One of the more interesting 2013 media events I'm aware of is the release of the interactive Bob Dylan video for "Like a Rolling Stone." When I first came across it on author Neil Gaiman's Facebook page, I hadn't heard any of the pre-release buzz and had no preconceived ideas. The first time I watched, I didn't even realize there were 16 videos. By happenstance, the video from the Moviez channel was the one I caught, and it floored me.
All of the videos are alike in that each one features characters (in some cases, actual TV personalities) lip-synching to "Like a Rolling Stone." The Moviez video shows a couple coming out of their brownstone on a city street, engaged in a somewhat passive-aggressive dialogue consisting of the lyrics to the song. The peaceful morning street contrasts sharply with the malice in their expressions; the woman starts to walk away but comes back; the man smiles knowingly. I was reminded of Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit, in which hell is in the interaction between characters, and also of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage also comes to mind.
We see the couple walk through a park, enter a diner, and order food, while continuing to bicker via the song. At the end of the video, the couple are seated at the counter and have just begun to eat breakfast. She leans toward him and smiles in what might seem a friendly way if not for the vindictiveness of their previous interaction, which consisted entirely of mutual recriminations.
This plays out like an unpleasant (but humorous) send-up of romantic comedies and certainly works on that level. I might have left it at that, except for one thing. The waitress in the scene reminded me inexplicably of a friend who told me a story about the time she cooked dinner for a now-famous political couple. That reminded me that the video could be read as more than just a satire on marriage. You don't have to look far to see why bickering, accusations, and politics might come to mind in such a context.
In the other 15 videos, I was frequently reminded of events large and small that I've seen or heard about. Mythologists caution people about reading stories too literally, and I support that caution. Nevertheless, I was continually struck by resemblances to actual events. One of the videos, depicting a sports network's coverage of a tennis match, features two opponents, one a handsome, Kennedy-esque figure, and the other quite reminiscent of Lee Harvey Oswald. It's hard to escape the feeling that the video references an assassination, especially when you notice the names of the players: Diovesky and Plotnivich. Certainly, thoughts about JFK's assassination have been floating in the culture this year, with even John Kerry weighing in, so it isn't surprising that they emerge here as a theme.
A seemingly ordinary episode of The Price Is Right, until you notice the body language of the participants and audience members . . . an episode of Bachelor's Roses with several women interested in one desirable man . . . a cooking program with a remarkably dead-pan chef . . . the irrepressible Property Brothers and their clients, one of whom has a very red face . . . a radio personality dominating a less than amicable interview with a man in a striped shirt . . . rapper Danny Brown on the Music 1 Bass channel, innocent and childlike, at play on the neighborhood swings . . . a Pawn Stars exchange in which an owner seems to be of two minds about a valuable item . . . a notably witchy fashion reporter (on Broome Street!) who doesn't seem to notice the effect she has on her interviewees . . . three wizened professors on the History Network (and who are those people in the upstairs window?) . . . a news anchor on a business desk who can't stop blinking . . . Mr. Dylan himself, in concert footage.
Bob Dylan has long had the stature of a prophet and soothsayer, albeit one who occasionally trades personas. I think this video, directed by Vania Heymann, has a lot of him in it. This is the first official video for "Like a Rolling Stone," one of Dylan's signature songs. The video reinterprets the song for our time, something that's bound to happen when a theme is archetypal to begin with. I doubt whether anyone has captured all the nuances of meaning in the video, but "Like a Rolling Stone" - Interactive, while parodying the channel-flipping experience, gives you a chance to "see through" what appears on the surface.
This collection of videos weaving in and out of a single theme or themes is very postmodern. I admit to having a mixed reaction to it; like the media experience it satirizes, it can produce vertigo and a feeling of the ground shifting under your feet. Ultimately, though, I think the video challenges us to both notice and question. Truth can emerge in surprising ways; often, it appears in popular culture, in movies, TV, and songs, before you see it anywhere else. It's not uncommon.
To me, the ultimate criteria for evaluating truth or falsehood, no matter who tells you something, are in your own mind and heart. Does what I'm seeing and hearing ring true? Does it fit in with the facts? Is it consistent with the rest of my experience of the world? Knowing that my knowledge is limited, can I imagine it being true?
I'm sure the video is even now being analyzed and hotly debated among music, video, and technology lovers everywhere. All of this makes me hope we can turn that same careful eye toward all the media we're exposed to. It takes close attention sometimes to sift through the gossip, sound bites, and misinformation of the day to discover what's true, even though the truth is always there. Sometimes we just don't see it.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Thursday, December 26, 2013
A Dwarf, Not a Hobbit
Is any story a myth, or is a myth a special kind of story? I tend to think a story becomes more mythic as it becomes more universal, relying on themes everyone can relate to, but almost any story has mythic elements. We don't always see a contemporary story as mythic (or a mythic story as contemporary), especially if we think of myths as tales from the past. Once you look closely, you're often surprised to find mythic characters and plots hiding inside ordinary protagonists and story lines. Even current events can be read mythically.
Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is easy to identify as myth because it's epic fantasy, a familiar form of myth. The director has been criticized for stretching Tolkien's book into three movies and adding material, but almost any myth with staying power has variations that diverge. There have been other versions of The Hobbit, and more undoubtedly will follow. Jackson has tied his Hobbit movies very closely to The Lord of the Rings, turning Tolkien's almost playful treasure hunt into a prelude to the War of the Rings that explains much of what happens there.
I wrote last year about how I had come over time to see people I knew in Tolkien's characters. I identified most with Bilbo in last year's movie but was surprised this time to see myself most clearly in one or two of the dwarves. I don't think of myself as dwarf-like as Tolkien portrays them, but Jackson's handling of characters and interpersonal dynamics opened up unexpected vistas. This story really belongs to the dwarves, and the more I looked, the more human their problems became.
Likewise, the film shows a different side of the elves, who were heroic and otherworldly in LOTR. In Smaug (as in Tolkien's original), they're actually rather scary and, selfishly intent on their own concerns, are not above manipulation and deceit. Legolas and his father, the woodland king Thranduil, are lordly and arrogant, not people you'd really want to fall in with if you could help it. (One surmises that Legolas's character was later improved by his association with others not of his kind, the Fellowship, etc.)
The exception to elvish hostility in Smaug is Tauriel, a character Jackson and Company added to create a strong female presence. Some have criticized the surprising love triangle between her, Legolas, and Kili; I thought it brought a new piquancy to the story, which is now about more than just power, birthright, heroism, and treasure. Attraction and jealousy have been added to the mix, complicating things in an edgy but not inconceivable way.
It's very Hillmanian (as in James Hillman) to see yourself inhabiting multiple roles and stories, and I think the shifting perspectives between not only LOTR and The Hobbit but also between the first and second Hobbit movies make it easy for viewers to imagine themselves as more than one character. This is an idea I believe Jackson would approve, since he has appeared in cameo roles in all of his Tolkien films, here a Corsair, there a dwarf, there a man eating a carrot. Even some of the characters within the movie seem to play more than one role; Beorn is a potential protector and at the same time a fearsome predator; Gandalf is both wise and foolish, powerful and powerless; Bard is a leader in the making disguised as a rough and cunning bargeman.
It will be interesting to see if perspectives shift again as the Hobbit trilogy draws to a close in the next film. The current movie does a good job of showing the effects of power on those who wield it: from Bilbo, who finds in Mirkwood that the ring is already driving his actions in ways he doesn't want; to the Master of Laketown, who seems to enjoy the trappings of power more than the actual exercise of leadership; to Thorin, whose quest for his birthright as King under the Mountain is fraught with questions of moral ambiguity and divided responsibilities. Then there's Smaug himself, a living emblem of "might makes right," shown at one point gilded in molten gold, which he shakes off like a dog shedding water before flying off to attack Laketown. More than just the continuation of a hero's journey, Jackson's second Hobbit film is rather acute in looking at the shadow side of the quest.
You can respond to Smaug on many levels. The kids in the audience seemed to enjoy it as an adventure story, which it is. Tolkien fans are kept busy with comparisons between the book and the film (personally, I think most of Jackson's choices fall in with the spirit of Tolkien, if not the letter). Lovers of special effects and spectacle have a great deal to chew on, and the mythologists among us (and I hope we're all mythologists to some extent) are invited to find themselves and the world around them in the quest of 13 dwarves and a hobbit for treasure. On none of these levels is the filmgoer likely to come up empty. One of the characteristics of myth is its multilayered capacity to say several things at once.
Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is easy to identify as myth because it's epic fantasy, a familiar form of myth. The director has been criticized for stretching Tolkien's book into three movies and adding material, but almost any myth with staying power has variations that diverge. There have been other versions of The Hobbit, and more undoubtedly will follow. Jackson has tied his Hobbit movies very closely to The Lord of the Rings, turning Tolkien's almost playful treasure hunt into a prelude to the War of the Rings that explains much of what happens there.
I wrote last year about how I had come over time to see people I knew in Tolkien's characters. I identified most with Bilbo in last year's movie but was surprised this time to see myself most clearly in one or two of the dwarves. I don't think of myself as dwarf-like as Tolkien portrays them, but Jackson's handling of characters and interpersonal dynamics opened up unexpected vistas. This story really belongs to the dwarves, and the more I looked, the more human their problems became.
Likewise, the film shows a different side of the elves, who were heroic and otherworldly in LOTR. In Smaug (as in Tolkien's original), they're actually rather scary and, selfishly intent on their own concerns, are not above manipulation and deceit. Legolas and his father, the woodland king Thranduil, are lordly and arrogant, not people you'd really want to fall in with if you could help it. (One surmises that Legolas's character was later improved by his association with others not of his kind, the Fellowship, etc.)
The exception to elvish hostility in Smaug is Tauriel, a character Jackson and Company added to create a strong female presence. Some have criticized the surprising love triangle between her, Legolas, and Kili; I thought it brought a new piquancy to the story, which is now about more than just power, birthright, heroism, and treasure. Attraction and jealousy have been added to the mix, complicating things in an edgy but not inconceivable way.
It's very Hillmanian (as in James Hillman) to see yourself inhabiting multiple roles and stories, and I think the shifting perspectives between not only LOTR and The Hobbit but also between the first and second Hobbit movies make it easy for viewers to imagine themselves as more than one character. This is an idea I believe Jackson would approve, since he has appeared in cameo roles in all of his Tolkien films, here a Corsair, there a dwarf, there a man eating a carrot. Even some of the characters within the movie seem to play more than one role; Beorn is a potential protector and at the same time a fearsome predator; Gandalf is both wise and foolish, powerful and powerless; Bard is a leader in the making disguised as a rough and cunning bargeman.
It will be interesting to see if perspectives shift again as the Hobbit trilogy draws to a close in the next film. The current movie does a good job of showing the effects of power on those who wield it: from Bilbo, who finds in Mirkwood that the ring is already driving his actions in ways he doesn't want; to the Master of Laketown, who seems to enjoy the trappings of power more than the actual exercise of leadership; to Thorin, whose quest for his birthright as King under the Mountain is fraught with questions of moral ambiguity and divided responsibilities. Then there's Smaug himself, a living emblem of "might makes right," shown at one point gilded in molten gold, which he shakes off like a dog shedding water before flying off to attack Laketown. More than just the continuation of a hero's journey, Jackson's second Hobbit film is rather acute in looking at the shadow side of the quest.
You can respond to Smaug on many levels. The kids in the audience seemed to enjoy it as an adventure story, which it is. Tolkien fans are kept busy with comparisons between the book and the film (personally, I think most of Jackson's choices fall in with the spirit of Tolkien, if not the letter). Lovers of special effects and spectacle have a great deal to chew on, and the mythologists among us (and I hope we're all mythologists to some extent) are invited to find themselves and the world around them in the quest of 13 dwarves and a hobbit for treasure. On none of these levels is the filmgoer likely to come up empty. One of the characteristics of myth is its multilayered capacity to say several things at once.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Greetings of the Season
Wordplay - Writing & Life wishes you a very merry Christmas/holiday season and a bright and happy New Year. I'll be in the kitchen, but more later. Maybe a movie review?
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Nights of Wonder and Magic
The clear skies on these sharp winter nights are spectacular. A couple of nights ago, I was out walking before sunset, and the sun, instead of being mired in haze, was distinctly visible as an orange ball, fiery and tremendous. Last night, I noticed a very bright and beautiful planet high in the sky after sundown, which must have been Venus, and on the way home from the coffeehouse, I was lucky to witness the rising of the Full Snow Moon, or Long Night Moon, or Oak Moon, whichever you prefer to call it.
I hadn't heard the December moon referred to as the "Oak Moon" until the other night. I was reading about this and about the Druids marking this moon by performing some of their special magic; the oak tree, of course, was sacred to them. Nights in early winter, according to this lore, are fraught with magic and mysterious events. Stack that on top of December's association with Saturnalia, and you really have the makings of a wild winter carnival.
Hecate, let the games begin. Your cell phone disappears. Your walls are suddenly alive with snapping noises in the predawn hours. Heavy footsteps overhead awaken you at 3:15 a.m. A mysterious current tinkles your wind chime in an enclosed room. People begin speaking loudly, as if they're confident they're making sense, while you're wondering what in the world they could possibly be smoking.
It seems to fit. I've known Decembers as peaceful as "Silent Night" and as surreal as anything by Hieronymus Bosch. It's partly the short days and long nights that set the spirits loose. Apollo, the god of reason and science, who's associated with the sun, is less prominent at this time of year, opening the door for other deities to have a go. I read an evocative description one time about what life was like before the days of gas and electrical lighting, when night was really night, dark and impenetrable, and the imagination gave birth to not only goblins but also fairies and sprites. The long nights of winter, with their bitter cold, howling wolves, and long shadows, still alive as an ancestral memory (unless we're from the tropics), were especially conducive to a free reign of fancy. Some of the dangers were real, and some were imagined, but which was which?
Of course we have the holidays, with all their glitter and cheer, songs, lights, and merriment, to chase away the shadows, or at least to remind us that in the midst of the darkest hours, life still thrives. At the Northern Hemisphere's darkest hour, the sun is actually making its turn (or we are, more precisely), and from that point on, the days grow gradually longer again.
In times past, people celebrated the holidays and survived winter by sitting around the hearth together. Many people still do, and I think they've got the right idea. One problem with modern life is a tendency for people to go their own way a little too much. We vaunt our independence, but at heart we're social creatures, and if we remember holidays from the past with a misty eye, it's because we remember the warmth and good feeling that come from being with family and friends. Companionship and good cheer completely transform cold December nights from a time of darkness to a time of celebration. It's what Scrooge found out the hard way, but, fortunately, not too late.
December is a time of battle between forces of light and darkness. Easy to give way to the doldrums, or to sadness, or to let the goblins in. But tweak your attitude a little, extend your hand to a loved one, light a candle, wrap a gift, or turn the shadows of a winter night toward a narrative that celebrates darkness and light (and gives both their due), and the spirit of the whole enterprise changes. I like Chris Van Allsburg's story The Polar Express for just that reason, because it honors both light and dark and sees the magic in their interplay.
For years I tried to write my own version of a solstice story that involved a forest, a snowy night, animals gathering, and festivities overturning the usual order of things -- sort of a Midwinter Night's Dream -- but I could never get it quite right. I had the atmosphere and the setting, but it seemed more of a tone poem than an actual plot. As I think about it now, I usually experience the magic of the season in just that way, as moments here and there, a fireplace, a favorite ornament, a perfect, unexpected gift, a midnight Mass, the taste of eggnog, the sound of a children's choir in the mall, or the face of a loved one, either near at hand or long absent and suddenly returning. It's only when you put them all together that you realize there's a story in them after all.
I'm trying to celebrate this season by looking for those kinds of moments as well as the little light that's always burning, even during (and perhaps especially during) the long nights of December. I hope you can find your own way to do the same, but remember . . . go easy on the eggnog.
I hadn't heard the December moon referred to as the "Oak Moon" until the other night. I was reading about this and about the Druids marking this moon by performing some of their special magic; the oak tree, of course, was sacred to them. Nights in early winter, according to this lore, are fraught with magic and mysterious events. Stack that on top of December's association with Saturnalia, and you really have the makings of a wild winter carnival.
Hecate, let the games begin. Your cell phone disappears. Your walls are suddenly alive with snapping noises in the predawn hours. Heavy footsteps overhead awaken you at 3:15 a.m. A mysterious current tinkles your wind chime in an enclosed room. People begin speaking loudly, as if they're confident they're making sense, while you're wondering what in the world they could possibly be smoking.
It seems to fit. I've known Decembers as peaceful as "Silent Night" and as surreal as anything by Hieronymus Bosch. It's partly the short days and long nights that set the spirits loose. Apollo, the god of reason and science, who's associated with the sun, is less prominent at this time of year, opening the door for other deities to have a go. I read an evocative description one time about what life was like before the days of gas and electrical lighting, when night was really night, dark and impenetrable, and the imagination gave birth to not only goblins but also fairies and sprites. The long nights of winter, with their bitter cold, howling wolves, and long shadows, still alive as an ancestral memory (unless we're from the tropics), were especially conducive to a free reign of fancy. Some of the dangers were real, and some were imagined, but which was which?
