An unusual video of one of the world's most recognized works of art enjoying a day on the river in an inner tube. Full of subtle social commentary, relevant to today's world events, with a good deal of political satire thrown in to boot. This is no "one-joke wonder." Run time is 2-1/2 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtwpQCnAFLw
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Reynard The Fox revisited
This is something I have let lapse. Regrettable, it's true--but the old English (or "Middle") for any academics out there, is such incredibly dense stuff to get through. It is like hacking away at stones to get the meaning released from inside them. Nevertheless, the words themselves are wonderful, and I have a great deal of empathy for the fox, who is just doing what foxes do. He should not be condemned for that, for he is being true to himself and to the family to which he belongs. Although, in all fairness, the other foxes mentioned in the tale do not seem to uphold the sneaky standards of foxdom with the zeal and relentlessness that Reynard displays. He is a standout, to say the least.
I will pick up the thread of the story after revisiting my last installment, then finding where I left off in the transcribed manuscript. For those interested in looking at the translation as I am reading it, here is a link:
http://bestiary.ca/etexts/morley1889/morley%20-%20history%20of%20reynard%20the%20fox.pdf
This translation, as the preface notes, is from 1481.
I will pick up the thread of the story after revisiting my last installment, then finding where I left off in the transcribed manuscript. For those interested in looking at the translation as I am reading it, here is a link:
http://bestiary.ca/etexts/morley1889/morley%20-%20history%20of%20reynard%20the%20fox.pdf
This translation, as the preface notes, is from 1481.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Fleetwood Mac
As I neared the county office building, I noticed something was afoot. The last few blocks of street were lined with big fire trucks and emergency vehicles. They took up a lane, parked right there in the street, possibly waiting for an emergency to occur. The big ladder truck was there, with supervisors’ SUVs and the bulky rescue trucks with enough equipment to pull a small country out of a crisis.
I parked the little convertible in a just-vacated spot, with an hour-and-a-half of time generously provided for me. I would need it. My car was right next to the wiener vendor outside the county offices, and only a few steps to the front door of the building. I left the top down, thinking the wiener guy would give a would-be troublemaker hell for molesting the car. It was unlikely he would do anything at all, but having the car there—just in front of the wiener cart and next to the courthouse was a comfort to me.
Things were turning out all right, and as I climbed the steps, I noticed official goings-on to commemorate something or other. Maybe firemen—owing to all the equipment I’d seen. But, no—it wasn’t firemen who were to be honored; it was the county itself, and someone had gotten the idea to recognize its birthday on this steamy day in early June. It would be a sprightly 350 years old. A lot had changed since it had first been carved out of the wooded wilds to the north of Baltimore City. For one thing, fire trucks had grown ridiculously huge, and now were on display as a reddish accompaniment to the speechifying and official statements about the Maryland county. Casting about for a symbolic statement of civic pride and progress, someone had said this: “Let’s have fire trucks. Lots of them. We’ll park them right on the street, where everyone can see ‘em—it’ll be great!” And the organizers of that important event nodded, said that, yes, fire trucks would be a welcome addition to the fanfare and official celebration.
I entered the air-conditioned offices, rode the elevator up the fourth floor, where the office that issued my health department permit shared space with another one that handed out permits for buildings and additions and the like. If you wanted to erect a pole barn on your land, you would go to that office, and wait in the little room until someone called you. In fact, a man who wanted to do just that was there waiting—his large arms colored by the sun and the times spent outside working with concrete projects. He had the big concrete contract for a local college, and it kept him plenty busy. He described in detail some of the new things the college was having him build, and I nodded vigorously in amazement at all the stuff you could build with concrete. Here is what I said:
“Isn’t that remarkable?”
The man who answered the phones at the counter and saw that the people signed in on the proper sheet for the office they were visiting himself had an elderly visitor—possibly greek in origin. The visitor would come in from the hallway, exchange some words in a low voice with the clerk, then the two would spontaneously break out into very quiet singing, of the kind that dated back maybe to olden times in the Mediterranean. Here is what it sounded like:
“Oooohhh Waaahhh Oh Oh Oh Woo woo woo. Oooohhh Waaah.” They did a pretty good job with the material, and the two obviously enjoyed their interactions. It was a welcome relief from the officialdom and general tedium of the awful county building, where no visit is ever straightforward, and each transaction is conducted by some new person to whom I have to explain the procedure repeatedly—after which I am still regarded with blank stares, then outright distrust, then garbled language that is even more incoherent than the Greek songs being sung at the reception desk.
The meter had clicked off an hour of my time, and now I was learning that the clerk planned to go see Fleetwood Mac that evening. There was the clerk, a woman on other business, and I assembled in the little reception room. The woman was Fillipino and was applying for a temporary permit to sell food at the Fillipino festival. She also sold used cars, and said she had a good Subaru wagon for me.
“So, we are all going to Fleetwood Mac together?” I asked. “Can we get a ride with you?” I directed this to the clerk, sitting low behind the tall counter.
“I’m taking the bus,” he replied. “It costs a dollar sixty.”
At the concert, which was not sold-out, he intended to get a cheap ticket for around twenty or thirty dollars. The Filipino woman came to the counter.
“Can you get me one of those tickets?” She asked. Suddenly she wanted to see Fleetwood Mac, too.
The clerk said there was no guaranty he could procure a ticket for such an attractive price, and was probably regretting ever having said anything about his plans that evening.
“I want one, too,” I piped up. “Can you get me one as well?” I said this just to be annoying, more than anything else. Also, the county office building and those who occupied it were now eating away at the third half-hour of time on the meter, with no end in sight. I would miss the official pronouncements outside, and the fire-trucks would probably be gone by the time I was released from the building.
The county man finally came to deal with my issue, looked over the paperwork—shuffled it around a bit, looked at it again, issued some statements that sounded not to be in English, but possibly a mélange of eastern European languages used by gypsies. I nodded, smiled beatifically, and said this: “I’m going to see Fleetwood Mac this evening.” He accepted this as proof that I had everything in order, and set about getting me the necessary permits so that I could conduct my business without the intervention of the county inspectors.
When I had paid, and was waiting for the final installment of this dreadful visit to come to a close, the county man approached again. Here is what I heard him say:
“Org loops can’t have it banned again. Sore thumb an’ toe had a spill in the tub. Better grease the gator hinge else the storm might stop.”
I had him repeat this several times, using different words, and finally got the gist of it: The person who would process my payment and issue the permits was no longer at her desk, was not even in the building. One thing was clear: She could be gone for a LONG time.
“Well, I wish you all a good day, but my car is nearing the end of its welcome time, and I must shove off. I’ll be back tomorrow to pick up the permits, as I will be in the area.”
The county man wished me a good day in his exotic language, saying what must be a traditional farewell:
“Panga panga panga. Pangs and thibits. Thibit to you thank you, sir.”
“See you at the Fleetwood Mac concert,” I said over my shoulder to the low-slung telephone clerk behind the counter, who was obviously hoping to have no further interaction with me. “And thibit to you, as well.”
With day’s end nearing, I drove over to the Colosso-Box to pick up paint for the next day’s project at the house. I had to be ready for my young and energetic helpers, who would expect materials and paint and necessary things to be on hand for their day of work. I had the Colosso-Box man, who had never mixed paint before, get together a can of yellow for an interior wall. He did a good job, handed the small quart can to me.
“Don’t bother putting a smudge on the top,” I said; “I’m going to see Fleetwood Mac, and they go on in twenty minutes.”
We left things like that, with the can smudge-less, but the color a good one. The man told me I was too young to know who Fleetwood Mac was, and I was surprised he knew who they were. At the Colosso-Box paint counter, with the band scheduled to start downtown at eight o’clock, I said this:
“I have lived the life of three thousand ancients—not the regular ancients, but the really old ones, that came before the regular ones.” I paused, looked at my yellow paint sample he’d used to mix the paint.
“I have caused a weariness in untold landscapes, that screamed a revolt in the wake of my passing, and upheaved and spat things at the sky, darkening both heaven and earth.” Then I added this: “I had a cat once, but it ran away.”
“Have fun at the concert,” the paint man said.
“Will do. You have a good one, pal,” I replied.
I drove the little car through the evening’s starting rain, saw the time approaching eight o’clock. I parked directly opposite the concert hall, joined the latecomers who were going to the ticket windows. A fat man with wild whiskers and energetically rebellious hair was hawking a ticket for fifty bucks outside on the wet sidewalk.
“It was gonna be for my girlfriend, but she never showed,” as if his selling the ticket needed further explanation. I looked at his bulging tee-shirt, wild hair and expression bloated by beer and cheetos. If in fact his girlfriend had deserted him on this evening of Fleetwood Mac, I can’t say I blame her.
At the ticket window I asked if there were any good seats left. The woman looked at an array of tickets before her, picked one out. She pushed it through the slot at the bottom of the window, and I reached for my wallet.
“How much….?” I asked, not seeing a price on the paper.
“It’s a gift,” the woman said. “Take it.”
I tapped the window with my thanks, not letting words suffice to express my gratitude.
Inside, I took a seat near the stage, over on the left side—with a spectacular view of the performers and the array of instruments. Behind the drums was a huge gong. After a few minutes of waiting, the house lights dimmed and the crowd’s cheering filled the auditorium. With a burst of light and an explosive downbeat, the music was suddenly propelled into the arena like the first volley of a fireworks display. Somewhere in the darkness of the concert hall the county desk clerk let the music wash over him, forgot about the phone calls and the tedium of his job, and the brief interludes of singing songs in some foreign tongue with an elderly visitor. He’d paid his buck-sixty for the bus ride, probably snagged a free or reduced ticket, and was comfortably enjoying the show. On Monday I would phone up the Filipino woman, buy the Subaru.
I parked the little convertible in a just-vacated spot, with an hour-and-a-half of time generously provided for me. I would need it. My car was right next to the wiener vendor outside the county offices, and only a few steps to the front door of the building. I left the top down, thinking the wiener guy would give a would-be troublemaker hell for molesting the car. It was unlikely he would do anything at all, but having the car there—just in front of the wiener cart and next to the courthouse was a comfort to me.
Things were turning out all right, and as I climbed the steps, I noticed official goings-on to commemorate something or other. Maybe firemen—owing to all the equipment I’d seen. But, no—it wasn’t firemen who were to be honored; it was the county itself, and someone had gotten the idea to recognize its birthday on this steamy day in early June. It would be a sprightly 350 years old. A lot had changed since it had first been carved out of the wooded wilds to the north of Baltimore City. For one thing, fire trucks had grown ridiculously huge, and now were on display as a reddish accompaniment to the speechifying and official statements about the Maryland county. Casting about for a symbolic statement of civic pride and progress, someone had said this: “Let’s have fire trucks. Lots of them. We’ll park them right on the street, where everyone can see ‘em—it’ll be great!” And the organizers of that important event nodded, said that, yes, fire trucks would be a welcome addition to the fanfare and official celebration.
