"There's a show going down
tonight
It's the hottest show in town
Down to that Gypsy Cafe
Where the freeway turns around
Once a week or so you know
These people show up to play
And they're gonna be stars someday
They're gonna be stars someday!"
This morning I heard this guy on the radio who's music evoked those days. Amos Lee says he used to drive an hour to perform at an Open Mike venue in suburban Philly before Blue Note, a jazz label, signed him. Amos is no rookie. He carries his own polish that smells faintly of the stale beer and cigarette smoke-infused shag carpeting that decorates every Open Mike venue and sticks to more than the lining of the performer's guitar case.
Those of us who performed there mostly performed for each other. Some of us mugged for the mike, affecting Dylan, Donovan, Baez, or Buffy Saint Marie. Others closed our eyes to make ourselves invisible and invulnerable. Some had practiced long and hard while still others borrowed a guitar to perform. Someone always revived All Along The Watchtower. One crowd pleaser suffered from what I labeled John Fahey poisoning, finger-picking double time. There were dubious duets, sacrificial solos, soft rock, hard folk, and most everything inbetween.
I was a 'single acoustic artist,' or so my agent labeled me. A click above most in dedication and in skill AND I performed exclusively my own stuff. Never a cover. Rarely a stumble. I practiced a lot, long into the long evenings between.
I was, as Amos Lee labeled them, a jotter. I walked late night streets looking for inspiration, moving to the cadence of my boots, trusting my eyes, returning to try something by ear, then building up the story, the melody, and the hook. Eventually the tune would become performable or not, my inept transcription never withstanding. Never could, never did figure out notation.
Amos Lee reminded me of those sweet, tough days, the days before I learned to play this different-shaped guitar I play for you today. No Gypsy Cafe now. No enthusiastic scraggly half long hair setting the stage. They've outlawed stale cigarette smoke in public places and stale beer has become India Stale Ale. Those old men in short-sleeved dress shirts and straw dress hats no longer smoke sullenly in the back of the bar invaded once each week by kids seeking stars. And those world-weary kids we were, who in the hell even knows where we are now?
Here's to The Last Exit on Brooklyn and the Little Red Rooster, to Clinkerdagger's, The Mordor, and that place they tore down (what was its name?) to build that medical office building. All gone now. Everyone gone.
Here's a link to the sound we were all trying to make back then.
HereSo pleased and inspired to be transported back home again. Thank you Amos Lee!
Last Tuesday, Amy and I convened a conversation. Sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce to bring the business community together to consider: Surviving the downturn.
To our surprise, most reported no loss of lift, no panic. No one wore a barrel.
How does one take the temperature of a town? I'd spent the morning waiting with my dad while my mother was injected, inspected, reflected, and ultimately rejected for now: no obvious cause. Scheduled for continuing tests. Conclusions inconclusive.
Life, being holographic, presents herself in various equivalent disguises. Where ever I go, there she is. The phantom hitchhiker. "Say, isn't that the same woman we passed a hundred miles back?" Rod Serling authors every life.
So we convened, listening more than facilitating. Prepared to be changed by what we heard. What DID we hear? The conclusions inconclusive. More tests coming.
How to represent what we heard? One way is a word cloud- see above graphic. Another is word jazz, where the sound and shape and meter carry as much meaning as the words: see below-
I sat on the bar while Amy roamed. Almost twice the expected number arrived for con-ver-sa-tion. In a room unsuited to our purpose, we listened.
We convened. They did the talking.
How’s your business been impacted? Most said not at all. A couple claimed to call their clients, rather than drive to reach them now. One does her rounds on a Harley claiming that improves relationships. We’re all in the relationship business. How will we stay connected now? Here’s a tip: Fewer trips.
Real Estate professionals crowing: lots of inventory, prices fairly steady, though it is a buyer’s market now.
Tim Larkin reported that, when bank stocks went south, $100 million evaporated from this valley. This was mostly investment money, so no one’s missing meals except, perhaps those who rely upon donations from the better heeled and the restaurants might feel the pinch of people pinching penny stocks—so recently, real equity—and suddenly feeling poor.
On the other hand, fat commodity prices offset the markets here. The farmers haven’t made this much cash in a generation.
Then there’s the wine. Fine, we agreed, but not an economy.
Investors from West of the mountains are turning homes into “properties.” (That’s not much of an economy, either.)
And the construction workers at the Mall renovation left town until their payroll starts again. Where’d it go? No one knows.
Is the wolf at the door?
Focus now on value. Maybe the recession is only headline news. Stop watching the news and maybe we can choose to let the downturn pass our valley by.
Afterwards, quiet words:
“I think these people are delusional! In denial!”
“It’s early in the cycle yet.”
“This is all Jimmy Carter’s fault!”
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Charmed, I’m
sure.”
Years ago now, more than a decade ago, I sat with JR Clark in a conference room one long, long, very long Santa Clara afternoon. We were in deep dialogue about the nature of prescriptions, recipes, and process descriptions. We shifted through what Betty Crocker could teach us in her test kitchens, and concluded that the best we'd get there would be replication. We considered what might happen if we were to go looking for a recipe for innovation --- and what we might find if we found it, and found little opportunity for replication there. And we also pondered what might happen if we mistook a Betty Crocker-quality recipe (one thoroughly proven in her test kitchens) for something useful in a situation demanding innovation. This produced The Recipe For Not Doing The Impossible, complete with manic cycles of hopefulness and despair.
We found The Recipe for Doing the Impossible, though Betty would certainly find it wanting. This recipe is of an entirely different order than any recipe Betty might publish. Its main ingredients, as summarized above, are ignorance of what to do, meticulous attention to the way things are, and clarity about what in the world you want to end up with. Finding the ability to act (to wrest the inertia of motion from the inertia of rest) completes the ingredients. Unlikely. Betty should be disappointed in our work.
JR's gone now. So, I suspect, is that conference room. The recipe lives on. Unbelieved by many. Unlikely as it seems. It remains the stuff that stands between aspiration and the seen.
Cryptic enough?
I commented that I agreed with Commissioner Clark, the flagpole IS out of scale and that it should not have been allowed to be built for aesthetic reasons. That the sponsors seemed to have mistaken size of the monument for the size of the feelings it represents. (A common male problem for which no handy blue pill has been devised.) I said that I preferred to keep my patriotism in my pocket. The Colonel looked up at me from across the table, as if I just didn't get it. (You see, to his mind erecting the grossly out of scale flagpole was a win for the forces of the right. To my mind it was the equivalent of someone painting their house bright purple to show that they are free to paint their house purple. Most people who pass by will not celebrate the painter's freedom, but question his sanity---or at least his taste). The Colonel asked, "So, you didn't serve?" To which I answered, as I slipped out to the kitchen to help Amy dish up the mango and sticky rice dessert, "No."
The conversation swerved back into less controversial territory when we returned, but my response bothered me then and has been poking at me since. Did I serve? I thought then, and still think today, that service is an important part of citizenship. I shovel my neighbor's walk. When I was drafted, I refused to appear because I had been denied my due process under the law, an oversight the local draft board acknowledged by inviting me to appear before them and plead my case. My case for being designated a non-military conscientious objector. A case I apparently successfully argued, since I was designated 1-CO, or whatever the military designation was at the time. (Thanks in no small part to a raft of patriots who wrote letters supporting my case, including Federal District Court Judge Dale Green --- one reason I attended his memorial last year).
My service was to be two years of service changing bed pans in an approved military hospital at less than minimum wage. The regulation governing my service required me to move at least sixty miles from my designated home, Walla Walla, to work in an approved military facility. The rub was that I had to find such a facility that was willing to hire me.
The following three years were my service. They included writing letters to approved facilities seeking employment and proving to the draft board that I was diligently seeking such work. It was kinda like being on unemployment except it didn't pay anything and it prevented me from actually being employed or going to school, because I could at any time be selected to move myself somewhere to change bed pans. I worked casual labor, day jobs like shoveling out horse stalls (a job for which I had to wear a friend's short hair wig because the labor contractor wouldn't hire long hairs.) I learned a lot about holding unpopular convictions.
