Snap Out of It

In the film, Moonstruck,  Nicholas Cage is smitten by Cher.  Their relationship cannot continue but Cage is still slobbering his affection for Cher.  Cher feels she has no recourse but to whack Cage across the face and say, "Snap out of it."

I just finished reading Scott Spencer's novel, An Ocean Without a Shore.  I've read several of his books and a number focus on unrequited love.  The protagonists in these novels, Endless Love, A Ship Made of Paper, are filled with longing for another who, for whatever reason is elusive. An Ocean Without a Shore is of the same ilk in terms of plot except the protagonist is a man and the object of his affection is also a man.  Otherwise it is a similar story.  The guy can't escape from his affections.  

I thought Endless Love was terrible. I only read it because it was heralded and I had read another Scott Spencer novel, Man in the Woods, which I thought was terrific.  After Endless Love I thought I would give Spencer another shot and read A Ship Made of Paper which was very good.  Then three years ago I picked up River Under the Road.  Also good.

While I felt like telling the characters in A Ship Made of Paper and An Ocean without a Shore, to--like Cher said to Cage--"snap out of it"  I highly recommend An Ocean without a Shore with my only reservation the repetitive story line.  That the character in A Ocean lusts after a man, as opposed to a woman in A Ship Made of Paper or Endless Love seems irrelevant--the point is the same.  Once you get hooked, according to Spencer, you're not going to get unhooked.  

Yet this book is much more than the story line.  Brief synopsis below that gives not much away.  Skip the next paragraph if you want to know nothing.

The same characters that appear in River Under the Road are back twenty or so years later in An Ocean Without a Shore.  Thaddeus and Grace live in a big house in Rhinebeck (which is called Leyden in the book).  They now have two kids, one in college and one a teen.  The book opens with Thaddeus calling Kip-a New York friend from the earlier book--because he needs money to keep the house.  

Essentially that is how the book launches. But what is special about the book is how Spencer creates dialogue and reactions from the main characters which seems so spot on.  He describes Thaddeus and then, whatever Thaddeus does and says from then on seems so precisely what Thaddeus would say or do or even how he would gesture. The reaction to Thaddeus and his parents, his interaction with his wife, his suspicions about his wife's affairs, his reaction to his kids' behaviors, I wanted to shake my head and say, how did you possibly capture this?  Then certain peripheral characters--a lawyer, the caretaker on the property, the parents, a rich neighbor, Kip's boss, Thaddeus's uncle--all have limited parts, but I felt like they were so real. Like I know them or know of people like them, and yes, that is how they would speak and react.

I get the sense from reading Scott Spencer that he got his heart broken but good as a young man.   I do think that at some point you stop commiserating with someone who can't let heartbreak go. Not suggesting you forget whom you love, but rather you should be able to make a piece of toast or have a pizza without running face first into a wall of longing.  But all that is an aside to why I recommend the book.  Spencer just nails relationships between friends, relatives, parents, and enemies.  I'd recommend reading A River Under the Road first, since this is really a continuation.  But An Ocean Without a Shore can stand on its own if you choose not to.  I read somewhere that this will be a trilogy and the way it ends I think the next book will be about the caretaker's wife-an unreconstructed free spirit.

The Husband

 There are people who like ice skating, not because of the points a skater may earn, but because of the aesthetic quality of the skating.  I feel similarly about gymnastics. When I watch gymnasts, I do not care a whole lot whether a subjective reviewer gives them a 8.9 or 9.1, I am just wowed by what these athletes can do.

I just completed a collection of short stories called, To Be a Man, by Nicole Krauss.  I'd read a positive review of the book somewhere and looked up the author.  Then I requested both the new collection and a novel she had written previously.  I did not think the novel--which came first--was, as my grandfather would say, so extra.  It was called Man Walks Into a Room.  I believe the current word used to describe my reaction to that book is, Meh.  About a week ago the anthology came through and I went to pick it up.

There are ten stories in the collection.  For the most part I do not think the stories are that profound, but the experience of reading the stories was akin to the experience I describe above when I marvel watching gymnasts. The author writes so well that I found myself stopping every so often to wonder how in the world she could have strung the sentences together in the way that she did.  

One of the stories is called "To Be a Man" and the book is named the same, though that story is not representative of the others nor is it in my opinion the best either because of the story or the writing.

The one that has stuck with me both because of how well it is written and the story itself is called, "The Husband."  I don't think my summary below gives much away as the story is not a suspense.  

