tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39512841715895391132024-03-05T21:00:55.551-08:00The Miss O' ShowMiss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.comBlogger115125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-27016703212821863932015-03-01T18:28:00.001-08:002015-03-03T03:18:10.914-08:00The Crisis Papers<br />
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EBOLA
OUTBREAK NOW IN U.S.<o:p></o:p></div>
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~~~<o:p></o:p></div>
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BLIZZARD
OF HISTORIC PROPORTIONS <o:p></o:p></div>
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BLANKETING
NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES<o:p></o:p></div>
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~~~<o:p></o:p></div>
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THREE
MUSLIMS SHOT EXECUTION STYLE IN NORTH CAROLINA; SUSPECT HAD STOCKPILE OF
WEAPONS AND AMMO IN APARTMENT<o:p></o:p></div>
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~~~<o:p></o:p></div>
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MEASLES
RETURNS TO U.S.; MOVEMENT <o:p></o:p></div>
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AGAINST
VACCINATIONS SEEN AS CAUSE<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">~~~<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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ISIS
BEHEADS 21 EGYPTIAN CHRISTIANS<o:p></o:p></div>
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~~~<o:p></o:p></div>
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UKRAINE
CEASE FIRE ON THIN ICE<o:p></o:p></div>
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~~~<o:p></o:p></div>
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PRESIDENT
OBAMA ASKS CONGRESS TO APPROVE ISIS WAR <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #424242; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The shadow of crisis has passed</span>, and
the <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">State of the Union</span> is
strong." ~ U.S. President Barack <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Obama</span>,
2015 <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/obama-occupies-capitol-hill-2015-state-union">State
of the Union<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Address.</span></a></span></span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Marie’s Crisis<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">There’s a piano bar in the West Village of New
York City called Marie’s Crisis Cafe. I’ve been a couple of times, years ago
now, with my friend Kathy, a voiceover artist. It’s fun. Sort of. If you like
that sort of thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“To walk downstairs into this old West Village bar is to step out of
time a bit. As an amicable regular might tell you, the room first opened in the
1850s as a prostitutes' den, became a boy bar by the 1890s, and lasted through
Prohibition, when it was known as Marie's (the ‘Crisis’ came from ‘The Crisis
Papers,’ by Thomas Paine, who died in the same house). For the past 35 years,
it's plowed through as a piano joint in which neighboring gay men and musical
theater performers gather round the keys nightly and sing solo—numbers like
‘Stranger in Paradise’ or ‘You're the Top’—to create a mood of both giddiness
and longing.” ~ </span></i><a href="http://nymag.com/listings/bar/maries_crisis/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Karen
Hudes, NY Mag</span></i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Miss O’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wants</i>
to like Marie’s Crisis more than she tends to do. It’s about singing show
tunes, for heaven’s sake, and drinking a fine malt beverage in comradeship with
show queens, after all. But there’s a kind of competitiveness that sets in, as
well as a copious fumbling of lyrics, which, combined with (in my limited
experience) an out-of-tune piano and sticky floors, left this barfly more than
a little depressed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Marie’s Crisis, as you see above, took part of
its name from none other than Thomas Paine, author of the famous federal
documents and essays now known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Crisis Papers.</i> After hearing President Obama’s SOTU Address, as it’s known,
I began thinking about that word, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">crisis</i>.
So I started thinking about crisis, and who better to help me along than Thomas Paine himself, who would have been 278 years young on February 9.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Here is Thomas Paine from </span><a href="http://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The
Crisis</span></i></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">, beginning with the line that is perhaps its most famous:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">THESE are
the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot
will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that
stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like
hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the
harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap,
we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">~ Thomas Paine, The American Crisis,</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <b>December 23, 1776<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">What
exactly are “these” times, in the year of our (over)lord 2015?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">On the
blog TruthOut.org recently was an excerpt of a larger work, called <a href="http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/28715-the-spectacle-of-illiteracy-and-the-crisis-of-democracy">“The
Spectacle of Illiteracy and the Crisis of Democracy”</a> by Henry Giroux. He
writes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“C. Wright Mills argued 50
years ago that one important measure of the demise of vibrant democracy and the
corresponding impoverishment of political life can be found in the increasing
inability of a society to translate private troubles to broader public issues….
What this decline in civility, the emergence of mob behavior and the utter
blurring in the media between a truth and a lie suggest is that we have become
one of the most illiterate nations on the planet.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">~ from </span><a href="http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm"><span style="color: #880523; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino
Capitalism</span></a><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">, <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">by Henry Giroux.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Every year it seems that everyone I know is
living more and more in a state of crisis—whether with illness, finances,
longer working hours, or no work at all, everywhere we turn there is a crisis
looming. The deeper tragedy, which is the fallout of each horrible new thing,
is acted out in halls of power of the right wing of America’s political system,
a wing too many people vote for with the hope that in vilifying the victims of
crises and heaping larger burdens onto the most vulnerable, the crises will be
buried for good and all under those mounds. The people of the United States—we, the
People—have just that “inability” Mr. Giroux speaks of to recognize that
“private troubles” are in fact not private, but rather “public issues.”
Bankruptcies from health care costs—usually from crises such as cancer or other
life-threatening illnesses—should lead us powerfully to gratitude for President
Obama’s realization of the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s dream of health care
insurance for all Americans. But this is not the case. Miss O’s Republican
friends, who heatedly debated her on social media with abandon, claimed that if
you can’t afford insurance, you should simply die. They wouldn’t take the
argument, of course, to its logical conclusion, but felt that as long as they
personally had insurance, no one else should have it if it meant paying a
little more. The end. The result, of course—death—is nothing to do with them.
They got theirs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Similarly, white right-wing (mostly) friends on Facebook denounced
the outcry over Mike Brown and Eric Garner, whose deaths at the hands of police
made international headlines. “They should have complied,” and besides, “now
these protests are ruining my commute.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">THOSE who
expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues
of supporting it. The event of yesterday was one of those kind of alarms which
is just sufficient to rouse us to duty, without being of consequence enough to
depress our fortitude. It is not a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause,
that we are defending, and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by
degrees, the consequences will be the same.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">~ Thomas Paine,</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <b>The American Crisis: PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 12, 1777<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Jon Stewart recently announced the end of his
15-year tenure on </span></span><i style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 115%;">The Daily Show. </i><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">America
is a nation that has come to rely on a Comedy Central cable entertainment program
for trustworthy news, because the writers of actual “news” programs fill the
airwaves with so much garbage. Puppy stories. Punditry. One of my favorite
segments on Stewart's program over the years was “Moments in Punditry, as Read by Children.” Out of
the mouths of babes, the inanities of these “writers” became powerfully comic,
revealing that their concerns were never about the betterment of mankind. But did </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">we</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> learn anything?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial;">TO LORD HOWE.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">"What's in the name of lord, that
I should fear<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">To bring my grievance to the public
ear? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">UNIVERSAL empire is the prerogative of
a writer. His concerns are with all mankind, and though he cannot command their
obedience, he can assign them their duty. The Republic of Letters is more
ancient than monarchy, and of far higher character in the world than the vassal
court of Britain; he that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in
defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to "Defender
of the Faith," than George the Third.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">~ Thomas Paine, The American Crisis: PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 13, 1777<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Whom should we love? Whom should we care about? Whom should we write about? In Lorraine Hansberry’s classic
play about blacks coming face to face with the importance of the civil rights
movement, Walter Lee Younger makes a tragic decision about how to use the life
insurance money awarded at his father’s death. His sister, Beneatha, professes
her profound disgust, calling her brother "a toothless rat". <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">BENEATHA:
Love him? There is nothing left to love.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">MAMA:
There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you
ain't learned nothing. Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for
yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him: what he
been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to
love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody?
Well then, you ain't through learning - because that ain't the time at all.
It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done
whipped him so! When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child,
measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys
he come through before he got to wherever he is.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #131313; font-family: "Times New Roman";">―</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3732.Lorraine_Hansberry"><span style="color: #535503; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Lorraine
Hansberry</span></a>, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3154525"><span style="color: #535503; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">A Raisin in the Sun</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But Americans don’t like hills and valleys.
They like “a level playing field,” that mythical arena where every single human born gets to start playing the Game of Life with all the same money,
looks, health, family connection, resources, and support systems as every other
single human being in the world. It’s the greatest, most fantastical and
sickest story Americans tell their children and their fellow citizens, and
until the Myth of the Level Playing Field is debunked for good and all, nothing
like progress can occur.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But this is exactly why the right wing
embraces it. So why does the progressive wing trot it out, too? Because it’s
such a wonderful fantasy of “the great equality.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/23/opinion/charles-blow-who-loves-america.html">recent
op-ed</a> for the New York <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Times</i>,
“Who Loves America?”, columnist Charles Blow had this to say:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">"In a way, this is an ideological battle.
Conservatism is rooted in preservation; progressivism advances alteration.
These are different love languages. These languages turn on your view of change
itself: When you think of America, do you see a country struggling to be
maintained or one striving to be made better?"</span><span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tom Paine reflected on progress and
what that means, and why stasis cannot be the goal of living, nor can it be
practical or useful in political life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">IN THE
progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life, we are not only apt
to forget the ground we have travelled over, but frequently neglect to gather
up experience as we go. We expend, if I may so say, the knowledge of every day
on the circumstances that produce it, and journey on in search of new matter
and new refinements: but as it is pleasant and sometimes useful to look back,
even to the first periods of infancy, and trace the turns and windings through
which we have passed, so we may likewise derive many advantages by halting a
while in our political career, and taking a review of the wondrous complicated
labyrinth of little more than yesterday.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">~ Thomas Paine, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The American Crisis: PHILADELPHIA, April 19, 1777<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Lately, though, Progressives have been using
their big voices in the halls of power, and why they have been afraid for so
long, who knows? Miss O’s personal hero this past week was retiring Senator
Barbara Boxer of California—and maybe it’s the knowledge of "no more campaigns to run" (as Obama remarked, adding after </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">the</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Republican applause, "I know, because I won both of them") that is making her brave (and President Obama even braver). Of her
colleagues in the Senate who hold up every bill at every turn and have nothing
to offer in terms of actionable policy and so once again cry “GOVERNMENT
SHUTDOWN!” </span><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/24/1366654/-Barbara-Boxer-Hits-It-Out-Of-The-F-cking-Park-Regarding-Irresponsible-Republicans-The-New-Shutdown" style="line-height: 115%;">Sen.
Boxer had this to say</a><span style="line-height: 115%;"> in response to their refusal to vote on an
immigration bill:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">So tell me, Republicans, how does it make sense to
deport people like Anna, split her up from her parents, when all they want to
do is contribute to the country that they love. How does it make sense?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">How does it make sense? <b>Because you're too
incompetent to hold a vote on your immigration plan? You want to kick people
out of the country? Put it to a vote! Let's go.</b> You want to deport 11
million people? Put it to a vote. Don't hide behind the Homeland Security Bill,
holding the President's work hostage. You never did it to the other presidents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Our national security is at stake, our family values are
at stake. And our economy is at stake here. So get over the fact that you don't
like the president. We get it. You couldn't beat him. Too bad for you. But
you're in charge here, in the Senate. Do your job!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Don't hold it hostage due to your hatred of this
president</span></b><span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">, and I use that word because that's what I think. That's what I
think….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">So I say to my Republican friends. There's a
presidential race coming. Forget this last one. Get over it. Okay? Let's work
together. Listen, <b>I served with five presidents.</b> I'm a strong Democrat.
Everyone will tell you that. But I respect the office of the presidency. If I
didn't agree with Ronald Reagan, I came down here and said it. But we had the
respect back and forth. If we lost, we lost. And we moved on. And that worked
both ways. I know what it is not to like the policies of a president. I get it.
But don't overdo it and make it so personal. Get on with it. Grow up. Do your
job, you know? Do your job! Have respect for the office of the presidency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Don't suddenly say
executive orders are bad when the president you don't like does it, <b>but you
don't say one word</b> when a Republican president does the same thing!</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Middle school Student Government Associations are more effective. What will it take to get government going
again? Vote Progressive. Is America ready to get moving? Or does it merely want
to cry, “Give me liberty, and give me a great big fucking death”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Tom Paine knew the price of idiots in power:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial;">TO GENERAL SIR WILLIAM HOWE.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">To argue
with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose
philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering
medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture. Enjoy,
sir, your insensibility of feeling and reflecting. It is the prerogative of
animals. And no man will envy you these honors, in which a savage only can be
your rival and a bear your master.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">~ Thomas Paine, The American Crisis: LANCASTER, March 21, 1778<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Speaking of men renouncing reason,
I give you the Anti-Vaxxers:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Dr. James Cherry, a specialist in pediatric
infectious diseases at the University of California-Los Angeles, </span></i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/us/measles-cases-linked-to-disneyland-rise-and-debate-over-vaccinations-intensifies.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">told the <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">New York</span> <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Times</span></span></i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;"> the current outbreak is
"100 percent connected" to the anti-immunization movement.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">"It wouldn't have
happened otherwise—it wouldn't have gone anywhere. There are some pretty dumb
people out there."</span></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Here’s my truth, spoken for me by my friend
GEORGE on FACEBOOK:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><i>Bad enough too many Americans
feel the need to keep pumpin' out dem babies into an irresponsibly consumptive
and wasteful society whose hubris sucks up 3/5 of the world's resources to keep
us swimming in plastic crap—while elsewhere, millions of orphaned children are
dying for some care... (I'm sure your children's and grandchildren's last
thoughts of you will be >kind< as climate change & overpopulation end
their lives in hunger, disaster, despair, and probably violence over the next
half century.) But that's not enough... Nope. Now you're letting your
unvaccinated spawn infect the rest of us. Nice. How... American of you. Those
of you whose personal morality seems to be in conflict with a hormonal desire
to leave a mark on the world through spawn: Adopt. And then please vaccinate
the little crawling germ bags. Have a GFD, Omelas.</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Then there’s <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-dont-vaccinate-my-child-because-its-my-right-to,37839/">The
Onion,</a> which can’t even trump reality:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #141414; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">As a mother, I put my parenting decisions above all
else. Nobody knows my son better than me, and the choices I make about how to
care for him are no one’s business but my own. So, when other people tell me
how they think I should be raising my child, I simply can’t tolerate it.
Regardless of what anyone else thinks, I fully stand behind my choices as a
mom, including my choice not to vaccinate my son, because it is my fundamental
right as a parent to decide which eradicated diseases come roaring back.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial;">TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">THERE are stages in the business of serious life in
which to amuse is cruel, but to deceive is to destroy; and it is of little
consequence, in the conclusion, whether men deceive themselves, or submit, by a
kind of mutual consent, to the impositions of each other. That England has long
been under the influence of delusion or mistake, needs no other proof than the
unexpected and wretched situation that she is now involved in: and so powerful
has been the influence, that no provision was ever made or thought of against
the misfortune, because the possibility of its happening was never conceived.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">~ Thomas Paine, The American Crisis: PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 21, 1778<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">CrISIS: I personally think that most all violence/ unhappiness/ unrest comes down to wealth
inequality. When people feel they have nothing left either to lose or hope for,
the door is open for the (very few) power fanatics to begin the recruiting and
conversions of the hopeless…and, boom: ISIS, which is just the latest in a
series. I also suspect that too many rich people who cause this inequality love
war because it keeps the peasants busy killing each other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">HAD America pursued her advantages with half the
spirit that she resisted her misfortunes, she would, before now, have been a
conquering and a peaceful people; but lulled in the lap of soft tranquillity,
she rested on her hopes, and adversity only has convulsed her into action.
Whether subtlety or sincerity at the close of the last year induced the enemy
to an appearance for peace, is a point not material to know; it is sufficient
that we see the effects it has had on our politics, and that we sternly rise to
resent the delusion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">~ Thomas Paine, The American Crisis: Philadelphia, Oct. 4, 1780<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh94ngkQXceAWApd7cvv-Umsnbx9oNvbcYGQrA233dPyZo-r2R2TwA0oPiABl5EoqYTOGovmoIvV-vQL3_OHRAG7Tg51oXk0PnWFKgmgL3PKfJ2-B8eBV6ExKakrmsrALFLp9cKPHddE8rL/s1600/timthumb.php.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh94ngkQXceAWApd7cvv-Umsnbx9oNvbcYGQrA233dPyZo-r2R2TwA0oPiABl5EoqYTOGovmoIvV-vQL3_OHRAG7Tg51oXk0PnWFKgmgL3PKfJ2-B8eBV6ExKakrmsrALFLp9cKPHddE8rL/s1600/timthumb.php.jpeg" height="320" width="224" /></a></div>
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And then there’s ISIS. Typically
Facebook friends who never post political things expressed “outrage” that the
U.S. was not over with full troop support fighting ISIS only when “21
Christians” were executed. In the past, when it’s been the kidnapping of
African girls from a school, or the rape of Muslim detainees in the Syrian
refugee camps, the outrage expressed from these same “Christians” was
approximately zero.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKM6z9jJ5DgZKi53EsE9xQn5Uj22CFVxhq_EpRR1oIdJoG4Cj-dq8i3OC4jGxmKodVlhqAizaonsqzJ8AzgaKy3QANuYybUK1T-5IYzNbdfjpzT2rCUT2OEylyZRmFfLJM4jo6OfT19WtX/s1600/1973797_10205706934535684_1920414061844752361_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKM6z9jJ5DgZKi53EsE9xQn5Uj22CFVxhq_EpRR1oIdJoG4Cj-dq8i3OC4jGxmKodVlhqAizaonsqzJ8AzgaKy3QANuYybUK1T-5IYzNbdfjpzT2rCUT2OEylyZRmFfLJM4jo6OfT19WtX/s1600/1973797_10205706934535684_1920414061844752361_o.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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Money. Freedom. I got mine: I try
to imagine a world where people get up in the morning, walk gently to the water
source, fill a kettle or a coffee pot, pour out the tea leaves or the coffee
grounds into a steeper, place the vessel of choice onto a heat source, and
slice the bread. Gather the eggs. Cook the breakfast. Eat it. Wash up. Wash
their faces and hands and dress. Tidy up the place. Walk out into the world and
amble to work. Greet neighbors and friends along the way. Notice the sky. Feel
the weather coming. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In that world, there is no HURRY.
<i>Nature</i> will give us, always, not only bounty and beauty but also <i>real </i>weeks of <i>real </i>crisis: drought, fire, snow,
ice, wind, torrents of rain, earthquakes, tornadoes. And more than the snippets we allow ourselves to see on Fox News …<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>NOW IN CABLEVISION! </i>Do you REALLY want your life to be
lived like a Lifetime TV Movie? Melodrama, disease, betrayal, ruin,
humorlessness at every turn of the life dial?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlHe6TUvWxxya0lEKXMsrpagk0_FiJUTqgu7HUUCRs-I2wHgQjxmiSEHGfh3_lQXanhyxfLH7el04rxgvtcOitj-HX406U4Rtin3My7YrnJ2SxsGaTcCjRLlHzeY8VGs6jvkBQNCc-5i6D/s1600/Mspillit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlHe6TUvWxxya0lEKXMsrpagk0_FiJUTqgu7HUUCRs-I2wHgQjxmiSEHGfh3_lQXanhyxfLH7el04rxgvtcOitj-HX406U4Rtin3My7YrnJ2SxsGaTcCjRLlHzeY8VGs6jvkBQNCc-5i6D/s1600/Mspillit.jpg" /></a></div>
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A few years ago, one of my dear
friends died, suddenly, of congestive heart failure, the cause of which was a
years-long addiction to alcohol. It was not until near the end that any of us
even knew she drank. She was a closet alcoholic, a maintenance drinker, and she
also binged when alone with her kids. Her life had been, it turned out, one
long crisis, with breathers in between—loss of the custody of her daughter when
quite young; death of her second husband to cancer—and that’s just for
starters. But in the life, she lived with the greatest, best figurative heart,
full of love and art and excitement for doing new things, learning, reading,
running, and children. As I said at the end of my eulogy at her funeral, when
my own life was in crisis and decided to move to New York, she was my
strongest, best champion. When everyone around me was stage-whispering, “You
know she’s out of her mind,” or “she’ll never survive,” or “who does she think
she is?” it was this friend who said to me, “Lisa, don’t listen to them.
Everybody wishes they were you right now. Everybody wants to be YOU.” In
finally making the move, the shadow of the crisis passed. The state of my
(internal) union is strong. For my friend, the crisis of her inner life and
outer tragedies destroyed her. You see how easily—whatever your smarts,
talents, beauty, or spirit—anybody can break given the right terrible
circumstances.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROCcHoSFBwhdGf7xbikyW9QxXZ7Gbu4r8KlguO7b-GnyAlcWJ4AJVAGexwlR0SBH70WgwePzM2Slwn1bxDQGrmdjAFiEYpYttr6kZ66_peV2Uw_QiZsT10K8NfqNgfius9J4b1mYYRZuC/s1600/pulp_cover-b2aea631375e1879c89556bbeaa80154ad9c9ab7-s800-c15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROCcHoSFBwhdGf7xbikyW9QxXZ7Gbu4r8KlguO7b-GnyAlcWJ4AJVAGexwlR0SBH70WgwePzM2Slwn1bxDQGrmdjAFiEYpYttr6kZ66_peV2Uw_QiZsT10K8NfqNgfius9J4b1mYYRZuC/s1600/pulp_cover-b2aea631375e1879c89556bbeaa80154ad9c9ab7-s800-c15.jpg" /></a></div>
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The personal is political. The
personal ills that beset us affect the world around us, and the crises of the
world make our own healing almost impossible.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But who is really paying attention? President Obama gave a State of the
Union Address wherein he took on all the stupidity, and here was a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/23/best-dressed-list_n_6526432.html">post</a>
for the ages: “I thought Michelle Obama stole the show. Forget about that
speech! Look at what she’s wearin’!” <o:p></o:p></div>
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DEAR GOD. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">IF EVERYTHING IS A CRISIS, NOTHING IS A CRISIS, or, WE ARE SO FUCKING
TIRED<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb
emotional things all day, and as mere consequence we can never feel merely
content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and
those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid
relationship.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">~ Nick Hornby, from <u>High
Fidelity</u></span></i><i><u><span style="color: #696a6b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></i></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">One of Miss O’s greatest challenges in
being a writer or a teacher or an editor or a citizen of the world, for that matter, is her hyper-awareness of
her failings and shortcomings. Her gold standards are high, her taste
exquisite, and it makes her all too aware of what she has not been able to
accomplish. Enter modern dance pioneer Martha Graham, just in the nick of time:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a
quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is
only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it,
it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world
will not have it. <b>It is not your business to determine how good it is nor
how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions.</b> It is your
business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>~ Martha Graham to Agnes
DeMille<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">from</span></i><i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">
</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;"><a href="http://jamesclear.com/quality-comparison">“Martha Graham on the Hidden
Danger of Comparing Yourself to Others” by James Clear</a></span><i><u><span style="color: #696a6b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <o:p></o:p></span></u></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidHI5YOWx36cbIS9mhhhIOkOKzrZzyNzijPASaHK_VxlHjrGW8B8k7KpetuLdpRWslfuukIoLinbhDinpTmAhU0wZBz9Y0RElrmgnW_s5tVugJ8QwnZmApR7E4-OWpmkL8F7Bo6cCGqtw4/s1600/crisis-management.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidHI5YOWx36cbIS9mhhhIOkOKzrZzyNzijPASaHK_VxlHjrGW8B8k7KpetuLdpRWslfuukIoLinbhDinpTmAhU0wZBz9Y0RElrmgnW_s5tVugJ8QwnZmApR7E4-OWpmkL8F7Bo6cCGqtw4/s1600/crisis-management.jpg" height="255" width="320" /></a></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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School says: If everything is special, nothing
is special.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Artist says: If nothing is special, everything is special.</div>
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WikiLeaks says: If everything is public, everything is
public.<o:p></o:p></div>
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NSA says: If nothing is private, nothing
is private.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>If everything is a crisis, nothing
is a crisis? </i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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No. Instead, when <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything</i> is a crisis, it becomes the mode in which we live. And die. EARLY.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #333746; font-family: Times; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/102110867">Unused vacation days at 40-year high</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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169 million vacation days went
unused 2013. That figure speaks to the entire problem in this nation. Everybody
is working overtime for free (except Congress, who needs to), and taking no breaks to replenish (except Congress, who just shuts that whole thing down when they get the grumps). We are running
on empty—physically, intellectually, morally, ethically. We the People literally got
nothin’ to bring to our Game of Life, nothing to use to get over the hills or across
the valleys. The shadow of the crisis is past, and it’s the Valley of the
Shadow of Death.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That, and of course, “President Obama
Doesn’t Love America.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">(I’d like to note, here, President Obama's Hate-Filled
Agenda: Access to affordable health care for all Americans, access to quality
affordable education, sustainable and renewable energy, protections for the
last big wild places, economic growth, deficit reduction, a society free from
gun violence--and all presented with intelligence, wit, diplomacy, respect, and
without showing any hatred for others. And he took out Bin Laden. Yep--he's a
dick, all right. You know who really doesn't love America? The narcissists like
Rudy Giuliani who have no relevancy but say whatever it takes to cash a
speaking engagement paycheck telling fat cats who care only about themselves
exactly what they want to hear to justify their personal agendas. And what is
President Obama's response? Class. All the way.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The End of Crisis<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
But the president tells me “the
shadow of the crisis is past,” and I’d like to believe him. Surely Tom Paine
thought the victory of 1783 meant just that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">ADVANTAGES THEREOF. THESE are times that tried men's
souls, and they are over- and the greatest and completest revolution the world
ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished. But to pass from the extremes
of danger to safety — from the tumult of war to the tranquillity of peace,
though sweet in contemplation, requires a gradual composure of the senses to
receive it. Even calmness has the power of stunning, when it opens too instantly
upon us. The long and raging hurricane that should cease in a moment, would
leave us in a state rather of wonder than enjoyment; and some moments of
recollection must pass, before we could be capable of tasting the felicity of
repose. There are but few instances, in which the mind is fitted for sudden
transitions: it takes in its pleasures by reflection and comparison and those
must have time to act, before the relish for new scenes is complete.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">~ Thomas Paine, The American Crisis: Philadelphia, April 19, 1783<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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And yet.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
We carry crisis in the body. We
carry trauma in the body. Lately I’ve been reading about the work of Moshe <a href="http://www.feldenkrais.com/about">Feldenkrais</a> and his revolutionary
work on pain and the way we human beings have lost touch with our own basic body
movements as a result. And we need to take that in. If a twinge of arthritis
can destroy our body’s understanding of what it means to move freely, imagine
what night after night of ISIS crisis and gun violence and disease epidemics and
torture chambers and drone strikes and pictures of that drunken sod John
Boehner and that walking robot of tyranny Dick “I will never die” Cheney are
doing to our very cores.<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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A crisis passes. There is great
rejoicing and a national holiday gets named for it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But if everything is a crisis, is
anything a crisis? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Is “crisis” the new normal? No
biggie?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Calm
the fuck down already? </i>Miss O’ thinks not.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know what is a REAL CRISIS?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">SEA LEVELS HAVE RISEN AN <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">UNPRECENTED 4” IN TWO YEARS<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That</i>
is a crisis. (If you live in the middle of the country and think, “This doesn’t
apply to ME,” you are doubtless the same people who want to rescue persecuted
Christians in parts unknown, but not anyone else, and not anyone in your own
country. THAT is the REASON for <i>this crisis.</i> This climate crisis is, in fact,
YOUR FAULT. Tell that to your children with a smile.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim3Q_4rdZHoUemozZLDXfiDxSaDfqV2pgHXirF5_8bc0y-4VwJKCfmXaWIYcLme_NfbpFyCFuD4uO4xOyafu-DvbsKLn4IsxnDgpblDHms3miZR9Fnnj0PNWktMC-yAV3ALwrDXeFyj17p/s1600/150123-gop-on-climate-change-ignorant-and-proud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim3Q_4rdZHoUemozZLDXfiDxSaDfqV2pgHXirF5_8bc0y-4VwJKCfmXaWIYcLme_NfbpFyCFuD4uO4xOyafu-DvbsKLn4IsxnDgpblDHms3miZR9Fnnj0PNWktMC-yAV3ALwrDXeFyj17p/s1600/150123-gop-on-climate-change-ignorant-and-proud.jpg" height="319" width="320" /></a></div>
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<o:p> And this is where Miss O' bows out.</o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Miss O’ has had about enough of
crises as a lifestyle. The world has been, is, and will ever be, <i>too much with
us,</i> and it’s time for this little blogger, on whose shoulders this too-much-world has been sitting, to bid you, faithful readers, farewell.
