March 2008 Archives
Finally I got out fishing in the fresh air today. Now, you understand that fly fishing on a small stream on the East Coast is not what you'd call an extreme sport. It's more a kind of understated, delicate activity, like playing croquet. There's some walking involved, and occasionally a clamber up and down a bank.
But somehow, buying food on the way home, it seemed right that there was ground bison on the supermarket shelf. Bison! The wide open spaces! Mountains on the horizon! And of course, there's the attractive idea that eating a particular animal will give you that animal's characteristics. But I got to thinking: What if eating animals doesn't necessarily give you the most desirable of that animal's qualities? What if eating bison doesn't actually give you the strength of the bison? What if it gives you, say, the grace and agility of the bison? Or just the smell of the bison? All the label said was to keep refrigerated and to use or freeze before April 2. I think there's more to know.
But somehow, buying food on the way home, it seemed right that there was ground bison on the supermarket shelf. Bison! The wide open spaces! Mountains on the horizon! And of course, there's the attractive idea that eating a particular animal will give you that animal's characteristics. But I got to thinking: What if eating animals doesn't necessarily give you the most desirable of that animal's qualities? What if eating bison doesn't actually give you the strength of the bison? What if it gives you, say, the grace and agility of the bison? Or just the smell of the bison? All the label said was to keep refrigerated and to use or freeze before April 2. I think there's more to know.
Last night I went uptown to a sort of coming-out party the Obama headquarters was having. Much excitement, people spilling out onto the sidewalk, nice suburbanite families going away with Obama signs on wire frames to stick in the ground at home. I fought my way in, fended off several attempts to recruit me as a volunteer, and bought a sign and two bumper stickers. I was taken aback at having to pay for the promotional materials, but I was talking on the phone later about it and was told that this ensures you'll actually use the signs and stickers you take.
"Oh," I said. "Like a co-pay. I thought they just wanted the money."
I should assure everyone that my feeling that Obama's the best of the lot isn't because I'm swooning over him. I'm not writing his name over and over in my notebook. It's not that I think he's the coolest guy in the race. Look, I voted for Al Gore, whom Calvin Trillin called a "manlike object." I just think Obama shows encouraging signs of not being insane. Emotional intelligence—it's a good thing, in a leader. Hillary is a bit too much of a Type-A personality, the "A" in this case standing for "Ahab."
"Oh," I said. "Like a co-pay. I thought they just wanted the money."
I should assure everyone that my feeling that Obama's the best of the lot isn't because I'm swooning over him. I'm not writing his name over and over in my notebook. It's not that I think he's the coolest guy in the race. Look, I voted for Al Gore, whom Calvin Trillin called a "manlike object." I just think Obama shows encouraging signs of not being insane. Emotional intelligence—it's a good thing, in a leader. Hillary is a bit too much of a Type-A personality, the "A" in this case standing for "Ahab."
One of the many reasons to fish is that you're always thinking ahead, and in the middle of winter (and especially at its end) you're agog with anticipation, like a little kid. Spring comes as no surprise to a well-prepared angler.
But I've been an ill-prepared one for a couple of years now. I took my eye off the ball, worrying about this and that all winter, And when I first saw the buds and blooms peeking out, I realized I simply wasn't looking for it. I guess it was like that for our caveperson ancestors. They didn't know about the solar system, and when the sun started hanging lower in the sky, and spending less time there, they were bound to worry.
I used to think they were stupid. You could go to the oldest person in the cave, and broach the subject of the sun going out. Has it ever gone out, you know, for good? The oldest person would give them a look—the look that says you're an idiot. (My sister once said something and I looked at her, and she said, "Shut up!") The sun did that every year, the old person would say, not even looking up from the sinew she was stitching a bearskin with. "Don't worry about it."
As I say, I used to think they were stupid, but this year I understand. I didn't think the sun was going out, exactly, but I don't think I really understood that it would climb back up in the sky and make things bloom and bring about a general glorious renewal. (I love the Italian word for spring: primavera, "first green.") I really hadn't thought about it at all.
So I'm more or less in the position of those worrywart cavepersons—I believe I harbored in my breast, without articulating the thought, the idea that things would be cold and bare forever. But now I'm seeing the first green, and lavender and red and yellow. I was out walking yesterday, looked up through some formerly bare branches, and saw blood-red blooms against a robin's-egg sky. I wasn't sure it would, I really wasn't, but it's a pleasant surprise that it did.
But I've been an ill-prepared one for a couple of years now. I took my eye off the ball, worrying about this and that all winter, And when I first saw the buds and blooms peeking out, I realized I simply wasn't looking for it. I guess it was like that for our caveperson ancestors. They didn't know about the solar system, and when the sun started hanging lower in the sky, and spending less time there, they were bound to worry. I used to think they were stupid. You could go to the oldest person in the cave, and broach the subject of the sun going out. Has it ever gone out, you know, for good? The oldest person would give them a look—the look that says you're an idiot. (My sister once said something and I looked at her, and she said, "Shut up!") The sun did that every year, the old person would say, not even looking up from the sinew she was stitching a bearskin with. "Don't worry about it."
As I say, I used to think they were stupid, but this year I understand. I didn't think the sun was going out, exactly, but I don't think I really understood that it would climb back up in the sky and make things bloom and bring about a general glorious renewal. (I love the Italian word for spring: primavera, "first green.") I really hadn't thought about it at all.
So I'm more or less in the position of those worrywart cavepersons—I believe I harbored in my breast, without articulating the thought, the idea that things would be cold and bare forever. But now I'm seeing the first green, and lavender and red and yellow. I was out walking yesterday, looked up through some formerly bare branches, and saw blood-red blooms against a robin's-egg sky. I wasn't sure it would, I really wasn't, but it's a pleasant surprise that it did.
Maybe I'm only just noticing this. That's how it goes sometimes. I remember in my parents' house, we'd occasionally get infestations of flying ants, but you wouldn't notice the infestation all at once. You'd look at the floor, and see an ant. Then you'd move your gaze a few inches or so, and see two or three more. Then you'd see there were millions of them.
That's how it's been with my noticing that the word "narrative" has crept into the media and just spread like bunnies in Australia. Just now I was reading a Times story about the McCain candidacy that said "if campaigns are primarily about narratives ... " and I had to stop and mention this phenomenon. I only noticed it a month or two ago, but the word "narrative" now stands in for a host of other words: story, scenario, fantasy, myth, and so on.
What I suspect is that all these writer dudes heard a bunch of professor dudes talking about how knowledge is "socially constructed." Basically what this means is that a lot of what you and I know, we know because other people told it to us, and the other people could be devious or wrong. People make good livings tricking that idea out in lots of long, relatively meaningless words. They really do. And a lot of them will tell you that nothing really exists except in our minds. People pay perfectly good money to be told that often enough that they believe it.
Anyway, just wondering if other people are noticing this too. Personally I'm not so sure that any good purpose is served by calling all these different things "narratives." I'm not so sure about this socially constructed theory of knowledge, either. For a long time, nobody had ever seen Antarctica. But it was there all along. That's what I think, anyway.
That's how it's been with my noticing that the word "narrative" has crept into the media and just spread like bunnies in Australia. Just now I was reading a Times story about the McCain candidacy that said "if campaigns are primarily about narratives ... " and I had to stop and mention this phenomenon. I only noticed it a month or two ago, but the word "narrative" now stands in for a host of other words: story, scenario, fantasy, myth, and so on.
