Travels with Wordplay

Wordplay has spent the last few days touring the Southwest/Rocky Mountain region, waiting for job applications to bear fruit and connecting with family and friends, or trying to. As you may recall from last week, I was trying to avoid throwing myself on the mercy of charity by making my resources last as long as possible. This strategy would only work if it ended up saving me money, and the jury is still out on that aspect of the adventure. One thing's for sure, I have seen some places I haven't been to before and revisited some old ones, seeing them, as it were, in a new light. I've never been to the Southwest or the Rockies in late summer, and it's remarkable how a different slant of light transforms a landscape into something almost new.

What about a Jungian travelogue this week, just for a lark? That's not something you see every single day of the week, especially one written under annoying conditions in which a persistent wi-fi issue in a public cafe makes typing nearly impossible--which in itself seems like a great reason for continuing. Is it a conspiracy to prevent free speech? Is the person sitting next to me emitting negative gamma rays? Is Mercury in retrograde? Does this cafe need to replace its router?

Rather than draw any rash conclusions, perhaps it's more constructive to proceed with my groundbreaking travelogue and avoid getting sidetracked by minutiae, though whoever/whatever is responsible for this horrible connection probably deserves to have their ears boxed, at the very least. A day in court is probably more like it.

I headed out of L.A. via the 210, and the trip in reverse (I came into town that way) wasn't nearly as bad in the murderous Polar Express runaway train sense of bad as the journey west. We don't want to let you into town, but feel free to leave whenever you want to, is that it? Even the roads were in better condition on I-15 heading toward Nevada, though I put no great stock in that as an indication of anything, except perhaps the fact that too many people go to Vegas on vacation to let those roads deteriorate to any great extent.

What follows are archetypal impressions of some of the high points of my trip, and, as always, the opinions are entirely my own.

Las Vegas -- Never been before; not really my scene, though I was curious to see what the famous skyline would look like. If you're going to drive through, might as well do it at night, which is when it's really meant to be seen, was my reasoning. By the way, I have nothing against people going there, per se. Indulging in a little bit of what wouldn't be good for you in big doses is probably not a bad way to let off steam. For most people, it's merely entertainment, a way to escape the everyday and indulge in a little bit of frivolity--though it can have a strong undertow for some. The skyline was as glittering as one could wish, but some of the drivers are much less stellar. They in the business of running people off the road there? And that traffic stop that seemed somewhat gratuitous? No, thanks. Archetypal assessment -- Like going into the anteroom of the Underworld, from which you can still see daylight if you don't start mucking around in backrooms and alleys. Hades rules, not that that's a reason for you to cancel your vacation. Have fun, but don't forget to go home at the end.

Arizona Portion of I-15 North -- What the heck was that? "Watch for Falling Rocks?" All I saw were rocks. I'm sure this is seriously scenic in daylight, which is the reason I'm glad I was doing it at night. I was still trying to recover from Vegas and was in danger of scenic overload. Archetypal assessment -- In the dark, it looked like the aftermath of the clash of the Titans.

Idaho Falls, ID -- All I can really tell you is that I unexpectedly had the best sandwich and Caesar salad combo of my life in a downtown cafe, to the point that I had to tell the waiter about it, and that the back of the Tetons, normally visible all the way from Idaho Falls, could not be seen that day due to haze. (I say the back of the Tetons, but of course that's all relative. What I really mean is that the famous view, the one everyone is familiar with, is on the other side.) Archetypal assessment -- Olympus, brooding, hides its head in the clouds.

Salt Lake City -- I always wanted a closer look at its downtown, so being in great need of a break, I spent one night. I was nearly run over by a truck just before I got off the interstate in an inexcusable display of poor driving (not by me), but exit the interstate I did. I found a modest hotel with scary hallways but nice rooms and a view of the city lights from my window. I had a pleasant walk through a pedestrian-friendly downtown full of shops, businesses, cafes, and gardens, under a dramatic sky that threatened a storm at every moment but never really rained. I watched the sun setting behind the Mormon Tabernacle building and peeked in at the fountains and courtyard of the downtown mall. Archetypal assessment -- The Mormon Tabernacle building looks a little bit like Oz when they turn those green lights on at night, which gives it a bit of a fantasy look, but the main public library is as high-tech as they come. Salt Lake City seems to have it both ways, being both ethereal and gear-heavy. And those views of the mountains! Jacob's ladder might be sitting there in some back street, with angels going to and fro at all hours, each carrying an i-Pad.

I-80 Across Nevada -- Just don't do it if you can help it. The salt flats on either side of the road in the Utah portion throw off an uncomfortable glare; there are very few places to stop for gas; there's a section in which low-flying planes are a real possibility; the local microclimates make for sudden squalls during which tractor trailer trucks are prone to coming up right behind you and honking madly (Buddy, there are plenty of lanes here. If you think this is going to get me to pull off the road, you're sadly mistaken.); and you're out in the middle of nowhere--relatively speaking--for an ungodly amount of time. Archetypal assessment -- It's a bit like Eurydice and Orpheus ascending from the Underworld; just don't look back. The entry into California's Sierra Nevada after you pass Reno almost makes it worth it--but maybe not quite.

Sacramento -- Old Sac is fun in a half-kitschy but educational sort of way. Motel 6 in North Sacramento? Not so much. Downtown Sacramento is rife with handsome Victorians and wide streets, and the state capitol is impressive. Archetypal assessment: Zeus and Hera reside here, so you know the trains are going to run on time.

Davis, CA -- Reminds me of a Midwestern college town; I thought of living here once. Archetypal assessment -- Funny business with the wi-fi here. Hermes?

I Visit Skid Row and Come Away Chastened

Lately I've been thinking of ways to economize on my lodging as my job search continues, so I decided to investigate community resources that might be available to someone in my situation. The answer, as I discovered, is not many. Most of the resources are allocated (as is fitting) for people in very dire circumstances, and I guess the assumption is that middle class people have enough of a safety net in friends and family. I ascertained this for myself by visiting a downtown women's center, where I was told that they serve only the homeless, meaning women who have been living on the streets for a year or longer.

My immediate thought was that in that case a homeless person might be half-dead by the time they got there. I was incredulous, but I realize I shouldn't have been. I applaud the work these people are doing, but of course their resources are limited. Another agency I was directed to had a basement parking structure that was locked but so grim in appearance that I imagined a sign above it in medieval lettering saying, "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." Seriously. I could picture driving into it and never seeing the light of day again, so I was left to consider other alternatives.

This was my first visit to that part of downtown Los Angeles, and although I didn't find anything that would benefit me there, the streets were teeming with life, the good, the bad, and the ugly all side by side and on top of one another. The big flower markets and the homeless camps were within steps of one another: one block was lined with sidewalk tents and the next was clogged with tourists. I navigated a couple of narrow side streets packed with small shops and pedestrians that suddenly reminded me of London. I saw several landmarks--City Hall, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, and Olvera Street--from different perspectives than I'm used to. And finally, I figured out how to get onto Sunset Boulevard from downtown without the weird little detour through a sketchy neighborhood that I remembered from the past. Have they possibly done some road work in that area?

I was sitting at a traffic light across from Olvera Street when I had one of those past, present, and future deja vu moments I was talking about last week. That is, I looked over and saw the exact spot where years ago I stood--on my first visit to L.A.--and looked with yearning in the direction of Sunset Boulevard, the street sign being all I could really see of it. I had been dropped off at the train station by the Amtrak bus and had a few hours to spare before catching my train back east, and boy, was I itching to see at least a little of the city I'd heard so much about. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any way to take a bus tour like I'd done in Chicago, and I'd been warned before I got there about wandering around alone (this was shortly before the city erupted over the Rodney King beating). Thus it was that my first experience of L.A. was limited to Union Station and Olvera Street, which nevertheless left a lasting impression.

As I was sitting at the light yesterday, I thought to myself, "This is one of those watershed moments in your life in which you realize that the present has finally caught up with the past (or perhaps it's the other way around). You'll remember this moment all your life." The truth is, though, that while I knew it was true, it didn't feel like a transcendent moment: I just felt like my everyday self, sitting in traffic, with my usual concerns, worried about splurging for coffee but feeling that, for the money, it was probably a good investment in mental hygiene, a small treat in lieu of bigger ones--and wondering when the light was going to change.

Despite the visit to Skid Row, it was a beautiful day. I was annoyed that my rental deposit from my old apartment has yet to arrive in the mail, but I still went in search of and found the cup of coffee I was looking for. (Well, maybe not exactly that cup. The coffeehouse, while suitably funky, was too full of hipsters, lending further credence to my feeling that I can't possibly be one.) The coffee was good, but the neighborhood didn't please me as much as it had on first impression. I capped it off with a walk in the park anyway (I do like the park) and was once again visited by local wildlife in the form of ducks and turtles as I stood enjoying the view across the water.

I had first taken the precaution of removing my road atlas, which contained a copy of my birth certificate and a job application, from my car and carrying them with me as I walked. That was after I noticed a white truck idling in the street near my car after I had parked it. Thinking that that looked a little peculiar, I decided to err on the side of caution, since my car's been broken into before. The truck pulled away as soon I started walking back to my car, not that it looks anything like a vehicle a typical thief would target. Never a dull moment, right? Actually, I think I would welcome a few dull moments, or at least a few ordinary ones.

Well, on the bright side, I am finding my way around a little better every day. For the second time in a row, I managed to get back on the Glendale Freeway going in the right direction and even remembered to get out of the exit lane in time to avoid a hair-raising last-minute scramble and a trip back to the neighborhood I had just left. I had decided against filling out the job application in the coffeehouse, where I didn't feel at ease enough to concentrate on it (I fell back on my library book, Martin Chuzzlewit, instead), thus necessitating a stop in a second cafe for the purpose of completing that task. I justified it in my mind as a business expense, though it will probably mean skipping coffee altogether for the foreseeable future.