Of course we have the holidays, with all their glitter and cheer, songs, lights, and merriment, to chase away the shadows, or at least to remind us that in the midst of the darkest hours, life still thrives. At the Northern Hemisphere's darkest hour, the sun is actually making its turn (or we are, more precisely), and from that point on, the days grow gradually longer again.
In times past, people celebrated the holidays and survived winter by sitting around the hearth together. Many people still do, and I think they've got the right idea. One problem with modern life is a tendency for people to go their own way a little too much. We vaunt our independence, but at heart we're social creatures, and if we remember holidays from the past with a misty eye, it's because we remember the warmth and good feeling that come from being with family and friends. Companionship and good cheer completely transform cold December nights from a time of darkness to a time of celebration. It's what Scrooge found out the hard way, but, fortunately, not too late.
December is a time of battle between forces of light and darkness. Easy to give way to the doldrums, or to sadness, or to let the goblins in. But tweak your attitude a little, extend your hand to a loved one, light a candle, wrap a gift, or turn the shadows of a winter night toward a narrative that celebrates darkness and light (and gives both their due), and the spirit of the whole enterprise changes. I like Chris Van Allsburg's story The Polar Express for just that reason, because it honors both light and dark and sees the magic in their interplay.
For years I tried to write my own version of a solstice story that involved a forest, a snowy night, animals gathering, and festivities overturning the usual order of things -- sort of a Midwinter Night's Dream -- but I could never get it quite right. I had the atmosphere and the setting, but it seemed more of a tone poem than an actual plot. As I think about it now, I usually experience the magic of the season in just that way, as moments here and there, a fireplace, a favorite ornament, a perfect, unexpected gift, a midnight Mass, the taste of eggnog, the sound of a children's choir in the mall, or the face of a loved one, either near at hand or long absent and suddenly returning. It's only when you put them all together that you realize there's a story in them after all.
I'm trying to celebrate this season by looking for those kinds of moments as well as the little light that's always burning, even during (and perhaps especially during) the long nights of December. I hope you can find your own way to do the same, but remember . . . go easy on the eggnog.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
The Kitchen Ballet
This year I wanted to shake Thanksgiving dinner up a bit, so I combined old standbys with a few new recipes. The hardest part for me is to having everything ready at the same time, so I made dessert the night before and planned ahead more than usual. This would have been the first time in history that my schedule was perfectly coordinated, if it had been perfectly coordinated, which it wasn't. But it came close. And I do have to say I enjoyed myself more than usual. The novelty of new dishes added extra spice to things.
I like pumpkin but have too many memories of trying to finish off most of a pie by myself. I didn't want anything too rich, so I tried a recipe for pumpkin doughnuts that converted easily to cake. I have a metal pan with an autumn design stamped in so that when you turn the cake out, it has raised leaves and vines on top. The effect was muted by the lemon-yogurt icing I drizzled over it, but the result was just what I was looking for: not-too-fancy, not-too-heavy, but just special enough.
On Thanksgiving Day, the biggest hassle was the turkey. Even though I had moved it from the freezer to the refrigerator the day before, it hadn't thawed, so I had to cook it longer. I cooked it in a clay pot, which added an antique touch, but I'm not really sure it tasted any better than if I had used an ordinary pan. Once it was in the oven, I started on the cranberry relish. I had never fixed it at home and didn't think I liked it that much, but I found out what a difference cooking it yourself makes. I didn't know how simple it is: just three ingredients and a little bit of stirring, and the flavor just pops.
I had found myself thinking about saucepans the night before -- how many I had and which ones I should use for what. So there they were, all lined up on the burners. So far, so good, and I started to think I might even be able to manage some gravy, which I usually skip due to lack of stovetop real estate. Things only got tricky when I got to the mashed potato stage. The potatoes were done a little early, so I had to move them to a different burner and keep them warm until I was ready to mash them. Shuffling of pans ensued. Dressing is easy, so I put those ingredients to one side and started the winter spinach with raisins and nuts. Once you start this it goes really fast, I found. The only mishap was a partially melted tip on a plastic spoon, but it was a small price to pay for something delicious. The oil and garlic and the sweetness of the raisins cut the bitterness of the spinach, and it was a nice change from green bean casserole.
The action was fast and furious after the spinach was done. I had to take the turkey out and get it on a plate, make the dressing, mash the potatoes, and set the table (which I would have done earlier if I hadn't forgotten, due to the general atmosphere of gourmet excitement). And oh, yes, the gravy -- I used my smallest saucepan for that, and it only boiled over once. I mashed the potatoes with butter and milk, having decided that this was the place to spend calories. Plain potatoes go totally against the spirit of Thanksgiving, I feel.
It occurred to me while pivoting around from the counter to the refrigerator to the table to the stove that I felt like a dancer. It started out like a country dance, sort of slow and measured, and heated up into something more like hot jazz. I was working all four burners and hadn't scorched a single pan, and nothing had fallen on the floor yet either.
Well, finally, the potatoes were mashed, the relish had cooled, the turkey was ready to carve, and I started spooning things out on the plate, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I wish you could have seen it. I think the mistake I made in the past was going too much toward the casserole end of things. Having a couple of lighter items brightened up the menu, since I knew I wouldn't be in carbohydrate overload afterwards. I looked at that plate, with its sliced turkey resting delicately under a silky gravy, cranberry relish a beautiful shade of red, the old familiar dressing and potatoes, and winter spinach a deep green that totally (I must say) complemented the red, and thought two things: 1. It's a shame I'm not showing this off to someone else and 2. I forgot to put ice in the glass for my tea.
When I sat down to give thanks, I became thoughtful. I realized that it was probably not the time for philosophy but for staying in the moment. My main thought was that I was thankful for being able to put that beautiful meal on the table, a gift I gave to myself compounded of a little artistry and the many gifts life gives us. OK, I guess that was a little philosophical, but I started eating before it could drift into the mind/body problem or something else.
Oh yes, dessert! I can't forget about that! The cake was very good, and here's a hint if you ever want to try it yourself: yogurt works just as well as sour cream for the icing. But it's that little hit of lemon that really sets things off.
I like pumpkin but have too many memories of trying to finish off most of a pie by myself. I didn't want anything too rich, so I tried a recipe for pumpkin doughnuts that converted easily to cake. I have a metal pan with an autumn design stamped in so that when you turn the cake out, it has raised leaves and vines on top. The effect was muted by the lemon-yogurt icing I drizzled over it, but the result was just what I was looking for: not-too-fancy, not-too-heavy, but just special enough.
On Thanksgiving Day, the biggest hassle was the turkey. Even though I had moved it from the freezer to the refrigerator the day before, it hadn't thawed, so I had to cook it longer. I cooked it in a clay pot, which added an antique touch, but I'm not really sure it tasted any better than if I had used an ordinary pan. Once it was in the oven, I started on the cranberry relish. I had never fixed it at home and didn't think I liked it that much, but I found out what a difference cooking it yourself makes. I didn't know how simple it is: just three ingredients and a little bit of stirring, and the flavor just pops.
I had found myself thinking about saucepans the night before -- how many I had and which ones I should use for what. So there they were, all lined up on the burners. So far, so good, and I started to think I might even be able to manage some gravy, which I usually skip due to lack of stovetop real estate. Things only got tricky when I got to the mashed potato stage. The potatoes were done a little early, so I had to move them to a different burner and keep them warm until I was ready to mash them. Shuffling of pans ensued. Dressing is easy, so I put those ingredients to one side and started the winter spinach with raisins and nuts. Once you start this it goes really fast, I found. The only mishap was a partially melted tip on a plastic spoon, but it was a small price to pay for something delicious. The oil and garlic and the sweetness of the raisins cut the bitterness of the spinach, and it was a nice change from green bean casserole.
The action was fast and furious after the spinach was done. I had to take the turkey out and get it on a plate, make the dressing, mash the potatoes, and set the table (which I would have done earlier if I hadn't forgotten, due to the general atmosphere of gourmet excitement). And oh, yes, the gravy -- I used my smallest saucepan for that, and it only boiled over once. I mashed the potatoes with butter and milk, having decided that this was the place to spend calories. Plain potatoes go totally against the spirit of Thanksgiving, I feel.
It occurred to me while pivoting around from the counter to the refrigerator to the table to the stove that I felt like a dancer. It started out like a country dance, sort of slow and measured, and heated up into something more like hot jazz. I was working all four burners and hadn't scorched a single pan, and nothing had fallen on the floor yet either.
Well, finally, the potatoes were mashed, the relish had cooled, the turkey was ready to carve, and I started spooning things out on the plate, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I wish you could have seen it. I think the mistake I made in the past was going too much toward the casserole end of things. Having a couple of lighter items brightened up the menu, since I knew I wouldn't be in carbohydrate overload afterwards. I looked at that plate, with its sliced turkey resting delicately under a silky gravy, cranberry relish a beautiful shade of red, the old familiar dressing and potatoes, and winter spinach a deep green that totally (I must say) complemented the red, and thought two things: 1. It's a shame I'm not showing this off to someone else and 2. I forgot to put ice in the glass for my tea.
When I sat down to give thanks, I became thoughtful. I realized that it was probably not the time for philosophy but for staying in the moment. My main thought was that I was thankful for being able to put that beautiful meal on the table, a gift I gave to myself compounded of a little artistry and the many gifts life gives us. OK, I guess that was a little philosophical, but I started eating before it could drift into the mind/body problem or something else.
Oh yes, dessert! I can't forget about that! The cake was very good, and here's a hint if you ever want to try it yourself: yogurt works just as well as sour cream for the icing. But it's that little hit of lemon that really sets things off.
Monday, November 25, 2013
The Lord of Misrule
People complain about the holiday frenzy starting earlier every year. It's a cliché, but it may actually be true. Last Friday afternoon, I saw people changing lanes repeatedly (more than usual, it seemed) in heavy traffic near the mall. An overeager van driver jumped in front of me with hardly any room to spare, causing me to miss a green light. He/she probably considered it adroit maneuvering, but I considered it rude.
Same thing at the coffeehouse: I don't know what people are drinking to make them so excitable, but it's not the same thing I'm getting. I usually take a book to read, but even if I were talking with someone, I could probably do it without sharing my conversation with the whole room or blundering into other people's tables. What's with all the attention-seeking behavior: loudness, lack of regard for personal space, and odd mannerisms? I was only that overstimulated once in my life, the time I took Midol for cramps and suddenly found I was bouncing off the walls. Maybe some people just shouldn't drink coffee in the afternoon?
Everybody knows that feeling you sometimes get during the holiday season when you've been overtaxed by addressing cards, shopping for gifts, and planning dinner, and you've navigated the over-bright and over-crowded aisles of the department stores one too many times. I remember walking through the grocery store a few days before Christmas one year feeling worn out, and the main action hadn't even started yet. Generally, that frazzled feeling can be expected in mid to late December, but yesterday it seemed to have hit people about a month too soon. I never saw so many pedestrians nearly run over, and that was before I even got inside. The store was extra crowded with people shopping for Thanksgiving, and things only settled down once the people thinned out.
I usually like to take things in small doses, including holiday cheer, but of course that runs counter to the spirit of Saturnalia, the ancient holiday that celebrated excess and the overturning of social order every December. Having read about some of the customs of Saturnalia, I'm inclined to think most of our modern celebrations are an improvement. Shopping and eating do sound better than an actual descent into lawlessness.
If my reading of the current situation is correct, the spirit of Saturnalia may be making more of an appearance than usual this season. If so, we should be prepared for a bit of a bumpy ride. It's probably best to give yourself plenty of time to get places, to focus on doing the things that truly give you happiness, and to handle any tendency to excess with an extra helping of turkey, a well-planned shopping excursion at off-hours, or some enthusiastic caroling. Resist any temptation to run naked in the streets or steal your neighbor's nativity display. Likewise, be prepared for defensive action. If anyone dashes up to you with a spring of mistletoe and a wild look, your shopping cart makes an excellent barrier.
Same thing at the coffeehouse: I don't know what people are drinking to make them so excitable, but it's not the same thing I'm getting. I usually take a book to read, but even if I were talking with someone, I could probably do it without sharing my conversation with the whole room or blundering into other people's tables. What's with all the attention-seeking behavior: loudness, lack of regard for personal space, and odd mannerisms? I was only that overstimulated once in my life, the time I took Midol for cramps and suddenly found I was bouncing off the walls. Maybe some people just shouldn't drink coffee in the afternoon?
Everybody knows that feeling you sometimes get during the holiday season when you've been overtaxed by addressing cards, shopping for gifts, and planning dinner, and you've navigated the over-bright and over-crowded aisles of the department stores one too many times. I remember walking through the grocery store a few days before Christmas one year feeling worn out, and the main action hadn't even started yet. Generally, that frazzled feeling can be expected in mid to late December, but yesterday it seemed to have hit people about a month too soon. I never saw so many pedestrians nearly run over, and that was before I even got inside. The store was extra crowded with people shopping for Thanksgiving, and things only settled down once the people thinned out.
I usually like to take things in small doses, including holiday cheer, but of course that runs counter to the spirit of Saturnalia, the ancient holiday that celebrated excess and the overturning of social order every December. Having read about some of the customs of Saturnalia, I'm inclined to think most of our modern celebrations are an improvement. Shopping and eating do sound better than an actual descent into lawlessness.
If my reading of the current situation is correct, the spirit of Saturnalia may be making more of an appearance than usual this season. If so, we should be prepared for a bit of a bumpy ride. It's probably best to give yourself plenty of time to get places, to focus on doing the things that truly give you happiness, and to handle any tendency to excess with an extra helping of turkey, a well-planned shopping excursion at off-hours, or some enthusiastic caroling. Resist any temptation to run naked in the streets or steal your neighbor's nativity display. Likewise, be prepared for defensive action. If anyone dashes up to you with a spring of mistletoe and a wild look, your shopping cart makes an excellent barrier.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Moonlighting as Gods
We're under a weather advisory right now, but so far, we've only had rain. That's probably a good thing, since there have been very severe storms in the Midwest today. I heard the storm warning alarm go off a while ago, but whatever the hazard was, it must have passed us by. Here, it's just a rainy Sunday.
I've always lived in places where tornadoes are a possibility. In Florida, hurricanes sometimes spawn them, and in Kentucky, we get tornadoes with severe thunderstorms. In high school, I spent one especially wild night listening to the radio by candlelight as a supercell storm raged outside. This storm was so immense that it affected multiple states throughout the Eastern U.S., dropping numerous tornadoes, one of which damaged our school. We had turned in English papers that week that were lost, our words literally carried away by the wind (now I always make a backup copy).
No wonder there were so many sky gods in the ancient religions; no wonder Thor's emblem is a hammer. I remember as a child seeing a commercial that featured an image of a cloud-wreathed god striking an anvil with a huge hammer. That was the image I carried in my mind of Thor or Vulcan, of how he created thunder and lightning every time he struck with his brawny arm. I could almost see him up there any time the clouds were especially black.
I suppose any time the origin of a force is invisible, the imagination is stirred like that. Right now, for instance, there's no thunder or wind, but there's plenty of noise above my head. For the last several years, I've had a succession of exceptionally noisy upstairs neighbors. If I hadn't seen them with my own eyes, I might have wondered if Thor or Vulcan had actually moved in above me! Sounds of heavy objects falling (Crack! Thud!), sounds of hammering and scraping, a commotion as of sizable objects being shoved or pushed -- it's all in a day's work around here.
It gives me sympathy for those poor denizens of the mythical realms who must have lived beneath the workshops of those sky gods (not having had any recourse to NIMBY petitioning, under the circumstances). I can imagine their dismay at all the thundering and yammering and unexplained but ominous bumps in the night originating from up top the mountain. They must have wondered what epic storm the gods were stirring up now every time they heard those low-pitched rumbles and ear-splitting cracks. I have wondered several times if someone was about to come through my ceiling and make an unwelcome deus ex machina appearance in my own living room. (You just really don't want a visit from Zeus; he's usually nothing but trouble.)
So if it is Hephaistos' workshop up there, what could they be building? Furniture? Ships? Trojan horses? All seem like odd hobbies for graduate students. When I was in graduate school, I barely had time to cook dinner, much less moonlight as a cabinetmaker. Maybe I have the wrong mythology, and it's really a latter-day Noah up there now, building an ark for a rainy day. The neighborhood is subject to drainage issues, after all.
The only problem I can see with that is he'll never get it out the window. He can't be a god, or he would have thought of that. I suspect it must be some human foolishness, which makes sense. I can't picture Thor using a dishwasher anyway.
Our storm watch has ended while I've been writing, and so, for now, has the noise upstairs.
