It always starts with just one little thing, right? You notice a tiny bit of dirt on the floor, and then six hours later, all of your furniture is on the front lawn, because you had to pull up the carpet to vacuum underneath.
No? So that's just me?
Well, anyway, the furniture's not really on the front lawn, because I'm sitting on it. But the point is that I started doing just one thing, and then ended up down a seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time rabbit hole of what could possibly go wrong. It's figurative furniture, on an imaginary lawn. The less said, the better. Nothing to see here. Move along.
*****
I learned a bunch of new things today, including some of-the-moment Maryland teenage slang that I won't bother to define here, because what is this, Urban Dictionary? We had hoped to see Barry Trotz win his 700th game as an NHL coach, but what we saw instead was a sad beatdown of my beloved Capitals by the Nashville Predators, of all teams. And why is there hockey in Nashville, anyway? I'm not worried; they're still the best team in the NHL.
Nashville? Whatever.
*****
I'm now on the second volume of The Cazalet Chronicles. At the end of the first book, the extended Cazalet family and all of its servants and connections were breathing a sigh of relief as Neville Chamberlain returned home from Germany, having made a dishonorable agreement with Hitler that forestalled war, which had seemed inevitable. As we all know now (and as most of the Cazalets knew even then), the reprieve was only temporary. As the first book opens, the reprieve has ended and the family is readying for another terrible war, barely 20 years after the last one, which was supposed to end all wars.
My computer has been behaving strangely. I cleaned the disk (I don't really know what that means, but I did it) and ran a virus scan, and now everything is fine, but I'm afraid that this too is a temporary reprieve.
*****
Yes, I know exactly how bad that sounded. That's the point.
Late last week, I went to check my to-do list, and I realized that I just didn't care very much about any of the various tasks and chores that I had assigned to myself. More than that, though--I didn't even care about the list itself. I had actually already done two of the things, and hadn't even bothered to cross them off. What is wrong with me, I thought. But I knew what was wrong. The fog had descended again.
Sadness isn't the worst part of the periodic depressive episodes that plague me. The lethargy and lack of interest in regular normal things is worse. And worse still is the inward focus and self-absorption that make it quite normal to compare a potential hard drive crash to a world war that killed 50 million people. Thankfully, this episode is coming to an end almost as quickly as it began. Which means that I have some catching up to do. I haven't crossed off a single thing this week.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Monday, February 20, 2017
One thing (or two)
It's stupid to cry over a bad haircut, isn't it? Yes, I know. But sometimes the stupid things are the things you cry about. And by "you," I mean "me." Or "I." Use the subjective or objective case, as appropriate. ***** I had 76 visitors in one day; rather a high number for me. I wasn't going to post anything this week, but I'd hate to disappoint such a huge reading public. But I don't really have much to say, so I'll just share this little collection of pictures that I took yesterday at the National Gallery of Art. I took many more; maybe I'll post them another time. I have a weakness for museum gift shops and the NGA's gift shops are the best. I bought a canvas tote bag, because I love canvas tote bags; and a book, Every Person in New York, by the great Jason Polan. Great art can't fix a bad haircut, but it makes me feel a little better. And my hair will grow. *****  |
| The Lo Shu: The number of the total is fifty; of these forty-nine are used. |
 |
| Robert Henri, Snow in New York. |
 |
| Andy Warhol, A Boy for Meg. This, I suppose, really is "fake news." |
 |
| Edouard Vuillard, Child Wearing a Red Scarf. |
 |
| George Bellows, New York. |
 |
| Jackson Pollock, Number 7 |
 |
| On Kawara, One Thing, 1965, Viet-Nam. Well, two things, actually--I was born in 1965. |
 |
| Pierre Bonnard, Paris, Rue de Parme on Bastille Day |
 |
| Alfred Stieglitz. City of Ambition. |
 |
| Pierre Bonnard, Work Table |
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Management not responsible for the next 15 minutes of your life
I have no idea, really, what to write about this week. I suppose I don't need to write anything, but I've been posting on a more or less weekly basis, and I feel compelled for some reason to keep that up.
*****
It's Friday night. My husband is working. My kids have no plans and are happily hanging out at home. I cook almost every night, so on Friday nights, we order pizza, or I make some kind of frozen non-food. Tonight it was chicken taquitos. I put them in the oven, determined not to touch them myself, but then halfway through my third one, I had to admit: Frozen chicken taquitos are delicious.
*****
Now it's Saturday morning. I watched news for a little while when I got up. I know that I should wean myself from MSNBC, but I can't look away from the daily Trump outrage onslaught. It's not his policies that bother me so much (although most of them are bad enough); it's the in-your-face contempt for the law, for the opposition, for the citizenry, and for everything and everyone other than Trump and his family and his minions. I'm not surprised, of course. If I give Trump credit for anything, it's for not ever having pretended to be anything that he isn't (other than fit to hold public office, that is.) His supporters worked really hard to get all of us to believe that Donald Trump the swaggering, bullying, ignorant lout was just an act; all we had to do was vote for him and he'd reveal himself as Donald Trump, statesman and patriotic billionaire, willing to sacrifice his own interests, just to serve his beloved country. And just enough people believed that story. And at 12:01 PM on January 20, he was exactly the same Donald Trump that he'd always been, but now as leader of the free (for now) world. And we're stuck with him, maybe for four years, maybe even for eight.
*****
When I was really young, living on my own in a tiny apartment in West Philadelphia, I used to wash my clothes at the laundromat around the corner. There were signs all over the place--on the washers and dryers, on the machines that dispensed tiny boxes of detergent, on the walls and doors--reminding customers to keep track of their clothes. "Management not responsible for lost articles." "Please collect all items before you leave." "Management not responsible for damaged articles." My friends and I used to call every piece of clothing an item, or an article. "I like that article," you'd say, complimenting a friend on her Benetton sweater; or "I'm broke, but I have to go shopping--I don't have a single item to wear." I remember this at odd times, like when I'm folding laundry. Or like when I watched Kellyanne Conway's QVC appearance. "Go buy Ivanka's articles," I thought, paraphrasing Kellyanne. "It's a wonderful line--I have several items myself." That was apropos of nothing, of course. Except that Kellyanne's probably lying, even about that--she probably doesn't own a single Ivanka article.
*****
It's Saturday evening now, and we're all home again, watching the Capitals play the Anaheim Ducks. Never mind the absurdity of the existence of ice hockey in Southern California nor the ridiculousness of an NHL team named after a Disney movie. Hockey is awesome, especially Washington Capitals hockey. This is a particularly good time to be a Capitals fan--Alexander Ovechkin's 1,000th career point, Nicklas Backstrom's 500th assist, the NHL's 100th anniversary, and Fatima Al Ali, all in one season. How improbable that a young woman who plays for the United Arab Emirates' women's national team (itself an improbability) would be discovered by retired Capital Peter Bondra, who would learn that Fatima is a Capitals fan and who would then think to himself that it would be awesome to get the Capitals to fly her to Washington to see a game and to meet Alex Ovechkin, her favorite player? And how much more unlikely that he'd actually propose his idea to the team, who would say "sure, why not?" And so Fatima did come to Washington, and she met her favorite players, and she dropped the ceremonial puck at Thursday night's game against the Red Wings, and took a selfie, right there on center ice, with Alex Ovechkin and Hendrik Zetterberg smiling behind her.
Like most Americans, I have mixed feelings about Islam. It's stupid to pretend that the mass shooting in San Bernardino was just another incident of "gun violence;" or that no-go neighborhoods in Paris and Berlin and Brussels are an invention of far-right Islamophobes, and that the citizens of those cities who live in fear of mass shootings or vehicle assaults are cowardly xenophobes. But we have to find a way to defend our own freedom, without denying it to others. We can be the country that firmly refuses to allow fanatics of any faith to impose their beliefs on the rest of us, and we can also invite a devout female Muslim hockey fan to share the ice with the greatest hockey player in the world, smiling and radiant in hijab and a Capitals jersey.
*****
It's Sunday now, and a post that started on frozen taquitos ended on radical Islam and world peace through hockey, with a few gratuitous shots at the Trump administration, just for fun. I literally cleaned out a cabinet, right in the middle of writing this very paragraph. Adult ADD is no joke. The Capitals won (again) last night, and Fatima Al Ali is probably home in the UAE now, and I have plenty of items to wash and fold, and plenty of things to clean. Stick around; I'll be watching hockey and organizing cabinets until spring.
*****
It's Friday night. My husband is working. My kids have no plans and are happily hanging out at home. I cook almost every night, so on Friday nights, we order pizza, or I make some kind of frozen non-food. Tonight it was chicken taquitos. I put them in the oven, determined not to touch them myself, but then halfway through my third one, I had to admit: Frozen chicken taquitos are delicious.
*****
Now it's Saturday morning. I watched news for a little while when I got up. I know that I should wean myself from MSNBC, but I can't look away from the daily Trump outrage onslaught. It's not his policies that bother me so much (although most of them are bad enough); it's the in-your-face contempt for the law, for the opposition, for the citizenry, and for everything and everyone other than Trump and his family and his minions. I'm not surprised, of course. If I give Trump credit for anything, it's for not ever having pretended to be anything that he isn't (other than fit to hold public office, that is.) His supporters worked really hard to get all of us to believe that Donald Trump the swaggering, bullying, ignorant lout was just an act; all we had to do was vote for him and he'd reveal himself as Donald Trump, statesman and patriotic billionaire, willing to sacrifice his own interests, just to serve his beloved country. And just enough people believed that story. And at 12:01 PM on January 20, he was exactly the same Donald Trump that he'd always been, but now as leader of the free (for now) world. And we're stuck with him, maybe for four years, maybe even for eight.
*****
When I was really young, living on my own in a tiny apartment in West Philadelphia, I used to wash my clothes at the laundromat around the corner. There were signs all over the place--on the washers and dryers, on the machines that dispensed tiny boxes of detergent, on the walls and doors--reminding customers to keep track of their clothes. "Management not responsible for lost articles." "Please collect all items before you leave." "Management not responsible for damaged articles." My friends and I used to call every piece of clothing an item, or an article. "I like that article," you'd say, complimenting a friend on her Benetton sweater; or "I'm broke, but I have to go shopping--I don't have a single item to wear." I remember this at odd times, like when I'm folding laundry. Or like when I watched Kellyanne Conway's QVC appearance. "Go buy Ivanka's articles," I thought, paraphrasing Kellyanne. "It's a wonderful line--I have several items myself." That was apropos of nothing, of course. Except that Kellyanne's probably lying, even about that--she probably doesn't own a single Ivanka article.