What I suspect is that all these writer dudes heard a bunch of professor dudes talking about how knowledge is "socially constructed." Basically what this means is that a lot of what you and I know, we know because other people told it to us, and the other people could be devious or wrong. People make good livings tricking that idea out in lots of long, relatively meaningless words. They really do. And a lot of them will tell you that nothing really exists except in our minds. People pay perfectly good money to be told that often enough that they believe it.
Anyway, just wondering if other people are noticing this too. Personally I'm not so sure that any good purpose is served by calling all these different things "narratives." I'm not so sure about this socially constructed theory of knowledge, either. For a long time, nobody had ever seen Antarctica. But it was there all along. That's what I think, anyway.
I'm always looking things up and discovering that they're not quite as simple as I'd heard, and that's OK. Live and learn. But yesterday I just wanted to throw up my hands in despair. I go to Wikipedia, seeing what it had about the 18th century for a project I'm doing. I assumed that I had, as a starting point, a general idea of when the 18th century was. I would have told you that it ran from 1700 to 1799. Or 1701 to 1800? I can never keep that straight. Roughly in that range, at any rate.
But no. Right off, the entry said "historians sometimes specifically define the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work."
What?
"For example," the entry said, "the 'short' 18th century may be defined as 1715–1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution while the 'long' 18th century may run from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the battle of Waterloo in 1815 or even later."
How do you like that! The short 18th century! The long 18th century! For example! Even later! And Luke, guess what? Darth Vader didn't kill your father! Check it out—Darth Vader is your father!
The mind reels, and nothing is certain. We see through a glass, darkly. I just give up. I really do.
But no. Right off, the entry said "historians sometimes specifically define the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work."
What?
"For example," the entry said, "the 'short' 18th century may be defined as 1715–1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution while the 'long' 18th century may run from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the battle of Waterloo in 1815 or even later."
How do you like that! The short 18th century! The long 18th century! For example! Even later! And Luke, guess what? Darth Vader didn't kill your father! Check it out—Darth Vader is your father!
The mind reels, and nothing is certain. We see through a glass, darkly. I just give up. I really do.
At a certain point, when I start to feel stressed and tired, I imagine myself in the position of the Humphrey Bogart character in The African Queen at the point where he's poling the boat through a weed-infested swamp, and then gets out and pulls for days on end. He's covered in leeches, and so desperately tired that he's at the end of his rope—it's a thing you can see in his eyes.
I don't want to overdramatize my own busyness lately but one reason I can't discover too many marvelous little moments in life lately is because that's not what you need, really, when you're pulling a boat for days through a leech-infested swamp. What you need is more rest and fewer leeches. Yesterday a bird was singing cheerfully in the predawn darkness and I thought to myself, "Stupid bird." I mean, if life were poetically marvelous all the time it would just get old, don't you think? Speaking of which, the trash truck just came down the alley. Now I have to bring the garbage can back in. Anyway, stop in soon; I expect a supply of poetic bemarvelment to arrive any time now, but today we're fresh out.
OK, look—I am not complaining about this thing I'm going to point out here, not exactly, anyway. I understand that life is full of relatively minor inconveniences, OK? I'm fine with that. It's more like pointing out an injustice, or maybe even a violation of the rules of nature. OK? I'm just saying.
So anyway, it was supposed to snow a couple of nights ago. We were supposed to get an inch or so. I was actually kind of looking forward to it, the general transformation, the pristine uniformity, all that. It would be a change from plain old brown chilly March, at any rate. But we didn't get snow. But we could have, and that's the point, because a week or so ago the lady two doors down said she had ants.
Ants! I have suffered greatly (well, been annoyed, at any rate) by ants since I've lived here. There's something about the soil that's antogenic. I have sprayed so much insecticide, of every type, into every spot they appear, that the next step is to detach the house from its foundation and submerge the damn thing in a giant vat of the stuff, the way you would dip a flea-infested dog. In the summer I have to put the cat's food bowl in a larger dish filled with water—an ant moat, if you will—to keep them from appropriating it. I watch them stroll with a certain proprietary satisfaction over my office desk. They seem to mock my pretensions to civilization. "Tap on your little computer, mammal," they say, laughing tiny little laughs, "you might as well be living in a Stone Age village. We own your kitchen (I have to put the sugar in a sealed bag), we own your desk, and soon, when we figure out how to build boats, we'll own your cat food too. And the day will come when you die—probably of insecticide-hastened cancer—and they'll put you in the ground and we'll own you too. Ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!"
I watch the ants stroll across the desk and I reach for a sticky note and press the sticky part on the ant. I watch the ant struggle for a while—they're strong for their size, but they're not strong enough to unstick themselves—and then I fold the note over the ant and put it in the trash. I do this wearily, with no vengeful glee. There are lots of ants where that one came from.
So anyway, when this woman said the ants had come back my heart sank. And here's the thing that really seems wrong—snow and ants simultaneously. I just don't want to come in from the snow, kick the slush off my boots, take off my coat and hat and gloves and muffler, and find ants all over the kitchen counter. It's unacceptable. It's too much. Not that I'm complaining or anything.
Oh, and guess what? I just now saw one. (It was immediately confined to a sticky note and put in the wastebasket, where it may well be contemplating the difference between an inconvenience and an actual problem.) It's March 23, 42 degress F. outside, 30 tonight. And the ants are here. It's going to be a long damn summer, I'll tell you that.
So anyway, it was supposed to snow a couple of nights ago. We were supposed to get an inch or so. I was actually kind of looking forward to it, the general transformation, the pristine uniformity, all that. It would be a change from plain old brown chilly March, at any rate. But we didn't get snow. But we could have, and that's the point, because a week or so ago the lady two doors down said she had ants.
Ants! I have suffered greatly (well, been annoyed, at any rate) by ants since I've lived here. There's something about the soil that's antogenic. I have sprayed so much insecticide, of every type, into every spot they appear, that the next step is to detach the house from its foundation and submerge the damn thing in a giant vat of the stuff, the way you would dip a flea-infested dog. In the summer I have to put the cat's food bowl in a larger dish filled with water—an ant moat, if you will—to keep them from appropriating it. I watch them stroll with a certain proprietary satisfaction over my office desk. They seem to mock my pretensions to civilization. "Tap on your little computer, mammal," they say, laughing tiny little laughs, "you might as well be living in a Stone Age village. We own your kitchen (I have to put the sugar in a sealed bag), we own your desk, and soon, when we figure out how to build boats, we'll own your cat food too. And the day will come when you die—probably of insecticide-hastened cancer—and they'll put you in the ground and we'll own you too. Ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!"
I watch the ants stroll across the desk and I reach for a sticky note and press the sticky part on the ant. I watch the ant struggle for a while—they're strong for their size, but they're not strong enough to unstick themselves—and then I fold the note over the ant and put it in the trash. I do this wearily, with no vengeful glee. There are lots of ants where that one came from.
So anyway, when this woman said the ants had come back my heart sank. And here's the thing that really seems wrong—snow and ants simultaneously. I just don't want to come in from the snow, kick the slush off my boots, take off my coat and hat and gloves and muffler, and find ants all over the kitchen counter. It's unacceptable. It's too much. Not that I'm complaining or anything.
