It's 7:45 PM on Monday night. Today was a holiday, so it's been a lovely three-day weekend. I had to work yesterday, but it didn't matter. It still felt like a little vacation. There's something special about going to a movie--even a really bad movie--on Sunday night, and stopping for a drink afterward, and knowing that no one has to get up early the next morning. It was warmer than usual, and with crowds of movie- and restaurant-goers about, it felt more festive than a Saturday night.
*****
My older son was supposed to go to a school dance on Saturday night. He needed dress pants and shoes, and wanted a bow tie, so we went shopping. I suggested that he try gray pants with maybe a striped or windowpane checked shirt, but he decided to stick with black pants and a white shirt. He found a red bow tie with a matching red pocket square, and showed it to me. "What about this one?"
"No," I said. "With black pants, a white shirt, and a red bow tie, you'll look like a waiter. Do you want girls to dance with you, or tap you on the shoulder and ask you for another glass of punch?"
"Funny, Mom," he said. "You have jokes for days."
I do, I thought. I do have jokes for days.
An hour or so later, I realized that this might have been sarcasm, and not heartfelt admiration of my wit.
Sass.
We found pants, shoes, a bow tie, and a new white shirt. With the new clothes and a recent haircut, he looked very sharp; very stylish. The snow started as we left the store, and by 5 PM, a few inches of slushy wet snow had accumulated, and the dance was cancelled. He was disappointed, but not devastated. "I can wear the bow tie for Easter," he said.
*****
The bad movie was "The 15:17 to Paris." My 13-year-old loves ripped-from-the-headlines true-story movies, and the family movie outing was his idea. Let's just say that this one was a good story turned into a terrible movie. But we still had a good time. We stopped for drinks and a snack after the terrible movie and basked in the vacation atmosphere.
*****
All good things come to an end, and some more abruptly than others. This morning, I heard disturbing news. And that's all I can say about that. It will pass, and there will be better news tomorrow.
*****
Tuesday: It's tomorrow. Well, you know what I mean. No change from yesterday except that it's a day later. I'm watching the Capitals, who are down 3-0 in the 2nd against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and this is the good part of my day.
*****
Wednesday: The thing that weighed so heavily on my mind yesterday seems quite a bit less worrisome today.
Sometimes, I don't sleep. On those nights, burdened with worry or anxiety or lingering post-traumatic stress, I lie awake and think, or I just give up and get out of bed. I was wide awake this morning, and I finally decided that if I was still awake at 4, then I'd just get up. Then, a minute later, it was 4:45. I'd fallen asleep, and though it was just for a little while, it felt like a whole night of sleep had been distilled and concentrated into three quarters of an hour. Everything seemed much better then, much more manageable.
And now, I have to write a newsletter article. It will be at least a week late, which for me, is right on time.
*****
Saturday: Four-year-old house guests: It's all fun and games until someone ends up in the 3 AM vomit crossfire. My kids are older now, so it had been a long time since someone threw up on me in the middle of the night. He's all better now, and I too have recovered from the shock. Vomit wasn't the worst part of this rather icky week, but it's over now. Maybe next week, I'll write something that makes sense. No promises.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Clarinets, Guns, and Money
Wednesday: It's Ash Wednesday, which means Lent, which means no chocolate until Easter. Yes, I know; not quite the same as 40 days in the desert.
*****
And now it's Wednesday night. My older son had a concert at school tonight. Because this particular concert includes young musicians from the cluster of elementary and middle schools that feed into the high school, it's called the "cluster" concert. "Cluster" is descriptive in more ways than one, but that's a story for another day. Let's just say that it's a lot of kids making a lot of noise, not all of it musical.
The point of this concert is to show the progress that children can make if they continue to take music throughout their school careers. In Montgomery County, band programs start in fourth grade, and many of the students pick up an instrument or read a musical note for the very first time during their first band class. After just a few months, they can squeak out a tune in something close enough to unison that it can be performed in public. Again, "cluster" might not do this type of performance justice, but it's all part of the learning process. By middle school, they can play more complex pieces of music, with actual arrangements. By the time they reach high school, they are pretty decent musicians.