I've always lived in places where tornadoes are a possibility. In Florida, hurricanes sometimes spawn them, and in Kentucky, we get tornadoes with severe thunderstorms. In high school, I spent one especially wild night listening to the radio by candlelight as a supercell storm raged outside. This storm was so immense that it affected multiple states throughout the Eastern U.S., dropping numerous tornadoes, one of which damaged our school. We had turned in English papers that week that were lost, our words literally carried away by the wind (now I always make a backup copy).
No wonder there were so many sky gods in the ancient religions; no wonder Thor's emblem is a hammer. I remember as a child seeing a commercial that featured an image of a cloud-wreathed god striking an anvil with a huge hammer. That was the image I carried in my mind of Thor or Vulcan, of how he created thunder and lightning every time he struck with his brawny arm. I could almost see him up there any time the clouds were especially black.
I suppose any time the origin of a force is invisible, the imagination is stirred like that. Right now, for instance, there's no thunder or wind, but there's plenty of noise above my head. For the last several years, I've had a succession of exceptionally noisy upstairs neighbors. If I hadn't seen them with my own eyes, I might have wondered if Thor or Vulcan had actually moved in above me! Sounds of heavy objects falling (Crack! Thud!), sounds of hammering and scraping, a commotion as of sizable objects being shoved or pushed -- it's all in a day's work around here.
It gives me sympathy for those poor denizens of the mythical realms who must have lived beneath the workshops of those sky gods (not having had any recourse to NIMBY petitioning, under the circumstances). I can imagine their dismay at all the thundering and yammering and unexplained but ominous bumps in the night originating from up top the mountain. They must have wondered what epic storm the gods were stirring up now every time they heard those low-pitched rumbles and ear-splitting cracks. I have wondered several times if someone was about to come through my ceiling and make an unwelcome deus ex machina appearance in my own living room. (You just really don't want a visit from Zeus; he's usually nothing but trouble.)
So if it is Hephaistos' workshop up there, what could they be building? Furniture? Ships? Trojan horses? All seem like odd hobbies for graduate students. When I was in graduate school, I barely had time to cook dinner, much less moonlight as a cabinetmaker. Maybe I have the wrong mythology, and it's really a latter-day Noah up there now, building an ark for a rainy day. The neighborhood is subject to drainage issues, after all.
The only problem I can see with that is he'll never get it out the window. He can't be a god, or he would have thought of that. I suspect it must be some human foolishness, which makes sense. I can't picture Thor using a dishwasher anyway.
Our storm watch has ended while I've been writing, and so, for now, has the noise upstairs.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Questing for Wanwood
While driving this afternoon, I noticed the sunlight playing on a tree with bright yellow leaves. The leaves were riffling in a slight wind, and it was the kind of sight that could inspire poetry. A phrase concerning showers of gold ran through my head, but I left it there. It was enough just to see the tree in the light.
But you know how writers are: sometimes they just have to tinker. For the last few minutes, I've been trying to think of a word that describes the quality of this afternoon's light. Melancholy is too strong; pensive doesn't quite fit. It was a waning light, but glorious and tranquil. It invoked a wistful feeling, a sort of yearning mixed up with contentment to be out on such a beautiful day.
There are many notable poems about autumn, but Gerard Manley Hopkins' phrase "worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie" from "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child" came to me as I was thinking about the trees and swirling leaves of my drive. That led to a realization that even though I've known the poem for 30 years, I don't actually know what wanwood is, so I looked it up. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that Hopkins might have coined the word, intending to evoke a forest in its decline.
The poem as a whole is heavier in mood than this afternoon's sunlit trees, but "worlds of wanwood" is just right to describe the drifts of leaves now blanketing yards and sidewalks all over town. I've always pictured wanwood as yellow -- I don't know whether Hopkins did, but this afternoon's palette was definitely in that key.
My search for wanwood led down another interesting byway. I found that -- along with generations of other students of Victorian poetry -- singer and songwriter Natalie Merchant was greatly moved by "Spring and Fall," adapting it to music for her 2010 album Leave Your Sleep. The poem's elegiac quality has never sounded more graceful than it does set to her plaintive melody. It's somber rather than wistful, more in line with a grayer day than today, but beautiful nonetheless.
Autumn is, after all, a time of shifting weather and moods. It shifts with the wind, from mellow to cold and wet, to brisk, to summery, and back again. It's a patchwork quilt of events.
But you know how writers are: sometimes they just have to tinker. For the last few minutes, I've been trying to think of a word that describes the quality of this afternoon's light. Melancholy is too strong; pensive doesn't quite fit. It was a waning light, but glorious and tranquil. It invoked a wistful feeling, a sort of yearning mixed up with contentment to be out on such a beautiful day.
There are many notable poems about autumn, but Gerard Manley Hopkins' phrase "worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie" from "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child" came to me as I was thinking about the trees and swirling leaves of my drive. That led to a realization that even though I've known the poem for 30 years, I don't actually know what wanwood is, so I looked it up. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that Hopkins might have coined the word, intending to evoke a forest in its decline.
The poem as a whole is heavier in mood than this afternoon's sunlit trees, but "worlds of wanwood" is just right to describe the drifts of leaves now blanketing yards and sidewalks all over town. I've always pictured wanwood as yellow -- I don't know whether Hopkins did, but this afternoon's palette was definitely in that key.
My search for wanwood led down another interesting byway. I found that -- along with generations of other students of Victorian poetry -- singer and songwriter Natalie Merchant was greatly moved by "Spring and Fall," adapting it to music for her 2010 album Leave Your Sleep. The poem's elegiac quality has never sounded more graceful than it does set to her plaintive melody. It's somber rather than wistful, more in line with a grayer day than today, but beautiful nonetheless.
Autumn is, after all, a time of shifting weather and moods. It shifts with the wind, from mellow to cold and wet, to brisk, to summery, and back again. It's a patchwork quilt of events.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Peripatetic
It took a while, but I finally tracked down a copy of John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley: In Search of America at the library. I started looking for it years ago, but the main library's copy always seemed to be checked out or missing. Being a fan of both travel writing and John Steinbeck, I was looking forward to reading this memoir, and my only disappointment is that it isn't a longer book.
Maybe it was fate that I never got a chance to read Travels with Charley before. I know I read it in a different way, perhaps with a sharper eye, than I would have even a few years ago. I've traveled some of the same roads as Steinbeck in recent years and was especially interested in the parts of his trip that overlapped with mine.
I've long had an image of Mr. Steinbeck as what you might call a "man's man." It was only recently that I came across a photo of him in his prime that reveled how handsome he was; at six feet tall with those piercing eyes he must have cut quite a figure. It's charming to imagine him traveling about with Charley, his poodle, camping out, and talking to people everywhere without being recognized by any of these strangers. His account of the journey reveals him to be open-minded and deeply thoughtful, with a good sense of humor, though you can tell all that by reading his fiction.
One thing struck me especially, and that was his description of the loneliness that descended on him at the outset of his trip. He missed his wife and, after starting out from Sag Harbor, New York, reunited with her during a stopover in Chicago, not even a quarter of the way through his travels. When they parted for the second time, he was just as lonely as before. I had imagined Mr. Steinbeck as somewhat stoic and was surprised and delighted to read about how regularly he called home and how much he missed it. It made him seem more human and less godlike.
Mr. Steinbeck found Wisconsin especially beautiful; he was prevented from traveling through Yellowstone National Park by Charley's open hostility toward bears; a native of Monterey County, California, he smelled the Pacific Ocean while still far inland; and he made the same trip from Bakersfield to Needles and the Arizona border that I once did (though the roads may be different now). He went quail-hunting in Texas without seeing any quail, but he did catch some fish. He traveled from Amarillo to New Orleans, skirting the Atchafalaya Basin, and witnessed a piece of the desegregation drama then taking place in Louisiana.
Early on, he had gotten lost in a small town in New York, and near the end of his trip, he got lost in New York City, not far from home. In all of this, he captured the bittersweet quality of setting out and leaving behind better perhaps than anyone else I've ever read.
Mr. Steinbeck died when I was quite young. I would have liked to have known him; so much of his personality comes through in his writing that in some ways I feel I do. I once spent a pleasant afternoon visiting his hometown and looking in at the Steinbeck Center, where I read a letter he had written containing a humorous response to the proposal of having a school named after him. I've visited Ed Ricketts' rebuilt lab in Monterey, even summoning up the courage to climb the stairs and peek in. (I received the surprise of my life when I glimpsed a group of men sitting around, apparently shooting the breeze. I beat a fast retreat but not before getting the impression that I'd just witnessed a scene much like the ones Steinbeck, Ricketts, and their cronies would have enacted many times in their day. It's nice to think that some things don't change.)
There's also the matter of the Joseph Campbell connection. He was one of their group of friends, and apparently he, like Steinbeck, was influenced by Ricketts' writings on nature and philosophy. When I was visiting the Monterey area all those years ago, reading Cannery Row and thinking about Steinbeck, I wasn't aware that a few years and a few miles down the road, I'd be the recipient of some of that influence when I started my own studies of mythology. How strange that the winding road that led from John Steinbeck to Joseph Campbell and back again, many times, has not only philosophical and literary layers but also geographic ones.
Maybe it was fate that I never got a chance to read Travels with Charley before. I know I read it in a different way, perhaps with a sharper eye, than I would have even a few years ago. I've traveled some of the same roads as Steinbeck in recent years and was especially interested in the parts of his trip that overlapped with mine.
I've long had an image of Mr. Steinbeck as what you might call a "man's man." It was only recently that I came across a photo of him in his prime that reveled how handsome he was; at six feet tall with those piercing eyes he must have cut quite a figure. It's charming to imagine him traveling about with Charley, his poodle, camping out, and talking to people everywhere without being recognized by any of these strangers. His account of the journey reveals him to be open-minded and deeply thoughtful, with a good sense of humor, though you can tell all that by reading his fiction.
One thing struck me especially, and that was his description of the loneliness that descended on him at the outset of his trip. He missed his wife and, after starting out from Sag Harbor, New York, reunited with her during a stopover in Chicago, not even a quarter of the way through his travels. When they parted for the second time, he was just as lonely as before. I had imagined Mr. Steinbeck as somewhat stoic and was surprised and delighted to read about how regularly he called home and how much he missed it. It made him seem more human and less godlike.
Mr. Steinbeck found Wisconsin especially beautiful; he was prevented from traveling through Yellowstone National Park by Charley's open hostility toward bears; a native of Monterey County, California, he smelled the Pacific Ocean while still far inland; and he made the same trip from Bakersfield to Needles and the Arizona border that I once did (though the roads may be different now). He went quail-hunting in Texas without seeing any quail, but he did catch some fish. He traveled from Amarillo to New Orleans, skirting the Atchafalaya Basin, and witnessed a piece of the desegregation drama then taking place in Louisiana.
Early on, he had gotten lost in a small town in New York, and near the end of his trip, he got lost in New York City, not far from home. In all of this, he captured the bittersweet quality of setting out and leaving behind better perhaps than anyone else I've ever read.
Mr. Steinbeck died when I was quite young. I would have liked to have known him; so much of his personality comes through in his writing that in some ways I feel I do. I once spent a pleasant afternoon visiting his hometown and looking in at the Steinbeck Center, where I read a letter he had written containing a humorous response to the proposal of having a school named after him. I've visited Ed Ricketts' rebuilt lab in Monterey, even summoning up the courage to climb the stairs and peek in. (I received the surprise of my life when I glimpsed a group of men sitting around, apparently shooting the breeze. I beat a fast retreat but not before getting the impression that I'd just witnessed a scene much like the ones Steinbeck, Ricketts, and their cronies would have enacted many times in their day. It's nice to think that some things don't change.)
There's also the matter of the Joseph Campbell connection. He was one of their group of friends, and apparently he, like Steinbeck, was influenced by Ricketts' writings on nature and philosophy. When I was visiting the Monterey area all those years ago, reading Cannery Row and thinking about Steinbeck, I wasn't aware that a few years and a few miles down the road, I'd be the recipient of some of that influence when I started my own studies of mythology. How strange that the winding road that led from John Steinbeck to Joseph Campbell and back again, many times, has not only philosophical and literary layers but also geographic ones.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Looking for Asklepios
As a teenager, I thought medicine was romantic. I blame it on the doctor shows that used to be on television, with all those handsome interns and Dr. Joe Gannons running around. First-hand experience of hospitals will cure you of this kind of thing, and it doesn't even require an overnight stay.
I recently received a medical bill for a service that ended up costing nearly five times as much as I had been told it would. I checked on the cost ahead of time by doing a little Internet research and calling the facility. The price the billing office gave me was in line with what I had discovered on the web, so I thought I knew what I was in for. I wasn't happy, but I was prepared . . . so I was surprised when a routine inspection of my insurance claims revealed a cost of $1,609 instead of $343.48.
Naturally, that started a round of phone calls. The further I got into that, the more I wanted to talk to an actual person. So I walked over to the facility and looked for the office of the patient relations specialist. That in itself took some doing, as I was in three different buildings before getting to the right place. When I found the proper office, the people there were courteous and listened well. I felt a release of tension after simply telling my story, which shows the power of a good listener.
I was distressed and amazed to learn that asking for the cost of a medical service ahead of time is no guarantee that you'll get a figure even in the ballpark. Why? I don't know. Billing is governed by very precise procedure and diagnostic codes, so if the facility knows what you're coming in for, it seems to me they ought to know what they're going to charge you.
I did not see Dr. Noah Drake while navigating the corridors of the hospital and its office buildings. I didn't even see Marcus Welby. The people who gave me directions were all polite, but the surroundings were utilitarian, the signs a little confusing, and the atmosphere austere rather than warm. The corridors were in fact rather mazelike. My medical health is fine, but I was having an irritating experience of the system itself. Imagine going through this if you were really sick.
I've noted before how little influence the Asklepian model of healing seems to have in modern health care. Talking to a priest about the dreams you had was a part of the Asklepian system. In my case, the talking involved recounting my frustrating experience, but I felt the frustration lifting just in response to having someone sit down and listen. It may be that this one simple thing, listening, is the missing ingredient in so much that happens. Science is wonderful, but it still needs the human touch.
I was so tired last night that I barely hauled myself to bed before falling asleep. I had a dream that I was driving to a cemetery where a family member was buried. The road ran like a tunnel down a green, leafy hill, surrounded by a broad plain of small waterfalls and gentle rapids. Unlike the deep pool of the unconscious, these waters rippled gently. The road was dry and clear.
The cure in the Asklepian temples involved bathing in healing springs and sleeping in the sanctuary to await the curative dream. My own dream was filled with symbols of life, from the running water to the graveyard, which is (contrary to what you might think) a powerful symbol of regeneration. Maybe my Asklepian moment in the patient relations office triggered a suggestion of a way to deeper healing. We could all use it.
I recently received a medical bill for a service that ended up costing nearly five times as much as I had been told it would. I checked on the cost ahead of time by doing a little Internet research and calling the facility. The price the billing office gave me was in line with what I had discovered on the web, so I thought I knew what I was in for. I wasn't happy, but I was prepared . . . so I was surprised when a routine inspection of my insurance claims revealed a cost of $1,609 instead of $343.48.
Naturally, that started a round of phone calls. The further I got into that, the more I wanted to talk to an actual person. So I walked over to the facility and looked for the office of the patient relations specialist. That in itself took some doing, as I was in three different buildings before getting to the right place. When I found the proper office, the people there were courteous and listened well. I felt a release of tension after simply telling my story, which shows the power of a good listener.
I was distressed and amazed to learn that asking for the cost of a medical service ahead of time is no guarantee that you'll get a figure even in the ballpark. Why? I don't know. Billing is governed by very precise procedure and diagnostic codes, so if the facility knows what you're coming in for, it seems to me they ought to know what they're going to charge you.
I did not see Dr. Noah Drake while navigating the corridors of the hospital and its office buildings. I didn't even see Marcus Welby. The people who gave me directions were all polite, but the surroundings were utilitarian, the signs a little confusing, and the atmosphere austere rather than warm. The corridors were in fact rather mazelike. My medical health is fine, but I was having an irritating experience of the system itself. Imagine going through this if you were really sick.
I've noted before how little influence the Asklepian model of healing seems to have in modern health care. Talking to a priest about the dreams you had was a part of the Asklepian system. In my case, the talking involved recounting my frustrating experience, but I felt the frustration lifting just in response to having someone sit down and listen. It may be that this one simple thing, listening, is the missing ingredient in so much that happens. Science is wonderful, but it still needs the human touch.
I was so tired last night that I barely hauled myself to bed before falling asleep. I had a dream that I was driving to a cemetery where a family member was buried. The road ran like a tunnel down a green, leafy hill, surrounded by a broad plain of small waterfalls and gentle rapids. Unlike the deep pool of the unconscious, these waters rippled gently. The road was dry and clear.
The cure in the Asklepian temples involved bathing in healing springs and sleeping in the sanctuary to await the curative dream. My own dream was filled with symbols of life, from the running water to the graveyard, which is (contrary to what you might think) a powerful symbol of regeneration. Maybe my Asklepian moment in the patient relations office triggered a suggestion of a way to deeper healing. We could all use it.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Hunter's Moon
Just in time for Halloween, an online article came out the other day on old-fashioned candies that are becoming hard to find. I read it with interest. I remembered most of the items on the list, and many of them were things that always ended up in my trick or treat bag. Necco wafers! Sixlets! Tootsie Rolls! Ah, the ghosts of Halloween past!