*****
It's Saturday evening now, and we're all home again, watching the Capitals play the Anaheim Ducks. Never mind the absurdity of the existence of ice hockey in Southern California nor the ridiculousness of an NHL team named after a Disney movie. Hockey is awesome, especially Washington Capitals hockey. This is a particularly good time to be a Capitals fan--Alexander Ovechkin's 1,000th career point, Nicklas Backstrom's 500th assist, the NHL's 100th anniversary, and Fatima Al Ali, all in one season. How improbable that a young woman who plays for the United Arab Emirates' women's national team (itself an improbability) would be discovered by retired Capital Peter Bondra, who would learn that Fatima is a Capitals fan and who would then think to himself that it would be awesome to get the Capitals to fly her to Washington to see a game and to meet Alex Ovechkin, her favorite player? And how much more unlikely that he'd actually propose his idea to the team, who would say "sure, why not?" And so Fatima did come to Washington, and she met her favorite players, and she dropped the ceremonial puck at Thursday night's game against the Red Wings, and took a selfie, right there on center ice, with Alex Ovechkin and Hendrik Zetterberg smiling behind her.
Like most Americans, I have mixed feelings about Islam. It's stupid to pretend that the mass shooting in San Bernardino was just another incident of "gun violence;" or that no-go neighborhoods in Paris and Berlin and Brussels are an invention of far-right Islamophobes, and that the citizens of those cities who live in fear of mass shootings or vehicle assaults are cowardly xenophobes. But we have to find a way to defend our own freedom, without denying it to others. We can be the country that firmly refuses to allow fanatics of any faith to impose their beliefs on the rest of us, and we can also invite a devout female Muslim hockey fan to share the ice with the greatest hockey player in the world, smiling and radiant in hijab and a Capitals jersey.
*****
It's Sunday now, and a post that started on frozen taquitos ended on radical Islam and world peace through hockey, with a few gratuitous shots at the Trump administration, just for fun. I literally cleaned out a cabinet, right in the middle of writing this very paragraph. Adult ADD is no joke. The Capitals won (again) last night, and Fatima Al Ali is probably home in the UAE now, and I have plenty of items to wash and fold, and plenty of things to clean. Stick around; I'll be watching hockey and organizing cabinets until spring.
Sunday, February 5, 2017
Peace in our time
I like to finish what I start. Sometimes it takes longer than one might expect; over 25 years, for example, to finish my bachelor's degree (Summa cum Laude, of course, but still--25 years!) If I start reading a book, I will usually force myself to finish it, no matter what.
Or rather, I used to force myself to finish it. In the last six months, I've abandoned four books. A combination of too-busyness and age have made me hyper-conscious of how relatively little time I have in the world; how relatively little time any of us have, in fact. I have a lot to do, not just in a day, but forever. A lot that I need to do before I die.
*****
Well. That took an unexpected turn, didn't it? Maybe I need to turn off MSNBC for five minutes. Back to the books.
Walker Percy, of all people, wrote a satirical self-help book called Lost in the Cosmos, which was published in 1983. I'd never heard of it, and I thought that Walker Percy had died years before 1983, but Lost in the Cosmos ended up on my bookshelf one way or another, and I started to read it. Maybe my sense of humor is lacking, because despite tons of reviews that describe this book as hilariously funny in a sly tongue-in-cheek way, I just didn't get it. And I find also (age-related again, probably) that I just don't have any patience with casual sexism, even taking historical context into account. So I bailed on Walker Percy, right in the middle of chapter 2.
That meant that I had to find something else to read. I started on Christina Stead's House of All Nations, which is the kind of book that I usually love, but I put it down about 10 pages in. Maybe I'll try to read it again, but not now. I'm not really sure why I didn't want to finish it in the first place. It's a period novel set in pre-WWII Europe. What's not to love? Too French, maybe, in the way that a novel about the French written by an Australian (or any other non-French author) would be. So much jaded upper-class infidelity and intrigue; so much sophisticated elegance and glamour, and all in the first chapter. I couldn't keep up that pace for 300 or more pages.
House of All Nations is set in Paris in the late 1930s, and the late 1930s is an historical period of particular interest to me, especially now. Two years or so ago, I was sure that the world order that most of us Americans and Europeans have taken for granted for the last 70 years or so was soon to collapse. I wrote about this here, and here, and here. In fact, I've been preoccupied with political upheaval and the breakdown of civilization for pretty much my whole life, from age 10 or so on. I'm a lot of fun to hang out with.
Part of this is just because I'm a recreational worrier. The worst case scenario is usually the default option for me. But now, I feel that I have a real, actual reason to worry, based on just looking at and listening to the world. Until very recently, I didn't talk much about the end of the world as we know it (or once knew it, because it's probably already too late), even with my friends. I was sure that they'd think I was crazy. Now, though, I'm right in the mainstream. It's 1999. Everyone is waiting for everything to hit the fan.
*****
But again, back to the original problem: What to read? I didn't want to finish House of All Nations, but I did want want to return to the mid 1930s, and not just because I wanted a how-to manual for history that's about to repeat itself. A few weeks ago, I bought a Kindle edition of The Cazalet Chronicles, so I started on that, and now I'm pretty sure that I'm going to accomplish nothing until I read all thousand-plus pages. SO good. I have no idea how it's possible that I had never heard of either the books (it's a series) or Elizabeth Jane Howard, the author, but for the next few days, I'll be all agog as the Cazelets and all of their servants breeze through 1937 and 1938 without a care in the world, only to be thrown headlong into the cataclysm of 1939.
I almost feel sorry for them, long-dead imaginary people that they are. They have no idea what's coming.
Or rather, I used to force myself to finish it. In the last six months, I've abandoned four books. A combination of too-busyness and age have made me hyper-conscious of how relatively little time I have in the world; how relatively little time any of us have, in fact. I have a lot to do, not just in a day, but forever. A lot that I need to do before I die.
*****
Well. That took an unexpected turn, didn't it? Maybe I need to turn off MSNBC for five minutes. Back to the books.
Walker Percy, of all people, wrote a satirical self-help book called Lost in the Cosmos, which was published in 1983. I'd never heard of it, and I thought that Walker Percy had died years before 1983, but Lost in the Cosmos ended up on my bookshelf one way or another, and I started to read it. Maybe my sense of humor is lacking, because despite tons of reviews that describe this book as hilariously funny in a sly tongue-in-cheek way, I just didn't get it. And I find also (age-related again, probably) that I just don't have any patience with casual sexism, even taking historical context into account. So I bailed on Walker Percy, right in the middle of chapter 2.
That meant that I had to find something else to read. I started on Christina Stead's House of All Nations, which is the kind of book that I usually love, but I put it down about 10 pages in. Maybe I'll try to read it again, but not now. I'm not really sure why I didn't want to finish it in the first place. It's a period novel set in pre-WWII Europe. What's not to love? Too French, maybe, in the way that a novel about the French written by an Australian (or any other non-French author) would be. So much jaded upper-class infidelity and intrigue; so much sophisticated elegance and glamour, and all in the first chapter. I couldn't keep up that pace for 300 or more pages.
House of All Nations is set in Paris in the late 1930s, and the late 1930s is an historical period of particular interest to me, especially now. Two years or so ago, I was sure that the world order that most of us Americans and Europeans have taken for granted for the last 70 years or so was soon to collapse. I wrote about this here, and here, and here. In fact, I've been preoccupied with political upheaval and the breakdown of civilization for pretty much my whole life, from age 10 or so on. I'm a lot of fun to hang out with.
Part of this is just because I'm a recreational worrier. The worst case scenario is usually the default option for me. But now, I feel that I have a real, actual reason to worry, based on just looking at and listening to the world. Until very recently, I didn't talk much about the end of the world as we know it (or once knew it, because it's probably already too late), even with my friends. I was sure that they'd think I was crazy. Now, though, I'm right in the mainstream. It's 1999. Everyone is waiting for everything to hit the fan.
*****
But again, back to the original problem: What to read? I didn't want to finish House of All Nations, but I did want want to return to the mid 1930s, and not just because I wanted a how-to manual for history that's about to repeat itself. A few weeks ago, I bought a Kindle edition of The Cazalet Chronicles, so I started on that, and now I'm pretty sure that I'm going to accomplish nothing until I read all thousand-plus pages. SO good. I have no idea how it's possible that I had never heard of either the books (it's a series) or Elizabeth Jane Howard, the author, but for the next few days, I'll be all agog as the Cazelets and all of their servants breeze through 1937 and 1938 without a care in the world, only to be thrown headlong into the cataclysm of 1939.
I almost feel sorry for them, long-dead imaginary people that they are. They have no idea what's coming.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
I actually love spunk
The 70s were a hopeful and optimistic time to be a little girl. Lots of things were possible. You could do anything--everyone said so. You could be an athlete, like Billie Jean King or Chris Evert. You could be a lawyer, or a politician. You could be a doctor or a businesswoman. The world was a wide-open place.
I was a vague, bookish little girl, so I didn't have any one particular ambition. I imagined all sorts of things. In most of my daydreams, though, I was successful, in some glamorous but undefined career. I imagined a life in which I dressed fabulously, drove my own car, and ate grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries (and sipped Coke in a glass, with ice) in restaurants any time I wanted.
I was about 6 years old when "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" first aired (you knew where this was going, didn't you?) My mother and grandmother watched the show faithfully, and I watched with them, sitting cross-legged on the floor and wearing a flower-patterned quilted bathrobe that buttoned all the way down the front. I didn't get most of the jokes, and I didn't realize at the time that any ground was being broken. I just loved Mary Richards, and I wanted to be like her when I grew up. I wanted to be smart and nice and pretty and funny and independent. I wanted a cute little apartment and a cute little car and an important job with a typewriter and a phone. And I wanted a best friend just like Rhoda.
So much has been written and said about Mary Tyler Moore and the show, especially since Mary's death on Wednesday. Most of what I've read and heard has focused on her pioneering portrayal of women in the workplace and in the world. This is right and proper, and I'm happy to have seen so many moving tributes to MTM by women journalists and broadcasters, including Andrea Mitchell and Oprah Winfrey. Mary Richards was a pioneer. And to little girls like me, she was better than any Barbie doll or Disney princess.