I have in me but a very finite few years left on Earth, and while Miss O’ would
never say never, she suspects strongly that it’s time to get off this Blogger
horse and ride a different pony, one with a few more tricks, one that leads to
a creative end that feels a little more hopeful than crisis analysis.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Will keep you posted. Maybe.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
In the meantime, one could do worse
than turn to Turner Classic Movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May
I recommend it? We could all use a breather.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
In a New York <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Times</i> piece this weekend by Leon Weiseltier, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-turner-classic-movies.html">“Letter
of Recommendation: Turner Classic Movies,”</a> the author writes, hopefully:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">When disappointment has brought you low, or sadness has
colonized you, or fear has conquered your imagination, you experience a
contraction of your horizon. Your sense of possibility is damaged and even
abolished. Pain is a monopolist. The most urgent thing, therefore, is to
restore a more various understanding of what life holds, of its true abundance,
so that the bleakness in which you find yourself is not all you know. The way
to break the grip of sorrow and dread is to introduce another claimant on
consciousness, to crowd it out with other stimulations from the world. Sadness
can never be retired completely, because there is always a basis in reality for
it. But you can impede its progress by diversifying your mind.</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So do that. Diversify your mind. See the hills
and the valleys for what they really are. Solve a crisis. Make progress. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Will do same.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
As ever, with love and deep
gratitude for your goodness in reading along these four years, I remain,<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Yours &ct, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-91778249518044516142015-01-03T08:19:00.000-08:002015-01-04T06:48:06.637-08:00Lip Service: New Year's Resolutions and Revolutions for 2015<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">“Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn't it, of a long line of proven criminals?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">~ Ogden Nash, "Good-by, Old Year, You Oaf or Why Don't They Pay the Bonus?" in <i>The Primrose Path</i> (1935).</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Happy Ever-Loving New Year!<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Quinn on Second Avenue</td></tr>
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Since the advent of the Julian Calendar, or at least since the dawn of the <i>In/Out</i> column of the Washington <i>Post</i>'s New Year's Style section, there's been the need for some kind of annual summing up, some sort of taking stock, I guess. What happened, and what’s next? The putting away of the decorations is a helpful beginning, and as I face that task today (or, rather, avoid it by writing this) I think of a Facebook friend’s college-age daughter who wondered this year why people even bother with the, obviously temporary, decorating for Christmas. “Is it just to show you made an effort to impress others?” By her reasoning, one might just as well ask, why wear decent clothes? You’re going to be grungy and almost certainly naked later. Why travel? You’ll only end up home again. Why live? You’re only going to die. So, in this vein: Why think about the events of the old year? You’ll only forget them as soon as you get your first winter cold and pull out the snow shovel. Come to think of it, why blow your nose? You’ll only get more snot. Why shovel? It’ll melt come spring. (Her mother says she is only being logical, though, having seen this young woman's prom pictures, something tells me she's won't be so "logical" when it comes to her <i>wedding dress</i>—the one she will spend thousands on to wear for approximately <i>two hours</i> for the whole of her life. Because there are these things called <i>occasions</i>, created to help us feel good. Maybe Christmas isn't your thing, but personally, I can't see <i>enough</i> candy lights.)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Seen on East 4th Street, NYC</td></tr>
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But really, who has time for all this existential shit? 'Tis the season to don the layers of our gay apparel, find a friend, avoid Times Square (seriously—that dropping ball (heh, heh) closes every subway entrance, and there's nowhere to pee), and celebrate another year of goddamned <i>living</i>.<br />
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Miss O' likes to spend New Year’s Rockin’ Eve out on the town, the “real New York” of the East Side, with her friend Quinn, an annual tradition, since last year. This year, we met after work at the Barnes and Noble on E. 17<sup>th</sup> St, walked briskly in the cold, crisp air, as the sun began setting, from Union Square east over to 2<sup>nd</sup> Avenue, and down to 7<sup>th</sup> St for a divine dinner at Cooper’s (last year was at his namesake Quinn's barbecue!)—grilled gruyere cheese sandwich with thick bacon on homemade white bread, toasted perfectly, accompanied by smoky-flavored tomato soup. The beverage? A dry hard cider (for me) and the once-a-year vodka and 7-Up (for Quinn). The appetizer? A sharing of the Canadian treat <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine">Poutine</a>, which is a dish of thick-cut French fries and cheese curd smothered in oxtail gravy. Got that? (Note: Possibly a kinder Miss O’, a more empathetic woman, would have warned the still-hung-over among you to skip the meal contents description entirely, aware of the stomach-churning costs of celebrating/ drinking to forget, but, and she says this with love, “You're welcome.” Now back to me. –<i>ed</i>.) Indulgence, comfort, warmth found in a long-cherished restaurant in the East Village, away from the madding crowds of Times Square, seemed just right after a 2014 fraught with necessary if often discomfiting Revolutions, both personal and political, all over America. <o:p></o:p></div>
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After the meal, it was time to walk about and then see a show! </div>
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We headed a few blocks further east, which used to be very, very mean streets, indeed, even as recently as when Miss O’ moved here 11 years ago, but though safer, it still feels like real <i>New York</i>, down to 4<sup>th</sup> Street between Avenues A and B, where the Connelly Theater has been an institution for years. We walked under scaffolding, over trash, and past piled-blanket-covered homeless men (reminders of the price too many pay to survive), heading toward an oasis of sophisticated enchantment.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Quinn with Lypsinka portrait, the Connelly Theater, NYC</td></tr>
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<b><i><a href="http://www.lypsinka.com/">LYPSINKA!</a></i></b></div>
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Lypsinka! My closest work colleague for the past decade, Howard, has been telling me about this act of drag legend for <i>years</i>—the alter-ego glam lady persona of the astonishing John Epperson, son of the state of Mississippi, who created this character some 30 years ago in the East Village to which he has finally returned after taking his creation all over the nation for ages now. Howard said, “The first time I saw her, this must have been the late ’80s or early ’90s, some friends took me and I had no idea what it was, and I nearly wet myself laughing—I've never seen anything like it.” “It” is the genius mash-up of recorded lines and songs from female performers in movies, nightclub acts, and television. And you would swear that every line is coming from Lypsinka’s own mouth. You can see marvelous clips on the hyperlinked website above, or find her on YouTube, especially <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jwBImEgilQ">this item from BoyBar in 1993</a>. (You must watch all 9 minutes, because at 2:55 the insanity really begins, and it just gets better.) (Here is one of the acts he lip-syncs: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjFMBsppBVc&app=desktop">Fay McKay, “The Twelve Daze of Christmas.”</a> You will will will die.) To say, "It's a guy in drag lip-synching" does not begin to do this justice. Sure, it's dazzling in the display crack timing and line-memorization, but more than that, the act reveals the ways that popular culture has portrayed women, or expected women to portray themselves—as well as the brilliantly subversive ways talented women have elevated themselves through art.<br />
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But his act got me thinking: What, really, is this Lypsinka <i>lip-synching</i> all about? Why does it fascinate, draw sell-out crowds (of gay men and artistic women—the great New York performer, Jackie Hoffman, right in front of me!—almost entirely), and be so vital still that poor Mr. Epperson cannot manage to let her go? (He performs another show, the autobiographical <i>Show Trash</i>, about that very subject.) I looked around the lobby of the theater. I said to Quinn, "Look at all this history." Surrounding us was a sea of slender, dapper, exquisitely dressed gay men of a certain age, mostly white, with salt-and-pepper hair, glasses, their bodies adorned in fine, tailored wools in total contrast to what was (most probably) the leather coats and pants of their youths. Not until we were seated in the house was Quinn able to look around and see just what I meant. These are the survivors of the AIDS epidemic. And Lypsinka is, too. (Someone needs to make <i>that</i> documentary.)</div>
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I think that for gay boys, especially those coming of age in the 1950s and 1960s (Epperson is 59 now, around the same age as my friend Howard and nearly all the men there, from the looks of it, including legendary choreographer and dancer Mark Morris, right behind me!), classic films starring dazzling women like Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, and Elizabeth Taylor, who expressed raw emotions without fear, as well as lesser-known film noir femme fatales and B-movie starlets, together with the Broadway belters of original cast recordings and television variety shows, kept these poor closeted kids from losing their minds. The outsized characters these gals so (melo)dramatically portrayed for audiences were invariably <i>fighting for their lives!</i>—fighting to have lives outside of the grip of straight men and their repressive culture, and of course gay boys could relate to that. Their own fears, tremblings, and deep sensitivities found release on the screen, on recordings, and could be relived through play-acting. Any sensitive kid who feels like a misfit and outcast knows the thrill of <i>recognition</i> that artists give to us by putting up that Hollywood-style tinsel mirror. </div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">This Lypsinka revival is a Trilogy:</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The Boxed Set, The Passion of the Crawford, </i><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">and the aforementioned, autobiographical</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> John Epperson: Show Trash.</i><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> Of the Trilogy, Howard told me to see (if I had to pick) “The Boxed Set,” which features many of the classic routines. I'd been remiss in doing this, and realized it would be closing this weekend; astonishingly, there were still tickets for New Year’s Eve’s 8 PM show as of Monday, and I snatched (so to speak) two. Quinn, who happily agreed to go, only knew of Lypsinka because he’d met her/him years ago when he was backstage working an awards show. Ben Vereen had greeted her—she/he was wearing full drag makeup, in a man’s suit—"Genius," Quinn said—effusively, and Quinn realized, “Lypsinka must be </span><i style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">somebody</i><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">…,” but he had no idea who. Last night, he learned. Miss O’ cannot encourage you enough to join our ranks. (See links above! Also, </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Joan</span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> Rivers was a huge fan, and there's<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAEwvMS1rxI"> a clip of Lypsinka on her old talk show</a>. It's 2 minutes that will just make you glad you are alive. And it's all in lip-sync, from the <i>entrance</i>.)</span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lip Synching as Lifestyle<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Everybody lip-syncs, especially in the car. So the other night’s wonderful performance got me thinking: What <i>is</i> it about lip-synching? Why “go through the motions” of someone else’s expressed talent, as if it’s our <i>own</i> performance, our <i>own</i> talent? I guess since the beginning of recorded singing, it just became another extension of the game, <i>"As If..."</i>: Fantasy, play-acting. But is that all there is to it? It came about as a real “thing” in the 1980s, turning up everywhere from drag shows like this, to parties, to TV shows—Tom Cruise built a whole career on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2UVsyVLLcE">one moment of it</a>—and MTV rock videos, I’m sure, had a lot to do with it (though in elementary school in the early 1970s I remember little Jerry Bartee in the talent shows, year after year, lip-synching to Elvis). When I was in college, 1982-86, my friend Todd used to play Bruce Springsteen records (remember records?) at his parties, and Bruce’s songs can be kind of a downer, except that our fun was lip-synching to songs such as “Badlands,” turning these great working-class rock songs into performance art (we didn’t think of it that way, of course, but rather as more of a drunken entertainment, because though I was sober, they were all smashed—people at the parties who didn’t know me well would say to me on Monday, “Wow, you are so funny when you’re drunk,” not knowing my red plastic tumbler was full of ice water, and I’d just go with it, “Yeah…,” smiling even as I realized that they were saying I looked stupid without the excuse). David Lynch uses lip-sync to frightening effect in the movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blue Velvet</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, where Dean Stockwell "sings" Roy Orbison's "In Dreams," with a light stand for a microphone</span>. Lately, Jimmy Fallon’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tonight Show</i> has elevated the practice to exhibition-worthy stuff with a recurring segment of dueling lip-sync, wherein he and a guest performer, who is usually a non-singer, take turns lip-synching to a few current or classic songs of their own choosing. (One of my favorites was actress Emma Stone doing the fast riff from Blues Traveler’s “Heart Brings You Back.”) (When I'm on Jimmy Fallon's show, I am totally doing "Badlands.")<br />
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It’s always really fun. Why?</div>
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It is Lypsinka (with her lip-synching, from some film, the refrain <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Who am I? Am I going crazy? Who am I? Who am I?” </i>between segments) who really exploded in my head last night as to the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> reason</i> for it—to understand the need for playing out the fantasy of living the lives of the speakers of the lines, the singers of the songs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And I got to thinking about how people in this country (and others, but I'm doing America here) are forever lip-synching along in ways that are not always, necessarily, <i>fun</i>. Or maybe it starts out that way, and becomes just sort of mindless. And then, sort of, or really, <i>dangerous</i>.<o:p></o:p><br />
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So true to New Year's tradition, how about a little ball-dropping—just six "seconds'" worth—of What was IN, lip-wise, for 2014. Here they are, America's biggest lip-sync-style cultural moments of the year. </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.533334732055664px;">Lip-Sync’s Greatest Hits of 2014: A Countdown!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lip-Sync #6: I’m-Ins, or, “The Ice Bucket Challenge Cometh”<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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If anything showed that human beings will do almost anything for the betterment of all <i>if there’s a chance it will go viral on YouTube,</i> it was the Ice Bucket Challenge. All over the world, people from all walks of life filmed themselves taking the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which was created to raise money and awareness for a really awful disease that doesn’t get much research funding. My initial reaction to this, as to all such challenges, including Breast Cancer Runs, for example, is, “Why, in the richest developed country in the world, are we holding the equivalent of a bake sale to find cures for diseases that can afflict anyone at any time, regardless of race, gender, creed, color, or income?” And then I try to remember how healing these events have been for so many survivors and the families of victims. And then I get mad again at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">charity</i> being the way we get the bulk of our important research funding. And then I try to get over it again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Am I going crazy? Who am I? Who am I?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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But the Ice Bucket Challenge was a phenomenon of imitation upon imitation of the dumping of ice water onto the heads of humans from every walk of life, an<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> equalizer</i>, a moment that brought out, too, some enormous creativity, as when Patrick Stewart wrote out a check and signed it, and then tonged cubes from an ice bucket into a glass, poured Scotch, and drank. It was the ultimate lip-sync competition, where true to the lip-sync experience, the competitors had not one thing to gain or prove except that they were willing to put themselves out there, and ALS won. Even if most of the people who did the challenge didn't know what ALS was, may or may not have contributed money, and will probably never (unless that ice water was a literal wake-up call) think about ALS ever again.<o:p></o:p><br />
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Except maybe when they see that computer-voiced scientist in the wheelchair.</div>
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So, what's it all about? In part, lip-synching is about taking the risk to perform, knowing that one will look ridiculous, in the name of a good cause, or in good fun. Okay then...<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lip-Sync #5: Chime-Ins, or, Pardon My Burning Bra’s Lateness, But I Wasn’t Born Yet<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">I had an idea months ago for a blog on feminism, which I never wrote, and my title was,</span><span style="color: #5f497a; mso-themecolor: accent4; mso-themeshade: 191;"> “Emma Watson Waves Her Wand: Casting Political Spells on Young Feminism in America.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i>“I don't want the fear of failure <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>to stop me from doing <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>what I really care about.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>~Emma Watson, Actress, <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>U.N. Good Will Ambassador,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Feminist<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Actress Emma Watson, who made a fortune and earned life-long fame playing Hermione in the Harry Potter movie franchise, took a massive risk by addressing the United Nations body and proclaiming her feminism. She personally had nothing to gain, much to lose. (Just ask Ann Coulter and every other Republican in America.) Emma Watson is white, young, rich, successful, educated, adored. However, she is also, most visibly, a woman. And she knows it. And she realized that her privileged woman's life is not the norm. You can watch her very fine speech at the link: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-iFl4qhBsE">Emma Watson’s Speech</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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The speech received a lot of praise from disparate quarters, but around the time I caught the story, on the Huffington Post, I also happened upon two paradoxical pieces posted on that same site within days of each other: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/26/can-this-marriage-be-saved-advice_n_5829870.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/26/can-this-marriage-be-saved-advice_n_5829870.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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"Can This Marriage Be Saved? Awful ‘50s Marriage Advice": This post is absolutely worth reading, and contains the kinds of stingers that sent women into deep depressions, or turned them into addle-pated doormats of frenzied denial, for all of their lives. The upshot: It’s all HER fault. And this was the lip-synched messaged of every advice column and doctor in America for decades. The stuff movie melodramas are made of!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Am I going crazy? Who am I? Who am I?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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But in that same section of that online publication, there was a column called “11 Bridal Parties That Totally Killed It,” a cutesy little article that essentially tells women that not only should they see the wedding as the high point of their lives, but that these eleven women had a better party than YOU did, or ever will. Look at the pressure on the idea of marriage:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/23/bridal-party-photos-unique_n_5822948.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/23/bridal-party-photos-unique_n_5822948.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who am I? Am I going crazy? Who am I? Who AM I???<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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But more interesting to me than even those little pieces was the inevitable Emma Watson <i>backlash</i> by feminists, especially black feminists of an older generation. What's a <i>good thing</i> in America, without a backlash? <i>Ammirite</i>?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #266ce6; font-family: "Lucida Console"; font-size: 26.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Console";"><a href="http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/09/im-really-emma-watsons-feminism-speech-u-n/">Why I’m Not Really Here For Emma Watson’s Feminism Speech At the U.N.</a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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That headline pretty much sums it up. The inevitable and necessary loss of "white privilege"—and the desire of feminists of color to hasten that—precludes any support they might give to a young white woman discovering her feminism. I get so pissed off by this. First of all, speeches cannot be all things to all people. Second, <span style="color: #1a1a1a; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I am always saddened by women who, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">even sort of,</i> bash other women as this author, Mia McKenzie, does here—and as I am doing in bashing, sort of, Ms. McKenzie—for doing something to play a part in a movement that is important. The critic's points, however condescendingly they are made, are certainly worthy of note, as Ms. Watson is indeed still <i>learning to be a woman</i> and is still <i>growing into her feminism</i>. However, I see that Ms. McKenzie's real issue is with the press and its reactions, especially their incessant use of the term "game-changing" to describe Ms. Watson’s speech; and McKenzie, who has no such Watson fame, is eager to snatch away any praise from a young (white) woman</span>—and this appalls me, because Watson not only rose to an occasion, but quickly began suffering a vile <i>male-driven </i>backlash as a result. Rather than dismantle this young woman's heart-felt and highly moral speech, Ms. McKenzie might instead ADD her OWN voice. This kind of splitting of feminist hairs and semantic deconstruction is why, over so many years, women hold other women back. I'd like to say this then, in, of course, a pleading, Joan Crawford-Elizabeth Taylor style voice: <i>Rejoice, why don't you, Ms. McKenzie, rejoice, for the love of god, and ADD OTHERS TO THE CAUSE rather than frighten them off with your slut-shaming criticism! WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME?</i><br />
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I’d also like to point out that, due mostly to Rush Limbaugh’s anti-woman campaign—beginning with his coining of the term, <i>Femi-Nazi,</i> which was all-too-readily embraced by the media and, sadly,<i> lip-synched along to for years</i> by the majority of American women to the tune of "I'm Not a Feminist!"—Emma Watson has had no real role models to look to. It’s been a slow slide back to the 1950s, exemplified in Victoria’s Secret catalog advertising aimed even at sixth graders, so women of Emma Watson’s generation are, more or less, having to reinvent feminism as if for the first time.</div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Writer Neha Chandrachud did a nice summary of the backlash Emma Watson encountered, laying out the very reason, I think, that young women today avoid doing anything that might resemble leadership. But then she did the thing I always shake my head at (seen in bold):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/neha-chandrachud/emma-watson-un-campaign_b_5883200.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/neha-chandrachud/emma-watson-un-campaign_b_5883200.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When I saw Emma Watson's UN speech begin to slowly infiltrate my newsfeed, I cringed. As with most socially-conscious viral videos, I knew I was about witness the same, reliable formula unfold.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The first 24 hours were a barrage of YouTube clips of the speech paired with exciting phrases like "feminism at the forefront!" and "courageous!" and "game changing!"<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Then came the second wave: the critics and the ego-driven arguments. Many long-winded comments chasing one another down my Facebook page, spiralling into heated debates about class, race, world politics and of course, celebrity culture.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And finally, the third wave arrived. Several days after her UN speech, the inevitable quiet after Emma Watson was dethroned from atop the 'trending now' list and was replaced by something far more banal (to be specific, the latest Budweiser puppy ad).<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I watched Watson's HeForShe speech about two days after it was released. I found her obvious nerves to be earnest and her resolve to be admirable. <b>I certainly didn't agree with everything she said </b>in her 12 minutes, but I was moved by her willingness to take on the daunting task of being a UN Goodwill Ambassador.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What I was less impressed with though, was the overwhelmingly antagonizing reaction of many of her critics.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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~<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/neha-chandrachud/"><b>Neha Chandrachud</b></a><span style="color: #878787; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Miss O’, while appreciating Ms. Chandrachud's summary and calling out of the backlash, cannot help but query this line: “I certainly didn’t agree with everything she said in her 12 minutes…”. It’s the adverb “certainly” (and the lack of specifics that follows the statement) that really pisses me off. You “certainly didn’t agree” with everything? Seriously? It’s hard to find anything, really, that a feminist would “certainly” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">disagree</i> with (just listen to it—much of the speech is autobiographical, for the love of McGonagall) but Chandrachud, if she wants to be embraced by those same McKenzie-style feminist critics in future, had to be political, still, didn’t she? <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Miss O’ <i>SIGHS (</i>a big, giant sitcom mom type of sigh!). God forbid ANY woman with a published column have the spine to give Ms. Watson unqualified support and thanks for bringing feminism to the fore again at the United Nations. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">At least these discussions and debates are better than this little headline:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 27.600000381469727px;"><a href="http://jezebel.com/sexpert-says-feminism-has-made-you-shitty-in-bed-1638753618"><b>Sexpert Says Feminism Has Made You Shitty in Bed</b></a></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Who am I?</span> <span style="font-size: large;">Am I going crazy?</span> <span style="font-size: x-large;">Who am I?</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Women's Rights: Is it just Miss O’, or does this record keep skipping? Or maybe lip-synching is also about showing off one’s ability to mouth the words of an old song, while trying to look fresh and unique doing it. Just because it just has to be fucking re-sung, over and over and fucking OVER again, because we are stupid like that.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lip-Sync #4: Lie-Ins, or, Faux-Fox “News” Exposed<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That science guy in the wheelchair with ALS.<br />
(That is, HE has ALS, not the wheelchair. See what happens when you dangle your modifiers?. <i>-ed</i>).</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">For years, since the advent of Rush Limbaugh, ca. 1992, and the rise of Rupert Murdoch and Chairman Roger Ailes’s Fox News, closeted right-wing bigots of America have come OUT, so far out they are IN—highest-rated news in America!</span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">—</span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">mouthing along to the pundits who espouse the homophobic, anti-feminist, anti-immigrant, anti-black, anti-poor vitriol that three decades of the Civil Rights Movement had long repressed, and their cacophony of News-speak became such a relentless drumbeat, that the genius Stephen Colbert realized that the only way to combat it was <i>lip-sync along</i>, with a twist, creating his own show, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Colbert Report</i><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">, in 2005. There is a fundamental difference, of course,</span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> between the real followers of Fox and the faux follower, Colbert, and that is <i>self-awareness.</i> And <i>inherent decency</i>.</span><br />
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Mr. Colbert, recently offered the job of replacing the retiring David Letterman on his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Late Show </i>on CBS, played out his last poseur-driven episode this past December, closing out 2014 at an auspicious time, I'd say—in the wake of nationwide protests against the grand jury decisions that favored the perpetrators of irresponsible, criminal acts, the two law enforcement officers in two major American cities: Officer Darrell Wilson in St. Louis and Officer Daniel Pantaleo in New York City. (The victims’ names are far better known, however: Mike Brown and Eric Garner, and this is precisely as it should be—whole Wikipedia entries are devoted to them.) Colbert’s lip-sync to the lies and libelous bullshit of the pundits on Fox took satire to a new level, because his character was so convincing that right-wingers like my cousin Bill in Iowa actually posted clips on Facebook, sure that finally, a comedian agreed with him. (Note to the Masses who were duped: That Colbert made you laugh should have been a hint. Republican comedians are not funny. See “Dennis Miller.” See also, “P.J. O’Rourke.”) (Note: Dave Barry is the only exception I can think of, and that’s because he sees the idiocies of both parties and writes about that, though simplistically for easy laughs. (See <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dave Barry Slept Here</i>.) I gather that Dave’s one of those wildly wealthy “don’t touch my taxes” Republicans, the ones who put on voter-blinders when it comes to the amorality of the party platform in order to save a few bucks personally, making him the most discouraging kind of Republican, really. But funny!)<br />
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I’d say that Colbert left his self-made host post at an ideal time, because the Revolution has, finally, begun. I’d say our Stephen—a progressive liberal Roman Catholic in the guise of a right-wing pompous evangelical "idiot" (his Word)—had a lot to do with it. Global warming, er, “Climate Change,” was a continual subject, for example. So were poverty, race, feminism, and politicians. Colbert gets it, and a lot of people who mouthed along, finally, are getting it, too.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjouvjS_5l0Gr4rosCHQ0Tt51Hjsvf_XjAeOBD2hggF1vbSPpRbFQjz5MEW-4L10vfOwM45CqoBa3DVzAIHbqKubWvamMKoJN5xuWfKkBZUS1nJhyphenhyphenOgpbEcFZf9wnZFIzHwf76BDJUA4jZV/s1600/d7e17d770ea80a550bf2faaadaeaede8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjouvjS_5l0Gr4rosCHQ0Tt51Hjsvf_XjAeOBD2hggF1vbSPpRbFQjz5MEW-4L10vfOwM45CqoBa3DVzAIHbqKubWvamMKoJN5xuWfKkBZUS1nJhyphenhyphenOgpbEcFZf9wnZFIzHwf76BDJUA4jZV/s1600/d7e17d770ea80a550bf2faaadaeaede8.png" height="295" width="320" /></a></div>
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So, in part, lip-synching is about taking the risk to perform, behind the safety of low, or worse, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">no,</i> expectations of being good or right, so at least you get noticed. Sometimes for the right reasons, both ways. And this leads your Miss O’ to Lip Sync winners 3, 2, and 1. </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lip Sync #3: Tie-Ins, or, CIA Torture Reports and The Great American Shame<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Too many Americans and their media mouthpieces mouthed along with the Gitmo arrangement, lip-synching to songs led by the bandleaders President “Decider” Bush and Vice President “Go Fuck Yourself” Cheney and Secretary of Defense “Boom-Boom” Rumsfeld as they droned on (pre-drone) about the need for extracting “information,” and it turns out they were torturing, and we all knew it even back in 2005, but we tuned out, what with the falling into their beat in the name of "freedom", and all. Fuck US.</div>
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Finally, a COMMITTEE! They investigate! <i>Should they tell us what they learned?!</i></div>
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“Release the report for the good of the nation!” “Don’t release the report for the good of the nation!” “Release the report!” “Don’t release the report!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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They release their single! And…outrage. Then crickets.</div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who am I? <span style="font-size: x-small;">Am I going crazy?</span> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Who am I? Am </span></i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Iiiiiiiii…...</span></i></span><br />