With the job application completed, I headed back to my hotel, still wrestling with the same career and financial difficulties as before but having somehow managed to enjoy the day in spite of it. I'm a realist, but I try not to let that get in the way of a sunny day. The short cut I took on the way back didn't work out, as sometimes happens with my short cuts, which turn into learning experiences instead. I ended up in Long Beach, and it's a mystery to me how that happened, but it let me realize that some of the little trips I'd taken earlier, apparently fruitless, had paid off by allowing me to recognize street names and get myself going the right way while bypassing an area I'd rather avoid.

If there's a moral to this story, I suppose it is this: never drive into an opening that looks like the gates of hell. Nothing good could possibly come of it. Or else it might be: either you're a hipster, or you're not. Visit a hipster joint and find out; you'll soon know. Or possibly: you can learn something from everything, even if it's taking a wrong turn, as long as you figure it out in time. Or maybe it's all three.

Eternal Return in L.A.

Like any big city, Los Angeles is full of surprises and odd corners. In a way, I think that's what drew me to big city life, the need for a sense of possibilities that don't exist in a smaller town. I remember a time when I would spend my Friday evenings endlessly driving around Lexington, mostly in the suburbs, with the radio on. I think what I was really looking for was something I hadn't seen before, a street I had never driven down, a house I had never seen, something, anything that seemed new and unexpected.

There can be something comforting in the familiar, but too much of it leads to boredom. Somebody said to me once that after moving to a much smaller town, she realized you didn't really need to have a million choices of where to shop for groceries or go to get coffee, but I don't agree. I think that some people do need variety to thrive and that most of those people are in cities. I remember coming out of a cafe in Paris once and thinking that part of that city's magic was the sense that you never knew what you might find around any corner; the air itself was alive with potentialities.

It's true that different cities have different personalities and offer varying degrees of this sense of openness. I have been in some cities that, while offering a variety of things to do and places to go, somehow seemed like larger versions of smaller towns. There was something quotidian about them, and this isn't a put-down, just an observation. Los Angeles isn't like that. While there is a certain quality that lets you know, yes, this is definitely L.A., no matter where you are, neighborhoods do offer distinctly different faces, and I've always had the sense that it would be important to figure out which part of town you want to be in.

There is a practical aspect to this, of course, because most people have to consider such things as commute distances and school districts and may not end up living precisely where they would go if they consulted their own wishes. I was once having lunch in a Silver Lake cafe on what may have been my first visit to that neighborhood when I noticed a young man at a nearby table observing me closely. It was not an unfriendly or threatening look but more of a keenly observing one, and combined with the fact that he had a notebook, gave me the idea that he might be a writer (I've been known to jot down notes about random people and events in just that same way).

I may be wrong, but my take on it was that I somehow looked out of place in that particular setting, and that that was what caught his eye: "Ah, I wonder what this very conventional, Middle America woman is doing in this hipster Silver Lake hangout so far off the tourist track? What possible combination of events could have brought her here? This could be a good story." (I made a mental note at that time that toning down the Lands End aspect of my wardrobe might be something to consider.) It was the first time I had a sense of myself as possibly looking exotic to someone else, and while amusing (if I was right about what was happening), it wasn't exactly pleasing. I'm not a hipster, but I'm not a soccer mom either. (And what is that, anyway?)

I wasn't drawn to Santa Monica in my first visits there, but I gradually ended up believing that that was probably where I would gravitate if I moved to L.A. It seemed clean and safe, if perhaps a little bland and a touch snobby. But then I had a bad experience on my last visit there (a hotel door that didn't lock properly, stuck in a remote corner of the property, so alarming that I immediately went down to the desk and told them I'd changed my mind about staying there). While it was all very unsettling (and mysterious), perhaps it was good that it happened. It made me realize that maybe Santa Monica wasn't the place for me, if something as simple as a securely locked door was so difficult to come by there.

When I first visited some of the neighborhoods east of the 405, I found them to be a bit edgy for my taste. I couldn't imagine feeling safe there. Now I find them more appealing and less threatening than they once seemed. Have the neighborhoods changed, or have I? Maybe it's some of both. Even Los Feliz, which three weeks ago seemed rather grubby, revealed itself to have possibilities when I explored it more thoroughly. Sometimes going a few blocks in a different direction makes a difference. I find that I'm drawn neither to the hipster hangouts nor the yuppie ones. I look for something that seems only to be trying to be itself, which really means a lack of trying, if you think about it.

Despite the pressure of adjusting to a new place and achieving secure footing professionally and financially, I still see the soul of Los Angeles peeking out at me at certain times and places, usually unlooked for: the slant of light through the windows in Union Station; a halting conversation in Spanish in which I nevertheless managed to convey my meaning (I think); a piece of art in a Metro station illustrating the constellations; a beautifully crafted latte in an unpretentious setting; a smile from a stranger; an early evening walk around the lotus pond in Echo Park, a public space that actually seems to live up to its function; a dignified older building suddenly glimpsed in a quiet corner at the end of a walkway; a taco at Grand Central Market (I plead guilty to getting the mild sauce); a doorman dressed as an American soldier, circa World War II, materializing suddenly at the door of the Vista Theatre; a sudden urge to tap dance (if I only knew how) while waiting for a train; branches alive with brightly colored blooms hanging over a wall; and a mural on the side of a building, studied while waiting for a traffic light, hitting me with the force of a dream, a visual poem that I could not unravel but that spoke to me deeply.

While it's obviously a very modern and trend-setting city, Los Angeles seems, at the same time, to be somehow very old to me. Its history is alive in its place names and in many of its public places, and its function as the backdrop to countless Hollywood movies and television shows means that once you arrive here, you find that it already seems strangely familiar, since the reality corresponds to a city already existing in your imagination. The predominance of Googie and other architecture from the mid-20th century also resonates with me personally, since it hearkens back to my early childhood when that style was much in evidence. There are moments when I feel that I've fallen into a time machine, and past, present, and future are all on display at once.

While being very "of the moment," Los Angeles also reveals a layer of mythic time that runs through everything else and seems tied to something much older than even recorded history. You don't need to look any further than the fossils at the La Brea tar pits if you want physical evidence of this, but it's also apparent in the creative life of the city, in the murals and the public art, in the films that are one of the city's signature products--both creating and reflecting the myths and dreams of our culture--and in the infrastructure itself. I'm surprised to find myself concluding that Los Angeles is similar to Boston in this characteristic of past and present being very visibly on display side by side. I've always considered Boston to be an extremely graceful example of this historical layering, whereas in L.A. it seems more chaotic. Nevertheless, though it may surprise you to hear me say this, L.A. seems in many ways to be the more ancient city of the two.

Cultivating the Sarcastic in You

How are ya'll doing out there? I'm still settling into life here in SoCal, where the weather is (for a change) a bit gray today. I was thinking about the line in the Billy Joel song "My Life" where he talks about the old friend who sold his house and moved to the West Coast, where "He gives them a stand-up routine in L.A." There are several reasons why, though in L.A., I don't think this would work for me, and the main one is that people don't seem to get my jokes. I had a few examples of this just this week at my temp job and one that happened not long before I left Kentucky, and that's enough to make me think that comedy is not my line, no matter how funny I might think I am. Strange, people used to laugh at my jokes, and I still think they're funny--but of course there's no accounting for taste.

I was in a Louisville coffeehouse in April looking at baked goods when the sight of scones triggered a memory of a vegan item I purchased one night in a Portland, Oregon, coffeehouse. I was recounting the story, which I thought was pretty humorous, to the barista, and he looked at me so blankly that I was waiting for the prop cane to come from stage left and pull me away from the counter. When I protested to the counterman that I thought it was funny, he told me he thought I was talking about the Portland area of Louisville. Oh, okay. I didn't realize there was a Portland in Louisville, but that explains the lack of response. Let's be generous and put that one down to a failure of specificity, but still.

I was looking at a list the other day that had what was apparently a typo, making it appear that the person's first name was "Brain." I found that hilarious even without anything else happening, but then I thought how much funnier it would be if the person's last name were "Trust." I said this to someone else and got almost an identical lack of response. Gosh, what are you waiting for, the punch line? Gracious, that was the punch line. Granted, it's not funny "ha-ha," but I would have thought it rated at least a smile. I didn't even get a smidgen of one. Cultural barrier? Too sarcastic?

It's true, my sense of sarcasm has sharpened over the last few years. A lot of people who knew me before that may have suspected me of an occasional incipient tendency toward sarcasm but probably didn't consider it a prominent feature of my repertoire, and it's true that I'm normally mild-mannered. But you have to change with the times if you're not going to become irrelevant, and dang it, if you don't feel sarcasm stealing upon you now and then, I don't know what's wrong with you. Some people are born sarcastic, some people achieve sarcasm, and some have sarcasm thrust upon 'em and find they have a little talent for it after all. It could happen to you.

The third example I'm going to tell you about didn't really start out as a joke but was just me telling a story. I'd been talking to someone on the phone and could hear someone in the background, rather inexpertly, playing "Für Elise" on the piano. It was kind of pleasant to hear music in the background, that was all, so when I got off the phone, I mentioned it to people sitting nearby. I said, "Someone was playing "Für Elise" on the piano in the background of that call, and it sounded like a child practicing his lesson." It was just sort of a nice thing that happened, a pleasant interlude that I thought I'd share, but once again--dead silence. Granted, it wasn't even a joke, but still--what is this, a funeral? Couldn't someone at least smile at the thought of a child on a Sunday afternoon in the summertime struggling through his piano practice? Now here's where I did get a little sarcastic, though it was more because I felt the need to explain myself than anything else. I leaned over to the person sitting next to me and said, a little louder than I needed to, "That's Beethoven." (No response.)