A couple of years ago, I was taking an evening stroll on Halloween while trick or treating was underway. It was fun seeing the neighborhood kids in their costumes being shepherded up and down the street, but it struck me as being more orchestrated than my own Halloweens were (or seemed to be). These children were all accompanied by adults, aside from the fact that it wasn't even dark yet, and it didn't seem they would bring home much of a haul at the funereal rate they were going.
This sounds like one of those "When I was your age, I walked five miles in the snow to school" stories. "When I was their age, I ripped through the neighborhood, like all the other kids, with nary but a sibling and would have been insulted if you'd suggested I get home before dark. You would see other kids, but it was understood that they would go their way, and you'd go yours. Each group operated independently." I guess things are different now . . . or perhaps it just seemed later, darker, and more adult-free than it actually was. (Now that you mention it, wasn't that my Dad in the car, following at a discreet distance?)
Forget Samhain. The campy, jokey aspect of Halloween appealed perfectly to my sense of an enjoyable spookiness: like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, it was silly-scary. The pleasure of being out after dark, wearing a costume, was thrilling precisely because it was understood that for just this one night, ordinary life was somewhat (but not too much) in suspension. What a sense of freedom, to be larking around, with that autumnal feeling in the air (even in South Florida, an October night is entirely different than a June night), passing nothing but the importunate princess, pirate, or ghost that imperfectly disguised another neighborhood kid (and an adult or two in tow, though they somehow seemed to fade into the background).
And then, to ring doorbell after doorbell and have the people within each candlelit house load your bag with candy! -- the object of the whole evening being to end up with a trove you'd be eating for two weeks. Once the thrill of the hunt was over, you had something to show for it. Never mind that there would always be duds. You could trade these off, or at least wait until you'd eaten all the good candy, by which time any undesirables would start to taste better. I can still remember my personal pecking order: chocolates, candy bars, caramels at the top, licorice and unidentifiable taffy at the bottom.
When I was out walking earlier this evening, enjoying the combination of a glowing sunset and a rising Hunter's Moon, I had a fleeting sense of that autumnal excitement of years ago. I know a lot of adults love to celebrate Halloween, but for me, much of the thrill is gone, a joy I left behind when I graduated to trick or treating for UNICEF and then becoming too old to trick or treat at all. I've been to Halloween luncheons and costume parties with pumpkin-shaped cookies and apple cider, but they don't hold a candle to a childhood Halloween, being rather tame affairs in comparison.
That's all right. Every once in a while, like tonight, a yellow moon, combined with a certain briskness in the air and a fading orange twilight, brings with it a faint echo of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," the smell of a plastic mask, and the taste of candy corn. There's a lot of enjoyment in just remembering.
A couple of years ago, I was taking an evening stroll on Halloween while trick or treating was underway. It was fun seeing the neighborhood kids in their costumes being shepherded up and down the street, but it struck me as being more orchestrated than my own Halloweens were (or seemed to be). These children were all accompanied by adults, aside from the fact that it wasn't even dark yet, and it didn't seem they would bring home much of a haul at the funereal rate they were going.
This sounds like one of those "When I was your age, I walked five miles in the snow to school" stories. "When I was their age, I ripped through the neighborhood, like all the other kids, with nary but a sibling and would have been insulted if you'd suggested I get home before dark. You would see other kids, but it was understood that they would go their way, and you'd go yours. Each group operated independently." I guess things are different now . . . or perhaps it just seemed later, darker, and more adult-free than it actually was. (Now that you mention it, wasn't that my Dad in the car, following at a discreet distance?)
Forget Samhain. The campy, jokey aspect of Halloween appealed perfectly to my sense of an enjoyable spookiness: like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, it was silly-scary. The pleasure of being out after dark, wearing a costume, was thrilling precisely because it was understood that for just this one night, ordinary life was somewhat (but not too much) in suspension. What a sense of freedom, to be larking around, with that autumnal feeling in the air (even in South Florida, an October night is entirely different than a June night), passing nothing but the importunate princess, pirate, or ghost that imperfectly disguised another neighborhood kid (and an adult or two in tow, though they somehow seemed to fade into the background).
And then, to ring doorbell after doorbell and have the people within each candlelit house load your bag with candy! -- the object of the whole evening being to end up with a trove you'd be eating for two weeks. Once the thrill of the hunt was over, you had something to show for it. Never mind that there would always be duds. You could trade these off, or at least wait until you'd eaten all the good candy, by which time any undesirables would start to taste better. I can still remember my personal pecking order: chocolates, candy bars, caramels at the top, licorice and unidentifiable taffy at the bottom.
When I was out walking earlier this evening, enjoying the combination of a glowing sunset and a rising Hunter's Moon, I had a fleeting sense of that autumnal excitement of years ago. I know a lot of adults love to celebrate Halloween, but for me, much of the thrill is gone, a joy I left behind when I graduated to trick or treating for UNICEF and then becoming too old to trick or treat at all. I've been to Halloween luncheons and costume parties with pumpkin-shaped cookies and apple cider, but they don't hold a candle to a childhood Halloween, being rather tame affairs in comparison.
That's all right. Every once in a while, like tonight, a yellow moon, combined with a certain briskness in the air and a fading orange twilight, brings with it a faint echo of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," the smell of a plastic mask, and the taste of candy corn. There's a lot of enjoyment in just remembering.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Clio Muses Over Current Events
With all the political wrangling in Washington over the budget crisis, it's easy to focus on how tough things are (and they have been better, no question). But people who read history usually take the long view and can often point to events that put the current situation (whatever it is) into perspective. Entirely by accident, I've recently read two novels dealing with 19th-century life on the American frontier, and both made me glad to be living in the 21st century.
Jane Smiley's The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton tells the story of a young Illinois woman who follows her new husband to the Kansas Territory just as pro-slavery and abolitionist forces are clashing for control of it. Her husband Thomas, though mild-mannered and kind, enters K.T. with smuggled arms to aid fellow abolitionists who have already settled in and around Lawrence. Lidie, a tomboy self-described as "useless," has married the attractive but enigmatic Thomas largely to escape a circumscribed life. Like many others, she has fallen under the spell of advertising that encourages settlement by promoting Kansas as a new paradise.
What seems like a big adventure turns serious once Lidie and Thomas arrive in K.T. and see for themselves the open hostility that frequently results in violence. Aside from that, Kansas is no Eden, and life for homesteaders is difficult, even for the young and strong. Despite the harsh conditions, the Newtons make the best of their new life and friends until the escalating brutality results in tragedy, and Lidie is forced to decide on a course of action.
When I learned about the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act in history class, it was in broad terms. This novel really opened my eyes to what America must have been like in the 1850s and how much blood was shed over the issue of slavery even before the Civil War. It was a vicious time, marked by tragedy and ill will. The novel is remarkable, and Lidie is a wonderful protagonist, but the book describes an unforgettably dark episode in the push for westward expansion.
Tracy Chevalier's The Last Runaway, set in 1850, gives a view of similar events through the eyes of a young Quaker woman, Honor Bright, who comes to America for a new start after a broken engagement. Her adventure starts off badly when her sister dies soon after the pair's arrival from England, leaving Honor alone at the edge of the Ohio frontier.
Honor finds conditions in America daunting due to the loneliness, the coarseness of daily life, and the hardships imposed by both nature and an unsettled society. The area around Oberlin is part of the Underground Railroad, but the consequences of helping escaped slaves have become more severe since passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Even within Honor's Quaker community, questions of right and wrong are balanced against questions of livelihood, pragmatism, and safety. Honor learns that adhering to principles can lead to ostracism, even among Quakers.
Miss Chevalier's book paints a vivid portrait of an America still half wild, where a wagon journey through the forest between one town and the next presents innumerable hazards, and social divisions simmer ominously, sometimes boiling over. An episode in which Honor accompanies a runaway slave during her own bid for freedom has a parallel in Miss Smiley's book, although the consequences are different. Both books reminded me of Toni Morrison's Beloved, which tells the story of an escaped slave in Ohio still entangled in the tragedy of her past. Beloved has been likened to Dante's Inferno; it certainly contains many scenes of both personal and societal hell, as do Miss Smiley's and Miss Chevalier's novels.
With so much contention in our history, it's not surprising that we still find ourselves at odds with each other. Maybe there is some good news in the current climate after all: at least now the divisions are over budgetary issues, health care, and the debt ceiling and not over slavery and territorial expansion. Current matters are serious, but at least we're not engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Perhaps we've learned enough from the past to proceed peacefully even when stakes are high and disagreements are sharp. Maybe our tumultuous past has at least given us that legacy.
Jane Smiley's The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton tells the story of a young Illinois woman who follows her new husband to the Kansas Territory just as pro-slavery and abolitionist forces are clashing for control of it. Her husband Thomas, though mild-mannered and kind, enters K.T. with smuggled arms to aid fellow abolitionists who have already settled in and around Lawrence. Lidie, a tomboy self-described as "useless," has married the attractive but enigmatic Thomas largely to escape a circumscribed life. Like many others, she has fallen under the spell of advertising that encourages settlement by promoting Kansas as a new paradise.
What seems like a big adventure turns serious once Lidie and Thomas arrive in K.T. and see for themselves the open hostility that frequently results in violence. Aside from that, Kansas is no Eden, and life for homesteaders is difficult, even for the young and strong. Despite the harsh conditions, the Newtons make the best of their new life and friends until the escalating brutality results in tragedy, and Lidie is forced to decide on a course of action.
When I learned about the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act in history class, it was in broad terms. This novel really opened my eyes to what America must have been like in the 1850s and how much blood was shed over the issue of slavery even before the Civil War. It was a vicious time, marked by tragedy and ill will. The novel is remarkable, and Lidie is a wonderful protagonist, but the book describes an unforgettably dark episode in the push for westward expansion.
Tracy Chevalier's The Last Runaway, set in 1850, gives a view of similar events through the eyes of a young Quaker woman, Honor Bright, who comes to America for a new start after a broken engagement. Her adventure starts off badly when her sister dies soon after the pair's arrival from England, leaving Honor alone at the edge of the Ohio frontier.
Honor finds conditions in America daunting due to the loneliness, the coarseness of daily life, and the hardships imposed by both nature and an unsettled society. The area around Oberlin is part of the Underground Railroad, but the consequences of helping escaped slaves have become more severe since passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Even within Honor's Quaker community, questions of right and wrong are balanced against questions of livelihood, pragmatism, and safety. Honor learns that adhering to principles can lead to ostracism, even among Quakers.
Miss Chevalier's book paints a vivid portrait of an America still half wild, where a wagon journey through the forest between one town and the next presents innumerable hazards, and social divisions simmer ominously, sometimes boiling over. An episode in which Honor accompanies a runaway slave during her own bid for freedom has a parallel in Miss Smiley's book, although the consequences are different. Both books reminded me of Toni Morrison's Beloved, which tells the story of an escaped slave in Ohio still entangled in the tragedy of her past. Beloved has been likened to Dante's Inferno; it certainly contains many scenes of both personal and societal hell, as do Miss Smiley's and Miss Chevalier's novels.
With so much contention in our history, it's not surprising that we still find ourselves at odds with each other. Maybe there is some good news in the current climate after all: at least now the divisions are over budgetary issues, health care, and the debt ceiling and not over slavery and territorial expansion. Current matters are serious, but at least we're not engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Perhaps we've learned enough from the past to proceed peacefully even when stakes are high and disagreements are sharp. Maybe our tumultuous past has at least given us that legacy.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
My Day of Hardly, Strictly
It's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass weekend out in San Francisco. I've only been to the festival once, about ten years ago -- my, how time flies! -- but I was reminiscing tonight about my one and only experience of this event. It's a big happening out there, but when you're from Kentucky, it's a little like carrying coals to Newcastle to attend an event like this. That's the reaction I got from someone I worked with, who had a good laugh about the idea of me flying to the Bay Area to hear bluegrass music. I guess it was pretty funny, at that.
True to its name, though, HSB is a very ecumenical event, meaning, as far as I can tell, that almost anyone is likely to show up. Their mainstay may be venerable old-time musicians like Hazel Dickens, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Del McCoury, but Hammer has played there, too.
At any event, I found myself heading out for coffee with my SF friends on a cold and foggy Saturday morning, having arrived the night before with insufficient layers. I had to borrow a heavy, slouchy jacket and was told it made me look more like a native -- I'm not sure how, exactly, but it was gratifying to know. When we started heading in the direction of Golden Gate Park, the gray skies were still lowering, and it was quite chilly. Nonetheless, we took the scenic route, since my pocket guide suggested a walking tour of some of the hipper sights of the Haight, which I had never seen.
We walked up and down a couple of streets, finding houses once occupied by Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. We took pictures of ourselves at the corner of Haight-Ashbury (though the big chain fashion store at that location was a surprise) and climbed to the top of Buena Vista Park before stopping for another coffee break. By the time we got to Golden Gate Park, it was late morning, still chilly, and still gray. We entered a large meadow fringed by trees and settled down on a blanket to hear Gillian Welch.
There were simultaneous acts on other stages and enormous crowds everyplace you looked. It was a real ocean of humanity, but in general, people behaved decorously and seemed really to be there for the music. There were attendees of all ages, and kids and dogs everywhere. When we got up to move to another stage, the fog was lifting, and it was showing signs of becoming a fine afternoon. It was one of those days you often see in San Francisco that seem to roll at least three seasons into one, starting out cold and turning summery before cooling down again. Indeed, I had to peel off two layers and apply sunscreen before the day was over.
The most unequivocal bluegrass act we heard that day was Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. I have seen Mr. Skaggs at a folk life festival in Kentucky, where I passed him on the sidewalk. At HSB, he was on a big stage some distance away from us but performed a spirited set in fine style. It was great fun to sit in that crowd of people of all ages, races, and persuasions and feel them respond to the down-to-earth energy of bluegrass. The single image that sticks in my mind is of a young man awash in a complicated outfit seemingly made entirely of filmy pink and purple scarves, dancing joyously and uninhibitedly to the rapid-fire rhythms of Ricky Skaggs' band. That was something you'd likely not see in Kentucky and was probably worth the trip.
We left the park around four o'clock and caught a bus somewhere out on Fulton to head back toward the inner city. A group of teenage girls got on sometime after we did (they had not, I take it, spent the afternoon at HSB), talking animatedly amongst themselves. Just before we got off the bus, I heard one of them say disparagingly, of a popular song they were discussing, "It's so old. It's probably two years old."
That tickled me. For awhile, it had seemed that everyone and his brother was in Golden Gate Park, sipping wine, listening to old-time music, cross-referencing articles in No Depression, and nodding when the names Doc Watson and Ralph Stanley were mentioned . . . so this was a wake-up call. It's true, not everyone in San Francisco is a bluegrass aficionado (and the same is true in Kentucky). I came away with a sense of worlds colliding. HSB is a place where many fans with extremely sophisticated and complex tastes will sit on the grass to hear music of very humble origins played with consummate musicianship. Just beyond its borders, teenagers listen unconcernedly to the newest sounds and have never heard of Earl Scruggs. But someday, one of their current favorites will probably take the stage on another foggy morning.
The fun continued on my journey home, when I happened to sit next to Jimmie Dale Gilmore on the plane. I might not have suspected it was him except that I knew he'd performed at the festival. Unfortunately, something had possessed me to seek out an exotic lunch to take with me on the plane, something to extend the multicultural experience. It's not every day you eat a pungent falafel sandwich while sitting next to a legendary Texas country blues performer on a plane, but that happened to be my day for it. That's San Francisco for you. Hopefully, he's forgotten it by now.
True to its name, though, HSB is a very ecumenical event, meaning, as far as I can tell, that almost anyone is likely to show up. Their mainstay may be venerable old-time musicians like Hazel Dickens, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Del McCoury, but Hammer has played there, too.
At any event, I found myself heading out for coffee with my SF friends on a cold and foggy Saturday morning, having arrived the night before with insufficient layers. I had to borrow a heavy, slouchy jacket and was told it made me look more like a native -- I'm not sure how, exactly, but it was gratifying to know. When we started heading in the direction of Golden Gate Park, the gray skies were still lowering, and it was quite chilly. Nonetheless, we took the scenic route, since my pocket guide suggested a walking tour of some of the hipper sights of the Haight, which I had never seen.
We walked up and down a couple of streets, finding houses once occupied by Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. We took pictures of ourselves at the corner of Haight-Ashbury (though the big chain fashion store at that location was a surprise) and climbed to the top of Buena Vista Park before stopping for another coffee break. By the time we got to Golden Gate Park, it was late morning, still chilly, and still gray. We entered a large meadow fringed by trees and settled down on a blanket to hear Gillian Welch.