No one ever responded to any of my requests for employment. Finally, Ford did away with the draft and my obligation evaporated. Did I serve? Well, I managed to prevent one person from getting ground up in that senseless folly called the Vietnam War. I proved that this is a country sometimes ruled by law and not jingoism. I proved that a man could stand on principles, and learned that if he did, he might well have to stand alone.
Even today, when a veteran asks if I served, I usually opt for the short answer, and just say, "No." I wonder why I do that.
I served to show that our might can be found in something other than our readiness to fight. To give peace a real chance, an alternative we forfeit whenever we decide to wage war. Whomever the adversary. Whatever the situation. Mine was not an uncourageous choice. It brought with it uncataloged inconvenience. It was my choice, choice being the principle democracy thrives upon.
I wonder in my lucid moments how military service would have worked had others who served been offered the same terms I'd been offered. Compelled to serve, but also compelled to find an outfit willing to have you serve with them. Pay your own transportation to get there.
Find your own housing and pay for it, along with food et al, out of a salary, a fraction of the minimum wage. I wonder how many other's service would have been spent failing to find anyplace to serve. It's an interesting idea.
So, I conclude that I did serve. To demonstrate that the ideals this country was founded to preserve have been preserved. No medals to line the bottom of my sock drawer (I like that) and no public recognition of the dedication to principle (I like that, too), and, importantly for me, no bragging rights. I keep my patriotism in my pocket. It fits comfortably there. I don't wave red (or even red, white, and blue) flags because they incite bullies, offend friends, and misrepresent the quiet confidence that anyone living in a representative democracy really should have. I believe that our public square now overwhelmed by that Tinkertoy flagpole was better without it, when the citizens used to gather there to dance on summer evenings. And that service is a principle one must choose to satisfy.
God Bless Us, everyone. Especially those who disagree with us. Pray that we learn to love our enemies as ourselves, for the alternative seems to insist that we hate ourselves so that we might hate our enemies.
What about WWII? A time of insanity, induced, perhaps by the Peace To End All Peace armistice "ending" WWI, which was fought to defend honor, but sacrificed all honor. WWII rose out of a sort of payback. Cut off the opposition, squeeze the loser. Before the Germans chose evil, they were desperate, hopeless, rendered powerless. Had we treated them with respect following the mutual humiliation in the trenches, what reason would they have had to militarize? The French, between the wars, saw the whole thing coming. The British pacifists insisted upon getting their pound of emaciated flesh by collecting reparations. WWII stands as a testament to the ultimate cost of humiliation. Everyone loses.
The war itself was neither masterfully planned nor competently executed. It was a mud wrestle, the outcome more ruled by chance and brutality than clever strategy. More innocents died than designated combatants. A lot of unnecessary engagements occurred simply because armed forces were available to fight. Many of the South Pacific battles were unnecessary and terribly costly, but they made good PR at the time.
I will argue that there are more effective ways to defeat terrorism than send armies out to fight it. Many of our allies concur. They are not fighting it with overwhelming military might because in their calculation, military might has little effect in such conflicts. One might co-opt insurgencies, but never in the history of the world so far, militarily defeat one. This humbling fact might well encourage a less militaristic, more strategic response, though it might encourage criticism from people so used to hammering every opponent that every one automatically looks like a nail.
Detractors dismissed this Regan-era notion as a physical impossibility: like shooting a bullet with a bullet. In recent years, their argument has changed. Any enemy firing an ICBM would camouflage the warhead with decoys, making the challenge more like stopping a shotgun blast with a shotgun blast.
Fine, but couldn’t we zap them during the boost phase, before they deploy decoys? In 2003, a study group of top scientists from MIT, Cornell, Stanford, Sandia Labs, and Los Alamos were convened by the American Physical Society to examine the physical reality of shooting down an ICBM during that most vulnerable boost phase. They concluded that our interceptors are not fast enough to reach boosting ICBMs from either international waters or neighboring countries. Further, any enemy merely shifting from liquid to shorter burn-time solid fuels would render any boost-phase interception unlikely, no matter where or how interceptors are based.
What about airborne lasers? “Ineffective against solid-propellant ICBMs." Sea-launched missiles would have to be "positioned within a few tens of kilometers of the launch location of the attacking missile." They concluded that, with technology available within the next fifteen years, defending against a single ICBM would require a thousand or more interceptors. A shotgun blast to hit a bullet. We have twenty one interceptors left after shooting down that errant spy satellite.
What did we prove when we zapped that tumbling satellite? Given a few weeks for planning and a few additional off-budget millions, we can nail a bus-sized bit of defenseless space junk.
Why do such follies exist? Check the map of congressional districts blessed with contracts to build components.
Then ask, "Who will defend us against ourselves?"
The Republican Party will be moving from the White House to take up long-term residence in a well-deserved dog house. Unlike Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Mark-My-Territory Bush could not be accused of conducting anything like a civil war during his tenure, and it might well be two hundred years before any Republican, regardless of pedigree, has a prayer of being elected President again.
Against this backdrop, it’s distressing to watch pit bull conservatives nip the heels of their lead sled dog, Mr. McCain, for not being yellow enough! It doesn’t matter how yellow he is now. If he’s running as a Republican, he can’t win!
A few of the more feral Republicans are rooting for Hillary’s nomination, reasoning that she’s one unelectable, um, mother. But under the Yellow Dog Rule, it doesn’t matter who the Dems nominate this time around. The leash has been passed.
While it might well be that Mr. Bush’s enduring legacy will be to ensure the electability of any yellow dog running in the Dems’ pack, there are no dogs running under that label this cycle. While most of us would vote for a yellow dog rather than any Republican, we won’t have to this time.
Whomever the
candidate, whomever the running mate, there will be no fleas
joyriding on the Dems’ ticket this year. Let’s
fumi-gate the infested halls of Congress, liberate the soiled
copies of the Constitution from the floor of the West Wing, and get
on with the business of the people for the next century or
two.
“I haven’t a chance to make a difference, unless it’s falling slow.”
“Just keep trying!” I hear d a voice encouraging her on,
“One never knows until it snows, ‘though your chances DO seem long
That anyone as small as you could ever slow the storm.
But unless you try, I can’t say why, you know you’ll never know.”
“But it just seems so hopeless!!” the child’s small voice replied.
“They’re stinging my nose and biting my toes,” that young one almost cried.
And I felt her frustration and thought I’d intervene,
“Who is this toad who likes to goad an innocent, unseen?”
Then in a spark of wisdom, I glimpsed the human fate
To stand against impossible odds, convinced it’s not too late
to catch enough from far too much and find a foothold there.
Even there! Even thin air could prove essential stuff.
So I held my tongue and stood my ground and furtively glanced around
Wondering if she would catch the drift of the wonder I had found.
Her chore was surely hopeless, like everyone’s it seems,
And yet under just such impossible odds, wonder’s usually seen .
12/25/07
One popular local strategy undermines. Rather than helping officials leverage their power to serve your interests or taking their power for yourself, this approach diffuses their power by defaming it. No need to painstakingly work through issues or risk personal injury.
This
scenario is a seductive alternative for anyone feeling
disenfranchised. But it requires some skill, lest the slinger end
up with more mud on themselves than on their
target.
First, create yourself a “special interest
group.”
Next, claim to speak for the community. Name it something
like “Citizens for Good Grievances.” (Stay anonymous!
Termites work invisibly!)
Next, assume the worst. Firmly believe their perspective
isn’t just different, but evil.
Then, start peppering them with double binds. If you simply ask
answerable questions, you’ll make no headway at all. The
questions must elicit guilty responses. Not “How do you care
for your dog,” but “When will you stop beating your
dog?” See the difference?
If they respond that they’re not beating their dog,
it’s evidence of a deeper denial than even you could have
imagined (or so your next letter to the editor will say.) If they
respond that they’ve already stopped, they indict themselves
for having beaten. If they do not respond, their silence will
become your gold! However they respond, they’re guilty as
you’ve charged!
You’re best advised to keep them focused on fixing the past.
Lawsuits can help here. No one can actually fix the past, but
keeping government focused upon fixing the past helps demonstrate
their incompetence and prevents you from having to propose
anything.