The cluster concerts begin with short performances (two or three songs) by the beginning groups, then move on to combined performances that include the advanced elementary and intermediate and advanced middle school bands. Then the high schoolers take the stage.
At my son's high school, the musicians perform in formal attire. The boys wear tuxedos, and the girls wear black dresses. After the younger musicians exit the stage, wearing dark pants or shorts with white polo shirts, the high school kids make a grand entrance, marching confidently into the auditorium, resplendent in black and white with instruments in hand. They usually get a big round of applause, which they obviously enjoy.
The concert was over in just an hour. I waited in the car as my son helped with clean-up, and then we came home and had a late dinner. Then we watched the news. In Parkland, Florida, children the same age as my son spent the afternoon hiding from a gunman. They weren't holding musical instruments when they were marched in single file out of the school, hands in the air like criminals, leaving behind the bloody, lifeless bodies of 17 of their classmates. And I wondered, what would the blood have looked like on crisp white tuxedo shirts?
Thursday: As always, thank God for all of the fucking thoughts and prayers, because otherwise, you might think that our elected leaders aren't doing a damn thing about routine mass slaughter of schoolchildren. And it just doesn't seem possible that leaders of the greatest country on earth would sit by and do absolutely fucking nothing as the bodies continue to pile up.
"What about Chicago?" That's one of my favorite NRA/Fox News/talk radio rejoinders in the gun control debate. Yes, everyone knows that the city with the country's strictest gun laws is also terribly violent. But if we're going to play "what about?" then I can go all fucking day. What about Canada? What about Australia? What about the UK? What about Japan? What about South Korea? What about Western Europe? What about every other industrialized democracy, similar to the U.S. in so many ways, except that they regulate gun sales, and their children don't get gunned down in their classrooms. What about that? That's my response to "What about Chicago?" Oh, and fuck you, NRA. That too.
Maybe it's not the time. Maybe that's it. It's been almost 20 years since Columbine. 20 years of "not the time." With 8 school shootings in 2018 (a rate of a little more than one per week), maybe the Twitter Thoughts and Prayers Brigade will let us know when the time is right to talk about doing something other than thinking and praying. Or maybe they'll wait until school shootings happen daily and no longer even merit news coverage.
Meanwhile, if you're wondering how much it costs to buy a Senator or a Representative, here's some comparison shopping information.
*****
And now it's Wednesday night. My older son had a concert at school tonight. Because this particular concert includes young musicians from the cluster of elementary and middle schools that feed into the high school, it's called the "cluster" concert. "Cluster" is descriptive in more ways than one, but that's a story for another day. Let's just say that it's a lot of kids making a lot of noise, not all of it musical.
The point of this concert is to show the progress that children can make if they continue to take music throughout their school careers. In Montgomery County, band programs start in fourth grade, and many of the students pick up an instrument or read a musical note for the very first time during their first band class. After just a few months, they can squeak out a tune in something close enough to unison that it can be performed in public. Again, "cluster" might not do this type of performance justice, but it's all part of the learning process. By middle school, they can play more complex pieces of music, with actual arrangements. By the time they reach high school, they are pretty decent musicians.
The cluster concerts begin with short performances (two or three songs) by the beginning groups, then move on to combined performances that include the advanced elementary and intermediate and advanced middle school bands. Then the high schoolers take the stage.
At my son's high school, the musicians perform in formal attire. The boys wear tuxedos, and the girls wear black dresses. After the younger musicians exit the stage, wearing dark pants or shorts with white polo shirts, the high school kids make a grand entrance, marching confidently into the auditorium, resplendent in black and white with instruments in hand. They usually get a big round of applause, which they obviously enjoy.
The concert was over in just an hour. I waited in the car as my son helped with clean-up, and then we came home and had a late dinner. Then we watched the news. In Parkland, Florida, children the same age as my son spent the afternoon hiding from a gunman. They weren't holding musical instruments when they were marched in single file out of the school, hands in the air like criminals, leaving behind the bloody, lifeless bodies of 17 of their classmates. And I wondered, what would the blood have looked like on crisp white tuxedo shirts?
Thursday: As always, thank God for all of the fucking thoughts and prayers, because otherwise, you might think that our elected leaders aren't doing a damn thing about routine mass slaughter of schoolchildren. And it just doesn't seem possible that leaders of the greatest country on earth would sit by and do absolutely fucking nothing as the bodies continue to pile up.