*****
So life happens, and most of mine up to now hasn't even vaguely resembled Mary Richards's. That's OK. Most of it has been better, despite my periodic bouts with depression. I was unable to sleep one night during one such period in my late 20s, and as I sat on my couch in front of my TV, flipping through the channels and looking for I didn't know what, there it was. "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was on TV Land, late 90s small-hours refuge for the depressed and lonely. I watched it, hoping to feel for just a moment as I felt when I was a hopeful and happy 6-year-old.
I fell asleep on the couch that night, probably halfway through a third episode of the overnight MTM marathon that I'd happen to stumble upon, feeling a little better, and not just because I had remembered for a moment what it felt like to be six years old. It was because the show, to my surprise, was REALLY funny.
Mary Tyler Moore was already famous for her portrayal of Laura Petrie on the very popular "Dick Van Dyke Show," and she could easily have turned her own program into a showcase for herself. Instead, she found the funniest and most talented actors and actresses--Ed Asner, Ted Knight, Valerie Harper, Betty White, Cloris Leachman--and put the spotlight on them rather than herself, often playing the straight woman to Valerie Harper's wisecracking Rhoda, Ted Knight's buffoonish anchorman, and Betty White's promiscuous Happy Homemaker. Even the minor characters, especially Rhoda's mother, played by the gifted Nancy Walker, were brilliantly cast. Yes, the show was culturally significant and the character was groundbreaking, but "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was also one of the greatest TV comedies ever.
*****
Right now feels like less than a hopeful and wide-open time for women. The rise of radical Islamic fundamentalism in countries everywhere from Western Europe to the Philippines has created conditions of intolerable oppression for women and girls. Meanwhile, privileged women like me; white, middle-class American women who don't want for a thing, have only to contend with the fact that a self-proclaimed uninvited p&%$@-grabber is now the President of the United States. All of this, though, will pass. I'm sure of it. I'm still hopeful and optimistic. Love is all around.
I was a vague, bookish little girl, so I didn't have any one particular ambition. I imagined all sorts of things. In most of my daydreams, though, I was successful, in some glamorous but undefined career. I imagined a life in which I dressed fabulously, drove my own car, and ate grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries (and sipped Coke in a glass, with ice) in restaurants any time I wanted.
I was about 6 years old when "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" first aired (you knew where this was going, didn't you?) My mother and grandmother watched the show faithfully, and I watched with them, sitting cross-legged on the floor and wearing a flower-patterned quilted bathrobe that buttoned all the way down the front. I didn't get most of the jokes, and I didn't realize at the time that any ground was being broken. I just loved Mary Richards, and I wanted to be like her when I grew up. I wanted to be smart and nice and pretty and funny and independent. I wanted a cute little apartment and a cute little car and an important job with a typewriter and a phone. And I wanted a best friend just like Rhoda.
So much has been written and said about Mary Tyler Moore and the show, especially since Mary's death on Wednesday. Most of what I've read and heard has focused on her pioneering portrayal of women in the workplace and in the world. This is right and proper, and I'm happy to have seen so many moving tributes to MTM by women journalists and broadcasters, including Andrea Mitchell and Oprah Winfrey. Mary Richards was a pioneer. And to little girls like me, she was better than any Barbie doll or Disney princess.
*****
So life happens, and most of mine up to now hasn't even vaguely resembled Mary Richards's. That's OK. Most of it has been better, despite my periodic bouts with depression. I was unable to sleep one night during one such period in my late 20s, and as I sat on my couch in front of my TV, flipping through the channels and looking for I didn't know what, there it was. "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was on TV Land, late 90s small-hours refuge for the depressed and lonely. I watched it, hoping to feel for just a moment as I felt when I was a hopeful and happy 6-year-old.
I fell asleep on the couch that night, probably halfway through a third episode of the overnight MTM marathon that I'd happen to stumble upon, feeling a little better, and not just because I had remembered for a moment what it felt like to be six years old. It was because the show, to my surprise, was REALLY funny.
Mary Tyler Moore was already famous for her portrayal of Laura Petrie on the very popular "Dick Van Dyke Show," and she could easily have turned her own program into a showcase for herself. Instead, she found the funniest and most talented actors and actresses--Ed Asner, Ted Knight, Valerie Harper, Betty White, Cloris Leachman--and put the spotlight on them rather than herself, often playing the straight woman to Valerie Harper's wisecracking Rhoda, Ted Knight's buffoonish anchorman, and Betty White's promiscuous Happy Homemaker. Even the minor characters, especially Rhoda's mother, played by the gifted Nancy Walker, were brilliantly cast. Yes, the show was culturally significant and the character was groundbreaking, but "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was also one of the greatest TV comedies ever.
*****
Right now feels like less than a hopeful and wide-open time for women. The rise of radical Islamic fundamentalism in countries everywhere from Western Europe to the Philippines has created conditions of intolerable oppression for women and girls. Meanwhile, privileged women like me; white, middle-class American women who don't want for a thing, have only to contend with the fact that a self-proclaimed uninvited p&%$@-grabber is now the President of the United States. All of this, though, will pass. I'm sure of it. I'm still hopeful and optimistic. Love is all around.
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Commentary and review
I never intended for this to become a book review blog, but I tend to write about what I do, and in the winter, I read. Well, I also complain about the cold and contrive to find ways to avoid taking my clothes off and/or going outside, but those things don't make for compelling content. So it's books for now.
*****
Books and current events, actually. Right now, half a million women, give or take, are marching on Washington, just a few miles away from the couch where I sit with my laptop. I sympathize with their cause, mostly, but the organizers of the march made clear that they don't want pro-life women anywhere near their protest, so I didn't go. Just as well. My son had a swim meet today, so I held a clipboard instead of a sign. Now I'm back home and about to return to my book: Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede.
Every so often, I'll hear someone mention a book that I've never heard of, and I'll be curious about it. Then someone else, in a completely different context, will mention the same book, and I'll think about how odd that is, that twice in a day or so, I'm hearing two different people praise the same relatively obscure book. When I then see or hear a third mention of that same book, I consider critical mass to have been reached, and I immediately buy the book.
*****
Total non sequitur alert: I just watched Sean Spicer's first press room briefing. That was the type of performance for which the phrase "I can't even" was invented. No words.
*****
OK, maybe a few words. Was it completely unexpected that the Trump administration's very first concern was not how to reunite this very divided country, nor how to create jobs for the working-class voters who supported the new President, nor how to defeat ISIS or address any of the myriad threats to national security? Was it any surprise that on their very first full day in the White House, the Trump administration's very first message to the country was a petty, whining little complaint about the media's supposed misrepresentation of the allegedly huge crowds at yesterday's Inaugural events? Does Donald Trump ever do anything other than cry like a big orange baby?
*****
Anyway. Back to This House of Brede. It is, appropriately for today, a book about a group of women; specifically, Benedictine nuns in post-war England. The protagonist is a successful Oxford-educated professional woman who at age 40 or so abandons her high position in a government agency and joins the Benedictines as a novice. Although the action, such as it is, all occurs inside a quiet and isolated religious cloister, it's still page-turningly gripping. Like all great novels, Brede creates a completely self-contained world like no other, but still completely recognizable. I recommend it.
*****
Because I like to suffer, and Lent is still months away, I decided to take an online HTML class. It's still too soon. I graduated in 2014, but I find that I'm still all full up with book learning and can't do with any more just now, so no more HTML class. I'll just wing it. That approach usually works really well.
*****
Books, politics, and incompetent coding. If you were looking for sharply focused thought neatly distilled in spare and concise prose, then you came to the wrong place. Live and learn.
*****
Books and current events, actually. Right now, half a million women, give or take, are marching on Washington, just a few miles away from the couch where I sit with my laptop. I sympathize with their cause, mostly, but the organizers of the march made clear that they don't want pro-life women anywhere near their protest, so I didn't go. Just as well. My son had a swim meet today, so I held a clipboard instead of a sign. Now I'm back home and about to return to my book: Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede.
Every so often, I'll hear someone mention a book that I've never heard of, and I'll be curious about it. Then someone else, in a completely different context, will mention the same book, and I'll think about how odd that is, that twice in a day or so, I'm hearing two different people praise the same relatively obscure book. When I then see or hear a third mention of that same book, I consider critical mass to have been reached, and I immediately buy the book.
*****
Total non sequitur alert: I just watched Sean Spicer's first press room briefing. That was the type of performance for which the phrase "I can't even" was invented. No words.
*****
OK, maybe a few words. Was it completely unexpected that the Trump administration's very first concern was not how to reunite this very divided country, nor how to create jobs for the working-class voters who supported the new President, nor how to defeat ISIS or address any of the myriad threats to national security? Was it any surprise that on their very first full day in the White House, the Trump administration's very first message to the country was a petty, whining little complaint about the media's supposed misrepresentation of the allegedly huge crowds at yesterday's Inaugural events? Does Donald Trump ever do anything other than cry like a big orange baby?
*****
Anyway. Back to This House of Brede. It is, appropriately for today, a book about a group of women; specifically, Benedictine nuns in post-war England. The protagonist is a successful Oxford-educated professional woman who at age 40 or so abandons her high position in a government agency and joins the Benedictines as a novice. Although the action, such as it is, all occurs inside a quiet and isolated religious cloister, it's still page-turningly gripping. Like all great novels, Brede creates a completely self-contained world like no other, but still completely recognizable. I recommend it.
*****
Because I like to suffer, and Lent is still months away, I decided to take an online HTML class. It's still too soon. I graduated in 2014, but I find that I'm still all full up with book learning and can't do with any more just now, so no more HTML class. I'll just wing it. That approach usually works really well.
*****
Books, politics, and incompetent coding. If you were looking for sharply focused thought neatly distilled in spare and concise prose, then you came to the wrong place. Live and learn.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Two peas in a pod
I didn't plan or intend this, but the first three books that I read this year were memoirs written by famous baby boomers (Bruce Springsteen, Ruth Reichl, and Carrie Fisher). I started this post as a comparison/mini review of the three books, but then I saw "Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds" on HBO, and decided to just write about that instead.
*****
I hate most fantasy and sci-fi books and movies. As a Catholic, for example, I'm supposed to love Tolkien, but I don't. Not the books, not the movies. No Hobbits, no Towers, no Lords of the Ring, and ABSOLUTELY NO GOLLUM. There are, however, two exceptions to my complete and utter disdain for science fiction and fantasy: C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, and "Star Wars."