Keep your distance as you sling. Do not get to know those people as
fellow humans, for this will surely undermine your efforts.
Remember, you can sling forever if you insist that their opinions
are evil, not just different.
Properly done, you’ll create a pit where government cannot
make a move without clogging its cleats with your anonymous mud.
You might not get what you want, but you’ll disable their
ability to do anything. Decent payback for such a small
investment.
The result won’t be good government, but great
grievances.
Is this good enough for us?
You might not have noticed. Not much media coverage of this latest erosion of freedom.
But last Tuesday, the President asserted, in rather broad language, the right of the US Government to freeze "all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,
(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:
(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or
(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;"
Why is this particular proclamation so chilling? Well, "violence" isn't defined, but to be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense. I could see an interpretation where the Congress, in attempting to cut funding for the war, might well seem to be threatening the peace or stability of Iraq and/or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction.
As near as I can determine, The White House is satisfying both (A) and (B) above.
This feels like a huge step over the line. I imagine that this proclamation will allow foreign funds in banks with US subsidiaries to be frozen in retaliation. When the military tactics draw a stalemate, bring on the economic sanctions.
We face daunting odds in Iraq. Many professional soldiers say that we lost this war some time ago, and that we’re just trying to accept this fact now.
But anyone who’s ever watched the television show Deal or No Deal knows that people don’t always approach uncertainty with a clear head. Something about the tiniest promise of reward can motivate a naive gambler to hold ‘em way too long.
An article entitled Why Hawks Win, by Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon in the January/February 2007 issue of Foreign Policy Magazine, looks to science to explain why, when facing nearly certain loss, decision makers so often choose to risk even more. Their explanation:
“Option A: A sure loss of $890.
Option B: A 90 percent chance to lose $1,000 and a 10 percent chance to lose nothing.
In this situation, a large majority of decision makers will prefer the gamble in Option B, even though the other choice is statistically superior. People prefer to avoid a certain loss in favor of a potential loss, even if they risk losing significantly more. When things are going badly in a conflict, the aversion to cutting one’s losses, often compounded by wishful thinking, is likely to dominate the calculus of the losing side. This brew of psychological factors tends to cause conflicts to endure long beyond the point where a reasonable observer would see the outcome as a near certainty. Many other factors pull in the same direction, notably the fact that for the leaders who have led their nation to the brink of defeat, the consequences of giving up will usually not be worse if the conflict is prolonged, even if they are worse for the citizens they lead.”
The bi-partisan Iraq Study Group advised, after thoroughly evaluating our dilemma, that this conflict could not be resolved with military might. Diplomacy, perhaps, but not military might.
After a few frenzied weeks of investigation, our president has decided to ignore reasonable advice and up the ante, saying that we absolutely must win, that failure is not an option.
Every experienced gambler knows that when failure is not an option, it becomes an imperative. As Kenny Rodgers said, “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em.”
Time to fold ‘em.
Me, being four and feeling tough
Decided, if just to assert my best,
To challenge old Santa to a little contest.
I’d heard he was “a right jolly old elf,”
and chose to confirm this my own little self.
Please note that I am no slouch with a joke,
‘Least I always am endlessly ‘musing my folks.
So I crept down the stairway when they’d gone to bed
And hid between presents, saying nary a word.
I dozed intermittently, though I had not intended
To miss the bright moment when Santa descended.
In the wee little hours, I’d drooled down my front
but hadn’t been dreaming when I first heard a bump,
Followed by a rustle, a shuffle, and a “dang!”
As Santa untangled himself from the screen.
Mommy says to always close the fire up tight
So sparks won’t jump out and commence to ignite
The stockings we’d hung by the chimney, I care
And don’t want to burn the place down unaware.
So Santa seemed sour as he set to his work,
Severe concentration like some kind of jerk.
He would never, ever have seen me there
If I hadn’t decided to give him a scare.
“Boo!”, I exclaimed as I hopped into sight
“Good Lord!” he replied, “You just gave me a fright!
What’s a small boy like you doing downstairs
On this cold Christmas morning,” he sternly stared.
“I have to see just how jolly you are,”
I said as I peeked into his bag standing there.
“I’m a little bit hassled, a little behind
And I’d chat more with you if I felt I had time.”
“A-Ha!” I rebuked as I stood up quite tall,
“You’re not a little bit jolly at all.
You look like a grown-up and sound like one, too.
I was pretty sure I was going to be jollier than you.”
“Jollier than me?” Santa considered.
He had to admit that his focus had frittered
Most of his jollyness out of his soul
and replaced it with nothing but responsible goals.
He rose to the challenge and stuck out his belly
And began to distend it till it did shake like jelly!
Never one to lie down in the face of a challenge
I hopped up two stairs and took careful balance
Then pooched out my tummy as far as it went
And wobbled mine back and forth, back bent.
Santa’s old face lit up like a spark
And he started laughing at me in the dark.
“You’re jolly,” he praised, as he looked down at my gut
“And you’ve reminded me I’d fallen into a rut.
My real job isn’t about meeting deadlines for toys.
It’s supposed to be focused on delivering joy!”
“You’ve helped me, my lad,” Santa said with a grin
“And you’ve won this year, but next year I’ll win.”
Then he quietly opened the fireplace screen
And rose up the chimney, jollier it seemed.
By the following Christmas, I’d lost some of my joy
And forgot to remember to challenge that boy
But when I came down on that next Christmas morn,
The living room seemed most uncommonly warm.
I never saw Santa again in my life
Though I’m sure he’s appearing each Christmas Eve night
There’s this warmth in the living room, fresh and clean
In spite of the fireplace’s not-quite-closed screen.
12/20/06
david
So fools Rush in where no self-respecting Angel would stoop to tread and proclaim that if we stay this course, Christmas will be dead.
Dead?
If solstice is a time of peace and Hanukkah a time of joy, and Christmas a time of wonderment, what weapon could its enemies deploy? Proclaiming a war on Christmas, Christ, this just doesn’t qualify. ‘Cause Christmas can’t be lost or won unless we accept a lie: That Christmas lives in ritual, in trees and songs and toys, instead of in the beating heart of every girl and boy.
The war on the war on Christmas seems the sorriest campaign, with nothing much to win or lose, meant only to inflame. So peace on Rush, O’Reilly, too, and any other one who fears that the threat of legal action might somehow singe their goose.
There is no war on Christmas! This war is a swindler’s lie. Intended, I guess, to steal the best this season might imply. So, should you feel mistreated, belittled, or behind, chase the Devil whispering in your ear back to the cold outside. Then warm yourself with whatever faith fuels your flaming Tao and have yourself a merry little whatever-you-wanna-call-it now.
May the spirit of this season dissolve this battle line. ‘Cause no one can steal the holiday you’re holding safe inside.
Happy Holy Days.
The November 30 Washington Post reported, “The [Iraq Study Group] findings dovetail with recommendations being considered by the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are conducting their own review of Iraq policy.”
The Post continues, “President Bush said earlier this fall that he looked forward to receiving the study group's report to bring fresh perspective to the Iraq crisis. But as some of the options under consideration began to leak out, the White House also ordered its own crash policy review, which began two weeks ago. The administration does not want to be in the position of having to adapt all of the Iraq Study Group report's recommendations, U.S. officials say, and its own review will provide an opportunity to pick and choose options.”
Mr. Bush decided to go it alone in Iraq, without engineering broad, bi-partisan support. He ignored rather than integrated conflicting military and political advice. A lock-step majority said he could. His prior crash policy options bought us Iraq. Now we own it together.
Leadership might mean fixing the fiasco together without anyone claiming credit. Does “we fixed it” sound so politically untenable?
After three and a half years frittering away one opportunity after another, we’re out of options—and patience. Does creating a few eleventh-hour crash policy options from which to “pick and choose” mean that Mr. Bush still doesn’t care about consensus? Rather than cede a precious political position, he chooses to pick and choose?