It's just a good thing I have no ambitions in that direction, is all I'm saying. Now if you were to say, "Well, Mary, why don't you tell us a funny story about how your cell phone charger disappeared from a zipped bag in your room sometime in between July 4 and July 7," I would probably look at you blankly, but see, there's a good reason for that: it's not funny. You might counter that a good comedian can find humor in almost anything, and I would tell you that I consider that an unsettled existential question, whether or not there's humor to be found in everything that happens. What I do find funny is that a cell phone charger that was obviously not mine showed up in a very odd place in my room later on, as if someone were trying to convince me that, oh, silly you with your police report, you just misplaced the goofy thing. Now I could make something out of that material, but once again, we're verging into the realm of sarcasm, and it seems that almost no one(?) appreciates a talent for it these days--so no Comedy Store for me. That's OK, I can always fall back on my Myth Studies degree. Plenty of others have.

On the Air

A few weeks ago, I asked someone about a building I had seen that I thought looked like an old radio station, probably due to the tall tower standing next to it. The next time I went by it, I took a closer look at the side of the building and spotted the call letters. I looked up the letters online and spent several enjoyable hours reading about the history of the station, which has been a part of daily life for Southern Californians for decades.

Something about the building, surrounded by nondescript structures in an industrial area, made me think of the radio station in American Graffiti, visited by one of the film's main characters, in search of answers to large questions on the eve of his entry into adulthood. When I looked at the building, obviously of an older vintage than everything else around it, I could see it in my mind's eye as it must once have been, a solitary outpost surrounded by fields and orange groves, an intimate presence in tens of thousands of homes daily while itself maintaining a lonely vigil outside of town.

When I was growing up (not in Southern California, but I suspect the same was probably true everywhere), the radio was a friendly presence, dispensing the great variety of pop, rock, folk, jazz, and country music that provided the background of my growing up years. I didn't know the difference between a "corporate" playlist and an independent one made up by the radio station's personnel--all I knew was that music was the pulse of the times, the soundtrack of our lives that was shared by everyone, something that not only entertained us but connected us all.

In the small towns I grew up in, the radio stations played great music and a great variety of it. That's what I usually miss with most of the stations I hear today: their carefully crafted playlists and endless commercials often lack soul and offer instead a bland predictability. It was nice to turn on the radio, have no idea what the DJ was going to play but feel assured you would hear some favorites, and listen to someone talking who sounded like a real human. There are stations today where you can still get this, but they seem harder to find, and I know of very few that exhibit the kind of footloose and relaxed approach to programming that I used to enjoy. If there's a station on which you might hear music from both Bobbie Gentry and Ray Charles these days, I'd like to know where it is.

It was entertaining to read the reminiscences of the Southern California radio engineer who wrote down his memories of his station. He made it sound like a real adventure to be a part of a broadcast team, especially in the early and middle decades of the 20th century. I didn't realize, for one thing, how many physical hazards existed in the day-to-day running of a station, from high voltage areas, to fire dangers, to hazardous chemical waste. Nostalgia can be a dangerous emotion, but I do think something has been lost in the modern era of audience tracking and marketing studies, a certain flying by-the-seat-of-the pants quality that used to be a bit more apparent when you switched on the dial.

I would have liked to work in a radio station in the '40s, '50s, and '60s. It would have been nice to be in on the industry in its pioneering years when it was easier to be adventurous and try new things without considering shareholders and profit margins quite so much. There was an unmediated connection between the broadcaster and the audience members, a genuine intimacy that is tough to match these days, though I think a lot of the college stations do a pretty good job. Why would Curt have gone to Wolfman Jack for advice on love if he hadn't considered him almost as a friend?

I know some people enjoy the syndicated radio shows in which listeners phone in their personal stories and requests, but it always seems too much like "reality TV" to me--even if it isn't--because of the way it's packaged. Give me a lonely caffeine-addicted DJ in a rumpled shirt with a little pizzazz to his personality and an ear for a good song any day over a slickly coordinated corporate playlist and canned patter that might just as easily have been phoned in from Mars for all I know. I still look to radio for entertainment, even though I often come away disappointed. If only there were more of those independent voices still out there.

Panorama

The question you've probably wanted to ask all week is, "Wordplay, how did you spend your first Fourth of July in L.A.?" Hopefully, no one missed any sleep over it, but in any event, I'm about to satisfy your curiosity: first I went downtown to the festivities at Grand Park, and later I went up to the Observatory to take in the view. There was no formula to it other than the fact that both events were low-cost and sounded like fun, and that's pretty much it.

I thought that going downtown, where the music and food trucks promised to bring in a cross-section of people, would be a good way to see a microcosm of the city. I suppose it also seemed most similar to the type of celebrations I'm used to in Lexington, where most of the main events take place downtown. I went to the Observatory because I was fascinated by the prospect of watching multiple fireworks shows going off at once. That promised to be quite a spectacle (and it was). Why restrict yourself to one fireworks show if you can see all of them for the cost of bus fare to the top? I had already enjoyed some fireworks that I could see from my window the night before; it was nice to have such a good view without having to go anywhere.

On the Fourth itself, I was feeling a little daunted by the thought of looking for parking downtown, so I decided to park in Los Feliz and take the Metro in. When I got there, it was by no means deserted but wasn't exactly bursting at the seams either. I had to ask for directions to Grand Park, and I told someone that at first glance it really didn't seem like the Fourth of July. I was comparing it with Fourth of July celebrations I remembered from Lexington and actually felt a bit homesick for a little while. Never mind the fact that I hadn't attended any downtown festivities in Lexington for quite a while; I believe I was remembering Fourth of Julys from happier times. Certainly, the celebration in Lexington used to have a "Main Street USA" feeling that was different from the feeling I got in scattered downtown L.A.

Once I made my way to Grand Park, I found a very lively scene and walked around for a while, taking a few pictures and trying to get the pulse of the place. I felt more like an observer than a participant, and it certainly didn't look like half the city had crowded into the festival area, but OK. The people-watching wasn't bad, and I had a really good chicken sandwich for dinner. I was starting to think of staying downtown instead of making the trek to Griffith Park, but I decided I'd be sorry if I missed the panoramic view while I had the chance, so I hopped back on the Metro at Pershing Square and caught the observatory shuttle at Sunset and Vermont.

I've been up to the Observatory before, but the bus trip to the top that night on a road crowded with cars and revelers was something I doubt I'll forget. That's where the traffic jam was, not downtown. The Observatory was brightly lit, and there were people everywhere at the top. When I got off the bus, I was rooted to the spot for a while, riveted by my first glimpse of the myriad lights of greater L.A. spread out below and fireworks going off simultaneously all over town. When I walked over the hill and to the side of the Observatory, the view was even better since I could see the L.A. skyline.

I felt something up at the Observatory that I had been missing earlier, a sense that L.A. had its own way of exhibiting pride in America, that it had something to show me that I had never quite seen before: what patriotism looks like when a number of individual celebrations are seen to be part of a greater whole. That's what America actually looks like on the Fourth of July, after all, if you could reach a high enough vantage point to see it all at once. What my Fourth of July in L.A. lacked in intimacy it made up for in awe. I think it would have been nice if someone had arranged to have a band playing patriotic music in front of the Observatory, and maybe a few ice cream stands and flags and so on, but for sheer visual fascination, I've rarely seen anything to beat the view.

The ride down on a crowded bus was a little tiresome, but never mind that. I was glad I went, and I only had to walk around for about 10 minutes before finding where I had parked my car. When I got there, I was greeted by two nocturnal animals of uncertain pedigree grazing in the grass nearby. I had two thoughts, and one of them was badgers. Since I didn't think L.A. even has badgers, I was pretty sure I was looking at skunks. I gave them a respectful distance, and it ended happily for all concerned. On the way back to my lodging, I saw multiple fireworks going off all along the way, and it was the first Fourth of July I can remember that ended in fireworks partly shrouded in fog.

So that was about it: fireworks, food trucks, a chicken sandwich, Metro rides, incredible views, skunks, and a finale of fog. The experience would have been enhanced if I had had someone to share it with, but I will go ahead and make a recommendation: if you ever find yourself in L.A. on the Fourth of July, alone or not, make your way up to Griffith Observatory to cap things off. You'll never see fireworks in quite the same way again, and maybe, by that time, someone will have thought to hire a band for the night.

Tattoos and Shadows

Last week I wrote about my attempts to settle into L.A., and it seems a bit redundant to talk about job search woes again this week, though that is what I think about most of the time. What to do for a topic, then? I've been watching a little TV, but I'm circumspect about giving too much space to what I see there. How about a book review? I may have mentioned that I have a visitor's card to a local library that will let me check out one book at a time, but if I didn't, it's true--and for some reason I settled on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo last week.

Someone recommended the book to me years ago, and I had seen the previews for the film that was made of it, but I never got around to reading it. The characters looked interesting, but I don't read a lot of suspense thrillers, which is what I suppose you would call this book. Having finished it, I have to say that I don't think I agree with the casting of the film: Daniel Craig seems too hardened and cynical for the main character, Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who runs afoul of a criminal and ends up on a kind of sabbatical, writing a family history for a wealthy industrialist. In the book, the Blomkvist character, while no Pollyanna, is painted in somewhat softer tones as a nice guy who does his best but ends up in a compromised position anyway.