I entered the air-conditioned offices, rode the elevator up the fourth floor, where the office that issued my health department permit shared space with another one that handed out permits for buildings and additions and the like. If you wanted to erect a pole barn on your land, you would go to that office, and wait in the little room until someone called you. In fact, a man who wanted to do just that was there waiting—his large arms colored by the sun and the times spent outside working with concrete projects. He had the big concrete contract for a local college, and it kept him plenty busy. He described in detail some of the new things the college was having him build, and I nodded vigorously in amazement at all the stuff you could build with concrete. Here is what I said:
“Isn’t that remarkable?”
The man who answered the phones at the counter and saw that the people signed in on the proper sheet for the office they were visiting himself had an elderly visitor—possibly greek in origin. The visitor would come in from the hallway, exchange some words in a low voice with the clerk, then the two would spontaneously break out into very quiet singing, of the kind that dated back maybe to olden times in the Mediterranean. Here is what it sounded like:
“Oooohhh Waaahhh Oh Oh Oh Woo woo woo. Oooohhh Waaah.” They did a pretty good job with the material, and the two obviously enjoyed their interactions. It was a welcome relief from the officialdom and general tedium of the awful county building, where no visit is ever straightforward, and each transaction is conducted by some new person to whom I have to explain the procedure repeatedly—after which I am still regarded with blank stares, then outright distrust, then garbled language that is even more incoherent than the Greek songs being sung at the reception desk.
The meter had clicked off an hour of my time, and now I was learning that the clerk planned to go see Fleetwood Mac that evening. There was the clerk, a woman on other business, and I assembled in the little reception room. The woman was Fillipino and was applying for a temporary permit to sell food at the Fillipino festival. She also sold used cars, and said she had a good Subaru wagon for me.
“So, we are all going to Fleetwood Mac together?” I asked. “Can we get a ride with you?” I directed this to the clerk, sitting low behind the tall counter.
“I’m taking the bus,” he replied. “It costs a dollar sixty.”
At the concert, which was not sold-out, he intended to get a cheap ticket for around twenty or thirty dollars. The Filipino woman came to the counter.
“Can you get me one of those tickets?” She asked. Suddenly she wanted to see Fleetwood Mac, too.
The clerk said there was no guaranty he could procure a ticket for such an attractive price, and was probably regretting ever having said anything about his plans that evening.
“I want one, too,” I piped up. “Can you get me one as well?” I said this just to be annoying, more than anything else. Also, the county office building and those who occupied it were now eating away at the third half-hour of time on the meter, with no end in sight. I would miss the official pronouncements outside, and the fire-trucks would probably be gone by the time I was released from the building.
The county man finally came to deal with my issue, looked over the paperwork—shuffled it around a bit, looked at it again, issued some statements that sounded not to be in English, but possibly a mélange of eastern European languages used by gypsies. I nodded, smiled beatifically, and said this: “I’m going to see Fleetwood Mac this evening.” He accepted this as proof that I had everything in order, and set about getting me the necessary permits so that I could conduct my business without the intervention of the county inspectors.
When I had paid, and was waiting for the final installment of this dreadful visit to come to a close, the county man approached again. Here is what I heard him say:
“Org loops can’t have it banned again. Sore thumb an’ toe had a spill in the tub. Better grease the gator hinge else the storm might stop.”
I had him repeat this several times, using different words, and finally got the gist of it: The person who would process my payment and issue the permits was no longer at her desk, was not even in the building. One thing was clear: She could be gone for a LONG time.
“Well, I wish you all a good day, but my car is nearing the end of its welcome time, and I must shove off. I’ll be back tomorrow to pick up the permits, as I will be in the area.”
The county man wished me a good day in his exotic language, saying what must be a traditional farewell:
“Panga panga panga. Pangs and thibits. Thibit to you thank you, sir.”
“See you at the Fleetwood Mac concert,” I said over my shoulder to the low-slung telephone clerk behind the counter, who was obviously hoping to have no further interaction with me. “And thibit to you, as well.”
With day’s end nearing, I drove over to the Colosso-Box to pick up paint for the next day’s project at the house. I had to be ready for my young and energetic helpers, who would expect materials and paint and necessary things to be on hand for their day of work. I had the Colosso-Box man, who had never mixed paint before, get together a can of yellow for an interior wall. He did a good job, handed the small quart can to me.
“Don’t bother putting a smudge on the top,” I said; “I’m going to see Fleetwood Mac, and they go on in twenty minutes.”
We left things like that, with the can smudge-less, but the color a good one. The man told me I was too young to know who Fleetwood Mac was, and I was surprised he knew who they were. At the Colosso-Box paint counter, with the band scheduled to start downtown at eight o’clock, I said this:
“I have lived the life of three thousand ancients—not the regular ancients, but the really old ones, that came before the regular ones.” I paused, looked at my yellow paint sample he’d used to mix the paint.
“I have caused a weariness in untold landscapes, that screamed a revolt in the wake of my passing, and upheaved and spat things at the sky, darkening both heaven and earth.” Then I added this: “I had a cat once, but it ran away.”
“Have fun at the concert,” the paint man said.
“Will do. You have a good one, pal,” I replied.
I drove the little car through the evening’s starting rain, saw the time approaching eight o’clock. I parked directly opposite the concert hall, joined the latecomers who were going to the ticket windows. A fat man with wild whiskers and energetically rebellious hair was hawking a ticket for fifty bucks outside on the wet sidewalk.
“It was gonna be for my girlfriend, but she never showed,” as if his selling the ticket needed further explanation. I looked at his bulging tee-shirt, wild hair and expression bloated by beer and cheetos. If in fact his girlfriend had deserted him on this evening of Fleetwood Mac, I can’t say I blame her.
At the ticket window I asked if there were any good seats left. The woman looked at an array of tickets before her, picked one out. She pushed it through the slot at the bottom of the window, and I reached for my wallet.
“How much….?” I asked, not seeing a price on the paper.
“It’s a gift,” the woman said. “Take it.”
I tapped the window with my thanks, not letting words suffice to express my gratitude.
Inside, I took a seat near the stage, over on the left side—with a spectacular view of the performers and the array of instruments. Behind the drums was a huge gong. After a few minutes of waiting, the house lights dimmed and the crowd’s cheering filled the auditorium. With a burst of light and an explosive downbeat, the music was suddenly propelled into the arena like the first volley of a fireworks display. Somewhere in the darkness of the concert hall the county desk clerk let the music wash over him, forgot about the phone calls and the tedium of his job, and the brief interludes of singing songs in some foreign tongue with an elderly visitor. He’d paid his buck-sixty for the bus ride, probably snagged a free or reduced ticket, and was comfortably enjoying the show. On Monday I would phone up the Filipino woman, buy the Subaru.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Door to the Past
February 15, 2009
Late on Valentine’s Day, I was in line at the local Rite-Aid drugstore. A young man in front of me was carrying an enormous teddy bear, a gift for the young woman in his life. The thing cost the astounding sum of over thirty dollars. He paid this, then went into the store’s aisles to retrieve some other remembrance of the day. It was a box of candy with raised lettering attesting to the heartfelt sentiment that lay behind its purchase. The next woman in line, with hair carefully bleached to an unnaturally white color and wispy texture, said that someone was going to be happy upon receiving the generous gifts. I suppressed the natural urge to say this: “Someone’s gonna get laid.”
I waited my turn, taking in the Cupid’s day scenario with typical skepticism and callousness. I thought to the day not too far away, when the cuddly bear would be strewn across a lawn with the rest of a home’s eviction contents. Its partners in the front yard tableau would be broken-down tv stands, a sofa scratched by a hungry dog,
lamps and compact disc cases, a telephone. Maybe next week the young man and his woman would no longer be together. The end of the month would come, would send him this Valentine’s message with his credit card bill: There, among the gas-station charges and snack food items would be the thirty-odd dollars for the teddy bear, the chocolates.
The new girl has seen me several times, has said: “Oh you’re the guy who gets the Washington Post.” I waited my turn, said to her, “Do you have a Post for me?” These words made no sense to her whatsoever, might have been asking if she’d gotten the most recent transmission from Mars. Her eyes narrowed, suddenly she was not so friendly, not in the cuddly mood left over from the bear.
“Excuse me?” She said.
“The Washington Post. It’s a newspaper; sometimes you save it for me back there.” Now I was being a snot, something I hate being. But I can’t blame her at all: For her a post is a thing that holds up a fence, maybe a sign. She doesn’t speak the language of newspapers, probably doesn’t linger on the thought of why they exist in the first place. I would give a vast sum of money, maybe $1200, to be able to think like her for a whole day. Yes, $1200: I think that is a fair amount. The cigarette breaks out by the front door, filling my young and chubby body with poisonous smoke might be a hardship, but perhaps I could just pretend to take puffs. I don’t know why I’d actually have to inhale. I would make that an exception to the deal—no inhaling cigarette smoke. If I’m paying that kind of money, I shouldn’t have to inhale--that’s what I think. It’s likely that—if I paid my $1200 and was in fact able to be her for a day—I would never want to go back. Therein lies the danger.
She pulled a Washington Post from behind the counter, handed it to me. I only had a twenty dollar bill for the paper and a bottle of iced tea. I owed a dollar and some change. They young and pale cashier did not have enough change to give me for the large bill. The polite youngster with the teddy bear was still there, pondering other things to buy his sweetheart. He handed over a dollar, effectively buying my daily paper and a good portion of my iced tea as well. I wished the enthusiastic guy, fresh with youth and the promise of the day, the best possible Valentine’s Day ever. With a teddy bear like that, how could he go wrong?