I love Star Wars, especially the original movie. And first among the many reasons that I love it is Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia. I was 11 when I first saw Star Wars, and I felt about Princess Leia the way I felt about Billie Jean King. Like young Billie Jean, Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia was adorable, but not intimidatingly beautiful. Like Billie Jean, Princess Leia could stand up to bullies, fight and win the good fight, and still look impeccable in an all-white ensemble. I loved her.
*****
I read Postcards from the Edge years ago, and when Carrie died, I tried to buy a Kindle edition. Shockingly, no such thing exists. I hope and expect that Amazon is working diligently to remedy that situation. Meanwhile, I bought and read the Kindle edition of Wishful Drinking, It didn't surprise me that Carrie in her own words comes across as an old-time wise-cracking gum-snapping Hollywood dame. She was born and raised that way. What did surprise me was how much she really loved her mother. Not just out of a sense of duty and not despite whatever her flaws might have been. Carrie loved Debbie wholeheartedly, and vice versa. They lived next door to each other, on a property that they called "the compound" (because of course it was called "the compound") and they seemed to never tire of each other's company. Having read Postcards (and also having seen the movie version), I just assumed that Carrie was bitter and resentful about her mother, which seems to be the stereotypical attitude of old Hollywood children toward their movie star parents. Postcards is a novel, so maybe Carrie thought that the unabashed love and admiration of a daughter for her mother wouldn't have made an interesting conflict for a work of fiction.
"Bright Lights," a reality-style documentary with cameras and interviewers following Carrie and Debbie around, uses lots of the material that Carrie covered in Wishful Drinking, Having just finished reading it, I recognized some passages from the book in some of Carrie's voice-over narration. This is fitting. Carrie was a great writer, and there was no one better suited to write the voice-overs. Great writer that she was, though, she didn't really capture the day-in and day-out relationship with her mother as well as the movie does. Carrie and Debbie tease each other, interrupt each other, and break into frequent song and comedy routines that are at once impromptu and highly polished and rehearsed, because they spent 50 years perfecting their mother-daughter act.
My husband actually saw "Bright Lights" first. He found Carrie and Debbie's "schtick," as he called it, annoying. But I found their banter and silliness charming, and the genuine affection between mother and daughter is touching. I teared up more than once.
Just as remarkable is the role of Todd Fisher, Carrie's brother, both in the movie and in their lives. Although I liked watching Carrie and Debbie being themselves and performing together, I can also easily see that the relationship between them was a closed world, unwelcoming to outsiders, and Todd might have felt like an odd man out when he was with the two of them. If he did, he concealed it well. Debbie's quirks and Carrie's struggles with mental illness and drug addiction are apparent throughout the movie; and Todd's observations about his mother and sister come across as truthful, but kind and compassionate. The camera often catches him as he watches Carrie and Debbie doing their routine, both onstage and off, and his affection for both of them is obvious and moving. Debbie raised a generous man.
Carrie and Debbie were also generous with their great personal and professional gifts. There's a scene in which Carrie appears at a Star Wars fan fest where attendees paid $70 to stand in line and meet Carrie and get her autograph on posters and shirts and other memorabilia. It's easy to criticize athletes and movie stars who charge for their autographs at such events, but what's most striking about this particular scene is how much of herself Carrie gives to each of the fans--hugs, pictures, and genuine emotional connection, however brief. The punters got their money's worth. Debbie, too, was generous with her audiences. The camera pans the audience at one of her last Las Vegas shows, and every single face shines with love and happiness. As I told my son, who watched with me, this was Debbie's great gift. She was a good dancer, singer, and actress, but making people happy was what she did best.
*****
I saw "Rogue One" today, finally, and like last year's "The Force Awakens," it was a fitting continuation of the franchise's great tradition of fearless and beautiful female heroines (don't get me started on Episodes 2 and 3. As much as I love everything Star Wars, I believe that Episode 2 is one of the worst movies ever made; some other time, I'll tell you why, at considerable length). Young Princess Leia has the last word in "Rogue One." I'm sad that it's one of the last times that we'll see her on film (she finished filming Episode 8, which will be released later this year), but I'm happy to have seen Princess Leia one more time. Rest in peace, Carrie and Debbie. You'll be missed.
*****
I hate most fantasy and sci-fi books and movies. As a Catholic, for example, I'm supposed to love Tolkien, but I don't. Not the books, not the movies. No Hobbits, no Towers, no Lords of the Ring, and ABSOLUTELY NO GOLLUM. There are, however, two exceptions to my complete and utter disdain for science fiction and fantasy: C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, and "Star Wars."
I love Star Wars, especially the original movie. And first among the many reasons that I love it is Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia. I was 11 when I first saw Star Wars, and I felt about Princess Leia the way I felt about Billie Jean King. Like young Billie Jean, Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia was adorable, but not intimidatingly beautiful. Like Billie Jean, Princess Leia could stand up to bullies, fight and win the good fight, and still look impeccable in an all-white ensemble. I loved her.
*****
I read Postcards from the Edge years ago, and when Carrie died, I tried to buy a Kindle edition. Shockingly, no such thing exists. I hope and expect that Amazon is working diligently to remedy that situation. Meanwhile, I bought and read the Kindle edition of Wishful Drinking, It didn't surprise me that Carrie in her own words comes across as an old-time wise-cracking gum-snapping Hollywood dame. She was born and raised that way. What did surprise me was how much she really loved her mother. Not just out of a sense of duty and not despite whatever her flaws might have been. Carrie loved Debbie wholeheartedly, and vice versa. They lived next door to each other, on a property that they called "the compound" (because of course it was called "the compound") and they seemed to never tire of each other's company. Having read Postcards (and also having seen the movie version), I just assumed that Carrie was bitter and resentful about her mother, which seems to be the stereotypical attitude of old Hollywood children toward their movie star parents. Postcards is a novel, so maybe Carrie thought that the unabashed love and admiration of a daughter for her mother wouldn't have made an interesting conflict for a work of fiction.
"Bright Lights," a reality-style documentary with cameras and interviewers following Carrie and Debbie around, uses lots of the material that Carrie covered in Wishful Drinking, Having just finished reading it, I recognized some passages from the book in some of Carrie's voice-over narration. This is fitting. Carrie was a great writer, and there was no one better suited to write the voice-overs. Great writer that she was, though, she didn't really capture the day-in and day-out relationship with her mother as well as the movie does. Carrie and Debbie tease each other, interrupt each other, and break into frequent song and comedy routines that are at once impromptu and highly polished and rehearsed, because they spent 50 years perfecting their mother-daughter act.
My husband actually saw "Bright Lights" first. He found Carrie and Debbie's "schtick," as he called it, annoying. But I found their banter and silliness charming, and the genuine affection between mother and daughter is touching. I teared up more than once.
Just as remarkable is the role of Todd Fisher, Carrie's brother, both in the movie and in their lives. Although I liked watching Carrie and Debbie being themselves and performing together, I can also easily see that the relationship between them was a closed world, unwelcoming to outsiders, and Todd might have felt like an odd man out when he was with the two of them. If he did, he concealed it well. Debbie's quirks and Carrie's struggles with mental illness and drug addiction are apparent throughout the movie; and Todd's observations about his mother and sister come across as truthful, but kind and compassionate. The camera often catches him as he watches Carrie and Debbie doing their routine, both onstage and off, and his affection for both of them is obvious and moving. Debbie raised a generous man.
Carrie and Debbie were also generous with their great personal and professional gifts. There's a scene in which Carrie appears at a Star Wars fan fest where attendees paid $70 to stand in line and meet Carrie and get her autograph on posters and shirts and other memorabilia. It's easy to criticize athletes and movie stars who charge for their autographs at such events, but what's most striking about this particular scene is how much of herself Carrie gives to each of the fans--hugs, pictures, and genuine emotional connection, however brief. The punters got their money's worth. Debbie, too, was generous with her audiences. The camera pans the audience at one of her last Las Vegas shows, and every single face shines with love and happiness. As I told my son, who watched with me, this was Debbie's great gift. She was a good dancer, singer, and actress, but making people happy was what she did best.
*****
I saw "Rogue One" today, finally, and like last year's "The Force Awakens," it was a fitting continuation of the franchise's great tradition of fearless and beautiful female heroines (don't get me started on Episodes 2 and 3. As much as I love everything Star Wars, I believe that Episode 2 is one of the worst movies ever made; some other time, I'll tell you why, at considerable length). Young Princess Leia has the last word in "Rogue One." I'm sad that it's one of the last times that we'll see her on film (she finished filming Episode 8, which will be released later this year), but I'm happy to have seen Princess Leia one more time. Rest in peace, Carrie and Debbie. You'll be missed.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Bridge and tunnel
Maryland Route 200 connects with I-95 North via a long, curving ramp that is very high at its topmost point, before it curves downward, depositing northbound drivers onto the interstate. Maryland 200 is a fairly new road; it opened to traffic in 2009 or so, and I began driving it regularly about a year later. The first time I saw the ramp to 95, I nearly bailed and headed south instead; that's how high the ramp looks from the exit lane. Oh HELL no, I thought. And then I screwed up my courage and got on the ramp. Like lots of other things that look really high or long or wide from a distance, it wasn't quite as high up close. Like lots of other things that seem scary at first, it wasn't so bad.
Patience has never been one of my chief virtues, and I'm never less patient than when I'm driving. "AAAAAUUUGHHH! GOOOOO!" are the two words that I yell most frequently when I'm behind the wheel. But every so often, when I'm on the on-ramp to 95 North from Maryland 200, I'll be stuck behind a driver who will hesitate, and then drive very slowly up the ramp. I never honk at those people; in fact, I don't even roll my eyes or heave a great big long-suffering exasperated sigh. I drive that ramp every day now, so I'm used to it, but I remember my own trepidation the first time I saw it from a distance, and how tightly my hands gripped the steering wheel.
*****
I'm a recreational worrier. Not only do I worry about things that are likely or certain to happen; I also conjure up elaborate worst-case scenarios, and then worry them almost into existence. I wish this weren't so, and that I wasn't like this, but it is and I am.