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No one, of course, will be prosecuted. Though, sure, former President Bush will never be able to travel outside the U.S. again for fear of being arrested for war crimes. That’s something. And you’d think I could take solace in having seen Rumsfeld stand up in the audience of the Metropolitan Opera and get booed (and I helped!), but I don’t, because other people clapped. And sure, one day, one day, Dick Cheney will finally die, but it won’t be from the effects of rectal force-feeding, so it won’t mean anything. </div>
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The lesson here is that if you lip-sync a bunch of counterclaims in a steady enough rhythm on American news outlets, you can get the audience to tap along to the beat so hard that no one moves to change one goddamned thing. White noise. And speaking of white noise...<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lip Sync #2: Die-Ins, or, #blacklivesmatter, Finally, to Whites<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Though cops still don’t realize it. And neither does Ann Coulter.<o:p></o:p><br />
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Blacks have been dying for years and years and years, by lynching and bullets, and the police declare that it's all been in the name of self-defense and public safety. They might have guns! And guns are a menace!<br />
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<i>A menace! Do you HEAR ME?</i></div>
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Then this happened this week. Did you see? A shooter on a rampage! With a live gun! A woman in full body armor, driving like a maniac, gun in hand! She must be dead, right, chased down by American trigger-happy cops?</div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Times; font-size: 38.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><a href="http://fortressamerica.gawker.com/woman-in-body-armor-leads-police-on-car-chase-after-sho-1675990237">Woman in Body Armor Leads Police on Car Chase After Shooting Spree</a></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">The police never fired a shot. </span><span style="color: #10131a; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">True story. </span><span style="color: #10131a;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">She was </span><i style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">white</i><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">, you see. But maybe, after firing all those rounds and evading law enforcement at high speed, she complied with the cops. (Because it's all about <i>complying</i>. That's what the defenders of police brutality say.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">This incident did not make national news in anything like a big way because, for can we be honest, the police made <i>gun owners across this great land really happy</i>, recognizing that <i>white people</i> have a right, under the Constitution, to just shoot the shit out of stuff sometimes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">But if you are black, more specifically a black male, unarmed especially, police will shoot the shit out of you just for <i>being</i>, and breathing, and that is totally okay. Public outrage! Kill another black man. Public outrage…at the black man! Kill another black man. Public outrage…at the black man! Kill another black man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who am I? Am I going crazy? Who am I?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Ferguson, MO, and New York City, though, were real game-changers. Somehow we knew it couldn't stand, because most of us really are decent after all. The lip-sync of cricket chirps has changed to “Black lives matter” and “I can’t breathe” and the chants are catching righteous fire across the land, inconvenient though the protests have been for oh so many of my white friends. “My commute!” “It’s unlawful!” <i>And Rosa Parks should have given up her seat on the bus.</i> One friend said to me, “Well, that was okay because it was about transportation.” Oh, dear GOD. No, sweetie, it was about INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM. And that’s exactly what these protests are about, too.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But a black former student said on Facebook that she is weary, that nothing will change, ever, and a black friend of hers commented, in essence, “And whites and immigrants need to stay out of it.” Huh? Fortunately, this response came in from another black friend:</div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Whoa. It is not the time to discourage "non-blacks" from being up on arms. Better late than never. Asking "where have you been?" and/or violence will not unify anybody. Trust me I get it, but am personally more angry with those - of any race - that can bug me to type Jesus or Amen, play Candy Crush or hype their Buzzfeed results on FB every time I turn around but go MUTE after a thought- provoking event happens. FB can be a catalyst for discussion and may reach folks that would otherwise not hear a differing perspective. As a practical matter, we all can't march, but if we can remove fingers from ears and get more involved in the conversation we are all better off.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">~ Zaneta (who wanted to craft this better for my blog (I don't see how it needs improving, but that's me), but said I could quote her, so I’ll just leave off her last name in case--thanks, kid!)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Here is the big point in all this:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/12/29/no_civilization_would_tolerate_what_america_has_done_partner/">“No civilization would tolerate what America has done”</a><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Institutional racism. Rampant income inequality. A broken justice system. America may never be a great society<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><a href="http://www.salon.com/writer/david_masciotra/"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">DAVID MASCIOTRA</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">, ALTERNET</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">... The police officers who shoot teenagers for the crime of stealing cigarillos, the cops who choke men to death and beat women, along with the police administrators and county prosecutors who protect them, are not from Mars. They are not lizards in disguise, as some of the wildest conspiracy theorists suggest. They are Americans. They are products of American institutions and culture, and they staff and supervise the enforcement of our laws</span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">…</span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Article and essay, after article and essay, Fox News bullshit notwithstanding (special note to former New York City mayor and constant pundit and old supporter of NYPD corruption—Bernie Kerik, anyone? anyone?—Rudy Guiliani: everyone in New York City HATES you) </span>are sounding off, and the protests, for once, are not abating. Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians; young, old, educated and not—we can agree that America must cease to be a police state. And this is NOT about police-hating. It's about BAD policing, RACIST policing. Sing it, Kareem:</div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Here’s a good read on that same subject. Because Miss O' is all about the links, 'bout the links...</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2014/12/edward_banfield_the_racist_classist_origins_of_broken_windows_policing.html">http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2014/12/edward_banfield_the_racist_classist_origins_of_broken_windows_policing.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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P.S. On the shooting deaths of the two officers in Brooklyn by the psychopath, the blame falsely and conveniently linked to protestors:<o:p></o:p></div>
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And P.S. to the NYPD officers turning their backs on their city's elected mayor during a funeral for one of the slain officers:</div>
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So, in all this rage, let's look at the GOOD: The good thing about lip-synching is that we are reminded of the joy of the rhythm of a shared music, a righteous lyric, and the feeling of all of us sharing our lips with the voice and words of a singer with an important song. And if enough of us are involved, no one will notice the ones who have no idea what the song even is. "I hate rap music!"<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now if we could just all fucking lip-sync, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">GUN CONTROL AND BACKGROUND CHECKS! GUN CONTROL AND BACKGROUND CHECKS! </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And not let UP. Why don't we?</span><o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Because 26 people gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School were killed <i>by a WHITE MAN</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That's why.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lip Sync #1: Buy-Ins and Vie-Ins, or, My Time Is the Right Time to Turn Left, or, <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If It’s Good Enough for Pope Frances, What the Fuck Is YOUR Excuse? <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I. Can’t. Breathe.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Let me take a moment to point out good things in the religious world, of which Miss O' is a frequent critic, because when Muslims and Catholics, especially of different genders and generations and nationalities and stations in life, can have equal fame, and most important, be on the same side of morality and goodness, you know a new day can dawn<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span></span>First, MALALA. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace at the age of 17, Malala Yousafzai is all about education for women, and I kneel to her. Humble, focused, empathetic, and devoted to her cause and to women everywhere, she is a model feminist who is also comfortable in being a Muslim. It’s about EDUCATION, irrespective of gender, race, creed, religion, nation, or socio-economic status. She's the Planet's Princess!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Second, a pope—a POPE, for chrissakes!—who loves actual poor people (!) and raffles off Vatican treasures to prove it! Embraces gays! Fires crummy bishops! Demands that Catholics take action on global warming! Brokers peace deals to normalize relations with CUBA! It's about FAIRNESS, irrespective of gender, race, creed, religion, nation, or socio-economic status. He’s the Planet’s Pontiff! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And in the world of entertainment, as a counterpoint to religion, and, so, what could turn out to be the most useful thing of all… <b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cosmos </i>has returned to television! </b>Thank you, Neil deGrasse Tyson (who, by the way, note to NYPD, happens to be a black man). SCIENCE is COOL again. </span>Remember back in the '80s when the whole world was lip-synching to “Billions and billions…”? I’d like to see the joy again in lip-synching along to scientific facts, and hear that song take off like a big-ass bird. (My acting teacher, Greg, used to tell us that before a performance: “Take off like a big-ass bird!” Sure, the initial effort is enormous and the movement is awkward at first, and you don’t think a takeoff can happen, but then, it just DOES. And once that ass is in flight, the wings hardly have to beat to get that bird somewhere, and lordy, what a sight!)</div>
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What song, what movie, what lines are you mouthing the words to this year? What gets your little shoulders in a shimmy? I'm vying for a new song to give us a dance explosion. For what will you vie, where your life-song is concerned, in 2015? World peace? The end of hunger? Doctors Without Borders for all? (Please don't tell me all you want is a <i>new car</i>.) As ever, Miss O’ is, clearly, vying for your outrage, appealing to your ethos, mugging to winkle into your minds and extract your moral code. But maybe what I’m vying for is your sense of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vie</i>, in the French sense, your “joi de vivre,” your “esprit de corps,” your “je ne sais quoi”! <o:p></o:p></div>
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For while Googling around to find a meme with the English word “vie” in it, I happened happily upon the homograph “vie,” as in “La Vie En Rose,” the song made famous by the French chanteuse Edith Piaf. And what a perfect little accident, because here is what I found:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p>First this, but it's not what I wanted. </o:p></div>
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Then I found THIS. It turns out this is a famous photograph.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><i>Plutôt la Vie </i></span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">literally translates, “rather life,” which doesn’t make a lot of sense only because English doesn’t have an equivalent for this expression. Of the word translations I’ve read, I suspect, “A lot more like life,” or “If anything, life” hits at the phrase’s meaning. This sounds so much more hopeful than the French shrug that is the famous “c’est la vie,” though while true, could turn a person to wine and forgetting rather than the more ambitious sobriety of rolling up the shirt sleeves. And also worth noting, in a big way, I think, is the "la" before the "vie," meaning that LIFE is <i>feminine</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Another big part of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">la vie</i>, human being-wise, as seen on Facebook in recent years, is the having of babies. The U.S., in fact, has been in the midst of the largest baby boom of all time, and no one is reporting on it as a boom. Why is this? Mostly, this media blackout, Miss O’ suspects, is because if people really realized how many babies were being born, they might start to get scared about, for example, the fact that man-made, corporate-creepy disasters like drilling, spilling, polluting, and fracking are heating the earth, destroying soil quality, and decimating potable water supplies at unprecedented rates, thus leaving a future of horrible suffering for their babes to look forward to. These parents might, you know, wake up, politically-speaking, and demand the heads of, or at least a vastly increased taxation rate on, the 1%.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And livable wages. And single-payer healthcare. And realize that black man Barack Obama is one hell of a great president, after all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Am I going crazy? Who am I? Am I going crazy? Who am I?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Despite the midterm election results (94% for Republicans), I see a shift in the zeitgeist, one person and one policy change at a time: Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Did I mention that? And, interestingly, her polar opposite, Vladimir Putin, had a seemingly unstoppable march toward a new Russian empire now halting in the face of economic collapse. That's something. China, surprisingly, signed on with President Obama to combat climate change. Astoundingly, Governor and general disappointment Andrew Cuomo banned fracking in New York State. Inspiringly, Wal-mart workers and McDonald’s workers alike are striking for higher wages, and they are making real inroads in public opinion. Beautifully and rightly, Obamacare is a whopping success. Finally, jobs in renewable energy fields have surpassed the number of jobs in the coal industry. And, happily, entrepreneurs are starting to open up dance clubs again, and that is not a small thing in this world of device dependency. And, fabulously, we're all goin' to Havana for cigars, </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">thanks</span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> to the Pope!</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There’s more to do, more to hope for, and frustrations abound. But when New York City finally has a mayor now willing to take on the corruptions of the NYPD, you know that<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> something</i> is changing for the better. Thank you, Bill di Blasio.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It’s not the same old record, is what I’m saying. </span>I know who I am. I am NOT going crazy. </div>
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<i>I'm NOT crazy!!!</i></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 19.933334350585938px;"><i>~ "</i>Joan Crawford," <i>Mommie Dearest, </i>a line<i> </i>performed by Lypsinka via Faye Dunaway</span></span></div>
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OUT is what's IN: I'm-Ins, Chime-Ins, Tie-Ins, Lie-Ins, Die-Ins: To what do you Buy-In? We enjoy mouthing along, sure, but really, how hard is it to stop sometimes, at intervals, and ask <i>WTF</i>? (<i>RECTAL FEEDING? </i>What are we? More disgusting than Mr. Handy in a <i>South Park</i> episode. <i>How is THAT something to mouth along to?</i>) </div>
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Too often in this nation, too many good people are made to feel, through the awful actions of their public servants and media affiliates alike, like Lypsinka, mouthing, wildly, as Joan Crawford, screaming as into a telephone: <i>"</i><o:p></o:p><span style="color: #262626; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 19.933334350585938px;"><i>WHY can't you give me the RESPECT that I'm entitled to? Why can't you treat ME like I would be treated by any STRANGER on the STREET?" </i></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I’m thinking that for 2015 we might take a chord off Lypsinka’s soundtrack and rethink the contexts for all this SHIT we hear, invent our own remixes, make deliberate mash-ups, put on a decent <i>wig</i>, for the love of god, do our eyes up to the skies, put on a dress to knock their nuts off. Hit <i>play</i>. And then perform the fuck out it. SAY something about being a goddamned human being in a world of confusion, noise, hatred, and powerlessness. Sing it, <i>hard</i>. With a band! With integrity. <i>In a lip lock.</i></span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Giving you lip it into 2015,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Miss O’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-82309552248973243852014-11-30T14:30:00.000-08:002014-12-06T09:22:49.214-08:00Auntie Hannah Laced Her Tea with Rum, Because It Was Only Once a Year: A Christmas Blog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
(<i>Editor's Note: This blog, a revisiting of last week's blog with a new title, is filled with allusions to the tale about which Miss O' is writing. No disrespect to Mr. Dylan Thomas is intended. -ed.</i>)</div>
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<b style="line-height: 115%;">Wool-White, Bell-Tongued Balls of Holidays</b></div>
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Years and years and years ago, when
I was a girl, when there was a Woolco in Woodbridge, and seagulls the color of
white-grey winter skies sailed into the Featherstone Plaza parking lot to dive
for discarded crusts from Family Pizzeria; when we sang and bellowed Christmas
carols because Miss O’ had a thing for caroling and dragged all the kids for
whom she babysat out into the chill, still evening to pass from house to house
the whole length of Alabama Avenue, we hoped for snow, and it never snowed. But
there was “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas, recorded on an
oft-turned vinyl album put out by Caedmon Records, a company started by two
women who just wanted to get Dylan Thomas recorded reading his lovely memory of
ice-bound Christmases in his hometown, Swansea in Wales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And each Christmas Eve, Miss O’s beaming mom,
Lynne, would gather her four children and her husband to the stereo turntable
she purchased around 1958 or so and force, er, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">invite</i>, the assembled to listen to the 20-minutes’ worth of
ramblings of that sonorous Welsh voice, as each child—after begging to be
released into the frosted world of the backyard and being denied that pleasure,
praying for the sweet numbing peace of death, and short of that, a slab of pie or
surely a handful of Brach’s confections as a reward for endurance—fidgeted,
flopped, foamed, and flailed until, mercifully, finally, Mr. Thomas intoned,
“…and then I slept.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The first time I saw the book in
print, my mom was working as an assistant manager at Crown Books (there in
Featherstone Plaza), and the New York publishing company New Directions had
just issued a little blue booklet of the story, with woodcuts by Ellen Raskin.
My mom, Lynne, bought a copy, pictured, and you can see how much I hated it. I
hated it so much I wore the jacket off of it, stained the pages, and memorized
the entire thing. (This is true: I can recite the story from start to finish,
and still each year I do this for myself, now (in my head) on the train down to
Virginia from Penn Station.) </div>
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I chose it as a competition piece for Girls Prose
Reading in high school Forensics (which is the name for <a href="http://www.americanforensics.org/what.html">public speaking</a>--when I was in high school, the television show <i>Quincy, ME </i>made forensic science popular for the first time, so when people asked me, "What do you do, exactly?" I'd tell them, "We each get a dead body, and whoever finds the cause of death first wins." "Really?"), getting only as far as regionals, where a
judge told me that while I had an arresting voice, “You need to get rid of that
piece!” This judge was a college guy, very effeminate, and he gagged himself
after his remark, for emphasis. Even in my middle years, I can peer into the
crystal ball of memory and float back into that beige-tiled grim classroom at
Longwood College to fixate again on his lank, brown bangs, the poorly styled
hair (“bed-head,” we say now), the glare of fluorescents on the lenses of his
large, square, wire-rimmed glasses, which slid repeatedly down his wide-nostriled nose,
the slight gap between his smallish teeth, the extravagance of his arm gestures
embellished by his yellow suit and bluish bow tie, his Southern accent and harsh
laugh echoing in my ears even as I sleep. <o:p></o:p></div>
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That I can recall (and describe accurately if not artfully) such a memory has everything to do with Dylan Thomas. I knew even then that my
eye, my ear, my voice had been trained and honed over the years of listening to
that piece of prose on the oft-dreaded record. Never, ever, I knew, would I “get rid of that piece,” nor would I
regret my choice to read it, however dearly it cost me in competition. As I practiced the section I read, “Mrs. Prothero
and the Firemen,” let’s call it, each day after school with the ever-patient
and encouraging Mrs. Combs, another teacher would walk past, often: Mr. Abler.
He would pause, cross his arms, and smile. He stayed for the whole thing, always. He
even took to asking me if I would be practicing again that day, for instance,
if I saw him in the English pod. It turns out that “A Child’s Christmas in
Wales” was the favorite work of both himself and his wife, Bridget, who also
taught in the high school, and who had been my English teacher freshman year. Years
and years later, when I became a teacher in, however accidentally, that very
same high school, Mr. Abler, “Mike,” now, asked me if I still remembered the
story, and I could report that I knew it all. He looked so pleased. Lately,
when he joined Facebook, it was the first thing he asked me about. How sweet is that?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I remember this, too: Mr. Abler had written
me a note of response, in answer to a question I’d had back then, as to whether “A Child’s
Christmas in Wales” was poetry or prose. His response has stayed with me,
however paraphrased: “While it’s probably the most poetic thing I’ve ever read,
I know it was intended as prose.” That comment informed my writing, too: Prose could also achieve poetry, and a prose writer need not be a poet. This new understanding, I think, informed my
reading: I cannot write poetry, and neither could the most consistently poetic
writer I’ve read, Virginia Woolf. She is my favorite writer. While Dylan Thomas
was both a poet and prose writer, as well as a writer of radio plays, such as
“Under Milkwood,” he was essentially a poet, a wordsmith, a weaver, I think, of
stories and moments, and a maker-upper of words. His poet's boldness with prose made
me bolder, too: He describes, for example, how a postman “tingled down the tea
tray slithered run of the chilly, glinting hill.” He created a verb, “tingled,”
to substitute for the more mundane “slid,” creating this light, twinkling image of how the postman moved out of sight, as well as augmenting the alliterative “t”
of the “tea tray”. The rest of the image eluded me until I learned, somehow,
that children who didn’t have sleds used to take their mothers’ tea trays for
sledding. Now the image is clear, the “slithered” making a snake image, and all
those short “i” sounds—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">slithered, chilly,
glinting,</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> and</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> hill</i>—linked in their assonance. One sees, now, the hill, the sliding down it, the entire scene. For the lover of pure sound
if not of words, Dylan Thomas is your writer.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My Heart Keeps Sinking in New Directions: A Pause for Editorial Comment<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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New Directions discontinued the
little blue edition with the Ellen Raskin woodcuts maybe five years after
issuing it. About five or so years after that, they issued a new edition,
without illustrations, and in the shape of a regular paperback. I bought four
copies from my mom to give as gifts, but in the parking lot, flipping through
one, I saw that an editor at New Directions that interpolated two sections of the piece,
interposing the “postman” section in between the two “Christmas presents”
sections, and it made utterly no narrative sense. I returned the books to the store and
wrote a letter to New Directions—the old-fashioned but then-current way, via
post—expecting no answer. Less than two weeks later, this note arrived:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Along with the note, guilt booty:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHYWQX-A1g5TSR647XDodNiFzUlMhm00Zvh6DGhXajGZsy6z78Qb6pSfyIGt8aaQKmZ5A8Kav5H9HgJKPfhZfn0u7ehwBQYC_4p4Hc8LLlKyrn0gqYiFrVb9j_JdPb5j79gGxGfebNg8bF/s1600/IMG_2924.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHYWQX-A1g5TSR647XDodNiFzUlMhm00Zvh6DGhXajGZsy6z78Qb6pSfyIGt8aaQKmZ5A8Kav5H9HgJKPfhZfn0u7ehwBQYC_4p4Hc8LLlKyrn0gqYiFrVb9j_JdPb5j79gGxGfebNg8bF/s1600/IMG_2924.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">I was so touched by their
contrition that I didn’t realize that they wouldn’t, in fact, <i>recall </i>the books.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">My mom told me that her store, for example, had never received a request,
so a few dozen or hundred readers of that story will only find themselves lost in what is already a demanding read.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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This year, New Directions,
astonishingly, wonderfully, released a reprint of the old blue Raskin-illustrated book! I
found it on Amazon, and immediately ordered four copies. The edition has a
rubberized sort of cover, much sturdier, and other changes include a slightly
smaller square format, larger font, and numbered pages. The arrangement of the
woodcuts is, I think, less elegant, and the typeset not as elegant, either, but there was
one glaring error, which was the repeating of a line of text at the bottom of
one page and the top of another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of
course I will be writing to point it out to them, with photos. “Why bother?”
you ask. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “A poet can suffer anything except a
misprint.” I’m an editor now, but a teacher first. What difference does a typo
make? Why not ask, what difference does one nail make in the shoeing of a horse? Or being off by a gram in a prescription drug medication? Or better, just watch
this video metaphor (trust me, it’s worth your time): <b>Awesome Woman on Britain's Got Talent knock-off show:</b> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVPA-9hofw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVPA-9hofw</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Somebody’s got to have the
standards. Dammit. It's a habit of mind, that sort of grumbling, that could, in fact, mean the difference between meaning and nonsense, or even life and death. First, let's compare and contrast the editions. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL85aFC8qMMsZVbrUBw8e7cq0ZFQ9x_GS8Hv2FjjYU8pHWIP9tKy3JPmiOVzV-dL-srEYk0JPUb1BNIRG_f7I4t8jhW2k0w39p5L0UFUIV9PN6Z491KTmN19wVurRyI_SBWARB53AcaSzG/s1600/IMG_2927.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL85aFC8qMMsZVbrUBw8e7cq0ZFQ9x_GS8Hv2FjjYU8pHWIP9tKy3JPmiOVzV-dL-srEYk0JPUb1BNIRG_f7I4t8jhW2k0w39p5L0UFUIV9PN6Z491KTmN19wVurRyI_SBWARB53AcaSzG/s1600/IMG_2927.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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So far, so good. The new edition is slightly smaller.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCAEKwgeqwl4KIYqz8yqe-yjY2kRVEaLPZs9FLsTd4VT_tCUZhQ3wE8wziQn0kwrLMMJpiBfSmGyrJG8N7wdEsrHshWPO8a6SW22xknimNlEcvPZ_k5ZWmKApUWDwmgh7KzX-ZMwN6fhRU/s1600/IMG_2928.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCAEKwgeqwl4KIYqz8yqe-yjY2kRVEaLPZs9FLsTd4VT_tCUZhQ3wE8wziQn0kwrLMMJpiBfSmGyrJG8N7wdEsrHshWPO8a6SW22xknimNlEcvPZ_k5ZWmKApUWDwmgh7KzX-ZMwN6fhRU/s1600/IMG_2928.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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The first pages, old (top) and new (bottom), show prettier color, a nice addition of that fancy capital gray O, but overall worse bookmaking: the text of the new one lists toward the book's gutter.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVZj-xmmT_gUGuYCOwG4IhEtE8o9mMwk-owwOq7-IdujeDLT0ak2U4z-FzsDqTTMt2GaJVDXwEScW1SW4F9xaIsZdL0NPkhAf5K0glRmkAnCc06DBLZ1-8v3KIBQ4nmHheMFYX-CvCu9q/s1600/IMG_2929.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVZj-xmmT_gUGuYCOwG4IhEtE8o9mMwk-owwOq7-IdujeDLT0ak2U4z-FzsDqTTMt2GaJVDXwEScW1SW4F9xaIsZdL0NPkhAf5K0glRmkAnCc06DBLZ1-8v3KIBQ4nmHheMFYX-CvCu9q/s1600/IMG_2929.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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The typeset of the new one is larger, causing this particular woodcut to get pushed from the captivating center of the old page to the nondescript bottom of the new edition.</div>
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Look at the layout of the <i>old</i> v. <i>new</i> in the photos below.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha6uVxtTHIKnYK3zCbMkkxN-SDx2EjXdaVblL4hr1tPxvd5t95TL0qKAN3c9osAvuqlwXrJosJtBEeDlzkVDXMrAn8DLsLK9T5Ss4bGKuXiM0R-Mk5OoLbqsmBbvYizsriJwGKGxi4yani/s1600/IMG_2930.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha6uVxtTHIKnYK3zCbMkkxN-SDx2EjXdaVblL4hr1tPxvd5t95TL0qKAN3c9osAvuqlwXrJosJtBEeDlzkVDXMrAn8DLsLK9T5Ss4bGKuXiM0R-Mk5OoLbqsmBbvYizsriJwGKGxi4yani/s1600/IMG_2930.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjnfGq2Sk6J_TzMR8ZXOU-GgT0lrWBWI04B8BHu5Ppxy636um0yrl8BZrdyfdSVuj9-UnRg5HIQ8AfoofmPbc1TcaEu-MA1kX8XsKjKnkDvU0RXyGVLtseMFWkX8je9YAzDqJPyf13yGHd/s1600/IMG_2931.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjnfGq2Sk6J_TzMR8ZXOU-GgT0lrWBWI04B8BHu5Ppxy636um0yrl8BZrdyfdSVuj9-UnRg5HIQ8AfoofmPbc1TcaEu-MA1kX8XsKjKnkDvU0RXyGVLtseMFWkX8je9YAzDqJPyf13yGHd/s1600/IMG_2931.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Above, you see how lots of empty space has been left, interrupting the flow of the narrative.</span></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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Here I saw my first actual glaring error in the new edition:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG8c5wk3SG1kv6hot8N9pgu8IbspIkFlPMkJgFzoEt5aDudaiDQwEfFrWLtfrTIp-T_I7gpSxmw5POb1hdDZrz6PzP5_ItLd68MaSs03d4wqdIkPhkOlfwxGRQwKKw19w580zNn1-fqLjO/s1600/IMG_2932.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG8c5wk3SG1kv6hot8N9pgu8IbspIkFlPMkJgFzoEt5aDudaiDQwEfFrWLtfrTIp-T_I7gpSxmw5POb1hdDZrz6PzP5_ItLd68MaSs03d4wqdIkPhkOlfwxGRQwKKw19w580zNn1-fqLjO/s1600/IMG_2932.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf8xkLZpCn5ehtOZeQs8EiFqj0-LBq8gb_ftl1Yy4SPh3uGZZ85t4Op8Wcch7pH8bhCIXzlS_PagQIMNJnAwkkKzrhujYVJeKRLQvSciLm_1J0A4_sgGJCUUFthVVWli2vfXcMHPy8wNmL/s1600/IMG_2933.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf8xkLZpCn5ehtOZeQs8EiFqj0-LBq8gb_ftl1Yy4SPh3uGZZ85t4Op8Wcch7pH8bhCIXzlS_PagQIMNJnAwkkKzrhujYVJeKRLQvSciLm_1J0A4_sgGJCUUFthVVWli2vfXcMHPy8wNmL/s1600/IMG_2933.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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You see the repetition of the last line on page 27 on the top of page 28. Speaking as an editor, this is egregious. And yes, I will be sending these photos to New Directions, whose website indicates that they are wildly short-handed. Because god forbid ANY American company have enough staff to keep going in anything like a pleasantly productive way. Back to the workhouses for us!</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And Then the Presents<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I learned of the mistake in the
copy as I read the book aloud to my nephew Cullen and my “niece” Camille, the
daughter of dear friends Cheryl and Bob, during this past Thanksgiving week. Each
Thanksgiving, Miss O’ heads to the Midwest to her brother Pat’s; she always has
little gifts in tow for the children. This year I gave the kids two books, one
I considered my safety, and I was right: “Oh!” cried Camille, “I love <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Dot</i>! It’s my favorite! My art
teacher reads it to us every year!” Cullen, too, knew <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Dot</i>, and likes it. But, the day after tossing their copies onto
the floor, both had the good grace to pretend to be enchanted by the promise of
the little blue book, and asked Aunt Lisa to read it to them. We cozied up on
the bed in the guestroom where I sleep, one child on either side, and I began
to read, my rich, warm (read: <i>slightly</i> <i>drunken</i>) voice intoning, <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“One Christmas was so much like another, in
those years around the sea town corner now, and out of all sound except the
distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I
can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was
twelve, or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.”</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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(And yes, that was typed from
memory.) Did you fade out? That happens sometimes. It’s not as if Miss Aunt Lisa O’ didn’t warn the the kids—the language is
rich, dense, dream-like: They were instantly bored. I believe they said, almost in unison, "Aunt Lisa, this is boring." Until, that is, I allowed
them to follow along as I recited it from memory. That, at least, got them to
the end of “Mrs. Prothero and the firemen” section. That, and allowing them to bounce on the bed. I reassured them that this