Oh, and guess what? I just now saw one. (It was immediately confined to a sticky note and put in the wastebasket, where it may well be contemplating the difference between an inconvenience and an actual problem.) It's March 23, 42 degress F. outside, 30 tonight. And the ants are here. It's going to be a long damn summer, I'll tell you that.
I've been a dull boy lately, with lots to do and not enough time—like everyone, I'm sure. The few interesting things I notice go flying by, unpublicly remarked. But I was working away on a volunteer newsletter layout job, and I had the music playing downstairs, rock to get me going. And then it hit the next genre on iTunes, and started playing the lovely Vince Guaraldi jazz ballad, "Christmastime is Here." Yes, the one from the first Peanuts special, if you must know. And I decided I have to go play piano for a few minutes. I have to, must, imperative, dire necessity, all that. I don't know if there's a big guy upstairs, but I think people have something inside that corresponds to the idea of a soul, and mine needs, if you'll excuse me, to play piano for a couple of minutes.
Glancing over the Times this morning, I see this subhead on a story:
"The case of an immigration agent who is accused of demanding sex from a
woman raises questions about the vulnerability of the system to
corruption."
The only question I can personally think to raise is this: "Gee—is the system vulnerable to corruption?" And the only answer I can think of is this: Yes. Any system in which human beings make decisions is vulnerable to corruption. But if you raise the question with just the right sort of uber-serious tone, you can take one sleazeball and make him into a big significant Times story. The people at the Times have all worked very hard to get where they are, but actually this sort of thing is pretty easy.
It's probably obvious by now that I have a love-hate relationship with the media. The Times is like your slightly nerdy but but basically decent-guy cousin who did very well in grad school and is now a rising academic, and is given to making portentous pronouncements about things that just make the family laugh. At home, with the family, the nerdy family might even smile to himself at his own tendency to pretension. But he's still a big deal out in the world. We love him and we're proud of him but we still mock him occasionally because it's good for him.
It's the same on TV. People are always shooting each other in Philadelphia, which is 30 miles away from me, and whenever I see a TV I hear on the news that "shots rang out" on some corner somewhere. If you've ever heard a firearm discharged you know that shots do not ring. Depending, shots sound like firecrackers or they sound like two boards slapped together hard. It's a cracking noise, usually. No ringing. But on TV the shots invariably ring out. The only explanation I can think of for the utter uniformity of it over the years is that it's some sort of Federal Communications Commission regulation.
But really, the failure to describe gunfire in a fresh and compelling way is not the worst thing TV news does. I once heard this sort of thing called a "charming imperfection." And so is the tendency to find wide significance in an isolated incident, a la the Times. It's distinctive, part of who we are, like Marilyn Monroe's beauty mark—you wouldn't change it if you could.
As is my tendency to get caught up in things and forget the time. Holy crap, I've got 20 minutes to get ready for work. Bye!
It's easy—win the lottery. For years, people I've worked with would get excited when the Powerball prize would start climbing into the stratosphere—$185 million, $223 million, up and up twice a week, every time there was no jackpot winner. Someone at work would send a note around, and we'd all pony up and get a few hundred tickets all together. The odds against winning the Powerball are something like one in 146 million, so it helps to even the odds out a little.
But I always thought it was funny that people didn't get excited about the guaranteed base prize—a million dollars. That's the least you can win if you win the jackpot at Powerball. For the investment of a dollar, you get the return of a million. That's (let me check my math here) a hundred million percent return on the investment. Most people are happy if they're getting six or seven percent, so there you are. A million dollars isn't what it was in 1907, or anything, but it's still a pretty good chunk of money.
I assume that if people don't much care about winning a million dollars, they're pretty content with their lives. It's like when your birthday is coming up, and you tell everyone that you really don't want anything. Maybe you mean that you really, truly, don't want anything, and I hope it's true. But maybe you mean that you don't want a sweater, and if you do want one you'd kind of rather get it for yourself and know you'll like it. I have a few nice sweaters; I don't need any more. The things I really want cost thousands of dollars. Want, not need. I have everything I need, and more. So I don't buy a lottery ticket twice a week.
But sometimes I get a ticket, just for fun. I'm not entirely sure I understand the reasoning of people who wait until the prize approaches $300 million. I assume they're content with their lives, but if they had that much money they could get the one thing they always wanted but couldn't afford—a Boeing 747 all their own, or something equally pricey. I don't want to be fabulously rich. I think it would be troublesome, and I don't think it would make me happy. I just think it would be nice to have enough money not to have to worry about money for a while. "Money isn't everything," one of the Algonquin Round Table wits once said, "but the lack of money isn't anything."
But I always thought it was funny that people didn't get excited about the guaranteed base prize—a million dollars. That's the least you can win if you win the jackpot at Powerball. For the investment of a dollar, you get the return of a million. That's (let me check my math here) a hundred million percent return on the investment. Most people are happy if they're getting six or seven percent, so there you are. A million dollars isn't what it was in 1907, or anything, but it's still a pretty good chunk of money.
I assume that if people don't much care about winning a million dollars, they're pretty content with their lives. It's like when your birthday is coming up, and you tell everyone that you really don't want anything. Maybe you mean that you really, truly, don't want anything, and I hope it's true. But maybe you mean that you don't want a sweater, and if you do want one you'd kind of rather get it for yourself and know you'll like it. I have a few nice sweaters; I don't need any more. The things I really want cost thousands of dollars. Want, not need. I have everything I need, and more. So I don't buy a lottery ticket twice a week.
But sometimes I get a ticket, just for fun. I'm not entirely sure I understand the reasoning of people who wait until the prize approaches $300 million. I assume they're content with their lives, but if they had that much money they could get the one thing they always wanted but couldn't afford—a Boeing 747 all their own, or something equally pricey. I don't want to be fabulously rich. I think it would be troublesome, and I don't think it would make me happy. I just think it would be nice to have enough money not to have to worry about money for a while. "Money isn't everything," one of the Algonquin Round Table wits once said, "but the lack of money isn't anything."
My mom is sick and so are other people and lots of other things aren't right and I've got a lot to do and I'm in a bad mood. And maybe there's a lot of that going around. Last night I wrote to an editor I did a story for and told her a change she suggested was fine. She was having other problems and it wasn't worth going around and around about it. She wrote back:
"Good, you don’t want to say anything but “Aye, Aye Captain” tonight because I’m STILL trying to deal with the damned website. I hate computers! I hate [my employer]!! I hate everything!!!"I wrote back that I felt exactly the same and might as well go crouch malevolently under a bridge like the troll in "The Three Billy Goats Gruff." Or go sit on a park bench like a crazy old man and threaten friendly dogs with my cane. The dogs will go away with that hurt look in their eyes and I'll settle down again, muttering to myself. I'm not always in that kind of mood. But I am right now.
OK, I'm thinking about all these people in New York and New Jersey, state senators and governors and such, they're busy people, right? A million things to do every day. And yet they're somehow finding time for affairs and hookers and threesomes and goodness knows what all. So it occurs to me just now as I'm rushing through my morning routine, how in the hell do the find the time? Here I'm reading this David Allen Getting Things Done book, just to manage the far less ambitious professional and much more conventional social sides of my own life. (Mr. Allen says not a word about the undoubted time-management aspects of having a social life that involves, say, threesomes—if he knows anything, he's keeping it to himself.) You can argue the morality of it, but you have to admit, whatever else they are, these are very efficient people and I think we can agree to respect that.