Sometimes, the penchant for advance worry has its advantages. If you run out of anything, anything at all, then come on over. I have enough toilet paper, bottled water, and non-perishable food to withstand a siege, and I'll share. Some people have too much of everything because they're compulsive bargain-hunters, or hoarders. I, on the other hand, actually believe that I'll have to withstand a siege at some point, and I'm just planning accordingly.
Preparedness aside, however, most times the pre-emptive worrying takes me down ridiculous rabbit-holes of unnecessary panic and anxiety. I used to have to drive through the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore pretty often. I never lost sight of the fact that I was DRIVING A CAR UNDER A HARBOR, and the sight of the tiled walls could induce an attack of hyperventilation. TILE. Because just in case the tunnel was breached, the nice tiled tunnel tube could easily accommodate the deluge of water, in which I would drown. Did you ever see the movie "Atonement?" (1, 2, 3) If not, then you should. There's a scene in which a character dies in a bombing raid during the London Blitz. A bomb hits a water main in the Underground (which doubled as a bomb shelter), filling the tunnel and drowning all of its occupants. I've driven through that tunnel enough times now that I don't panic anymore. Just the same, though, I seldom go through it without momentarily imagining my bloated, dead body floating in fetid harbor water.
*****
As always, there's little to no point to any of this. But if you read this blog on any regular basis, then you knew that going in. There went three minutes or so of your life, which you're never going to get back. I offer no warranties, and I make no representations.
But wait, there are several points here:
A. When it all hits the fan, and the end of civilization as we know it is at hand, then stop by. I'll have food, toilet paper, and soap to spare.
B. Things that appear to be scary from a distance are often not that scary up close. (Imaginary snakes are a perfect example.)
C. Just because something CAN be done, it doesn't follow that it SHOULD be done. Should we really dig tunnels to run beneath large bodies of water? Maybe not.
*****
Three pieces of valuable life advice. Your time was not wasted after all.
NOTES:
1. I've never been actually angry at an author for a plot twist or a surprise ending; that is, until I read the end of Atonement. It's been at least eight or nine years, and I'm still a little annoyed. Unlikely that I'll ever meet Ian McEwan, but if I ever do, he'll have some explaining to do.
2. When I love a book, I usually assiduously avoid the movie version. "Atonement" was an exception and it's almost as good as the book. It made me even angrier at McEwan, though. He's on my list.
3. "Atonement" vs. Atonement. MLA training dies hard.
Patience has never been one of my chief virtues, and I'm never less patient than when I'm driving. "AAAAAUUUGHHH! GOOOOO!" are the two words that I yell most frequently when I'm behind the wheel. But every so often, when I'm on the on-ramp to 95 North from Maryland 200, I'll be stuck behind a driver who will hesitate, and then drive very slowly up the ramp. I never honk at those people; in fact, I don't even roll my eyes or heave a great big long-suffering exasperated sigh. I drive that ramp every day now, so I'm used to it, but I remember my own trepidation the first time I saw it from a distance, and how tightly my hands gripped the steering wheel.
*****
I'm a recreational worrier. Not only do I worry about things that are likely or certain to happen; I also conjure up elaborate worst-case scenarios, and then worry them almost into existence. I wish this weren't so, and that I wasn't like this, but it is and I am.
Sometimes, the penchant for advance worry has its advantages. If you run out of anything, anything at all, then come on over. I have enough toilet paper, bottled water, and non-perishable food to withstand a siege, and I'll share. Some people have too much of everything because they're compulsive bargain-hunters, or hoarders. I, on the other hand, actually believe that I'll have to withstand a siege at some point, and I'm just planning accordingly.
Preparedness aside, however, most times the pre-emptive worrying takes me down ridiculous rabbit-holes of unnecessary panic and anxiety. I used to have to drive through the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore pretty often. I never lost sight of the fact that I was DRIVING A CAR UNDER A HARBOR, and the sight of the tiled walls could induce an attack of hyperventilation. TILE. Because just in case the tunnel was breached, the nice tiled tunnel tube could easily accommodate the deluge of water, in which I would drown. Did you ever see the movie "Atonement?" (1, 2, 3) If not, then you should. There's a scene in which a character dies in a bombing raid during the London Blitz. A bomb hits a water main in the Underground (which doubled as a bomb shelter), filling the tunnel and drowning all of its occupants. I've driven through that tunnel enough times now that I don't panic anymore. Just the same, though, I seldom go through it without momentarily imagining my bloated, dead body floating in fetid harbor water.
*****
As always, there's little to no point to any of this. But if you read this blog on any regular basis, then you knew that going in. There went three minutes or so of your life, which you're never going to get back. I offer no warranties, and I make no representations.
But wait, there are several points here:
A. When it all hits the fan, and the end of civilization as we know it is at hand, then stop by. I'll have food, toilet paper, and soap to spare.
B. Things that appear to be scary from a distance are often not that scary up close. (Imaginary snakes are a perfect example.)
C. Just because something CAN be done, it doesn't follow that it SHOULD be done. Should we really dig tunnels to run beneath large bodies of water? Maybe not.
*****
Three pieces of valuable life advice. Your time was not wasted after all.
NOTES:
1. I've never been actually angry at an author for a plot twist or a surprise ending; that is, until I read the end of Atonement. It's been at least eight or nine years, and I'm still a little annoyed. Unlikely that I'll ever meet Ian McEwan, but if I ever do, he'll have some explaining to do.
2. When I love a book, I usually assiduously avoid the movie version. "Atonement" was an exception and it's almost as good as the book. It made me even angrier at McEwan, though. He's on my list.
3. "Atonement" vs. Atonement. MLA training dies hard.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Bibliography, 2016
Although I hate winter like nobody's business, I do love the last few days of December and the first few days of January. It still feels like Christmas; even better than Christmas because the pre-Christmas stress frenzy is over. Everything seems new and anything seems possible as the old year ends and a new one begins. I went walking early this morning in clear still coldness slightly warmed by thin pale yellow sunlight, feeling optimistic about 2017.
*****
It's the end of the year, so it's time to post my "what I read this year" list. I read a lot in 2016; I didn't even realize how much until I went back and looked at my list. Here it is:
The Takeover. Muriel Spark. Apparently, Muriel Spark wrote this, and all of her novels, on 72-page notebooks purchased from James Thin, a now-defunct bookshop and stationers in Edinburgh. I don't know why this idea appeals to me so much, because I hate to hand-write anything. I cry like a baby when I have to write a check (after complaining for at least ten minutes about not being able to pay whatever bill I'm paying electronically.) And that whole observation has nothing to do with this book, because I only vaguely remember it, because it was the first book I read this year. This was one of only maybe two or three Muriel Spark novels that I hadn't already read (and I've read some of them, including Memento Mori, The Girls of Slender Means, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and Loitering with Intent, multiple times.) It's about a rich English woman living in Italy in the early 1970s, who is gradually robbed of everything she owns by a tenant who refuses to be evicted. There's more to it than that, of course, but that's the bare-bones plot summary. It's not her best (read any of the other ones mentioned here if you haven't read Muriel Spark before), but it's still Muriel Spark, and so it wasn't a bad start to 2016.
Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant? Roz Chast. This was one of my favorites of the year, by far. I really love Roz Chast, and I bought this book in hardback, brand-new at Barnes and Noble. It didn't disappoint. Although it's about one of the saddest subjects imaginable, the long decline and eventual death of Chast's elderly parents, it's strangely uplifting and hopeful. Not as funny, obviously, as her other work, but when it's funny, it's high-larious. And the book itself is beautiful. Highly recommended.
The Beginning of Spring. Penelope Fitzgerald. I wrote a little bit about this one here. I just love Penelope Fitzgerald.
What's Wrong with the World? G.K. Chesterton. I'm a Catholic and a reader and writer, so I'm supposed to love Chesterton, but there's something about him that's not quite right. His overpraise of women and our supposed exalted status, reigning as queens and supreme rulers of the home, blah blah blah, always reads as patronizing to me. He's OK. I can take him in small doses. I definitely prefer C.S. Lewis.
A Charmed Life, Mary McCarthy. I started reading this believing, for some reason, that it was a memoir or autobiography. Even as I read the very novelistic description of Martha and John Sinnott and their marriage and home and life together, I thought that McCarthy was employing some sort of literary device, and that at any moment, she'd reveal that the Sinnotts were her grandparents or some other figures of importance in her early life. It soon became evident that the book is really a novel. I confirmed my suspicion by looking at the cover (in fairness to me, it's an e-book, so I had never actually looked at the cover when I started reading it), which reads "A Charmed Life (A Novel by Mary McCarthy.)" Not nearly as good as The Group, but probably none of her other novels are.
Our Man in Havana. Graham Greene. Another Catholic novelist. That's four out of the first six. Not an intentional theme for 2016 or anything. This is a great novel; it's kind of Waugh-like in some respects-- a little more forgiving of humanity than Waugh, but it would be hard to find a writer who isn't. Very funny.
The Bean Trees. Barbara Kingsolver. I read The Poisonwood Bible years ago, and thought it was great. This one was good, too, though I don't remember much about it, nine months or so later.
The Fountain Overflows. Rebecca West. I wrote about this one here (same post as the one about The Beginning of Spring.) If you can read only one Rebecca West book, then read Black Lamb and Gray Falcon, one of the best English-language books ever written. But all of her novels are great, too.
Local Girls. Alice Hoffman. I bought this at a Friends of the Library used book sale. I didn't know at the time that Hoffman wrote the novel on which the movie "Practical Magic" is based; had I known, I wouldn't have touched this or any of her books with a barge pole. So I'm glad I didn't know, because I actually liked this very much.
The Mind of the Maker. Dorothy L. Sayers. Another Catholic. Truthfully, I have never warmed to Sayers. I find the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries tiresome, and I don't know why, because I love early 20th century English society novels. Well, I love Wodehouse, and maybe I expect every other English society novel to be Wodehousian. Anyway, this is not a novel; it's a Christian apologetics book. I read it at night, over the course of a few weeks, and didn't absorb as much as I'd have liked because I was always exhausted when I was reading it, and I kept falling asleep--I think I started reading it when I was still adjusting to being back at work full-time. I will probably re-read it.
A Separate Peace. John Knowles. I had to read this in high school. Who didn't? I always felt a little guilty for not liking it. I was an aspiring English major, and I thought that it was my duty and responsibility to appreciate whatever was officially considered good literature. So I read it again, to either validate or overturn my earlier judgement. Verdict: Neutral. I appreciated it more than I did in high school, but I can think of 50 better 20th century American books that I'd make high school kids read before this one.