is what had happened to Uncle Patrick/Your Dad and Aunt Lisa every year when now-Grandma O’Hara took out the vinyl record, and it played and it played. (Camille even ran in to tell her mom, "Mom! Aunt Lisa read to us from Christmas in…uh…" "Wales"… "Wales! And we got bored, and she said it was okay because her and Uncle Patrick always got bored too!" Ah, tradition.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYC8E-WP_IJropoimoQ5JrJ2iPW1_0NUebPLp38LiPmGgLTodbxrd0cmcvSgfGUZzduSHvnX_dYoBLFlqch15CHh5MjsN6GZJomffVz7Bx8NSvaQuiT8TXJPq4uxEMpmf0U0BziiB0lTPJ/s1600/The-original-Record-from-1952+copy+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYC8E-WP_IJropoimoQ5JrJ2iPW1_0NUebPLp38LiPmGgLTodbxrd0cmcvSgfGUZzduSHvnX_dYoBLFlqch15CHh5MjsN6GZJomffVz7Bx8NSvaQuiT8TXJPq4uxEMpmf0U0BziiB0lTPJ/s1600/The-original-Record-from-1952+copy+2.jpg" height="200" width="177" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUHSKu63dtsvplHwRXonZZEGtVzVnC_d6VIJE-6bQ7edmTsRI1jojiuaGs610fwuDNPXhwismKDsB6XMubchT-710XjSI3M5a5Y8DUMXY5RLqeViG-BLBoli-Mvhrdo-qM9faJOoAnJYoy/s1600/The-original-Record-from-1952+copy+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUHSKu63dtsvplHwRXonZZEGtVzVnC_d6VIJE-6bQ7edmTsRI1jojiuaGs610fwuDNPXhwismKDsB6XMubchT-710XjSI3M5a5Y8DUMXY5RLqeViG-BLBoli-Mvhrdo-qM9faJOoAnJYoy/s1600/The-original-Record-from-1952+copy+3.jpg" height="177" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMn0ZZYTukAOy2mo-_uXOZsKhyphenhyphenxqLn3SES6c-xVDWSVNkwWALYpgkGlC7Xre42rseXvLLFklR8CHIBKRsjkdvzJ7WLuM6VhpYBSE7gZcuJJ2sSn62FYZQdZt5bfoYc-WzQZFdLomrtqCsT/s1600/The-original-Record-from-1952+copy+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMn0ZZYTukAOy2mo-_uXOZsKhyphenhyphenxqLn3SES6c-xVDWSVNkwWALYpgkGlC7Xre42rseXvLLFklR8CHIBKRsjkdvzJ7WLuM6VhpYBSE7gZcuJJ2sSn62FYZQdZt5bfoYc-WzQZFdLomrtqCsT/s1600/The-original-Record-from-1952+copy+4.jpg" height="200" width="177" /></a><br />
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<b>There Are Always Uncles at Christmas. The Same Uncles.</b><br />
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Always on Thanksgiving night there
is football. Uncle Patrick finds a Hallmark movie on cable, Aunt Cheryl looks for Black
Friday deals on her phone, and Uncle Bob reads from his Kindle Fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The children eat slabs of delicious pie, and Mom/Aunt Traci makes giant vodka spritzers for one and all, while Auntie Lisa
finishes her fourth bottle of red wine (drunk over four nights, in both
senses). After the warmth of the food and joy over the loss by the Cowboys, the children
ask Aunt Lisa to finish the Wales story, would she? She would. You can see the
wild enthusiasm with which the reading was met.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Ek0TN8j6NuLa4_qqWV5eh4C-WoMi3vfQxwtWicpwaooO5qqLKW_BMzvaPq3ONjSFm7U3FfkIOpEQyJuqyyCZwjarwP8FlM-WUjWmvIxUmy0gE2cfRDXG8dcCD4h1NWnBecnjtrvRETNN/s1600/IMG_2913.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Ek0TN8j6NuLa4_qqWV5eh4C-WoMi3vfQxwtWicpwaooO5qqLKW_BMzvaPq3ONjSFm7U3FfkIOpEQyJuqyyCZwjarwP8FlM-WUjWmvIxUmy0gE2cfRDXG8dcCD4h1NWnBecnjtrvRETNN/s1600/IMG_2913.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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Dylan Thomas, in the thirty-nine years he lived and remembered and wrote, knew what it was like to
listen to the elders at the holidays. He had the self-awareness to interrupt
his own reverie of snowy Christmases with, “But here a small boys says, ‘It
snowed last year, too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I
knocked my brother down and then we had tea.’ ‘That was not the same snow,’ I
say….” And yet it is always the same story: The elders know that something is
very beautiful, and very important, and while the children on some level
believe you, they can’t quite go with you on that journey. Not today. Not when
there are games to play and videos to watch and pet hedgehogs to roll around on the floor with (carefully) and more pie. For they have only begun <i>making </i>memories. Still, we must prepare them now,
little by little, for the burst of love we know will reward those years of
patience, indulgence, and inadvertent attention—that moment of awakening when a
small voice, “a small dry eggshell voice from the other side of door, a small
dry voice through the keyhole,” surprises them into awareness, joins their
singing, and they will have been made ready through poetry. And memories of adult inebriation after pie.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Should you wish to listen to that rich Dylan Thomas voice reading on the Caedmon recording (and Miss O' really hopes you kinda do), it is available on CD, along with the
poet's reading of several of his poems aloud (as opposed, I guess, to silently, which would have been very John Cage of him). My mom was and is not a fan of his poetry reading. It
is, we agree, singsong and if not unfelt at least a little mannered, the language more or less fastened hard to
the page, unlike the lively, witty reading that allows his prose to “tingle”
and dance. (Though I know plenty of people who prefer the poems, so what do we know?) (The recording my mom owned—an original vinyl 33 RPM imprint—was destroyed by her bookstore boss, who had borrowed it and let his toddler chomp on it; he gave it back
to my mom in that condition. He also did not bother to replace it. “He
laughed,” my mom said, “as if that mewling infant’s every destructive impulse
is nothing short of adorable. What adult <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">allows
</i>that to happen? To other people’s treasures?” My first boyfriend and
lifelong friend, Jay, surprised my mom one Christmas with a new vinyl copy he found
at Tower Records in D.C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You never saw a
happier Lynne. “What a guy!” she said, and, “Why don’t you still date him?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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For Christmas years ago, Mom O’ got
each of her kids a fresh copy of the little blue book, which came in an
envelope, as well as the CD of his reading. My brother Mike and I really enjoy
it, while Jeff and Pat are ambivalent, though charmed by how much ol’ Mom O’
loves it. (Despite themselves, they have to admit the allusive importance of it in
our lives. Just as the eccentric aunt asked, absurdly, of the firemen in the
story, “Would you like anything to read?” my mom Lynne (on a particularly
“noisy Christmas Eve” outside our home when the police and firemen showed up
after someone ran into our friend Rob’s parked station wagon), asked, coming
down the stairs from bed, “Would they like anything to read?” and we all
laughed. Our friend Rob, obviously, had no idea why that was funny. Plus his car got totaled. What larks, eh?)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC_mMfQlFc60LWTGUTwzaMxr-2LlFW8lCXfzlFEWLo41V8yDzY99Nm3uFuqsobF9NH56V97Y5JptaTpQ9TYhYjucWn3AdQw0bXR0eVx-MSnqmyF372FDik5jz6R8LlvSYE0f07Jgx4x-rB/s1600/9780898456486.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC_mMfQlFc60LWTGUTwzaMxr-2LlFW8lCXfzlFEWLo41V8yDzY99Nm3uFuqsobF9NH56V97Y5JptaTpQ9TYhYjucWn3AdQw0bXR0eVx-MSnqmyF372FDik5jz6R8LlvSYE0f07Jgx4x-rB/s1600/9780898456486.jpg" /></a></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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By the way, a few years ago I happened to learn how this famous recording came to be, and you can listen to that wonderful story by streaming a little NPR:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Moment of inspiration: The Story of Caedmon Records</b> <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=866406">http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=866406</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Not to beat a dead poet, but really, can you tell how much your Miss O' loves, loves, loves, this story? Sure, you kids tire of the old tales, but I mean, there are worse Christmas
traditions. <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/michelleregna/must-be-a-south-pole-elf">Elf on the Shelf, </a>anyone?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZEHIYME9lnK8shtKlPc0LyY9CSiSduwxUw1abmpd8eJmFaZqvVkFTWr-FYYktLVpWS0dX2Z6WczrO-8z7EB0D5w6szYC-v0QgdlZIbHcFwL2Uc9GlVwYSQi8V4CL6FOZl6TgP_oNzv74/s1600/1466116_10152044065053290_1604483847_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZEHIYME9lnK8shtKlPc0LyY9CSiSduwxUw1abmpd8eJmFaZqvVkFTWr-FYYktLVpWS0dX2Z6WczrO-8z7EB0D5w6szYC-v0QgdlZIbHcFwL2Uc9GlVwYSQi8V4CL6FOZl6TgP_oNzv74/s1600/1466116_10152044065053290_1604483847_n.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GNOME ON THE THRONE: A new holiday tradition!<br />
Photo by Ryan Duncan</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Peace, love, and understanding, and
wonderful stories as the reason for the goddamned season, with barely a drop of cynicism or political outrage, for the holidays, anyway, <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Miss O’</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-82483406914230294302014-09-07T12:58:00.000-07:002014-09-12T04:46:06.818-07:00Tragedy Tomorrow, Comedy Tonight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“The world is a
comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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~ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Walpole">Horace Walpole</a>, 4<sup>th</sup>
Earl of Oxford, f<span style="color: #1c1c1c; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">rom
a letter of Walpole's to Anne, Countess of Ossory, on 16 August 1776</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAuRQksV2XWRwLwy0ovb0Dn84r6azhGjMsCVxJbTrlFkqTXbSQjoBoRxMcaZgfStUXIM4-c9PtisHYl9SI74XaJ8Uhtkwg2oGoFUqT9tJJB-gPjhxk0W4SEfO_F9B-vQ0xhfKg0wLX1C16/s1600/IMG_2271.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAuRQksV2XWRwLwy0ovb0Dn84r6azhGjMsCVxJbTrlFkqTXbSQjoBoRxMcaZgfStUXIM4-c9PtisHYl9SI74XaJ8Uhtkwg2oGoFUqT9tJJB-gPjhxk0W4SEfO_F9B-vQ0xhfKg0wLX1C16/s1600/IMG_2271.jpg" height="320" width="292" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">from Miss O's Drama Teacher Ear Accessory Collection</td></tr>
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This past month, Readers, your Miss O’ has
barely written a word. The household needs of new bathroom pipes and flooring, replastered
kitchen wall, repainting of cabinets, and working kitchen appliances (and the attendant work,
clean-ups, and deliveries) sucked up my summer. Then, in a blow to the heart
one day after <a href="http://www.themissoshow.com/2014/08/big-bangs-of-august.html">my last
blogpost</a> (an eerily titled “Big Bangs of August"), on August 11, 2014, <span style="line-height: 115%;">Robin Williams died; and as if that wasn’t a bad enough loss to not only show
business and to culture, but to humanity, another legend, Joan Rivers, died just
this week, on September 4, 2014. His death of a suicide at age 63 was a
tragedy; hers sad but not altogether unexpected, being 81 years old, even from
complications during elective surgery. But it got me thinking about comedy in
the wake of tragedy, especially after the death of Robin Williams, as all those
tabloids took to their mastheads, and the outpourings of grief made their way
into online journals and newsfeeds. And HOW. So let me say this about that, and
a few other things, including the late, great Joan Rivers. And karate. And it
will all make sense. Mostly.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Improvisations in the Key of Joy<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The mind is its own place, and in
itself </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">~ John Milton, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradise Lost</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Optimism. Defeatism. Robin
Williams, <a href="file:///Blog%20Aug%2016%20Robin%20Williams%20%20http/::www.tabletmag.com:scroll:182046:remembering-robin-williams-king-of-playing">who
created out of his own mind, in the moment, but always working hard at that</a>—a beloved
man universally, despised only by the hateful, seemed to be nothing if not
positive. As it turns out, he worked very hard at that, too. What is it about
optimism that is so hard, and about negativity that is so easy? Self-hatred
rules most of us; as a teacher I remember how it's the angry kid who slams
down his books who owns the classroom, and how it might take a half hour to
get the class back to a positive focus; or when one guy in the audience is determined to
destroy your act, how hard to you have to work to win them back. And it’s
usually over stupid stuff, all the negativity (and it's usually a guy who wrecks a moment, in my experience, but not always. I read a friend on Facebook who
was irate that some pranksters had knocked over her mailbox and removed her
flag from its giant front-yard pole, in post after hourly post, but could not manage any outrage over Ferguson.) So when a person makes that perfect funny remark in the
middle of a tense moment, how perfectly wonderful is that laugh? It’s like the blessed inhaling of air after surfacing from a too-deep plunge, when we weren’t
sure how we’d get back—nothing but relief. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Behind the clear blue eyes of the no
longer living and yet still ubiquitous Robin Williams was a very visible
sadness. Like many actors, he was at heart an introvert (so many accounts of
him in the weeks after his death bear this out) and it was apparent in the way
he performed—in his high-wire improvised comedy act he reacted to audience
suggestions without developing an intimacy with his audience. (I contrast him
with the equally bold, caustic extrovert Joan Rivers, who always talked to and asked
for the name of a person in the audience, and over the course of her act developed
a relationship with her, and you could see how she’d be a wonderful friend; and
also the gentle and hilarious Carol Burnett, for example, whose easy warmth
poured over an audience at the opening of every one of her shows, where she
took questions and playfully answered while also being utterly present to the
people who asked the questions.) While behaving as if fearless in front of a
crowd and exuding real empathy with fellow performers, he kept a very tight
cage around his being even as his genius verbiage was unleashed upon us in
manic streams. There was a real containment, for all his wildness—watch him on
talk show after talk show, fly out (physically or verbally) and just as quickly
pull back, as if responding to a leash. The fascinating and deeply sad
revelation, I think for most of us, is how much our hearts ached when we
learned of his death, and what made it feel like a sucker punch was that it was
a suicide. For so ubiquitous was his presence, and so wearing could his energy
become, it was as easy to take him for granted as it is to take for granted the
Grand Canyon, the Washington Monument. Or the World Trade Center. And we saw
how that turned out. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And here, before I get maudlin, let’s
pause for some levity from Joan Rivers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Rivers will take the piss out of
anything. Shortly after I had lost a big job, she called, and when I answered
the phone a bit too quickly she said, “Really? The first ring? So <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">desperate</span>.” And then she hung up on
me. A few days after 9/11, she called and asked me if I wanted to meet her for
lunch at Windows on the Ground. She pushes as far as she can as soon as she
can. It’s compulsive.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">~ </span><b><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><a href="http://nymag.com/nymag/author_433"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Jonathan Van
Meter</span></a></span></b><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> Published May 23, 2010</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <a href="http://nymag.com/movies/features/66181/">New
York Magazine Interview</a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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(Do read that article, and watch
that documentary, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Piece of Work.</i> And
now back to my grieving for Robin Williams.) The other revelation that first
week had to do with the generosity of his own heart, hiding in plain
sight—Comic Relief for homelessness (his idea); St. Jude’s Hospital;
entertaining the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; benefit after benefit for any
number of causes, including Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.
This last proved to be ironic, and a literal (and by "literal" I mean "<span style="line-height: 115%;">figurative") nail in his upcoming coffin: Robin
Williams was in the early stages of the disease, and for a physical comedian
like him that discovery must have compounded his depression to a degree we can
only know by seeing the results, his terrible death. But it's his life we want to remember, after all.</span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr2tf1kgOBd8YIlmHl3JwrldRUQjVlIE7skPM2MiwVp9u-Ie-iq3aV79s1qlnlr9dBH0GZ6FNZk0ORX_zBaa_wc6Ynn3iLiICNH6Xkw0C7GO35r-Elm-KkkgWQfzHhp378cPPkmZjk-w7s/s1600/123562943.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr2tf1kgOBd8YIlmHl3JwrldRUQjVlIE7skPM2MiwVp9u-Ie-iq3aV79s1qlnlr9dBH0GZ6FNZk0ORX_zBaa_wc6Ynn3iLiICNH6Xkw0C7GO35r-Elm-KkkgWQfzHhp378cPPkmZjk-w7s/s1600/123562943.jpg" height="244" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who looks younger? -from Time, Inc.</td></tr>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We Interrupt Our Grieving<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Lots of people have posted on this
event, this loss. An actor friend who has also been grieving the loss of Robin was
sharing a lot of essays on Facebook, including the one below, which I’d like
you to read, if you would, because I had a comment. A long one. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 191;">Robin William’s Last Gift by Peter Coyote, asshole*<br />
</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 191;">*Editorial comment –ed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 191;">Robin and I
were friends. Not intimate, because he was very shy when he was not performing.
Still, I spent many birthdays and holidays at his home with Marsha and the
children, and he showed up at my 70th birthday to say “Hello” and wound up
mesmerizing my relatives with a fifteen minute set that pulverized the
audience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 191;">When I heard
that he had died, I put my own sorrow aside for a later time. I’m a Zen
Buddhist priest and my vows instruct me to try to help others. So this little
letter is meant in that spirit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 191;">Normally when
you are gifted with a huge talent of some kind, it’s like having a magnificent
bicep. People will say, “Wow, that’s fantastic” and they tell you, truthfully,
that it can change your life, take you to unimaginable realms. It can and often
does. The Zen perspective is a little different. We might say, “Well, that’s a
great bicep, you don’t have to do anything to it. Let’s work at bringing the
rest of your body up to that level.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 191;">Robin’s gift
could be likened to fastest thoroughbred race-horse on earth. It had unbeatable
endurance, nimbleness, and a huge heart. However, it had never been fully
trained. Sometimes Robin would ride it like a kayaker tearing down white-water,
skimming on the edge of control. We would marvel at his courage, his daring,
and his brilliance. But at other times, the horse went where he wanted, and
Robin could only hang on for dear life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 191;">In the final
analysis, what failed Robin was his greatest gift---his imagination. Clutching
the horse he could no longer think of a single thing to do to change his life
or make himself feel better, and he stepped off the edge of the saddle. Had the
horse been trained, it might have reminded him that there is always something
we can do. We can take a walk until the feeling passes. We can find someone
else suffering and help them, taking the attention off our own. Or, finally, we
can learn to muster our courage and simply sit still with what we are thinking
are insoluble problems, becoming as intimate with them as we can, facing them
until we get over our fear. They may even be insoluble, but that does not mean
that there is nothing we can do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 191;">Our great-hearted friend will be back as the rain, as the cry of a Raven
as the wind. He, you and I have never for one moment not been a part of all it.
But we would be doing his life and memory a dis-service if we did not extract
some wisdom from his choice, which, if we ponder deeply enough, will turn out
to be his last gift. He would beg us to pay attention if he could.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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This angered me, and as to why, I didn’t have to think
about it long. I sent the following comment on this essay (ass-ay) by Peter “I’m
a Zen Buddhist priest” Coyote to my friend, with apologies: <span style="color: #2f353b;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #2f353b; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I don't like this piece,
or this perspective. It puts all the “failure” (lousy word) “of imagination” on
Robin Williams (owner of that imagination), which is what he believed was the
problem (right? he's a failure?) and so he killed himself. "Take a walk
until the feeling passes"? He was an avid cyclist. "Find someone else
suffering and help them"? He entertained troops in Afghanistan and Iraq,
relentlessly, and never spoke of it; he volunteered at St. Jude's. Robin
Williams didn't fail himself or anyone else. Peter Coyote, all due respect, is
simply clueless about depression. It's like proposing, "think happy
thoughts" to a diabetic. You are not a “failure” or “unimaginative” for
having diabetes. You are not a “failure” or “unimaginative” for having
depression. Thanks for sending this ass-ay, though, because it's enlightening
when we are reminded of how unenlightened the "enlightened" really can be.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn-ri-KNzOl5tQzY26S5etEptJhe7wXZc5n6SHvfXFgFusaafWIxOLw4g0r3N1MylVMNTRtCCr8-u3uqmx5gleEUoir4NnFyOBRt5Y9HbLsNraB_7GqFpjqFOTe_ha_yLgcmWA72N_X6qX/s1600/roz-chast-idiotman-new-yorker-cartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn-ri-KNzOl5tQzY26S5etEptJhe7wXZc5n6SHvfXFgFusaafWIxOLw4g0r3N1MylVMNTRtCCr8-u3uqmx5gleEUoir4NnFyOBRt5Y9HbLsNraB_7GqFpjqFOTe_ha_yLgcmWA72N_X6qX/s1600/roz-chast-idiotman-new-yorker-cartoon.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">by Roz Chast for <i>The New Yorker</i></td></tr>
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I am considering Walpole’s epigram,
there at the top, one I’ve thought about for years, since coming across it (I
think my mom, Lynne, may have given it to me, along with others by Thackery,
Milton, Tagore; I wrote them up in my own particular calligraphy and pasted
each into my three-ringed binder end papers, which binder I used all through
high school), rethinking its implications. What would Joan Rivers say? What
would Robin Williams riff? What is “the world” to humans such as they were, two
people who thought and felt in equal measure, and who, like all people, had
their exits and their entrances, good times and bad times, and yet were fully
here while they were here.<br />
<span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: 'Footlight MT Light'; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: 'Footlight MT Light'; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;">Tragedy is when </span><i style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: 'Footlight MT Light'; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;">I</i><span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: 'Footlight MT Light'; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"> cut my finger. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: "Footlight MT Light"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Comedy is when
<i>you</i> fall into an open sewer and die.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: 'Footlight MT Light'; font-size: 14pt;"> ~ Mel Brooks, <i>The 2,000 Year Old Man</i></span><b><span style="font-family: "Footlight MT Light"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Joan Rivers told jokes where Robin
Williams created worlds, and both were by turns hilarious and exhausting. Both
Joan Rivers and Robin Williams were certainly feelers, and clearly they were
thinkers. But given their responses to both hecklers and critics, to turns of
events in the world and to the people around them, Miss O’ would say that Robin
Williams was more of the thinker, Joan Rivers more the feeler. But considering
their ends, last interviews, etc., Rivers was becoming more of a thinker, and
Williams was broken by his feelings. What I mean to say is, it doesn’t matter,
labels like this. Life is both a comedy and a tragedy (any Facebook newsfeed
reveals this, unless the Team Facebook has been dicking with our feed for
funsies), and all of us at any given time both think and feel, and can
experience tragedy and comedy. It’s a question, finally, of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reaction</i>, a question of discipline, a
matter of control. There is only so much we can control, and stand-up comics
know this better than anyone. Hecklers try to take on comedians, and the comics
who can show the hecklers to be fools will survive. But in the end, back to
being only human, Rivers couldn’t control her heart’s reaction to anesthesia,
Williams his mind’s reaction to depression and the news of Parkinson’s disease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I started laughing just now, thinking of a
really lousy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daily News</i>-worthy prose
line, like “God was the final heckler.” Oh, me.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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But the lives of Joan Rivers and
Robin Williams show us what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">great </i>can
be, what “over-the-top” is, what “flopping” looks like—and their resilience in
the face of it all, the relentless drive, the constant working, show us what
professionalism looks like. (Watch every YouTube Clip you can find of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcBFlL8zBBQ">Joan Rivers hosting The
Tonight Show in the 80s</a>—she was the first person to use the word “pregnant”
on the air, and told us to “grow up.” She talked about being single, being
married, lovemaking, children, periods, IUDs, menopause—she was a female and a
comedian, and she kicked down male-constructed walls, a balls-on “vagenius” as
Roseanne called her. Whew.) (And watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGxdvkoYqrc">Robin Williams’s last
appearance on The Tonight Show</a>: on the second to last night of the week he
retired, Johnny Carson had only Robin Williams on for a full hour. Because Johnny
loved him, and it was his show. Whew.) Whatever you thought of their comedy,
they were honest about their lives, their reactions to the world around them,
and they came out onto the stage disciplined yet also unfiltered—the thrilling
knife-edge world of real geniuses. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What is the difference between
someone who is good, and someone who is a master? It’s that ability to walk the
knife-edge of comedy and tragedy, because it’s all there in potential. And that
is the thrill for us, the ones who can only look on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Hai Karate!<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">All types of <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Knowledge"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">knowledge</span></a>, ultimately mean
<a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Self"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">self</span></a> knowledge.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">~ Bruce Lee: The Lost Interview</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">
(1971)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I
have come to discover through earnest personal experience and dedicated
learning that ultimately the greatest help is self-help; <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">that there is no other help but self-help</span>—
doing one’s best, dedicating one’s self wholeheartedly to a given task, which
happens to have no end but is an ongoing process.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">~
from <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The
Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> (1996)</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></i></div>
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So let's talk about Zen. (I really cannot even begin to express the depth of my anger over Peter Coyote's essay. Seriously. Jesus. Okay then.) My boyfriend, H, defended his black
belt last night. An Albanian who is 5’7”, 115 lbs., and 60 years of age, H was
chosen (by the manager at the facility where he trains) to match up against a Ugandan
man who was 6’4”, 248 lbs., and 48 years of age, who was trying to earn his
black belt. If H lost, he would lose his black belt. He did not lose. The fight
lasted 180 seconds. Before they entered the circle, the belt-seeker took one
look at H and said, “I’m a lot bigger than you.” H said simply, “You are.” When
the match concluded with H flipping the man over his head (flat on his back,
the man did not have the wind to get up), a young woman who had lost her own
match told H, “I was sure you were going to the hospital,” and asked him to
train her. “Why?” asked H. “I want a master,” she said. “The master is in you,”
H explained. He’s not being “Kung Fu” deep, or deliberately tricky—his mind
doesn’t work that way. He could give her some training tips, and did, but his
point was she had to find that ability, that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">control,</i>
within her own body, her own mind. It would be like if you wanted to be a
stand-up comic, asking Joan Rivers or Robin Williams to be a mentor: In the
end, whatever their help, either you’re funny or you’re not funny. It’s in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4FaM5bALPC09_CQLslL_cvB0FC3ituF3WbUll9zNul26BSp6kH3a9PTXt6dJdvGMB_OnQGL_bi0jJVLLCJS4B2NdZPy2d156jnK6ZWzzH73PQegk4NYrG00tMoL0LZmjSIr7VXPDSw-zX/s1600/f446f0ef37ef34fc29a6f7a42ecd813f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4FaM5bALPC09_CQLslL_cvB0FC3ituF3WbUll9zNul26BSp6kH3a9PTXt6dJdvGMB_OnQGL_bi0jJVLLCJS4B2NdZPy2d156jnK6ZWzzH73PQegk4NYrG00tMoL0LZmjSIr7VXPDSw-zX/s1600/f446f0ef37ef34fc29a6f7a42ecd813f.jpg" height="320" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A 1970s fragrance, best left unsmelled.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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This question of providing and
encouraging <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">training</i>, whether for a
black belt or a headline gig at Caesar’s Palace, at whatever age, is something
I think is sorely lacking in America in every area—because I know you give a
huge fuck what Miss O’ thinks. H is sorry, for example, that the NYPD—and every
policeman in the U.S. (Ferguson, is this on?) and in the world, as well as
every military person in the world—isn’t trained fully in martial arts. Far
from being more dangerous, they would be more effective, and use less violence,
not more. “They would know they have the control,” H says, “and with one hand
on the wrist, one turn”—H demonstrates on me—“the suspect is helpless.” No more
choke holds, no more gunfire. And if the police knew they had the control, they
would lose the aggression born of fear. In fact, if everyone had that training,
that control—“that education,” as H puts it—there would be no more fighting.
The master is in YOU.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Prince Ea, a hip-hop artist and
founder of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Ea">The “Make SMART
Cool” Movement</a>, with a degree in Latin (he graduated with honors from the
University of Missouri-St. Louis), had <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQgNrnWZVSI">wonderful stuff to say in a
video that went viral in the wake of Ferguson</a>. Measured, thoughtful,
philosophical, and casual (he was on his way to his car, being filmed by a
friend), he shared the most reasoned and mature commentary on the events I've heard, and it could
be the answer to all the world’s problems. (After Ferguson, H said, “You are a
racist, fine, go be a racist. Don’t marry them, don’t eat with them, don’t talk
to them. But don’t SHOOT them. What’s the matter with these white people?”) This
knowledge, H’s training, Robin’s and Joan’s senses of humor, a love of reading,
and a good, steady job—really, life doesn’t have to be as ugly as the
Republicans want it to be. Life is improvisation. We are the agents of our
lives, the victims of our circumstances, the survivors of our stories. It’s
important for all of us to TRAIN to be good people. (And I don't mean "spiritual" "training" in the "sense" expressed by Peter "Let Me Mix Some Metaphors About Body Parts/Horse Racing/Watercraft" Coyote.) Politeness is not a reflex,
but a muscle in atrophy that must be coaxed into fitness, to make us fit for
society. As Emerson observed, "Life is not so short but that there is always time for courtesy." And a good joke.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Oh, Grow Up. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can We Talk?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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“Honey, I know you
don’t want to hear this, but your dad and I want you to know that a
foul-mouthed woman is a real turn-off.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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~
My mom, Lynne, in an email to Miss O’, ca. 2006<o:p></o:p></div>
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The epigraph above is by way of
setting up a little global hypocrisy, to wit: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daily Show</i> host Jon Stewart has some variation on “fuck” bleeped
out maybe a half-dozen times each episode, and my mom and dad wouldn’t miss a
moment of it. But my parents really couldn’t stand Joan Rivers. Joan made them
uncomfortable, liberal though they were (and are). Because Joan was a woman, my
mom (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the feminist! more Maude than Maude!</i>),
thought her swearing was distasteful. Joan Rivers (unlike her closest female
contemporary, Phyllis Diller) worked “blue,” as they say in comedy. But so did
Robin Williams. “Fuck,” “asshole,” and every other foul word came comfortably
and fluidly out of both of their mouths throughout their acts, but only Joan
was taken to task for it. (It’s one of the reasons I adore Sarah Silverman, who
is branded (and, therefore diminished in her genius) a “shock comic” for her
use of language. No one I’ve read or spoken to has said that of Robin
Williams.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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A sweet reader of this blog, who is
friends with my friend George, messaged me on Facebook a little while back to
ask me why I used the “f-word” so freely in my blogs. She wasn’t criticizing, she
noted, but as she herself does not swear, she found herself wondering at my use
of foul language in my own writing. Here was my (slightly edited) response:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I think it's a great
question about the "f" word. While my mom, Lynne, cautions me,
"A foul-mouthed woman is a real turn-off," I realized while at Bread
Loaf with George and Jean (where we met), that among ourselves, we could talk
about anything; so if at the table for six in the dining hall a new person sat
down, one of us might use the f-word, and depending on the reaction from the
new person, you could figure out how far to take a conversation. I used to call
it "breaking the f%@k barrier." It didn't mean I rejected anyone, but
it made me aware that there were limits. When I started my blog, I knew that if
I used the f-word, readers would know that everything could be on the table.