There were simultaneous acts on other stages and enormous crowds everyplace you looked. It was a real ocean of humanity, but in general, people behaved decorously and seemed really to be there for the music. There were attendees of all ages, and kids and dogs everywhere. When we got up to move to another stage, the fog was lifting, and it was showing signs of becoming a fine afternoon. It was one of those days you often see in San Francisco that seem to roll at least three seasons into one, starting out cold and turning summery before cooling down again. Indeed, I had to peel off two layers and apply sunscreen before the day was over.
The most unequivocal bluegrass act we heard that day was Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. I have seen Mr. Skaggs at a folk life festival in Kentucky, where I passed him on the sidewalk. At HSB, he was on a big stage some distance away from us but performed a spirited set in fine style. It was great fun to sit in that crowd of people of all ages, races, and persuasions and feel them respond to the down-to-earth energy of bluegrass. The single image that sticks in my mind is of a young man awash in a complicated outfit seemingly made entirely of filmy pink and purple scarves, dancing joyously and uninhibitedly to the rapid-fire rhythms of Ricky Skaggs' band. That was something you'd likely not see in Kentucky and was probably worth the trip.
We left the park around four o'clock and caught a bus somewhere out on Fulton to head back toward the inner city. A group of teenage girls got on sometime after we did (they had not, I take it, spent the afternoon at HSB), talking animatedly amongst themselves. Just before we got off the bus, I heard one of them say disparagingly, of a popular song they were discussing, "It's so old. It's probably two years old."
That tickled me. For awhile, it had seemed that everyone and his brother was in Golden Gate Park, sipping wine, listening to old-time music, cross-referencing articles in No Depression, and nodding when the names Doc Watson and Ralph Stanley were mentioned . . . so this was a wake-up call. It's true, not everyone in San Francisco is a bluegrass aficionado (and the same is true in Kentucky). I came away with a sense of worlds colliding. HSB is a place where many fans with extremely sophisticated and complex tastes will sit on the grass to hear music of very humble origins played with consummate musicianship. Just beyond its borders, teenagers listen unconcernedly to the newest sounds and have never heard of Earl Scruggs. But someday, one of their current favorites will probably take the stage on another foggy morning.
The fun continued on my journey home, when I happened to sit next to Jimmie Dale Gilmore on the plane. I might not have suspected it was him except that I knew he'd performed at the festival. Unfortunately, something had possessed me to seek out an exotic lunch to take with me on the plane, something to extend the multicultural experience. It's not every day you eat a pungent falafel sandwich while sitting next to a legendary Texas country blues performer on a plane, but that happened to be my day for it. That's San Francisco for you. Hopefully, he's forgotten it by now.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Pictures Never Seen Before
At the local Gallery Hop last Friday night, I covered a lot of ground, enjoying both the art on the walls and the street life. The Gallery Hop is an event in which a group of artistic venues sets out their punch bowls, crudites, and fancy cookies and welcomes visitors for a special viewing of their exhibits. The event has become a downtown tradition, and you never know who (or what) you might see.
Most of the galleries are well-known and long-established regulars in the local arts scene: those at the local universities, the public library, the Downtown Arts Center, the Living Arts and Science Center. It's especially exciting when there turns out to be a quirky artists' collective behind a nondescript door you've passed thousands of times or when a place you always associated with one purpose suddenly reveals a secret identity: a historic church with a modest corridor that doubles as a gallery for a former basketball star (now a talented folk artist) working with wood, or a restaurant that unexpectedly serves a pop-up exhibit. Finding art in unexpected places always enhances the sense of adventure.
Does looking with intention transform your vision? Would I have noticed how beautifully the tall old-fashioned window in ArtsPlace frames the steeple of the church across the way if I had been casually passing through? It stopped me in my tracks, but would I have seen it if I'd been there on business, with my mind on something else? This question reminds me of the time I went to see Orson Welles' Touch of Evil downtown on a humid summer night. I walked to my car afterwards thinking how noirish and mysterious everything looked, as if the movie's frame of reference had widened to include our familiar rain-soaked streets. I doubt if I'd have had the same thought if I'd just been running to the store for a gallon of milk. The film gave me a new lens for viewing and helped me see what I didn't see before.
Another time I noticed this in a big way was my first visit to The Getty Center in Los Angeles. The building itself is a work of art, and you could wander around quite happily just taking in the hidden courtyards, the changing light on the walls, the views across the garden, and the shadows created by a staircase. I had been doing just that when I suddenly found myself outside, on a patio that looked east and north. The museum has a commanding hilltop view of a wide swath of West Los Angeles, but from that perspective the most arresting element in the landscape is the freeway, with its sinuous, ever-moving lines of traffic, gliding like living things through a dramatic gap in the mountains, rushing onwards with something between a hiss and a roar far below you.
I'm sure framing the landscape as living art was a conscious intention of the architect, and I have to say he succeeded. The view is breathtaking. I gazed down at the scene for quite a while, mesmerized by the scope and grandeur. Years later, when I was in Los Angeles on a regular basis, frequently traveling to and from school on that very highway, I could never pass The Getty Center without remembering that first view. What always struck me was how my role had shifted from onlooker to participant. Instead of just observing the scene, I was now in it, part of that river of purposeful, fast-moving, ever-changing traffic.
Driving on the 405 requires skill and attention. Without that first revealing look from the side of a mountain high above, would I ever have realized the wonder and beauty of what, at ground-level, can be a frustrating, exhausting, and very mundane experience? Maybe not. For that I have to thank the visionary who looked at the scene with an artist's eye and framed it so that the rest of us could see it. Art doesn't imitate life; it provides an opening into it.
Most of the galleries are well-known and long-established regulars in the local arts scene: those at the local universities, the public library, the Downtown Arts Center, the Living Arts and Science Center. It's especially exciting when there turns out to be a quirky artists' collective behind a nondescript door you've passed thousands of times or when a place you always associated with one purpose suddenly reveals a secret identity: a historic church with a modest corridor that doubles as a gallery for a former basketball star (now a talented folk artist) working with wood, or a restaurant that unexpectedly serves a pop-up exhibit. Finding art in unexpected places always enhances the sense of adventure.
Does looking with intention transform your vision? Would I have noticed how beautifully the tall old-fashioned window in ArtsPlace frames the steeple of the church across the way if I had been casually passing through? It stopped me in my tracks, but would I have seen it if I'd been there on business, with my mind on something else? This question reminds me of the time I went to see Orson Welles' Touch of Evil downtown on a humid summer night. I walked to my car afterwards thinking how noirish and mysterious everything looked, as if the movie's frame of reference had widened to include our familiar rain-soaked streets. I doubt if I'd have had the same thought if I'd just been running to the store for a gallon of milk. The film gave me a new lens for viewing and helped me see what I didn't see before.
Another time I noticed this in a big way was my first visit to The Getty Center in Los Angeles. The building itself is a work of art, and you could wander around quite happily just taking in the hidden courtyards, the changing light on the walls, the views across the garden, and the shadows created by a staircase. I had been doing just that when I suddenly found myself outside, on a patio that looked east and north. The museum has a commanding hilltop view of a wide swath of West Los Angeles, but from that perspective the most arresting element in the landscape is the freeway, with its sinuous, ever-moving lines of traffic, gliding like living things through a dramatic gap in the mountains, rushing onwards with something between a hiss and a roar far below you.
I'm sure framing the landscape as living art was a conscious intention of the architect, and I have to say he succeeded. The view is breathtaking. I gazed down at the scene for quite a while, mesmerized by the scope and grandeur. Years later, when I was in Los Angeles on a regular basis, frequently traveling to and from school on that very highway, I could never pass The Getty Center without remembering that first view. What always struck me was how my role had shifted from onlooker to participant. Instead of just observing the scene, I was now in it, part of that river of purposeful, fast-moving, ever-changing traffic.
Driving on the 405 requires skill and attention. Without that first revealing look from the side of a mountain high above, would I ever have realized the wonder and beauty of what, at ground-level, can be a frustrating, exhausting, and very mundane experience? Maybe not. For that I have to thank the visionary who looked at the scene with an artist's eye and framed it so that the rest of us could see it. Art doesn't imitate life; it provides an opening into it.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Sky by Maxfield Parrish
The shorter days are nothing to get excited about, but still . . . these September evenings are beautiful. I think the last of the fireflies are gone, and the sound of the crickets is fading day by day. It's sad to see the summer go, but the feeling of change in the air is invigorating. The cool air in the evenings is pleasant, and there's always some drama playing out in the sky.
The other night, it was the nearly full moon, rising ghostlike in the still bright sky of early evening, while the fiery sun went down in the opposite direction. The moon kept getting caught in wisps of clouds as it rose, which only accentuated its beauty. I didn't see the harvest moon last night, and when I went out for my walk this evening I was too early for it. I caught a glimpse of the moon a while ago from my window, and it's already high overhead, framed by the branches of a tree. If I stepped outside, I could see Orion, too.
I've noticed a flock of geese flying about restlessly, as if they're unsure whether to go south or not. When I saw them tonight, they were not flying south but seemed to be heading for the Arboretum on some unknown errand. They can seem a little ungainly on the ground, but in the air, they're very graceful. No doubt they'll be on their way soon to what I hope is a warm wintering spot.
The sunsets have been lovely, especially with the evening star shining so clearly in the quiet part of the sky above the glowing color. More than once this week, I've looked at the western sky at sunset and thought that it looked like a painting by Maxfield Parrish. You know, all those towering, billowing clouds and saturated hues of orange and purple. There is something mythic about these dramatic skies ushering autumn in. You almost expect to see goddesses descending.
A low-flying cloud is gray and cold if you pass through it, and we know the surface of the moon is a silent, cold place (when the sunlight doesn't hit it). A goose waddles while walking, and even Venus would appear very different if we were closer to her. Yet throw all of these onto the backdrop of the sky, like a canvas, and they take on grace and mystery. The perspective is everything.
The other night, it was the nearly full moon, rising ghostlike in the still bright sky of early evening, while the fiery sun went down in the opposite direction. The moon kept getting caught in wisps of clouds as it rose, which only accentuated its beauty. I didn't see the harvest moon last night, and when I went out for my walk this evening I was too early for it. I caught a glimpse of the moon a while ago from my window, and it's already high overhead, framed by the branches of a tree. If I stepped outside, I could see Orion, too.
I've noticed a flock of geese flying about restlessly, as if they're unsure whether to go south or not. When I saw them tonight, they were not flying south but seemed to be heading for the Arboretum on some unknown errand. They can seem a little ungainly on the ground, but in the air, they're very graceful. No doubt they'll be on their way soon to what I hope is a warm wintering spot.
The sunsets have been lovely, especially with the evening star shining so clearly in the quiet part of the sky above the glowing color. More than once this week, I've looked at the western sky at sunset and thought that it looked like a painting by Maxfield Parrish. You know, all those towering, billowing clouds and saturated hues of orange and purple. There is something mythic about these dramatic skies ushering autumn in. You almost expect to see goddesses descending.
A low-flying cloud is gray and cold if you pass through it, and we know the surface of the moon is a silent, cold place (when the sunlight doesn't hit it). A goose waddles while walking, and even Venus would appear very different if we were closer to her. Yet throw all of these onto the backdrop of the sky, like a canvas, and they take on grace and mystery. The perspective is everything.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Baker's Alchemy
I used to be a so-so baker, but I've gotten better. Not having to rush really makes a difference, as does changing your techniques a little. I used to be intimidated at the thought of making bread, and my results were edible but not admirable. The texture would be uneven, or some of the dough wasn't quite cooked through. Biscuits were another challenge: mine never rose like I wanted them to. Brownies and cakes were OK, and so were my pies, but the crusts were never really flaky and always a little disappointing considering the effort they took.
I guess I've just gotten the hang of it (except for pie crusts, which I have yet to master). Baking really is a ritual, in the true sense of the word, because it's transformative and in a way "magical." I still get the same thrill I got as a little girl with my Easy-Bake oven, which allowed you to turn out miniature versions of cakes, pies, and biscuits cooked under a light bulb. I'll never forget how proud I was of my first endeavor, a small apple pie that I insisted on bringing to the dinner table for dessert, even though it was only big enough for a single serving. The feeling of creating something that turned out well was gratifying, and I repeat it every time I pull out a pan of biscuits or a batch of gingerbread cookies.
When you have time to enjoy it, working with dough is very soulful. When you spend a lot of time working with your mind, working with your hands is very relaxing. Assembling and measuring the ingredients is the preliminary to the really fun part: kneading and shaping the dough. I always thought kneading the bread was probably the secret to having it turn out well -- and it was the part I had the most trouble with. Recipes only take you so far, and I learned that you have to become fearless in the face of the unknown. Followed the measurements exactly, but your dough is too sticky? The hell with it. Just add more flour and keep kneading until it becomes manageable. It seems like a problem, but it isn't.
And how about those biscuits of mine, which used to be so paltry? I'm using the same recipe, but now I double it, and the biscuits turn out much better. I also use a different kind of flour, which makes them rise more creditably, and if I add more salt than the recipe specifies, it improves the flavor. They may not taste exactly like my grandmother's, but they remind me of hers, and that's moving in the right direction.
It's gratifying to work with the dough and feel it taking shape in your hands, but my very favorite part is getting the dough (or the batter) into the pan. I love cutting out biscuits, which I do with a floured glass. I'm happiest when they're all of a uniform size, but I admit that rarely happens. I usually have one mongo biscuit that results from taking the last bits and pieces of dough and rolling them together into one; it may be twice the size of the others and a little misshapen, but it tastes the same as the rest. I also like rolling up bread dough, sealing the ends, and tucking them under before I slide the loaf into the pan. Looking at a pan of dough ready to go into the oven always makes me feel like I've been making good use of my time.
There's also the unparalleled moment of unmolding a cake or a loaf from a pan. I was taking a Morning Glory cake out of Bundt pan the other day, admiring the way it came out so beautifully shaped, when it suddenly took me back to another childhood memory: that of making mud pies. I used to love to take the tea cups from my little tea sets, fill them with dirt, and unmold them onto saucers. I'd take a moment to admire the perfect shape of my dirt puddings before picking them up and throwing them at the side of the house. That was always the grand finale. Of course, I've outgrown throwing things since I've started working with edible materials.
Yes, it's a little bit of alchemy and maybe a little bit of your own soul that goes into baking. You transform a few piles of dry stuff and a little bit of Crisco or butter into something delicious that didn't exist before. Your kitchen smells great, you've preoccupied yourself for half an hour or so with working to make something turn out well, and afterwards you get to eat. There's really nothing bad you can say about a round of baking, as long as you don't eat everything up in one sitting after you're done.
I guess I've just gotten the hang of it (except for pie crusts, which I have yet to master). Baking really is a ritual, in the true sense of the word, because it's transformative and in a way "magical." I still get the same thrill I got as a little girl with my Easy-Bake oven, which allowed you to turn out miniature versions of cakes, pies, and biscuits cooked under a light bulb. I'll never forget how proud I was of my first endeavor, a small apple pie that I insisted on bringing to the dinner table for dessert, even though it was only big enough for a single serving. The feeling of creating something that turned out well was gratifying, and I repeat it every time I pull out a pan of biscuits or a batch of gingerbread cookies.
When you have time to enjoy it, working with dough is very soulful. When you spend a lot of time working with your mind, working with your hands is very relaxing. Assembling and measuring the ingredients is the preliminary to the really fun part: kneading and shaping the dough. I always thought kneading the bread was probably the secret to having it turn out well -- and it was the part I had the most trouble with. Recipes only take you so far, and I learned that you have to become fearless in the face of the unknown. Followed the measurements exactly, but your dough is too sticky? The hell with it. Just add more flour and keep kneading until it becomes manageable. It seems like a problem, but it isn't.
And how about those biscuits of mine, which used to be so paltry? I'm using the same recipe, but now I double it, and the biscuits turn out much better. I also use a different kind of flour, which makes them rise more creditably, and if I add more salt than the recipe specifies, it improves the flavor. They may not taste exactly like my grandmother's, but they remind me of hers, and that's moving in the right direction.
It's gratifying to work with the dough and feel it taking shape in your hands, but my very favorite part is getting the dough (or the batter) into the pan. I love cutting out biscuits, which I do with a floured glass. I'm happiest when they're all of a uniform size, but I admit that rarely happens. I usually have one mongo biscuit that results from taking the last bits and pieces of dough and rolling them together into one; it may be twice the size of the others and a little misshapen, but it tastes the same as the rest. I also like rolling up bread dough, sealing the ends, and tucking them under before I slide the loaf into the pan. Looking at a pan of dough ready to go into the oven always makes me feel like I've been making good use of my time.
There's also the unparalleled moment of unmolding a cake or a loaf from a pan. I was taking a Morning Glory cake out of Bundt pan the other day, admiring the way it came out so beautifully shaped, when it suddenly took me back to another childhood memory: that of making mud pies. I used to love to take the tea cups from my little tea sets, fill them with dirt, and unmold them onto saucers. I'd take a moment to admire the perfect shape of my dirt puddings before picking them up and throwing them at the side of the house. That was always the grand finale. Of course, I've outgrown throwing things since I've started working with edible materials.