This administration has worked harder digging in behind misguided strategies than building up bi-partisan consensus. I know building consensus is hard. Reconstructing crashed societies is infinitely harder. He’s lied, lectured, and everything but capably lead. Now that we’re down in this hole together, we could perhaps escape by standing on each other’s shoulders instead of going all picky and choosy. We are down to just about the last choice we’ll get to make in Iraq.
It might be too late, but I still say we should give Democracy a chance. A fresh experience of it here might teach us something important about exporting it over there.
Last year, I got to spend a little time in Flanders. Near where the trenches were. Where a generation of English and French and German kids were sacrificed to an ancient folly, War. I asked my Flemmish friend how Belgium survived the wars. He replied that his country was very good at rolling over and playing dead. The enemies just pass through. Have for centuries, he said.
I decided a long time ago that I was a pacifist. Not because I was particularly averse to violence, but because I couldn't find evidence that war ever fixed anything. No evidence that killing individuals changes how a society thinks. My crude understanding concluded that War is what psychologists call an error of logical leveling. Mistaking killing a person for destroying an idea.
There are many ways to kill an idea. During the French Revolution, a captain called to his sergeant, "Tell that rabble to leave this plaza in five minutes or I'll fire on them with grapeshot." The sergeant climbed to the top of a barricade and yelled into the crowd, "My captain says that if the rabble isn't out of this plaza in five minutes, he'll kill them with grapeshot. But from up here, I cannot see the rabble through all of the fine citizens of the republic. Would you fine citizens be so good as to leave the plaza so my captain can shoot the rabble?" Of course, the crowd left without a shot being fired.
After the Prussians captured Paris in the Franco-Prussian war, the conquering general commanded that a bridge, the pride of Paris, be destroyed. A junior officer had the bridge renamed in honor of the general and the bridge was preserved.
Of course history can't tell us how it might have been had our predecessors decided not to wage war but to wage peace. What might have happened had Lincoln decided that the Union, which seems fragmented to this day with red state/blue state controversies, might be better off splitting off into two? Like a natural cell division. Instead of enforcing a contested restatement of the original vows? The vanquished never forget.
WWI was particularly tragic. A recent book reframed the conflict not as the war to end all wars but the peace to end all peace. If we were as skilled in waging peace as we were at waging war, how would our world be different?
Someone suggested after the 9/11 attacks that we build the most wonderful mosque ever built in Kabul. Spend tens of billions of dollars and wage a peace that would be difficult to interpret as anything but peace. Co-opt the poison ideas rather than go after some people merely holding those ideas. The leverage seems obvious later. But we are a society with a really big hammer, so almost everything resembles a nail.
I always bought a poppy or two or three when Veterans day came around. The poppies represent the poppies which grow in the fields in Flanders. All of the veterans of that conflict are gone now. Not one remains with us. Those who didn't die there eventually merged with those who did, separated by a few years and a lifetime of experience. No one who survived the trenches failed to understand the absurdity. We haven't fought a trench war since.
And with each war since, we've fought to a point of futility, where the gains seemed to pale compared to the losses. We are engaged in another one now. Spending what, ten billion dollars a week? For what? Another peace to end all peace?
I say God bless the vets, who understand better than I ever will what sacrifice really means. I pray that we will learn that our sacrifices are only evidence of our righteousness if given not for gain, but for the glory of the God within each of us.
Washington insiders report that former Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX), who has deftly exhibited the greatest defensiveness of anyone in government over recent years, will be named to the powerful new post of Secretary of Defensiveness, or “Spin Czar”, beating out by a narrow margin the current, masterly defensive Defense Department Secretary Rumsfeld. DeLay’s responsibilities will include overseeing a consolidated bureaucracy of double speak consultants, most of whom will be secretly outsourced to experienced firms in former Soviet Bloc countries, with the ultimate goal of teaching every Federal employee and contractor how to consistently obfuscate the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
As a long time observer of Federal Government operations, I feel a deep sense of gratitude toward the public servants behind this plan. For years, we have been asking government straightforward questions, expecting straightforward responses. Now, with the creation of the Department of Defensiveness, we can ask any question, without the burden of expecting anything even remotely resembling a straightforward response.
Should this radical restructuring succeed at the Federal level, citizens should expect to see the denial model replicated at state, county, and even city levels. Insiders expect Florida, who tested an early prototype in 2000, to begin consolidation following the 2006 mid-term election cycle. Ohio won’t be far behind.
Most delighted by this change are those who expected dramatic efficiencies in government when control of both the Legislative and Executive Branches passed to a single political party. With the Department of Defensiveness in charge, we will never again be bothered by reports of unexpected cost over-runs on government projects. Other benefits will reportedly include the declaration of a balanced Federal budget and, ultimately, victory in the war on terrorism. In short, an ever more perfect-seeming Union.
So say reliable government sources.
A few years ago, I was driving across Eastern Utah looking for a radio station. I found two, but they were both playing Rush Limbaugh. Okay, I might disagree with Rush's politics, but I find his form of discourse even less agreeable. He's a blowhard. A riot inciter. A tiny mind hiding behind a big mouth.
For years, radio seemed to be the medium for tiny minds to hide out behind big mouths. Air America started a few years ago, and I found their minds just as tiny and the mouths just as big. Disagreeable discourse. Really no different than Rush.
I rarely listen to music when I drive. I find it distracting. And I really hate having other people choose my music for me. Also, my radio distorts music into squawks and squeaks, making most music sound like a Tourettes performance. So, I usually listen to books on tape.
For radio, and with the advent of podcasting I don't need a radio to listen to the radio, some terrific alternatives to tiny minds and big mouths are available.
I daily download Tom Asbrook's On Point program from WBUR in Boston. Tom employs a conversational style, invites a great mix of guests-ranging from the most frustrating conservatives to the most inspiring progressives. He takes calls and engages in lively discourse on really important issues.
I never miss Diane Rehm's Friday News Roundup program. She invites three top journalists in to dissect the prior week's news. Always at least one conservative voice. She also takes calls. The rest of the week, she invites authors and others to discuss their work and take calls. A warm and refreshing listen. Always.
To The Best Of Our Knowledge (to the BOOK, get it?) is an interview program specifically focused on discussing books. Short segments with thoughtful themes, always centered around some common topic. This program, too, is always inspiring.
To find your own favorite big minds with small mouths, I recommend Public Radio Fan. It lists virtually every public radio on the planet. Wanna know what's on in Australia this hour? Here's the place to look. It features RealPlayer (and that wannabe lightweight Windows Media Player) links. Also podcast links. I like to listen to the morning news from London before going to bed at night.
These are my top three talk radio programs. I download them to iTunes and listen at my convenience. If you're like me and insist upon civil discourse, these programs will reassure you that radio is a lot more than tiny minds and big mouths.
Rearview Blinders
While the world remembers
Please let me forget
All the misbegotten deeds
We could only regret.
I'd rather focus forward
And see what ever I find
Than move my sight behind myself
And miss this sacred sign.
A world impelled to ignorance
A future filled with past
A wisdom weakened by wanderlust
The moment slipping fast.
Our future stands before us
With no thing left behind
Except illusory remembrance,
A moment out of mind.
Imagine, then, this moment
pristine and freely born
Imagine another moment, then,
And ditch the fearful frown.
Nothing sticks and nothing stays
And nothing gets left behind
As moment moves into moment
in endless, streaming rhyme.
The Quad, University of Washington campus
9-11-06
Hindsight
Over the last year or so, ever more groups of concerned citizens have assumed the role of Jiminy Cricket conscience for me. I see the stories and think, “Well, here’s another dedicated group of concerned citizens,” even though I can’t always see what they’re dedicated to and their tactics sometimes seem unconscionable.
Tyranny of the majority happens whenever the public process appears to ignore the minority’s concerns. Inclusive public dialogue to discover minority perspectives can reveal widely divergent opinions, not a single majority one. Representative democracy dissatisfies all of the people some of the time.
Tyranny of the minority happens whenever someone unable to garner public support decides to make their opponents pay dearly for victory. Unsuccessful at building a coalition to influence the public process, they raise private money to create roadblocks, scouring the statutes to entangle the bureaucracy in its own red tape, hopeful that the resulting bother will force capitulation. These shenanigans get expensive for the majority, which has little recourse but to defend against these bushwhacks or relent to the preferences of a few.
