down in a matter of days is a good idea. It was, however, a cherished memory of childhood. Children enjoy being scared under safe circumstances. Having some sort of major holiday each month to mark the passage of time or to use as a teaching point is a good idea. Ancient traditions must have something important that they bring to our lives if they have been kept up this long and, as long as they aren't hurting anyone (other than making us enormously fat), are nice to keep.
I do believe in gorging oneself before winter, putting up lights and decorations to cheer the darkest part of the year, and celebrating new life in the spring. Therefore, I decorate for Christmas, I return the greeting when people wish me happy Christmas, I can sing carols, go to Christmas parties, send out cards (carefully not mentioning Christmas), do Christmas storytimes, and get all teary over the Christmas Story. Just don't make me do any praying or show up at your worship service. I will wait respectfully while you pray, but leave me out of it. So, when someone takes their holier-than-thou stand with me, I will get a bit huffy. I think, I've put up with you [insert rude plural noun here] down here for eighteen years and I'm getting fed up with it. You're only doing it to get attention.
Let me ask myself an honest question: Would I tell Christmas stories to little Jewish kids (despite the unlikeliness of this happening in my current location)? Hmmm, I've got me there. No, I would not do that and would not rail against it if their mom got up and said, "We don't do Christmas." Of course, I do give Alex a hard time for giving me a hard time over the "Christmas card." "Why did you send me a Christmas card when you know I'm Jewish?!" I didn't send you a Christmas card, Alex, I sent a Season's Greetings card with a Hanukkah stamp to let you know that I am well and I'm thinking about you although I wonder why if you're going to be such a butthole about it and next time it might be the Eid stamp, so watch it.
Anyway, are these examples actual equivalents? Let's look at this again.
Halloween: an American holiday that up until a short time ago was celebrated almost universally with happy, over-sugared children in schools, neighborhoods, and even churches. Currently linked to Satanism through spurious so-called histories and urban legends, but more likely a conspiracy of the candy manufacturers, dentists, and the weight-loss industry.
Christmas: an almost world-wide holiday celebrated only by Christians who have been historically documented less than 400 years ago to burn at the stake people who would not adhere to the exact dogma espoused by the local authorities (and let's remember that Protestants did their fair share of torture and murder as well, so don't get all "Those were Catholics, not us!" on me).
I don't see a real comparison, do you?
But it's time to put myself under the microscope and find my own prejudices. Ah, and there it is looking me right in the eye: July Fourth. I've written about this in another blog. Patriotism is right up there with religion as far as dangerous hobbies go. Red, white, and blue is a terrible color combination and love of country has unfortunately turned into a litmus test. Do I have pride in my country? Of a sort. It might not be like yours, waving the flag and talking about how wonderful it all is and cheering on the politicians of choice. Again, it takes into account that there are other ways of living that are just as valid. I don't want to praise my country to the detriment of another. What about the American people? I feel a kinship with them that I don't feel for those of my forebears. Germans are scary and talk funny. Americans share a common culture with me (except those non-Halloweenie people), but I do not say that this culture we share is better than anyone else's. It's just one that we share. Our government? It's messy, but it works well enough and doesn't seem to be any better or worse than anyone else's.
Would I go to a Fourth of July party? Well, it's a party, isn't it? You betcha! Would I wave a flag? Maybe, but flag-waving makes me uncomfortable. I'd sing the few patriotic songs I know because I learned them in school, although the national anthem is starting to get out of my range. It would help if I could feel good about my country again, if it didn't invade other countries or bomb other countries (perhaps I should be grateful we don't bomb ourselves but maybe that's next), or continually bully other countries into doing something (not that we're the only ones who do this) they'd rather not, even if they're being really naughty. I don't think I'd be described as patriotic by most people and that wouldn't really bother me.
The salient point, though, is that I would not show up at a friend's picnic in early July and then walk out on it because it was a July Fourth Party. "Sorry, I just don't do patriotism. I don't mean to be disrespectful ..."
I'm embarrassed to be caught at a Fourth of July Party in Second Life. OMG! I'm even waving a sparkler!
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Jonathan Miller Is Dead Wrong
Well, let's just say, "That's his opinion."
I have always (well, at least since the 1970s) thought of Miller as a genius and a hero. Who else could make John Cleese, at the height of his cranky goofiness, into a sex symbol by casting him as Petruchio and then having him play it dead straight (save the chicken clucking instance)? Cor, that would take godlike powers! I was on tenterhooks as the crew rushed to tear off the mask and bring him back after an apparently deadly demonstration on the effects of removing the carbon dioxide feedback from the body's emergency response. I had memorized the skits in "Beyond the Fringe" and even performed in one in a college theatre class.
So when my friend Alison said they could still get tickets to "An Evening with Jonathan Miller" at Regent's College if I was still interested (it was a week after my father had died while I was in London), I said "Hell yes!"
I had pictured a large, darkened lecture hall and a tiny figure on a stage with a podium he would probably ignore. Instead, it was a small conference room in full lighting with a comfy chair and a bar at the back. Fortunately, orange juice was available because I'd tied one on the night before with Lorraine and I don't really need to do that two nights in a row.