I was at a supermarket, picking up food for dinner on the way home, and the cell phone went off. It was my dad, talking about how my mom had a bad cold for several days and then fainted today, so the doctor put her in the hospital. Dad didn't make a big deal out of it and I assumed it was partly her being 77 and partly her smoking for the last 63 of them. In other words, this was A Call, not The Call. So I went home, grabbed dinner, and went to the hospital. My sister was there too, and we all had what I'd call a nice visit. They're basically doing supportive stuff, and she might go home tomorrow. It's' just part of life. On the way to the hospital, I was stopped at a certain boggy crossroads that's usually the place where I hear the spring peepers for the first time. I heard them tonight, and it was the first time this year, and I smiled. When I left my mom, she was smiling too. She was in the damn hospital, but her kids had made a point of visiting and cheering her up, and it made her feel good. Things could be worse.
Last night I finished reading Rascal, and it confirmed my belief that if you remember a book fondly from your youth it's usually worthwhile to search it out and read it again when you're an adult. If you're not familiar with it, it's the true story of a 12-year-old named Sterling North in a small Wisconsin town in 1918. Faux idyllic? Not really. His father is an abstracted and often absent widower, he remembers with longing his kind, highly educated mother, who died at 47, his sisters mean well but meddle unhelpfully in his life, and his older brother is fighting in France, there are bullies to deal with and neighbors who threaten to shoot his pet raccoon for whom the book is named.
In other words, the book is not a plea for us all to return to a time in the distant past when everything made sense and nobody wore metal through their faces or tattooed themselves all over like circus freaks or gleefully used foul words in prime time. But it's a charming evocation of a young boy enjoying the outdoors when there was more outdoors to enjoy, and a lucidly written memoir of an interesting and affecting family in a particular phase of their lives. Naturally it begins with the boy's acquiring a juvenile raccoon, and ends when he realizes that his pet is now mature and should return to the wild. I read the book when I was about 12 myself, and couldn't understand the author's wisdom, couldn't accept that he and his friend had to part. I understand better now, of course, being older. And understanding better makes the book all the more affecting, and its author more admirable in my eyes. He lived out the last years of his life in a town near where I went to college, and I could have visited him, I imagine, and told him how much I liked the book. If I had known that Sterling North was just a few miles down the road, I would certainly have considered it.
I found that I remembered any number of vivid passages from the book, any number of thoughts and ideas and incidents. In particular I remembered a scene where a phone call comes in the early morning from his uncle's farm. It was "case weather"—heavy fog—which gave the farmer an opportunity to move the dried tobacco leaves from the drying shed to a more compact storage area without breaking them. Family members drove through the foggy night to help, and young Sterling did his part until he got tired and dropped a heavy pole full of tobacco thirty feet to the floor, barely missing the adults working below. Gently banished to his aunt's kitchen, he talks with her about how he's not a little boy any more, and she asks him if he's chosen a profession. He says perhaps he'll be a doctor, and she says he's much too tenderhearted. She and he are both aware of a farm worker who got his arm caught in machinery and had it amputated at the kitchen table they were sitting at. Sterling allows as how being a doctor might not be right for him. The next part I'm going to quote verbatim:
Last night I finished reading Rascal, and it confirmed my belief that if you remember a book fondly from your youth it's usually worthwhile to search it out and read it again when you're an adult. If you're not familiar with it, it's the true story of a 12-year-old named Sterling North in a small Wisconsin town in 1918. Faux idyllic? Not really. His father is an abstracted and often absent widower, he remembers with longing his kind, highly educated mother, who died at 47, his sisters mean well but meddle unhelpfully in his life, and his older brother is fighting in France, there are bullies to deal with and neighbors who threaten to shoot his pet raccoon for whom the book is named.
In other words, the book is not a plea for us all to return to a time in the distant past when everything made sense and nobody wore metal through their faces or tattooed themselves all over like circus freaks or gleefully used foul words in prime time. But it's a charming evocation of a young boy enjoying the outdoors when there was more outdoors to enjoy, and a lucidly written memoir of an interesting and affecting family in a particular phase of their lives. Naturally it begins with the boy's acquiring a juvenile raccoon, and ends when he realizes that his pet is now mature and should return to the wild. I read the book when I was about 12 myself, and couldn't understand the author's wisdom, couldn't accept that he and his friend had to part. I understand better now, of course, being older. And understanding better makes the book all the more affecting, and its author more admirable in my eyes. He lived out the last years of his life in a town near where I went to college, and I could have visited him, I imagine, and told him how much I liked the book. If I had known that Sterling North was just a few miles down the road, I would certainly have considered it.
I found that I remembered any number of vivid passages from the book, any number of thoughts and ideas and incidents. In particular I remembered a scene where a phone call comes in the early morning from his uncle's farm. It was "case weather"—heavy fog—which gave the farmer an opportunity to move the dried tobacco leaves from the drying shed to a more compact storage area without breaking them. Family members drove through the foggy night to help, and young Sterling did his part until he got tired and dropped a heavy pole full of tobacco thirty feet to the floor, barely missing the adults working below. Gently banished to his aunt's kitchen, he talks with her about how he's not a little boy any more, and she asks him if he's chosen a profession. He says perhaps he'll be a doctor, and she says he's much too tenderhearted. She and he are both aware of a farm worker who got his arm caught in machinery and had it amputated at the kitchen table they were sitting at. Sterling allows as how being a doctor might not be right for him. The next part I'm going to quote verbatim:
Writing isn't easy, or done well often. But the best reason to try is just that. You experience something, and you can't bear to let it go and be lost. You strive, as best you can, to keep it like this forever. A foggy morning in Wisconsin in 1918, frozen in loving and tender amber. It's a good book, OK?
"I think I know what your mother would have wished," Aunt Lillie said. And she looked so much like my mother as she said it that I wondered to whom I was talking in the lamplight of the fog-enshrouded world. I listened as though it were indeed my mother speaking. "I think she would have wanted you to be a writer."
"A writer?"
"And then you could put it all down," Aunt Lillie said, "the way it is now ... case weather, the fog, the lantern light ... and the voices of the men—hear them—coming in for breakfast. You could keep it just like this forever."
I was at the Apple Store over the weekend, shopping vicariously. (My own gadgetry budget has been zeroed out until the cat's medical bills are paid off.) I saw some nice stuff for sale, lots of computers walking out the door, and I ogled a few baubles myself. But there was one gap on the shelves, like a missing tooth in an otherwise pristine smile, and we were told that there were no Airport Expresses to be had. Airport Express is a little white brick that serves as a wireless router, and you can also stream music and connect it to a printer if you want. Anyway, they were all out. Funny.
Not it seems there's a rumor, started by a Swiss Apple Store, of all things, that Apple will unveil a new, faster 802.11n Airport Express. None of this means anything really, my only thought is this: Is there any other business that we spread rumors about, that we anticipate new products from so breathlessly? It's like it's not a corporation we're talking about so much as a kind of magical Santa's workshop, forever engaged in hush-hush efforts to amaze us anew. I just think it's interesting that so many of us feel that way.