If You Lived Here, You'd be Home Now. Claire LaZebnik. This is what I'm going to call a "Put Up or Shut Up" novel. I liked it a lot, but I was also sure, after I finished reading it, that I could do a little better. But I haven't. So that's the difference between what used to be called mid-list novelists like Claire LaZebnik and me. She has actually finished a book and published it, and I have not. 80% of life is showing up, or something like that.
The Opposite of Loneliness. Marina Keegan. She would probably have been a very fine writer if she hadn't died so tragically young.
The Americans: The Democratic Experience. Daniel Boorstin. A bit of a slog, to be honest. I love to read history, but this is my second Boorstin, and he's just not my thing. Still, I learned a bit about everyday American life in the early to mid 20th century that I didn't know before, so it wasn't a waste.
A Woman in Jerusalem. A.B. Yehoshua. This was quite good, except for one annoying quirk. The main character is the human resources manager of a large commercial bakery in Jerusalem, who is charged with investigating the circumstances surrounding the murder of one of his employees, a Russian emigre woman. The writer insists on referring to the character only as "the resource manager;" the reader never knows his name. Although thinking back on it, I guess this was effective in some way; he's a man adrift, estranged from his wife, on rocky terms with his mother, with whom he lives; and not particularly secure in his job. Maybe he feels like a nonentity, and so that's how the reader is meant to see him. Worth reading, and I plan to look for more of Yehoshua's work this year.
Away. Amy Bloom. Astonishingly good. The opposite of the "Put Up or Shut Up" novel, because no matter how hard I worked, I could never write anything like this. Another story about another Russian Jewish woman far from home; this one alive, having barely escaped a pogrom that killed her entire family. When she learns that the little girl whom she believed dead is actually alive, she goes back to Russia from New York to find her--only in the wrong direction, traveling on foot and by train across the U.S. and Canada, into Alaska (pre-statehood; this takes place in 1924) and eventually to Siberia. It's not spoiling the ending to say that it ends much more happily than anyone would ever expect, though not perfectly so.
Rocking Horse Catholic. Caryll Houselander. So titled because Houselander converted with her family when she was a very young child--so not a cradle Catholic, but a rocking horse Catholic. I learned about her from Heather King. Both are brilliant.
Red Scarf Girl. Ji-Li Jiang. As I noted last year, I like an occasional lighthearted and refreshing visit to the Cultural Revolution whenever I need a break from Stalin's purges. Maybe this summer, I'll do some beach reading about Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Party on, Wayne.
The Rothschilds. I mentioned this one here. Don't ask me to distinguish one Rothschild from another. I read every page, but immediately suffered total non-recall. Who knows how I managed to finish college. Oh right, it took me over 25 years.
Monkeys. Susan Minot. Another one that I read a very long time ago, when it was first published in 1987. I re-read it for the same reason that I re-read A Separate Peace: to see if I'd been right the first time. Still great. 1 1/2 for 2.
Falling in Place. Ann Beattie. Selfishness and family breakdown in 1970s Connecticut. Very good, but depressing.
A Train of Powder. Rebecca West. I already wrote about this one, too, here.
Someone Will Be with You Shortly: Notes from a Perfectly Imperfect Life. Lisa Kogan. Filler reading; neither here nor there.
Rosewater. Maziar Bahari. Apparently, I'm not happy unless I'm living vicariously under a brutally repressive regime. Good to be prepared, I suppose.
Reading Lolita in Tehran. Azar Nafisi. See above. The fun never ends.
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I have no idea what kind of critical reception this received when it was published, but I loved it. Apparently, she published a follow-up, Textbook, in 2016, which should appear on my What I Read in 2017 list, about a year or so from now. Stay tuned.
With or Without You. Domenica Ruta. I wrote about this one here. Domenica Ruta is a master of a very specialized art. She can make squalor, loneliness, addiction, depression, and even monotony interesting and compelling. Not glamorous or appealing, but compelling.
Letters from America. Alistair Cooke. I read Memories of the Good and the Great a year or so ago, and so I picked this up at the previously mentioned library book sale. Cooke was the BBC's American correspondent, and this contains some entertaining observations about American life and politics from a British observer, but the casual mid-century racism and sexism were kind of disturbing.
Trump: A Theory of Assholes. Aaron James. My son bought this one. Truthfully, I didn't actually finish it. The dry academic examination of the science of assholery was funny for the first chapter, but it lost me after that. I just wanted to include it on my list, because Trump/Asshole.
7 Women. Eric Metaxas. A little disappointing. I loved Bonhoeffer, and have a generally high opinion of Metaxas and his work (note how neatly I bypassed the need to use the possessive with a name that ends in "S"? Because I hate that. I also hate when any number smaller than ten appears in print in numeric form, especially as the first word of a sentence or phrase. But that's probably just me.) The Corrie Ten Boom chapter was especially disappointing, because I have read The Hiding Place at least 20 times; I have also read Tramp for the Lord, and I didn't learn one single thing about Corrie Ten Boom after reading the Metaxas chapter (see, I did it again) that I didn't already know.
Every Exquisite Thing. Matthew Quick. No idea what prompted me to read this. It's a misfit outsider teen romance novel. If you've seen "The Fault in Our Stars" or "Paper Towns," then you've read this book.
Yes, Please. Amy Poehler. I like Amy Poehler (especially "Parks and Recreation," one of my favorite-ever TV shows), so when I saw her book offered as a $2.99 daily deal, I bought it and read it. It's not that it was bad or anything. I like memoirs in general, especially memoirs written by people whose lives are radically different from mine. So I'm not sure what bothered me about this book. Maybe she was just trying too hard. Lots of mentions of New York City, Back in the Day--she even writes about "a Lou Reed sighting...like the first robin in spring." Take a deep breath, Wannabe Nostalgic Baby Boomer, you're not even as old as me, for crying out loud. I was waiting for a Woodstock story next, or maybe an eyewitness account of the Rolling Stones show at Altamont. Sheesh. Overall, though, it was fine. Who am I to judge? I wouldn't recognize Lou Reed if he made my latte at Starbucks.
Ship of Fools. Katherine Anne Porter. A German passenger ship brings a group of expat Germans, along with a handful of Americans and others, back to Germany from Mexico. I wrote about this one here. 1933 Germany seems very relevant right now, but I've been thinking that for a long time now; before Donald Trump even rode down that escalator, in fact.
*****
Once again, a kind of crazy catch-all list. Right now, I'm reading two more memoirs: Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run (in hardback; excellent Christmas present from my husband), and Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone. Both are great so far, but I won't finish either until 2017. Happy New Year!
*****
It's the end of the year, so it's time to post my "what I read this year" list. I read a lot in 2016; I didn't even realize how much until I went back and looked at my list. Here it is:
The Takeover. Muriel Spark. Apparently, Muriel Spark wrote this, and all of her novels, on 72-page notebooks purchased from James Thin, a now-defunct bookshop and stationers in Edinburgh. I don't know why this idea appeals to me so much, because I hate to hand-write anything. I cry like a baby when I have to write a check (after complaining for at least ten minutes about not being able to pay whatever bill I'm paying electronically.) And that whole observation has nothing to do with this book, because I only vaguely remember it, because it was the first book I read this year. This was one of only maybe two or three Muriel Spark novels that I hadn't already read (and I've read some of them, including Memento Mori, The Girls of Slender Means, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and Loitering with Intent, multiple times.) It's about a rich English woman living in Italy in the early 1970s, who is gradually robbed of everything she owns by a tenant who refuses to be evicted. There's more to it than that, of course, but that's the bare-bones plot summary. It's not her best (read any of the other ones mentioned here if you haven't read Muriel Spark before), but it's still Muriel Spark, and so it wasn't a bad start to 2016.
Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant? Roz Chast. This was one of my favorites of the year, by far. I really love Roz Chast, and I bought this book in hardback, brand-new at Barnes and Noble. It didn't disappoint. Although it's about one of the saddest subjects imaginable, the long decline and eventual death of Chast's elderly parents, it's strangely uplifting and hopeful. Not as funny, obviously, as her other work, but when it's funny, it's high-larious. And the book itself is beautiful. Highly recommended.
The Beginning of Spring. Penelope Fitzgerald. I wrote a little bit about this one here. I just love Penelope Fitzgerald.
What's Wrong with the World? G.K. Chesterton. I'm a Catholic and a reader and writer, so I'm supposed to love Chesterton, but there's something about him that's not quite right. His overpraise of women and our supposed exalted status, reigning as queens and supreme rulers of the home, blah blah blah, always reads as patronizing to me. He's OK. I can take him in small doses. I definitely prefer C.S. Lewis.
A Charmed Life, Mary McCarthy. I started reading this believing, for some reason, that it was a memoir or autobiography. Even as I read the very novelistic description of Martha and John Sinnott and their marriage and home and life together, I thought that McCarthy was employing some sort of literary device, and that at any moment, she'd reveal that the Sinnotts were her grandparents or some other figures of importance in her early life. It soon became evident that the book is really a novel. I confirmed my suspicion by looking at the cover (in fairness to me, it's an e-book, so I had never actually looked at the cover when I started reading it), which reads "A Charmed Life (A Novel by Mary McCarthy.)" Not nearly as good as The Group, but probably none of her other novels are.
Our Man in Havana. Graham Greene. Another Catholic novelist. That's four out of the first six. Not an intentional theme for 2016 or anything. This is a great novel; it's kind of Waugh-like in some respects-- a little more forgiving of humanity than Waugh, but it would be hard to find a writer who isn't. Very funny.
The Bean Trees. Barbara Kingsolver. I read The Poisonwood Bible years ago, and thought it was great. This one was good, too, though I don't remember much about it, nine months or so later.
The Fountain Overflows. Rebecca West. I wrote about this one here (same post as the one about The Beginning of Spring.) If you can read only one Rebecca West book, then read Black Lamb and Gray Falcon, one of the best English-language books ever written. But all of her novels are great, too.
Local Girls. Alice Hoffman. I bought this at a Friends of the Library used book sale. I didn't know at the time that Hoffman wrote the novel on which the movie "Practical Magic" is based; had I known, I wouldn't have touched this or any of her books with a barge pole. So I'm glad I didn't know, because I actually liked this very much.