"What about Chicago?" That's one of my favorite NRA/Fox News/talk radio rejoinders in the gun control debate. Yes, everyone knows that the city with the country's strictest gun laws is also terribly violent. But if we're going to play "what about?" then I can go all fucking day. What about Canada? What about Australia? What about the UK? What about Japan? What about South Korea? What about Western Europe? What about every other industrialized democracy, similar to the U.S. in so many ways, except that they regulate gun sales, and their children don't get gunned down in their classrooms. What about that? That's my response to "What about Chicago?" Oh, and fuck you, NRA. That too.
Maybe it's not the time. Maybe that's it. It's been almost 20 years since Columbine. 20 years of "not the time." With 8 school shootings in 2018 (a rate of a little more than one per week), maybe the Twitter Thoughts and Prayers Brigade will let us know when the time is right to talk about doing something other than thinking and praying. Or maybe they'll wait until school shootings happen daily and no longer even merit news coverage.
Meanwhile, if you're wondering how much it costs to buy a Senator or a Representative, here's some comparison shopping information.
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Frame of reference
Sunday: I'm sick today. Again. I'm not sure why my immune system, once nearly impenetrable, has abandoned me. This actually feels like the flu, but I might be a little better today than yesterday. It's Sunday night at 6:30, and I haven't moved from the couch since I got out of bed this morning.
I hate being sick; it makes me anxious and depressed. But I got to watch six hours of Super Bowl pre-game coverage on TV, so there's that. I was half asleep at some point, when I heard my 13-year-old son say "Muzak? Why is he calling it 'Muzak'? Is that just a weird way of saying 'music'?"
"No," I said. "Muzak is a thing. It's hard to explain." So I tried to explain it and found that I was 100% right--it is hard to explain. My son was alternately curious and puzzled. "Did they only play it in elevators?"
"No," I said. "Elevators, and doctor's offices, and grocery stores--and other places."
"Why?" he asked. "Why did they have music in elevators? And why didn't they just play the real songs?"
"It's hard to explain," I said again. "But it was everywhere when I was growing up, and then it just became much less popular, and now you don't hear it anymore."
*****
So that's a lot of background for the next conversation with a kid; this time, the 16-year-old. I was waiting to drive him to a swim team event last week, and he decided to change his sweatshirt at the last minute. "Hurry up," I told him. "You're already running late."
"I know," he said, pulling off his red hooded sweatshirt. "But this sweatshirt looks weird. I feel like Little Red Robin Hood."
"Like who?" I asked.
"Little Red Robin Hood. You know--with the grandmother and the wolf?"
"You mean Little Red RIDING Hood?" I asked.
He scoffed. "That's not her name. It's Little Red Robin Hood. Isn't it?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. "It's not. There's Robin Hood, and there's Little Red Riding Hood. They're two different people. Not related."
"Hmm," he said. "I've been saying Little Red Robin Hood for a long time. Someone could have told me."
*****
Back to the 13-year-old, on another day last week.
"Mr. R's jokes don't make any sense," he said. Mr. R. is his band teacher.
"How so?" I asked. "Give me an example."
He thought for a moment. "OK. Here's one. What do you get when you throw a piano down a well?"
"I don't know," I said. "What?"
"A flat minor," he said. "See? What does that even mean?"
I thought for a minute. "Are you sure he said well? Did he maybe say mine shaft? What do you get when you throw a piano down a mine shaft?"
"Yeah!" he said. "He did say mine shaft! But that makes even less sense. What's a mine shaft?"
I explained what a mine shaft is. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then the look of recognition dawned. "OH! So it's a MINER and a MINOR! Like a guy who works in a mine, and a FLAT MINOR, like in music! Ha ha ha! That's actually a pretty good one!"
*****
Frame of reference is everything. I read to my children all the time when they were little, but I guess we missed the Little Red Riding Hood. I'm not sure what happened with the 13-year-old and the mine shaft and the well. I know that mining is a dying industry, but he's also never seen a well in his life, so I don't know how his mind subconsciously substituted well for mine shaft. And I never did ask what prompted the Muzak conversation in the first place. There are just so many things that were household words when I was their age, which are now obsolete, no longer even remembered.