Earlier I’d sold the old riding mower I’d bought several years ago to keep the yard tended. It was not too difficult to part with it: The paint was peeling and the seat was torn, but it ran well enough. It also sported the replacement fuel tank I’d installed due to the hole the squirrels had eaten in the old one. I was comforted with the thought of my anonymous handiwork being on display to new owners, in some other part of the state down by the eastern shore, for all the days until the mower coughed its final breath, spewed out its last shred of mown grass. This little tractor had come from a neighborhood up the street, had been sitting in front of a house during a community yard sale. I’d bought it on the spot, offering a hundred and fifty dollars. It looked to be in new condition at the time. With no shed out back, the mower had weathered several winters, summers, and everything in between under the deck. The deck does not provide much protection. So, little by little, the thing showed signs of wearing down, blistering off paint, then rusting. It still did the job, however, which was the main thing. The man on this grey and chilly day handed over two hundred dollars. I gave him a nice replacement seat and a set of brand-new mower blades from one of the many other machines that had passed through my hands, that I can’t even remember now. There have been so many. I drove it onto his little trailer, and watched as he strapped it into place for the drive home. Then, as people will do, he told me of his life. His father, for many years an abusive alcoholic, did not have a good relationship with the man. When he stopped drinking, however, things were fine. This man, somewhat older than I, rode Harley Davidson motorcycles and liked to ride to South Carolina on them. So did his woman, who also liked to ride. He lived in a part of the city where homes sold for next to nothing because no one wanted to live there any more. The people who stayed, he said, ran the risk of everything they had being stolen or broken. I told him that sometimes I bought lumber in that part of the town, and he described with some specificity where he lived with respect to the lumberyard. “Yes, it’s a real shithole,” I wanted to respond—but this is something he already knew; the remark would be superfluous.
He told me of the many rats that overran the area, his yard too. He spoke of sitting out back and shooting twenty, thirty, forty rats with his BB gun. I could not imagine so many rats, I told him. He said there were plenty of rats where he lived. I said that was a shame, about the rats, but he seemed to enjoy shooting them, and more or less had the situation under control. There was trash, too. The kids from the “projects” would throw their household trash into his backyard—or alley, I am not precise on the details. But he would find the culprits, throw the trash into their yards—because he would find the addresses of the people on discarded envelopes and things. A vivid portrait of the man unfolded there in the driveway: The endless cycle of clearing out trash and refuse, shooting at rats, chasing off the neighborhood mischief-makers, dealing with the riff-raff who had no pride in their neighborhood, did not want to be there, and did not want to take care of it, either. Suddenly my neighborhood looked a lot better. I was grateful for the time I spent with him, learning about life in an area not too far away—over in the next county.
We lingered there, enjoying each other’s company, and I finally bid him farewell. Waiting in the shed I’d erected a year or so ago was a nearly new riding mower given to me by a person in distress, who’d been left the thing by her husband, who had in turn left her. I’d driven out to her, picked it up in my truck. With its elaborate system for catching grass and bagging it, it was one of the nicest machines I’d ever owned. It was also a little smaller, and was a better fit for the cluttered shed. At home I’d fiddled with it a bit, thinking at first it was a hopeless case. After an oil change and a few other small attentions, the machine fired up and ran smoothly. I cut the winter grass, collecting the leaves and twigs in its huge bagging system. With this machine I would no longer be keeping up with the Joneses—I would BE the Joneses. God, this thing was nice. It was an improbable accessory to my lawn-keeping menagerie, since I am widely regarded as being fairly lax where mowing the lawn is concerned. The others in the neighborhood approach their lawns reverently, paying homage to them with seeds and fertilizer and other offerings. They are out there in all seasons, making sure that when the time comes, the lawn will have had as much encouragement from them to be the best lawn ever, to sprout up and beg to be beaten back by the whirling blades of a power mower. In all fairness, their yards DO look much nicer than mine. For one thing, large trees often drop twigs and branches onto the lawn, and I am not always expedient about clearing these obstacles out of the way. Sometimes I will do anything to mow AROUND them, if it means not getting off the garden tractor to pick them up. Or, if I think the recently-shed part of the tree is small enough, I will drive right over it and hope the blades will take care of the thing—grinding and gnashing and making the pieces smaller so that they are not so noticeable. This often works quite well. It is the larger branches that pose a problem.
March 25, 2009
Del came over, armed with his large work truck and power tools. When he and Ryan are over at the other house, they simply help themselves to my vast array of tools I leave about, as if they were casual decorative pieces—and functional ones at that. It is not that they don’t have their own tools—it’s just that wherever you look in the house you can find something that might be useful for the current project: A chop-saw here, a table saw in the middle of the room, some cordless drills and drivers, circular saws, reciprocating saws, tubes of caulk, cans of paint and drywall compound. It’s like a hardware store.
The project I’d laid out for Del was the installation of a new door that would serve as the rear entrance to the house. The little pantry, mostly untouched for the past seventy years or so, would serve as a mud-room and laundry room. Maybe “mud-room” is too grand a designation for the little house, but I rather like it. The washer and dryer would be over against the wall, just opposite the new door. The stove would find a new home in the kitchen, which would soon be gutted of everything that made it even resemble a room in a habitable house. The walls would be chipped away from the old lumber, exposing the siding nailed to the outside of the house. There would be no insulation, nothing to fill the empty walls. This partly explains why it is so cold in the winter time, even with the heat turned up.
Del and I drove to the Colosso-Box together, picked out a door that we agreed would look nice out back, and also selected some lumber for my stairs leading to the new deck. I’d been hesitant about starting the stairs, as this was a fairly precise operation for me, and as a result meant that it would take me an inordinately long time to accomplish. So I just let it be. Del quickly evaluated the situation, took into account where I wanted the steps to begin down at ground level—with easy access to the new patio, and made some marks on the deck to establish where the new lumber would be attached. This took him no more than five minutes. He wielded his tape measure as though it were a part of him, and not in the hesitant, fearful way that I often use it—as though the thing might suddenly rear up and bite me. Seeing him work through the measurements, assuring me all the while that the stairs posed “no problem whatsoever,” filled me with relief. I wanted to hug Del, thank him while great sobs of joy gushed from my thin chest, but we really don’t have that kind of relationship—and, even if we did—Del would not be appreciative of this emotional outburst. I did add this, however: I told him that the small cat, who enjoyed going up to sit on the deck to take in the view, had to gain access by climbing up one of the tall posts, raccoon-like, until she was able to hoist herself onto the deck itself.
“She’ll sure like those stairs,” I said to Del, who looked at me as if I were insane.
I’d readied the little room with plastic sheeting and other things to help catch the dust and debris from the day’s work. Del set to chipping away the wall at around nine in the morning, while I busied myself with other things relating somewhat peripherally to making progress on the home improvement front. By 2:30, he’d removed the interior wall, cut a precise opening for the new door and frame, and had the whole business installed—looking like it had been there forever. I now have a new steel door with modern locks and shiny keys that go with them. I’ve never had it so good.
The old back door will go the way of most of the kitchen—into the trash. Encrusted with decades of paint with a healthy dose of lead, the thing is useless—a terrible and wasted relic from the past that is too much trouble to salvage. It is quite likely original to the house, but difficult to say. Someone with a background in the architecture of these old homes might be able to give an opinion. For me, it looks as old as the place—which was built in the nineteen-twenties, at a time when “electrified street lighting” was boasted as a selling point for the neighborhood.
The old pine boards, made from trees that were very likely quite old at the time the house was built, were still useable, however. These made up the siding in the area where the new doorway was cut. Now I had uniform three-foot sections waiting to be discarded. Since these were plain wood, unpainted, I thought it would be good to reuse them if possible. I placed an advertisement for them as giveaways on the online forum, and have had substantial interest in them. With the many people who suddenly want this wood, it is likely that someone will actually come by to pick up the old boards.
As a souvenir, I kept the handle to the old storm door—that ineffective and mostly creaky outer door that served as an ill-fitting barrier against the weather. I simply cut the section of storm door around the handle, preserved part of the door and the handle together—as they would have been paired over the decades of opening and closing the back door. The one who would have made the most use of this handle—Alvina Beaver—would most likely not have thought to preserve it, would not be interested in anything attesting to her time spent alone for a half-century in the old house—her husband Richard long departed. When she used the handle, with a watering can or a sack of tulip bulbs in the spring, there was only an awful back porch—a small landing with the remains of a box where the milkman once left his deliveries in the morning. The stairs were slanted and made for an uneasy descent—on account of their irregular and downturned treads. For a railing, there was a piece of galvanized pipe attached to the house at one end, and screwed into the steps at the other. The whole thing was reminiscent of the crazy shoe-house that I remember from my childhood stories, where a woman with many, many children lived in a shoe and—as the story has it—“didn’t know what to do.” An illustration accompanied the poem, and the house was lopsided, with everything at crazy angles. I remember looking at the picture, the sober-minded and overly-serious youth that I was, and saying: “How could anyone live in a place like that!” And: “The kids! She has way too many kids!”
Alvina Beaver is gone now, but the handle she grasped, had to touch—through winters and springs and times of bad news and glad times and everything in between—the appearance of the Easter lilies and the terrible crashings of summer storms that put out the lights in an elderly woman’s home, all alone with only the thrashing of furious branches in a relentless wind without—all of that is over and done with. For my part, I have no remembrance of her other than the house she left behind—and this knob that creaked open the back door ever more slowly with each passing year.
Late on Valentine’s Day, I was in line at the local Rite-Aid drugstore. A young man in front of me was carrying an enormous teddy bear, a gift for the young woman in his life. The thing cost the astounding sum of over thirty dollars. He paid this, then went into the store’s aisles to retrieve some other remembrance of the day. It was a box of candy with raised lettering attesting to the heartfelt sentiment that lay behind its purchase. The next woman in line, with hair carefully bleached to an unnaturally white color and wispy texture, said that someone was going to be happy upon receiving the generous gifts. I suppressed the natural urge to say this: “Someone’s gonna get laid.”
I waited my turn, taking in the Cupid’s day scenario with typical skepticism and callousness. I thought to the day not too far away, when the cuddly bear would be strewn across a lawn with the rest of a home’s eviction contents. Its partners in the front yard tableau would be broken-down tv stands, a sofa scratched by a hungry dog,
lamps and compact disc cases, a telephone. Maybe next week the young man and his woman would no longer be together. The end of the month would come, would send him this Valentine’s message with his credit card bill: There, among the gas-station charges and snack food items would be the thirty-odd dollars for the teddy bear, the chocolates.
The new girl has seen me several times, has said: “Oh you’re the guy who gets the Washington Post.” I waited my turn, said to her, “Do you have a Post for me?” These words made no sense to her whatsoever, might have been asking if she’d gotten the most recent transmission from Mars. Her eyes narrowed, suddenly she was not so friendly, not in the cuddly mood left over from the bear.
“Excuse me?” She said.