It's why Jon Stewart uses it, I'm sure. I use it consciously, and try to place
it strategically. For some, it's a vulgarity only, but for me it's an
invitation to stay at the table. Does that make sense? I just love that you
asked about it, because until this moment I never thought it through. </span></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Not a few days after this exchange,
a meme floated around Facebook which said that people who
swear have been found to be more honest and trustworthy than people who don’t.
I posted the meme, because I’m a swearer (ahem), despite the fact that I
couldn’t find any corroborating Internet info (think about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goodfellas</i>: all those guys speak is the language of “fuck,” and
then lie to their moms, and then kill people). I did find<a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/hell-yes-the-7-best-reasons-swearing">
this article in Psychology Today</a>, indicating that a little swearing is
probably healthy. But what about the honesty quotient?<o:p></o:p></div>
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There’s no doubt, I think, that
whatever the plastic surgery Joan Rivers had, and whatever substance abuse
issues Robin Williams experienced in his life, these two comics are loved and
missed so hard because they were honest. They did not have agendas. They looked
at the world, lived in the world, looked us in the eye, and told the truth as they saw it, and
fortunately for all of us, they saw it funny. Relentlessly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here they are, photographed
together, when Robin Williams was <a href="http://royalista.com/29207/video-when-robin-williams-made-fun-of-prince-charles/">making
fun of the Royal Family</a>, as Joan Rivers also liked to do. Nothing like
poking holes in overstuffed non-ruling monarchy, because you really can’t hurt them, and they can't hurt you…anymore.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpfVJpwVpvCAtxVCkwFYc4HB945-xduDBl0pM5NM5dZzG1Y-6BjJ4d2-hKEbJXPU2j-N3b51jYE2NTvX2N0o3NGvYoJcZfn4NaUqxE4B5kE5XR-Gjqbd-OQj4f-ZguTeU9ZkzBeaipf2f8/s1600/royalista.com.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpfVJpwVpvCAtxVCkwFYc4HB945-xduDBl0pM5NM5dZzG1Y-6BjJ4d2-hKEbJXPU2j-N3b51jYE2NTvX2N0o3NGvYoJcZfn4NaUqxE4B5kE5XR-Gjqbd-OQj4f-ZguTeU9ZkzBeaipf2f8/s1600/royalista.com.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">with Andrew Sachs (of Fawlty Towers fame) and Eric Idle<br />
from royalista.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In a short span of weeks, Robin
Williams and Joan Rivers are dead.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And Dick Cheney lives.<o:p></o:p></div>
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See? The world can be both tragic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> funny.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In memoriam and in love, too,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-79983851157751615022014-08-10T16:55:00.000-07:002015-03-20T05:22:33.249-07:00Big Bangs of August<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="line-height: 115%;">Chaos/Theory</b></div>
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“There was this man one time,” an old friend recalls, “back in Montenegro there, and he had eight children, five boys, I
think, and three girls. No. Yes. Five sons and three daughters. Or four and
four. Something like that. And a lot of grandchildren, all good, except this
one. One of his grandsons was always in trouble, always angry, causing
problems, stealin’, lyin’, hurtin’ people. Everyone was afraid of him, you know
what I mean? He had a lot of friends, too. His grandfather, he tried to talk to
him, but nothing. No one wants to get him mad, and so he is ruinin’ life, you
know, for every single one of them.” H laughs. “One time, when he was eighteen,
he beat up two police officers. Yeah! He did that. Even that. He got 20 months
in jail. Twenty months. When he got out, same shit. No different <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">at all</i>. So his grandfather—this old man,
he was early nineties then—calls him over. ‘Why you do this? You and all these
friends?’ And the grandson wants to just go, and his grandfather say, ‘How many
friends you got?’ and the grandson say, ‘A lot,’ and his grandfather say, ‘How
many? Five? Fifty? Ten? You got a hundred friends? How many?’ and the grandson
figure it out,” and here H counts on his fingers, as if he is the grandson,
“and he says, ‘A lot, twenty or thirty,’ and his grandfather say, ‘Good
friends?’ and the grandson say, ‘Yeah.’ So one day, it was the Moslem holiday
time, the grandfather tell his son, this boy’s father, ‘Go and find a sheep.
Kill it, skin it, and bring it to me.’ And the son does this. The old man takes
the skinned sheep and lays it out on a table in the back room, and puts a white
sheet over it, so the blood soaks through, and he calls his grandson. He come,
and old man takes him to the back room, and points to the bloody sheet. He
tells the grandson, ‘I kill a man today, and I need to get rid of the body. I
need your help. Call your friends. You go get one of your good friends to help with
this,’ and the grandson starts shaking, and say, 'Grandfather! <i>You</i>, you kill a man?' and his grandfather said, 'Yes. Now go get your friends.' And the grandson, his eyes are like this, he can't believe it; he even shit his pants, but he goes, so
scared, my god. He goes from one friend to the next, and no one will help, they
tell him to forget it, and he comes back to his grandfather alone, and the old
man say, ‘Where are your good friends?’ and the grandson say, ‘They won’t
come,’ and the old man say, ‘No one will help you? Your good friends?’ and then
he take the boy in the back room and lift the sheet. ‘Tonight we will roast
this, and we will all eat it together.’ And that was it. The grandson got it. He
got it. That was it. The old man, he couldn’t read or write, not even his name,
but he was a genius. I miss him. He was sweet.” H lights a cigarette. “Oh,
Lisa, mankind. Mankind my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ass</i>.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFlC6H5_DARvKFVuC_x_BtSB1-vq38RFnj6T6Swz-AJAyu29LhcHwoO-UJc64UEtrXtN6r70EckSsDpNQkcv5A-r2TVZWat6xp5VOXh0Ezjb6TKoRLJ5qMMtpwXjsJ2w3eZyaMAftTRm9N/s1600/IMG_2182.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFlC6H5_DARvKFVuC_x_BtSB1-vq38RFnj6T6Swz-AJAyu29LhcHwoO-UJc64UEtrXtN6r70EckSsDpNQkcv5A-r2TVZWat6xp5VOXh0Ezjb6TKoRLJ5qMMtpwXjsJ2w3eZyaMAftTRm9N/s1600/IMG_2182.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Readers, I didn't kill a man, if that's what you think, or do time, because it's been too long, but I'll tell you this: your Miss O’s mind is all
over the fucking place today, <i>so many thoughts, my god</i>. Between being months-too-long understaffed/overworked at work and going on a too-short week’s vacation with Quinn and Ryan and Jerry the dog (see last summer's Travelblogue for similar pics) up to
Lake George (only to return early when a storm knocked out the power) and going
back to work with a work pile-up, to say nothing of unanswered emails; followed
by a month-long bathroom renovation that all started when a dear friend wanted to snake out
my slow bathtub drain (don't even go there), and the snake went right through a corroded pipe into my
basement, splash (I know, you went there), where he discovered that the years-ago contactors had packed
all the pipes in cement (“go, now," he said, "and get me a hammer, those motherfuckers,
who does that?”) and he also wanted to give me a new non-spraying bathroom sink
faucet and then discovered there were no shut-off valves under the sink (“Lisa,
this is shit”), and then learned, when he removed the toilet to replace the
crumbling tile that was bugging him that the lead pipe leading to the sewer
line was full of holes (“Lisa, we gotta big problem”--see photo above). The man is an angel. “Lisa,
you are so lucky, my god. MY god. You know what coulda happen if you had an emergency?” I got the water
shut off in the complex, and H changed out all the pipes in the faucet; and
later the rest throughout the bathroom (where there <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">were </i>shutoff valves), and replaced and repaired it all (oh, the pipes! joints! plumber's tape! the sozas ("saws"), the sheer brute labor of it), and then
laid new tile (the thin-set cement, the grout, the caulk…my hall rug…), and now I have an upstairs bathroom that works. (I have a
bathroom in the basement, or we couldn’t have taken our time—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">our</i> time, as if I did more than hold the
flashlight and hand him the right wrench—thanks Stage Craft 101!)—and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avash, avash</i>, we have it done, one month
to the day. Today, though, infrastructure aside, I want to say something about
greed, and its offshoot of totally different motivations, hoarding. I’m also
thinking about inhumanity in the form of screaming at buses full of abandoned
immigrant children being screamed at like this is <a href="http://ualr.edu/race-ethnicity/the-little-rock-nine-since-1957/">Little
Rock</a> in <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-29-Littlerock_N.htm">1957</a>.
And Israel, now a right-wing warmonger, not unlike the right-wing of this
country, full of hatred and cruelty, making Putin, another right-winger, look
halfway decent by comparison. There has never been a positive policy suggestion
or a positive result from the right wing. Ever. Will no one face this?<o:p></o:p></div>
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How many right-wingers does it take
to screw in a light bulb? Fuck the light bulb. Shoot it the fuck up and then
blow up the ceiling and then deport the HOUSE. <o:p></o:p></div>
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How many bloody sheets does a wise
old grandfather have to lift up to the young to show them who their real friends are? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Anonymous Anonymous<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2e2423; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 17.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“I
would venture to guess than Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them,
was often a woman.”</span> <o:p></o:p></div>
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[Often totally misquoted as, “For
most of history, Anonymous was a woman” in every link on the ever-unchecked
Web.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>~<a href="http://www.egs.edu/library/virginia-woolf/quotes/">Virginia Woolf,</a> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Room of One’s Own, </i>Chapter 3<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The notion of giving something a name is the
vastest generative idea that ever was conceived.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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~ Suzanne K. Langer,
who I’m convinced would be a more famous philosopher if she’d been a man,
quoted in an epigraph in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reclaiming the
Imagination: Philosophical Perspectives for Writers and Teachers of Writing, </i>Ann
E. Berthoff, ed., Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH, 1984, a compendium of cool
articles about the imaginative life, my first book in my first summer at Bread
Loaf School of English, summer of 1990. I graduated from there twenty years ago
this summer.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“In the Beginning was
the Word, and the Word was made Man.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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~God,
or someone imagining God<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Young children name
their drawings only after they have completed them; they need to see them
before they can decide what they are. As children get older they can decide in
advance what they are going to draw.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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~L.S.
Vygotsky, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mind in Society</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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What’s in a name? Naming names. Put
your name on it. Sign here. It's anonymous. Years ago, while I was away in Vermont, a former
student, between places to live (read: kicked out on his ass by his
stepfather), house sat for me (house sat is not quite it; “infiltrated” more
like, which I say after finding at least two old-fashioned green army men under
my couch later that fall), and he was a dear kid, and really a doll, <i>like a son, I tell ya</i>, but nineteen, you know. So when I called
the night before coming back, he panicked. “Why didn’t you warn me?” he cried,
and I said, “It’s on the big note on the fridge—with the dates…” “What note???”
and then “Oh….” Yes, that giant note on the 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper with the
black Sharpie writing in ALL CAPS with my return date on it. That one. And as I had
nowhere else to go and really wanted to get home, I came. See, the deal was
that he could house sit, which is to say live the summer rent-free, if he would
paint my (very small) kitchen and replace a shower stall liner in the bathroom.
Apparently not only had he done neither, but he was essentially living with an
assortment of D & D friends and a girlfriend, and the house was a mess.
When I pulled in at around 7 PM after an 11-hour drive, I found him sweeping up
the kitchen after a long day of painting, and the bathroom had not been
touched. His girlfriend was helping him, but I later learned (through his slip
of the tongue) that a Tom Sawyer painting party had ensued, including the help of a
colleague (another of his former teachers), who would never admit to it, even for
a laugh. Why not own it? This dear kid really was furious with me, and then felt guilty; I’d upset
his entire summer of fun. In the two weeks before I kicked him out, reminding him he had to get his own place ("Really, I will throw all your stuff on the driveway, and I say that with love"), it took all my energy to pull him away from his
computer games long enough to get him to help me go pick up and install the shower liner.
(I quickly saw why his stepfather had initially kicked him out, not that it was a nice thing to do.) This question of
ownership, of putting a name on your work (and seriously, back in New York for
a second, I even found <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">initials</i> in
the cement (cement! around pipes!) “Lisa, who does this?…” Apparently "C.H." if I read that right) of saying, “I
did this,” is really important to Miss O'. I despise, for example, the Koch brothers for their
funding of the Tea Party not so much because it’s a right-wing fascist bullshit
crap outfit, but more for their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not wanting
their names attached </i>to the purse strings that fund it, because they know
good and well that it’s a right-wing fascist bullshit crap outfit. Wall it off. Stonewalling.
Wall-building. Border patrols. Buses of migrant children. “Something there is
that doesn’t love a wall…,” and I think, what with all the disclaimers and lies
and bullshit, how the longer we know people, or nations, the less knowable they
become. With or without names. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Name THIS.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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What else is pissing me off? (There's a lot to love, too, sure, but today I'm indulging in a little old-fashioned curmudgeoning.) Contraception…women’s rights…the
vote…a sick race of people who call themselves “pro-life,” when what they really
are is “past hope” in their own lives, so they try to destroy the lives of women
who are making harder choices than they can imagine. Whether it’s the
unpunished raping of women in India, or the bombing of Gaza by the right-wing
fascist outfit that Israel has become, H and I more and more know that it’s
religion and misogyny at the root of it. If H had his way, “The world would be
run by 95% women.” His religion would be the Mother Goddess.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Religion and money. Money and
religion. Here’s the story of the greatest religious fraud in America, L. Ron Hubbard,
and Scientology, his baby and his cash cow, as told my his great-grandson.
Listen and be sickened: <a href="http://www.upworthy.com/l-ron-hubbards-great-grandson-spills-the-family-secrets-on-how-scientology-started-eek?c=ufb2">How
Scientology Started</a>. (This is how I spend my time. Who's really sick?)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Parable of the Crappy Money<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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“So my father tells this story—I
don’t know how truth it is—but it could be,” H begins. “This boy wants his father
to sell the family farm in Montenegro. He’s always wanting money from his
father. Money, money, more money. The father keeps money in a basket tied to a beam, in the house there, and all the time his son keeps stealing it, so one day his father decides he'll leave<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> some</i> money there, but hides
most of money in a new place. Then the son beats them for more money, so
finally the father says, ‘There is more…,’ and he directs him to the outhouse,
says, ‘It’s behind the outhouse, in front of a fig tree, two meters down.’ So
the son takes the shovel, and he digs for two meters, and then three meters—but
no money, he can’t find it. His father says, pointing to the outhouse, “The
other one is full, and we need a new hole, and you dug it. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That’s</i> where the money goes—you work, you eat, you shit.” H smiles.
And you will be buried there. There it is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Thirteen Dumpsters, Plus Three<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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H emptied out an old super’s
apartment, stacked with jars, cans, papers going back to the Nixon
Administration. “Lisa, three containers. Forty feet long. Three, for <i>one
</i>apartment. Dead rats. I’m so sick, my god. Pigs. I'm sorry to say it. How do people live like that?”
The neighbor of a friend in New Jersey died recently, leaving a house that it
took thirteen (13) giant dumpsters to empty out. I think Hoarding and Greed are
brothers, but kind of opposites. Hoarders spend with abandon, the greedy take
money and keep it all for themselves—one can’t bear to part with anything, the
other can’t bear for anyone besides themselves to<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> have</i> anything. All I know is everybody else is forever cleaning up
after their shit—the legal acquisitions of hoarders, the sneak-thievery that is
greed. And those people are exhausting us. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Parable of the Rich Man with the Island<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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“There was this guy, a rich man,
and he was looking a place to build his house for himself and the family,” H
says, “and he hire a couple experts, they say ‘this is the place,’ or they
don’t like it, high mountains, flatland, whatever it was. The rich man’s idea
was to build his house in the middle of the ocean, where there are no snakes,
only fish, and only his family. They will be completely safe. So his wife gives
birth to a boy, and his son turns three, and he says, ‘Daddy I want grapes.’ No
grapes there. The rich man had boats and slaves, so he sends a security guy in a boat to go and buy a grape, and he came back, and says, ‘Here’s the
grape.’ They give them to the boy, and in the grapes, was little tiny snake,
and the snake bites the boy’s tongue, and the boy dies. The rich man learned
there is no safe place in the entire world. ‘I am being punished, something
took my son away,’ and that was it. So the rich really live in a lovely way, and
then the biggest thing they have, no matter what they try, is a headache
anyway.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Rules of the Playground<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The rules of the game: “If you hit
this,” explains the little boy on the handball court on the playground that
abuts my building here in Queens, “you win World Cup. If you don’t, you’re a
loser!” Apparently a ball goes amiss. “Hey, scooter,” he shouts, “send it back!
Hey, scooter!” [beat] “I’ll chase you!” And the noises stop on the other side
of my trash alley-perched porch wall. For a while.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We sit in the quiet. H tells me about his favorite
singer, Croatian, I think: “There was this lady, as far as guitars, named Fatima
Sukoly, and she created those songs for the government; she was the best artist
history remembered, and not even happening today, but everyone remembers her.
Literally she make a guitar cry, and sorry she had to die so young, but her
voice, the best—she sang songs, had to make them for government and leaders,
Communism time, she didn’t really want to—beautiful songs about the president, and
in the end she say, ‘How to read Fatima?’ (which was her); many different
ideas, and the president himself loved her. You can’t do that, not without
practicing—no one could become the artist she was without the work.” In <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-vjjbuzwRw">this song on YouTube</a>
(thanks, YouTube), H translated the words: “Mother gives them birth but guns
brought them up.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Rules of the game.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Parable of the Lie/Religion<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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“‘What do you believe?’ This guy
ask me what I believe. Who asks that?” H will sometimes open his wallet and
show a dollar bill, but not this time. ‘Nothin’,’ I tell him. ‘You don’t
believe nothin’? Aren’t you Moslem?’ he says. And I say, ‘No, I’m nothin’.’ One
time a police officer says to me, ‘What are you?’ This is right after 9-11, and
he stopped me for speedin’, on the Taconic there, an’ it’s dark. Nobody out. He
look like he wants to shoot me. ‘I’m American, like you,’ I say. ‘You were
speeding,’ he says, ‘get out of the car,’ an’ he puts his hand on his gun. I
take my time. ‘You want me to shoot you?’ he says, an’ I say, ‘I can’t stop
you.’” H takes a drag off his cigarette. H knew he could stop him, use martial
arts and quickly, leave him there and no one would find him for hours. But instead
he’s cool, shrugs, waits for his car to be “inspected.” “Not everybody is a
liar, but everybody lie,” H observes. “It’s an old business.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The oldest, right after hooking. In
this conservative climate, anything made that shoots to kill, whether in open
carry or open skies, is the equivalent of the fucking flag. I’m so sick of it.
“What do you believe?” How about, “What do you SEE?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Meanwhile, Education, and Why I Sometimes Think I Am Wasting My Life<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #4e5256; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I’m not a writer who pays much attention to theme.
In my experience, thinking about theme instead of about the mechanics of story
and the truth of characters leads to false and self-aware work. My opinion is
that “theme” is another word for “things the writer believes to be true about
the world.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4e5256; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">~ </span><a href="http://tylernscott.com/bo-wilson-playwright/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Bo Wilson, playwright</span></i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> and classmate at Virginia Tech. (He
graduated a year ahead of me.) His work is opening everywhere lately, and this
is awesome.</i><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> </span></i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-themecolor: hyperlink;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></i></div>
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How does one learn to write? First
one must read. How does one learn to read, and read well? One of the big
subjects in education today is Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the
instructing to which is my current writing task at work. Forget testing: I hate
standardized testing, and CCSS should, too, because all the real stuff they
target makes for the opposite of testability, which should be a good thing. So
here’s the point: The biggest key to CCSS as far as English Language Arts (ELA)
is concerned is something called “close reading.” I learned all about close
reading over the five summers I attended Bread Loaf School of English up in
Ripton, Vermont.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time I began
there, in 1990, the idea of canonical reading—the old early 20<sup>th</sup>
century practice of reading select “classic” books written by white men (and
one by Jane Austen), and being told via lecture, from a white male professor,
what exactly it was that the writer “meant” by that text, and which passages
were the most important. To demonstrate a deeper understanding students wrote papers
(now called “research-based formative assessment”) in which salient passages
were quoted from various texts (comparative literature-style) and the opinions
of various critics were strung together, all of which was supposed to “prove”
your own “original” thinking. My generation wrote research papers like this all
the time (and I continued to do some of this at Bread Loaf, until I finally
learned to stop). Students of this school memorized the dates, themes, and
salient passages and were given a comprehensive final exam (now called
“summative assessment) to demonstrate their mastery of the lecture material and
texts. It’s not an awful thing—I gave tests like that as a teacher. But the
idea of reading a text deeply and getting out of it whatever you get out of it
was an alien concept until a group called The Deconstructionists came along.
Their work took off in the 1970s, but not until 1990 was a revolution brewing
on the campus of my graduate school. Venerable and famous teachers of
literature, including Alvin “The Death of Literature” Kernan and Walter “Bongo”
Litz (I’m kidding about the “Bongo”), felt that the place had gone to pot when
exams were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">replaced </i>with papers, and
the papers asked of the students were to include their actual own ideas and
reflections on their own understanding of the texts they read. I attended a
panel discussion of the Canonicals vs. the Deconstructionists, summed up
perfectly by one professor, Britain’s Michael Armstrong, who at one point flew
at America’s Al Kernan: “If <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> tell <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">me</i> there’s only one way to read a text, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’m</i> going to tell <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> to go to hell!” Michael was to become one of the most important
teachers of my life. Here’s what I know: Once I learned to have ownership of
the material, I discovered that I actually did have real ideas and real
questions, and real engagement. The secret? What I was doing was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">close reading</i>. I was applying my
understanding of concepts such as theme, structure, semantics, grammar, syntax,
literary devices, and word meanings, and combining these with my own life
experiences to make meaning out of the texts. Doors opened, the earth moved.
I’d never go hungry again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not everyone is enamored of the idea of reading anything, let alone reading it closely. They (we all know "them") see long-form texts as “dry and boring” (actual words of people I actually know), and see the
kids as balls that need to be bounced. Activities! Gadgets! Lookee here! (Now test it?) It’s depressing, because that was how I
was “trained” as a teacher—keep the kids busy!—and I was always baffled as to
the point of it. Today’s kids like the gadgets, flitting from one screen to the
next, one moment to the next, faster and faster, and then, what, explode? And in school, write? How? But to
paraphrase Truman Capote’s comment about Jack Kerouac, they aren’t writing,
they are typing—unless there is real instruction, real focus, real depth to the
reading they are ostensibly responding to. So sayeth Miss O’.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And then I got to thinking: Why do
I think I am right? Why not a world of “more activities” and less depth of
connection? Why not? And then I thought about three reasons.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What Do Bruce Lee, Elaine Stritch, and Muhammed Ali Have in Common?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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It sounds like the set-up of a bad
joke, but wait for the punch line. One evening, I asked H, “Who is your
greatest cultural hero?” He didn’t hesitate: “Bruce Lee.” So we went to YouTube
so he could enlighten me. Take a look yourself: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en2nM-7XIe4">Bruce Lee and the 1-inch
punch</a>. The sheer power of it—it’s beyond impressive. You see the total
concentration of him. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are also
really interesting interviews—he was really an astonishing man. What about me? My
hero of the moment, as I had just seen the documentary <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shoot Me</i>, was Elaine Stritch, who had just died. I showed him her
seminal number. You watch, too: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=virv-1o2KjE">Elaine Stritch and the
Ladies Who Lunch</a>. Her singing wraps total focus and control around the
music and lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, but more than that, she IS the songs she
sings. And curiously enough, we both have one idol in common: Muhammed Ali. You
watch, too: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkhpZoPOfZI">Muhammed Ali
boxing</a>. Watch his footwork, his grace, and the astonishing quickness when
he avoids the punches of his opponents. He wore them out, and then went IN. Sure
boxing is beastly, but my mom, Lynne, adored The Greatest, even as my dad,
Bernie, moaned about the “rope-a-dope.” What the three of these disparate stars
share: That inner strength, the depth of the feeling and energy—they reach into
their deepest capacities, they train, they practice, they perform, and they do
it for themselves first and then for us. Here are three more videos: The great <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APx2yFA0-B4">Bruce Lee playing ping pong
with nunchucks</a> is staggering to watch—that is the <u>training</u>. Now
watch the late, great Elaine Stritch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15a5jz6J0lM"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">At Liberty</i></a> at age 78—that is the training. She can own a
stage—only a brick wall behind her, a stool as a prop, and her dancing tights
and big white shirt as a costume. No dazzling lights—no blue follow-spots. All
these are in full, flat light. No tricks. The people themselves front and
center and alone. (The only young performer I’ve seen who has this is Adele.) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d43I80_IbFI">This interview with Muhammed
Ali in 1971</a> with England’s premiere interviewer Michael Parkinson (sadly
ironic, his name) is one of the most compelling discussions I’ve ever seen. Ali
is fully great, and the greatness of his complexity shows us that greatness is
not about niceness, not about being easy, though charm is crucial,
self-awareness the linchpin. Bruce, Elaine, and Ali devoted their waking
professional lives to training to be the best at what they do, and they did it,
and we all are better for it. They were not gadabout scatter-shots, flitting
from activity to activity. Instead they were masters of the physical equivalent
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">close reading</i>. Everybody rise.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Wishing the World Away<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Sometimes, as I have felt the past
few months, I want nothing but quiet—no human sounds and no human-made stuff,
is what I mean by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">quiet</i>. Keeping to
my own. But what is that? One of the big troubles with “keeping to your own” (here
I reference Muhammed Ali’s expressed desire at the time (1971) for the
separation of races, his logic of “pigeons hang out with pigeons” and “Mexicans
like Mexican food and Chinese like Chinese food” notwithstanding) is that, for
example with Ali, that view doesn’t look past looks, really. Ali doesn’t consider
social inequality in terms of money and education and opportunity, which humans
have to contend with, and pigeons don’t. When <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">poor</i> only stays with poor, for example, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rich</i> only with rich, something terrible is happening—a kind of rot
to the flesh and organs of the human world. There is no other species that can
think in these terms, or act with calculation in this way: purposefully to
better or to weaken not only their own species but also the world of plant and
creature species around them. There is something romantic about “faraway places
with strange-sounding names,” as the song goes, about seeing brown old men in
fezzes smoking hookahs on stone-lined narrow streets, while you yourself walk
about, white and in wonder at it all, en route to a café. It’s not only a
question of living separately, utterly bounded by race or religion, as if this
must be natural. What about rural and urban? In America, Northerner vs.
Southerner? When I was a teacher in rural Virginia taking kids on a field trip
to NYC, one young woman got off the bus, looked around the grime, glamour, and
grit that was that city in 1988, and said, “Now I know why I’ve been unhappy
all my life.” So as I say, I’m thinking I need to think about changing it up,
get out of myself for a bit. I mean, without booze.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Bottle Cap on the Ground<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Possibly I am channeling “The
Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, or Virginia Woolf and her story “The
Mark on the Wall,” or that habit we have of taking lint off of someone’s
shoulder—the feeling of fixation we get on the tiny thing we can fix when
everything around us is chaos. My fixation is bottle caps discarded on the
ground or floor where anyone might slip on them. It might not be a bottle cap,
but could be a small bolt, a skate wheel, perhaps: any seemingly harmless but
potentially lethal obstruction. My fixation then moves to action: I remove it.
After I slipped on one during a rehearsal in college—and we’d all noticed it,
and no one had moved it—and broke my right ankle cleanly in two as a result, I
became mindful of how such a tiny object can upend a life. I’d like to think
I’ve made a difference dozens of times over, and in a good way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Here’s another fixation: Rudeness. Last week while working (and this could be trying to contact Comcast or your insurance provider--make it into a parable), a fellow off site emailed to say
there was new material available on our server, but declined to say where
precisely it was. I asked for a link to the folder. He said I didn’t need one.