Yes, it's a little bit of alchemy and maybe a little bit of your own soul that goes into baking. You transform a few piles of dry stuff and a little bit of Crisco or butter into something delicious that didn't exist before. Your kitchen smells great, you've preoccupied yourself for half an hour or so with working to make something turn out well, and afterwards you get to eat. There's really nothing bad you can say about a round of baking, as long as you don't eat everything up in one sitting after you're done.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Losing Paradise, Gaining the World
Depth psychologists talk about the story of Adam and Eve and the expulsion from paradise as an allegory for the birth of consciousness. There's more than one point in a person's life when she experiences a breakthrough like this, and I would say the transition out of childhood is one of them. I was thinking about this after reading Anton DiSclafani's The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls.
The novel tells the story of a 15-year-old girl who has lived a free and happy life with her parents and twin brother on an isolated Florida homestead until a family tragedy abruptly changes everything. At the beginning of the story, Thea is being taken by her father to a camp for girls in the North Carolina mountains and is desperately hoping for a reprieve. She feels she's being exiled and that things will never be the same now that she's leaving home. She's right. It's obvious that something major has created this turn of affairs, but the narrator doesn't reveal it until much later.
Thea describes her home, her family, and her early life in loving detail as the story unfolds. With a wealthy family and a beautiful home, there's not much to trouble her, even with the Great Depression in the background. She rides her pony, roams the family's land with her brother and cousin, and grows up with a sense of security about herself and her world. Ironically, amid all the wild flora and fauna of central Florida, the most dangerous snake in the garden turns out to be: adolescence. A growing physical attraction to her cousin is the catalyst in a series of events that brings Thea's childhood crashing down.
At the camp, Thea experiences her loss of security and happiness deeply and mourns for what's been lost while coming to realize that she can never put things back together the way they were. What seemed immutable -- her parents, her freedom, even her beloved twin brother -- have been revealed as anything but. The gates of childhood innocence have been shut behind her, and Thea has to get by in a new environment, immersed for the first time in a world of strangers.
This novel is really about growing up, the shift in consciousness that is the gift of adolescence (although it doesn't necessarily feel like a gift). It's painful to realize that all things change and that even a paradisaical home must eventually be left behind. Thea comes to see her parents in a newer, more critical light, makes decisions good and bad, and eventually embraces her independence. Refusing to define herself in terms of the guilt that partly belongs to others, she develops an affection for her new life and the people in it and learns to stand outside the judgment of her family.
Thea isn't always likable, but she's courageous and independent. The process of growing up that many people experience more gradually falls on her suddenly, but she adapts. Another theme that this story shares in common with the biblical Fall is the issue of sexual awakening and the burden of guilt that's shifted onto the female. Thea refuses to accept this burden. One of the novel's grace notes is the depiction of Thea's sexual awakening as natural and beautiful in its own way.
While depicting the enormity of the loss Thea feels at having to leave the past behind, the novel also reveals the upside. While the rest of her family seems diminished and almost paralyzed by what's happened, Thea learns by leaving home that there is a wider world beyond and that somewhere out there is a place for her.
I left Florida (at a much younger age than Thea) when my family moved, and I have experienced a sense of loss for that earlier period something like what she feels. I, too, missed the light and the heat and had to adjust to changes that were cultural and familial as well as climatic. Myths are always moving through our lives, taking on the shape of varying circumstances while retaining something constant underneath. Everyone has their own version of this story.
The novel tells the story of a 15-year-old girl who has lived a free and happy life with her parents and twin brother on an isolated Florida homestead until a family tragedy abruptly changes everything. At the beginning of the story, Thea is being taken by her father to a camp for girls in the North Carolina mountains and is desperately hoping for a reprieve. She feels she's being exiled and that things will never be the same now that she's leaving home. She's right. It's obvious that something major has created this turn of affairs, but the narrator doesn't reveal it until much later.
Thea describes her home, her family, and her early life in loving detail as the story unfolds. With a wealthy family and a beautiful home, there's not much to trouble her, even with the Great Depression in the background. She rides her pony, roams the family's land with her brother and cousin, and grows up with a sense of security about herself and her world. Ironically, amid all the wild flora and fauna of central Florida, the most dangerous snake in the garden turns out to be: adolescence. A growing physical attraction to her cousin is the catalyst in a series of events that brings Thea's childhood crashing down.
At the camp, Thea experiences her loss of security and happiness deeply and mourns for what's been lost while coming to realize that she can never put things back together the way they were. What seemed immutable -- her parents, her freedom, even her beloved twin brother -- have been revealed as anything but. The gates of childhood innocence have been shut behind her, and Thea has to get by in a new environment, immersed for the first time in a world of strangers.
This novel is really about growing up, the shift in consciousness that is the gift of adolescence (although it doesn't necessarily feel like a gift). It's painful to realize that all things change and that even a paradisaical home must eventually be left behind. Thea comes to see her parents in a newer, more critical light, makes decisions good and bad, and eventually embraces her independence. Refusing to define herself in terms of the guilt that partly belongs to others, she develops an affection for her new life and the people in it and learns to stand outside the judgment of her family.
Thea isn't always likable, but she's courageous and independent. The process of growing up that many people experience more gradually falls on her suddenly, but she adapts. Another theme that this story shares in common with the biblical Fall is the issue of sexual awakening and the burden of guilt that's shifted onto the female. Thea refuses to accept this burden. One of the novel's grace notes is the depiction of Thea's sexual awakening as natural and beautiful in its own way.
While depicting the enormity of the loss Thea feels at having to leave the past behind, the novel also reveals the upside. While the rest of her family seems diminished and almost paralyzed by what's happened, Thea learns by leaving home that there is a wider world beyond and that somewhere out there is a place for her.
I left Florida (at a much younger age than Thea) when my family moved, and I have experienced a sense of loss for that earlier period something like what she feels. I, too, missed the light and the heat and had to adjust to changes that were cultural and familial as well as climatic. Myths are always moving through our lives, taking on the shape of varying circumstances while retaining something constant underneath. Everyone has their own version of this story.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Hestia Meets Zen: The Housecleaning Blues
Housecleaning is one of those things that goes better with music. I used to have a habit of cleaning on Sunday mornings, and I always picked something lively that would add some pep to the proceedings. It was almost fun, too, floating a mop easily over the floors, with a dance step here and there. I still clean to music, and it's even more necessary these days because I have more furniture now, which makes cleaning harder.
We're not talking about a lot more furniture, but it's amazing how it's made dusting and mopping disproportionately difficult. The pieces I've accumulated were sensible: a desk and chair to assist with the dissertation process, a book carousel to organize all the additional books and keep them close by, an end table with a bin for magazines, a floor lamp to shed some additional light. Besides those, I also have a few things that didn't used to be there tucked away in odd places: a boot box in a corner, a shoe organizer under the bed.
I remember when it used to take only half an hour to dust and mop all the rooms. A while back, I was wondering why it now takes so much longer, when it dawned on me that I have more things to dust around. My living room, which seemed so spacious when I first moved in (almost like a small ballroom when empty) now has much less open space, and most of the furniture that needs dusting has books or other objects on it that have to be moved and replaced. Mopping is like running an obstacle course. It's harder to get to the corners; I have to mop around desk and chair legs, move things out and put them back, and in general be more painstaking.
I think of those Sunday morning cleaning sprees with regret. I like my furniture but can see how it's complicated something that used to be easy. When I bought my desk, I remember being surprised at how much space it took up in the living room; it seemed much smaller on the showroom floor. (The delivery man told me this is a common phenomenon.) Still, the solidity of it seemed suitable to the task, and I have to say it has served its purpose as an organizing platform for writing. It's just that I liked my living room better when it had more open space.
I remember joking with friends about buying my first couch. I took it as a sign that I was solidly in the adult middle class and hoped it wouldn't lead to buying a mess of other material goods. One friend said he had a goal of not accumulating more than he could fit into the back of a pickup truck, which I thought was a worthy aim. I wasn't too far off the mark with my own belongings, which I was then able to fit into a 10 x 10 storage unit. It would take something a little bigger than that now, although I realize what I own isn't much compared to what many other people have.
I enjoy looking at modern architecture and interior design in magazines like Dwell, where the aesthetic emphasizes making the most intelligent use of space, especially when it's limited. I like the way designers approach it not as a problem but as a spur to creativity, as if they're constructing a haiku with space instead of words. I was fascinated by a story about a tiny Paris apartment, that, though multi-level, had less square footage than mine. The occupants (who, as I remember, worked in a restaurant) did not have enough room in their minuscule kitchen to entertain, and the bedroom barely contained a bed, but what space there was had been cleverly utilized to the max. A New York apartment, while not nearly as small, was still tight; it nevertheless managed to squeeze a tiny library into a bedroom and a full kitchen partly under the stairs.
Most of these modern dwellings are uncluttered and sometimes even spare in their furnishings. I like looking at shining hardwood floors, tidy kitchens, and streamlined bathrooms, and it makes me realize that having a lot of things is not what makes a home appealing. My preference falls somewhere in between the spare and the full; pictures, books, and objects collected over time reveal personality and make a place yours, but there is a point where they spill over and start weighing you down.
My friend with the pickup truck rule described the living room I had in another apartment as being very Zen-like. At that time, I felt I had very little and thought of it as a nice way of saying that I still had the living room of a college student. He wouldn't describe my current living room in those terms, which is good in one way. It looks more like the kind of place I imagined for myself than what I had then. But I also realize that in some ways simpler is better. I was right the first time about not wanting to get saddled with too much stuff.
If I do someday have a home like the ones I enjoy dreaming over in magazines, experience has given me a handy rule for furnishing it: the "does it make dusting harder" principle. If I can experience the ease of dancing and singing, ballroom-style, while gliding the dust mop across open floors, I'll know I've done well.
We're not talking about a lot more furniture, but it's amazing how it's made dusting and mopping disproportionately difficult. The pieces I've accumulated were sensible: a desk and chair to assist with the dissertation process, a book carousel to organize all the additional books and keep them close by, an end table with a bin for magazines, a floor lamp to shed some additional light. Besides those, I also have a few things that didn't used to be there tucked away in odd places: a boot box in a corner, a shoe organizer under the bed.
I remember when it used to take only half an hour to dust and mop all the rooms. A while back, I was wondering why it now takes so much longer, when it dawned on me that I have more things to dust around. My living room, which seemed so spacious when I first moved in (almost like a small ballroom when empty) now has much less open space, and most of the furniture that needs dusting has books or other objects on it that have to be moved and replaced. Mopping is like running an obstacle course. It's harder to get to the corners; I have to mop around desk and chair legs, move things out and put them back, and in general be more painstaking.
I think of those Sunday morning cleaning sprees with regret. I like my furniture but can see how it's complicated something that used to be easy. When I bought my desk, I remember being surprised at how much space it took up in the living room; it seemed much smaller on the showroom floor. (The delivery man told me this is a common phenomenon.) Still, the solidity of it seemed suitable to the task, and I have to say it has served its purpose as an organizing platform for writing. It's just that I liked my living room better when it had more open space.
I remember joking with friends about buying my first couch. I took it as a sign that I was solidly in the adult middle class and hoped it wouldn't lead to buying a mess of other material goods. One friend said he had a goal of not accumulating more than he could fit into the back of a pickup truck, which I thought was a worthy aim. I wasn't too far off the mark with my own belongings, which I was then able to fit into a 10 x 10 storage unit. It would take something a little bigger than that now, although I realize what I own isn't much compared to what many other people have.
I enjoy looking at modern architecture and interior design in magazines like Dwell, where the aesthetic emphasizes making the most intelligent use of space, especially when it's limited. I like the way designers approach it not as a problem but as a spur to creativity, as if they're constructing a haiku with space instead of words. I was fascinated by a story about a tiny Paris apartment, that, though multi-level, had less square footage than mine. The occupants (who, as I remember, worked in a restaurant) did not have enough room in their minuscule kitchen to entertain, and the bedroom barely contained a bed, but what space there was had been cleverly utilized to the max. A New York apartment, while not nearly as small, was still tight; it nevertheless managed to squeeze a tiny library into a bedroom and a full kitchen partly under the stairs.
Most of these modern dwellings are uncluttered and sometimes even spare in their furnishings. I like looking at shining hardwood floors, tidy kitchens, and streamlined bathrooms, and it makes me realize that having a lot of things is not what makes a home appealing. My preference falls somewhere in between the spare and the full; pictures, books, and objects collected over time reveal personality and make a place yours, but there is a point where they spill over and start weighing you down.
My friend with the pickup truck rule described the living room I had in another apartment as being very Zen-like. At that time, I felt I had very little and thought of it as a nice way of saying that I still had the living room of a college student. He wouldn't describe my current living room in those terms, which is good in one way. It looks more like the kind of place I imagined for myself than what I had then. But I also realize that in some ways simpler is better. I was right the first time about not wanting to get saddled with too much stuff.
If I do someday have a home like the ones I enjoy dreaming over in magazines, experience has given me a handy rule for furnishing it: the "does it make dusting harder" principle. If I can experience the ease of dancing and singing, ballroom-style, while gliding the dust mop across open floors, I'll know I've done well.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Coffeehouse Archetypes
Can architecture and design express an archetype? I'm sure the answer is yes. It's fairly obvious how this works with monumental public buildings like the U.S. Capitol or the New York Public Library, but what about something less ambitious, like a neighborhood coffeehouse?
A coffeehouse I sometimes go to had a redesign this year, so I've had a chance to think about the before and after and the way they come across differently. Before the renovation, the interior was a large L-shaped room with the front counter on the short end of the L and seating all around the walls. Even though students with books and laptops accounted for a lot of the customers, the noise level was high and sometimes rambunctious.
I was told that the renovation would move the counter back and create more room at the front of the store. It did. But somehow, the effect now is of less space than before (to me, at least). Previously, the decor consisted of medium-toned furniture and a few bright wall prints. Now darker tones prevail, and the space is almost separated into rooms by the placement of large pieces of furniture and screens that act as dividers. It's a very boxy arrangement for a cafe.
A barista told me that the design is meant to facilitate studying. I can see how that would work, since the segmented spaces almost have the feel of library carrels and study nooks. What I've noticed, however, is that I tend to feel sequestered if I sit behind one of the screened areas or in the back. For me, one of the pleasures of going to a coffeehouse is the sense of community and being with other people, which the new design tends to dampen a little.
I'm surprised it affects me this way, since I've often wished for a little more quiet than the ear-splitting cacophony I've sometimes encountered there. Maybe the noise level has gone down -- I can't say for sure. But in some respects, being sectioned off with a few other people tends to magnify conversations, fidgeting, and other distractions in your immediate vicinity. Overall, the feeling is a bit blocky, although I'm told a lot of customers like it.
One of the main purposes of a coffeehouse is to foster community and provide a gathering place. Libraries do the same thing, and sometimes bookstores do, too. Many bookstores now try to emulate libraries, with cushy seating and soft lights, and some libraries incorporate cafes, so that they've all come to resemble one another more closely. This may be the first coffeehouse I've seen that has attempted to create a less commercial and more studious vibe. It's a bold design, but I miss the spacious, all-encompassing gathering place it used to be.
I once did some research on library architecture and identified one of its archetypal building blocks as the monk's cell, typified by the many paintings you see of Saint Jerome poring over books in a confined, not to mention cozy, room. A scholar's life is monastic and solitary, and a library usually provides a lot of private space for study. A public gathering place, such as a town square, tends to be open, providing no barrier to conversation and free movement. The archetype there is one of unity. The renovated coffeehouse reveals an attempt to combine both of these purposes.
Maybe I'm zeroing in on this because I've been doing research in the area of individualism and community in society. I don't think one precludes the other, but I can't remember ever being in a room where I felt pulled in opposite directions to the same degree. I think the design was intended to have something for everyone, but I liked it better when the community sense was uppermost. It's now more mazelike and seems to require more maneuvering than I'm usually interested in doing with an iced coffee in hand.
It'll be interesting to see if my feelings about the space change over time, and how the rest of the community embraces the new design.
A coffeehouse I sometimes go to had a redesign this year, so I've had a chance to think about the before and after and the way they come across differently. Before the renovation, the interior was a large L-shaped room with the front counter on the short end of the L and seating all around the walls. Even though students with books and laptops accounted for a lot of the customers, the noise level was high and sometimes rambunctious.
I was told that the renovation would move the counter back and create more room at the front of the store. It did. But somehow, the effect now is of less space than before (to me, at least). Previously, the decor consisted of medium-toned furniture and a few bright wall prints. Now darker tones prevail, and the space is almost separated into rooms by the placement of large pieces of furniture and screens that act as dividers. It's a very boxy arrangement for a cafe.
A barista told me that the design is meant to facilitate studying. I can see how that would work, since the segmented spaces almost have the feel of library carrels and study nooks. What I've noticed, however, is that I tend to feel sequestered if I sit behind one of the screened areas or in the back. For me, one of the pleasures of going to a coffeehouse is the sense of community and being with other people, which the new design tends to dampen a little.