I’m concerned whenever the actions of a small group forces diversion of public money. I’m equally concerned when a public official’s actions conflict with my aspirations. Gratefully, most of Walla Walla’s concerned citizens resolve their concerns through dialogue—gaining friends to influence people—though anyone is free to threaten our already inadequate public coffers.
Only lawyers thrive on the fact that anyone can challenge but no one can fix the past, no matter how much treasure another might be forced to forfeit. Perfect hindsight is no replacement for wise foresight. And wise foresight is hard.
We’re all poking sticks into darkness as we probe together into our future. None of us can credibly claim superior visual acuity for what we will find there. What we choose to do when we find different from what we wanted determines how our future reveals itself.
No one finds common ground when small groups of concerned, disenfranchised-feeling wallas attack the ones they’ve cast as BIG, UNCONCERNED, DISENFRANCHISING WALLAS. Shouldn’t we be talking together as if we had a future together instead of asking judges to second-guess every step?
Good future vision requires that we conscientiously acknowledge peering forward through imperfect lenses, not rear-view polarizing ones.
David A. Schmaltz
Walla Walla
Johnny will not return home from the nursing home. He's catching on and accepting. After all, his life has been defined by the same abrupt changes that have defined all of his neighbors' lives here. He has mastered abrupt at the knee of South Dakota. He was more interested in getting an ice cream than he was in looking at the steam tractors. "Once you've tried to make a living with these old machines," he confided, "You'd just as soon never see or think of them again." Today was plenty for him. We drove him back to the nursing home. He dozed between bites of ice cream, one terrifically tired teddy bear. We bundled him off to his room, to a nap which took him back to the times when he was one of the masters of this humbling territory.
Over lunch, he responded to one old friend that he thought he was doing pretty well. He was either going to get better or maybe he'd just go to sleep and go to heaven, which, he confided, wouldn't be so bad either. He's sleeping more these days. There's no depression in this doziness. It's clearly well-earned rest. His Parkinson's and his pernicious enema rack his body and sometimes his mind. He was clearer this weekend. "A fella's got a lot of soul-searchin' time here," he reported, "That's pretty clever of them to make it like that. I can see where I am from here and it's just the way it is."
We left him tonight at supper. He was a bit confused about why he didn't need to put on his hat and coat, after all "it looked plenty cool out in the fields." His monologue disclosed that dinner might be out in the fields tonight as it had been on so many of his nights, delivered by dutiful wife or daughters, all grown and gone now. His dinner would be at a table set so his wheel chair could fit, with others, now in brightly colored bibs, who kept this place together. No wimps among them. I left proud to be aging and satisfied with our humanity.
The prairie and South Dakota are places like this. The work gets done. Community cares. So much gets lost in the shadow of pale artifice. It's not supposed to be particularly pretty or necessarily tidy. We make the bargains we make, wishing that we had someone to grow older with and deserving someone, too. Despair, they say, is the difference between what we expect and what we experience, and can always, it seems to me, be resolved by either accepting the way it is or by changing my expectations. The people who live here are masters of life. Not the flashy Elvis-impersonator life we too often mistake this journey for, but the stumble and stutter life that each of us eventually understands is our lot. No surprises and no regrets. There is a community around us that will sustain.
Modern life might have missed this point. Ignore the expectations television offers. Distrust everything the politicians and actors and the in role people suggest. There is a heart beating out here, a dedication founded in bed rock. None of us are strangers. We all share these feelings, these experiences, yet we pretend that we do not. Then again, on odd evenings, we bust these illusions and parade through a sleeping town, blowing off our steam and stranding ourselves in a common mud. We laugh, when we are together, and we pull ourselves out and continue. The stories continue. The traveler, the stranger at the bar ,might catch the pattern here and find no way to share his observation. Each is blessed with their own damned experience. Each is delightful. How can I tell a total stranger how I feel? Find your partner! Don't despair! There are no strangers here. Beer?
Kevin or his whiskey decided to take the scenic route, since a direct path would leave a trip of only about five blocks. Kevin took a right turn at the abandoned school house and a left at the next street. Five more minutes of steaming, coal cinders sparking the dark sky, brought us into a field. A damp field. The short story was that Kevin drove the slick-wheeled steam roller into a soft spot, unseen in the dark. The machine stuck. More steam brought the mighty ten-foot tall cast wheels spinning and throwing mud. We got off the trolleys and tried to push while another of Kevin's men found a huge eight wheeled John Deere tractor, backed it up to the front of our caravan, and chained it up. It took a few pulls to free us. Some of us thought the steam roller might break, front roller sideways in a slick track- the roller was turned so far that it left some of its red paint on the boiler - but it didn't break. We pulled into the park much later and colder.
Amy had met Kevin's assistant, a woman who used to cut her mom's hair, on the trolley. Amy had spoken with Kathy some months ago, after a conversation with Kevin about his business. The conversation had resulted in a considerable bonus for Kathy and she showed her gratitude by hugging Amy and by offering us a ride back to Marske's on another golf cart. We wended our way back out of the park, Amy, Kathy, and I- with three other guys hanging off the cart at odd angles.
Conversation had taken over the evening at Marske's, even though a little old guy with a lap held Hawaiian steel guitar, harmonica, base drum, and high-hat cymbal was holding forth with polkas and such at the front and several couples were imitating dancing in the middle of the place. This time was for talking. I met many folks. The guy who I later learned had accidentally driven a corn combine over his father, killing him. Another who had lost his thumb in a horrible fly-wheel accident. (Good thing he was home. He would have had a heck of a time hitching a ride... they said.) Another guy, the town drunk, which is saying something, I learned later was also a talented and bitter wood carver. I learned a half-dozen solid life stories. Each moving and illuminating.
Marske had a marvelous popcorn machine. A predictable dollar fifty bought a small, Jiffy-Pop-like sealed plate of corn which, when placed on the hot plate-like machine, caused the plate to gyrate wildly. The plate rotated and jiggled until its popped corn reached a certain height, then the machine turned itself off. I watched a couple of batches and then asked Marske where he got the machine. He pulled out a stack of cards and showed me one from a company in Bloomington, Ill. "You have to get the corn from a place in Iowa," Bob reported, "And we've run out a couple of times for weeks, so I always order plenty." We both agreed that a place like Marske's Lounge shouldn't run out of popcorn.
We, however, by this time, were running out of steam. Bob called last call at 1 am, confiding to me that he had a 2 o'clock license but that he didn't like to stay up that late. His wife and grand daughter and the shelf-butted waitress filled everyone's last order, collected each last buck fifty, and the grateful, modest tips, and we shuffled out into an altogether too quite night. On my way out the door, I called Marske over to the bar to shake his hand and thank him for talking such good care of us that evening. I meant it most sincerely.
This was a smoky, boozy place without redeeming social value, except it was also a confessional, a dialogue space, and a dance floor extraordinary. The place where folks polkaed was a round "hot part," the heat source for the place. The tables and chairs didn't match any more than the couples did. What matched was the humanity.
The Hawaiian steel guitar player eventually stopped playing and, for some reason, cornered Amy and I with his life story. Over several brandy presses, which I have no idea what they are, each of which he ordered by asking for one last one, this seventy-plus year old farmer unrolled his life story. He bought the Hawaiian guitar forty years ago when he was in the army in Colorado. ("It looked a lot better then...") He lost the farm. His wife divorced after five years. "Of course, I'm single..." he started and ended each story the same way. He travels from threshing bees to founders days, finding the local Marske's, and playing his one-rhythm, three chord melodies from behind his harmonica, high-hat, and base drum. Deeply introverted, needing the recognition but barely acknowledging it, performing as if for himself in his own head, he floats from celebration to celebration, searching, he finally disclosed, deep into his "last" brandy presse, for someone to share his life with. "Of course, I'm a single man," he continued, "so I can live a life like this, but I wouldn't complain about having someone to grow old with." Who could? His someone will have to bust space and time to catch the growing part. His hands were the hands of everyone else in that funky place. Nails battered, fingers callused and crazy colored. These hands had done some work and were able to do some more. "No sir, I sure wouldn't mind finding someone to grow old with," he commented before signing off to head back to his camper in the park.