A woman who is a psychologist lives in New York City with her two children.  She is divorced and grew up in Israel. Her mother still lives in Tel Aviv and her brother about twenty minutes away in Jaffa.  Her father died of a heart attack about five years earlier.  Regularly the mother and daughter speak on the phone, and on Fridays typically face time.  One day her mother calls at an unusual time to tell the daughter that she won't believe what has happened.  The daughter is not especially interested except the mother is eager to relay what has occurred. Someone from Social Services rang her apartment bell and asked to come up.  The mother, uncomfortable with a stranger coming up, asked for the business to be stated ahead of time. No, it was private, said the representative.

Eventually the mother says, okay.  And up comes the man from social services with a small elderly man who has a little brown cap.  The social services man is beaming, and says, well I bet you can tell now why I insisted on coming up. The mother said she is clueless, Well, look, he says, we found your husband.

This of course was ridiculous to both the mother and the daughter.  They keep referring to the little guy with the brown hat as The Husband even though the idea that the husband has been found is preposterous since the real husband/father is dead and buried.

The problem for the daughter is that the next time she calls the mother and asks facetiously how is the little husband (I may be blurring some incidents but this is the gist) the mother happily says, he's still around--and whispers conspiratorially--he's not so little.

Well, the daughter is flabbergasted and upset. She calls her brother who says he knows about it, but what is the big deal.  Mom kind of likes "the husband." But he's not the husband sputters the daughter.  The daughter can sense over the phone her brother shrugging "so, big deal."  After facetiming with her mother one Friday and sensing that the husband is in the apartment, she gives the phone as is customary to her 10 year old son and walks out of the room, only to come back in and hear that the husband is showing the kid card tricks.

It goes on from there and I'll stop the narrative, but the point seems to be that we become attached to people for reasons not so far removed from how the mother became attached to the husband. (You don't learn his name until near the end).  The daughter who is content, sort of, to be unattached from her children's father, finds the mother's quick connection with the husband worse than disconcerting.

The Husband is the longest short story in the collection--about forty pages  I may be doing justice to the events, but not how Krauss has presented them.  The writing is very far beyond meh. Really remarkable.  So, if you feel like being wowed with how someone writes I might suggest reading the stories. Not much novel in there, but even the Russian judges would rate the work close to a ten.

Shmutz Off

 A woman I know wanted to reverse a mistake she'd made decades before. So with the aid of her husband she set off to reverse it.  Together, they did.  I received a note a few hours later.

"Shmutz off."

Shmutz is the yiddish word for dirt.  To be shmutzik is to be soiled. 

On Wednesday afternoon as I saw Joe Biden take the oath of office, the two words that my woman friend and her husband sent me rocketed to my consciousness.  "Shmutz off."

I am not great at making political predictions.  This year, though, I was not too bad.  I could not imagine that any state other than the states that Trump had won in '16 would flip to Trump.  And I knew-as well as one can know--that the atypical factors that cost Clinton, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin would not be factors in 2020.  I also predicted that the two Democrats in Georgia would prevail in the runoff.  Trump lost Georgia by 12000 votes. The Georgia runoff was not about the candidates running. It was a referendum on Trump. Because of his undemocratic behavior after the election, I knew that while the Republican candidates might get all the voters who voted for Trump in November, they would not get many others. And I thought that other voters would come out to vote against Trump. 

I'll make some other predictions now, though I don't think you need to be a soothsayer to have such foresight.  The perceived magnitude of Trump's offenses while president and especially in the two months after he lost the election will not dissipate. The perceived magnitude and outrage will grow exponentially.  The extent of his complicity and the perceptions of his culpability regarding the 400,000 American COVID deaths will only increase.

Politicians who foolishly sucked up to Trump because they thought allegiance to him would be a ticket to reelection will distance themselves from the narcissist like someone racing away when they've seen a bear.  Spin doctors will be hauled in to try and reconstruct the erstwhile supporters' stained images.  Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are very very lucky that they do not come up for reelection for four years.  Hawley has as much chance of winning the 2024 presidential election as my father's aunt Tzivia.  Aunt Tzivia died during the Kennedy administration. The Republican congresspeople who signed on to the Supreme Court challenge, are already twisting themselves into pretzels muttering variations of Ralph Kramden's, Hometa Hometa Hometa.