The most unforgettable character in the book, is, of course, Lisbeth Salander, crack investigator, computer hacker, and social misfit who ends up helping Blomkvist solve a decades-old mystery and reopen his investigation of the criminal mastermind. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo came out in Sweden twelve years ago and has probably been read already by almost everyone except me. The only thing I can add to what everyone else has said is that I was struck by what a Hecate-like character Salander is. Hecate is probably a much less familiar figure to most people than the other Greek goddesses, shrouded as she is in mystery, darkness, and associations with magic. Salander, with her tattoos, piercings, and unconventional (not to mention off-putting) attire, personality, and habits, is an almost pure embodiment of that seldom seen goddess most associated with the black arts.

If you've ever read Greek mythology, you may have noticed a certain lack of what I would call morality in many of the gods' dealings with mortals. It's often hard to say whether the gods are "good" or "bad" because their actions often seem arbitrary--they seem to just do what they want to do, though they can sometimes be prevailed upon to assist mortals and arbitrate disagreements. They're a law unto themselves.

Hecate has an even darker profile than most of them, but is she "bad"? My sense is that because of the nature of what she does, which is to operate in darkness and concern herself with magic, with things just outside the ken of everyday concerns, most people would rather not think about her too much--until they need her. She might be the one they turn to for a potion or for matters requiring secrecy, guile, and a certain amount of ruthlessness, situations in which playing by ordinary rules won't get the job done. When this happens, most people would rather not talk about it.

That's the very definition of Salander, who operates by her own code and her own conventions; she isn't "bad" but she is certainly dangerous. She isn't motivated by petty concerns or greed, but once you make an enemy of her, she's implacable. Blomkvist is unable to figure out how she is able to find out some of the things she knows and do some of the things she does: firewalls, locks, laws, ethical conventions, and other people's opinions have no meaning for her. So, is she "bad"? A lot of people consider her so, and they certainly find her scary, but she isn't exactly amoral. She will go to great lengths to right a wrong (and when she considers something to be wrong, it usually is). She doesn't even have to be the target of the wrong but will act on someone else's behalf, without their even knowing anything about it.

The problem (or the advantage, depending on how you look at it) is that her solutions tend to be drastic as well as unlawful, but that's the Hecate coming out. She often operates in areas in which wrongs would go unpunished or even unnoticed if not for her intervention, situations in which ordinary remedies aren't available. Her actions can often be justified even as they veer into vigilantism. You sympathize with Salander and may even like her, but you're never really comfortable with her. She's just too devastatingly effective at operating in the shadows and outside the conventions that restrain most people. She's both unpredictable and uncanny.

Salander is also misunderstood by most of the people who know her, which is largely what has made her such an outlier, but the point is . . . a little bit of Hecate goes a long way. For a while, I had a plaque with Hecate's likeness on it in my bathroom, and even though I had several Buddhas and Shivas and the like scattered around because of my interest in mythology, I was never altogether comfortable with Hecate. For me, it was more a reminder that there are various forces at work in the world, whether we like them or not. I didn't bring her with me when I moved, as I decided that I'd had enough of a reminder. I'm not sure if I'll read any more of Stieg Larsson's books, either, but I'm certain I'll never forget the gothic and intransigent Lisbeth Salander. I think she has something to say to each of us.

Urban Adventures

Last Saturday was the most vacation-like day I've had out here, even though it was spent in pursuit of jobs. After getting off the interstate and trying an alternate route that let me get a better feel for the layout of things, I visited a suburban library and took the Metro into downtown L.A. After checking out the main library (quite an experience in itself, even with non-functioning escalators), I stopped at Starbucks for an iced coffee. I was struck by how decidedly urban that whole experience was, from the bunker-like entryway, to the window onto a busy street, to the attenuated seating area under exposed pipes, as if the coffeehouse had been built into the remains of an excavated basement or subway station.

Oddly enough, I found my coffee break and window seat view to be quite calming. In part, I think it was because that particular Starbucks seemed to be built for foot traffic, not loungers, and there were hardly any other customers seated nearby. It was enjoyable, for once, to be able to calmly sip a drink and watch the world go by without listening to a lot of chatter. I was able to let my mind roam and enjoy the passing scene--who would have thought downtown L.A. could be so relaxing? I took a quick walk down Broadway and back to Pershing Square and was amazed at how much less intimidating it all seemed than it had the first time I was there. I wouldn't say I'm ready to move downtown, but I enjoyed taking it all in.

There was a street festival in full swing next to Olvera Street, with some very lively folk music providing a soundtrack to all the activity near Union Station. It was more stimulation than I would have had in six months at home and was somehow both bracing and restful at the same time. Once I got back to my car, I did have trouble finding my way out of the parking structure, but I'm getting used to the fact that I sometimes drive around in circles or go the long way around. On the other hand, I had to congratulate myself for figuring out I was going the wrong way after someone gave me directions; I was looking at mountains, so I knew I needed to turn around. Orienteering might not be my thing, but I have a basic sense of direction.

A few days later I had a less successful urban experience in Los Feliz, which I found to be too crowded and urban for my taste. How it could out-urban downtown is a little difficult to explain, but perhaps it has to do with the commercial density of the area and the (to me) uneasy mixture of residential, retail, and business, all jumbled together in a jarring sort of way. The post office parking lot was hard to get into, many of the houses had bars on the windows, and the bathroom of the neighborhood branch library didn't smell good. I wanted to like it but didn't.

Some of the things I've liked and disliked have surprised me, but I still don't know where I'll end up settling in. Where you find a job dictates the way everything else falls into place, and that hasn't happened yet. I suppose it would have been surprising if I had gotten a job right away, but I really was hoping for a fairly quick turn-around, especially after signing up with four employment agencies and having applications in before I even got here. I sometimes feel I am hitting my head on an invisible wall, a feeling I was already familiar with before I got here, thanks. It should not be this difficult to become employed. Right now I feel I am a bit off the grid, and while you don't mind that for a little while, you don't feel that you're really a part of the community until you have a job and a regular apartment.

However, I am still applying and hoping to get my foot in the door somewhere before long, though I'm not adverse to going somewhere else if an opportunity opens up. When I worked for employment agencies before, they just sent me around to places, and I stayed busy all the time. Once one assignment ended, I went to another. Here, it's almost as if you're applying for security clearance instead of a temporary office job. After several possibilities that looked like good opportunities fell away to nothing this week, I applied for a job in Ohio. Ouch, take that, L.A.! If it doesn't work out, I don't have to stay. It took so much work to get here that I'd hate to turn around and leave but . . . you have to eat and have a place to hang your hat. If money grows on trees, I've yet to see any sign of it.

Meanwhile, the fleeting vacation feelings that come and go are welcome, but not something I'm going to get used to. People are generally friendly here, the weather is pleasant, and I'm finding my way around. Moving across country isn't child's play, though, and I didn't do it to put my life on hold for an undetermined amount of time. Moving in with a friend, which I had hoped to avoid, is beginning to look like a real possibility. And, darn it, the blister I got on my hand from all that driving was just starting to heal.

Cattle Thievery and the Evening News

There was a job announcement the other day for a writer in the public diplomacy program of a university journalism department, a job that at first glance sounded like something I might be able to do. Since I didn't know exactly what public diplomacy is (a fine-sounding term, but what is it?) and how it relates to journalism, I spent some time reading about the position and trying to get a feel for where they were going with it. In the end, I decided it wasn't for me, for several reasons, the main one being that I'm still not sure what public diplomacy has to do with journalism. Is it the same thing as P.R.?

If I'm not mistaken, public relations is sometimes taught alongside journalism courses in college, which makes sense in a way because both disciplines are a part of the field of communications, even though they have different aims and methods. When I worked for a newspaper, I worked on the business side doing creative and promotional work, which, while a necessary part of the paper's functioning, had nothing to do with news reporting. The newspaper tried to keep the two sides of its business, the advertising/promotion side and the editorial/reporting side, separate, even so far as placing them on opposite sides of the building. I started out at the paper working part-time on the copy desk and writing free-lance pieces, but once I got a job on the business side, I was in very different territory. It was uncommon for someone to go from the business side to the news side, so even though I continued to write features articles for the paper, that was different from being an investigative journalist or a reporter. It would have been hard for a Promotion writer to seem credible as a regular reporter, because the roles are very different.

When I see a concept like public diplomacy being touted as an exciting new field, it reminds me of what I don't like about the media: there's too much of what I would call "soft journalism," too much opinion mixed up with news, and too much of what many people would consider propaganda if they only knew what it was slipped in alongside old-fashioned reporting. It's a regular Mulligan's stew out there in the media world, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I think about this every time I look at or listen to a news piece. I'm guessing there are opportunities in non-profits, businesses, and other organizations for someone to put expertise in public diplomacy to good use; it's the proximity to journalism that seems problematic.

As I understand a reporter's function, it's to tell the who, what, when, where, and why, if I am not being hopelessly romantic in supposing this. There is certainly a place in journalism for editorializing and commentary, but first and foremost, journalists are supposed to tell you what happened. How can democracy function if people don't first know the facts? We do want democracy to function, don't we?

I suspect that some people welcome the blurring of boundaries between reporting and public diplomacy because it allows more opportunities to sway public opinion and influence views, to push out propaganda in a way that looks respectable. It's likely that this has always gone on, and it's probably a mistake to hearken back to a "golden age" of journalism when things were done differently, but nevertheless--reporters are supposed to report, and there just seem to be a lot of ways to get around it these days.