We met Alison at the Baker Street station, because we had no idea where we were going. She led us through Regent's Park to the entrance to the college where her other friend Jonathan (no relation, or at least not one he mentioned) awaited us. The man with the reservations, Alex, showed up a bit later. Alex had apparently caused quite a stir trying to get tickets, having to call successive numbers and wheedle information out of people. The lecture was probably London's best kept secret. Then he had to call again on the day of the lecture to squeeze out two more tickets. This must have caused the organizer to come to the utterly false conclusion that this was on the behalf of two important but incognito foreign dignitaries.
Dr. Miller came in early to scout out the venue and sample the oj and I fancied he gave me a Special Smile. Later, he was dragged to our group by the organizer who introduced him to Alex and then he inquired as to who had come from the farthest away. For one awful moment I thought of Alison, who is Australian, but she's been living in London for eight years now. I believe I jumped up and down and squealed, "That's meeeeeee!" totally forgetting my long-suffering husband and channeling Dr. Dick Hertz. We had an absolutely exquisite chat where I swooned all over him and expressed my concern about the demonstration in "The Body in Question" and he allowed that four people since he did that demonstration had died as a result. About this time I totally lost consciousness and started speaking to him in an uncharacteristic southern US accent. It was one of the happiest moments of my life (that did not involve Indian food ... or my husband).
His lecture began perhaps a little far back, with his father's history and career in groundbreaking psychology. Then he decided he'd talked about himself enough and entertained questions from the small but adulatory audience. Oh, and one crank case who reminded me of the late Greenwoodlian, Dr. Marvin Chipley, only slightly more together. My husband and I sat nodding happily through Dr. Miller's views on just about everything: education is now complete bosh (hear hear!), there is no god and what a silly notion that is (amen, brother!), "concepts" are ruining theatre (oh, oh, oh! that gives me an idea!), the only things that are worth learning are the things that are difficult (took that one right to heart and planned a rant all around it). Then he expressed, cheerfully, his utter regret at having given up on his medical career and that is right where he lost me. Theatre was just too easy, and, as we heard, the easy things aren't the worthwhile ones.
I suppose he has a right to his own regrets. Far be it from me to dictate his emotions. What he is not taking into account is two-fold.
Number one: Theatre is easy for him because he did all the difficult research on it in his medical career. He studied human behavior in all its minuteness and made the lateral leap with that hard-earned background into its use in theatre thereby improving productions such as "The Taming of the Shrew" with John Cleese beyond all knowing. He managed to take an English translation of Cosi fan tutte (anathema! anathema!) and make it palatable to me who believes that any opera translation is an abomination and a true lover of opera will take the time to learn the bloody language it's in so no time will be wasted on the supertitles and the beauty of the mixture of music and the language it was written for will blaze through. Where was I? Oh.
Oh, yes, it might be easy ... for him ... now. On top of this is his ability to communicate it to the performers and amaze them with the simplicity of something that is, in fact, not simple at all. It is not even simple to be yourself when you are confronted by a group of people who are focused on everything you say or do and, if it doesn't interest them, will lose that interest in you. Much more difficult is being someone else, or one of your many other yous. Suddenly you have to think about how you are moving, the subtleties of speech, and what your next line is. After you've done this for years then, yes, it's easy.
But no, it's not trivial. And therein lies my second point.
As a neurologist or any other sort of doctor, you are limited by the number of people you can actually see as patients in your lifetime. In a much shorter spate of time, Dr. Miller has brought joy, laughter, and a vastly improved "The Taming of the Shrew" to millions. I suppose if he continued in medicine and developed some treatment, some cure, some insight into disease he could possibly reach the same amount of people. That, I think, is what we in the US call a "crapshoot."
Perhaps what he means is that theatre isn't serious. It just doesn't carry the gravitas of medicine. I take issue with that as well. I believe we are much the poorer as humans without good theatre or any of the other arts. The body keeps the mind alive, the mind keeps the body in good order, but the arts are what make us human, civilized beings who think beyond where their next curry is coming from (although I have to admit that is pretty crucial). They instruct and elevate. They are not trivial.
I've been to doctors and I've had therapy and it's all been very helpful. I, however, would just as soon have a good laugh, get totally engrossed in a good book, or somehow be taken out of myself for a short time. All this makes my life bearable. I hug the memories of his "easy" work to me and they make me smile. So all in all I'm glad Dr. Miller made the greatest mistake in his life.
That being said, Dr. M, any chance of a bunk-up?
I have always (well, at least since the 1970s) thought of Miller as a genius and a hero. Who else could make John Cleese, at the height of his cranky goofiness, into a sex symbol by casting him as Petruchio and then having him play it dead straight (save the chicken clucking instance)? Cor, that would take godlike powers! I was on tenterhooks as the crew rushed to tear off the mask and bring him back after an apparently deadly demonstration on the effects of removing the carbon dioxide feedback from the body's emergency response. I had memorized the skits in "Beyond the Fringe" and even performed in one in a college theatre class.