I'm surprised it affects me this way, since I've often wished for a little more quiet than the ear-splitting cacophony I've sometimes encountered there. Maybe the noise level has gone down -- I can't say for sure. But in some respects, being sectioned off with a few other people tends to magnify conversations, fidgeting, and other distractions in your immediate vicinity. Overall, the feeling is a bit blocky, although I'm told a lot of customers like it.
One of the main purposes of a coffeehouse is to foster community and provide a gathering place. Libraries do the same thing, and sometimes bookstores do, too. Many bookstores now try to emulate libraries, with cushy seating and soft lights, and some libraries incorporate cafes, so that they've all come to resemble one another more closely. This may be the first coffeehouse I've seen that has attempted to create a less commercial and more studious vibe. It's a bold design, but I miss the spacious, all-encompassing gathering place it used to be.
I once did some research on library architecture and identified one of its archetypal building blocks as the monk's cell, typified by the many paintings you see of Saint Jerome poring over books in a confined, not to mention cozy, room. A scholar's life is monastic and solitary, and a library usually provides a lot of private space for study. A public gathering place, such as a town square, tends to be open, providing no barrier to conversation and free movement. The archetype there is one of unity. The renovated coffeehouse reveals an attempt to combine both of these purposes.
Maybe I'm zeroing in on this because I've been doing research in the area of individualism and community in society. I don't think one precludes the other, but I can't remember ever being in a room where I felt pulled in opposite directions to the same degree. I think the design was intended to have something for everyone, but I liked it better when the community sense was uppermost. It's now more mazelike and seems to require more maneuvering than I'm usually interested in doing with an iced coffee in hand.
It'll be interesting to see if my feelings about the space change over time, and how the rest of the community embraces the new design.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Put That in Your Pipe and Smoke It
Several years ago, I visited the Menil Collection in Houston, where I first saw René Magritte's L'empire des lumières (The Dominion of Light). I was very taken by it. I was one year into my Myth Studies program and had a new interpretive lens for making sense of the emotional impact of stories, images, and art. So when I looked at this painting, I immediately recognized the mysterious interplay of opposites that makes it such an arresting image.
Magritte had a way of fearlessly combining the impossible, or the incongruous. In this painting, it's broad day in the top half of the frame and night in the bottom half. What I thought of first on seeing it was the parallel to the conscious and the unconscious, an obvious Jungian interpretation.
What I think makes the scene so striking is the lamplight in the midst of the darkness, which focuses your attention on the shadowy region. The bright sky above seems empty in comparison with the layers of light and shade in front of the building, and the sense of depth is emphasized even more by the reflection of the lights, trees, and building (but not the blue sky) in the softly rippling water below the trees. Even within the darkness, there is a lower level of unconsciousness in the mysterious pool, of which we only see the surface.
There are many opposites in the painting: sky and water, nature and civilization, day and night, above and below. They blend into one another in subtle ways, although the painting seems at first to present two starkly separate realms. The trees reach up from dark roots into the bright blue sky, and the light from the lamp and the window echo the daylight above. The painting almost seems to map consciousness, from the everyday, somewhat vacuous persona to the ego to the personal unconscious to the deeper collective unconscious underneath it all.
I wasn't really planning to write about this painting, and the way it came about was this: I was thinking this afternoon about synchronicity and pure coincidence and the difference between them. That brought up an association with the famous statement that "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," attributed to Freud (which he probably didn't say, but that's a different story). That got me to thinking about Magritte's painting The Treachery of Images, with its iconic pipe and inscription, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." ("This is not a pipe.") That led me to thoughts of L'empire des lumières, probably for the mere reason that it's also by Magritte and happens to be my favorite.
Back to the question that started all this, about the difference between synchronicity and coincidence: I think they're both real, but I'm not sure I can define what separates them. I would say that synchronicity seems meaningful, whereas coincidence doesn't, but who's to say what meaningful is? Some might argue that there really aren't any coincidences. I'm not sure I'd agree. It's a large metaphysical question, and I don't have the resources (or the chocolate) to puzzle it out at this time. Was it synchronicity that led me to this painting? Or just a rambling series of thoughts?
I don't know, but I do know that Magritte painted a series of Dominion of Light variants, so for some reason the image seems to have captured him. Another interesting fact: Jackson Browne's 1974 album Late for the Sky has a cover image inspired by Dominion of Light, and when you look at it you can easily see the influence. I just discovered that. Apparently, the photo was shot in South Pasadena. Huh, somebody was just talking about Pasadena yesterday. Do you think that means anything????
I would say no. I just watched a video of Mr. Browne singing "Late for the Sky," a song I don't believe I had heard before. I don't know what it has to do with metaphysics, or Freud, or cigars, but I'm glad I came across it. It was lovely.
Magritte had a way of fearlessly combining the impossible, or the incongruous. In this painting, it's broad day in the top half of the frame and night in the bottom half. What I thought of first on seeing it was the parallel to the conscious and the unconscious, an obvious Jungian interpretation.
What I think makes the scene so striking is the lamplight in the midst of the darkness, which focuses your attention on the shadowy region. The bright sky above seems empty in comparison with the layers of light and shade in front of the building, and the sense of depth is emphasized even more by the reflection of the lights, trees, and building (but not the blue sky) in the softly rippling water below the trees. Even within the darkness, there is a lower level of unconsciousness in the mysterious pool, of which we only see the surface.
There are many opposites in the painting: sky and water, nature and civilization, day and night, above and below. They blend into one another in subtle ways, although the painting seems at first to present two starkly separate realms. The trees reach up from dark roots into the bright blue sky, and the light from the lamp and the window echo the daylight above. The painting almost seems to map consciousness, from the everyday, somewhat vacuous persona to the ego to the personal unconscious to the deeper collective unconscious underneath it all.
I wasn't really planning to write about this painting, and the way it came about was this: I was thinking this afternoon about synchronicity and pure coincidence and the difference between them. That brought up an association with the famous statement that "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," attributed to Freud (which he probably didn't say, but that's a different story). That got me to thinking about Magritte's painting The Treachery of Images, with its iconic pipe and inscription, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." ("This is not a pipe.") That led me to thoughts of L'empire des lumières, probably for the mere reason that it's also by Magritte and happens to be my favorite.
Back to the question that started all this, about the difference between synchronicity and coincidence: I think they're both real, but I'm not sure I can define what separates them. I would say that synchronicity seems meaningful, whereas coincidence doesn't, but who's to say what meaningful is? Some might argue that there really aren't any coincidences. I'm not sure I'd agree. It's a large metaphysical question, and I don't have the resources (or the chocolate) to puzzle it out at this time. Was it synchronicity that led me to this painting? Or just a rambling series of thoughts?
I don't know, but I do know that Magritte painted a series of Dominion of Light variants, so for some reason the image seems to have captured him. Another interesting fact: Jackson Browne's 1974 album Late for the Sky has a cover image inspired by Dominion of Light, and when you look at it you can easily see the influence. I just discovered that. Apparently, the photo was shot in South Pasadena. Huh, somebody was just talking about Pasadena yesterday. Do you think that means anything????
I would say no. I just watched a video of Mr. Browne singing "Late for the Sky," a song I don't believe I had heard before. I don't know what it has to do with metaphysics, or Freud, or cigars, but I'm glad I came across it. It was lovely.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Out on Monk's Road
A few days ago, I drove west on the Bluegrass Parkway to visit the Abbey at Gethsemani. There was a time when I made this trip more often, and I've been overdue for a visit. The abbey is a Trappist monastery in a bucolic setting down a narrow country road in Nelson County. Thomas Merton lived there, and today it's home to quite a number of monks. They're contemplative, which to my understanding means they emphasize prayer and work and an atmosphere of silence.
The Gethsemani monks are known for their fruitcakes and cheese and bourbon candy. I sampled the candy once at Christmas time, and believe me, it will either clear your sinuses or put hair on your chest or both. They're generous with the bourbon is all I'm saying.
They picked a great spot for a contemplative abbey; by day, they're surrounded by lush fields and soft green hills with little to interrupt the quiet but birds and crickets, and by night they're tucked under a bright canopy of stars. I know, because I used to take my binoculars and go there star-gazing. It was the one place I could think of where it was dark enough to see the night sky and safe enough to be doing it. I used to gaze at the moon by the hour from their parking lot and try to identify constellations and nebulae; the only interference was a rather bright light on a nearby barn.
The first time I visited the abbey, I think I was expecting something more medieval. I was doing the Artist's Way and went there on an artist's date. A monastery might not be the first place you'd think of for an artist's date, but as I interpreted it, I was seeking out new experiences and exploring realms outside my everyday sphere. Certainly, the abbey qualified for that. It was a place I'd long been curious about and floated in my imagination as some kind of mysterious, otherworldly Avalon, resounding with chant and shadowy silences.
When I got there, late in the afternoon of a Saturday in November, I stopped at the visitor's center and spoke to the monk on duty, who had a very round face and glasses but didn't seem particularly medieval. He told me I could visit the church, so I went in and looked around. I might have taken his invitation too liberally, as I went all the way down the nave and around the little nooks at the other end, which may actually have been off limits. When I came back to the seating area behind the little gate, I was just in time to see the shocked face of another visitor, evidently a regular, who crossed herself agitatedly and knelt down to pray with the stiff manner of someone who had just witnessed the breaking of at least eight and possibly more of the Ten Commandments.
I stayed in the growing dusk of that autumn day for vespers, sitting with the other visitors who gradually filled the seats as bells tolled and white-and-black-robed monks came strolling in from various directions to fill the benches on either side of the nave in front of us. To be honest, I think I was a little disappointed with the plainness of the church, which seemed rather starkly white with its unadorned dark wood beams and spartan interior. When the monks began to chant, it was in English, not in Latin, and even the melodies seemed more modern than I was expecting. I was still a little wounded by the silent rebuke I'd received from the pious woman and wondered why I so frequently felt in the wrong when it came to Catholicism, the church I was raised in.
In between chants, there were readings, and as it happened, one of the readings was on fornication, which was mentioned several times. Each time it came up, a few more visitors, all young and mostly in pairs, got up and left in a hurry. The Abbey at Gethsemani is fairly famous, and I'm sure it draws people from all over the world, many of whom are not churchgoers at all. I surmised that these young pilgrims, probably admirers of Merton's who knew of his work with the Buddhists, stopped in to see the place associated with him and got more than they bargained for in the form of an epistle on sins of the flesh. I sat there unmoved. I might have had trespassing issues, but otherwise my conscience was in the clear.
I'm not sure why I went back after the first anticlimactic visit, unless it was because had I noticed the light. After the first time, I usually went directly up to the second-floor balcony, which allows you to look down the length of the nave from on high. You can't even see the monks unless you sit close enough to the front, but what you can see is . . . light -- the way it streams in through the parti-colored windows, like the answer to a prayer or the sound of the word "om." It's very peaceful in the balcony, with that warm light streaming in, and the simplicity of the church turns out to be the perfect backdrop for watching the light. When I think of the abbey now, that's what I see.
One time, I was sitting up there, lost in thought, when I heard a door opening behind me. I looked around and saw one of the monks crossing the balcony from the monastic area on his way down to the church. He was a middle-aged man with a balding head and a spring in his step, and he smiled at me without saying anything, though his expression spoke volumes. That's another thing that has stayed with me, the joy in his smile.
On my recent visit, as I sat light-gazing, I thought to myself that I should keep my mind open and see what inspiration or epiphany might come to me on one of those sunbeams. I'd been sitting there for a while, thinking about little else but how funny life is, when suddenly I realized that I needed to change a password on one of my accounts at home. Not exactly the kind of thing I was expecting, but when I'm sitting in an attitude of meditation in a house of prayer, and an unexpected thought comes to me, I pay attention.
On the way out, I stopped to look at the walled garden, a simple but inviting place drowsing in the early summer evening. I peeked into the visitor's chapel, where someone had posted a note about praying the rosary. I waved at a pleasant-looking couple I saw in the parking lot. On the way back to town, I passed a young man walking on the side of the road who looked at me with a sort of light in his eyes, a la "Woodstock." I don't know what any of that means, but when I got home, I did change my password.
The Gethsemani monks are known for their fruitcakes and cheese and bourbon candy. I sampled the candy once at Christmas time, and believe me, it will either clear your sinuses or put hair on your chest or both. They're generous with the bourbon is all I'm saying.
They picked a great spot for a contemplative abbey; by day, they're surrounded by lush fields and soft green hills with little to interrupt the quiet but birds and crickets, and by night they're tucked under a bright canopy of stars. I know, because I used to take my binoculars and go there star-gazing. It was the one place I could think of where it was dark enough to see the night sky and safe enough to be doing it. I used to gaze at the moon by the hour from their parking lot and try to identify constellations and nebulae; the only interference was a rather bright light on a nearby barn.
The first time I visited the abbey, I think I was expecting something more medieval. I was doing the Artist's Way and went there on an artist's date. A monastery might not be the first place you'd think of for an artist's date, but as I interpreted it, I was seeking out new experiences and exploring realms outside my everyday sphere. Certainly, the abbey qualified for that. It was a place I'd long been curious about and floated in my imagination as some kind of mysterious, otherworldly Avalon, resounding with chant and shadowy silences.
When I got there, late in the afternoon of a Saturday in November, I stopped at the visitor's center and spoke to the monk on duty, who had a very round face and glasses but didn't seem particularly medieval. He told me I could visit the church, so I went in and looked around. I might have taken his invitation too liberally, as I went all the way down the nave and around the little nooks at the other end, which may actually have been off limits. When I came back to the seating area behind the little gate, I was just in time to see the shocked face of another visitor, evidently a regular, who crossed herself agitatedly and knelt down to pray with the stiff manner of someone who had just witnessed the breaking of at least eight and possibly more of the Ten Commandments.
I stayed in the growing dusk of that autumn day for vespers, sitting with the other visitors who gradually filled the seats as bells tolled and white-and-black-robed monks came strolling in from various directions to fill the benches on either side of the nave in front of us. To be honest, I think I was a little disappointed with the plainness of the church, which seemed rather starkly white with its unadorned dark wood beams and spartan interior. When the monks began to chant, it was in English, not in Latin, and even the melodies seemed more modern than I was expecting. I was still a little wounded by the silent rebuke I'd received from the pious woman and wondered why I so frequently felt in the wrong when it came to Catholicism, the church I was raised in.
In between chants, there were readings, and as it happened, one of the readings was on fornication, which was mentioned several times. Each time it came up, a few more visitors, all young and mostly in pairs, got up and left in a hurry. The Abbey at Gethsemani is fairly famous, and I'm sure it draws people from all over the world, many of whom are not churchgoers at all. I surmised that these young pilgrims, probably admirers of Merton's who knew of his work with the Buddhists, stopped in to see the place associated with him and got more than they bargained for in the form of an epistle on sins of the flesh. I sat there unmoved. I might have had trespassing issues, but otherwise my conscience was in the clear.
I'm not sure why I went back after the first anticlimactic visit, unless it was because had I noticed the light. After the first time, I usually went directly up to the second-floor balcony, which allows you to look down the length of the nave from on high. You can't even see the monks unless you sit close enough to the front, but what you can see is . . . light -- the way it streams in through the parti-colored windows, like the answer to a prayer or the sound of the word "om." It's very peaceful in the balcony, with that warm light streaming in, and the simplicity of the church turns out to be the perfect backdrop for watching the light. When I think of the abbey now, that's what I see.
One time, I was sitting up there, lost in thought, when I heard a door opening behind me. I looked around and saw one of the monks crossing the balcony from the monastic area on his way down to the church. He was a middle-aged man with a balding head and a spring in his step, and he smiled at me without saying anything, though his expression spoke volumes. That's another thing that has stayed with me, the joy in his smile.
On my recent visit, as I sat light-gazing, I thought to myself that I should keep my mind open and see what inspiration or epiphany might come to me on one of those sunbeams. I'd been sitting there for a while, thinking about little else but how funny life is, when suddenly I realized that I needed to change a password on one of my accounts at home. Not exactly the kind of thing I was expecting, but when I'm sitting in an attitude of meditation in a house of prayer, and an unexpected thought comes to me, I pay attention.
On the way out, I stopped to look at the walled garden, a simple but inviting place drowsing in the early summer evening. I peeked into the visitor's chapel, where someone had posted a note about praying the rosary. I waved at a pleasant-looking couple I saw in the parking lot. On the way back to town, I passed a young man walking on the side of the road who looked at me with a sort of light in his eyes, a la "Woodstock." I don't know what any of that means, but when I got home, I did change my password.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
A Walk in Chicago
I was in Chicago for a few days last week. As often happens in an unfamiliar place, I was tired and a bit overwhelmed the first day. Downtown Chicago is an extremely energetic environment, and it took me a day to get in synch with it.