So I looked at the posting, read about the journalism school and the people who worked there, and realized I wouldn't be able to do the job even if I got it. The whole project had a lot of gloss to it, as befits a prestigious organization, and not only am I anti-gloss but I also have a problem with the presentation of public diplomacy as an adjunct of journalism. It seems to me that they ought to be in different departments, that public diplomacy, marketing, and public relations belong in business schools, while journalism is a separate thing entirely. I am often frustrated with the news because even after consulting numerous sources (like our English teachers told us to do) I still have to piece together what's actually happened for myself. By the time you get past the spin, there's sometimes not much else.

The proliferation of news sources via the Internet has been both a blessing and a curse, I think. There are many more sources out there, which potentially means many more independent voices, but it can also create a kind of cacophony in which what's important gets lost in the shuffle. It's like the satellite TV dilemma, the situation in which you click past dozens of channels without finding anything to watch.

I'm all for quantity--having a choice of news sources is good--but here I'm putting in a good word for quality. The fluidity of boundaries between what really should be separate endeavors creates a slipperiness that lets Hermes, who hovers over all forms of communication anyway, flit around all over the place, and as we know, Hermes is a bit of a trickster. He was a cattle thief, after all.

Library as Portal

You might think that, being in L.A., I might have been doing some sightseeing on my down time, but the truth is, I don't consider this down time. Every minute that hasn't been spent getting organized and oriented has been spent on the job search, except for a few stolen moments here and there. Does time spent in libraries count as relaxing if you're a librarian who's job searching? I'm not sure, but if you're going to be sore over not getting a sightseeing report, I'll try to make up for it by telling you about a marvelous sight I did see in the course of my rambles.

My newcomer's handbook pointed out the library I'm going to tell you about as something worth visiting in its own right, so even though I went there with a purpose, I also went to see the building. While many things in life are over-hyped, this library was a case of something you have to see to believe. It brought to mind a restaurant called The Glitz in Kentucky that I've been to a couple of times: it's nearly impossible to exaggerate the decor and the impact it has, especially on a first-time visitor.

The library's metal-clad exterior was striking enough but could have held a conventional interior in the way of many other public libraries I've seen. It didn't. As soon as you walk in, you're faced with a huge tank of tropical fish taking up an entire wall; it reminded me of an exhibit I'd seen at the Long Beach Aquarium. It formed part of the wall for the Children's Department, which one enters through a portal composed of gigantic books. Inside, there's a T-Rex, a lighthouse, an art room, a spaceship, a painted ceiling, and countless other things along with the books to intrigue and delight.

Across from the Children's Department was a very comfortable-looking reading room, with Craftsman-style furnishings and fixtures that gave it the air of a private library in a home or a well-to-do college. A matching area stocked with newspapers, sofas, and clubby chairs anchored the other end of the first floor, past the gift shop and Circulation area. I've rarely seen more inviting spaces in a library of any kind, and this certainly made the point that as welcoming as the library is for kids, it is just as interested in its adult patrons.

The Internet computers upstairs were state-of-the-art, as were the meeting rooms along one side next to the escalator, each named for a famous writer of science fiction. The literature and fiction department, also on the second floor, featured Art Deco styling and art exhibits along with the book collection. Everywhere I looked, there was something to stimulate the eye or the mind. I walked around for the first half-hour with my jaw nearly dropped to the floor in the midst of all those curving lines and soaring spaces. I was told that much of the money for the building had been raised within the community, which strongly supports education and literacy, and I have to say that speaks well for this small city, which--while fairly affluent--is not one of the higher-end zip codes in L.A.

The library was busy (and a bit noisy), but the main thing that impressed me was how well it succeeded as a community center that combined ease of use, modern technology, old-fashioned charm and comfort, creative flair, and an atmosphere almost guaranteed to stimulate the mind. I've rarely seen a building that went so above and beyond in fulfilling its function. It was a true gateway to the imaginative realm, combining some of the best features of a museum, an art gallery, an athenaeum, a children's playground, a teen hangout, and a technology lab all enfolded into a library.

You may be saying, OK, OK, when are you going to tell us the name of this paragon of the library world, and my answer is, I'm not. Perhaps the community would welcome a huge influx of visitors traipsing through, and perhaps not, but if you're ever in L.A., ask around and someone can probably steer you in the right direction. The gods on Olympus could not enjoy a finer library, and in fact, if they have one, it might look quite a bit like this one. It's the library you've always wanted but didn't know you could ask for.

South by Southwest

Wordplay has landed in Los Angeles after a trip that was in some ways better and in some ways worse than my last journey here (I refer readers to my previous blog post "Out West" for an account of that episode). One thing that hasn't changed is the number of odd occurrences, some alarming and some just plain weird, that seem to accompany me any time I step out the door (much less move across country). My last trip was peppered with repeated appearances by a stalker, heat exhaustion, food poisoning, hotel doors that didn't lock, and much night driving. When I got home to Kentucky, I was so glad to have survived the trip that I had no wish to repeat it any time soon, and didn't.

This trip began more auspiciously, helped in part by the time of year. A journey in spring, flooded by light, is bound to have a more holiday feel than one begun in late October, and this one did. The air seemed to sparkle with optimism as I headed out of Kentucky, and most of my encounters on the first stage were no more strange than the ones I'm used to, except for all the burned tire rubber I had to dodge in Indiana from a convoy of trucks ahead of me. Oklahoma was fairly uneventful until I hit a windstorm just as I was passing through my second toll booth. It was like a scene by Cecil B. DeMille via The Wizard of Oz, complete with an enormous storm front, a funnel cloud (unless my eyes deceived me), and a choice between exiting the interstate and trying to drive clear.

I know the standard advice is not to try to outrun a storm, but based on past experience I have found that sheltering in place is not always the best idea either. The storm was far enough away that, given a split second to decide, I concluded it was better to keep going. (Note: I'm not telling you to try to outrun storms; I'm only telling you what I did in this instance.) It worked out OK, but I saw my life flash before my eyes for a few minutes there. Was it all going to end on an Oklahoma highway? Later that evening, I narrowly avoided running over an actual log in the middle of the road that surely would have ended my journey right there in Oklahoma City had I not seen it. That's two strikes against Oklahoma.

I accomplished my goal of getting as far as Amarillo, Texas, though I didn't expect to have to deal with sub-par hotel plumbing after a full day of driving. (I have a prejudice against calling for maintenance assistance in the wee hours of the morning while traveling alone, silly though that may seem to you.) After declining the orange juice that tasted suspiciously like Tang at breakfast in the morning, I journeyed on, looking forward to getting through New Mexico as expeditiously as possible.

I disliked eastern New Mexico, though driving in and out of rain showers did clean my car off. I found two things to like about western New Mexico: the beautiful sandstone highway infrastructure that mimics the colors of the landscape on the western slope of Sandia Mountain and the red rocks in the dessert near Gallup, two sights worth seeing. I enjoyed the sunset drive across Arizona as far as Flagstaff and the holiday mood that prevailed in the hotel there; Flagstaff was apparently hosting several events that weekend, and it was a Friday night to boot. I almost felt like I was on vacation.

After that, things went downhill (literally), as the interstate was under repair and not in the best condition for driving. I didn't like to stop in Kingman, as I had a problem with my hotel when I was last there, but you have to stop sometimes, and I prefer to take gas-and-caffeine-breaks in populated areas. That stop turned into a 90-minute delay when I forgot to lock the bathroom door in Starbucks and had someone nearly walk in on me. Normally, I would simply have felt embarrassed and let it go, but I didn't like the look or attitude of the man who did it and insisted that the Starbucks staff write up the incident. They called the police as well, and I gave a report to the officer who arrived. You meet all kinds of people while traveling, including some that you would much prefer not to.

Aside from delaying me, the incident soured what was left of the afternoon. I didn't like the look or feel of Kingman and was glad to get away, but I had some of the toughest driving of the trip just ahead of me. The last time I crossed the Mojave into California, it was at night, and I don't remember it taking nearly as long or being as difficult a drive. Between poorly maintained roads, a persistent wind that seemed determined to push my car around, the desolation, and the number of big trucks on the road, it was altogether a trying way to enter California.

Don't even get me started on the displays of unnecessarily reckless driving I saw on the hill near San Bernardino: I was afraid of getting blown off the road at any second, if not actually run over. I know people drive more aggressively out here, but I had never seen anything remotely resembling the way people, including truckers, were careening down that hill and cutting in front of others. It was as if everyone had decided to try for a live action replay of the runaway train scene in The Polar Express. The traffic in L.A. seemed tame by comparison.

I had tried to imagine how I might spend my first evening in California and had come up with a few thoughts, though I had never settled on anything. I had vague ideas of a celebratory dinner, and I wanted to try to find the house where I did some accidental damage to a screen the last time I was in town, but since I was late in arriving, dinner at Wendy's ended up being the main event. I finally managed a California Highway Patrol escort to my hotel when all the directions everyone gave me had me driving in circles. I spotted the CHIP car at a gas station and asked for help . . .  and when it's all said and done, I guess having a police escort at the end did kind of put a final flourish on things.

I've gotten organized, bought groceries, hung up my clothes, tried to find the people whose screen I damaged, and signed up with a temp agency. That's not bad for less than two days in town after a trying journey (punctuated by a few moments of beauty, I must say). I've been wondering how the pioneers ever managed it, since even today, a cross-country trip--with air conditioning, bottled water, and caffeine--is no joke. But as I told the highway patrol officer, the end of an exhausting day often takes on a different aspect the next morning, and it did. Here's hoping for better things ahead, but whatever happens, you can count on Wordplay to let you know about it. May your travels (and mine) be a bit smoother for the rest of the summer.