We were stained for four years. Each monstrosity which we thought was the last straw, was topped by another last straw. The claiming that he could grab women by the pussy with impunity which we all thought was horrible--and it was--was rendered benign by the reference to countries as shit countries, snuggling up with a Russian tyrant, pissing on our allies, calling the free press "an enemy of the people", regularly ridiculing women journalists, disparaging the handicapped, attempting to blackmail Ukrainian officials, telling the American public that the COVID was a hoax--when he knew it was deadly, suggesting that knocking back some Chlorox might be a good way to deal with the virus; claiming that he won an election which he knew he had lost; calling up Georgia's attorney general and asking him to find 12,000 votes, and then inciting a riot to undermine our democratic process while gloating when the riot took place.

When I saw his plane leave, I was relieved. When lady Gaga sang the star spangled banner, I started to tear.  When Harris and then Biden took the oaths I felt a weight being lifted. I felt like I had taken a long hot shower after having spent time in the mud.

We've reversed an error that threatened to end this democracy.  He is gone. His followers will become smaller and smaller. We have rid ourselves of a foul stain.

Shmutz off.

We Are the Sentinels

 Every once in a while I will listen to some music that opens me up.  It is wonderful and, in a way, frightening.  Wonderful because it feels good to feel opened up. Frightening because it reveals what I may be suppressing.

I was thinking today about songs that are apt for the inauguration and the end of a national nightmare. Earlier, I thought of a song we used to sing when I was at summer camp.  It was called The Last Train to San Fernando.  I looked up the lyrics when I thought of the song, and apparently the song we would sing around the campfire had different lyrics than the original. 

The way we sang it, the refrain went:  "This is the last one. There'll never be another one. This is the last Train to San Fernando." At the end of the summer when many us were feeling sad because the camp was ending, we changed the lyrics.  On a Monday, we would sing, "This is the last one. There'll never be another one. This is the last Monday at Camp Chicopee." Then on Tuesday it would be same, until the final meal when we would croon, "this is the last breakfast at Camp Chicopee."

Well, we were sad then because of an end of an era. Now we are sad because we endured four years of an outrageous negligent era that has had, as a side effect, the needless death of 400,000 Americans. This is the last day of the nightmare.

Then I thought of the song from Les Mis: One Day More.  When I went on facebook I saw that a number of people had posted Youtube shots of that song's performance. "One more day. One day more."

Les Mis is so powerful; the story can open up the heart of anyone who has not cemented it shut.  One of my favorite songs is one that is actually sung by the bad guy.  Nevertheless, out of context at least, it is so powerful.  It often reminds me of my father, and then when my chest opens up, of opportunities missed.  

The song is sung by Jalvert, the bad guy, who is chasing Valjean, the good guy.  Jalvert, a cop of some sort, is chasing Valjean because Valjean once stole a loaf of bread and no minor offense is trivial for Jalvert.  So, the cop sings that he is going to do whatever it takes to bring Valjean to justice.  But if you can forget the plot for a moment, just think of some of the lyrics:  

Stars, in your multitudes, scarce to be counted. Filling the darkness with order and light. 

Stars, you are the sentinels; Silent and Sure. Keeping watch in the night. Keeping watch in the night.  

You know your place in the sky. 

You hold your course and your aim. 

And each in your season. Return and return, and are always the same.

The song reminds me of my dad because he did, when I was a kid and even when I was an adult, fill the darkness with order and light. He was a sentinel for his sons;  knew his place in the sky, held his course and his aim, and kept watch in the night.

The song is apt for today, though, because we all--in a democracy and for all humankind--are the sentinels. It is we-ordinary folks--it is our job whether we like it or not, to fill the darkness with order and light.  It is we--ordinary folks--it is our job to find and know our place in the sky, to hold our course and our aim, and keep watch in the night.

The soon to be ex president was elected on a fluke. People did not think he would win so they stayed home; he lost the popular vote by millions, and despite the electoral tally just eked through because he won three states by tiny margins.   This time, when we, the sentinels, acted the soon to be ex president--a narcissistic solipsistic, dissembler--lost all three of these states, and also lost two other states that had not voted for a Democrat in nearly two generations. And lost by 8 million popular votes.

The good news is that it is soon over.  The good news is that for a spell at least, my heart opened up this afternoon listening to music.  The bad news is that we are, indeed, the sentinels and we need to stay active,  and hold our course and our aim. Maybe that is good news too. Maybe that is what keeps our hearts open.

This is the last one. There'll never be another one. This is the last train ride with a national nightmare. 

COYOTE

It may seem otherwise (if you've been reading my blogs of late), but I don't only read the obituaries when I pick up the newspaper.

Since the election my first stop in the newspaper is to read the political stories.  In the last few days, these have amounted to obituaries, it is true, for the current president.  My sense is that Trump's stock will plummet like a boulder in a bathtub after Wednesday, and it is already near the bottom of the tub.   