*****
Tuesday: Some things, however, don't change that much. I just helped my 16-year-old with a paper SAT registration form. You still have to fill in the boxes with block letters, and then color in the little circles. What's different now is that you have to supply a picture. We didn't have a picture that met all of the specifications (of which there are many) so we took one and printed it.
He's wearing a different hoodie in this one. I wonder who reviews the applications; which College Board employee sees the thousands of pictures of eager, optimistic teenagers with their hoodies and their floppy hair, and their sweet, barely formed faces.
*****
Thursday: So I'm not much of a football fan, and I've lived in a Redskins household for many years, but I grew up in Philadelphia, among the hardest-core of hard-core Philadelphia sports fans. I watched the game from my sick-person nest on the couch, and although I'd been rooting for the Eagles all along, I was surprised at how happy I felt about the win. My grandfather was a huge fan, loyal through the franchise's worst years, when they made the Browns look like contenders. My brother and nephews are also dedicated fans. My brother, one of my sisters, four of my nephews, and my 72-year-old aunt all went to the parade today, which was patrolled by my cousin, a Philadelphia Police officer. I'm pretty sure that none of them punched horses or climbed light poles, but I saw some pictures of my hometown doing some crazy things. I'm happy for them. Fly Eagles Fly.
I hate being sick; it makes me anxious and depressed. But I got to watch six hours of Super Bowl pre-game coverage on TV, so there's that. I was half asleep at some point, when I heard my 13-year-old son say "Muzak? Why is he calling it 'Muzak'? Is that just a weird way of saying 'music'?"
"No," I said. "Muzak is a thing. It's hard to explain." So I tried to explain it and found that I was 100% right--it is hard to explain. My son was alternately curious and puzzled. "Did they only play it in elevators?"
"No," I said. "Elevators, and doctor's offices, and grocery stores--and other places."
"Why?" he asked. "Why did they have music in elevators? And why didn't they just play the real songs?"
"It's hard to explain," I said again. "But it was everywhere when I was growing up, and then it just became much less popular, and now you don't hear it anymore."
*****
So that's a lot of background for the next conversation with a kid; this time, the 16-year-old. I was waiting to drive him to a swim team event last week, and he decided to change his sweatshirt at the last minute. "Hurry up," I told him. "You're already running late."
"I know," he said, pulling off his red hooded sweatshirt. "But this sweatshirt looks weird. I feel like Little Red Robin Hood."
"Like who?" I asked.
"Little Red Robin Hood. You know--with the grandmother and the wolf?"
"You mean Little Red RIDING Hood?" I asked.
He scoffed. "That's not her name. It's Little Red Robin Hood. Isn't it?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. "It's not. There's Robin Hood, and there's Little Red Riding Hood. They're two different people. Not related."
"Hmm," he said. "I've been saying Little Red Robin Hood for a long time. Someone could have told me."
*****
Back to the 13-year-old, on another day last week.
"Mr. R's jokes don't make any sense," he said. Mr. R. is his band teacher.
"How so?" I asked. "Give me an example."
He thought for a moment. "OK. Here's one. What do you get when you throw a piano down a well?"
"I don't know," I said. "What?"
"A flat minor," he said. "See? What does that even mean?"
I thought for a minute. "Are you sure he said well? Did he maybe say mine shaft? What do you get when you throw a piano down a mine shaft?"
"Yeah!" he said. "He did say mine shaft! But that makes even less sense. What's a mine shaft?"
I explained what a mine shaft is. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then the look of recognition dawned. "OH! So it's a MINER and a MINOR! Like a guy who works in a mine, and a FLAT MINOR, like in music! Ha ha ha! That's actually a pretty good one!"
*****
Frame of reference is everything. I read to my children all the time when they were little, but I guess we missed the Little Red Riding Hood. I'm not sure what happened with the 13-year-old and the mine shaft and the well. I know that mining is a dying industry, but he's also never seen a well in his life, so I don't know how his mind subconsciously substituted well for mine shaft. And I never did ask what prompted the Muzak conversation in the first place. There are just so many things that were household words when I was their age, which are now obsolete, no longer even remembered.