Magnetic Poetry

While packing this week, I started looking at things I hadn't looked at in a while, the way you do when you're shifting items from one place to another. Since my head is too full of moving details to leave much room for topical inspiration, I thought I'd share something I found in my Magnetic Poetry Kit Book of Poetry, discovered as I was clearing a shelf the other day. A magnetic poetry kit may seem like a kitschy item, but its use fits in with my approach to poetry. More about that later, but right now here is the poem I wrote with it, at the kitchen table in my last apartment, if I'm not mistaken--which makes the poem nearly 20 years old.

(Untitled)

the avenue to love
has summer in it
minute tendrils
grow from cracks
at evening
leaves blossom by morning
an immense and secret bouquet
a staggering work
of liquid song wind
wanting

and dirt

I don't think it's bad for a poem written, most likely, after dinner, one of the first I composed with the poetry kit. I'm not sure I could have written it if not for the kit, and I'll tell you why. It's my compression theory of poetry: the more constraints you put on writing, whether it's time, number of syllables, availability of words, or something else, the more an inner censor is silenced, letting you compose without restraint. I guess you could also call it the Poetry Paradox, and it applies to all writing, as far as I've been able to discover. You narrow your choices and make do with limitations, and the energy you don't spend ransacking the entire English language opens a third poetic eye. It's like all those frugal housewives making do with rations during World War II and somehow coming up with genius recipes. Some of the best dishes are composed of simple ingredients. It's the same with words.

I was writing about author's intent a few weeks ago, and although I can't remember exactly when I wrote this poem--I'm guessing sometime between Fall 1998 and Summer 1999--I seem to recall being in the grip of some passion, requited or unrequited, at the time. It's not a bitter poem, but rather a sort of celebratory one, and that's saying something considering how frustrated I remember feeling then. I liked it well enough that I left it on the magnetic poetry board, and when I opened it up, it was just as it was when I wrote it. It's been on my shelf ever since I moved in here. I remember that I was experimenting with growing kitchen herbs in windowsill containers around the time I wrote the poem, which may account for the botanical imagery.

It's a very summery poem and seems appropriate for ushering in the month of June. I like the idea of a secret garden taking hold imperceptibly and growing into something vast and wonderful, without permission and without fanfare. It's a little like Coleridge's secret ministry of frost, except that it celebrates a different season.

May all the avenues you travel this summer blossom with minute trendrils and fragrant bouquets in your wake and may they make a soft place for your footsteps to land. I'm hoping the same for myself.

Wordplay Gets a Move On

Is there anything more exciting than moving? I'm not being facetious, or at least, I'm only being partly facetious. Despite the amount of stress involved, it is exciting, if you lift up your eyes occasionally from all the details you have to attend to and take in the wider picture: where you've been, where you're going, and how it all fits into the larger pattern of your life. For most of my adulthood, I've lived in only two apartments, and my last move encompassed only about a mile as the crow flies from my previous place. It would be fair to say that I tend to stay put.

The last move seemed like a huge deal, even though I was only moving a short distance, simply because I'd been in the same place for so long. Once I got here, the adjustment didn't take as long as I'd thought it would. Although I had moved around a fair amount with my family and during my college years, in and out of dorms and the like, it just wasn't the same kind of undertaking as moving an entire apartment of my own belongings. Once you're an adult and responsible for doing everything yourself, a move takes on a whole new meaning.

This time, I'm finally carrying out an idea that's been in my mind for years, if not decades, which is to move to the West Coast. I've been on the verge of doing it a few times before and even had a couple of opportunities career-wise, but for one reason or another it never seemed right. What was once an entirely daunting prospect became less so over time, as I traveled to the area frequently and eventually attended graduate school in Southern California. I wanted to move five or six years ago, but I hesitated; it seemed a long way to go without a sure prospect of a job and definitely a much more expensive place to live. On the other hand, a nationwide job search didn't produce results, either. The interviews I did get tended to be in California.

I'm going now, not exactly kicking and screaming, but with some trepidation because all I have are a few leads; I still don't have any certain prospects. Six weeks ago, it seemed prudent to stay here because a number of jobs (mostly part-time) were opening up locally--though I had my doubts that any of them would pan out, based on my experience of the last few years. Still, I applied for a number of things, had one interview, and at the end of the month reassessed again. I reached the same conclusion as before: I wasn't getting anywhere by staying put. What had formerly seemed like a wild scheme--going to a larger city to seek out opportunity--now seemed like the only smart thing to do. I seem to have outgrown my current town, and it doesn't help to pretend otherwise.

It makes sense to go right now because, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment prospects have been improving in California over the last few months; I've also been encouraged by the quality of the positions I've seen advertised. I certainly don't go with the intention of becoming a drag on the system but rather with the intent of bringing something with me, a set of skills and knowledge that can't be filled by anyone else. No one in Kentucky seems to want a writer who's also a librarian and a myth studies expert with teaching experience and a background in psychology--but that probably won't be the case in a big city. They seem to find room for everyone.

So I'm both worried and excited. I have no idea how it will turn out and whether it will all go bust--but you know what? I'm tired of being told, not in so many words, but through basically being marginalized, that I have nothing to offer. Right there is the clue that lets me know, and really believe at last, that I'm in the wrong place. I had envisioned an entirely new career phase opening up once I got my PhD, not feeling that all that work had only saddled me with a liability. I had transferable skills before I got the PhD, and studying mythology not only gave me a new bank of knowledge and a language for talking about things, it gave me greater depth. I think a part of me that had remained stubbornly undeveloped grew up and blossomed out as a result of the entire experience and what happened later. I'm not like I was 10 years ago, and that's a good thing.

One of the worst things in life, I've found, is to feel unproductive. In some ways, I've worked the last few years to my advantage, pursuing some of my research interests and discovering my creative voice. Those were entirely good developments. Now it's time to seek out a place that will recognize what I have to offer and reward me for it. I have a little bit of the feeling of leaping off a cliff. However, knowing I've exhausted the possibilities here with nothing to show for it, I feel better about making the choice now than I would have before.

"Look before you leap" is generally considered good advice, and I have followed it conscientiously. But some people also say, "Leap, and the net will appear." I'm hoping that my instinct that before was too soon but now is the right time will be proven correct. For more details on how Wordplay survives the Big Move, stay tuned. Meanwhile, I'll miss the fireflies this summer, but I'm glad I was here for the dogwoods and azaleas. Spring in Kentucky is a lovely thing, but spectacular as it is, it leaves you a bit cold once you realize you've been traveling in circles year after year.

Rainy and Gritty

As much as we like to be timely at Wordplay, we have to admit to not having a clue as to the meaning of any of this week's political events. In fact, the longer I look at the political news, the more cross-eyed I get, and as to "seeing through" the week's events in a mythic sense, I'm leaving it alone. It's enough that I got caught in the thunderstorm of the year this afternoon while running errands and showed up in a government office downtown looking like a drowned llama.

The only thing I will say is that when President Obama was in his first term, I thought it ridiculous that people blamed him for not having the economy back in shape six months into his presidency. In fairness to President Trump, I'm extending the same benefit of the doubt, despite all the upheaval we're currently seeing and the fact that I disagree with many of his policies. It was such a tumultuous election that some of the dust hasn't cleared yet. I still think the archetype of a titanic struggle is the best description of the current political climate, but the faces of the giants are lost in the clouds.

And as to the thunderstorm: boy, what a doozy. I was driving east in heavy traffic when what had been a pouring rain turned into a full-on spring storm complete with dazzling lightning strikes to the southeast. I enjoyed the show, even though I was still sopping myself. I don't know why, but I seemed to see individual buildings along my route with exceptional clarity: they appeared to their best advantage in the rain, which softened everything just a little.

I realized there's something I like about the Winchester Road/New Circle Road area, even with its commercial and industrial flavor. I think it's because of the retro quality to the grittiness: the Parkette Drive-In is there, and the space-age winged roof of the Paul Miller Ford building, still extant amidst warehouses, storage companies, industrial concerns, small businesses, an Asian market, and a place advertising fresh ceviche. There's a handsome flatiron building that's been well restored on Winchester Road, a brick bakery famous for its doughnuts, and a few places that have seen better days mixed in with thriving businesses. As I passed the lighting store, I tried to remember if it was the location of the skating rink I remembered from my youth. I couldn't recall--it hadn't occurred to me to wonder in quite a while.

Maybe a sunny day shows up too much fading paint and too many harsh lines, whereas a rainy spring day gentles everything a little. There have been many changes to Lexington over the years I've been here, though some of the heavily groomed suburban areas reveal less of a timeline than Winchester Road does, with its wildly diverse mix of businesses, longer span of development, and lack of pretension.

I am not often out that way, but I used to travel it regularly, and probably it was bits of my own past I was seeing as I looked through my rain-flecked windshield and thought about the smell of peanut butter from the Jif factory, the way the campus office tower dominates the view as you approach town on U.S. 60, the futon place that is no longer around, the taste of a yeasty doughnut on a cold Saturday morning. Far from being a mere errand, it was a drive that celebrated memory.

Feet of Clay on the Stage of History

A couple of years ago, I started hearing about the controversy over the Jefferson-Jackson political dinners and the fact that many people wanted them renamed because the less honorable aspects of these presidents' careers were too troubling. Likewise, the debate over whose images should appear on American currency was sparked by discussions of diversity, exclusion, and the relative merits and demerits of various figures from America's past. I want to say first that I think these kinds of debates are healthy and in some cases overdue. I have to admit, though, that my first reaction on hearing about the Jefferson-Jackson controversy was: "Why try so hard to wipe the slate clean?"

I was almost sorry for both Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. Can it now be that even people with genuine accomplishments are completely beyond the pale because they were people of their time, not ours? It's painful to consider that slavery and the ill treatment of Native Americans were supported by people who contributed in important ways to the building of American society. Painful, but true--and we can't change it. Can we admit to the complexity of a troubled but occasionally glorious past without trying to shove people off the historical stage?