After I read the political news, I tend to go to the sports pages.  Only then do I turn my attention to the obituaries. Today that was an easy thing to do since the obits in today's Globe followed the sports pages, an appropriate juxtaposition for those who were cheering yesterday for the Cleveland Browns and New Orleans Saints.

The obit that caught my attention was for a woman named Margo St. James.  She, a former prostitute, had been the founder of COYOTE (Call OFF Your Old Tired Ethics).  The organization was a union for sex workers--what St. James called a loose union of women when she was serious, or a union of loose women when she was kidding around.  

St. James was born in 1937 so a decade at least before the sexual revolution got a foothold.  Her career as a prostitute began in a curious way.  She had been arrested for prostitution when she insisted she was not engaged.  According to the obit, she told the judge that she never had turned a trick in her life. The judge opined that since she knew the language, she must have been a professional.  Well, St. James showed that judge.  She went to law school, got the conviction overturned, and then became a professional in order to pay for tuition.  She never finished law school, but became active on behalf of sex workers. She even ran for public office. During the campaign for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, she claimed to "have the support of the bohemians, the old hippies, the gays.....and the longshoremen, the veterans, and the politicians."  Not sure how many of the longshoremen, veterans, and politicians were eager to support her claim.

I found this story of St. James very interesting. To buck the status quo in this regard, particularly when she did, was to display more courage than to fight against her.  She wanted better health benefits, legal rights, and financial security for sex workers.  She argued that sex workers provided a service demanded by society--like someone doing your nails or your hair.

When I came home for holiday breaks in college, my aunt would ask me at family gatherings if I was a hippie.  "You're not a hippie, are you?" She would say.  My standard response was, "What's a hippie?"  I'm not an iconoclast for sport, but I do admire people who poke holes in conventions. Why should a sex worker become a pariah, while a professional liar can be lauded for business acumen.  I am reminded of a ribald limerick.  "There was a young lady from Reno//Who lost all of her dough playing Keeno//But she developed a knack//while she lay on her back//And now the lass owns the casino."  From what I read in the obituary for Margo St. James, the founder of COYOTE would have approved the rhyme. Perhaps she wrote it.  Prostitution is an entrepreneurial endeavor.  Like selling liquor, cheesecake, Victoria's Secret underwear, hats, stationery, smart phones, laundry detergent, or viagra.

We have a president now who has lied to the American public for four years, tried to overturn an election, has supported white supremacist organizations, and incited crazies to storm the capital.  Seventy four million people voted for him.  A little love for St. James is in order.

the people across the street

 Before I bought this house, I rented the house next door.  I became friends with the couple who lived in this house.  When they moved I bought their house. 

Across the street from the original house I rented, lived a mother and her daughter. They were remarkably reclusive and predictable.  Every Sunday the daughter would walk the 3/4th of a mile to get the Sunday Globe. Every Saturday they would go shopping.  They would always, always back their car into the driveway.  If you lost your calendar you would know what day it was when the groceries came out of the car.

Our first encounter was not pleasant. I'd noticed that their mail had not been deposited thoroughly into their mail box. I went across the street to pick up some letters and put them in.  A few hours later there was a knock on my door. I was told by the daughter that she did not appreciate my handling their mail.

But that was just the first meeting. Since then, in the thirty years since I've lived on the block we were on friendly terms on the rare occasions when we saw each other.  At first, the mother and daughter were meticulous with the bushes that were in front of their home and the leaves in the fall. They were out there cleaning the driveway in the snow. Then over the years, they stopped being so careful. 

Maybe twenty years ago we exchanged holiday cards.  I am not sure who started it, but I think it was they.  And they even asked about Pumpkin, our now late cat, in the greetings.  

I had gotten to know their next door neighbor better. And once when the neighbor was in the hospital I went to visit, and learned that the mother of the two people across the street was also in the hospital. So, I went to visit her as well.  There, in a half hour visit, she spoke more words to me than she had in a decade. The number of ailments she had endured startled me. And the detail with which she described the various procedures was similarly stunning.  

I learned that the daughter was actually about my age though she looked years older.  I did not know the details but there had been some difficult times--not sure of the source.   

 Donna told me that she had spoken with the daughter, Janice, one day this past year and learned that her mother had recently died.  I probably had not seen the mother outside her home in five years.