*****
Tuesday: Some things, however, don't change that much. I just helped my 16-year-old with a paper SAT registration form. You still have to fill in the boxes with block letters, and then color in the little circles. What's different now is that you have to supply a picture. We didn't have a picture that met all of the specifications (of which there are many) so we took one and printed it.
He's wearing a different hoodie in this one. I wonder who reviews the applications; which College Board employee sees the thousands of pictures of eager, optimistic teenagers with their hoodies and their floppy hair, and their sweet, barely formed faces.
 |
| Head and shoulders visible; full face view (required). Floppy hair and hoodie (optional) |
*****
Thursday: So I'm not much of a football fan, and I've lived in a Redskins household for many years, but I grew up in Philadelphia, among the hardest-core of hard-core Philadelphia sports fans. I watched the game from my sick-person nest on the couch, and although I'd been rooting for the Eagles all along, I was surprised at how happy I felt about the win. My grandfather was a huge fan, loyal through the franchise's worst years, when they made the Browns look like contenders. My brother and nephews are also dedicated fans. My brother, one of my sisters, four of my nephews, and my 72-year-old aunt all went to the parade today, which was patrolled by my cousin, a Philadelphia Police officer. I'm pretty sure that none of them punched horses or climbed light poles, but I saw some pictures of my hometown doing some crazy things. I'm happy for them. Fly Eagles Fly.
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Non-fiction
I still haven't written my 2017 book list. I'll get around to it eventually, I guess. But I'm a few books into 2018. I just finished J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, which had been on my to-read list for some time.
It's a good story. It's not the seminal work of autobiography and social criticism that it was hyped to be, but it's still worth reading. It's hard not to be moved by the life story of a person who comes from poverty and chaos and ends up at Yale Law. Finishing college at Ohio State in two years after four years in the Marine Corps, and graduating summa cum laude is an amazing achievement.
I came from a working-class background (East Coast urban, not hillbilly, but there are plenty of similarities) so I know who Vance is talking about when he writes about the quick-to-anger, clannish, foul-mouthed but often hilariously funny people he grew up with. I know some of them myself. They have Philadelphia accents rather than Kentucky mountain twangs; and they're Catholic rather than Evangelical, but they have a lot in common with Vance's hillbillies.
I don't agree with some of Vance's political opinions, and the writing quality in the book is uneven--very good in some places, and sloppy in others. And though the personal details read as truthful, there are a few minor inconsistencies--for example, when Vance writes about the first time that he met his wife, and says that he'd never before met anyone as direct as she was, after several hundred pages of stories about his fearless, sailor-mouth grandmother. "Not even Mamaw?" I thought. She seemed pretty direct to me.
But other than that, the book was fine. Not a groundbreaking social history, not the most brilliant memoir ever, but good. I'm glad I read it. The predictable backlash against the book (Vance is a Trump-voter apologist, though the book never mentions Trump; he's not a real hillbilly,* he's boastful and self-satisfied, etc.) misses the point, which is that this is one man's attempt to to both tell his own story and to explain the world through his own experience. Like most of us who try to do those things, he tells only the part of his story that he wants to share, in the way that he wants to share it; and he doesn't get the larger picture 100% right, because no one can, ever.
*****
After I finished Hillbilly Elegy, I started reading Miranda Hart's Is It Just Me? I don't know why. Contrast, maybe--it's certainly very different from Hillbilly Elegy. I really like Miranda Hart, but she's a far better performer than writer. You can't do everything, I suppose. Anyway, it's mildly amusing, though I do have to stop and look up obscure Britishisms every five minutes. I thought that I had a pretty good grasp of British slang, but apparently, I have no idea.
*****
I took a quick break between Hillbilly Elegy and Miranda to read Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Textbook. She was the only person who could have written this quirky little collection of memories and ideas and observations. I finished it in a few hours, and then I was sad to think that there will be no more AKR books to read.