We are still plagued by some of the injustices whose roots were established earlier in our history--racism and poverty, among them--and we've been frustrated in our attempts to solve these problems. I think many people are genuinely concerned about the message it sends to honor people who were slave-owners and killers of Native Americans. I'm wondering if it might not be better to focus our efforts on dealing with injustice in our own time. Demoting people on whose shoulders we stand (in some important ways) doesn't seem to do much toward helping the present situation.

I started thinking about all this when I read an Andrew Jackson quote someone posted to Facebook the other day. He said: "It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes" (Veto Message of the Bill on the Bank of the United States, July 10, 1832). This is a very American sentiment and a reminder of what's best about the American spirit and the democratic society we are still aspiring to build. If it seems ironic that a slaveholder would utter such a sentiment, how much more ironic is it that Jefferson-Jackson dinners may be banned but institutional racism, inner-city blight, unemployment, and poverty rage on unabated?

Some people honestly feel that the demerits of some of our nation's historical figures outweigh their contributions, and this is an area reasonable people will disagree on. In some cases, I might agree with them: some people have been given too much of a pass. But instead of removing the portraits of those with blemishes on their character from the gallery of history (which I fear will result in some rather gaping holes), I'd rather see the debate roar on front and center while the portraits remain in place. Considering everything, I think it's a miracle that so wonderful a thing as democracy ever managed to take hold in the first place. If the people who gave us a push in that direction failed to uphold their principles fully, maybe it's time for us to see what we can do about putting things to rights in the present.

Zeus, Hera, and Author's Intent

This week I read Mary Higgins Clark's recent book, As Time Goes By, which features a murder, a woman's search for her birth parents, illegal trafficking in prescription drugs, romance, sleuthing, and family drama. Ms. Clark's reputation as a writer of popular fiction is well established, and I'm sure some of my readers are more familiar with her than I am, but I was interested in certain domestic themes that appeared in her book. It may sound grandiose to suggest that they are mythic, but indeed, they are; works of popular fiction are often the place in which mythic themes first appear.

It's tricky to try to infer an author's intent. Even if they tell you their purpose, there may be ideas in their work that appear as if of their own volition: that's the way the unconscious works. By the time you untangle your interpretations (which may be brilliant but almost inevitably involve some degree of projection) from the author's own intents and purposes (as far as they can be known) you are left with an explication that may bear little resemblance to what the author was thinking as he/she sat down to write. I'm inferring that Ms. Clark intended Delaney Wright to be her main character since the prologue begins with the story of her birth. However, this is somewhat belied by the fact that there are several intertwining stories in the book, some of which offer more drama than that of Delaney's search for her parents.

This at least is my perception. Ms. Clark certainly has a Demeter and Persephone theme going in which Delaney plays the Kore role, although she is a particularly well-adjusted Persephone. In her case, a successful life is shadowed by her need to know her origins but is not consumed by it, and this may be the reason I didn't sense as much dramatic tension in her part of the story. The real center of the action, it seemed to me, was the murder plot in which a wealthy woman is accused of murdering her husband, a victim of Alzheimer's disease, in order to marry her old flame. Betsy Grant is loved and respected by a wide group of friends, but the circumstances of her husband's death make it very difficult for someone who doesn't know her to see her as anything but guilty. Most people believe she snapped under the pressure of her husband's illness, a perception largely influenced by the fact that the only other person with a clear motive has an alibi.

It wasn't until the various subplots began to fall together into one storyline that the identity of the guilty party became obvious, and that was late in the novel. To try to ascribe mythic personalities to the characters involved in the murder plot would be to reveal too much to those who haven't read the story, but it's true to say that the motivation behind the crime is different than it appears to be. I noted in passing the motif of "three," common in folk tales and fairy tales, in this case embodied in the character of Dr. Grant, the murdered man, and his two partners, all three of them orthopedic surgeons. The theme of healing is turned on its head by the murder; ironically, Dr. Grant is killed by a pestle, a symbol of medicine given to him as an award for his professional accomplishments. There's even a deus ex machina of sorts in a talkative burglar named Tony Sharkey.

What I really think this story is about (and Ms. Clark might contradict me) is marriage. I say that because most of the characters appear most often in conjunction with their spouses (or former spouses), in a series of more or less successfully--sometimes much less successfully--matched pairs. The story jumps from one to the other of these private dramas in succession. Delaney's not being married is one thing that sets her apart from all of this domesticity.

Actually, I was reminded of nothing less than Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage. Bergman's theme was the public face of a seemingly successful couple and how greatly that can differ from married life as experienced by the couple themselves, especially as the relationship unfolds over time. It struck me as curious that the purported heroine of As Time Goes By so often takes a back seat to these other characters. She is a Persephone surrounded by Zeus and Hera types, a circumstance that certainly underscores her "orphan" state. Maybe that's the point, but for me the pathos of her story paled somewhat in comparison to the theatrics of the married couples, which I found more entertaining.

I doubt if it was Ms. Clark's express purpose to throw the limelight onto a secondary character, but I was most interested in the relationship between Dr. Grant's former partner, Scott Clifton, and his spouse, Lisa, for whom the phrase "trophy wife" seems appropriate. Lisa has given up her successful pharmaceutical sales career to marry Dr. Clifton and is in the process of realizing how empty the relationship is when we first meet her. She first tries to save the marriage, but when she realizes it has all gone south and is not coming back, she calls up the movers and arranges to get her old job back. Nothing wrong with a can-do spirit; she is one of the few characters who refuse to be constrained by circumstance.

Undoubtedly, Ms. Clark was more interested in telling an entertaining tale than in anything else, but I found the way in which all of these married couples kept stealing Delaney's thunder to be so pointed that I had to wonder if the author was being at least slightly satirical. I can't say for sure. I went so far as to look at the author's picture on the back of the book, and she does strike me as a person who is fully in control of her material, so who knows, maybe she was pulling our leg a little bit. I also noted with approval how well-groomed, poised, and successful she appears, all good characteristics in any writer, and qualities to which we may all aspire.

Recipe Fail, Walking Shoes

The good news is I'm not at the Salvation Army; the bad news is I got excited about making a potato soup recipe from the Old Farmer's Almanac that turned out to be quite bland. I'm not sure if it was the chef's fault or the recipe's. I like potato soup, and it was an award-winning recipe, but somehow the sum of the parts added up to less than spectacular. Maybe I should have added parsley or used a different kind of potato, but thrift demands that I eat all of it, and so I am. I added a little cheese to it, which helped. Maybe I shouldn't say this, because I know bacon isn't good for you, but if ever there was a situation that cried out for bacon bits, that soup was it.

Despite the recipe fail, life goes on, interspersed with time spent applying for jobs, wondering about the future, and cleaning the bathroom. Almost every day, I see a job posting that I'm qualified for, and some of them I get excited about. Even the ones I don't get excited about are ones that I would gladly do because I see them as stepping stones to get where I want to go. I can honestly say that as frustrating as my job search has been, it has also been revealing. When I step back and look dispassionately at the types of jobs that intrigue me most, they are not what you might expect. Looking in one direction is just too limiting.

I've sometimes thought about how much fun it would be to have someone pay me to recommend books--I could be a one-person reader's advisory. You tell me a little about yourself and I'll tell you what I think you would like; thanks, that'll be $50. I actually have a decent track record of recommending books to people without charging them anything, but in times like these, you like to be compensated for your talents. I could also do movie reviews or free-lance dream analysis (strictly subjective, of course, but I think it often is). I could be a travel consultant; hand me a list of your hobbies and interests, and I'll tell you where to go. For an extra fee, I could tell you which books to take with you and how to pack everything you need for a three-week trip in just a tote bag.

Speaking of dream analysis, I took a nap on the couch this afternoon after doing my laundry and dreamed I was walking around the UCLA campus, talking to people. In the dream (as in real life), the campus was quite sprawling, and I was just getting to a part of it that looked familiar when I woke up. I don't know what brought this on, but I've been thinking about walking shoes a lot this week, so maybe that preoccupation carried over into my dream. I could almost see the campus library from where I was standing near the end--almost, but not quite. Is that an indication that my dream job will have something to do with books but may not be in quite the spot I was looking for? I don't know, but that's the kind of question I ask about those types of dreams, just in case you were thinking of hiring me.

There are times this week when I've been reminded of the anxious period I went through just before graduating from college. I was going to graduate school that fall, but graduation still felt like stepping off a cliff. So many people already had jobs and knew exactly where they were going, but the way ahead for me was much less clear. I didn't even know where I was going to be living that summer. As it turned out, I ended up with three part-time jobs and a roommate off campus who introduced me to an entirely new group of people. It was one of the most active and social times of my life, and it all took shape in the last couple of weeks before graduation. You never really know what's around the bend, and as anxiety-provoking as that can be, the seeds of positive change are sometimes already at work before you even know they're there.

If This Is a Movie, I Demand to See the Script

Yesterday I was taking a walk when I realized how tired I was, tired in an achy sort of way. I remember feeling much the same way at the end of the summer before my last semester of library school. That was a very intense term centered on two demanding classes, both of which required multiple projects and presentations; we were also adjusting to a move to the new campus library. At the close of the summer, after the final day of my assistantship, I walked home feeling completely washed out: I'd been holding in so much tension that all of my muscles were sore. It came on me all at once, as soon the last assignment had been turned in and the term was officially over. Rather than experiencing immediate relief, I felt like I was coming down with the flu.