“The Washington Post. It’s a newspaper; sometimes you save it for me back there.” Now I was being a snot, something I hate being. But I can’t blame her at all: For her a post is a thing that holds up a fence, maybe a sign. She doesn’t speak the language of newspapers, probably doesn’t linger on the thought of why they exist in the first place. I would give a vast sum of money, maybe $1200, to be able to think like her for a whole day. Yes, $1200: I think that is a fair amount. The cigarette breaks out by the front door, filling my young and chubby body with poisonous smoke might be a hardship, but perhaps I could just pretend to take puffs. I don’t know why I’d actually have to inhale. I would make that an exception to the deal—no inhaling cigarette smoke. If I’m paying that kind of money, I shouldn’t have to inhale--that’s what I think. It’s likely that—if I paid my $1200 and was in fact able to be her for a day—I would never want to go back. Therein lies the danger.
She pulled a Washington Post from behind the counter, handed it to me. I only had a twenty dollar bill for the paper and a bottle of iced tea. I owed a dollar and some change. They young and pale cashier did not have enough change to give me for the large bill. The polite youngster with the teddy bear was still there, pondering other things to buy his sweetheart. He handed over a dollar, effectively buying my daily paper and a good portion of my iced tea as well. I wished the enthusiastic guy, fresh with youth and the promise of the day, the best possible Valentine’s Day ever. With a teddy bear like that, how could he go wrong?
Earlier I’d sold the old riding mower I’d bought several years ago to keep the yard tended. It was not too difficult to part with it: The paint was peeling and the seat was torn, but it ran well enough. It also sported the replacement fuel tank I’d installed due to the hole the squirrels had eaten in the old one. I was comforted with the thought of my anonymous handiwork being on display to new owners, in some other part of the state down by the eastern shore, for all the days until the mower coughed its final breath, spewed out its last shred of mown grass. This little tractor had come from a neighborhood up the street, had been sitting in front of a house during a community yard sale. I’d bought it on the spot, offering a hundred and fifty dollars. It looked to be in new condition at the time. With no shed out back, the mower had weathered several winters, summers, and everything in between under the deck. The deck does not provide much protection. So, little by little, the thing showed signs of wearing down, blistering off paint, then rusting. It still did the job, however, which was the main thing. The man on this grey and chilly day handed over two hundred dollars. I gave him a nice replacement seat and a set of brand-new mower blades from one of the many other machines that had passed through my hands, that I can’t even remember now. There have been so many. I drove it onto his little trailer, and watched as he strapped it into place for the drive home. Then, as people will do, he told me of his life. His father, for many years an abusive alcoholic, did not have a good relationship with the man. When he stopped drinking, however, things were fine. This man, somewhat older than I, rode Harley Davidson motorcycles and liked to ride to South Carolina on them. So did his woman, who also liked to ride. He lived in a part of the city where homes sold for next to nothing because no one wanted to live there any more. The people who stayed, he said, ran the risk of everything they had being stolen or broken. I told him that sometimes I bought lumber in that part of the town, and he described with some specificity where he lived with respect to the lumberyard. “Yes, it’s a real shithole,” I wanted to respond—but this is something he already knew; the remark would be superfluous.
He told me of the many rats that overran the area, his yard too. He spoke of sitting out back and shooting twenty, thirty, forty rats with his BB gun. I could not imagine so many rats, I told him. He said there were plenty of rats where he lived. I said that was a shame, about the rats, but he seemed to enjoy shooting them, and more or less had the situation under control. There was trash, too. The kids from the “projects” would throw their household trash into his backyard—or alley, I am not precise on the details. But he would find the culprits, throw the trash into their yards—because he would find the addresses of the people on discarded envelopes and things. A vivid portrait of the man unfolded there in the driveway: The endless cycle of clearing out trash and refuse, shooting at rats, chasing off the neighborhood mischief-makers, dealing with the riff-raff who had no pride in their neighborhood, did not want to be there, and did not want to take care of it, either. Suddenly my neighborhood looked a lot better. I was grateful for the time I spent with him, learning about life in an area not too far away—over in the next county.
We lingered there, enjoying each other’s company, and I finally bid him farewell. Waiting in the shed I’d erected a year or so ago was a nearly new riding mower given to me by a person in distress, who’d been left the thing by her husband, who had in turn left her. I’d driven out to her, picked it up in my truck. With its elaborate system for catching grass and bagging it, it was one of the nicest machines I’d ever owned. It was also a little smaller, and was a better fit for the cluttered shed. At home I’d fiddled with it a bit, thinking at first it was a hopeless case. After an oil change and a few other small attentions, the machine fired up and ran smoothly. I cut the winter grass, collecting the leaves and twigs in its huge bagging system. With this machine I would no longer be keeping up with the Joneses—I would BE the Joneses. God, this thing was nice. It was an improbable accessory to my lawn-keeping menagerie, since I am widely regarded as being fairly lax where mowing the lawn is concerned. The others in the neighborhood approach their lawns reverently, paying homage to them with seeds and fertilizer and other offerings. They are out there in all seasons, making sure that when the time comes, the lawn will have had as much encouragement from them to be the best lawn ever, to sprout up and beg to be beaten back by the whirling blades of a power mower. In all fairness, their yards DO look much nicer than mine. For one thing, large trees often drop twigs and branches onto the lawn, and I am not always expedient about clearing these obstacles out of the way. Sometimes I will do anything to mow AROUND them, if it means not getting off the garden tractor to pick them up. Or, if I think the recently-shed part of the tree is small enough, I will drive right over it and hope the blades will take care of the thing—grinding and gnashing and making the pieces smaller so that they are not so noticeable. This often works quite well. It is the larger branches that pose a problem.
March 25, 2009
Del came over, armed with his large work truck and power tools. When he and Ryan are over at the other house, they simply help themselves to my vast array of tools I leave about, as if they were casual decorative pieces—and functional ones at that. It is not that they don’t have their own tools—it’s just that wherever you look in the house you can find something that might be useful for the current project: A chop-saw here, a table saw in the middle of the room, some cordless drills and drivers, circular saws, reciprocating saws, tubes of caulk, cans of paint and drywall compound. It’s like a hardware store.
The project I’d laid out for Del was the installation of a new door that would serve as the rear entrance to the house. The little pantry, mostly untouched for the past seventy years or so, would serve as a mud-room and laundry room. Maybe “mud-room” is too grand a designation for the little house, but I rather like it. The washer and dryer would be over against the wall, just opposite the new door. The stove would find a new home in the kitchen, which would soon be gutted of everything that made it even resemble a room in a habitable house. The walls would be chipped away from the old lumber, exposing the siding nailed to the outside of the house. There would be no insulation, nothing to fill the empty walls. This partly explains why it is so cold in the winter time, even with the heat turned up.
Del and I drove to the Colosso-Box together, picked out a door that we agreed would look nice out back, and also selected some lumber for my stairs leading to the new deck. I’d been hesitant about starting the stairs, as this was a fairly precise operation for me, and as a result meant that it would take me an inordinately long time to accomplish. So I just let it be. Del quickly evaluated the situation, took into account where I wanted the steps to begin down at ground level—with easy access to the new patio, and made some marks on the deck to establish where the new lumber would be attached. This took him no more than five minutes. He wielded his tape measure as though it were a part of him, and not in the hesitant, fearful way that I often use it—as though the thing might suddenly rear up and bite me. Seeing him work through the measurements, assuring me all the while that the stairs posed “no problem whatsoever,” filled me with relief. I wanted to hug Del, thank him while great sobs of joy gushed from my thin chest, but we really don’t have that kind of relationship—and, even if we did—Del would not be appreciative of this emotional outburst. I did add this, however: I told him that the small cat, who enjoyed going up to sit on the deck to take in the view, had to gain access by climbing up one of the tall posts, raccoon-like, until she was able to hoist herself onto the deck itself.
“She’ll sure like those stairs,” I said to Del, who looked at me as if I were insane.
I’d readied the little room with plastic sheeting and other things to help catch the dust and debris from the day’s work. Del set to chipping away the wall at around nine in the morning, while I busied myself with other things relating somewhat peripherally to making progress on the home improvement front. By 2:30, he’d removed the interior wall, cut a precise opening for the new door and frame, and had the whole business installed—looking like it had been there forever. I now have a new steel door with modern locks and shiny keys that go with them. I’ve never had it so good.
The old back door will go the way of most of the kitchen—into the trash. Encrusted with decades of paint with a healthy dose of lead, the thing is useless—a terrible and wasted relic from the past that is too much trouble to salvage. It is quite likely original to the house, but difficult to say. Someone with a background in the architecture of these old homes might be able to give an opinion. For me, it looks as old as the place—which was built in the nineteen-twenties, at a time when “electrified street lighting” was boasted as a selling point for the neighborhood.
The old pine boards, made from trees that were very likely quite old at the time the house was built, were still useable, however. These made up the siding in the area where the new doorway was cut. Now I had uniform three-foot sections waiting to be discarded. Since these were plain wood, unpainted, I thought it would be good to reuse them if possible. I placed an advertisement for them as giveaways on the online forum, and have had substantial interest in them. With the many people who suddenly want this wood, it is likely that someone will actually come by to pick up the old boards.
As a souvenir, I kept the handle to the old storm door—that ineffective and mostly creaky outer door that served as an ill-fitting barrier against the weather. I simply cut the section of storm door around the handle, preserved part of the door and the handle together—as they would have been paired over the decades of opening and closing the back door. The one who would have made the most use of this handle—Alvina Beaver—would most likely not have thought to preserve it, would not be interested in anything attesting to her time spent alone for a half-century in the old house—her husband Richard long departed. When she used the handle, with a watering can or a sack of tulip bulbs in the spring, there was only an awful back porch—a small landing with the remains of a box where the milkman once left his deliveries in the morning. The stairs were slanted and made for an uneasy descent—on account of their irregular and downturned treads. For a railing, there was a piece of galvanized pipe attached to the house at one end, and screwed into the steps at the other. The whole thing was reminiscent of the crazy shoe-house that I remember from my childhood stories, where a woman with many, many children lived in a shoe and—as the story has it—“didn’t know what to do.” An illustration accompanied the poem, and the house was lopsided, with everything at crazy angles. I remember looking at the picture, the sober-minded and overly-serious youth that I was, and saying: “How could anyone live in a place like that!” And: “The kids! She has way too many kids!”
Alvina Beaver is gone now, but the handle she grasped, had to touch—through winters and springs and times of bad news and glad times and everything in between—the appearance of the Easter lilies and the terrible crashings of summer storms that put out the lights in an elderly woman’s home, all alone with only the thrashing of furious branches in a relentless wind without—all of that is over and done with. For my part, I have no remembrance of her other than the house she left behind—and this knob that creaked open the back door ever more slowly with each passing year.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Mia and the Tomatoes
She nosed the air, distrusting the proposition I’d put forth. With the fur between her eyes furrowed, she looked more displeased with life than usual. I’d lured her to the front door with a can of stewed tomatoes, thinking to make her believe it was cat food.