Now the cat is sitting on my desk, looking out the window. A bird is singing cheerfully in the early-morning darkness. And I'm just sitting here, gathering my forces for the day, for the moment at peace and untroubled by rumors from Switzerland or anywhere else. The Zen stillness is not likely to persist, alas, but it's nice while the moment lasts.
Not it seems there's a rumor, started by a Swiss Apple Store, of all things, that Apple will unveil a new, faster 802.11n Airport Express. None of this means anything really, my only thought is this: Is there any other business that we spread rumors about, that we anticipate new products from so breathlessly? It's like it's not a corporation we're talking about so much as a kind of magical Santa's workshop, forever engaged in hush-hush efforts to amaze us anew. I just think it's interesting that so many of us feel that way.
Now the cat is sitting on my desk, looking out the window. A bird is singing cheerfully in the early-morning darkness. And I'm just sitting here, gathering my forces for the day, for the moment at peace and untroubled by rumors from Switzerland or anywhere else. The Zen stillness is not likely to persist, alas, but it's nice while the moment lasts.
It wasn't bad, for this type of enounter. You just have to be resolute. I was reading Rascal, just chilling for a few minutes, when there came a firm knocking at the door, and by the time I was halfway down the stairs I knew what it was. A big lady, young, broadly smiling, with a name badge. She told me her name, and asked mine. I gave it, and went on:
"And I'm not interested in any new religions today, thanks."
"Have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?"
"Did you hear what I just said?" (Still smiling. Nobody stopped smiling during the whole brief encounter.)
"We're just going around seeing how much people know about the Latter Day Saints."
I gave her a look that I hope conveyed a certain affectionate exasperation, the way you'd look at an erring but clever and well-loved child.
"I'm trying to be polite," I said.
I really was, and it takes an effort, because my house is a poor thing but mine own, and I'm kind of territorial about my porch when strangers are standing on it trying to sell me things I don't want. Once these two guys came from a pizza chain, talking about an exciting new program through which I could get free pizza. They asked me if I liked the idea of free pizza and of course you have to say you do and I swear to God, the guy gets out this thick book and said he'd like to walk me through it. I restrained myself with difficulty. Life is hard enough, my friends, without marketing campaigns offering free pizza that you need training to get. If you want me to try your pizza, here's a hint: Hand me a slice. If it's more complicated I'm not interested. They talked about coming back when I had more time and I had to say, "I really don't want to talk to anyone about pizza."
See, I really want to be the kind of crusty old bastard who throws people off his porch—threatens to call the cops if they don't leave, all that. But it's not in me. I try to be polite.
Anyway, she kept smiling, and wished me a wonderful day, and I wished her the same and meant it. I hope she has great success on other people's porches, I really do. I'm going back to my book now, and I hope I won't be further interrupted. I don't care if it's salvation or snack food. My spare time is limited and I'm trying to do some reading. If you're a missionary or a marketer, I truly hope you understand.
"And I'm not interested in any new religions today, thanks."
"Have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?"
"Did you hear what I just said?" (Still smiling. Nobody stopped smiling during the whole brief encounter.)
"We're just going around seeing how much people know about the Latter Day Saints."
I gave her a look that I hope conveyed a certain affectionate exasperation, the way you'd look at an erring but clever and well-loved child.
"I'm trying to be polite," I said.
I really was, and it takes an effort, because my house is a poor thing but mine own, and I'm kind of territorial about my porch when strangers are standing on it trying to sell me things I don't want. Once these two guys came from a pizza chain, talking about an exciting new program through which I could get free pizza. They asked me if I liked the idea of free pizza and of course you have to say you do and I swear to God, the guy gets out this thick book and said he'd like to walk me through it. I restrained myself with difficulty. Life is hard enough, my friends, without marketing campaigns offering free pizza that you need training to get. If you want me to try your pizza, here's a hint: Hand me a slice. If it's more complicated I'm not interested. They talked about coming back when I had more time and I had to say, "I really don't want to talk to anyone about pizza."
See, I really want to be the kind of crusty old bastard who throws people off his porch—threatens to call the cops if they don't leave, all that. But it's not in me. I try to be polite.
Anyway, she kept smiling, and wished me a wonderful day, and I wished her the same and meant it. I hope she has great success on other people's porches, I really do. I'm going back to my book now, and I hope I won't be further interrupted. I don't care if it's salvation or snack food. My spare time is limited and I'm trying to do some reading. If you're a missionary or a marketer, I truly hope you understand.
Sometimes it seems harder and harder to find anything in the media world worth studying and thinking about, or even paying attention to. What have we learned afterward? Anything worthwhile? But one thing I've found that's actually worth your time is Studio 360, a radio show on the arts and culture. It's North America-centric, to be sure, but it ranges very broadly. The show I heard today was about cuteness, what it is, how it works, really just everything interesting and enlightening you could say on the subject. At one point they were talking about how cuteness and sexuality can be blended, and the host and interviewee were giving examples—early Shirley Temple (evidently she did a Marlene Dietrich schtick), juvenile beauty contest contestants, the Lewis Carroll photos, and suddenly I had the perfect example, and I was back in college, eager to make a contribution in a class I really enjoyed, waving my hand high from the back rows, wanting to be called on before the moment passed. Anyway, if you're jaded about the media—and what right-thinking person isn't?—and you want to get the kind of charge you get when you're learning and your world is actually getting a little bigger and richer and deeper, check out Studio 360. Quality stuff.
I wouldn't want to create the wrong impression after having said yesterday that the content I found on Hulu was relatively banal. Hulu, of course, is a new enterprise that takes film and TV shows and streams them to your computer with some commercials added. Yesterday I was struck at the contrast between the sophistication of the delivery system and the relatively mehness of the two things I looked at. But I took another browse around and found lots of old sitcoms and fun stuff to while away your time if you don't feel like doing anything constructive. There really is lots of stuff, and you watch it on your own schedule, the interface is perfectly sensible, and it's absolutely free. Me like free!
Uptown I go in the morning dark and coolness to mail some bills. Homeward I wend my way, coffee in hand, peacefully contemplating the Victorian mansions with their mansard roofs and porches made for sitting in the summer twilight. Yes, along I go, a peaceful soul, thinking benevolent thoughts. And how do the houses themselves react to me? By switching on motion-sensitive warning lights. Hey! We see you! Don't do anything bad, you lousy pedestrian!
I choose to take this personally, of course. Why only a light? Why not the recording of a dog barking? I think that would very effectively add to the expression of hostile and suspicious alertness. Or the sound of a barking dog coupled with the sound of someone racking a shotgun shell into the chamber of a pump gun.
Anyway, that's small-town life, and speaking of small towns I have a few chores to do.
I choose to take this personally, of course. Why only a light? Why not the recording of a dog barking? I think that would very effectively add to the expression of hostile and suspicious alertness. Or the sound of a barking dog coupled with the sound of someone racking a shotgun shell into the chamber of a pump gun.
Anyway, that's small-town life, and speaking of small towns I have a few chores to do.