Whenever Janice was outside she would wave hello to me when we were taking out or bringing in the garbage.  I saw her a few weeks back shoveling snow and I could not get her attention.  We did bump into each other in March or April shortly after COVID awareness became what it became.  It must have been early on because I don't think either of us had on a mask and Janice told me something about the origins of the virus that became common knowledge by May at least.  She made a joke about us staying six feet apart. We both were in the park. I was taking my constitutional walk and she was returning from what seemed to me to be atypical exercise.  Did see her again once just a week or so ago doing a walk, but I did not approach her--and regret it now.

A firetruck and ambulance were outside her home a week ago.  We heard she had taken ill and gone to the hospital.  I noticed that there was, for her, a great many garbage cans out in front of her house this past Friday.  I did not think that was good. 

Around noon today we saw a car in front of the house. Later Donna went out and spoke with a couple coming out of the house.  Janice had died the day she was taken to the hospital.

My first reaction to the news was something like--"But I just saw her shoveling snow. She was out in the park around New Years"

  It makes me sad to think about her.  Always sad when someone dies, but she had not had--it seemed to me--much of a life.  I wonder if after her mother died, whatever nourishment she got from the living arrangement was gone.  

Hey Janice, I wish I had flagged you down in the park a few weeks back, and come over when you were shoveling in December. I wish I had banged on your door to see how you were doing now and again. 

Meredith Anding

 I read the Globe yesterday and found myself--as is not atypical--looking through the obituaries.  I scanned the small entries and then went to the page where national figures of some note are eulogized.  I was taken aback when I saw a headline for a person named Meredith Anding.

In the mid 70s I worked with a fellow named Meredith Anding.  How many Meredith Andings could there be?  I started reading the obituary and thought that this is not the Meredith I knew.  First of all, the Meredith I knew was the head of the Math unit in the Learning Center at the University of Buffalo. I worked in the Communication unit and, since the Center was small enough, knew Meredith well enough.  

The person in the obituary was a Mississippi civil rights activist and leader. He was a member of a group called the Tougaloo Nine.  I'd never--I'm a bit embarrassed to write--heard of the Tougaloo Nine.  In 1961 a group of nine students at Tougaloo College were upset because the library that blacks were allowed to visit in Jackson Mississippi did not have the kind of selection that the whites only library in Jackson had. The nine students went to the blacks only library and asked for books they knew were not there.  Then they went to the whites only library and staged what was called a "read-in".  They sat in the library and despite being asked to leave, remained seated until they were arrested.  The 'read-in" was described in the obituary as the "first student protest of segregation at a public institution in Mississippi."   The students were arrested.   

This couldn't be the same guy.  The man I knew was a soft spoken fellow who always showed up to work with an old fashioned briefcase, the kind I was saddled with as a third grader that was bigger than me.  He was hardly a boastful fellow though he had, from accounts from my colleagues, a good deal to boast about. The Math unit was one of the stronger ones in the Learning Center. He not only coordinated the program, but supervised the instructors who taught Math for the Center.  

There was a photo of the civil rights leader that accompanied the obituary and that Meredith Anding looked leaner than the man I knew. Plus the man in the photo had white hair which, for those of us who are fortunate to have hair at all, is what happens to hair when you are eligible for full social security benefits.  

I continued reading the obituary and nearly jolted from the chair when I read that civil rights activist Meredith Anding had in the late 60s or early 70s moved from Mississippi to Buffalo, New York where he completed graduate studies in Math and subsequently taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Ye gods.  It was the same Meredith Anding!  I started looking him up on Google and there were mug shots of him after he had been arrested for reading in a library.

The Wikipedia entry includes the following:  

"Unlike the Freedom Riders, Friendship Nine, and Little Rock Nine, the Tougaloo Nine are not as well known historically. Sammy Bradford, one of the Tougaloo Nine, said on the occasion of the read-in anniversary: "It seems that everybody is being celebrated and praised for their fine work except the very people who launched the civil rights movement against some of the greatest odds ever faced by man or beast. I'm not saying that the Tougaloo Nine should be rolled out like world-conquering heroes in a ticker-tape parade every year, but they should at least be acknowledged, along with many others, whenever a purported celebration of civil rights activities in Mississippi takes place."  

Yes, they should.  I do not remember anyone at the Learning Center ever mentioning Meredith's past.  There were several occasions when the unit leaders would be introduced and I have to think I would have recalled a reference to his activism, if it had been mentioned.

Meredith Anding was only 79 when he died of leukemia on the 8th of January. I don't want anyone to ever write my obituary because that would mean that I would be dead--an event I do not look forward to.  However, it would be good if after I am gone I will have made a dent in the world as this quiet courageous man did in Mississippi and then again as a Math Instructor at the University of Buffalo.