“See? Cat food!” I said, encouragingly, tapping the top of the can, while holding my hand over the label to obscure the bright red tomatoes displayed there. This was no stupid cat, and knew I was perfectly capable of trying to trick her. Hence her distrust.
Late for an engagement in the nation’s capital, I was dressed in my elegant clothes from Paris, chasing the infernal whiskerado around in the damp morning grass. She wouldn’t be caught. Over by the truck transmission, a bulky reminder of another lifetime, she slid underneath the deck, peered out at me. She was comfortably certain I was too clumsy and slow to ferret her out without making an ass of myself. In this she was correct.
There was no canned cat food in the house, the kind the two cats overwhelmingly endorse. So I’d hit on the idea of the tomatoes. Trying to make the can sound like it was being opened, I made several tinny tappings on its top, rousing her interest enough to see what I was up to. She finally came to the front door, sensing a ruse. She approached no further than the doorway, not letting herself be lured inside. It was here that she scanned the air for the aroma she hoped would greet her. Without the smell of sliced turkey feast or seafood medley or some other fanciful dish, she would remain outdoors. Her suspicions were confirmed: The can of stewed tomatoes emitted nothing. They weren’t even opened, on the off chance she might actually enjoy some tomatoes for a change. She retreated, slid around the corner of the porch and disappeared.
When I came around the side of the house one last time, she seemed to know intuitively that if she didn’t allow herself to be caught, I’d take my well-dressed person and be gone for a substantial part of the day. She was on to the tomatoes, already knew that trick, so there was no use in trying it again. She hunkered down in the unruly grass that I’ve never quite known what to do with—it being such a narrow strip next to the house that sometimes sprouted large trees. She was an escapee resigned to the inevitable sweep by the wardens and guards of that place that kept her imprisoned. She meowed plaintively, just to drive home the point that she was not at all pleased by the current turn of events, but allowed herself to be scooped up and deposited unceremoniously inside the doorway. The other one, that large grey cat that is slow in her movements and thinking, tried of course to get out as I put her companion inside.
A half-hour after my scheduled departure time, I was in the car and on the road. The two cats, unconcerned with me or with what I did during the day, were comfortably asleep on the bed upstairs.
“See? Cat food!” I said, encouragingly, tapping the top of the can, while holding my hand over the label to obscure the bright red tomatoes displayed there. This was no stupid cat, and knew I was perfectly capable of trying to trick her. Hence her distrust.
Late for an engagement in the nation’s capital, I was dressed in my elegant clothes from Paris, chasing the infernal whiskerado around in the damp morning grass. She wouldn’t be caught. Over by the truck transmission, a bulky reminder of another lifetime, she slid underneath the deck, peered out at me. She was comfortably certain I was too clumsy and slow to ferret her out without making an ass of myself. In this she was correct.
There was no canned cat food in the house, the kind the two cats overwhelmingly endorse. So I’d hit on the idea of the tomatoes. Trying to make the can sound like it was being opened, I made several tinny tappings on its top, rousing her interest enough to see what I was up to. She finally came to the front door, sensing a ruse. She approached no further than the doorway, not letting herself be lured inside. It was here that she scanned the air for the aroma she hoped would greet her. Without the smell of sliced turkey feast or seafood medley or some other fanciful dish, she would remain outdoors. Her suspicions were confirmed: The can of stewed tomatoes emitted nothing. They weren’t even opened, on the off chance she might actually enjoy some tomatoes for a change. She retreated, slid around the corner of the porch and disappeared.
When I came around the side of the house one last time, she seemed to know intuitively that if she didn’t allow herself to be caught, I’d take my well-dressed person and be gone for a substantial part of the day. She was on to the tomatoes, already knew that trick, so there was no use in trying it again. She hunkered down in the unruly grass that I’ve never quite known what to do with—it being such a narrow strip next to the house that sometimes sprouted large trees. She was an escapee resigned to the inevitable sweep by the wardens and guards of that place that kept her imprisoned. She meowed plaintively, just to drive home the point that she was not at all pleased by the current turn of events, but allowed herself to be scooped up and deposited unceremoniously inside the doorway. The other one, that large grey cat that is slow in her movements and thinking, tried of course to get out as I put her companion inside.
A half-hour after my scheduled departure time, I was in the car and on the road. The two cats, unconcerned with me or with what I did during the day, were comfortably asleep on the bed upstairs.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Rwandan Professor at Goucher
Rwandan Professor at Goucher
Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland has removed a visiting professor of French who is accused of acts of genocide in his native Rwanda. The professor and his family are here as part of a program that allows instructors from other countries to teach at the college.
Tom Joad, president of the college, was interviewed for this article, and made extensive comments about the professor, Leopold Munyakazi, and the plight of the worker in the 1930s. When asked about his knowledge of the visiting professor’s past, he replied:
“It’s funny, you think you know a man—any man—and then you have this genocide fella what come to teach about his language and those things back home, and you set to thinkin’ do you really know a man—or do you only know what he wants you to know—and sometimes more oft’n as not ain’t even that.”
Tarkville Onans, the college’s maintenance engineer since the 1960s, when the school was an all-female institution, said this: “I been here a good long while, way back when all the problems maybe you got was a mix-up between them little girls and they’d be some fusssin’ and what-not.” He leaned on his dust mop, the candy wrappers and broken pencil erasers forming a small wave against its edge on the smooth hallway floor. “Now you just don’t know no more and Joad over to the office says hey Tark we gotta look sharp on account of this genocide fella runnin’ round hereabouts.”
One of Munyakazi’s students, Jolie Coaler from Williamsburg, Kentucky, said she liked the professor from Rwanda, but had difficulty with some of the concepts in class. “Like, when you have a verb, and it’s gotta be like put into the past like it happened a while ago, I still don’t know which ones of those you have to use “etre” with and the ones you don’t.” But she said the professor generally made learning fun, and had innovative ways of getting the lessons across. One game, called “Kill the Bad Verb” had students holding a mock rifle and shooting at the word that did not fit into a given sentence. “That one was kind of fun,” said Coaler, who is a junior studying Global Human Political Rights Science Dimensions Humanistic Approach Global-Style.
The visiting French professor has been removed from his duties, is still allowed to stay in his college-provided house, but is not permitted to attend school functions. He said he was disappointed, as he was looking forward to cheering on the women’s basketball team at an upcoming pep rally with his family. “We had buy many color things with uniform for those girls to win,” he said. “All of me my wife and kids we was taking those things down to say win, win, win, you girls it is so exciting time with sports to be in America.” Then he added, “Now with them saying I am killing all the people I can’t go.”
Tarkville Onans had one last suggestion regarding the current issue: “Seems like instead of goin’ roun’ some itty-bitty little country try to find a French teacher, might as well just go someplace where they ain’t got so much killin’ folks and so on. Joad over to the office said Tark whyn’t we just phone up France see if’n they got someone over there maybe wants to give some lessons or what-not.” Although Mr. Owens was not qualified to speak on the possibility of any new search for a French instructor, he thought it likely they’d offer a new teacher the same deal that the Rwandan professor had.
Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland has removed a visiting professor of French who is accused of acts of genocide in his native Rwanda. The professor and his family are here as part of a program that allows instructors from other countries to teach at the college.
Tom Joad, president of the college, was interviewed for this article, and made extensive comments about the professor, Leopold Munyakazi, and the plight of the worker in the 1930s. When asked about his knowledge of the visiting professor’s past, he replied:
“It’s funny, you think you know a man—any man—and then you have this genocide fella what come to teach about his language and those things back home, and you set to thinkin’ do you really know a man—or do you only know what he wants you to know—and sometimes more oft’n as not ain’t even that.”
Tarkville Onans, the college’s maintenance engineer since the 1960s, when the school was an all-female institution, said this: “I been here a good long while, way back when all the problems maybe you got was a mix-up between them little girls and they’d be some fusssin’ and what-not.” He leaned on his dust mop, the candy wrappers and broken pencil erasers forming a small wave against its edge on the smooth hallway floor. “Now you just don’t know no more and Joad over to the office says hey Tark we gotta look sharp on account of this genocide fella runnin’ round hereabouts.”
One of Munyakazi’s students, Jolie Coaler from Williamsburg, Kentucky, said she liked the professor from Rwanda, but had difficulty with some of the concepts in class. “Like, when you have a verb, and it’s gotta be like put into the past like it happened a while ago, I still don’t know which ones of those you have to use “etre” with and the ones you don’t.” But she said the professor generally made learning fun, and had innovative ways of getting the lessons across. One game, called “Kill the Bad Verb” had students holding a mock rifle and shooting at the word that did not fit into a given sentence. “That one was kind of fun,” said Coaler, who is a junior studying Global Human Political Rights Science Dimensions Humanistic Approach Global-Style.
The visiting French professor has been removed from his duties, is still allowed to stay in his college-provided house, but is not permitted to attend school functions. He said he was disappointed, as he was looking forward to cheering on the women’s basketball team at an upcoming pep rally with his family. “We had buy many color things with uniform for those girls to win,” he said. “All of me my wife and kids we was taking those things down to say win, win, win, you girls it is so exciting time with sports to be in America.” Then he added, “Now with them saying I am killing all the people I can’t go.”
Tarkville Onans had one last suggestion regarding the current issue: “Seems like instead of goin’ roun’ some itty-bitty little country try to find a French teacher, might as well just go someplace where they ain’t got so much killin’ folks and so on. Joad over to the office said Tark whyn’t we just phone up France see if’n they got someone over there maybe wants to give some lessons or what-not.” Although Mr. Owens was not qualified to speak on the possibility of any new search for a French instructor, he thought it likely they’d offer a new teacher the same deal that the Rwandan professor had.
Monday, February 2, 2009
History in Real Life
The following is taken from the Monday edition of the Washington Post--February 2, 2009
With little in the way of new history to occupy themselves, two historians recently turned their attention to the matter of Martha Washington’s physical appearance as a young woman. One of the scholars, Mr. Eggins of the University of Maryland, is actually only twenty years old and is studying “Plant Science/Horticulture Arts” as his major, with a minor in American History. His first name is Donald, but he insisted on being referred to as “Mr. Eggins” for this article. His colleague, Dr. Ralph Azteca, has long been a force in the field of random writings about historical miscellanea. He is heir to the Azteca taco shell fortune. Another person, noted financial columnist Jane Bryant Quinn, became involved in the matter when Dr. Azteca inadvertently phoned her up.