Just watched a few seconds from Hulu, and it was really amazing in a sort of low-key way. I know, there's been video online for ages but this is, you know, movies and stuff, the kind of thing people pay their cable bills to get, and it's free. You used to have to be invited and register or whatever, and now you don't. I watched a few minutes of a pretty blah 19th-season Simpsons episode, and then a few minutes of Master and Commander, and then I said "meh" and started writing this. (I said I'd do some of my chores and I did, OK? Sheesh.)
I guess it's always this way with communication breakthroughs. Samuel Morse invents the telegraph, and what's the first message? "What hath God wrought." WTF? I mean, is that what you'd say? The first real commercial television showed, I don't know, roller derbies and Adlai Stevenson and stuff. Neil Armstrong, bless his heart, stays up all night with a legal pad drafting out what he'll say when he steps on the moon, and what he comes up with is "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Bo-ring! What's the message here? One word for the graduate: Content! Good content! Rattling good yarns, and so forth. Now I'm getting ready to go out and if anything actually interesting happens in the course of the day I'll be glad to report on it.
I guess it's always this way with communication breakthroughs. Samuel Morse invents the telegraph, and what's the first message? "What hath God wrought." WTF? I mean, is that what you'd say? The first real commercial television showed, I don't know, roller derbies and Adlai Stevenson and stuff. Neil Armstrong, bless his heart, stays up all night with a legal pad drafting out what he'll say when he steps on the moon, and what he comes up with is "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Bo-ring! What's the message here? One word for the graduate: Content! Good content! Rattling good yarns, and so forth. Now I'm getting ready to go out and if anything actually interesting happens in the course of the day I'll be glad to report on it.
Sorry, busy, I just can't make observations on things. I should follow David Allen's advice and have everything organized and know precisely what my next action will be and do it or delegate it according to his admittedly quite rational system but somehow I look at my teetering stack of responsibilities and obligations and I just want to tiptoe past it and quietly close the door behind me. In fact, I'm stealing an hour or two here and there to read. I picked up a copy of Watership Down for a buck somewhere and read that. It didn't knock me out: competent writing, certainly well imagined, but somehow an epic tale of the search for a place to live in peace and freedom doesn't work for me if it's about rabbits. The bad guys are this warren full of fascist rabbits (I'm not kidding) and the nice rabbits have to devise a way to beat them. Once the crazy leader is out of the picture, though, the other fascist rabbits decide they don't like war and fighting after all. In the end, it comes down to how the nice people could live peacefully if the few meanie instigators could be rendered influenceless.
This has always struck me as a little naive. Michael Shermer explains it as well as anyone: He says there are two conflicting strains in human nature, that came about because they were adaptive in our early development. One is altruism: We do nice things for other people. All well and good, but it's not there because deep down we're basically nice. It developed as an adaptive behavior because it helped the little bands of cave people survive. The other strain is reflexive suspicion of outsiders. That group of four men who just came over the hill? Probably a raiding party come to kill us and take our stuff. Better kill them first. So it isn't just misguided warmongering leaders who cause wars, it isn't just rich white capitalists seeking to keep markets open or whatever: It's us. We're suspicious of and hostile toward The Other, and will be for a long time. It's become maladaptive in the modern world, but it's bred deep in the bone and the best thing to do is recognize that and try to work around it.
The next thing I want to read is Rascal. This one I read when I was a kid. It's about a kid growing up in Wisconsin a hundred years ago who has a pet raccoon. I remember it as fascinating and funny and sad, and very enjoyable, so I'm going to give it another whirl. The two books are different: The one describes the world as the author wishes it were, and the other as it really is—fascinating and funny and sad. And hopeful, too. There's more going on in literature aimed at young people than you might suspect. And now I'm going to take a deep breath, grab that doorknob, and go back into the room where the responsibilities are. See you soon.
This has always struck me as a little naive. Michael Shermer explains it as well as anyone: He says there are two conflicting strains in human nature, that came about because they were adaptive in our early development. One is altruism: We do nice things for other people. All well and good, but it's not there because deep down we're basically nice. It developed as an adaptive behavior because it helped the little bands of cave people survive. The other strain is reflexive suspicion of outsiders. That group of four men who just came over the hill? Probably a raiding party come to kill us and take our stuff. Better kill them first. So it isn't just misguided warmongering leaders who cause wars, it isn't just rich white capitalists seeking to keep markets open or whatever: It's us. We're suspicious of and hostile toward The Other, and will be for a long time. It's become maladaptive in the modern world, but it's bred deep in the bone and the best thing to do is recognize that and try to work around it.
The next thing I want to read is Rascal. This one I read when I was a kid. It's about a kid growing up in Wisconsin a hundred years ago who has a pet raccoon. I remember it as fascinating and funny and sad, and very enjoyable, so I'm going to give it another whirl. The two books are different: The one describes the world as the author wishes it were, and the other as it really is—fascinating and funny and sad. And hopeful, too. There's more going on in literature aimed at young people than you might suspect. And now I'm going to take a deep breath, grab that doorknob, and go back into the room where the responsibilities are. See you soon.
Yesterday I noticed for the first time that despite the general wintry bleakness, there were buds on certain precocious trees and bushes. I realized that I hadn't thought at all about spring coming. With the cat going to the hospital so much and all the other things on my mind, I had just been letting the days click by.
So it was strange, a kind of groggy awakening—right, I thought, I remember the arrangement now. Spring will come, it'll get warm, the flowers will bloom, all that. Odd, to have given it so little thought, like suddenly the whole orchestra is tuning up and I was so preoccupied that I didn't even realize I was sitting in the concert hall. I imagine it's something like waking up after a relatively serious operation. You see a night table, and for a moment it's not yet familiar. You see flowers. You realize you're in bed. A television overhead, on a movable arm attached to the wall. And you slowly wake enough to realize that you're alive, you made it through, and someone put flowers by your bed while you were unconscious. It's a little like that, being surprised by the first signs of spring.
So it was strange, a kind of groggy awakening—right, I thought, I remember the arrangement now. Spring will come, it'll get warm, the flowers will bloom, all that. Odd, to have given it so little thought, like suddenly the whole orchestra is tuning up and I was so preoccupied that I didn't even realize I was sitting in the concert hall. I imagine it's something like waking up after a relatively serious operation. You see a night table, and for a moment it's not yet familiar. You see flowers. You realize you're in bed. A television overhead, on a movable arm attached to the wall. And you slowly wake enough to realize that you're alive, you made it through, and someone put flowers by your bed while you were unconscious. It's a little like that, being surprised by the first signs of spring.
I was getting my hair cut the other day and the subject of flooded basements came up, because it was pouring like a SOB, and I mentioned this place I used to rent that flooded in the basement if a puffy white cloud went by. It was so wet down there so consistently that once I went down to do some laundry and heard a resonant "ribbit...ribbit...ribbit" and saw a frog come hopping out to greet me, perfectly happy, liked he lived there, which he clearly did.
My haircut person is great—you tell her stuff like this and she bursts out "Noooooooo!!!!!!!" in this great way—first the firecracker explosion, and then the long trailing off. Often she sort of staggers backward when she says it.
Anyway, we talked about it and concluded that this could be considered a kind of guideline. Many basements flood under extreme conditions, but if it's viable frog habitat down there, you know you have a chronic problem.
My haircut person is great—you tell her stuff like this and she bursts out "Noooooooo!!!!!!!" in this great way—first the firecracker explosion, and then the long trailing off. Often she sort of staggers backward when she says it.