I replied that I did, and would appreciate it. Knowing what was coming, I
shrugged and left the office, but was so angry, not only about the dismissive
reply, but about all the time he was about to waste. And waste it he did: After
I left (which he didn’t realize) he shot back a disparaging email along the
lines of “you need to learn to find things for yourself,” he “hasn’t got time
to link out to the path all the time,” and the non-swearing equivalent of “fuck
you.” About fifteen minutes later (according to the time signature), he wrote
back an apology, and sent the path—but not the direct link. Still no link. (He, I suppose, has his hubris to consider.) By now—the first email came at 4:41 in the
afternoon and the last at 5:59 PM—an hour and eighteen minutes of time has
passed. When I followed the path that led to the folder the next morning, I had
to open nearly every document in it to find the material he’d referenced,
because the information he identified was not to be found on any document where
you might, by the title, expect to find it. I wrote him a very kind note to
explain that his file structures are not intuitive to anyone except him,
because he creates them, and are in fact often baffling, and that sending a
direct link is a professional courtesy; we bookmark these links for future
efficiency. LINKS. LINKS! <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s these little obstructions that
are killing me, slowly, because I cannot kick ALL of them out of the way. But
what I can do is take the tiny victories—a bathroom that functions (since we dug a new one, but found no money), a Bic pen
kicked out of aisle (no link needed)—and realize that at least I didn’t have to kill a sheep and
bloody a sheet to try to get someone to see sense. H and I really could use a
year or ten by the ocean, and in it. Surely there’s a scratch ticket somewhere,
with our names on it. And not two meters deep.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrA7INvBnd25R10z32cQVREnYaAKFuBrCjcrPhb3YO3LWQI8sTqPlY_hM7lGcj_VJJvtLImo4k9ztUwFbZesr2xhYW9-zlhrFjXd_6DUNaF1r5tHhjsyA5mwuCJcDVS1kfS_MqbTwuuF7K/s1600/IMG_2198.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrA7INvBnd25R10z32cQVREnYaAKFuBrCjcrPhb3YO3LWQI8sTqPlY_hM7lGcj_VJJvtLImo4k9ztUwFbZesr2xhYW9-zlhrFjXd_6DUNaF1r5tHhjsyA5mwuCJcDVS1kfS_MqbTwuuF7K/s1600/IMG_2198.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<br />
Kids, here's to plumbing that works, and refreshment in all things,<br />
with love<br />
Miss O'</div>
Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-82035071517047654372014-06-08T16:23:00.000-07:002014-06-14T11:30:50.811-07:00THIS IS NOT A BILL<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> </o:p><b>He Who Has, and Has
Not</b></div>
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It's been a week of stresses in the world of Miss O' (though not only stresses, as I was lucky enough to attend a wonderful garden party at a restaurant on W. 14th Street in honor of my friend Frances's birthday), and so this week's post must be a <i>little </i>post, like those notices you get from your health care provider, reminding you that you had some kind of treatment back there, and that you might owe money, but not to them. This is just a little notice, is all. I hope that, unlike that waste of paperwork I mentioned, there is in fact something to be gleaned, some useful insight that does not clutter your desk or dull your day.</div>
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIPmZbRkxGoC5tSzYhKrsNl-qwBnXuaDIme4_UPS8rN1dD3643gTWQ4ieP7KjthXR3V0bHj6KEJiqaG0h2CLyUaPMiss_g-_5TYS1GhckrU4qTcoOy17TN7eM1dZamQp91Q7BvBRqe275/s1600/anne21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIPmZbRkxGoC5tSzYhKrsNl-qwBnXuaDIme4_UPS8rN1dD3643gTWQ4ieP7KjthXR3V0bHj6KEJiqaG0h2CLyUaPMiss_g-_5TYS1GhckrU4qTcoOy17TN7eM1dZamQp91Q7BvBRqe275/s1600/anne21.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks, Anne Taintor.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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To begin: On these warm evenings out on my porch here in Queens, H and
your Miss O’ commune with the three visible stars, the occasional slice of
moon, the floodlights of the Con Ed gas line trucks, and wonder why the fuck we
have no money. It’s a real shame, what we might do and cannot do. Still, we
work, are honest in our dealings, are essentially good people. One would think
it would be enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Somehow, it is not. Words of wisdom from my love, H’s, father (whom I know well
here as a hi-bye friend of limited English, but great heart and expression),
enter our conversation. “Speaking of bein’ honest,” says H, in that lovely
Albanian accent of his, and he starts to laugh, “when I was young, a young man,
say fifteen, sixteen, and I’d tell someone the truth, like if I wanted a girl,
and I tell her I want her, or if I admit I’m with a girl in front of my mom, an' she would hit me and call me a bitch, my father would do this, he’d say—” and
here H makes the fingers of his right hand as if to make a peace sign, turns
them to point toward me—“my father would say, ‘You know, son, Honest and Stupid are two
brothers,’ and he’d move his fingers, like this,"—and H moves the index and middle fingers as if they are walking—"and you know, the longer I
live the more truth I see that it is. Look at all these dishonest motherfuckers,
all the money, all the control. And here we are—” and here H walked those two
fingers. And we laughed.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Honest and Stupid Are
Two Brothers<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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So my love H asked me the other night, in another
philosophical discussion in the New York night breeze, “Suppose I was happy—”
and here he gestured, arms up, to show the largeness of this happiness—“and
suppose,” he continued, “you were unhappy. I was so, so happy, and you were
really, really unhappy. What would you do?” <o:p></o:p></div>
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I was resting in my chair, legs crossed. I took a beat. I
said, “Well, if you are happy, I am glad you are happy.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked at him. I felt my head lean in. “But
what do you mean exactly?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“For example,” he said, which is how he always begins a
story, “one night, back in Yugoslavia there, in the Communism time, I was
walkin’ around with bees in my head—” and his fingers stretched to his brain,
briefly swirled—“so angry, my god, why who knows, but as I’m walkin’ there, I
see a house all lighted up, and I see people there, drinkin’, eatin’ a bit of
food. They are laughin’, talkin’ there, and I suddenly—” and here H’s hands
arched out a bit, as if grasping breasts he does not have—“I feel so full, so
full of that happiness, and I am happy. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mashala</i>,
it’s called.” H took a drag of his cigarette. “It’s a word we have. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mashala</i>. A good word, this happiness you
feel, this appreciation that others are happy. You know what I mean?” I knew
what he meant. “And there’s a man there, he comes over, he says, ‘Come in,’ and
I say, ‘I don’t know you,’ and he says, ‘I don’t know you neither—have a drink,
come,’ and so I go with him. ‘Beer? A shot?’ and I say, ‘A cold beer is good,’
and I drink it, and he says, ‘Eat,’ and I say, ‘No…’ and he says, ‘Yes,’ and so
I eat a piece of food, finish my beer, talk a little. When I left, I say to the guy, 'Mashala,' and I smile, and he says, 'Mashala.' The unhappy
feelin’, it don’t go away, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mashala</i>,
when you have that, for others, you are happier yourself for a while.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFjjvqqFfLYX4mDAtw92EHT0m2H3I7gbi8W58XUYglsWQixUZiEOWLtJPepJIIiUHnKOxsLxEqZePsQawORpAY8Aw6XUd5ZHxi1r-RhJM1OUYfA1TEaESRSdg0ylIUyyLPtyQ8UDUCSpo8/s1600/IMG_1587.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFjjvqqFfLYX4mDAtw92EHT0m2H3I7gbi8W58XUYglsWQixUZiEOWLtJPepJIIiUHnKOxsLxEqZePsQawORpAY8Aw6XUd5ZHxi1r-RhJM1OUYfA1TEaESRSdg0ylIUyyLPtyQ8UDUCSpo8/s1600/IMG_1587.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roses bloom in Queens. They really do. Mashala.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Praying Any Which Way
You Pray<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Saturday morning, after the Con Ed guy rang my bell to check the meters ("Don't you guys have keys?" "Uh, I don't know if they work?" Did you try? "You're new aren't you?" I said, and I walked him around the complex in my pajamas, because I live in New York City), and then the exterminator showed up early, and then my mom (bless her for her belief in phone brevity) called, I was just about to settle in with a cup of hot, delicious coffee when I got a call from my friend Rina, who is in
Vancouver by way of New Delhi working on her Ph.D. for a month, before
returning to her college to teach in July. ("Did you decide to pick up your phone?" she asked playfully.) “Leeza,” she intoned in her musical,
rich Indian accent, “my college has promised me a sabbatical for next year so I can finish this horrible dissertation. Leeza, I need you to pray to your pagan god
that I will get this awful thing done!” I assured her I would, and then I asked Rina
if she knew <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mashala</i>. “Of course I
know <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mashala</i>, but how do you know <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mashala</i>?” I told her H’s story, and she
said, “I had no clue that Europe knows this word, too. It’s an Arabic word, and
so it’s used in Turkey and Pakistan, and so also India.” We agreed that it’s a
marvelous word, the way it encompasses a concept too little expressed, and I
began to wonder how often it’s felt. I can promise this: When Rina finishes
that Ph.D., you just come to Queens and witness the biggest fucking expression
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mashala</i> you ever saw.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Avash, Avash<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Another expression that H wanted me to know was the Turkish <i>avash, avash </i>(“you say it twice,” he explained, "avash, avash"), meaning that things cannot be rushed; things
happen all in good time; little by little. (When I went to look up this
Albanian (from the conquering Turkish) expression, I came upon an explanation
in <a href="http://albaniaorbust.blogspot.com/2014/02/avash-avash.html">this
lovely blog</a>, and realized that lots of us are writing letters to the world
via the web. We writers are hyperlinked, literally and metaphorically, to the
world we experience. Not a bad way to live.) So sometimes, when you think you want it all now (like some goddamned <i>gun</i> laws, for the love of my pagan god), you might have to take a breath and say, "Avash, avash." And then drink.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So look: We’re not doing as well as we’d like. We’re low on
funds, or we’re low on energy, or wherewithal, or enthusiasm for our jobs, or
creative inspiration. We’re aware that there are more than a few bad habits we
might kick. "Time," says H, "it's time that is the most important thing we don't have." Too many people would take things away from others rather than look to their own hearts to fill their emptiness, and in turn they take our precious <i>time</i>. (Think of the needless obstacles to gay marriage or to solving climate change, to take but two examples.) H and I are of the same mind, that no amount of other people's stuff can make you happy. (Except Rina's Ph.D.) Everyone has to learn this, dammit, but it can't be force fed. (As H's father also says, in Albanian, of course, "If you took all the money in the world today and divided it equally among every person, by tomorrow morning the same bastard would have all of it back again.") And in the meantime, <i>salud!</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Avash, avash. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masha'Allah">Masha’Allah</a><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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It’s been such a week—so much of world problems (as Rina
might express it), no way to beat the man "because he’s <i>the man</i>" (as H knows only
too well, and don't ask), health concerns (like a friend's biopsy coming up) and lots of anxieties not worth troubling you kids with—but Miss O’
would like to encourage you to be open to <i>Mashala</i>, for fuck’s sake (just as I enjoyed four hours of exquisite <i>Mashala</i> at Frances's surprise party, for example). Why not cultivate that in your daily life, be surprised by joy, as C.S. Lewis might say. It could be
worse, and someday it will be. Mashala. Avash, avash.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And love,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-81775165400476245892014-06-01T14:33:00.000-07:002014-06-01T16:43:56.482-07:00Art for Our Sake: Miss O’ Appeals to Your Heart (and Purse) Strings<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="line-height: 115%;">The Better Angels of Our Nature</b></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">"My hope is that
the love and desire for scientific knowledge will cause unborn thousands to
throng the hall of Cooper Union to learn the beauties and to obtain the
benefits provided in nature for the use and elevation of mankind. These will be
known and enjoyed where men keep, subdue and hold dominion over the world and
all that is in it. I trust the young will here catch the inspiration of truth
in all its native power and beauty and find in it a source of inexpressible
pleasure to spread its transformed influence throughout the world." <br />
</span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">~ <a href="http://www.ringwoodmanor.com/peo/ch/pc/pc.htm">Peter Cooper, 1882</a> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Miss O’, as faithful readers know,
is, in the name of social joy and justice, a political creature, and an art
creature, possibly past all reason. Especially <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">financial</i> reason, what with the charitable and political
money-giving I do every year. And being a woman of lower middle income in the metropolis that is New York City, I can’t help noticing that too many of the
wrong people have money. Sure, some of them “made it,” or were born into money made by a relative, but the question is, <i>what are
they DOING with it?</i> And why does the making of money elude so many of us who would gladly do <i>good</i> with it? One
recalls the character Mr. Bernstein’s comment to the reporter in the Orson
Welles classic film, <i>Citizen Kane</i>, “Well, it’s no trick to make a lot of money, if
all you want to do is make a lot of money.” And there it is. If you don’t care
whom you hurt, or about ethics and morality, or about the social contract, or
the law, you can make hand over fist wads of cold, hard cash. Is this wise? Is this good? <a href="http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1-Timothy-6-10/">“For the love of
money is root of all evil,” says the Bible</a>. It’s possibly the truest thing
in that old book. At the point where Timothy goes on to explain that lovers of money, after
coveting, have “erred from the faith,” I think it’s a fair metaphor to
substitute <i>social contract</i> for <i>faith</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I can think of one awesome example
of an old industrialist tycoon who did not stray from a love of the social contract during or after his
accumulation of wealth through his own ingenuity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter Cooper (see link above after the
epigraph), about whom I learned only a year ago or so, was (among a whole heap
of other things, such as inventor of the first locomotive steam engine) the
founder of Cooper Union, a hall where Lincoln spoke, and a school for artists,
the promise of which was tuition-free study in perpetuity. My friends Steven
Arcella, Lisa DiPetto, and M’Liz Keefe have been among the beneficiaries of this marvelous
150-year-old art school, and without that place, these working class kids could
never have made art school an option, whatever their prodigious gifts. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8k91wqdJNUTxslmDHVfr61C-oxNrH6Qu34u5JpZnuvBFTbZC5GpENe5XCesTNmUtbrXvlRf5lIxGJYt2EnUc3yD3TlVPhvtkv0MK1QDfUGY_iT5aiqb3oWbBG6VxXEoAvX_tbPBxeTG6q/s1600/1024px-Cooper_Union_by_David_Shankbone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8k91wqdJNUTxslmDHVfr61C-oxNrH6Qu34u5JpZnuvBFTbZC5GpENe5XCesTNmUtbrXvlRf5lIxGJYt2EnUc3yD3TlVPhvtkv0MK1QDfUGY_iT5aiqb3oWbBG6VxXEoAvX_tbPBxeTG6q/s1600/1024px-Cooper_Union_by_David_Shankbone.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cooper Union, NYC, Google Images</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Ah, money. My old nemesis. Here we go again, and this time, it's personal:<span style="line-height: 115%;"> It
seems the Board of Trustees of the aforementioned Cooper Union Art School here in the heart of New York City overspent on real estate and foolishly invested in
a Trustee’s own hedge fund, and kinda went broke. And now they have decided to
change the tuition from $0.00/year to $19,500/year. Just like that. It is </span><a href="http://www.cooper.edu/about/history/peter-coopers-vision" style="line-height: 115%;">no longer being
“true to the vision of its founder”—</a><span style="line-height: 115%;">not remotely, at nearly $20,000 a year,
vs. FREE.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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Here’s the cool new building that the trustees apparently forgot they would need to, you know, pay for:<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2jS-qwYeHZ4-P63dpYw2hmjC-qKwi5-cQhlFFKonOSBnTZBGwalgTJ6nuWEgzjQusR5mmXU2yL-QgJt0v1h82-x18ynMzZ9fiEvgThj-NBNmQUzH2xHu8QJ5OZclFjC-OGOeJxj33-Tw4/s1600/cooperUnion_28_sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2jS-qwYeHZ4-P63dpYw2hmjC-qKwi5-cQhlFFKonOSBnTZBGwalgTJ6nuWEgzjQusR5mmXU2yL-QgJt0v1h82-x18ynMzZ9fiEvgThj-NBNmQUzH2xHu8QJ5OZclFjC-OGOeJxj33-Tw4/s1600/cooperUnion_28_sm.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NEW Cooper Union, Google Images</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">A court here recently sided with the Board,
of course (because that’s who we have become in America), and now the
professors and alumni of Cooper Union have filed a lawsuit against the Board
with the Manhattan Supreme Court. You can </span><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/cooper-union-professors-students-sue-block-school-charging-tuition-article-1.1807611" style="line-height: 115%;">read
about the lawsuit</a><span style="line-height: 115%;"> to learn more. The plaintiffs have a good case—the founding tenets
are on their side—but no money. And here is where you can help, should you wish
to.</span></div>
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You can learn more about this cause
<a href="https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/save-cooper-union/">on
Save Cooper Union</a>; and if you are so moved, you can go to IndieGogo at the
link below and pledge some cash—$5, $10, or, as Miss O’ did yesterday, a
grand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(<a href="http://mlizkeefe.com/home.html">Painter M’Liz Keefe</a> is donating four
of her astonishing <a href="http://mlizkeefe.com/section/371550_The_Fogo_Island_Paintings.html">Fogo
Island paintings</a>, to be completed next season, each for a $1,000 donation,
and I bought one for the cause.) I’m not rich. Sometimes I just look at my bank
account and say, “Fuck it. This matters.” So I cut back on wine. My liver will
thank me, and maybe those prospective students will, too.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SAVE COOPER UNION LEGAL FUND:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/committee-to-save-cooper-union-legal-fund">https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/committee-to-save-cooper-union-legal-fund</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Any amount helps. And thanks.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CALLING IN THE TROOPS<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Something about the injustice of
Cooper Union gives Miss O’ pause today. Instead of going outside into this
beautiful weather, I’m flipping back over news stories, and my eye keeps
landing on a particular word: Thai troops; Russian troops; Egyptian Troops, Turkish
Troops, Worldwide troops, going after their nation’s own; remembering Kent
State and Selma, Alabama, American National Guard troops; the NYPD troops and
Occupy Wall Street. And in 2014 Miss O’ asks: How many troops does it take to
make the world governments realize that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">if
you have to call in the troops against your own people</i>, you are on the
WRONG side of the debate, the wrong side of history, the wrong side of
morality? Just fucking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wrong</i>? Because
you are. And the history books will prove it, the laws will prove it, the
day-to-day life of society will prove it. Remember Alabama. Remember Ohio. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sending in the troops against <u>your own</u>?
</i>You might as well bring in a neon sign that says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“You win.”</i> Because no matter how many guns you brandish, how much
pepper spray or tear gas you unload, or how many billy clubs you beat into the
faces of the citizenry, “might” will not make “right,” and we all know it. Yes,
we do. YES. We do: You turned weapons onto your own citizens, who are
peacefully protesting the turning of weapons onto themselves for protesting
peacefully. You see how this works? It doesn’t work. It will ever be wrong.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I see a hand back there.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Miss O’,” says the hand,
“[Obama/Hitler/Climate Hoax/NRA/Constitution].”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And here we go…again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Fallacious Reasoning and You<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The information in this cartoon card from Occupy Democrats is factual. <br />
Note that there is no commentary, but there is an implied accusation.</td></tr>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">A Facebook friend, my cousin Bill in Iowa, responded to the above cartoon (on another wall, not mine) with typically
Republican fallacious reasoning to excuse Dick Cheney's sending 5,281 troops
(to the present) off to Iraq to die in a war he trumped up to benefit a company
he once ran: "Al Gore got rich on global warming." (Whether or not
this is true can be researched. Despite the accusatory tone of a half dozen "stories" from 2009, in rightwing publications, this quote from the U.K. Telegraph (also from 2009), stood out:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #282828; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">[Gore] has made significant investments in environmentally friendly projects like carbon trading markets, solar power, biofuels, electric vehicles, sustainable fish farming and waterless lavatories. He has also invested in non-climate change related investments, including putting money into Google and Apple.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
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And Miss O' asks, <i>What's the problem? </i>Investment in good things is how we move forward. Right? Ask Peter Cooper's beneficiaries.)</div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
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And I also ask: Has Al Gore used a position
of power <u>awarded by an electorate</u> to deliberately put into harm's way, and in fact lead to the deaths, of 5,000 American troops
<i>while working to solve the world's climate crisis</i>? Of course not. In addition, there's nothing illegal (and in fact something deeply moral) about the investments Gore is making; in fact, his investments are in line with this values: solving the climate crisis. The subject of the cartoon is not, "Making a profit is bad." The subject is the immorality of how the profit was made. And it's that sort of shape-shifting and subject-changing that you see in my cousin Bill's comment up there that is a hallmark of Republican debate tactics, is why nothing can get accomplished with the right wing running anything in the
U.S. It's staggering, this level of lousy thinking, and Facebook comments
notwithstanding, it is just as pervasive in our halls of power. That's the
shame.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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(P.S. Bill's other favorite bugaboo is Benghazi, so herewith a little reminder about this drama of nothing if not fallacy and folly: Since "Benghazi," (one attack during the entire Obama Administration, leaving four Americans dead, whereas the Bush Administration experienced 12 attacks, including 9-11, with over 3,000 Americans killed, not including the 7,000+ Americans dead from the wars) there have been 81 American school shootings, 145 American children shot, and 66 American children killed. Somehow, the Republicans can't manage even a teensy bit of outrage. <i>What are this nation's values?</i>)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I’d rather buy a great painting for a good cause, is what I’m saying, that cause being to reason with traitors in a court of law. And I’d rather not watch idly while the troops or the Trustees are called in to annihilate righteous citizens/students in the (often fallacious) name of "freedom." Fallacious reasoning also goes something like this: "The Board entrusted with the running of Cooper Union blew the money, and so we will put the problem on the backs of the poor students, because they were supposed to get that money."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Miss O’ Asks Her Readers: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Do
you have symptoms of fallacious reasoning?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<u>A Quiz for Republicans</u>: When
you hear a point of view that you disagree with, is your response <o:p></o:p></div>
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a) a knee-jerk hatred of Obamacare;
<o:p></o:p></div>
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b) to turn on Fox News to learn the
truth; <o:p></o:p></div>
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c) to make an analogy between that
point of view and something to do with Al Gore;<br />
d) more guns;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
e) all of the above, plus Jesus<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<u>A Quiz for Democrats</u>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you hear a point of view that you
disagree with, is your response<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->an
inward journey to see if in fact you’ve been wrong all this time;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->an
outraged letter to the editor of the New Jersey Herald;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->to
turn your outrage into a meme and post it on Facebook;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">d)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->organic
cooking<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">e)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->all
of the above, plus wine<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<u>A Quiz for Libertarians</u>:
When you hear a point of view that you disagree with, is your response<o:p></o:p></div>
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have to pry the answers to a quiz out of my cold, dead brain<o:p></o:p></div>
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and fuck stoplights<o:p></o:p></div>
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Curiously, Miss O’ does not know it
all. I know this is a stunner. So when Miss O’ hears a point of view she
disagrees with, the first thing she does—and I know this sounds crazy—is get to
work doing research. What with Google, what could be simpler? First things
first: My FIRST response is that my heart begins to race and I get the shakes,
and so this is how I know a boundary of good sense and common decency has been
crossed. I honor that feeling by deciding to embark on a confrontation. THEN I
do my research. I am willing to be absurd as I figure it out. I’m not sure this
is a virtue, but it’s who I am. And I am occasionally knee-jerk, and I
apologize for it, and try to learn to stop doing it, but my apology is by way
of evidence. Dispatching facts in the face of stupidity is more or less wasted
on the fanatical, but if we give up, we might was well call it a life, curl up,
and wait for the sweet, numbing peace of death.</div>
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I cannot do it all. And so today I cry, merely, <i>Here's to Saving Cooper Union!</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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This is Miss O’s word for today,
the first day of June, the year of 2014, C.E., after 200,000 years of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolutionary_history_of_life">“anatomically
modern humans”</a> inhabiting Earth. <i>Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art, </i>as theater genius Stanislavsky admonished his actors. And give generously to things that matter. Dammit.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p>Love to all,</o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p>Miss O'</o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYFqjbJAWbAXTMdbOkfM2VkFxDMdFoXBlEfFZNH5jP1RhhYsIEJQekBWaF4ta9fUA2AJoPy39BI-_M7sk7pEy4VQQpQguMHax7IqhFXXK8uZbUc_ajxNN8zUeBpteh2Dboa3n8lSD53Xw/s1600/Lisa1965.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYFqjbJAWbAXTMdbOkfM2VkFxDMdFoXBlEfFZNH5jP1RhhYsIEJQekBWaF4ta9fUA2AJoPy39BI-_M7sk7pEy4VQQpQguMHax7IqhFXXK8uZbUc_ajxNN8zUeBpteh2Dboa3n8lSD53Xw/s1600/Lisa1965.jpg" height="261" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miss O', Standing up for what's right,<br />
or at least standing, since 1964.</td></tr>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-13644612382441880672014-05-25T14:13:00.000-07:002014-05-25T19:40:25.368-07:00Whatever In It Is: The Memorial Day Post, On the Home Front<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCuGVJJNhi9JZT34zYjb8O4cp6_KWnBTyWI3tBiNZLcnPcrW65Od_8SpMQ838M12NbOc6eYrkGY2BEhnx6hK2E2IcsJoCqIJPwKcVu5L2nMBlkz4BXOEhXjHlaTXYaIVKSCgfjjK3zT0HF/s1600/100_0728.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCuGVJJNhi9JZT34zYjb8O4cp6_KWnBTyWI3tBiNZLcnPcrW65Od_8SpMQ838M12NbOc6eYrkGY2BEhnx6hK2E2IcsJoCqIJPwKcVu5L2nMBlkz4BXOEhXjHlaTXYaIVKSCgfjjK3zT0HF/s1600/100_0728.JPG" height="217" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bernie and Lynne, wedding photo. Really. May 18, 1963.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Running on Awkward<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Yesterday afternoon, in and out of
rainstorms, Miss O’ turned to YouTube to watch once again the marvelous <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSAMYpCSuJc">BBC production of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rebecca,</i> 1979</a>, a series that seems
not to have found its way to DVD because of internal lawsuits, I read; and
terrific as the Hitchcock movie of 1940 is, its cheat on too many key plot points
diminishes the story substantially, so this version is more faithful, and, thus, more substantial. What
draws me to the story of “I” deWinter has much to do with the one word that
drove my mom, Lynne, nuts when reading the novel itself: the idea of feeling
“gauche.” My mom, sturdy Midwesterner and individualist that she is, has no
truck with inferiority complexes, while her daughter, Miss O’, was a pro at
feeling awkward most of her life. What I mean by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gauche">gauche</a></i>—because
it’s not the dictionary definition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">crude</i>—is
feeling a desperate need to RUN from social situations, away from party
invitations, or even out of a shop, my job, or other public circumstance—any situation that causes me to feel
awkward, lonely, unsure of myself; it’s a feeling I had to conquer so often in
my youth, that in middle age I enjoy feeling more or less astounded that I no
longer experience this. Today I am comfortable walking into any bar, or sitting at a lunch
counter, or entering a party of strangers; and I owe almost all of this growth to moving to New
York City at age 39, and going it alone, with the help of some very good (and hardly ever gauche) friends.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Southward, HO!(ME)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
On Sunday May 4, for the week
leading up to her 50<sup>th</sup> birthday and Mother’s Day, your Miss O’ took
the Amtrak to her home “town” of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodbridge,_Virginia">Woodbridge, VA</a>—a
sprawling mailing address for a certain section of Prince William County around
the Occoquan River and Potomac River basin. All through my growing up, my mom,
Lynne, denied we were anywhere near the Potomac River, despite its presence
right down the road from us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite
being a scientific person, Mom O’ was not without personal prejudices, and to her,
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Missouri </i>was a river; the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mississippi </i>was a river. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That bay down there?</i> Please. And the
Occoquan? A large creek, at best. Lynne has always had standards.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