The Mind of the Maker. Dorothy L. Sayers. Another Catholic. Truthfully, I have never warmed to Sayers. I find the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries tiresome, and I don't know why, because I love early 20th century English society novels. Well, I love Wodehouse, and maybe I expect every other English society novel to be Wodehousian. Anyway, this is not a novel; it's a Christian apologetics book. I read it at night, over the course of a few weeks, and didn't absorb as much as I'd have liked because I was always exhausted when I was reading it, and I kept falling asleep--I think I started reading it when I was still adjusting to being back at work full-time. I will probably re-read it.
A Separate Peace. John Knowles. I had to read this in high school. Who didn't? I always felt a little guilty for not liking it. I was an aspiring English major, and I thought that it was my duty and responsibility to appreciate whatever was officially considered good literature. So I read it again, to either validate or overturn my earlier judgement. Verdict: Neutral. I appreciated it more than I did in high school, but I can think of 50 better 20th century American books that I'd make high school kids read before this one.
If You Lived Here, You'd be Home Now. Claire LaZebnik. This is what I'm going to call a "Put Up or Shut Up" novel. I liked it a lot, but I was also sure, after I finished reading it, that I could do a little better. But I haven't. So that's the difference between what used to be called mid-list novelists like Claire LaZebnik and me. She has actually finished a book and published it, and I have not. 80% of life is showing up, or something like that.
The Opposite of Loneliness. Marina Keegan. She would probably have been a very fine writer if she hadn't died so tragically young.
The Americans: The Democratic Experience. Daniel Boorstin. A bit of a slog, to be honest. I love to read history, but this is my second Boorstin, and he's just not my thing. Still, I learned a bit about everyday American life in the early to mid 20th century that I didn't know before, so it wasn't a waste.
A Woman in Jerusalem. A.B. Yehoshua. This was quite good, except for one annoying quirk. The main character is the human resources manager of a large commercial bakery in Jerusalem, who is charged with investigating the circumstances surrounding the murder of one of his employees, a Russian emigre woman. The writer insists on referring to the character only as "the resource manager;" the reader never knows his name. Although thinking back on it, I guess this was effective in some way; he's a man adrift, estranged from his wife, on rocky terms with his mother, with whom he lives; and not particularly secure in his job. Maybe he feels like a nonentity, and so that's how the reader is meant to see him. Worth reading, and I plan to look for more of Yehoshua's work this year.
Away. Amy Bloom. Astonishingly good. The opposite of the "Put Up or Shut Up" novel, because no matter how hard I worked, I could never write anything like this. Another story about another Russian Jewish woman far from home; this one alive, having barely escaped a pogrom that killed her entire family. When she learns that the little girl whom she believed dead is actually alive, she goes back to Russia from New York to find her--only in the wrong direction, traveling on foot and by train across the U.S. and Canada, into Alaska (pre-statehood; this takes place in 1924) and eventually to Siberia. It's not spoiling the ending to say that it ends much more happily than anyone would ever expect, though not perfectly so.
Rocking Horse Catholic. Caryll Houselander. So titled because Houselander converted with her family when she was a very young child--so not a cradle Catholic, but a rocking horse Catholic. I learned about her from Heather King. Both are brilliant.
Red Scarf Girl. Ji-Li Jiang. As I noted last year, I like an occasional lighthearted and refreshing visit to the Cultural Revolution whenever I need a break from Stalin's purges. Maybe this summer, I'll do some beach reading about Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Party on, Wayne.
The Rothschilds. I mentioned this one here. Don't ask me to distinguish one Rothschild from another. I read every page, but immediately suffered total non-recall. Who knows how I managed to finish college. Oh right, it took me over 25 years.
Monkeys. Susan Minot. Another one that I read a very long time ago, when it was first published in 1987. I re-read it for the same reason that I re-read A Separate Peace: to see if I'd been right the first time. Still great. 1 1/2 for 2.
Falling in Place. Ann Beattie. Selfishness and family breakdown in 1970s Connecticut. Very good, but depressing.
A Train of Powder. Rebecca West. I already wrote about this one, too, here.
Someone Will Be with You Shortly: Notes from a Perfectly Imperfect Life. Lisa Kogan. Filler reading; neither here nor there.
Rosewater. Maziar Bahari. Apparently, I'm not happy unless I'm living vicariously under a brutally repressive regime. Good to be prepared, I suppose.
Reading Lolita in Tehran. Azar Nafisi. See above. The fun never ends.
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I have no idea what kind of critical reception this received when it was published, but I loved it. Apparently, she published a follow-up, Textbook, in 2016, which should appear on my What I Read in 2017 list, about a year or so from now. Stay tuned.
With or Without You. Domenica Ruta. I wrote about this one here. Domenica Ruta is a master of a very specialized art. She can make squalor, loneliness, addiction, depression, and even monotony interesting and compelling. Not glamorous or appealing, but compelling.
Letters from America. Alistair Cooke. I read Memories of the Good and the Great a year or so ago, and so I picked this up at the previously mentioned library book sale. Cooke was the BBC's American correspondent, and this contains some entertaining observations about American life and politics from a British observer, but the casual mid-century racism and sexism were kind of disturbing.
Trump: A Theory of Assholes. Aaron James. My son bought this one. Truthfully, I didn't actually finish it. The dry academic examination of the science of assholery was funny for the first chapter, but it lost me after that. I just wanted to include it on my list, because Trump/Asshole.
7 Women. Eric Metaxas. A little disappointing. I loved Bonhoeffer, and have a generally high opinion of Metaxas and his work (note how neatly I bypassed the need to use the possessive with a name that ends in "S"? Because I hate that. I also hate when any number smaller than ten appears in print in numeric form, especially as the first word of a sentence or phrase. But that's probably just me.) The Corrie Ten Boom chapter was especially disappointing, because I have read The Hiding Place at least 20 times; I have also read Tramp for the Lord, and I didn't learn one single thing about Corrie Ten Boom after reading the Metaxas chapter (see, I did it again) that I didn't already know.
Every Exquisite Thing. Matthew Quick. No idea what prompted me to read this. It's a misfit outsider teen romance novel. If you've seen "The Fault in Our Stars" or "Paper Towns," then you've read this book.
Yes, Please. Amy Poehler. I like Amy Poehler (especially "Parks and Recreation," one of my favorite-ever TV shows), so when I saw her book offered as a $2.99 daily deal, I bought it and read it. It's not that it was bad or anything. I like memoirs in general, especially memoirs written by people whose lives are radically different from mine. So I'm not sure what bothered me about this book. Maybe she was just trying too hard. Lots of mentions of New York City, Back in the Day--she even writes about "a Lou Reed sighting...like the first robin in spring." Take a deep breath, Wannabe Nostalgic Baby Boomer, you're not even as old as me, for crying out loud. I was waiting for a Woodstock story next, or maybe an eyewitness account of the Rolling Stones show at Altamont. Sheesh. Overall, though, it was fine. Who am I to judge? I wouldn't recognize Lou Reed if he made my latte at Starbucks.
Ship of Fools. Katherine Anne Porter. A German passenger ship brings a group of expat Germans, along with a handful of Americans and others, back to Germany from Mexico. I wrote about this one here. 1933 Germany seems very relevant right now, but I've been thinking that for a long time now; before Donald Trump even rode down that escalator, in fact.
*****
Once again, a kind of crazy catch-all list. Right now, I'm reading two more memoirs: Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run (in hardback; excellent Christmas present from my husband), and Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone. Both are great so far, but I won't finish either until 2017. Happy New Year!
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Christmas Eve in Silver Spring
I saw two things yesterday: the video for "Christmas in Hollis," and an article about "hygge," which was apparently a contender for most hated word of 2016. I had never even heard that word before, but I usually only become aware of cultural trends when they're already in everyone else's rear view mirror.
I'd never actually seen the Run-DMC video, even though I was young in the 80s, when the song debuted. We lived in Philadelphia, which was the last major city to get cable TV. MTV used to air almost nothing but music videos, but I didn't see most of them, because we didn't have cable.
The family home depicted in the video looked a lot like the house that I grew up in looked at Christmas. Small, even a little cramped; clean, but cluttered looking; and not temporary clutter, but the settled and lived-in clutter of thick carpet, slightly mismatched, slightly oversized furniture and wallpaper, and surfaces covered with knick-knacks and framed pictures Add in a Christmas tree that's bigger than the couch, presents, plates of cookies and dishes of candy, and a Nativity scene, and you have quite the cozy and abundant little Christmas scene.
But not hygge. Because hygge is not just warmth and happiness and home and hearth. It's an aesthetic; one that doesn't include Hummel figurines and fake Christmas trees with glass ornaments and boxes of Russell Stover Christmas candy. Hygge depends on uncluttered surfaces, warm but minimalist Scandinavian furniture, hardwood floors, and a wood-burning fire. A hygge Christmas scene would include cashmere Fair Isle socks and real mistletoe and holly. It definitely would not include "Christmas Vacation" playing on a big TV or a framed Currier and Ives print. Homemade cookies and mulled cider: Hygge. Chips and dip in knock-off Spode Christmas dishes: Not hygge.
I could make fun of this artificially authentic aesthetic all day long, but there's no denying its appeal. I mock Real Simple magazine, but secretly covet the perfectly organized softly watercolored rooms that shine from its photo spreads. I love stacks of perfectly folded color drenched blankets, stored on polished blond wood shelves. I imagine a kitchen where a single handmade ceramic bowl, holding a few perfect ripe pears, sits alone on a gleaming countertop. But I'm also a little nostalgic for a less demanding aesthetic; a little more comfortable, and a little less austere.
This being 2016 (almost over, thank God), the whole idea is further complicated by politics, because according to some cultural observers, only upper middle class privileged white people would ever aspire to anything as bourgeois and impractical as cozy home comfort or beautiful surroundings. I'm too lazy right now to really break this down; I'll just say that the only thing that bores me more than identity politics is tiresome privilege narratives. When the revolution comes, I'm going to end up in a re-education camp.
As usual, I'm trying to write this while I do fifteen other things (it's Christmas Eve; I'm busy) so I'm not sure how I'm going to bring this winding and pointless train into the station. We're home now. My house, not quite mid-century Scandinavian serenity, but not quite Christmas in Hollis sensory overload, is clean and decorated. Most of the presents are wrapped, and the kitchen is pretty well-stocked with treats. We're not around the fire, though; we're around the TV watching the Redskins. Christmas Eve Mass at 6 pm. Not quite hygge, maybe, but we'll take it. Merry Christmas.