Anyway, we talked about it and concluded that this could be considered a kind of guideline. Many basements flood under extreme conditions, but if it's viable frog habitat down there, you know you have a chronic problem.
It's rainy as hell today, but I had a haircut appointment and a bill to put in the mail so I made my soldierly way uptown. As a reward afterward I stopped at the local fancy bar for a fancy beer. I got a Victory Golden Monkey and enjoyed it at my leisure—hey, it's the weekend—and chatted with the servers. A woman came in and sat at a table by the window, and after a while a guy came in and sat down with her. The barmaid came up and asked him what he wanted, and he asked what they had, and she gave him the spiel: 20 beers on tap, from Britain and Belgium and all around, celebrated breweries all, and lots more in bottles if that wasn't enough variety.
Evidently he asked for a Yuengling, which is a creditable but not terribly interesting Pennsylvania lager. It's America's oldest continuously operating brewery, but they haven't learned much in all that time—the beer is best appreciated after you've mowed the lawn for several hours in oppressive summer heat. At other times, it's pretty forgettable. The server walked away, and I guess she wasn't impressed with his beer-tasting sophistication, because she said, "Yuengling it is, you Sally."
I leaned in to the bartender. "Did she just say," I asked him, "'Yuengling it is, you Sally?'"
"Yes," he said. "I haven't heard that expression in a while."
"I've never heard it at all," I said, "but you can pretty much get the gist. Does she know him, or is she just really outspoken?"
"A little bit of both, I think," he said.
I finished up, declined another—moderation in all things, that's what I say—and got up to go. And started chuckling. "Yuengling it is, you Sally!" I splashed through the puddles and laughed to myself about that the whole way home.
Evidently he asked for a Yuengling, which is a creditable but not terribly interesting Pennsylvania lager. It's America's oldest continuously operating brewery, but they haven't learned much in all that time—the beer is best appreciated after you've mowed the lawn for several hours in oppressive summer heat. At other times, it's pretty forgettable. The server walked away, and I guess she wasn't impressed with his beer-tasting sophistication, because she said, "Yuengling it is, you Sally."
I leaned in to the bartender. "Did she just say," I asked him, "'Yuengling it is, you Sally?'"
"Yes," he said. "I haven't heard that expression in a while."
"I've never heard it at all," I said, "but you can pretty much get the gist. Does she know him, or is she just really outspoken?"
"A little bit of both, I think," he said.
I finished up, declined another—moderation in all things, that's what I say—and got up to go. And started chuckling. "Yuengling it is, you Sally!" I splashed through the puddles and laughed to myself about that the whole way home.
I was recently informed that a paper I will not name out of professional courtesy (wink wink) in a town I will not name either (but it's a small town known for mushrooms) mentioned in a sports story that a young swimmer turned in a good performance despite her recent recovery from a bout of what the paper called "double phenomena."
Now, there are mistakes born of pressure, or of bad judgment, or mistakes that come about simply because a certain percentage of what you do will be wrong just because. But obviously what we have here is a mistake of sheer ignorance. You only have two lungs, and "phenomena" is the plural of "phenomenon," so the phrase "double phenomena" is clearly redundant. I mean, sheesh!
Now, there are mistakes born of pressure, or of bad judgment, or mistakes that come about simply because a certain percentage of what you do will be wrong just because. But obviously what we have here is a mistake of sheer ignorance. You only have two lungs, and "phenomena" is the plural of "phenomenon," so the phrase "double phenomena" is clearly redundant. I mean, sheesh!
I'm reading a book about efficiency and it may be helping because this morning I had my breakfast in a fairly calm way, getting my bills up to date while I ate. On my more rushed mornings I have to eat the oatmeal right out of the saucepan I cook it in.
In the car, that is.
But only when I'm stopped, for God's sake. It's not like I'm crazy.
In the car, that is.
But only when I'm stopped, for God's sake. It's not like I'm crazy.
There's a passage in Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness in which the protagonist, Marlow, is riding a boat slowly up an unnamed river resembling the Congo, heading deep into the interior of the jungle toward the compound of one Mr. Kurtz, an ivory agent who is thought to be unwell. The compound comes into view, surrounded by a ring of poles, each with some sort of knob on the top. Marlow sees through his telescope that the knobs are heads.
I won't say that I got quite such a nasty surprise this morning. But I went onto my front porch in the semidarkness to put some bottles in the recycling box, and looked up and there it was: a large red plastic ball. Just sitting there, as if it were watching me.
I didn't touch it. I went back into the house. My first thought was of a show from the Sixties called The Prisoner, about a secret agent who tries to resign and is subsequently imprisoned in a sinister holiday resort. If anyone tries to escape, a large, soft ball chases and envelops the fugitive. I saw this in elementary school and it taught me to be wary of large round objects out and about by themselves, without a chaperone.
And what's more, if I've learned one thing from the thousands of movies I've seen in my life, it's that prudent people consider objects associated with childhood and innocence to be demonically possessed until proven otherwise. A ball that watches your house in the predawn gloom is probably not a ball that means you any good. It's a devil ball. You don't go up and touch such things. That's a one-way ticket to being the first victim. You leave the damned thing alone, get a phone book, and find an exorcist.
The ball was still there when I left the house. The day has been windy, and I sincerely hope it's gone when I get back. There's an elementary school across the street; let it go there. All I care about is that I don't have its brooding presence outside my house forevermore. I have enough trouble without that.
I won't say that I got quite such a nasty surprise this morning. But I went onto my front porch in the semidarkness to put some bottles in the recycling box, and looked up and there it was: a large red plastic ball. Just sitting there, as if it were watching me.
I didn't touch it. I went back into the house. My first thought was of a show from the Sixties called The Prisoner, about a secret agent who tries to resign and is subsequently imprisoned in a sinister holiday resort. If anyone tries to escape, a large, soft ball chases and envelops the fugitive. I saw this in elementary school and it taught me to be wary of large round objects out and about by themselves, without a chaperone.
And what's more, if I've learned one thing from the thousands of movies I've seen in my life, it's that prudent people consider objects associated with childhood and innocence to be demonically possessed until proven otherwise. A ball that watches your house in the predawn gloom is probably not a ball that means you any good. It's a devil ball. You don't go up and touch such things. That's a one-way ticket to being the first victim. You leave the damned thing alone, get a phone book, and find an exorcist. The ball was still there when I left the house. The day has been windy, and I sincerely hope it's gone when I get back. There's an elementary school across the street; let it go there. All I care about is that I don't have its brooding presence outside my house forevermore. I have enough trouble without that.
In fact, there are several things I'm failing to understand this morning. Some are chronic—since there are so many people who want to be in the movies, I don't understand: Why aren't all movies really good? The next thing is cars. Before you go to the trouble and expense of building a car factory and installing the machinery and buying the parts and hiring the staff and setting up the international dealership network and buying ad time and so forth, wouldn't you sit down and make sure that you'd designed the damn thing perfectly to begin with? Is it really hard or something to hire good car designers? Are they all sulky teenagers getting paid a few bucks an hour, so they do a crappy job? I don't get it.