I left buzzing with admiration. I left filled with more than my minimum daily requirement of humanity. I left with a clearer bead on community. Amy belonged- absent these last twenty five years, she still had a role. Folks recognized her and remembered her and asked what she was doing now, genuinely interested. She was clearly no stranger and I, by association, was as welcome as if I had grown up there, too.
... to be continued ...
Main street this night is dominated by the smoking, steaming hulk of a genuine steam roller: steam powered and simply huge, as big as a house. Three trolleys sit parked behind. The Threshing park was empty because Kevin had pulled the entire camping population into town for a beer and a dance. We cross the street in the moon shadow of this monster.
Marske's was in no danger of running out of anything but space. It was bursting at the seams. We squeeze our way into the front door, a narrow aisle between those hanging off the bar and a circle of musicians. The circle appeared as follows: an old farmer in seed cap with an ancient and enviable big box Gibson, a younger man in a battered cowboy hat with an equally battered Ovation lyre-back six string, an ancient farmer with a suitcase full of harmonicas, a blue-haired grandma with a silver flute, another silver-haired grandma with an accordion, and a nearly smothered, small, unwashed gentleman in the back, behind the grandmas, plucking a beat-up old electric bass. They intermesh polkas with ballads with near perfect transitions, the accordion or the harp player inevitably taking the lead. "She's too fat, much too fat, she's too fat for me..."
Amy and I order beers from a tall, slouch-backed man in stained blue work pants and a forgettable shirt: Marske. Bob Marske was a member of the Andover SD state championship HS basketball team of 1953. He retired a few years ago and bought this half-horse powered beer hall in this half-horse town. It is the sole watering hole in this burg and is clearly the most popular place this evening, which is easy because no other business is evident and this is the only place ever open after seven. The walls swell with humanity and noise. A buck and a half is the standard price for a drink here- be it beer, whiskey, or something fancy, like rootbeer schnapps. Most drink beer- again, an array of clear ones available, many in cans and served table-side by another shelf-butted woman. I work through the crowd to a hollow corner against the trophy case. On the way, Amy bumps into the steam roller owner and driver, a red-faced, class-clown of a guy named Kevin. (Amy's dad refers to him as "That Kevin," as in "That Kevin sure seems to have a lot of money," and "That Kevin always seemed to know how to get what he wanted.") Kevin was in Amy's class in school- he kissed her in first grade, which doesn't set Amy apart because it's no surprise to me to learn that Kevin kissed all the girls in first grade. He's still at it. A blue plastic something-and-Coke in one hand and an antique car horn in the other, Kevin is goosing everyone with this wonderful old farty horn. He's loved as a benefactor and as someone who gooses the world as it passes by. Hoonk! Hoooonk!
Kevin started the James Valley Threshing Bee twenty five years ago. He had a steam tractor and an antique machine or two and started the show. Now it's a destination, swelling this little narrow spot in US highway twelve to the status of a place each September. He's delightful! He embraces Amy and begins announcing, "My drummer's here, my drummer's here!" (Amy played drums in a band with Kevin the summer she was seventeen. She became pregnant and dropped the gig.) He began pushing her to toward the circle of musicians, who had a crude drum set, but no sticks. I egged him on from my safe corner.
The banquette next to me was dark tan naugahyde, patched with snagging duct tape. Three rough-looking women were smoking there, nursing long necks. Three well worn men approached, clearly the men-folk of these women. The largest of these guys was huge- easily a fifty inch waist, in a sleeveless sweat shirt and sporting a large Harley-Davidson logo as a tattoo on his right bicep. He had unshorn and unkempt hair and a beard that completely dominated his features. No eyes, no nose, no mouth, just gray fuzz and more gray fuzz. The next largest is probably the big guy's younger brother. Shoulder-length greasy hair, a strange sculpted, close cropped beard with strips carved out of it, as if more or less deliberately. Round and squirrel-like, Smee, I think. The third was the weasel of the trio, completely dominated by the other two, they were pushing him into the banquette while one of the "ladies" tried to excuse herself to go to the "setter's" room. (The men's room is labeled "pointers," the ladies', "setters.") I tried for a time to watch the band through the girth of the Harley guy, who was apparently the genuine article. I suspected that he had a huge motorcycle parked outside, but I later learned they were more modestly motorized. As we later boarded the trolley cars for the midnight ride to the Threshing Park, the huge Harley guy, his brother, and one of the "ladies" were racing up and down Main street- Harley at the wheel of a golf cart, "lady" riding shotgun, and squirrel lounging in the back, Coors Light can protected in one hand while the other was held high in the universal "hang loose" sign. I hope I never lose the memory of those three toughs so deported.
... to be continued ...
Nearly three hundred miles later, we arrived at about sunset at the H.O.T. Spot, a large truck garage and the acknowledged best restaurant in the area. The place is filled with men who seem to either be in denial about their true waist size or too cheap to buy a new belt. Buckles were well hidden, I suspect well imbedded, beneath what was in many cases impressive overhang. Many of the women, on the flip side, had somehow managed to develop a shelf-like space in their lower back- a place that Amy's brother described as being capable of displaying a full half case of beer. Shelf-butt he calls this. So, the couples arrived in matched opposites- hidden belt buckles opposing unused shelf space.
The regulars found a table- or a part of a table, as the place was filled to capacity- though no one was turned away. There was always, it seemed, a way to hunch over to make room for whoever arrived next. Everyone knew each other. Then, each disappeared toward the bar, returning not with icy beers but with a Styrofoam bowl of warm kraut, which each ate as if accepting a sacrament from the gods. Friday night must be kraut sacrament night at the H.O.T. Spot. Later a waitress arrived for drink orders, a choice of clear beers and soda pop, menus, and warm welcomes. If you don't feel genuinely welcome, you are not feeling here. These are real people; folks. There's not an ounce of airs or put-on among them. The men are farmers and their women teachers, nursing home assistants, or store clerks. Everyone works multiple jobs. Few make any money. Most are paper real estate millionaires and paupers at the grocery store. They grow gardens and talk commodity prices and weather it all with a wry humor, as if this were all a distantly funny joke they are forced to play. Resignation, said another way, perhaps, acceptance reins. There is a serious deficit of self obsession here. They know more than you'd ever want to know about self sacrifice and humility.
They keep warmly cluttered homes. The lawns are mowed but never manicured. Gardens are tidy without evident obsession. The purpose is maintained without show or excess. Farmers learn to pare elements down to essentials, understanding that tidy rarely carries to the bottom line. Further East, where the land is more settled and the weather less severe, farms are more idyllic- looking, like James Whitcome Riley's grandchildren. The farms here in the Dakotas retain their wild unmanageability- several years into a wet cycle have left some farms high and dry and inaccessible by land vehicle. Fields are islands and roads poorly maintained, Johnny-come-lately causeways. Ducks, deer, herons, and toads abound. Roads accumulate in tire wells. Garages are paved in acrid, musty deposits of the prairie's earth. Farmers here haven't made money in several seasons and this year, record yields will leave them losing money on every acre they bothered to plant. Planting at least maintains the soil, which increasingly is promised to the banks for last year's, the year before's, and the year before that's planting loan. Government insurance helps some. Everyone here knows all about keeping their head when treading water. Even though none of them expected to have to become champion treaders, each accepts this delt hand with the quiet, experienced acceptance each born here received as a birthright. There are few exceptions.