The matter first came to light when Mr. Eggins, fond of shoes and something of an aficionado, spied a pair of young Martha’s footwear in a display case. He became frenzied, whirling about in circles, and describing eccentric orbits about the display case, such was his excitement at seeing the dainty shoes. “They were brilliant, and had little bows,” he would say many times afterwards. “They made me feel warm all over, tingly,” he said from his part-time job at the College Park, Maryland Wendy’s restaurant. He brought the shoes to the attention of Dr. Azteca, who immediately phoned the economist Quinn for no apparent reason.
Dr. Azteca and the young Mr. Eggins drove to the place where Eggins had seen the shoes, stopping several times along the route, owing to the extreme excitement of the young colleague and his need to run about outdoors. When they finally appeared before the display case, Dr. Azteca declared the moment an important time in American history, and his undergraduate companion unfolded a tattered yearbook photo of a classmate he’d fancied during his recent high school years. “That’s exactly what she must have looked like,” he exclaimed. Dr. Azteca, taking the photo and examining it closely, immediately agreed. “Yes, this is Martha Washington as a young woman,” he said.
The two phoned Dr. Quinn, who was not immediately available—but left her a message describing their findings.
With little in the way of new history to occupy themselves, two historians recently turned their attention to the matter of Martha Washington’s physical appearance as a young woman. One of the scholars, Mr. Eggins of the University of Maryland, is actually only twenty years old and is studying “Plant Science/Horticulture Arts” as his major, with a minor in American History. His first name is Donald, but he insisted on being referred to as “Mr. Eggins” for this article. His colleague, Dr. Ralph Azteca, has long been a force in the field of random writings about historical miscellanea. He is heir to the Azteca taco shell fortune. Another person, noted financial columnist Jane Bryant Quinn, became involved in the matter when Dr. Azteca inadvertently phoned her up.
The matter first came to light when Mr. Eggins, fond of shoes and something of an aficionado, spied a pair of young Martha’s footwear in a display case. He became frenzied, whirling about in circles, and describing eccentric orbits about the display case, such was his excitement at seeing the dainty shoes. “They were brilliant, and had little bows,” he would say many times afterwards. “They made me feel warm all over, tingly,” he said from his part-time job at the College Park, Maryland Wendy’s restaurant. He brought the shoes to the attention of Dr. Azteca, who immediately phoned the economist Quinn for no apparent reason.
Dr. Azteca and the young Mr. Eggins drove to the place where Eggins had seen the shoes, stopping several times along the route, owing to the extreme excitement of the young colleague and his need to run about outdoors. When they finally appeared before the display case, Dr. Azteca declared the moment an important time in American history, and his undergraduate companion unfolded a tattered yearbook photo of a classmate he’d fancied during his recent high school years. “That’s exactly what she must have looked like,” he exclaimed. Dr. Azteca, taking the photo and examining it closely, immediately agreed. “Yes, this is Martha Washington as a young woman,” he said.
The two phoned Dr. Quinn, who was not immediately available—but left her a message describing their findings.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Peanut Corporation of America
January 29, 2009
In the paper today was a piece about peanuts. A good quantity of peanut-related products had been shipped out with healthy doses of contamination by a bacteria that can cause sickness. Those in charge of the government agencies who look into such matters said that the company, Peanut Corporation of America, knowingly sold the contaminated products. One FDA official, speaking from his farm in Des Moines, where he’d just chased down a stray heifer, had this to say: “I’m still getting my mind around the fact that there’s a company called “Peanut Corporation of America”—and it’s not a joke.”
In the paper today was a piece about peanuts. A good quantity of peanut-related products had been shipped out with healthy doses of contamination by a bacteria that can cause sickness. Those in charge of the government agencies who look into such matters said that the company, Peanut Corporation of America, knowingly sold the contaminated products. One FDA official, speaking from his farm in Des Moines, where he’d just chased down a stray heifer, had this to say: “I’m still getting my mind around the fact that there’s a company called “Peanut Corporation of America”—and it’s not a joke.”
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Jasper Hanks
I read with interest the many letters full of good wishes and welcome to the new president. The Washington Post, now costing two dollars each for these inaugural times, is full of important and historical coverage--and is priced accordingly. I chose this peculiar missive among the many that appeared in its special "Letters to the President" section.
Letter to Obama (Washington Post)
It was back in 1958 and I was headed home to Nevada by way of Death Valley. My old truck was mostly wore out by that time, would overheat every ten miles or so and force me to stop. I pulled over by a Joshua Tree when I saw the needle go past the halfway mark—which was kind of hard to make out, on account of the gauge glass being cracked right where the needle would be in the too-hot range. My dad had gave me the Chevrolet after he was done with it. He bought it new in 1939, wrecked it once when a possum ran out in front of him, then drove it some more before handing it over to me.
The radio preacher was talking on the Emerson radio I carried with me. The truck didn’t have one, didn’t have much of anything besides what it needed to run. My old man told the Chevy dealer to give him a truck that wasn’t nothing but a truck. Nothing else. I remember he was mad and hollered something fierce when he saw the hand-crank vent at the front by the window, and thought they’d charged him extra for that. But the store man said no all the new trucks had them and you couldn’t get it without that window crank. It still took him a while to settle down, though. By now the hard springs were poking through the seat, hurt my butt on long rides. You had to sit up straight and kind of hunch forward to make the springs hurt less. But—like I said—every ten miles or so you had to stop anyway to let the truck rest and cool down.
The preacher was talking about what made us different from the other things that were alive, what set us apart. I was there in the shade of the Joshua Tree, and he said this—I remember it: “Can a cactus be President?” Then he said that no a cactus could not be president. Then he stopped, and the radio was quiet for a minute. I thought maybe the batteries had run down, but then he piped up again, like he’d just thought of something new to say. He said that a cactus was a prickly thing, and then he just let the matter rest, didn’t talk about the president or the cactus. But I was thinking that—from what he said—the main reason a cactus couldn’t be president was that it was prickly. I knew that wasn’t the case, that there were other reasons besides that.
Now it’s all these years later, maybe over fifty or so, and the new President’s swearing-in is coming over the television—the same one I’ve had for maybe twenty years, but still works okay. It doesn’t show the pictures in color, but there ain’t much color around here anyways. I set up the tv in the kitchen, moved away some beer cans to make space for it. These weren’t regular beer cans, like the ones I haven’t throwed out yet—these are ones from a long time ago, from olden times, have markings on them not like the new ones. One of them says, “Bullfrog Beer Our old Famous Brand.” Someone told me the can might be worth as much as ten bucks or maybe a little more, if the right person wanted it.
I looked hard at the screen, the little tv sitting on the counter with the beer cans on either side. They showed him, the new man that would live in the White House. He was not prickly. I turned off the set.
Out in the yard the old Chevy was still there. I didn’t think about it much, didn’t really remember if it ran when I parked it there, or if I just kind of pushed it out of the way and left it. It was part of the scenery, and after some years, maybe longer it just blended in, so that you didn’t have to really look at it to know it was there, but if you happened to be looking that way, chances are you would kind of just glance over it like you were staring out at the horizon—where there isn’t much of anything at all. So, in a way, the truck had become kind of invisible. I remembered the radio sermon out there in the desert, when I’d stopped to let the truck cool down. We had a new president and he wasn’t prickly.
So I’m writing this to thank you Mr. President for the good you have done and will surely do as you lead us in this great nation. And it doesn’t matter if we are alone all by ourselves with some beer cans and a old truck, or living high up someplace with offices and big cities and a lot of people around. You will do your best to help us all and I thank you for that.
Jasper Hanks
Beatty, NV
Letter to Obama (Washington Post)
It was back in 1958 and I was headed home to Nevada by way of Death Valley. My old truck was mostly wore out by that time, would overheat every ten miles or so and force me to stop. I pulled over by a Joshua Tree when I saw the needle go past the halfway mark—which was kind of hard to make out, on account of the gauge glass being cracked right where the needle would be in the too-hot range. My dad had gave me the Chevrolet after he was done with it. He bought it new in 1939, wrecked it once when a possum ran out in front of him, then drove it some more before handing it over to me.
The radio preacher was talking on the Emerson radio I carried with me. The truck didn’t have one, didn’t have much of anything besides what it needed to run. My old man told the Chevy dealer to give him a truck that wasn’t nothing but a truck. Nothing else. I remember he was mad and hollered something fierce when he saw the hand-crank vent at the front by the window, and thought they’d charged him extra for that. But the store man said no all the new trucks had them and you couldn’t get it without that window crank. It still took him a while to settle down, though. By now the hard springs were poking through the seat, hurt my butt on long rides. You had to sit up straight and kind of hunch forward to make the springs hurt less. But—like I said—every ten miles or so you had to stop anyway to let the truck rest and cool down.
The preacher was talking about what made us different from the other things that were alive, what set us apart. I was there in the shade of the Joshua Tree, and he said this—I remember it: “Can a cactus be President?” Then he said that no a cactus could not be president. Then he stopped, and the radio was quiet for a minute. I thought maybe the batteries had run down, but then he piped up again, like he’d just thought of something new to say. He said that a cactus was a prickly thing, and then he just let the matter rest, didn’t talk about the president or the cactus. But I was thinking that—from what he said—the main reason a cactus couldn’t be president was that it was prickly. I knew that wasn’t the case, that there were other reasons besides that.
Now it’s all these years later, maybe over fifty or so, and the new President’s swearing-in is coming over the television—the same one I’ve had for maybe twenty years, but still works okay. It doesn’t show the pictures in color, but there ain’t much color around here anyways. I set up the tv in the kitchen, moved away some beer cans to make space for it. These weren’t regular beer cans, like the ones I haven’t throwed out yet—these are ones from a long time ago, from olden times, have markings on them not like the new ones. One of them says, “Bullfrog Beer Our old Famous Brand.” Someone told me the can might be worth as much as ten bucks or maybe a little more, if the right person wanted it.
I looked hard at the screen, the little tv sitting on the counter with the beer cans on either side. They showed him, the new man that would live in the White House. He was not prickly. I turned off the set.
Out in the yard the old Chevy was still there. I didn’t think about it much, didn’t really remember if it ran when I parked it there, or if I just kind of pushed it out of the way and left it. It was part of the scenery, and after some years, maybe longer it just blended in, so that you didn’t have to really look at it to know it was there, but if you happened to be looking that way, chances are you would kind of just glance over it like you were staring out at the horizon—where there isn’t much of anything at all. So, in a way, the truck had become kind of invisible. I remembered the radio sermon out there in the desert, when I’d stopped to let the truck cool down. We had a new president and he wasn’t prickly.