And I similarly don't get why the Web, which has lots and lots of stuff on it, can't seem to hold my interest this morning. Why can't this unprecedented amalgamation of the world's knowledge provide me with a steady stream of interesting, amusing, or practical info-pellets long enough to last me through breakfast? A moment ago I had to talk myself out of looking for news about the Texas and Ohio primary elections because in Texas the polls aren't even open yet and in Ohio they had only been open for 17 minutes. There'd have been no point. But that's how desperate I was. Out of the whole world, nuthin.' I don't understand.
And I similarly don't get why the Web, which has lots and lots of stuff on it, can't seem to hold my interest this morning. Why can't this unprecedented amalgamation of the world's knowledge provide me with a steady stream of interesting, amusing, or practical info-pellets long enough to last me through breakfast? A moment ago I had to talk myself out of looking for news about the Texas and Ohio primary elections because in Texas the polls aren't even open yet and in Ohio they had only been open for 17 minutes. There'd have been no point. But that's how desperate I was. Out of the whole world, nuthin.' I don't understand.
Ah, Sunday! A warmish day, not really warm warm, but warmish enough to go down to a nearby trout stream. I felt a fierce, joyful anticipation as I pulled the car off the side of the road along the stream, opened the trunk, and put on my wading boots. I looked around; the trees were bare, but thick around me, the brush brown but brown was OK, it's an earth color, after all, and the stream was there, running clear, and the air was fresh and it felt great to be out. Next step was to put on my vest, flipping up the license holder just to check that son of a god-damn bitch, and I stood there dumbfounded. 2007, the license said. I pulled the other licenses from underneath it, like I'd made a mistake and shuffled the 2008 one into the deck. 2006, 2005, 2004, damn. In a normal year I'd have been fishing a number of times by now; you can fish in the winter in Pennsylvania. I was sure I'd gotten out at least once this year, but clearly I hadn't.
I pulled off the road an hour later and put on my waders with a fierce if somewhat chastened joy, having gone home for a sandwich and a session at the computer, downloading a new license. The state site worked with interminable slowness, I suppose because it was a civil service site and knew I couldn't go to a competitor. But eventually I got the license and now I was on the stream. I tried some of the usual spots, and eventually found the fish, and landed two and hooked some other dandies in the course of two hours. 
It wasn't going to go into the annals of sport, but it was great to just shut the door on everything and concentrate on fish for a while. If you catch fish, well, then, you can tell yourself you did something right, and if you keep your head in the game and do the work and thinking required when the fishing isn't easy, you can still tell yourself you did something right. When I do either one I feel entitled to go home and pour a little bourbon or Scotch into one of the fishing-art glasses I found in an antique store. They were done by a wildlife artist named Ned Smith and they have a certain old-world style that recalls a time when hunting and fishing had a certain place in people's lives, at least on the East Coast here, that it doesn't now. I read Field & Stream these days and the photography is edgy and the whole publication has attitude, but these Ned Smith glasses don't have attitude at all. Sometimes, when you come home feeling good after a day—or even just a couple of hours—on the stream, you don't miss attitude. At any rate, that was Sunday.
Saturday I waited around for the guy to install my fiber-optic line. I was assigned to wait from 8 a.m. until noon, and bless his heart, he showed up around 9 and got right to work. He was a big burly guy with a whole variety of clothes draped on him in layers, topped with a nondescript plaid jacket, and his round head wore glasses and a keen expression. Right away he'd discovered that the scouting party that comes and checks out your house had given him information that was either vague or wrong. He gave me an amused, rueful look—"It's a simple job, but they make it complicated," he said, and we grinned at teach other. He took a while to check that out before he started cutting and soldering and such, but soon he put on the hard hat and got the ladder out.
A few hours later I had fiber-optic service, which Verizon, the local phone company, calls Fios. It didn't immediately transform my life, or anything. But they'd given me a new wireless router, so I took the Airport Express router I had been using and hooked it to my stereo, and damn, it was easy to stream music from my desktop in the office upstairs down to the living room. I don't know why I found this so delightfully astonishing—wireless is precisely the word they once used for radio, which is appropriate, because that's all it is. But somehow the idea that Dr. John or La Bohème should come floating like a spirit down the stairs and out the stereo seemed like telepathic magic. Plus which, I felt kind of up to date, which is rare and marvelous in itself. So it was an interesting weekend all in all. Now—you guessed it—gotta work!
I had a free pass to a fancy antiques show preview last night. They had an open bar and these tiny little lamb chops and little desserts and the whole thing. They also had lots of stuff to buy, much of it in five figures. I noticed a portrait that had a certain vivid aliveness to the expression, leaned in to the sticker, saw it was $39,000, leaned out again.
I did some publicity for this yearly event myself some years back, and I remember wanting to say that there was something for every budget. It's actually true—there were prints that would grace any wall for a hundred bucks or so, and if you're making a decent living in the northern hemisphere you can probably afford that. But my budget is something of a special case: I could buy a pretty good new car with what I've paid veterinarians in the last two months. Accordingly, a hundred bucks for something that isn't strictly necessary for survival is not within my budget these days.
So I conducted myself the way you're told to in a national park: I left
only footprints, and lamb chop bones, and took only pictures. Some antique puppets were catching everyone's eye. They're done in a sort of folk-art primitive style, but with this amazing contemporary look as well. If you told me a 27-year-old designer from Montreal or Prague had done them, I'd believe you. You could have the whole set for about four thousand bucks, or you could take pictures, which was the option I chose.
Now I have to try to get the house in some semblance of order because some stranger is coming to install fiber-optic lines for the phone and Internet service. We're about 30 years or more into the digital revolution, and I finally have a chance to be something of an early adopter. The thing is, with the cat problems and my lifelong tendency to be an incredible slob, the house is in something of a state. I won't be able to get it completely out of a state before the installer arrives. But I'm making use of the definition of torture—conduct that shocks the conscience—as a guideline. I'm going around, and if I see something so messy and horrible that it shocks the conscience, I'm cleaning it up. That's going to keep me busy so I'll say bye for now.
I did some publicity for this yearly event myself some years back, and I remember wanting to say that there was something for every budget. It's actually true—there were prints that would grace any wall for a hundred bucks or so, and if you're making a decent living in the northern hemisphere you can probably afford that. But my budget is something of a special case: I could buy a pretty good new car with what I've paid veterinarians in the last two months. Accordingly, a hundred bucks for something that isn't strictly necessary for survival is not within my budget these days.
So I conducted myself the way you're told to in a national park: I left
only footprints, and lamb chop bones, and took only pictures. Some antique puppets were catching everyone's eye. They're done in a sort of folk-art primitive style, but with this amazing contemporary look as well. If you told me a 27-year-old designer from Montreal or Prague had done them, I'd believe you. You could have the whole set for about four thousand bucks, or you could take pictures, which was the option I chose.Now I have to try to get the house in some semblance of order because some stranger is coming to install fiber-optic lines for the phone and Internet service. We're about 30 years or more into the digital revolution, and I finally have a chance to be something of an early adopter. The thing is, with the cat problems and my lifelong tendency to be an incredible slob, the house is in something of a state. I won't be able to get it completely out of a state before the installer arrives. But I'm making use of the definition of torture—conduct that shocks the conscience—as a guideline. I'm going around, and if I see something so messy and horrible that it shocks the conscience, I'm cleaning it up. That's going to keep me busy so I'll say bye for now.