Everyone knows everyone else's business. This is like living in a society where everyone walks around in their underwear. No cover, no fooling... And it is with this background that each orders dinner at the H.O.T. Spot. An observant one would notice the similarity between what you order and what your dad and your grand dad ordered in their times. The taste for prime rib seems to run in families. Most order red meat and potatoes without evident self-consciousness. This is a land before cholesterol and winter's coming. The land is blanketed in bird life, swollen by the wealth of the harvest. I would not be surprised to find sparrows with their belt buckles imbedded under pin feathers, fat and ready for winter's bite. The communion between farmer's family and their feedbag continues. Huge, juicy steaks arrive. If it had been Saturday night, nine out of ten would be ordering the prime rib. Following the kraut, Friday's order's are less predictable but none the less fatty. French fries arrive which must have been cooked in pure lard, light and fresh and delicate as they are completely saturated. Bakers arrive with the fixin's unless warned off when ordering. A small loaf of bread follows the lettuce salad, exactly what my dad would order- chopped iceburg lettuce unencumbered by garnish, dressing, or skill- clearly the least important part of the meal. Something to crunch while finishing that first beer to cover the time it takes to cook the real food.
I order the baked walleye, asking for it without the spice, which I have not seen but which Amy warns me is a deadly dirt bath of Lawrey's Seasoned Salt. My baker comes dry, forlorn in a foil coffin. Amy's cheese burger is resplendent in juices and grease, her fries an enticing woodpile. I lose the wrestling match with both the walleye skin, steamed permanently to the filet, and my better judgment as I abandon both to play on the mound of fries. We leave little evidence of dinner ever having been there. A stray fin and some crumpled foil for me. A tell-tale slick for Amy. An empty bottle or two and a half short glass of tomato juice remaining from Amy's attempt at a local favorite, red beer.
I was uncomfortable as we made our way back to the car and continued the last ten miles to Andover, where Amy's father's house is located. The house smells closed-up musty. Amy opens windows as I park the car and start unloading. I check the fridge and acknowledge that Amy had been right, I should have bought whatever I would have wanted before we left the Twin Cities. There are no grocery stores here and there is no bread in this house.
She introduced me to her daughters' piano teacher, a Julliard-trained concert pianist who confirmed that I was a hell of a songwriter, capable of schmoozing with the big dogs, and couldn't afford not to visit Italy with my kids.
Kasha was my first blogger, sending enlivening emails back when most of us were still using the text version of Compuserve. She called them Emeals. Tasty!
I last saw her when she, her daughters, and her long-time friend Karl Lindstrom stopped by for dinner while on a hiking vacation to the Northwest. I made celeric soup. We giggled a lot.
Kasha's was an old soul in a frisky body. She was, and will always remain for me, the very embodiment of brash. Cheers, old soul. On to the next assignment.
She succumbed to the effects of pancreatic cancer, a disease which is startlingly common in Silicon Valley. Something about silicon manufacture that pancreases don't like.
Sleep well, dear one.
One of Kasha's earliest Emeals (I have a complete archive) follows:
Down, Down in the
Tao
A Grand Unnameable
inaudibly speaks
from endless here,
else could speak we not
nor be.
Feathers, we,
on a deep bird
unseen between
two night skies,
flying because
feathers can.
Listening are we, with
our universe held to one ear,
to keeps-playing scuffles
between Isn't and Is, boisterous
in their muffled playroom.
To dance is the rule
in our This-That school
excepting that sleep
too is a rule
and quite more deep.
End of the world?
Peace after that?
Perhaps--but from within
the Night of All Nights
some eventually tickled
divine sleeper may
dreamingly laugh aloud,
stirring breathing into the mist--
and back soon will be we,
guns, and daily newspapers.
Call this if you wish
"The Little Laugh Theory"
although nameable is the Is
no more than is the Isn't,
down, down in the Tao.
from The Wheel of Yes
Poems and Reflections by Alan Harris 1995
Ouch! Sounds too familiar.
I've been cranky the last few days. Feeling misunderstood, as if I possessed a truth, but couldn't articulate it to anyone else's understanding. This experience might put me in good company, but that is little consolation.
... Now, maybe if I could just articulate whatever this is to myself. ... ... ...
On a related topic... How accurate are the frequently published pundits? Someone's finally watching. A scientist has plotted the accuracy of some popular prognosticators and found that the ones who create flashy stories continue to get published, even though their predictions are almost never correct. Those who consider the complexities are not a whole lot more accurate, but they are less frequently published.
Here's a link to the story:
david
"Huh?", I responded.
"Right click on the box."
Silence. I thought, "Am I clicking wrong?" but I said, "I don't understand what you just said."
My webmeister repeated, a little louder and a little slower, "Right click on the upper left-hand box."
More silence. "I'm wrong clicking?" I thought. But I said, again, a little slower and a little louder, "I don't understand what you just said. I can click or not click. Clicking on that box doesn't do anything."
I heard my webmeister clicking keys, "I'll look up on Google to find the right click equivalent for a Mac." A minute later he said, "Hold down the control key and click in the upper left-hand box." An undocumented, hidden menu appeared.
Those of you well experienced with Wintel computers (like my Webmeister) would probably have instantly understood the instruction. I very rarely have anything to do with those machines, which seem unusably crude to me. I always wondered why anyone would design two adjacent buttons when one would do. Right and left are two categories outside my keyboard experience.
Later, Amy asked me if I'd ever had to rely upon a Wintel machine to do real work. I reflected and realized that I had not. I moved from mainframe, where I used a text-based interface, directly to an early Mac. I was supposed to create performance appraisals and do salary budgeting on a WinTel PC, but I quickly learned to create them on the Mac and copy them over.
I'm not saying Macs are superior to WinTel machines, but they certainly are superior for me. I realize that I might be at a severe disadvantage in the job market because I don't know how to launch Windows, access Outlook Express, or shut down a "real" PC. I occasionally use one when I need to look at my email from an internet cafe, but it always feels like I'm wearing size 58 clunky boots whenever I do.
So I speak a curious dialect. I cannot understand some common idioms. I've always said that I took up with Macs because I wasn't smart enough to use a Wintel PC. I probably could learn how to use one if I really had to. Fortunately, I can write without even remembering my right from my left.
After a month out of the country, I returned to find the kitchen table piled high with Union Bulletins. Most of the news lacked fresh impact, but pouring through those pages brought one thing into clearer focus than daily reading could have. Walla Walla is having a family feud.
I characterize this as a family feud because, like in a family, the arguments are nasty, drawn from a long memory, and most often indirect. We might sue a stranger, but we reserve disinheritance for family. Nothing ever cuts as close to bone as criticism from someone you’ll see at every future family “celebration.”
The old Czech joke asking if the Russians were friends or family concluded that they must be family, because you can choose your friends. I might have chosen my house, even this community, but I had no idea what neighbors I might end up with in the bargain. I chose my wife, but her family, my in-laws, came along unbidden.
Fortunately for me, I have tolerable in-laws and neighbors, made more tolerable by my own tolerance. Once I learned to interpret my neighbor’s penchant for filling up the loose spaces in my garbage can as their intent to improve the efficiency of garbage collection, I found them loving and caring and more than worthy of my loving care in response. Had I interpreted their acts as trespasses, the best we could have now would be a relationship rooted in my forgiveness of their trespasses against me.
Our weeks working in London confirmed what George Bernard Shaw once quipped. “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” The people of Walla Walla (the Wallas on one side and the completely different, wrong-headed Wallas on the other) are two perspectives separated by a common future. Whatever we decide together, we will get to live with together there.
Whatever decisions we make today might be less important than that we remember that we will have to live together with them there. The quality of those decisions might be improved if we remember that we are living here together now, too. We can always choose to interpret anything as a trespass, but when it comes to family and neighbors, we’re usually better off when we choose to maintain the relationships rather than the barricades between us.
David A. Schmaltz
Walla Walla, WA
In the mean time, I rediscovered the power of the pen. I relearned that I can actually write using paper, and write just about as fast and certainly as effectively. Were it not for the transcription time, I could probably create faster with a pen. Of course, the spelling would be wanting. And the transcription work is a useful edit all by itself.
I recommend going computerless occasionally. It' Lent, perhaps giving up computing for Lent would be a useful focusing tool for anyone dependent upon their computer, as dependent as I had become.
Vonnegut, in his latest book, remembers the delight in manually typing pages and sending off the resulting parcel to his typist. The human interaction demanded by this ritual was worth savoring.
Sylvia Beach up and died
And lost the lease where her business thrived.
Gone, where Joyce was well supported,
Gone but not entirely forgotted.