This being 2016 (almost over, thank God), the whole idea is further complicated by politics, because according to some cultural observers, only upper middle class privileged white people would ever aspire to anything as bourgeois and impractical as cozy home comfort or beautiful surroundings. I'm too lazy right now to really break this down; I'll just say that the only thing that bores me more than identity politics is tiresome privilege narratives. When the revolution comes, I'm going to end up in a re-education camp.
As usual, I'm trying to write this while I do fifteen other things (it's Christmas Eve; I'm busy) so I'm not sure how I'm going to bring this winding and pointless train into the station. We're home now. My house, not quite mid-century Scandinavian serenity, but not quite Christmas in Hollis sensory overload, is clean and decorated. Most of the presents are wrapped, and the kitchen is pretty well-stocked with treats. We're not around the fire, though; we're around the TV watching the Redskins. Christmas Eve Mass at 6 pm. Not quite hygge, maybe, but we'll take it. Merry Christmas.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Put a bird on it
There's a lady in my neighborhood who writes lovely little pieces for the neighborhood newsletter, describing local nature and wildlife, especially birds. She's a good, if slightly flowery, writer; and her knowledge of flora and fauna (again, especially birds) is pretty impressive. When the newsletter arrives in my inbox, I almost always stop what I'm doing to read the latest about the neighborhood's animal residents.
*****
I grew up in the city. We lived in Philadelphia, in a working-class city neighborhood of brick-front rowhouses with stoops that provided a two-step buffer zone between the street and your living room. Our whole lives depended on man-made infrastructure--the electrical grid and the sewer system and the narrow surface streets over which trucks rumbled, carrying food and supplies. Dropped in the middle of the wilderness, the average 1970s inner-city Philadelphian would look around for a corner store and, failing to find one, would crouch under a tree and wait impatiently for a bus or a search-and-rescue team (all the time thinking to himself “What—not even a park bench? What am I paying taxes for?”) I read a lot—the Little House books and the Anne of Green Gables series were favorites—and I couldn’t imagine how life was even possible under nineteenth-century conditions. “What do you mean, Marilla made Anne a dress? Made it out of what? Leaves?” I would think to myself. I knew that Laura Ingalls and Anne Shirley didn’t have indoor plumbing, but I didn’t allow myself to think too hard about the implications of that particular lack. It was too much to contemplate.
My parents noticed that all of us were completely urbanized and unable to cope with nature in any form. They’d make half-hearted attempts to get us into the wild, taking us to feed the ducks at Valley Green or forcing us all to walk “back the creek” on nice days, but no one was fooled. A five-minute observation of my parents in any outdoor setting was enough to demonstrate that they weren’t any better prepared to cope with the stern demands of nature than we were. We were city people. That’s all there was to it.
I've lived in suburban or beach towns for over 20 years now, so I've learned a bit. Nature isn't quite as shrouded in mystery as it once was, but I probably still don't know quite as much as I should. Our neighborhood was built by the Levitt company in the late 1960s, so we're lucky enough to be surrounded by tons of mature shade trees of many beautiful varieties, but I can't distinguish one from another. We have lots of wildlife, too, but nothing exotic. Deer, squirrels, rabbits, foxes, occasional raccoons or chipmunks--even I can tell them apart.
The birds, though, are a whole other thing. I know pigeons from starlings; and I know robins from bluejays. A duck couldn't fool me by claiming to be a goose. I'm pretty sure that buzzard is just a synonym for vulture; and in any event, I know to stay the hell away from them. But that's the extent of my knowledge of the avian world, and as far as I'm concerned, it's as much as I need.
*****
It's been pretty cold here. If you're reading this in Minnesota or North Dakota, then go ahead and roll your eyes. I know that this is nothing compared to where you live. But a high temperature in the 20s is very cold where I live. Yesterday, it was no more than 15 degrees outside when I heard a bird singing, chirpy and cheerful, right outside my bedroom window. I'd been up for some time already, so I wasn't annoyed with the bird, just puzzled. Who are you, little bird, I wondered; and why on earth haven't you flown south yet? Aren't you all supposed to fly south?
Or maybe it was a cardinal, I thought, not knowing for sure whether or not cardinals actually sing. My limited knowledge of cardinals was gained from viewing painted ceramic plates and mugs and salt and pepper shakers that depict snowy nature scenes, always populated by a lone cardinal. It just occurred to me as I heard the birdsong: Do cardinals really like cold weather, or do bad artists just like to paint them against snow and pine trees, for Christmas-y contrast? White, green, and red--what could be more wintery and holidayish?
I'm a curious person, usually. If I run across an unfamiliar word, I look it up. When kids ask questions to which I don't have good answers, I do some research. But it never (and I mean never) occurs to me to take a picture of an unfamiliar shrub and then try to find out what kind of shrub it might be. I know that there are hundreds (probably thousands) of varieties of birds, and although I've always liked birds, I've never been inspired to try to learn all of their names and particular physical characteristics. They all have wings; most of them fly. That's enough knowledge for me.
*****
Still. Chirpy birdsong on an Arctic winter day? (Shut up, Alaska and Michigan.) I couldn't see the bird, so I asked Google if cardinals sing, and as it turns out, they do. And their song sounds very much like the song that I heard outside my icy-cold window.
*****
And that's likely as far as my nature study will go. I have limited brain capacity. If I'm going to maintain my wide renown for being an endless fount of useless historical, cultural, and entertainment trivia; an ironclad authority on punctuation, and an outstanding speller, then I can't start using valuable brain cells on wildlife research. Something has to give, you know?
Sunday, December 11, 2016
C is for cookie
I had an idea for something to write, but I can't remember it now. Maybe it was brilliant. I'll wait around to see if it comes back to me.
*****
Nothing yet.
*****
This weekend is the first truly cold weekend we've had in some time, and surprisingly, I'm not 100% miserable. I even went running* this morning. No wind at all--still, overcast, and cold--it felt like Christmas.
*****
Speaking of Christmas, I'm very well-prepared this year. Ahead of schedule, in fact. But next weekend is cookie-making weekend, and I'm not looking forward to it AT ALL. The handful of readers of this blog might remember that I shared my feelings about Christmas cookie baking here, and about baking in general here.
Some people, I'm sure, look forward to baking Christmas cookies. Some people treasure the pre-Christmas cookie-baking ritual. Some people, I'm given to understand, even bake cookies for non-Christmas occasions, just because they like cookies; and apparently, they don't know how else to obtain them.
I told my 15-year-old son that I might take a picture of in-progress cookie-baking, and post it on Instagram-- hashtag #cookietimemotherfuckers. He says that that would be "cringey."
"What about #bitchbetterhavemycookies?"
"MOM."
Well, I thought it was funny.
*****
I still didn't remember the idea, but I have a better one now, and I wrote it down, so I won't forget it. It's a non-blog idea, but I'll be back here sometime next week. Maybe I'll live-blog cookie day. #ormaybethecookieswilljustbakethemselves.
* In the interests of full disclosure, "Running" = "Walking interspersed with jogging in short, uneven bursts."
*****
Nothing yet.
*****
This weekend is the first truly cold weekend we've had in some time, and surprisingly, I'm not 100% miserable. I even went running* this morning. No wind at all--still, overcast, and cold--it felt like Christmas.
*****
Speaking of Christmas, I'm very well-prepared this year. Ahead of schedule, in fact. But next weekend is cookie-making weekend, and I'm not looking forward to it AT ALL. The handful of readers of this blog might remember that I shared my feelings about Christmas cookie baking here, and about baking in general here.
Some people, I'm sure, look forward to baking Christmas cookies. Some people treasure the pre-Christmas cookie-baking ritual. Some people, I'm given to understand, even bake cookies for non-Christmas occasions, just because they like cookies; and apparently, they don't know how else to obtain them.
I told my 15-year-old son that I might take a picture of in-progress cookie-baking, and post it on Instagram-- hashtag #cookietimemotherfuckers. He says that that would be "cringey."
"What about #bitchbetterhavemycookies?"
"MOM."
Well, I thought it was funny.
*****
I still didn't remember the idea, but I have a better one now, and I wrote it down, so I won't forget it. It's a non-blog idea, but I'll be back here sometime next week. Maybe I'll live-blog cookie day. #ormaybethecookieswilljustbakethemselves.
* In the interests of full disclosure, "Running" = "Walking interspersed with jogging in short, uneven bursts."
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Respect my authori-tay
I had to referee a high school swim meet earlier today, and I was a little rusty. And by a little rusty, I mean that I actually Googled "high school swim meet referee when do you blow the whistle." It's not that I didn't know what to do, it's just that I didn't exactly remember exactly what to do exactly when. I had a pretty good overall idea, but the sequence was a little fuzzy, and I was a bit vague on details. Details like when to blow the whistle. It had been a while, but in very uncharacteristic fashion, I decided not to worry about it. It's like riding a bike, I reasoned to myself.
(That would be a funny comparison, if I could then immediately describe some hideous bicycle accident that I'd had at some point, but I'm pretty solid on a bike. I've fallen down while walking in or around my house three times in the last year, but no bicycle accidents to speak of. Unless you count the time that I got hit by a car when I was riding my bike. But that was a long time ago. And it wasn't my fault.)
Just to be on the safe side, I downloaded the 2016-2017 edition of the high school swimming rule book, and it provided lots of helpful reminders of stuff that I already knew pretty well. Nothing, though, about exactly when to blow the whistle. I decided to wing it, even though that approach doesn't usually work out too well for me. But all's well that ends well. I walked into the aquatic center, put on the whistle, grabbed a clipboard, and it all came back to me. Like riding a bike.
(That would be a funny comparison, if I could then immediately describe some hideous bicycle accident that I'd had at some point, but I'm pretty solid on a bike. I've fallen down while walking in or around my house three times in the last year, but no bicycle accidents to speak of. Unless you count the time that I got hit by a car when I was riding my bike. But that was a long time ago. And it wasn't my fault.)
Just to be on the safe side, I downloaded the 2016-2017 edition of the high school swimming rule book, and it provided lots of helpful reminders of stuff that I already knew pretty well. Nothing, though, about exactly when to blow the whistle. I decided to wing it, even though that approach doesn't usually work out too well for me. But all's well that ends well. I walked into the aquatic center, put on the whistle, grabbed a clipboard, and it all came back to me. Like riding a bike.
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