So I’m writing this to thank you Mr. President for the good you have done and will surely do as you lead us in this great nation. And it doesn’t matter if we are alone all by ourselves with some beer cans and a old truck, or living high up someplace with offices and big cities and a lot of people around. You will do your best to help us all and I thank you for that.
Jasper Hanks
Beatty, NV
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Street People
I heard the fox tonight. Coming home around one in the morning, the night had settled into the coldest temperature it was comfortable with—would not rise from that or dip any further. It was around twenty degrees outside, and the air was clear and dry. No clouds hid the bright moon, making the night seem colder. The sharpness of everything pricks at you, makes the edges of the world seem more brittle, less kind than in milder and cloudier times.
Some might call the fox’s cry a “bark.” I think it sounds more like a scream. Even if you’ve heard it many times, like I have, it is still disconcerting, unsettling. It’s simply that I don’t know what it means—that piercing cry out there in the brittle cold. If I were another fox I might pay it no heed, or perhaps answer in a way that would make the other fox just shut up. But I’m a human, and if I heard another human making that sound, I would know that person was not having a happy time. So the fox spoke to me, and I heard what I wanted to hear, as people often do. I went to the leftover beef stew, lingering in the fridge since before I left for Europe. I took the whole crock pot and a spatula out into that area of the yard just under the maple tree, scooped it out onto the frozen ground. The fox would know to look for it there, would leave no trace of it the next morning. It was maybe even looking at me silently from the not-too-distant stand of trees, from that place its scream had been coming from.
I thought about the encampments of street people in Paris, bedding down for the night in the out of doors. I would walk the streets late, see a small village huddled in the granite entrance of an office building, see the stuff of their bedding—cardboard, sleeping bags, blankets and so on. Up ahead on a bench would be a buffet set out by a neighborhood business—a restaurant that had closed for the night. Tray upon tray of untouched food waited there in aluminum foil dishes, as yet undiscovered by the city dwellers who called the streets their home. Chicken and rice and cous-cous, potatoes and vegetables that had just been offered in an expensive eatery, waited in the silent and deserted street, with the overhead lamps casting their light on this incongruous scene. I’d passed many of the street people so far, but now there were none—the food and the people inhabited two different worlds at the moment. I walked on, my travels taking me to the parts of the city removed from the grands magasins, where people who were not actually from the city rarely strayed. At this hour the big boulevard was dark and traveled by little traffic—unlike the constant to-and-fro of that area near the Place de la Madeleine or near the big opera house, where a good deal of activity could be expected no matter what the hour.
Back in my familiar neighborhood, with all the cafés suffused by a golden light, couples toasted each other, drank to the day, to each other’s health. They spoke of their work, of the kids, or of the kids they planned to have—one day if they ever moved away from Paris and someplace a little more reasonable. They pondered what little introduction to their meal they might indulge in, would it be some foie gras or coquilles Saint-Jacques—or perhaps something else entirely? This was their main preoccupation as they sat in front of the expanse of glass, that partition that separated them from the glistening city outside—the streets and sidewalks and fashion shops reflected in the mirror of the café’s window.
Just outside, within view of the comfortable and warm couples, a man was dragging an enormous piece of cardboard to his spot to bed down for the night. The cold November streets would be a little more welcoming with a mattress made from the discarded refrigerator box. Whatever he could pull up over his body would be a temporary shield against the drizzle or snow that might fall that night.
Back home, in the woods outside the comfortable homes of suburbia, a fox screamed.
Some might call the fox’s cry a “bark.” I think it sounds more like a scream. Even if you’ve heard it many times, like I have, it is still disconcerting, unsettling. It’s simply that I don’t know what it means—that piercing cry out there in the brittle cold. If I were another fox I might pay it no heed, or perhaps answer in a way that would make the other fox just shut up. But I’m a human, and if I heard another human making that sound, I would know that person was not having a happy time. So the fox spoke to me, and I heard what I wanted to hear, as people often do. I went to the leftover beef stew, lingering in the fridge since before I left for Europe. I took the whole crock pot and a spatula out into that area of the yard just under the maple tree, scooped it out onto the frozen ground. The fox would know to look for it there, would leave no trace of it the next morning. It was maybe even looking at me silently from the not-too-distant stand of trees, from that place its scream had been coming from.
I thought about the encampments of street people in Paris, bedding down for the night in the out of doors. I would walk the streets late, see a small village huddled in the granite entrance of an office building, see the stuff of their bedding—cardboard, sleeping bags, blankets and so on. Up ahead on a bench would be a buffet set out by a neighborhood business—a restaurant that had closed for the night. Tray upon tray of untouched food waited there in aluminum foil dishes, as yet undiscovered by the city dwellers who called the streets their home. Chicken and rice and cous-cous, potatoes and vegetables that had just been offered in an expensive eatery, waited in the silent and deserted street, with the overhead lamps casting their light on this incongruous scene. I’d passed many of the street people so far, but now there were none—the food and the people inhabited two different worlds at the moment. I walked on, my travels taking me to the parts of the city removed from the grands magasins, where people who were not actually from the city rarely strayed. At this hour the big boulevard was dark and traveled by little traffic—unlike the constant to-and-fro of that area near the Place de la Madeleine or near the big opera house, where a good deal of activity could be expected no matter what the hour.
Back in my familiar neighborhood, with all the cafés suffused by a golden light, couples toasted each other, drank to the day, to each other’s health. They spoke of their work, of the kids, or of the kids they planned to have—one day if they ever moved away from Paris and someplace a little more reasonable. They pondered what little introduction to their meal they might indulge in, would it be some foie gras or coquilles Saint-Jacques—or perhaps something else entirely? This was their main preoccupation as they sat in front of the expanse of glass, that partition that separated them from the glistening city outside—the streets and sidewalks and fashion shops reflected in the mirror of the café’s window.
Just outside, within view of the comfortable and warm couples, a man was dragging an enormous piece of cardboard to his spot to bed down for the night. The cold November streets would be a little more welcoming with a mattress made from the discarded refrigerator box. Whatever he could pull up over his body would be a temporary shield against the drizzle or snow that might fall that night.
Back home, in the woods outside the comfortable homes of suburbia, a fox screamed.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Boston To Reyjkavik
Boston To Reyjkavik
On the plane to Iceland I had the good fortune to sit next to a man maybe ten years my junior who was born to an Icelandic mother and had since made his life in the United States. He was American but also somewhat Icelandic. He told me things.
This he said: That once, maybe five years ago, maybe less, he’d met a young woman in the small island country, had brought her home to Austin. Things had not gone well, as one might expect. The constant crush of sweltering days, where the temperature climbed to over a hundred degrees, was more than she could bear. Add to the mix some built-in instability that the youthful couple brought to Texas, and you might very well imagine a scenario with blue police lights on a hot Austin night, shouts and the sound of things being thrown coming from a rented clapboard bungalow with dogs barking in the neighbors’ yards. Outside, a chain-link fence erected many years ago enclosed a tattered yard that didn’t need much tending, on account of the burnt and withered grass that didn’t really grow, but just rose tentatively an inch or so above the ground—only to be beat back by the terrible sun. A small concrete path, leading from the bungalow’s back door, ended at a tilting clothes-line pole. Beyond that was a barbecue grill faded of all color from its days in the heat.
And then there were court appearances; and later, silences spread across the tables in the local fast-food eateries, and the sun-blasted Texas landscape outside, and the pickups and cars and slow-moving people just props to their drama, which was the only thing that mattered. You begin to get the idea. The woman is back in Iceland now, and the two are happier with this arrangement. I liked the man, admired his openness, told him to order his favorite Icelandic vodka, because it was on me. I’d vowed to get as drunk as I could on this hideous flight that I hated more than anything in this world—which is saying something, because there are few things that I don’t hate. After a gin and tonic and a vodka and cranberry juice, I still wasn’t sufficiently numbed—and could actually understand most of what my seat-mate was telling me. I went to the back of the plane, paid for another Icelandic vodka, came back to drink it alone. My new friend was nodding off in front of the brightly-lit touch-screen video display. I watched the strange concert of an Icelandic group called Sigur Ros, as they toured the small towns and sparsely-populated places—some of which I recognized—to pay homage to and thank the people of Iceland for listening to them.
If you could attribute a sound to the silent rocks of Iceland, and vast, untouched landscapes, recently heaved up from the earth’s innards—Sigur Ros would be that sound. There were three or four musicians—it was hard to tell, because they played behind a gauzy veil-like thing that projected shadows from behind—where the band performed. Everything was mystery—their strange music, that followed no musical conventions, but nonetheless expressed perfectly their time and place. The band members themselves—now worldwide performers—were self-effacing, as if to say: “We’re Icelanders—how could this have happened to US?” It is not dance music, is not a carnival ride on the midway; it is something you have to pay attention to, and if you get it—you will know right away. My feeling is that it helps to know Iceland to appreciate their music, but I am not sure it is entirely necessary. Sigur Ros. There are accents that need to be placed here and there, and that are hidden somewhere on my computer keyboard, like the mystery that is their music. These things elude me at the moment. Sigur Rós. Okay, there.
A good place to hear some of their music is on the internet. A nice clip from the “Heima” concert is on YouTube.
On the plane to Iceland I had the good fortune to sit next to a man maybe ten years my junior who was born to an Icelandic mother and had since made his life in the United States. He was American but also somewhat Icelandic. He told me things.
This he said: That once, maybe five years ago, maybe less, he’d met a young woman in the small island country, had brought her home to Austin. Things had not gone well, as one might expect. The constant crush of sweltering days, where the temperature climbed to over a hundred degrees, was more than she could bear. Add to the mix some built-in instability that the youthful couple brought to Texas, and you might very well imagine a scenario with blue police lights on a hot Austin night, shouts and the sound of things being thrown coming from a rented clapboard bungalow with dogs barking in the neighbors’ yards. Outside, a chain-link fence erected many years ago enclosed a tattered yard that didn’t need much tending, on account of the burnt and withered grass that didn’t really grow, but just rose tentatively an inch or so above the ground—only to be beat back by the terrible sun. A small concrete path, leading from the bungalow’s back door, ended at a tilting clothes-line pole. Beyond that was a barbecue grill faded of all color from its days in the heat.