A lunchtime walk to the Newberry Library on the second day allowed me to get my feet under me. My natural love of walking kicked in, I enjoyed finding my way to the Library (and seeing the inside of it), and the skyscrapers and busy streets that had seemed daunting the night before started to seem exciting and intriguing instead. There was a lot to see.
My last night in town we had a conference dinner, which ended early. I started walking back toward my hotel, but it seemed too early to just go to my room and brush my teeth. I decided instead to walk toward Navy Pier. I was enjoying the views of the skyscrapers lit up against the dusk and the Friday night exuberance in the air. I knew if I kept walking I would come to the waterfront, so I tried to maintain a straight course while staying on well-populated streets.
I eventually came to Lakeshore Drive and was faced with an underpass I hesitated to use. While hesitating, I saw groups of people crossing it from the other side, so I made my way down to it from the street level and ventured forth. Navy Pier, on the other side, was awash with people as I strolled past. I wondered if I should try to get to Millennium Park or if I was going to get caught in the rain.
I asked two women emerging from the park near Navy Pier how close I was to Millennium Park. I walked along with them for a while as we discussed the best way to get there. As it turned out, it was a little late for Millennium Park by then, and I had conveniently but unintentionally (because of the lake shore) walked in a sort of circle so that I was not far from my hotel. By that time my feet were tired, and I had satisfied my impulse for a walk, so I called it a night.
Every place has its own presiding genius, its local gods. I don't know Chicago well enough to say what its gods are. I was downtown, and that's different from other parts of the city I've seen before. I saw glittering towers, groups of revelers out on the town, and beautiful window displays of artfully arranged housewares and home decor. I saw a man playing a saxophone in front of the AT&T store. I saw a homeless family huddled in a doorway. I saw many tourists in a crowded Navy Pier arcade, a glimpse of the lake at nightfall, a young man taking a break in the cavelike service area of a large hotel, a doctor leaning against the reception desk inside Northwestern Hospital, and a pair of young men posing proudly for a picture in front of an underpass mural.
I navigated by prior knowledge of the map, attention to the presence of others, the advice of guides, and my own intentions. I'm glad I followed my hunch that it was too early to go to bed. During the day, Chicago is busy, directed, and purposeful. It gave me a fuller sense of things to experience a more festive but still multi-faceted city as it wound down into evening.
A lunchtime walk to the Newberry Library on the second day allowed me to get my feet under me. My natural love of walking kicked in, I enjoyed finding my way to the Library (and seeing the inside of it), and the skyscrapers and busy streets that had seemed daunting the night before started to seem exciting and intriguing instead. There was a lot to see.
My last night in town we had a conference dinner, which ended early. I started walking back toward my hotel, but it seemed too early to just go to my room and brush my teeth. I decided instead to walk toward Navy Pier. I was enjoying the views of the skyscrapers lit up against the dusk and the Friday night exuberance in the air. I knew if I kept walking I would come to the waterfront, so I tried to maintain a straight course while staying on well-populated streets.
I eventually came to Lakeshore Drive and was faced with an underpass I hesitated to use. While hesitating, I saw groups of people crossing it from the other side, so I made my way down to it from the street level and ventured forth. Navy Pier, on the other side, was awash with people as I strolled past. I wondered if I should try to get to Millennium Park or if I was going to get caught in the rain.
I asked two women emerging from the park near Navy Pier how close I was to Millennium Park. I walked along with them for a while as we discussed the best way to get there. As it turned out, it was a little late for Millennium Park by then, and I had conveniently but unintentionally (because of the lake shore) walked in a sort of circle so that I was not far from my hotel. By that time my feet were tired, and I had satisfied my impulse for a walk, so I called it a night.
Every place has its own presiding genius, its local gods. I don't know Chicago well enough to say what its gods are. I was downtown, and that's different from other parts of the city I've seen before. I saw glittering towers, groups of revelers out on the town, and beautiful window displays of artfully arranged housewares and home decor. I saw a man playing a saxophone in front of the AT&T store. I saw a homeless family huddled in a doorway. I saw many tourists in a crowded Navy Pier arcade, a glimpse of the lake at nightfall, a young man taking a break in the cavelike service area of a large hotel, a doctor leaning against the reception desk inside Northwestern Hospital, and a pair of young men posing proudly for a picture in front of an underpass mural.
I navigated by prior knowledge of the map, attention to the presence of others, the advice of guides, and my own intentions. I'm glad I followed my hunch that it was too early to go to bed. During the day, Chicago is busy, directed, and purposeful. It gave me a fuller sense of things to experience a more festive but still multi-faceted city as it wound down into evening.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Keeping It Real
To Kill a Mockingbird is downtown this week as part of the Summer Movie Classics series, and I thought of going this afternoon but didn't make it in time. It made me think about how I should have included Atticus Finch in my "Handsome Is as Handsome Does" post a few weeks ago. He's another of my literary heroes.
I got a paperback copy of the novel when I was 12 through one of those book clubs you join at school. Reading it wasn't so much like reading a novel as inhabiting a world, and it was a world that looked a lot like the one I was in. Rarely, if ever, have I read anything that seemed so true to life. I never lived in a small Alabama town, but Maycomb was enough like the small Kentucky town I was in to seem as if it all could have been taking place just down the street.
The noble and the ignoble side by side . . . character after character seemed to jump off the page with a three-dimensional reality. I kept thinking, "I know these people." Miss Stephanie Crawford, for one, was a ringer for one of my relatives. Scout, Jem, and Dill could have been my brother and me running around with a neighborhood friend. The prejudice, the small-mindedness, the nobility, the courage, the terrors of growing up . . . there wasn't a false note in it anywhere. By the end of it, I almost felt that I had once dressed up as a ham for a pageant and been rescued by Boo Radley.
When I first saw the movie on TV years ago, I was a bit thrown off by several things, including the actress who portrayed Scout. Actually, she did a good job but didn't look quite the way I had pictured the character. In my mind, Scout had pigtails and a sturdier, more tomboyish appearance than the gamine-faced actress in the film. And even though the movie, as I remember it, was faithful to the book in both spirit and many of its details, it must have been difficult to bring such a fully-realized world to the screen without missing something in the translation.
One thing that couldn't have gone any better was the casting of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. If ever anyone was born to play that character, it was Mr. Peck. Calm, compassionate, intelligent and well-reasoned, full of integrity . . . who wouldn't want Atticus for a father? When I think of the story, I don't think first of all the ugliness of human nature it exposes. I think of Atticus, facing down the mad dog, sitting outside the jail overnight to protect Tom Robinson, or ruffling Scout's hair after quietly explaining some important fact of life to her. I came away from the book with a belief that despite everything, decency, goodness, and wisdom create a structure that can withstand some mighty powerful storms.
Mythically, Atticus resembles Zeus at his most benign. He stands for justice and fairness and the importance of respecting principles and laws. Not the loudest or most flamboyant attorney you'd ever meet, but forceful in a different way. The kind of absent-minded father that kids might find faintly ridiculous until they were old enough to understand what was really ticking underneath the mild manner and modest exterior.
I'm not aware that Harper Lee wrote any other novels besides To Kill a Mockingbird, but I guess if you were only going to write one, this would be it. The story and the characters are timeless, and the writing is flawless. Although it has some of the tragedy of a Greek drama, it does not have quite the same fatalism. In spite of everything, Atticus will be there in the morning when Jem wakes up, and that seems to make all the difference.
I got a paperback copy of the novel when I was 12 through one of those book clubs you join at school. Reading it wasn't so much like reading a novel as inhabiting a world, and it was a world that looked a lot like the one I was in. Rarely, if ever, have I read anything that seemed so true to life. I never lived in a small Alabama town, but Maycomb was enough like the small Kentucky town I was in to seem as if it all could have been taking place just down the street.
The noble and the ignoble side by side . . . character after character seemed to jump off the page with a three-dimensional reality. I kept thinking, "I know these people." Miss Stephanie Crawford, for one, was a ringer for one of my relatives. Scout, Jem, and Dill could have been my brother and me running around with a neighborhood friend. The prejudice, the small-mindedness, the nobility, the courage, the terrors of growing up . . . there wasn't a false note in it anywhere. By the end of it, I almost felt that I had once dressed up as a ham for a pageant and been rescued by Boo Radley.
When I first saw the movie on TV years ago, I was a bit thrown off by several things, including the actress who portrayed Scout. Actually, she did a good job but didn't look quite the way I had pictured the character. In my mind, Scout had pigtails and a sturdier, more tomboyish appearance than the gamine-faced actress in the film. And even though the movie, as I remember it, was faithful to the book in both spirit and many of its details, it must have been difficult to bring such a fully-realized world to the screen without missing something in the translation.
One thing that couldn't have gone any better was the casting of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. If ever anyone was born to play that character, it was Mr. Peck. Calm, compassionate, intelligent and well-reasoned, full of integrity . . . who wouldn't want Atticus for a father? When I think of the story, I don't think first of all the ugliness of human nature it exposes. I think of Atticus, facing down the mad dog, sitting outside the jail overnight to protect Tom Robinson, or ruffling Scout's hair after quietly explaining some important fact of life to her. I came away from the book with a belief that despite everything, decency, goodness, and wisdom create a structure that can withstand some mighty powerful storms.
Mythically, Atticus resembles Zeus at his most benign. He stands for justice and fairness and the importance of respecting principles and laws. Not the loudest or most flamboyant attorney you'd ever meet, but forceful in a different way. The kind of absent-minded father that kids might find faintly ridiculous until they were old enough to understand what was really ticking underneath the mild manner and modest exterior.
I'm not aware that Harper Lee wrote any other novels besides To Kill a Mockingbird, but I guess if you were only going to write one, this would be it. The story and the characters are timeless, and the writing is flawless. Although it has some of the tragedy of a Greek drama, it does not have quite the same fatalism. In spite of everything, Atticus will be there in the morning when Jem wakes up, and that seems to make all the difference.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Scenting the Past
Yesterday I read an article about the perfume industry in Provence. It was a very poetic account of the art and science of creating fragrance and included a description of an expert who could tell what type of perfume would suit a person just by talking to someone who knew her well. The author of the article wrote of the sense of smell and its role in setting memories, and that got me thinking about Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, and how the senses interact with experience to form lasting impressions.
Proust's Remembrance of Things Past is famous for its description of the taste of the cookie that awakened childhood memories for the narrator. There are tastes that would do the same for me, though I rarely come across things I remember eating and drinking when I was young. I was once in an old-fashioned store in Northern California that stocked the type of candy-coated chocolate balls in cellophane sleeves that I hadn't eaten in almost 40 years. I can still taste them. Finding them that day was, in a small way, like recovering a bit of the past. Other tastes that I vividly remember, like my mother's pancakes and meatloaf, both of which were hers alone, are lost to me now for good.
As for smells, my memory is full of them. One scent I recall from early childhood is the smell of Spic 'n Span, which my mother used to clean the floors. It's tied to images of my mother doing housework, with the TV on in the background. I also remember the combined scents of starch, a hot iron, and cotton enveloping me as I played on the floor, ironing board towering above me. I can still picture the living room in our duplex, with the sun coming in though a kitchen window and Search for Tomorrow's high-pitched organ music filling the air, images all tied up with those particular scents.
I continue to enjoy the smell of freshly-mown grass, which I associate with my father. I used to like following along behind him as he created paths in the yard with the lawn mower. The wetter the grass and the more humid the day, the more closely the scent matches my memory, because we lived in Florida then, and the smell of the grass there was heady and thick.
From my school days, I recall the smell of the supply room at the end of the hall where we got our paper, ink cartridges, erasers, and notebooks. It was the sweet, woody smell of pencils and paper -- the soft, pulpy kind with blue lines, on which we learned to write -- that dominated the little room, accented by the more delicate odor of ink and the rubbery essence of erasers. There's never been another room like it.
The coconut aroma of Coppertone is one of the fragments of my memories of family trips to the beach. I've become used to more medicinal sunscreens with lighter, cleaner scents, but a whiff of old-fashioned coconut lotion takes me right back to Fort Myers Beach. In addition, there was a place at the beach where you could get hot dogs, slightly leathery and sweet with ketchup, that didn't taste like the hot dogs anywhere else. The salty scent of those hot dogs filled the air near the shaded shack where you bought them and remains for me the essence of a perfect day at the beach.
There's also the inimitable smell of the downtown movie theaters during a matinee, composed of popcorn, spilled soft drinks, and a salty-sweet darkness. Connected with this is the taste of Milk Duds, our go-to movie-time candy, and a memory of dark red curtains.
What else? Well, there's the straightforward detergent smell of Prell shampoo, which reigned supreme in our bathroom, the mild smell of Vel soap (which I've rarely encountered elsewhere), my father's Old Spice, and the scent of the clothes hamper, musky, woody, and plastic, with top notes of Pinesol. I recall the smell of batter, both the batters my mother mixed from Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker in a white plastic basin, and the ones that baked under the light bulb in my Easy-Bake Oven and were entirely different.
I've been surprised to find that some of the products I remember are still around, like Prell shampoo and Spic 'n Span. I'm not sure if they're made the way they used to be, though. I think I found a box of Spic 'n Span some years ago, tried it, and didn't think it smelled the same. Of course, on a different floor, in a different home, at a different time, it's not surprising it didn't match my memories. It was working with the chemistry of a completely different environment.
The things we remember are not just discrete items but are woven into the fabric of a place and time. They interact with the items and the people around them to create something distinctive. In some cases, they're memorable enough that you'd recognize them anywhere, like a virtuoso solo performance. In other cases, they're like the individual instruments in an orchestra, bits and pieces of something bigger that seem diminished when separated. Sense memories are like a perfume: they're made of many essences, not just one.
Proust's Remembrance of Things Past is famous for its description of the taste of the cookie that awakened childhood memories for the narrator. There are tastes that would do the same for me, though I rarely come across things I remember eating and drinking when I was young. I was once in an old-fashioned store in Northern California that stocked the type of candy-coated chocolate balls in cellophane sleeves that I hadn't eaten in almost 40 years. I can still taste them. Finding them that day was, in a small way, like recovering a bit of the past. Other tastes that I vividly remember, like my mother's pancakes and meatloaf, both of which were hers alone, are lost to me now for good.
As for smells, my memory is full of them. One scent I recall from early childhood is the smell of Spic 'n Span, which my mother used to clean the floors. It's tied to images of my mother doing housework, with the TV on in the background. I also remember the combined scents of starch, a hot iron, and cotton enveloping me as I played on the floor, ironing board towering above me. I can still picture the living room in our duplex, with the sun coming in though a kitchen window and Search for Tomorrow's high-pitched organ music filling the air, images all tied up with those particular scents.
I continue to enjoy the smell of freshly-mown grass, which I associate with my father. I used to like following along behind him as he created paths in the yard with the lawn mower. The wetter the grass and the more humid the day, the more closely the scent matches my memory, because we lived in Florida then, and the smell of the grass there was heady and thick.
From my school days, I recall the smell of the supply room at the end of the hall where we got our paper, ink cartridges, erasers, and notebooks. It was the sweet, woody smell of pencils and paper -- the soft, pulpy kind with blue lines, on which we learned to write -- that dominated the little room, accented by the more delicate odor of ink and the rubbery essence of erasers. There's never been another room like it.
The coconut aroma of Coppertone is one of the fragments of my memories of family trips to the beach. I've become used to more medicinal sunscreens with lighter, cleaner scents, but a whiff of old-fashioned coconut lotion takes me right back to Fort Myers Beach. In addition, there was a place at the beach where you could get hot dogs, slightly leathery and sweet with ketchup, that didn't taste like the hot dogs anywhere else. The salty scent of those hot dogs filled the air near the shaded shack where you bought them and remains for me the essence of a perfect day at the beach.
There's also the inimitable smell of the downtown movie theaters during a matinee, composed of popcorn, spilled soft drinks, and a salty-sweet darkness. Connected with this is the taste of Milk Duds, our go-to movie-time candy, and a memory of dark red curtains.
What else? Well, there's the straightforward detergent smell of Prell shampoo, which reigned supreme in our bathroom, the mild smell of Vel soap (which I've rarely encountered elsewhere), my father's Old Spice, and the scent of the clothes hamper, musky, woody, and plastic, with top notes of Pinesol. I recall the smell of batter, both the batters my mother mixed from Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker in a white plastic basin, and the ones that baked under the light bulb in my Easy-Bake Oven and were entirely different.
I've been surprised to find that some of the products I remember are still around, like Prell shampoo and Spic 'n Span. I'm not sure if they're made the way they used to be, though. I think I found a box of Spic 'n Span some years ago, tried it, and didn't think it smelled the same. Of course, on a different floor, in a different home, at a different time, it's not surprising it didn't match my memories. It was working with the chemistry of a completely different environment.
The things we remember are not just discrete items but are woven into the fabric of a place and time. They interact with the items and the people around them to create something distinctive. In some cases, they're memorable enough that you'd recognize them anywhere, like a virtuoso solo performance. In other cases, they're like the individual instruments in an orchestra, bits and pieces of something bigger that seem diminished when separated. Sense memories are like a perfume: they're made of many essences, not just one.
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