*****
So three very different books by three very different authors. Or maybe not that different. Both J.D. Vance and Miranda Hart are members of very small and insular groups of people: Rust Belt-raised Ivy League-educated descendants of Appalachian hillbillies vs. upper-class lacrosse-playing British boarding school girls turned actresses--not many people fit into either of those little circles, which wouldn't intersect on most Venn diagrams. But neither J.D. Vance nor Miranda Hart would think the way they think or write the way they write if they weren't members of those little groups. Amy Krouse Rosenthal, on the other hand, would probably have written exactly the same books no matter where she came from, or no matter what language she grew up speaking.
As much as I love to read novels, this is why I love non-fiction. I like to visit an unfamiliar place with a native guide, or to get acquainted with a mind completely different from mine. And now I know that a holler is a hollow in the Appalachian Mountains (I knew, but know I know for sure, if you know what I mean), and I know that a cagoule is an anorak-like jacket. (I had no idea--see what I mean about obscure Britishisms?) Knowledge, after all, is power.
*****
* Hillbilly street cred. Who knew?
It's a good story. It's not the seminal work of autobiography and social criticism that it was hyped to be, but it's still worth reading. It's hard not to be moved by the life story of a person who comes from poverty and chaos and ends up at Yale Law. Finishing college at Ohio State in two years after four years in the Marine Corps, and graduating summa cum laude is an amazing achievement.
I came from a working-class background (East Coast urban, not hillbilly, but there are plenty of similarities) so I know who Vance is talking about when he writes about the quick-to-anger, clannish, foul-mouthed but often hilariously funny people he grew up with. I know some of them myself. They have Philadelphia accents rather than Kentucky mountain twangs; and they're Catholic rather than Evangelical, but they have a lot in common with Vance's hillbillies.
I don't agree with some of Vance's political opinions, and the writing quality in the book is uneven--very good in some places, and sloppy in others. And though the personal details read as truthful, there are a few minor inconsistencies--for example, when Vance writes about the first time that he met his wife, and says that he'd never before met anyone as direct as she was, after several hundred pages of stories about his fearless, sailor-mouth grandmother. "Not even Mamaw?" I thought. She seemed pretty direct to me.
But other than that, the book was fine. Not a groundbreaking social history, not the most brilliant memoir ever, but good. I'm glad I read it. The predictable backlash against the book (Vance is a Trump-voter apologist, though the book never mentions Trump; he's not a real hillbilly,* he's boastful and self-satisfied, etc.) misses the point, which is that this is one man's attempt to to both tell his own story and to explain the world through his own experience. Like most of us who try to do those things, he tells only the part of his story that he wants to share, in the way that he wants to share it; and he doesn't get the larger picture 100% right, because no one can, ever.
*****
After I finished Hillbilly Elegy, I started reading Miranda Hart's Is It Just Me? I don't know why. Contrast, maybe--it's certainly very different from Hillbilly Elegy. I really like Miranda Hart, but she's a far better performer than writer. You can't do everything, I suppose. Anyway, it's mildly amusing, though I do have to stop and look up obscure Britishisms every five minutes. I thought that I had a pretty good grasp of British slang, but apparently, I have no idea.
*****
I took a quick break between Hillbilly Elegy and Miranda to read Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Textbook. She was the only person who could have written this quirky little collection of memories and ideas and observations. I finished it in a few hours, and then I was sad to think that there will be no more AKR books to read.
*****
So three very different books by three very different authors. Or maybe not that different. Both J.D. Vance and Miranda Hart are members of very small and insular groups of people: Rust Belt-raised Ivy League-educated descendants of Appalachian hillbillies vs. upper-class lacrosse-playing British boarding school girls turned actresses--not many people fit into either of those little circles, which wouldn't intersect on most Venn diagrams. But neither J.D. Vance nor Miranda Hart would think the way they think or write the way they write if they weren't members of those little groups. Amy Krouse Rosenthal, on the other hand, would probably have written exactly the same books no matter where she came from, or no matter what language she grew up speaking.
As much as I love to read novels, this is why I love non-fiction. I like to visit an unfamiliar place with a native guide, or to get acquainted with a mind completely different from mine. And now I know that a holler is a hollow in the Appalachian Mountains (I knew, but know I know for sure, if you know what I mean), and I know that a cagoule is an anorak-like jacket. (I had no idea--see what I mean about obscure Britishisms?) Knowledge, after all, is power.
*****
* Hillbilly street cred. Who knew?
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