What Lynne also used to have—and
Miss O’ cannot help recalling this whenever she is home, because somehow the
house has seemed empty without it since around 1978—was an unquenchable cigarette
habit to the tune of three packs a day, and a fourth pack opened before she
went to bed. (These numbers come from my dad, Bernie, who quit his own
cigarette habit when my brother, Pat, was born in 1966.) My earliest memory,
perhaps (and I started thinking about my earliest memories while rereading
Virginia Woolf’s only memoir, “A Sketch of the Past”), is watching the curling
blue smoke swirls in the shafts of light coming through the half-basement
living room window every morning. As far as early memories go, I don’t recall
that room ever being lit except by the window and the television set (and the tip of a Salem), so blue
light in black air is what stands out to me, even now. And the smoke. As my
memories grow through elementary school, I recall lots of light in that room from an
assortment of lamps, one bought with Green Stamps that my brother Pat still has
today. Somehow, though, I think memory might as well start with a blue menthol
haze, since that’s about all memory is, anyway. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCoMYSJouzukXNqHvk-hM-OaEV9DIdvjbcOzgcx0Lep4usPxROaS7AQahKUOnBOoVPEM1xVT_sToj6v7U_R51rL-QPeifhpPkpP4kPsLQ4YjaoSqxuQrHW-p5dJxwCSbY8lAfvP0ModWp7/s1600/IMG_1320.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCoMYSJouzukXNqHvk-hM-OaEV9DIdvjbcOzgcx0Lep4usPxROaS7AQahKUOnBOoVPEM1xVT_sToj6v7U_R51rL-QPeifhpPkpP4kPsLQ4YjaoSqxuQrHW-p5dJxwCSbY8lAfvP0ModWp7/s1600/IMG_1320.jpg" height="320" width="174" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beer and smokes, Christmas ca. 1970, in Polaroid. <br />
(Don't tell Lynne about this. )</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
There’s something symbolic that
emerges, too, in little Miss O’s first act every morning of her childhood,
smothered as she was in Salem smoke. “What are you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doing</i>?” asked Mom when I’d open the front door of the split-foyer
(seriously—how did any architect think THAT was a good idea?) as I came
downstairs each morning, thus letting out the heat, or the air-conditioning. I
never explained, but I can tell you now: BREATHING.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Hazy Shade of Menthol<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
On this visit home, there was no
smoke except from brother Jeff’s hourly cigarette, out back on the pea gravel
patio. I took a photo of my parents and brother in the living room, now inhabited
for 50 years as of June. Here’s a little photo trip down decorating memory
lane, the living room of the O'Home:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8_dx_qtIX7QN3X6yWHYoc4J7odzYLRUlFBBCfiyQ3HU0R_nPNQd7c6k15sPShk62-y6u75KpGsN-GEYihjh8CXFqNmQl4jKkmkwlhpzOBLO5Doh-9iVx82nl7FTr_0Y5fKOo0r1ikGRji/s1600/IMG_1419.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8_dx_qtIX7QN3X6yWHYoc4J7odzYLRUlFBBCfiyQ3HU0R_nPNQd7c6k15sPShk62-y6u75KpGsN-GEYihjh8CXFqNmQl4jKkmkwlhpzOBLO5Doh-9iVx82nl7FTr_0Y5fKOo0r1ikGRji/s1600/IMG_1419.jpg" height="261" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The living room and Miss O', ca. 1965.<br />
Note the bookcase.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitZdfUJIPwwHomkRQF0m-K3ZkPnFmZRtnlREKEtnri2l5Li_OqeqdEsYD-8tx6Z8tDHGKz7sK41cowyTKZUWSfLush64KqgWOq_WjZcbZIbFV7mpGMZ4oTh_ZwIo4IYCILWlFLz1STY-d1/s1600/IMG_1422.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitZdfUJIPwwHomkRQF0m-K3ZkPnFmZRtnlREKEtnri2l5Li_OqeqdEsYD-8tx6Z8tDHGKz7sK41cowyTKZUWSfLush64KqgWOq_WjZcbZIbFV7mpGMZ4oTh_ZwIo4IYCILWlFLz1STY-d1/s1600/IMG_1422.jpg" height="230" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The same living room (and same bookcase), with dog, Christmas ca. 1975.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJMocuydWsG44ZYslrWPUS_xVtJbw-iMS3j1XHBfA2l-4U7E9L-t_pjBZ26t8-dUQrpNy8-UK_M3X-jCifYyWYQ0hC0SiuXWpmqMM8y9MH3fkyBFL8cSeo5aLNwdq3b9An36stO6dzNFAW/s1600/IMG_1396.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJMocuydWsG44ZYslrWPUS_xVtJbw-iMS3j1XHBfA2l-4U7E9L-t_pjBZ26t8-dUQrpNy8-UK_M3X-jCifYyWYQ0hC0SiuXWpmqMM8y9MH3fkyBFL8cSeo5aLNwdq3b9An36stO6dzNFAW/s1600/IMG_1396.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The living room (and bookcase) in May of 2014. Fifty years!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Bernie and Lynne built a good life
for us kids, our family. Has life been the big, juicy experience that every
self-help guru tells us we ought to have? If our days pass in the ordinary way
of coffee, news, working in a garden, doing work, keeping up with each other
through a bi-weekly phone call, some decent meals, a bag of Doritos, a beer, a
good night’s rest—does that mean one shouldn’t live at all? This is what I’m
thinking of at 50. That, and my gratitude for orthodontics.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTztLzzVGRlTHrhZgvWzdrXGxUzmzLmvicp0Zky_t2jUgNo-aZPTvtO0JPoJ5hFhkjrkGNyyhysDT0b8K_z1Y3D9NZJx81NVqWxdcJB57dOevmHFITbbCpzcGjKkmqY670f7JjFD1g35Zt/s1600/LOH_50.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTztLzzVGRlTHrhZgvWzdrXGxUzmzLmvicp0Zky_t2jUgNo-aZPTvtO0JPoJ5hFhkjrkGNyyhysDT0b8K_z1Y3D9NZJx81NVqWxdcJB57dOevmHFITbbCpzcGjKkmqY670f7JjFD1g35Zt/s1600/LOH_50.png" height="320" width="255" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miss O' at 50, photo by Jeff O', May 10, 2014.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Turning 50 with Friends: Photos</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbMhQosPASoJH94XrKk7jiasDQg50sTN12CpbBfw6W9Xtrf40Rf8K266Z2jmBXtzE_Hmk1qHcYi8LgTXMUeYFDwzvE8C2DUsjaxL_StqcnjqbSy66LFOChwF9FqigcfvgXyvscDtLFVyOz/s1600/IMG_1390.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbMhQosPASoJH94XrKk7jiasDQg50sTN12CpbBfw6W9Xtrf40Rf8K266Z2jmBXtzE_Hmk1qHcYi8LgTXMUeYFDwzvE8C2DUsjaxL_StqcnjqbSy66LFOChwF9FqigcfvgXyvscDtLFVyOz/s1600/IMG_1390.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Friends Mark and husband Joe stand on the porch of Prescott House, <br />
Old Town Manassas,<br />
the house that friends Kerry and Hugh literally re-built, saving a landmark.<br />
That's what being 50 is all about.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b><br /></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrVaVbROPBBJiIhHrXAqsfOA3R-vn4sCy2_BVXQAUnQWvYI4l1FwD-Gfagl_HJ2Loi3XyZXd2J_EALodWeV0BbgBnugRN0_qe8RpUXZ4aL3T8UeoHSEp8fWKkQZeMVj-OVo-KgYhvRbWit/s1600/IMG_1392.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrVaVbROPBBJiIhHrXAqsfOA3R-vn4sCy2_BVXQAUnQWvYI4l1FwD-Gfagl_HJ2Loi3XyZXd2J_EALodWeV0BbgBnugRN0_qe8RpUXZ4aL3T8UeoHSEp8fWKkQZeMVj-OVo-KgYhvRbWit/s1600/IMG_1392.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Erich, Miss O', Mark, Kerry (our hostess), and Ana.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj977aXKK9MDHFITGg6XdNuyKC65TH-60CyvViCjgudwjxgfRByeZS3Cqzb5obXYkzjuZny9FUXL24wqTBzb3HEsiYLjIgzRhGoBUBYXci-DrDOEBlVIFI8JrZhDhmIERKhmsXLMs4e5_EL/s1600/IMG_1377.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj977aXKK9MDHFITGg6XdNuyKC65TH-60CyvViCjgudwjxgfRByeZS3Cqzb5obXYkzjuZny9FUXL24wqTBzb3HEsiYLjIgzRhGoBUBYXci-DrDOEBlVIFI8JrZhDhmIERKhmsXLMs4e5_EL/s1600/IMG_1377.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've been friends with Mark Robinson since third grade.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</b></div>
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Thanks for all the treats, the stories, the unexpected <i>glamour</i> of my old home county, there in the county seat, where the Civil War began, for you history buffs out there. We build, tear down, restore. Why the destruction in the first place? This is the question of 50. And the joy of 50? I am happy to walk into any party where people are happy to be there.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So Shiny<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Back in Queens: There in the schoolyard, my eye caught a glint of tipping metal, heard the tinny crash. Why do kids run away from something
they did, like tipping over the garbage can at the park the other day? I
watched the little boy as I passed the chain link fence. He’d inadvertently
tipped the trashcan, and rather than set it right, which would have been easy
to do, he ran into a group, as if from a crime. And I got thinking about
fear—how easy it is to run from everything scary or uncomfortable; how quickly
we give up on dreams, on ideas, on taking action to make the just, the good,
the impossible come into being. Let the OTHER guys do it—make the decisions,
call up the troops, fight the wars, build the innovations, or put right the
garbage can. (Me? Shit, I just buy a bottle of bourbon, a scratch ticket, pull out a deck
of cards, and wait for the Big One—the Four Horsemen, or the last crumbling
sheet of Arctic ice—to take us all down.) Somehow I know there is more to living, and yet wonder what is enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
My love, H (who just stopped by for tea and talk, en route to a nap), has been regretting lately that we didn’t meet 30 years ago. He’s sure that if we had, we would have run
the country by now—“four years, fix everything, and out, no reelections”—with
me as president, him as Joe Biden. Then we could spend <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">now </i>being retired happily in Istanbul, relaxing into our mornings
in sidewalk cafes, sipping Turkish coffee; lolling through our days wandering the city; winding down our
evenings at other cafes, sipping red wine. We dream. He looks at my hair, touches my still-smooth face. “So shiny,” he says. How long do I have to enjoy such sweet attentions? Who knows? We wonder about the future. “Whatever in it is,” he
philosophizes in his own brand of English in that wonderful Albanian accent,
“we will do it together.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHkbydir6qyJga6FRY3zz1UwKU5LQynIzhl17kaQaHn3HnVxjZimvzLYef0JoXV2eZc4XqV4nUp1G5DJgxocFoZ24cB0Gf9HXLTk0R_wIVaQ28dIXxbnY1B-ok2wwHo1MSIRermLtlVRDq/s1600/IMG_1221.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHkbydir6qyJga6FRY3zz1UwKU5LQynIzhl17kaQaHn3HnVxjZimvzLYef0JoXV2eZc4XqV4nUp1G5DJgxocFoZ24cB0Gf9HXLTk0R_wIVaQ28dIXxbnY1B-ok2wwHo1MSIRermLtlVRDq/s1600/IMG_1221.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bernie and Lynne in the garden they made over 50 years together.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
This edition of the Memorial Day
Blog, 2014, is dedicated to the ordinary life, the one that involves loving
people, gathering in living rooms, sipping an assortment of beverages during days in all kinds of weather and landscapes, looking at the sun, the
stars, the moon, or maybe ceiling tiles, or corrugated metal. Why we can’t all get together on the basics of being human is beyond my
understanding. Religions, greed, pathologies, violence, stupidity—today I turn a blind
eye to all the idiocies, and instead sip Barry’s Tea (bought at my
neighborhood Irish Butcher Block) in a bone china cup I bought in Stratford-on-Avon
when traveling with my friend Anna back in 1992. (Anna, who is now 60 and as aware of the world as it is possible to be and still be alive and employed and in love, just wrote to ask what I am dreaming out for my future; <i>that</i> is friendship.) I listen to the kids playing handball on a court here
in Queens. I like this old chair I'm sitting in. Today, I don't feel like fixing a goddamned thing. Some days just have to roll like that.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix8T_1GUrGyC3uIYkoqbL3Of63nLlRYG_Z7IHmKiEC_tlW0DmGegfiBYSmxg1_F6vsUdsrky1ZW16OEvg3AEVU5g0KYhyeQUmT9qDih7HQZe9VQmY-kLekq13jtibPrJBWwdDBNd8Yptbt/s1600/IMG_1465.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix8T_1GUrGyC3uIYkoqbL3Of63nLlRYG_Z7IHmKiEC_tlW0DmGegfiBYSmxg1_F6vsUdsrky1ZW16OEvg3AEVU5g0KYhyeQUmT9qDih7HQZe9VQmY-kLekq13jtibPrJBWwdDBNd8Yptbt/s1600/IMG_1465.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Symbolic assortment on the Queens apartment kitchen counter:<br />
tea cup from England, 1992; tea pot from New York, 2012; <br />
Christmas cosy from brothers some 30 years ago in Virginia.</td></tr>
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Dedicated to the memory of all the ancestors, in all the various living rooms, whatever their plights and sacrifices and joys and sorrows and poverties. And whatever in it accents they happened to have.</div>
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With love,</div>
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Miss O'</div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Onward: View from little porch, Queens, 2014.</td></tr>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-83845945520983144682014-04-27T11:37:00.001-07:002014-04-30T04:14:28.584-07:00Miss O’ Saves the World<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="line-height: 115%;">Of Superpowers and Men</b></div>
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One evening here in the O’Kitchen
in Queens, I sat with my sweet Montenegrin boyfriend, H (who has always to be
described as Montenegrin so you can imagine all his dialogue with a wonderful
accent), and he said of turning 60, “What I would like to do, and I know this
sounds crazy, I would like to go to Washington, and somehow be sent around the
world to do good, like Bill Clinton.” While H understands the fantastical
element of this desire—not least because, as an officer in the communist
Yugoslavian military until he escaped around 1980, he knows just how corrupt
and nefarious the world can be (don’t get him started on Putin and “the KGB
communist bullshit that is still happening, trust me”)—there is also in him a
purity of heart that he cannot help expressing, like a little boy or girl who
wants to play at being a giant (or, in the case of my friends Richard and
John’s four-year-old twins Annie and Charlie, over Easter weekend, asking their
Aunt Weezie—that’s me—to play at scaring the fairytale child-victims in Annie’s invented <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Witch Game</i> all the time, which involves
the witch, Miss O’, stooping a little and saying, “I’m gonna get you!” before
chasing them around the backyard; I was, as other middle-aged relations might imagine,
ever so grateful when Papa Richard emerged from the kitchen back door to put out lawn
chairs and hand me a bourbon just before I spent the last of my wind). <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMen1bAMMlFPb0K29X2EERPsKbG7svinzJYkxYNYeWglrNYGgpoC9mWHp-0yK1LrIDCGDLVQWhqggWl8YYoCrzfw43DF3uTFNuo_wY2dZ260zU1QLaIF1hE626E2kjcRpMZ9veFW4Otzr/s1600/IMG_1164.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMen1bAMMlFPb0K29X2EERPsKbG7svinzJYkxYNYeWglrNYGgpoC9mWHp-0yK1LrIDCGDLVQWhqggWl8YYoCrzfw43DF3uTFNuo_wY2dZ260zU1QLaIF1hE626E2kjcRpMZ9veFW4Otzr/s1600/IMG_1164.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><i>Miss O', Annie, and Charlie, spring 2014, reacting to being.</i></td></tr>
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When my nephew Cullen was four
years old, his dad, my brother Pat, discovered him wearing his new “Ben Ten” watch
(<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ben Ten</i> is a cartoon show featuring
a ten-year-old superhero, Ben, who has this watch that lets him do stuff, but
having not seen this show, Miss O’ can only imagine that he catches bad guys in
a super cool way) and jumping off the couch repeatedly (so I guess Ben can
fly). Seeing his determination and, eventually, frustration, Pat asked, “What
are you doing, buddy?” Cullen asked, sincerely, “Daddy, when do I get my
superpowers?” Pat looked at him and tried not to laugh, because it was so
sweet, and somehow found the presence of mind not to ruin his dreams: “Well,
buddy, you know Ben is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ten</i>. You’re
only four.” Cullen looked at him, and the understanding dawned, and another
child’s innocence was saved for a far more brutal awakening to come, on a playground,
no doubt—and sooner rather than later, this being America the Diminishing Superpower and Land of Increasingly Stupid in 2014. God bless freedom, and get ready for the Russian invasion!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In America, Money is a Superpower<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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…and it’s far too often not used
for “good.” (Just ask the United States Supreme Court, <a href="http://theweek.com/article/index/259391/speedreads-watch-the-daily-show-rip-apart-the-supreme-courts-money-equals-speech-logic">the right-wing majority of five declaring <i>Money</i> = <i>Speech</i></a>.) Smart people know that money isn't remotely everything (and it's especially not <i>speech</i>), but my dad, Bernie, likes to imagine winning $250 million in the
lottery. Say $300 million. Really, who doesn't? “First,” he explains, “I’d clear, what, say $150
million. A little more, but just say 150. Then I’d divide it evenly, all you six kids, and then us. Seven
ways….” This is exactly what H says. And what I say, too. We all plan this way; and
after we’ve shared this wealth, we’d try to figure out the best way to use our portion for good. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that none of us will ever see
anything like a fortune. It seems only the greedy and squandering win lotteries,
according to that episode of <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/329/nice-work-if-you-can-get-it">This American Life</a>. Sane people don’t win, or else
all that money destroys sanity and all the best-laid schemes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When Do We Get Our Superpowers? And What Are They?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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“Wonder-Twin Powers, activate!”
they cried. Of all the Saturday cartoon Super Friends, this brother and sister
team was, let’s face it, the least cool. “Shape of…a lion!” said the male twin,
whose power was to become any mammal. “Form of…a wave!” said the female twin
who could morph into water in all its states. Whatev. But it really does make
you think about what superpower you would have if you could have any extra
gift. And if you had that gift, whatever the fuck it was, what exactly would
you do with it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Your Miss O’ has never been
comfortable asking for anything. One wants good things to be, I don’t know, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fated to be</i>, serendipitous, and also
unexpected. I think this is partly because we love excitement and mystery, but
mostly because we are terrified of taking responsibility. What is it that Uncle
Ben tells nephew Peter Parker? “With great power comes great responsibility.” (What about talent? People so often accuse gifted people of “squandering their talents,” of not
living up to their promise, etc. I don’t know why people would think that this
is their call to make about another human being. I’m not sure it’s even our
call to make about ourselves. But I'd say that when talent crosses over into money and fame, it assumes power; and then, well, look out for the critics.) So few seem to have any power, but maybe it's because we perceive power through the narrow, shiny lens of "fame."<o:p></o:p></div>
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When H shakes his head about all he
didn’t do, I can only touch his face and think of the four children he raised; his
daughter the nurse who saved a baby; his own ocean dive a few summers back to
save a six-year-old girl carried out to sea by waves; and all the hundreds and hundreds
of tenants in dozens of New York City buildings who owe their working faucets and light
fixtures, their clean lobby floors and snow-free sidewalks, and a sweeter day
for his smile and joke (and the building managers who owe their working boilers and repairs done to code—just to name a few)—to this once-illegal immigrant<span style="line-height: 115%;">. H assumes I must have done some good
for the world because I was a teacher. But here’s the truth: We have no fucking
idea what we do, what we mean, how we matter, why we meet people whenever we
meet them, why we are standing in that place. We don’t know what our purpose
is, our good is, our bad is; we can only reflect. And failing reflection, we
can drink.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Possibly the best closing sentence of any novel I’ve read
is the one from George Eliot’s wonderful novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Middlemarch, </i>and it more or less sums up the best-case scenario of what we can hope for: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">“But the effect of her
being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of
the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so
ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who
lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I guess I’m writing about all this
cheerful shit today because your Miss O’ is about to turn 50. H, as I say, is 60. Lots of
friends are hitting new benchmarks and shifting decades, and yet to my mind the Earth isn’t
getting any the better for humans having inhabited it (and dear GOD the baby boom I keep witnessing on Facebook isn't helping). More and more I can’t
help but feel a bit like a poison, more toxic than useful on this planet, just
for having any carbon footprint at all. H has been feeling melancholy, though for different reasons: because
we only just found one another when clearly we should have been together for
the past 30 years; and because he’s not able to get on planes and race around saving
the world, whatever that would entail, exactly; and we’re not getting any
younger (which, when you think about it, would be an awesome superpower).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O’, though, is not melancholy;
Miss O’ is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">FREAKED OUT</i>. More and
more every single goddamned day, I am made to be fucking terrified and disgusted
and outraged at too many humans’, and our media’s, cavalier treatment of issues
of merit and lives deserving of dignity. I lose my MIND. I have no superpowers,
only the power of (what's left of) my mind and my fast-tapping fingers to try to be of any use on
this Earth. And frankly I've begun to feel sort of, I don't know,<i> silly</i>. Or is it <i>lame</i>? or <i>pointless</i>? or just plain <i>powerless</i>?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">On the Title of Today’s Post<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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A few weeks ago, my friend Hugh
called me at work to talk about a project, and we started talking about our
blogs. An agent told him that every blogger should be able to explain what his
or her blog is about in one sentence. Hugh admitted he couldn’t quite do that,
and I said, “Oh, for me that’s easy: Miss O’ Saves the World.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is nothing I’d really thought
about before, but like my sweet H up there, I guess I have this great big huge
desire to rally the troops and zoom all over and harness our energies to work
together for peace, love, understanding, renewable energy, more dancing,
universal health care that never involves profiting on the illnesses of others,
reasonable gun laws, human rights, pure non-GMO food, sustainable living, far more
parties that include live music (oh, and how about <i>no racism,</i> Clippers massa, er, owner: not even <i>Magic Johnson</i>? Really?), and if I had an ideal world, no borders, but that's way out there for today. And the imprisonments of Dick Cheney, who is
somehow still talking out loud; and George Bush, who can now decorate his cell
with all that “artwork”. That I am probably not accomplishing any of this does
not prevent me from trying my damnedest. Money, fame: Once you let go of the
childhood dream of being bad, nationwide, and larger-than-life on the cover of <i>People</i>, you start to distill that desire
into what really matters, and it ain’t money and fame (though, c’mon, a<i> little </i>extra money wouldn’t hurt, would
it, Lotto Angel?). You’d think by now that, confronted by the scope of my
failure, the limitations of whatever talents I possess, and the prospect of
undignified old age to come, that I’d just find a nice porch somewhere, get a
big box of wine and a straw, and maybe spend my waking hours waving to the
neighbors while holding hands with H until we rock ourselves through the
floorboards. Somehow, though, I keep trying to do stuff. And for all his aching parts, H does, too. So do my poor, un-famous friends. We just can't seem to help ourselves.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAC6Rw1Wzi0c2PhrhdgINUWdN7jUH67p9cSkdOHeOz_ZsdA4lW30e53dNFBTdNdcyJGyfXYA0QvZ0lO0X7BAghZVGG2zP-HznICnr-5d11h86YsSizCz8FSYBtLolkzTeNV_epPypNF7Q-/s1600/IMG_1177+-+Version+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAC6Rw1Wzi0c2PhrhdgINUWdN7jUH67p9cSkdOHeOz_ZsdA4lW30e53dNFBTdNdcyJGyfXYA0QvZ0lO0X7BAghZVGG2zP-HznICnr-5d11h86YsSizCz8FSYBtLolkzTeNV_epPypNF7Q-/s1600/IMG_1177+-+Version+2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Artist <a href="http://www.jodichamberlain.com/">Jodi Chamberlain</a> shared her latest storyboard for her socially-conscious, yet also witty and action-packed animations, flanked by your <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Easier-Live-Here-Miss-York-ebook/dp/B00AJLW7Z6">Miss O' </a>and assorted actors for the script-reading: journalist <a href="http://johneischeid.com/">John Eischeid</a>, artist <a href="http://pedrosrule.blogspot.com/">Sylvia Baber</a>, singer<a href="http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/music/trinity-choir"> Luthien Brackett</a>, actor <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrPAhEHNO-A">Ryan Duncan</a>, and artist <a href="http://www.untitledfables.com/">Lisa DiPetto</a>, <br />just yesterday in Queens.<br />We encourage each other, and what else is there? <br />Oh, yeah: my mom's meat sauce on the rigatoni, of course. And wine.</b></td></tr>
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It’s the end of April, when the
buds come out, the cold lingers a little too long (or depending on where you are, not long enough), and we
just start wondering what the fuck it’s all about. I guess. And for all my two
score years and ten (Ben Ten!), thus far, that need for self-reflection doesn’t seem to diminish.
Am I using my powers, however limited, for good, or for evil? Do I have any talents? Am I
squandering my talents, if I have them? And is love really the answer? And who
shot the sheriff?<o:p></o:p></div>
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What are you reflecting on this
April? What superpowers would you like to have, and how would you use them? Sometimes my hair feels like a superpower. (That's what H first fell in love with.) Last Saturday in the sunlight, as I sat sipping bourbon, Annie walked over and touched my hair. "Aunt Weezie, I love your hair. Can I mess it up?" And I said tenderly, "Go ahead, Annie, it won't look any different." She mushed it about. Then I asked, as we do to test children, "Annie, what color is my hair?" and she said, simply, "Gray!" Charlie walked over to join in the mussing of Aunt Weezie, and I asked, "Charlie, what color is my hair?" and he said, dramatically, "White! Like ice!" Papa Richard said from the grill, "They're obsessed with <i>Frozen</i>." I liked Charlie's answer. Here's to the power of icy love. And white Weezie super-hair.<br />
<br />
Right now, I think I’ll jump off a couch, take a rest from playing today's version of the Witch
Game, and brew me some tea. It’s all I feel good for, until the next thing comes along that I think to do. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Big love until sometime in May, and use your superpowers responsibly,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-75139371500754251802014-04-06T18:02:00.000-07:002014-04-07T12:25:51.235-07:00The Ascent of Man, Descending a Stair<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="line-height: 115%;">Generation Oh, Well</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqZAVAo9b_lBkTooPRqegd9W_xZp_m8kqiRD1_MoCROJeRIzGUWsh5BVk-llzLQEYnklA3ryBNTjprCu5fLGPaUW30KWg5TxYZsTJ_1Hh8z0AciLRBLxwjdEeIXz_og_MslQIILBCc1bPd/s1600/3_4_2014_FOTD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqZAVAo9b_lBkTooPRqegd9W_xZp_m8kqiRD1_MoCROJeRIzGUWsh5BVk-llzLQEYnklA3ryBNTjprCu5fLGPaUW30KWg5TxYZsTJ_1Hh8z0AciLRBLxwjdEeIXz_og_MslQIILBCc1bPd/s1600/3_4_2014_FOTD.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Google Images Find</td></tr>
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In her last episode, not to get
blogged down in the past, your Miss O’ mentioned her pet name for the people
whose new mantra is, “Good enough”: <i>Generation Oh, Well</i>. I’d like to develop
this a little more and talk about why it fucking pisses me off to have this
generation in anything like power, which group I’d say straddles the 20s to the 50s in age range. It’s not
about year of birth, I think, so much as culture of influence. To begin in my
own post-teaching life: I have actually heard of corporate leaders in the United
States of “Greatest Country in the World” America who say to their company
of employees, “Will we be the best? Maybe not. Will we make the most money? It
doesn’t matter. All we can do is try our best.” TRY our best? (Didn’t these
guys and gals watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star Wars</i>? Sing
it to me, Yoda: “Do or do not, there is no try.”) Lines like this put me in
mind of the elementary school my two sweet older nephews attended, where every child got
an A or a B, and they all got some kind of award on awards day. It puts me in
mind of Reality TV, where untalented and heretofore unknown people who like to
work out in gyms, get tans, and have sex in public become world magazine cover-worthy celebrities. I’m trying to imagine FDR and Churchill
giving similar rousing speeches to their respective nations at the start of
World War II: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Are you afraid? Fear
happens. Will we spill our blood? Maybe a little. Will we win the war? Maybe not. All we can do is try our best.</i> “We’ll
try” is the new corporate rallying cry. Their new strategy is “lead from the middle,” which is asinine, because you have to lead by LEADING (and so tell me why you are drawing a big salary again?)—<span style="line-height: 115%;">as opposed to
GROW from the middle, as President Obama would have the nation do, but his leadership is held in stranglehold by House Republicans. Who the fuck ARE we?</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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What do I do for a living again? I'm no longer an "editor." Copy
editing is gone as a profession, which is evident in every paper and magazine on online publication going. (I don't count this blog, because it's fucking free and done in my free time. My friend George always sends word of the most egregious typos, because he <i>cares.</i>) I do not think the demise of this profession is an accident, what with the rise of Generation Oh, Well not to lead the way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Meanwhile in America: A man who
raped his own children gets probation because he is rich and white, while <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/02/dupont-heir-homeless-mom-america-prison-bias">a
homeless mother goes to prison</a> for leaving her kids in her car while she
ran in for a job interview, because she is black and homeless. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Twenty children and six of their teachers were
gunned down, and there’s a new book about how President Obama went to comfort
the parents...huh. There’s a sale at Macy’s. The Supreme Court just gave away
elections to the highest bidder. Scored big in Candy Crush Saga. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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You’d be apathetic but that would
take too much attention off your iPhone.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So it goes. Oh, well.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This Week in Law: Money = Free Speech<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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As Jon Stewart and the cast of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Daily Show </i>stated so well this week
in their rebuttal to the right-wing of the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of
unlimited individual spending on the elections in this country: They were not
the <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/04/1289711/-MUST-SEE-Jon-Stewart-BLASTS-Supreme-Court-over-campaign-finance-ruling">FUNDing
fathers</a>. Nowhere in the First Amendment to <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html">the
U.S. Constitution</a> does it say <i>unlimited spending to buy elections</i>. But
don’t believe me:<br />
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<b><span style="color: #362f2f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Amendment I<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #362f2f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress
of grievances.</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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The same Republican Party that
celebrates the unlimited spending of personal money to fund public elections,
does not believe in the spending of public money for public works. This same
Republican Party that touts a “balanced budget” and spend as you go economics,
happily goes into debt to send soldiers to war, but will not spend a dime to
help the returning veterans, who mostly vote Republican, so they get what they
deserve, I guess. I had a right-wing kid on Facebook say that all a government
should do is never go into debt, which is like saying the only role of a parent
is never to go into debt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a
stupid notion of what authority should do in the public, or children’s, interest.