And then there were court appearances; and later, silences spread across the tables in the local fast-food eateries, and the sun-blasted Texas landscape outside, and the pickups and cars and slow-moving people just props to their drama, which was the only thing that mattered. You begin to get the idea. The woman is back in Iceland now, and the two are happier with this arrangement. I liked the man, admired his openness, told him to order his favorite Icelandic vodka, because it was on me. I’d vowed to get as drunk as I could on this hideous flight that I hated more than anything in this world—which is saying something, because there are few things that I don’t hate. After a gin and tonic and a vodka and cranberry juice, I still wasn’t sufficiently numbed—and could actually understand most of what my seat-mate was telling me. I went to the back of the plane, paid for another Icelandic vodka, came back to drink it alone. My new friend was nodding off in front of the brightly-lit touch-screen video display. I watched the strange concert of an Icelandic group called Sigur Ros, as they toured the small towns and sparsely-populated places—some of which I recognized—to pay homage to and thank the people of Iceland for listening to them.
If you could attribute a sound to the silent rocks of Iceland, and vast, untouched landscapes, recently heaved up from the earth’s innards—Sigur Ros would be that sound. There were three or four musicians—it was hard to tell, because they played behind a gauzy veil-like thing that projected shadows from behind—where the band performed. Everything was mystery—their strange music, that followed no musical conventions, but nonetheless expressed perfectly their time and place. The band members themselves—now worldwide performers—were self-effacing, as if to say: “We’re Icelanders—how could this have happened to US?” It is not dance music, is not a carnival ride on the midway; it is something you have to pay attention to, and if you get it—you will know right away. My feeling is that it helps to know Iceland to appreciate their music, but I am not sure it is entirely necessary. Sigur Ros. There are accents that need to be placed here and there, and that are hidden somewhere on my computer keyboard, like the mystery that is their music. These things elude me at the moment. Sigur Rós. Okay, there.
A good place to hear some of their music is on the internet. A nice clip from the “Heima” concert is on YouTube.
Monday, January 5, 2009
It's Very Likely
Recently there were high winds in the area that resulted in the death of a priest who was trying to clear a roadway—and that also injured a little boy in Montgomery County, Maryland. The head of emergency services in that county had this to say to reporters:
"There were some toys and playthings out there. It's very likely he was outdoors playing."
"There were some toys and playthings out there. It's very likely he was outdoors playing."
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Jacques Prévert
Paris
With a terrible chill settling over the town, and an intermittent drizzle to round things out, I got in line with the others, those waiting to learn about the life of Jacques Prévert. It was free, so only the wait was necessary to gain access to the Mairie—or building that served as the city hall.
As the stoic and wordless people of Paris emptied their pockets at the security checkpoint, I asked this: “We have to put in our coins as well?” A flustered man was collecting the contents of his pocket from the little security bin, where he’d put a good deal of small and insignificant fractions of the euro. He was holding things up. No—the security man said—an affable person with a formidable sidearm. “Your knives, guns, sharp, pointy things. We need to collect all that.” There was some measure of relief that this loud American, so inexplicably dressed like the rest of them, had cleared up this detail of the security procedure. It was almost as if it would have been impolite for the armed guards to say that the coins were not really something that needed to go through the metal detector—so they said nothing at all. But this blowhard, hell-sent directly from across the Atlantic Ocean, was okay. He’d slice through the layers of formality, the centuries of keeping quiet unless it really required a comment—and even then it was best just to keep mum. No telling what might happen.
Inside, the people in charge of this exhibit spared no detail of M. Prévert’s life. All of his childhood sketches were there, the animations for fantastic cartoons played in black and white on one of several movie screens set up in little theatres. In other screening rooms, there played little films that exhibited an unrestrained sense of humor and creativity. He was a man not bound by convention, had realized from an early age how his life would most likely play out, and had followed that path to success. In his wake lay the works he’d created: the lyrics to “Les Feuilles Mortes,” which has become a standard covered in both popular and jazz circles—most often in English under the title, “Autumn Leaves.” Various plays and films he’d authored, and had also helped direct. His innocent and fascinating sketches seemed to bear a fanciful nod to Hieronymous Bosch—that vastly strange artist of fifteenth century Europe, in the respect that he depicted beasts never before seen or even imagined. Absent, of course, are the illustrations of nightmarish monsters and incomprehensible transactions between human-like creatures and their devil-sent counterparts. Prévert’s drawings have a good-natured quality about them, that does not delve into irony or rake at the muck of the human condition.
He appeared to love cats, and was often photographed or depicted with a favorite feline on his shoulder or nearby in the household. The illustrations that illuminated his life for the visitors of the exhibit were so numerous that I eventually just sought out the ones that contained a cat—in order to save a little time. In all, the artist is most known as a prominent poet and screenwriter—although I can say I only have a passing acquaintance with his works. In the coming times, I’ll do my best to rectify that.
I exited the place, deciding to bypass the little gift shop area that sold books and postcards and other things related to the departed artist’s life. I felt, during the exhibit, that I was suddenly becoming sick. I was on the left bank, within sight of the well-lit Notre Dame cathedral, and had the full and bustling rush-hour Metro to contend with. The symptoms came on quickly: An aching throughout all my body, that seemed to permeate my very bones, and a chill that had nothing to do with the damp and cold Paris evening. I put on my gloves, wrapped my scarf more tightly around my neck, and pulled my grey woolen cap down over my ears.
On the subway, I was glad to have a respite from human interaction, from the obligations of coming into close contact with people. I could be miserable and sick, and not have to acknowledge anyone. This is a major advantage of Parisian life—or life anywhere in a big city, for that matter. Had I collapsed suddenly on a crowded sidewalk, the busy pedestrians would simply have stepped over my person, trying hard not to look too closely at this unfortunate, as it might be deemed impolite. I felt comforted by that thought.
Fortunately I found a seat on the two trains I had to take, did not much care if I were sitting where an infirm or more deserving person might have sat. By this time I was almost trembling with shivers, and wondered how long this whole episode was going to last. Getting off the final train, I trod upon a young man’s feet, something that I am prone to doing on the Paris Metro. They don’t quite give you enough room to stow your feet under your seat, so many passengers sit with their legs out in the standing area. You really have to pay attention. I apologized, stumbled off the train, and got out into the fresh air of the Place de l’Opéra. I made for my hotel, with my coat bundled up around my face, and quickly got undressed and into bed at around eight in the evening. The next morning I would sleep through breakfast, and the hotel lady at the front desk—Mlle. Frédéric, would tell me afterwards that hardly anyone had come down that morning—that it seemed as though everyone in Paris had become sick.
With a terrible chill settling over the town, and an intermittent drizzle to round things out, I got in line with the others, those waiting to learn about the life of Jacques Prévert. It was free, so only the wait was necessary to gain access to the Mairie—or building that served as the city hall.
As the stoic and wordless people of Paris emptied their pockets at the security checkpoint, I asked this: “We have to put in our coins as well?” A flustered man was collecting the contents of his pocket from the little security bin, where he’d put a good deal of small and insignificant fractions of the euro. He was holding things up. No—the security man said—an affable person with a formidable sidearm. “Your knives, guns, sharp, pointy things. We need to collect all that.” There was some measure of relief that this loud American, so inexplicably dressed like the rest of them, had cleared up this detail of the security procedure. It was almost as if it would have been impolite for the armed guards to say that the coins were not really something that needed to go through the metal detector—so they said nothing at all. But this blowhard, hell-sent directly from across the Atlantic Ocean, was okay. He’d slice through the layers of formality, the centuries of keeping quiet unless it really required a comment—and even then it was best just to keep mum. No telling what might happen.
Inside, the people in charge of this exhibit spared no detail of M. Prévert’s life. All of his childhood sketches were there, the animations for fantastic cartoons played in black and white on one of several movie screens set up in little theatres. In other screening rooms, there played little films that exhibited an unrestrained sense of humor and creativity. He was a man not bound by convention, had realized from an early age how his life would most likely play out, and had followed that path to success. In his wake lay the works he’d created: the lyrics to “Les Feuilles Mortes,” which has become a standard covered in both popular and jazz circles—most often in English under the title, “Autumn Leaves.” Various plays and films he’d authored, and had also helped direct. His innocent and fascinating sketches seemed to bear a fanciful nod to Hieronymous Bosch—that vastly strange artist of fifteenth century Europe, in the respect that he depicted beasts never before seen or even imagined. Absent, of course, are the illustrations of nightmarish monsters and incomprehensible transactions between human-like creatures and their devil-sent counterparts. Prévert’s drawings have a good-natured quality about them, that does not delve into irony or rake at the muck of the human condition.
He appeared to love cats, and was often photographed or depicted with a favorite feline on his shoulder or nearby in the household. The illustrations that illuminated his life for the visitors of the exhibit were so numerous that I eventually just sought out the ones that contained a cat—in order to save a little time. In all, the artist is most known as a prominent poet and screenwriter—although I can say I only have a passing acquaintance with his works. In the coming times, I’ll do my best to rectify that.
I exited the place, deciding to bypass the little gift shop area that sold books and postcards and other things related to the departed artist’s life. I felt, during the exhibit, that I was suddenly becoming sick. I was on the left bank, within sight of the well-lit Notre Dame cathedral, and had the full and bustling rush-hour Metro to contend with. The symptoms came on quickly: An aching throughout all my body, that seemed to permeate my very bones, and a chill that had nothing to do with the damp and cold Paris evening. I put on my gloves, wrapped my scarf more tightly around my neck, and pulled my grey woolen cap down over my ears.
On the subway, I was glad to have a respite from human interaction, from the obligations of coming into close contact with people. I could be miserable and sick, and not have to acknowledge anyone. This is a major advantage of Parisian life—or life anywhere in a big city, for that matter. Had I collapsed suddenly on a crowded sidewalk, the busy pedestrians would simply have stepped over my person, trying hard not to look too closely at this unfortunate, as it might be deemed impolite. I felt comforted by that thought.
Fortunately I found a seat on the two trains I had to take, did not much care if I were sitting where an infirm or more deserving person might have sat. By this time I was almost trembling with shivers, and wondered how long this whole episode was going to last. Getting off the final train, I trod upon a young man’s feet, something that I am prone to doing on the Paris Metro. They don’t quite give you enough room to stow your feet under your seat, so many passengers sit with their legs out in the standing area. You really have to pay attention. I apologized, stumbled off the train, and got out into the fresh air of the Place de l’Opéra. I made for my hotel, with my coat bundled up around my face, and quickly got undressed and into bed at around eight in the evening. The next morning I would sleep through breakfast, and the hotel lady at the front desk—Mlle. Frédéric, would tell me afterwards that hardly anyone had come down that morning—that it seemed as though everyone in Paris had become sick.
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