So when my friend Alison said they could still get tickets to "An Evening with Jonathan Miller" at Regent's College if I was still interested (it was a week after my father had died while I was in London), I said "Hell yes!"
I had pictured a large, darkened lecture hall and a tiny figure on a stage with a podium he would probably ignore. Instead, it was a small conference room in full lighting with a comfy chair and a bar at the back. Fortunately, orange juice was available because I'd tied one on the night before with Lorraine and I don't really need to do that two nights in a row.
We met Alison at the Baker Street station, because we had no idea where we were going. She led us through Regent's Park to the entrance to the college where her other friend Jonathan (no relation, or at least not one he mentioned) awaited us. The man with the reservations, Alex, showed up a bit later. Alex had apparently caused quite a stir trying to get tickets, having to call successive numbers and wheedle information out of people. The lecture was probably London's best kept secret. Then he had to call again on the day of the lecture to squeeze out two more tickets. This must have caused the organizer to come to the utterly false conclusion that this was on the behalf of two important but incognito foreign dignitaries.
Dr. Miller came in early to scout out the venue and sample the oj and I fancied he gave me a Special Smile. Later, he was dragged to our group by the organizer who introduced him to Alex and then he inquired as to who had come from the farthest away. For one awful moment I thought of Alison, who is Australian, but she's been living in London for eight years now. I believe I jumped up and down and squealed, "That's meeeeeee!" totally forgetting my long-suffering husband and channeling Dr. Dick Hertz. We had an absolutely exquisite chat where I swooned all over him and expressed my concern about the demonstration in "The Body in Question" and he allowed that four people since he did that demonstration had died as a result. About this time I totally lost consciousness and started speaking to him in an uncharacteristic southern US accent. It was one of the happiest moments of my life (that did not involve Indian food ... or my husband).
His lecture began perhaps a little far back, with his father's history and career in groundbreaking psychology. Then he decided he'd talked about himself enough and entertained questions from the small but adulatory audience. Oh, and one crank case who reminded me of the late Greenwoodlian, Dr. Marvin Chipley, only slightly more together. My husband and I sat nodding happily through Dr. Miller's views on just about everything: education is now complete bosh (hear hear!), there is no god and what a silly notion that is (amen, brother!), "concepts" are ruining theatre (oh, oh, oh! that gives me an idea!), the only things that are worth learning are the things that are difficult (took that one right to heart and planned a rant all around it). Then he expressed, cheerfully, his utter regret at having given up on his medical career and that is right where he lost me. Theatre was just too easy, and, as we heard, the easy things aren't the worthwhile ones.
I suppose he has a right to his own regrets. Far be it from me to dictate his emotions. What he is not taking into account is two-fold.
Number one: Theatre is easy for him because he did all the difficult research on it in his medical career. He studied human behavior in all its minuteness and made the lateral leap with that hard-earned background into its use in theatre thereby improving productions such as "The Taming of the Shrew" with John Cleese beyond all knowing. He managed to take an English translation of Cosi fan tutte (anathema! anathema!) and make it palatable to me who believes that any opera translation is an abomination and a true lover of opera will take the time to learn the bloody language it's in so no time will be wasted on the supertitles and the beauty of the mixture of music and the language it was written for will blaze through. Where was I? Oh.
Oh, yes, it might be easy ... for him ... now. On top of this is his ability to communicate it to the performers and amaze them with the simplicity of something that is, in fact, not simple at all. It is not even simple to be yourself when you are confronted by a group of people who are focused on everything you say or do and, if it doesn't interest them, will lose that interest in you. Much more difficult is being someone else, or one of your many other yous. Suddenly you have to think about how you are moving, the subtleties of speech, and what your next line is. After you've done this for years then, yes, it's easy.
But no, it's not trivial. And therein lies my second point.
As a neurologist or any other sort of doctor, you are limited by the number of people you can actually see as patients in your lifetime. In a much shorter spate of time, Dr. Miller has brought joy, laughter, and a vastly improved "The Taming of the Shrew" to millions. I suppose if he continued in medicine and developed some treatment, some cure, some insight into disease he could possibly reach the same amount of people. That, I think, is what we in the US call a "crapshoot."
Perhaps what he means is that theatre isn't serious. It just doesn't carry the gravitas of medicine. I take issue with that as well. I believe we are much the poorer as humans without good theatre or any of the other arts. The body keeps the mind alive, the mind keeps the body in good order, but the arts are what make us human, civilized beings who think beyond where their next curry is coming from (although I have to admit that is pretty crucial). They instruct and elevate. They are not trivial.
I've been to doctors and I've had therapy and it's all been very helpful. I, however, would just as soon have a good laugh, get totally engrossed in a good book, or somehow be taken out of myself for a short time. All this makes my life bearable. I hug the memories of his "easy" work to me and they make me smile. So all in all I'm glad Dr. Miller made the greatest mistake in his life.
That being said, Dr. M, any chance of a bunk-up?
Saturday, September 20, 2008
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