I felt a bit the same way during my walk yesterday, though it was actually a beautiful afternoon. It's been a week of catching up on doctor's appointments, filling out applications for jobs and public assistance, figuring out who to call for what, and sitting in waiting rooms waiting for my name to be announced. Yes, I did say public assistance. With the costs of private medical insurance getting to be too much for me, I figured the least I would need would be a medical card in case none of my pending job applications yield results. Hence the doctor appointments--I decided it was best to get yearly exams, etc. done while I still have access to my regular doctors. I'm told that Medicaid is actually good insurance, but the patient is limited in the choice of physicians.

I can tell you that after looking into the welfare services available for people, I'm amazed at the stamina it takes to get yourself into the system. I was also surprised when I went out to the Human Services office at how healthy, well-nourished, and well-adjusted everyone was looking in the waiting room that day. This is not a snide way of saying that I think there were a lot of people there gaming the system. (I can think of a lot easier ways to provide for yourself than jumping through public assistance hoops--like working, for instance. Normally, it's much less draining.) No, it's just an observation, apropos of what I'm not quite sure.

Part of me felt like I was in one of those made-for-TV Lifetime Channel movies, in which some heart-wrenching but ultimately solvable drama plays out, peopled by adorable, big-eyed children, single mothers in desperate straits who still manage to be well-coiffed and color-coordinated, and unemployed men who look just a little too middle-class to be anything other than Hollywood equity. Is this a tribute to how well Kentucky is taking care of its needy citizens, or did I happen in on a day when the relatively well-off happened to make up a large portion of the client base? I'm asking an honest question, because I don't know. The thing is, I've seen needy people before, and this group did not resemble them. I could almost have been in the gate area of a major airport rather than in the welfare services department (and, hey, nobody was dragged away with a concussion and a broken nose either, so that's a plus).

I decided to plan for the worse case scenario (actual homelessness) just in case that's what happens, so I've been exploring as many options as possible. I can tell you that here in Lexington, people without resources often end up at the Salvation Army. While I certainly hope that doesn't happen to me, I tried to plan today for that outcome, wondering how long I could afford to keep my belongings in storage in case no one had room for them. It's certainly cheaper to pay storage costs than to pay rent, and some of the storage outfits even throw in moving trucks these days. I also started packing an imaginary suitcase, thinking about what I would need to have with me in a temporary shelter. Not a cheerful thought, perhaps, but one it's best to entertain ahead of time in the event of no job offers.

I have come to a few realizations over the last couple of weeks, or maybe it's more accurate to say confirmations of things I realized some time ago. One major realization is that I'm not so much discontented with where I am as discontented with my circumstances. I ditched one tentative plan to move to the West Coast (where there seem to be a lot of job openings of late) when I decided that not only was it too risky without a firm offer of employment but that I prefer to be in Kentucky. I've yet to see California roll out the red carpet for me jobwise (if they do, well, that's another story).

I still sometimes feel restless, as I've always liked traveling, but getting the PhD seems to have changed me. I seem to have more inside of me now so that wherever I am, I'm able to take a wider view of things. I noticed this when I was visiting my hometown the other day. When I was growing up, I wouldn't have been able to look at some of those streets with as much aesthetic appreciation as I have now. But times have changed, and so have I, and even if it's difficult for me to imagine living there again, I can appreciate a nicely restored house, an inviting porch, and a garden full of spring flowers.

The saga of Wordplay's long period of self-employment is still in progress, the outcome uncertain, so any of my interested readers will have to check back on the story as it unfolds here. I would like the last few years to have been vastly different than they were; at the same time, I don't see how they could have been. It is perhaps a case of "needs must," and in the end I may decide that this experience, too, has enlarged me in unexpected ways. I think I now have more understanding of people who stay for years in loveless marriages, watching as the years pass them by but deciding that they can't do anything other than stay the course. In the end, maybe, many of these people have few regrets either. I know very few people, for instance, who would go back and do things differently if it meant never having had their children.

Well, fellow mythologists, the word is that tough times don't last, but tough people do. My feeling is that, cliche or no cliche, this is probably right.

Ecclesiastes Says

You know what they say about the weather in Kentucky, right? "If you don't like it, wait five minutes." I've actually heard that other places lay claim to the same quip, and that I cannot attest to, but here, it's basically just a description of the facts--especially this time of year. Spring is very changeable.

Just the other day, I was covering up with sunscreen and turning on the air conditioning for a drive to Louisville on an absolutely gorgeous afternoon. The passing scene consisted of baby blue sky, greening fields, and redbuds, and the road was practically singing under the tires. Yesterday afternoon, while I was at home, intent on an online job application, a storm that looked to be God's answer to Job blew in and caught me almost unaware. While I was fixing dinner, all hell broke loose, if you picture hell as consisting of ominous rumbling, black skies, bilious light, and torrential rain. I was tending several pots on the stove when the noise caused me to look out, and it occurred to me that I might have to run for the closet, pasta or no pasta, if it got much worse. Things settled down later, but it turned cold overnight.

Today, I was back to my down jacket and gloves; there was a cold rain spitting intermittently, and spring seemed like a dream from another lifetime. I had the heat on in the car, and a turtleneck suddenly seemed like a great idea again. That's nothing, though. I have actually seen it snow in April (and once, long ago, even in May), so unless we get a blizzard, almost anything else is business as usual.

I should really be writing about the book I finished the other day, but I'm slightly exhausted by the effort I've put into job applications, so you'll have to excuse me for putting that off. Trying to discuss the ins and outs of Edith Wharton's love life seems a bit much under the circumstances, though the book was interesting and not what I was expecting. (I thought it was going to be like The Bostonians but it was more like The Paris Wife. OK by me.) I'm only too glad to be busy with applications, but what I would really welcome is results. It would be pretty ridiculous for a woman with several college degrees, numerous skills, and considerable personal charm to end up on public assistance, but that appears to be the direction I'm going in. Don't say I didn't warn you. (Yes, it is pretty weird.)

It looks like the weather is trending warm again starting tomorrow, and we should have a nice weekend. So much back and forth could be disconcerting for someone who isn't used to it, but most people around here are hip to the facts of Kentucky weather. You can go from one of those storybook days when it's almost impossible to wish yourself anywhere else to a lowering day of wet winds and chilling rain that makes you ask yourself "What am I thinking?" "Who ordered this?" in the mere blink of an eye. Oh, well, to everything there is a season--even unseasonable spring weather.

Goddesses in the Pages

Lately, I've had a pretty good run with finding entertaining books at the library. I seem to have a theme going--I've read three books in a row about women in difficult circumstances finding their way in the world. At least, two of them were on that theme, and I suppose you could count the last one, too. Although it was what I think is called a Regency romance and considerably more light-hearted than the other two, its heroine did bump up against a very rigid social structure; the humor in the story came from the way in which she consistently ignored attempts to bring her to account.

I found Maeve Binchy's A Week in Winter on a St. Patrick's Day display shelf celebrating Irish writers. I liked the only other book of hers that I've read, Nights of Rain and Stars, a story about a group of people vacationing in Greece, and the premise of A Week in Winter--a woman setting up a hotel on the west coast of Ireland--sounded promising. No War and Peace grand strokes, just a domestic drama about relationships, starting over, and figuring out how to make things work. The characters included several capable women whose disarming ability to overcome obstacles provided much of the impetus of the story. My only quarrel with the book was its structure, for having gotten to know the main characters, I was thrown off by the introduction of a whole new set of people, the first week's guests at the hotel, whose stories made up the last part of the novel. Do hotels like this really exist in the west of Ireland? If so, I'd love to go to one.

The second book I read was Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I believe I saw the first part of a PBS series based on this book some years ago, and I somehow had the impression that it was a more staid tale than either Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, but I didn't really have that right. It's the story of a woman escaping an abusive husband in a time and place that didn't make it easy for a woman to assert her rights. While it includes some harrowing episodes and many instances of the restrictions placed on women (and men) by Victorian society, it's surprisingly fresh and contemporary in its treatment of characters and relationships. Overall, it's a little less dark than either of the more famous works by Miss Bronte's sisters, having a more optimistic and even (at times) humorous outlook despite the seriousness of its theme. This novel should be better known than it is, I think.

Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy is much like the other two books I've read by this author: light, frothy, and entertaining, with an engaging heroine who does pretty much as she pleases just about all the time. Reading it so soon after the Bronte book was a study in contrasts as I thought about the nearly insurmountable difficulties faced by Helen Huntingdon in the latter compared with the ease with which Sophy Stanton-Lacy sails through life, driving her phaeton at a blistering clip through Hyde Park and rearranging the lives of everyone she comes in contact with. Well, they say it takes all kinds, and I believe it.

Heyer's book did have some ground to it: there's an affecting account of the illness of one Sophy's young cousins that brings the story down to earth a bit and an episode in which another cousin nearly comes to grief at the hands of a moneylender. I was surprised at the anti-Semitism expressed in the book. It may have been historically accurate, but it was jarring to see it so unabashedly displayed and was at rather at odds with the light-hearted tone of the story. And while there were some delightfully comical passages in the early part of the book (and some very droll characters), I will admit to liking Sophy better before she grazed her friend Lord Charlbury with a bullet, however good her intentions may have been. Also, the effect of a headstrong heroine is somewhat spoiled when she ends up being bossed around by her fiance. All of that strategizing and larking about, merely to end up a submissive wife? It was much more fun to watch her boss him around.

If I had to name presiding goddesses for each of these books, I would mention Hestia and Demeter for A Week in Winter (lots of descriptions of food and domestic comforts), Demeter and Persephone in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Helen embodies both of them), and Aphrodite (in a particularly mischievous bent) in The Grand Sophy. I'd gladly read more books by any of these authors and only wish Miss Bronte had been more prolific.