A man who claims to be
The grandson of Walt Whitman, he
Bought old Beach's library
and moved it to a Seine-side quay
And opened what you see today
with the original name and
company.
Three times we set out for this place
And twice returned in sad disgrace.
The first search ended carefreely
The second, soaked and melancholy.
The third, a charm, on Metro train,
We found the place in spite of rain.
Both outside and inside the place
Sylvia's library's in disgrace
With water pouring over books
Written and signed by expatriates.
I bought a Joyce, a Blake or two
And spent less time than I'd planned to.
Yes, I was cold and slightly damp
and holding that dripping umbrella had given me a cramp,
But nothing like the cramp that time
leaves the library left behind.
In my life I admit that books
Have somehow given me friendly looks.
At Kilometer Zero I realized
That if my books are really alive,
Then they may keep me company
While I am here, then follow me.
Our cab circled Trastevere for a half hour, seeming to end up in the same dead end alley way, retreating to a small piazza two or three times before the cab driver, after asking three different people, found himself pointed in the right direction to find the tiny opening to Vicolo Moroni. The cars parked on either side of the lane had their side rear view mirrors either pulled back against the side of the car or in some degree of being torn off. I saw a truck backing into this lane later in the week. A man on either side pulled rear view mirrors out of the way and guided the driver with barely millimeters to spare on either side. Our driver unloaded our luggage, heavy with the anticipation of a month's tour, and left, presumably to circle for another half hour searching for the way back out of this labyrinth.
After showers and a change of clothes, we emerged into this foreign place in search of a bakery and adventure. We found the bakery a few blocks away, along the Via del Moro. The bread was heavy and thick-crusted and had the consistency of an old boot sole, but we bought a Ciabatta anyway. We munched as we sauntered along the alleyways. It is a rare sight in Rome and indeed in all of Italy to see an Italian eating while walking. Our explanation of this phenomenon is that Italians revere their food too much to pay it so little attention. A munching walker is a sure sign of a non-Italian.
We found a small grocery just off the Via San Francesco a Ripa and ogled the cheese. Nancy was particularly taken with the fresh Ricotta, which was displayed in the window in little plastic draining baskets. We made note of the location so we could return on our way back to our apartment. We stopped in a little green grocery just off the Piazza di San Cosimato and ogled the zucchini blossoms and the fresh tomatoes. We annoyed the proprietor but promised to return to buy later, after we got the lay of the land. This street opened up into the piazza which on this Saturday morning was about half full of tents. It looked like a country circus or a hastily constructed revival meeting, but it was a farmer's market. We swooned.
This was our first encounter with a wonderful Italian tradition, the farmer's market. This one, we were to learn, was a minor example. Still, we were transfixed by the freshness and the variety of the soft white and violet eggplants, the peaches and plums, and the tomatoes; the tomatoes. We bought some tiny blackberries, some tomatoes, some peaches, and some wonderful grapes, but only after visiting every stand twice and learning the lineage and recent history of each fruit and every vegetable.
It was noon and the market was folding up its tents. Many stores and, as near as I could tell, all farmer's markets close at noon. The early afternoon is siesta time, a time to retreat from the high heat of the day and eat and talk and perhaps nap until three or four o'clock. No farmer's market is open after noon. The morning's the time to buy produce, the afternoon is when you prepare it.
We wandered laden out of the market plaza and began walking through a series of narrow lanes near the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, a hot and foreboding place, with the heat of the day reflecting off the golden mosaic front of the ancient church, in spite of the fountain.
My eye was drawn into an alleyway shaded by an overhanging vine, and we entered. Down this lane was an arch and, on one side some tables were set, shaded by large umbrellas and a scruffy privet hedge. I noticed that the hedge's planter was full of bottle caps and cigarette butts and that no one was seated at the tables. It was, Nancy said, only just twelve, and the noon meal wouldn't start until more nearly one o'clock. We peeked into the door of the restaurant across the alleyway and saw that the staff was seated around a large table, finishing their lunch. A small man in a starched white coat got up from the table and came out to greet us.
We exchanged buon giornos. He then engaged in some Italian patter with Nancy, asking her to be sure and come back for lunch. He shook our hands and extracted another promise as we excused ourselves and headed back to the apartment to stash the morning's purchases and to take yet another cold shower before lunch. On our wayback, we encountered our first watermelon stand. If the guide books were wrong about anything, they were wrong about the livability of Rome in August. I forgive the gourmet restaurants their holidays and I can compensate for the daily heat and humidity with a half-dozen or more cold showers, but do not ask me to live in Roma in August without watermelon. Slices are artistically arrayed in these stands, and your slice is handed to you with the intent that you will eat it while standing there, and that you will extract the seeds with a one of the knifes thoughtfully provided. We, being newly arrived, walked away with ours, spitting seeds as is our tradition (an unconsciously sure sign of our not being Italian). We were made human and whole by the cool, sweet crispness. We sauntered along the Tevere, shaded by the enormous plane trees.
An hour later, freshly showered and wearing our third shirts of the day, we found our way back to the restaurant in the shady side street. Mario, we learned, was the waiter's name, and the Arco de San Calisto was the restaurant. Mario asked if we wanted water with big bubbles or little bubbles, and we ordered our first of many big-bubbled bottles of acqua frizzante. A mezzoliter of drinkable vino rosso (red wine) was served in an Arco de San Calisto pitcher, and decent bread and tiny grassini appeared with a bow and a "Prego". Mario leveled our cobble-wobbly table with a few of the bottle caps from the privet hedge. So that's what they were there for! Mario guided us through the menu as a skilled horseman guides his team. We quietly surrendered our free will and let Mario suggest and nudge and lead us to our best choices. (Later in the week, we overhead an American at an adjacent table order olive oil for dipping bread, and Mario flatly refused to deliver it. "Bread," he told them, "is not for dipping into oil.") Nancy ordered grilled vegetables, asking Mario to select those best for her. I chose the pasta fagioli to echoes of "Molto Bene" and "Prego" from Mario, as if I had chosen for myself and I had chosen right.
The food was as wonderful as the atmosphere. A caged bird, perched on a windowsill down the alleyway near the Arch, sang sweetly. The ivy rustled occasionally by wandering breezes and the afternoon heat melted away into a fuzz of sweet conversation, semi sweet wine, and warm service. My pasta course was a linguini with shrimp and squash blossoms, hers the house special. She was jealous. My pasta fagioli had been perfection, with small, fresh pasta rectangles properly balanced with beans in a light, delicate broth. Nancy's grilled vegetables were not as beautiful. Now, with the first course, my pasta showed better than hers. We traded tastes and stories, punctuated by ruckus of the occasional passing scooter and the murmer of potential patrons making the wrong choice and passing this quiet corner by.
Nancy's veal was heavenly, as was my pesce, grilled whole then boned and reassembled with great theatrical style at our table by Mario. Nancy order baby biscotti, and Mario brought a platter full, explaining that these were usually only ordered for children. We crunched playfully. After two sweet hours, we emerged from this dream to accept heavy crystal glasses of liquor. Grappa for me, Sambuca for Nancy. We paid the bill after an appropriately lengthy wait, and floated toward the Church in piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, then back to the apartment, where, after showering off the latest accumulations of sweat and grit, we retired for that nap we'd longed for the night before as we flew eastward across the Atlantic. We decided as we cozied in to the sounds of the neighborhood waking up, that August in Roma would be wonderful. And it was.
We ate lunch at the Arco de San Calisto almost every day of the week we spent in Roma. On our last day in Italy, we hopped the bullet train down from Firenze to lunch one last time at this most wonderful place. The heat had left and it felt strange eating the pasta fagioli without periodically wiping sweat from our foreheads. Mario was overjoyed to see us, and we drank grappa together, promising to return for Christmas in Roma.
They wouldn’t understand.
Who would want to burden the subject by including the depth of their own despair and their feeble attempts to counter it?
History shouldn’t be about me, or them, or anyone alive today,
Except it is and inescapably so.
The big black dog that trotted beside Lincoln trots today.
Galileo and Bruno and every one of true genius,
Their anxiety still floats free,
attaching itself intermittently to tho