Spend all the wages on Disney World with nothing left over for food and
shelter? If there’s no debt, it’s fine by my Republican friends. I find this
odd. I find it CREEPY.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Oh, well.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">WTF, Humankind?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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So it was, with all this rattling
around her head, that Miss O’ went on a quest via YouTube to seek out the
origins of greed. I turned to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Bronowski">Jacob Bronowski</a>,
mathematician, biologist, author, inventor, historian, and survivor of WWI,
who moved to England from Poland in 1920. He was an astonishing <i>thinker</i>. He is also a fascinating guide in the history
of mankind via his 1973 television series <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22AUKtuUmcI&list=PLDDA585095AB40C58">The
Ascent of Man</a></b>, this linked to Episode 2, “The Harvest of the Seasons.” (England loves to have brilliant, unusual humans to host mind-blowing television, people like Bronowski and Karen Armstrong; and America only did that once, with Carl Sagan. Were there others?) This
episode did not disappoint, for here I learned that the cultivation of agriculture,
aided by plants that more or less tricked us into propagating them, caused man
to stop wandering and settle down. In turn, this cultivation created, for the
first time, a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">surplus.</i> Take that in: no more hand to mouth in the day to day. Herewith
a quick chain of events:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Surplus created nomadic wars on agrarian
societies. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Nomadic groups learning to ride horses thus <i>organized</i> these wars to steal surplus.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->War is not human instinct, but is actually
<i>organized theft</i>—“to take from the peasant that which agricultural surplus
accumulates.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Theft and war are not permanent states that can
be sustained—Genghis Khan and the Mongols conquered much, and when the Mongols conquered the Muslims, they stopped and became
Muslim.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The best contributions of the nomad are bringing
together all the cultures of the earth, and sending them out again to fertilize
the earth. (My love H remarked, “I know you aren’t supposed to, but I like
gypsies.”)<br />
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<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
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Episode 3 is called “The Grain in
the Stone”: All imagination begins by analyzing nature. (Michelangelo said
that.) What Miss O’ took from that was that when we disconnect from that—when
man presumes superiority to nature, imagining that nature must analyze him…well,
you get Republicans. Bronowski goes on to say that the world can only be
grasped by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">action</i>, not by
contemplation—the hand is more important than the eye, which is a fascinating notion coming from a <i>thinker </i>such as himself. The hand drives the
evolution of the brain—Man is the tool-making animal: “In the end, the march of
man is the refinement of the hand in action.” The most powerful drive in the
ascent of man is "the pleasure he takes in his own skill. He loves to do it, and he loves
to do it better." YES. Ideally, this is man at his best. (Case in point: Very busy building super and boyfriend H
showed up at my door on Friday night with a ceiling fan, a stepladder, a drill,
a faucet (for a later project), and a big smile. It was raining out. Without
blinking, I walked in my living room and moved the coffee table. Back in
October, H, looking up at the ceiling, asked, “You like that?” He pointed at the
ugly industrial ceiling fan and light horror show above. No, I said, it’s
hideous. “I get you a new one.” Then winter came. And now it’s spring. Here’s
what I got:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrNruuh-upf5eXNs3iPdrJS1ct9jRi74l1CpIcTDKb-Q2SR5aIgVNptmzL4G7mVygD75R6i7eWoeSbaLHdS3qhsSbWx6Eojy5QPJh2gxGqGpu9CyQ7edJCD54_Cwh8oWewI0v9jIckCN1W/s1600/IMG_1046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrNruuh-upf5eXNs3iPdrJS1ct9jRi74l1CpIcTDKb-Q2SR5aIgVNptmzL4G7mVygD75R6i7eWoeSbaLHdS3qhsSbWx6Eojy5QPJh2gxGqGpu9CyQ7edJCD54_Cwh8oWewI0v9jIckCN1W/s1600/IMG_1046.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The New Fan.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnAnsfeg1u0cutgtx-T1UXz0gfxw3QdHjYNy2JMIJ0vkp9y8C-99wUAy7c40zLL3P6-DgdRMkNvF1BjT4_dRte5HhyphenhyphenujmbPHDE4QGadh7EFmeiABmGsetQt44Wab3BcAGpCBVNpqmYZJP0/s1600/Old+fan.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnAnsfeg1u0cutgtx-T1UXz0gfxw3QdHjYNy2JMIJ0vkp9y8C-99wUAy7c40zLL3P6-DgdRMkNvF1BjT4_dRte5HhyphenhyphenujmbPHDE4QGadh7EFmeiABmGsetQt44Wab3BcAGpCBVNpqmYZJP0/s1600/Old+fan.png" height="238" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The OLD Fan. Ow.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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H joked and laughed the whole time
he did the work, and laid out other plans for later projects. I manned the circuit breaker, and pulled out my tool box when he was one screw short. (Don't say it.) We had fun. He <i>bounced</i>. I
feel this supports Bronowski to the core. And Miss O’ has long asserted that
good, meaningful, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">loved </i>work is more
fun than what is called “fun.”)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So where does this leave me, your
Miss O’, sitting here in the world of the right wing of fascist capitalists
taking over the earth and everything that’s in it, including all the lady
parts? Where is that in the "ascent of man"?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">All the Little Fillies in the Pasture<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Whatever the latest legislative
loser-fest against the skirts in the Texas statehouse, the male-dominated
Supreme Court, or the Republican-led House of Representatives in the good ole
U.S.A., you just cannot keep the little fillies down. There are too many grand
women who happily arise, go forth, and ram their four-inch heels into some
angry boss man’s tight ass. One such feminist icon is the just-in-the-nick-of-time
Gloria Steinem, who turned 80 years old recently. (I saw her once outside a
theater here in New York a few years back, and she was surprisingly tall, also
slender and gorgeous in a naturally aged way—and looked tough as nails. Really
a thrill.) My childhood television news screens and Washington <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Post </i>Style sections featured a lot of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ms. Magazine</i>’s Ms. Steinem, and I realized
this morning that I need to write to her while she is still alive and tell her
how grateful I am for all she has done to advance the rights of women in the United
States (and thus the world). It was a conversation the other night with my
Montenegrin boyfriend, H (a former captain in the Yugoslavian military) that
got me thinking about it. H asked me if I would help him write a thank-you note
to Bill Clinton, his personal hero, for his intervention in Bosnia. “I always
mean to write, to tell him. You write it with me?” he asked. Of course. (First H
wants to track down some letterhead with the Albanian flag. “I know a guy in up
in the Bronx there….”) And it got me thinking about all the people who do
public service to whom I am grateful; and the people to whom I am most grateful
are women who made my fabulous, liberated New York City life possible today in the
year of our Lord, 2014 (if you believe in “years” created by the Earth’s
revolution around the “Sun”).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Let’s meet Great-great grandma! <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cady_Stanton">Elizabeth Cady
Stanton</a> (1815-1902), a mother of five children, teamed up with single woman
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) in 1851, three years after the Seneca Falls
Convention for Women’s Rights in 1848. (Also speaking there was Sojourner Truth
(ca. 1797-1883), when she gave her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech.) The two
women first joined the Temperance Movement, but, fortunately for women, soon
realized that women’s rights were a hell of a lot more important than stopping
men from going on a drunk. Neither activist lived to see women get the vote, in 1920,
but there is much to be learned from their stories. Miss O’ encourages you to
read all about the Suffragettes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Why? Because I am getting OLD. Yes,
I am. Next month, Miss O’ turns 50. Half a century on Earth. Quite a thing. The
year I was born, 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed. In 1965, the Voting
Rights Act gave all adult citizens the right to vote for the first time in the
United States. In 1973, when I was 9 years old, the Supreme Court, in its
decision, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roe v. Wade</i>, gave women the <a href="http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/excerpt.asp?id=27">right to their own bodies</a>, legally, for the first time in history. (Abortion,
in fact, was not even an issue in this country, really, until around 1880, something that grew during the years after women began to fight for the right to vote in the United States. Prior to that,
abortion was a “private matter,” and even the Victorians didn’t pry into it. The year of women beginning to work for the vote, and the beginnings of elected
men meddling in abortion, is not, I think, merely a curious coincidence.) And
it’s been moving backwards ever since. I think, Vietnam notwithstanding, we’ll
look back, heralded by <i>The Ascent of Man</i>, on 1973 as the year that the world’s human civilization peaked. Exploration was
still possible. Animals roamed. Global warming could have been reversed. I shouldn’t regret. Oh, well. Right?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I hear too many disturbing things
from humans who really ought to know better: vigilante, I guess, “justice” with guns on
guns, white hats over black hats—money is “that’s the way the world works”—<span style="line-height: 115%;">Climate Deniers and God Believers who
contend that humans have no agency in how anything turns out…unless through a SCOTUS
decision in favor of big money, or Obamacare is repealed. Some days I want to say, "Oh, well. You win." I cannot seem to manage it. "Oh, well" sticks in my craw. Hard.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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What I’m getting at is the
difference between the causes of Human Tragedy v. the events of a Horror Movie: In a blog last summer, I
briefly discussed the Sophocles tragedy, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Antigone</i>,
with this question: Is Antigone <a href="http://www.themissoshow.com/2013/08/miss-os-summer-travelblogue-2013.html">the
victim or the agent</a> of her own tragedy? And before you run over to the bookshelf to reference your handy volume of Anouilh or the original Greek plays (<i>don't we all do that?</i>), let me tell you,<i> it's both</i>. And let’s be clear: If
you are only a victim of circumstance (that saw murderer, say), you are not in a tragedy, but a horror story. If you
have agency, and you have the will to make choices (and make lousy choices), you
have the potential to be in a tragedy. Even if you make great choices, you could
still see everything collapse around you, because of the choices of people
close to you—people you chose to be close to. Sometimes. It’s both, you see.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Women who do not fight for their
rights are agents as well as victims of their lives. Oh, well?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I contrast this idea of free
will—real choice, true agency— with the lure of insidious pyramid schemes like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Secret</i> (the book sold in the millions), Landmark Forum
(formerly EST), Amway, Herbalife, and all forms of American Corporate
Capitalism: “You create everything in your life”?—like rain, sinkholes,
hurricanes, a tractor trailer crashing into your car on I-95? You created your
lung cancer even if you never smoked a day in your life, have a vegan diet, and
exercise like a motherfucker? <o:p></o:p></div>
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And yet… “Earth will take care of
itself.” So which is it? <i>Oh, well? </i>What these schemes do is BLAME THE VICTIM. They make you into the agent of circumstances beyond your control. And those schemers are happy to tell you that for $500 per session, and make you believe it so hard that you come back and pay $1,000 more to learn how to change it. The funny thing is, they never tell you that part, the how to change it part. Because you can't. Right? Oh, well.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Those schemers have way too much power and influence right now—over women, over courts, over big money, over voting rights, over media—<span style="line-height: 115%;">so I listen to John Prine at lot: </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">That’s the way that the world goes ’round… </i><span style="line-height: 115%;">and I'm trying not to drink. A lot.</span></div>
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<b>Rich Lives, with Voices</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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But what more is there to life? There is much, much more. It's so fortunate to be reminded. Last Saturday, for instance, I spent a lovely
afternoon at a NYC bar with one of my wonderful Virginia Tech acting professors, Deborah Kinghorn (she
would go on to teach Jim Parsons, btw, which I find so fun to be able to tell you), who directed me in a show called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rich Lives: The Voices of American
Homemakers</i>. She took a “play” which had been adapted from a book that
celebrated the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the <a href="http://www.csrees.usda.gov/qlinks/extension.html">Extension Service</a> for farm women
in this country, and made it into a lovely show. (Miss O' played Woman from New Hampshire.) The stories we told, the songs we sang, told of the raw lives, grit, innovations, humorous episodes, and unspeakable tragedies of actual women who were interviewed for the book. My favorite line—the line that
cracked all of us up in the chronology of innovations that revolutionized lives
in farm communities, was this one: “Then came home tin can sealers.” It changed
canning forever, sure, but say it out loud. Every time Maureen, the narrator,
spoke it, we snorted. We couldn’t help it. Finally, Deby had had it. “Cut the
line,” she demanded. “This is ridiculous. Now keep going.” So when we did the
filmed dress rehearsal for archival purposes, Mo dutifully cut the line, and the performance was
perfect. But if you were in the house with the 3,000 women from all over the
country at Burrus Hall at Virginia Tech that August night to celebrate the
Extension Service’s 50<sup>th</sup> Anniversary and their rich lives, you would
have heard from the front row the gasp of an addled director/script doctor when
her cast smiled broadly—too broadly—at the promise of canning and sealing in tin at home.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I can still hear us singing…<br />
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<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Do you, or I, or anyone know<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How oats peas, beans, and barley grow?</i> <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I am always astounded to discover that
there are actually people who don’t know what barley is. Oh, well. No—fuck that. <i>Learn about BARLEY</i>. That miracle grain could save your starving family someday. (By the way, you can
find <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rich Lives</i> on VHS in <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/rich-lives/oclc/20033296">a library near
you</a>! I literally mean EVERY LIBRARY in America. In the tape, though, which
was filmed prior to the performance, you won’t get to hear Maureen’s famous
reading of that aforementioned line. We saved that for the live performance.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New York Morning<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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I try to hold onto my rich life. I
do have one. Your Miss O’ tries so very hard not to bury the joys of her own
New York life under the piles of Republican bullshit and American ignorance. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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My friend Hugh sent me this song
for Saturday, and bless him, worried as he was over all my Facebook worrying about the world. And because he knows how much I love New York. (H loves New York as much as I do, and that seems to be in the song, too.) Listen to it, won’t you? Let it play out the blog in my
brain, and yours. Everybody owns the great ideas.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqnIbueM5fE">“New York Morning” by Elbow</a>,
from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Takeoff and Landing of
Everything</i>, 2014<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>The first to pour a simple truth in words<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Binds the world in a feeling all familiar<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>'Cause everybody owns the great ideas<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>And it feels like there's a big one round the
corner<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>A tenner, up and out into New York<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>And oh, my giddy aunt, New York can talk<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>It's the modern road where folk are nice to
Yoko<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Every bone of rivet steel, each corner stone an
anchor<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Jenga jutts and rusty water tower,
pillar-posted sign<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Every painted lining battered, like a building
in this town<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Sings a life of proud endeavor and the best
that man can be<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Me, I see a city and I hear a million voices<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Planning, drilling, welding, carrying their
fingers to the nub<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Reaching down into the ground, stretching up
into the sky<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Why? Because they can, they did and do so you
and I could live together<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Oh my God, New York can talk<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Everybody owns the great ideas<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>And it feels like there's a big one round the
corner<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Oh my God, New York can talk<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Everybody owns the great ideas<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>And it feels like there's a big one round the
corner<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Oh my God, New York can talk<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Everybody owns the great ideas<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>And it feels like there's a big one round the
corner<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>The desire to part sure symphony<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>The desire like a distant storm<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>For love, be good for me<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>And it feels like there's a big one round the
corner<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Oh my God, New York, you talk<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Somewhere in all that talk is all the answers<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Everybody owns the greats ideas<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>And it feels like there's a big one round the
corner<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>The way the day begins<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>Decides the shade of everything<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>But the way it ends depends on if you're home<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>For every soul, a pillow at a window, please<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;"><i>In a modern room, where folk are nice to Yoko</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Fuck "oh, well." Here's to the big one around the corner. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Yours for love and Yoko,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-60933260377118645962014-03-15T14:24:00.000-07:002014-03-28T06:47:47.141-07:00Up to My Ides in March<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b style="line-height: 115%;">Beware the ides of March, I’m tellin’ ya.</b></div>
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When my boyfriend was a young man,
really still a boy, in communist Yugoslavia in the mid-1960s, he spent the
dull hours of never-ending school doodling naked ladies. He was very good at
it. One day, during a history lesson (or “history” lesson, this being
Yugoslavia), he had doodled a naked Marshal Tito (how to say this delicately?) butt-fucking a naked Leonid
Brezhnev, when his teacher noticed him not paying attention and walked to his
desk. What was he drawing? “I thought, oh, my god, this is it. I will be kicked
out,” said my love H, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(*Miss O’ will use
H</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in lieu of a name, because she’s
really trying to spare him public exposure, poor guy. –ed</i>) in his seductive
Montenegrin accent—he hated school, though, so part of him was almost hopeful.
“And my teacher pick it up. He didn’t say nothin’, but he keep lookin’ at it.
Finally, he said, ‘This is good. Can you make me one? But with clothes, uniforms?’”
And that night H went home and drew the picture his teacher had asked for. H’s
dad saw what he was drawing, and H explained why he was doing it. His dad
looked at it. “It’s good,” his dad said, finally, in one of those rare instances
of praise that people of our generation, and before, understand. And H delivered
the drawing to his teacher the next day. “I was thinkin’ lately if this man, if
he’s still alive, still has that picture.” H drew on a cigarette, smiled,
chuckled. It got your Miss O’ thinking about anal.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I kid!<o:p></o:p></div>
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It got me thinking about who I was
at, say, 14 or 15, and since this is a 15<sup>th</sup>, why not write about
that? It’s Saturday, March 15, 2014, warm going back to cold, and I’m not
exactly dying to get out of my pajamas or to stop drinking coffee. Kind of like
when I was a teen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Bordering at times on being a
little goody two shoes (which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Little_Goody_Two-Shoes">phrase
I just looked up</a>—who knew?) though hardly an angel, I wasn’t a kid who
really “got in trouble” in the regular sense. Your Miss O’ mostly got in
trouble for laughing (H was the same, he told me)—that was third grade, when
two kids who had been left back (for what would become obvious reasons), John
and Linda, realized they could tell Little Lisa jokes and she would fall out of
her desk in convulsions. Moving Little Lisa around on a room-wide tour of
desk-hopping did little to alleviate the problem. Why was a giggler like me forever
being placed in the midst of the “bad” kids? It occurs to me now that my
naturally cheerful and friendly ways were supposed to have a calming effect on
these very tough kids. Linda was a rock-hard bully and possibly
learning-disabled, certainly hyper; John was probably learning-disabled, but so
charming; each also had occasional fits of frightening temper that seemed to
come from nowhere—knowing what I know from teaching, I see that they doubtless
acted out partly to get the attention off their academics, much the way H did
by schoolroom doodling of his feminine ideal, or fucking dictators; and partly because they really
should have been outside running and jumping like mad things; or rather, like
children. I don’t know what I needed to be doing, but I really liked school.
Generally, I was just happy to be here.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Here Comes Trouble<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjliFCMzUJJEA53c9WKlsKj5MI4f7Ppdg-k8yq4hSrIEFZiFDr8YfXNNpFY9VSQDb-1pg4r5PdJeU1Z0_LG5hLZkfglEAjNC8HgnjC-_1CIzrTuzDXtD2mMwomkDuyW70dexK3DTHEoKxmw/s1600/IMG_1015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjliFCMzUJJEA53c9WKlsKj5MI4f7Ppdg-k8yq4hSrIEFZiFDr8YfXNNpFY9VSQDb-1pg4r5PdJeU1Z0_LG5hLZkfglEAjNC8HgnjC-_1CIzrTuzDXtD2mMwomkDuyW70dexK3DTHEoKxmw/s1600/IMG_1015.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miss O' aged 11, photo by back fence neighbor, Phil Christie, <br />
in what is most certainly March.<span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></td></tr>
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I can just about count on one hand
the other incidents of Trouble that I remember:<o:p></o:p></div>
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In second grade, I got in trouble
with Mrs. Angle, who turned 65 that year and had to retire. I’ve written about
her <a href="http://www.themissoshow.com/2011/03/more-tools-of-trade-reasonable.html">before</a>,
but I called her Mrs. Pills. I rolled my eyes a lot in second grade, began
questioning the purpose of, for example, tracing a butterfly pattern by pressing
paper and pencil against the window; wondering at the practice telling our
dreams after naptime when she only accused Miss O’ of “lying” in elaborate fantasies about going to Egypt with her classmates (well, <i>duh</i>); and marveling at
the old teacher's easy acceptance of wrongly-recited poetry lines from other students, but <i>not</i>
from Miss O’. Mrs. Angle screwed up her tiny blood-red lips at me all year
long, and while I was incapable of <i>loathing</i>, really, she made me feel quiet dread in her presence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In middle school, I remember
serving one detention after school, for running in the hallway. Mr. Dittman,
who was the Czar of No Running in the Hallways, caught me out. A math teacher
and former Marine with a geometrically precise haircut to match his background,
he’d chase running kids down the hall—running HIMSELF—as if chasing down an
enemy on the battlefield, willing to put even more kids in danger in the
process if needed, because <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a cause is a
cause, goddammit. </i>The day of my detention—I vaguely remember getting
written up en route to gym, running late because of a stuck locker, maybe—even
the teacher in charge felt sorry for me, as we waited until 4:15 (a full hour),
and I turned to staring out the window to fill the time after homework. Whoever
he was, he let me leave around quarter till—I’m sure he wanted to get home,
too, now that I think of it—but I could see in his face that he knew this was
ridiculous. Still, on a certain level I remember being impressed that no matter
how “good” a kid you were, the rules applied to all of us. If we didn’t all
share in the consequences, how would we learn? I was pretty philosophical even
at 12. (What was cool was discovering, while on the yearbook staff one Saturday in 8th grade, that our sponsors thought Mr. Dittman was kind of insane. We included a cartoon of a monster with his haircut, a paper under his foot with "Detention" on it, and a thought bubble, "There's a lot more where this came from." It was the first time I ever felt "in," if you know what I mean. And affirmed in my own, unarticulated take on that stern teacher. As an adult I wonder what horrors the man lived through, and marvel that he really was a good math teacher, whatever his volatility. I mean, this was MIDDLE SCHOOL, for the love of fucking dictators.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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In high school, I got in real
trouble with a teacher only once, I think: It was sophomore year, and my friend
Mark, during a quiet working moment in Mrs. Ayres’s English class, decided to
clean out his notebook. He threw onto my desk—two desks back—a few notes
wrapped up like those triangle “footballs” (remember playing paper football in
the cafeteria?). Note-passing being that most supreme of evils, even more heinous than
doodles of national leaders of boo-fooing, Mrs. Ayres was up and over to my
desk like a shot. (It was a ridiculously small classroom in a really
overcrowded high school, a makeshift formed from an old storage closet, so it
wasn’t like it was hard to get to me, even though 31 of us were crammed into
it.) (And it was in that same room one day that Dave Gutierrez huffed on his
lighter—everyone smoked then, even school athletes, and they could get a permit
from their parents to smoke in the bus tunnel downstairs, which seriously was
about the creepiest way imaginable to enter a school in the morning—and the
thing was to suck as much butane as you could to the top, click it, and see how
high the flame would go. Once when Mrs. Ayres was writing something on the
small portable chalkboard, her back turned, Dave, who’d been huffing it, as I
say, all period, waiting for his chance, clicked the lighter, shooting a flame
so high it singed the ceiling. It just as quickly stopped, but our collective
gasp caused our teacher to turn around. “What?” she asked. We froze. We said,
“Nothing” together; and as she turned she was sure she smelled something…but
Southern politeness, another word for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">denial</i>,
(achieved after rapid-fire thoughts of “What was that/ is it more trouble than
it’s worth/ is it worth calling a principal or a fire department/ god no it’s
nearly time for school to be out/ let me assign this homework”) allowed her to
return to the lesson at hand. Dave shook with swallowed laughter until the bell
mercifully rang a few minutes later.) Where was I? Oh, the NOTES. So Mrs. Ayres
took up the notes Mark had passed me and proceeded to read them. Just before
class ended, Mrs. Ayres called me out into the hallway. (I noticed she never
spoke to Mark, because, what, “boys will be boys"?)<o:p></o:p></div>
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The juvenile nature of the notes—a
back and forth from freshman year, satirizing various annoying classmates and
creating outlandish scenarios featuring their demise, or at least
incarceration—caused Mrs. Ayres to lose an enormous amount of respect for me.
“Lisa, frankly I thought you were more mature,” she intoned.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was all I could do not to burst
into sobs—I think I imagined that I might be arrested—but I made a decision to
see her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dignity</i> and raise her a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">queenly</i>: I stood very tall, met her eye directly,
played the part of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">older-but-wiser woman
of the world</i>, casually explaining in my finest stage “offhand” voice: “I
am. Now.” And I explained, “We wrote those last year. It’s what kids do,”
adding thoughtfully that Mark doubtless wanted to show me how far we’d come. Or
something like that. She was not terribly moved, but dismounted from her high
horse nonetheless. For all my grandstanding, the look of disappointment on her
face made an impression, and I never passed a note again. Well, not until years
later at faculty meetings when I was a teacher. (That’s right, kids: Miss O’
and Mr. CORBIN were famous for cracking each other up as the principal led us
in our professional monthlies.) I also thought hard about what it means to make
fun, and decided that making fun of peers was, indeed, a really immature way to do it. The irony
of this was that Mark and I were among the kindest kids you’d ever want to
know. But even kind kids like to take a step out of character, especially
freshman year. (Once, that same freshman year, when we had a substitute in
World History I, I took advantage of busy-work to craft a “To the Editor”
diatribe against student swearing in the hallways. I used my best William F.
Buckley style, closing with, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Goddammit,
I shouldn’t have to put up with this shit.”</i> I passed it back to Steve
Moore, who, after nodding approval, finally came to the final line and laughed
so hard I thought the sub would take the paper and have me suspended, but she
seemed glad to see a teenager <i>laughing</i>, a human thing. What did I learn? Getting away with funny stuff is awesome.) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Generation Oh, Well<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
When I was a teacher, before
someone lamely coined them Gen Y, I called them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Generation Oh, Well</i>. I remember coining it in the women’s
faculty restroom one lunchtime, as a veteran social studies teacher lamented
the lack of inquisitiveness of her students. “What do you call kids like this?
Generation Zero?” she asked, rhetorically. And I quipped, “Or Generation Oh,
Well.” She smiled and said, “That’s rather brilliant.” No, I thought, it’s a
cheap shot, but it was sort of prescient—all these young people today, eyes and
thumbs latched onto devices that promise informational access without real
context, and no particular aims to gain that context. Abortion outrage (in the midst of climate catastrophe), for example, among the 30-and-marrieds that I see on Facebook sends me into fits because of their lack of historical sense and context. (That we are even
debating abortion in 2014, for example, shows that no one remembers the history of the coat hanger and the back alley, the 20<sup>th</sup> century of
fear until Roe v. Wade. Access to abortion was private, I’ve read, until around
the time the women got the vote; surely that is not a coincidence.) This morning
I happened on this <a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/03/italo-calvino-on-abortion-and-the-meaning-of-life/">wonderful
article</a> by Maria Popova about the late writer Italo Calvino, one of my
favorites. In the close of a letter to a friend whose recent essay was (the
antithetically named) “pro-life,” Calvino (who has spent the letter denouncing
his friend’s anti-woman and anti-choice position, calling him <i>immoral</i>, in fact), writes, from love and kindness:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Times; font-size: 14.0pt; letter-spacing: -1.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">I am sorry that such a radical divergence of
opinion on these basic ethical questions has interrupted our friendship.</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Divergent opinions, in this case,
show the difference between thoughtfulness (Calvino) and reaction (his friend),
and I marvel at the infinite patience and yet firm stance Calvino maintains. He’s
able to become the woman—takes the experience from a point of view not his own, and it's what makes him a writer, after all; and that makes all the difference. Can this happen in a world where kids are
not looking up, looking out?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I am always sorry for anything that
interrupts a friendship, and yet I know, too, that it’s how we grow. Stupid growing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I Almost Lost to February<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
What I’m thinking about today, too,
is how much we have to fuck up to become who we are, how many wrong turns, how
much talking must be done to get any goddamn where in this life. Sure, we can
talk all we want about a road not taken, but we took a road, for one reason or
another, and we have to own it. But to own it, we have to talk about it,
wrestle with it, fling it out into the universe and see what it’s like when it
comes back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
H has evenings where all he can do
is brood over the roads not taken, the money not made, and chances he didn’t
take. Miss O’ has depressions. H wants to quit smoking; Miss O’ quit
drinking for an extended Lent. We’ll see how it goes, but in February it all
seemed to be going south. After a month of cold and snow and non-communication,
Miss O’ called H over to talk. Over tea and calm reflection on who we are and
where we’re going, H concluded, finally, “February was a shitty month. Lisa, we
had a shitty month.” H, we had a shitty month. And some months are like that,
we agreed. Love just doesn’t hold that loving feeling without mindfulness, and
so, although H, regrettably, forgets to wear his back brace each day on the job, or
occasionally Miss O’ breaks yet another toe and needs to remember to make a
buddy splint each morning, but might not remember at all—and even if today we
are more in love than before, as if that were possible, Miss O’ and her Mr. H
march into March clear-eyed that we have to, whatever else happens, talk at
least once every day if we are going to hang together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Our longest talks are about
religion, and the damage religion has done to so much of human thought. We aren't talking about the idea of awe about something larger than ourselves, but about institutions and the imposed strictures on behavior and thought. The
other night he told me this story: H has a Moslem name, and shortly after 9-11,
a tenant in his building (where H is the super) realized this, as for the first
time, though they'd known each other for years. He began treating H with contempt, walking past, glaring, or not looking at all, and H would respond by smiling, saying, “Hello, how
are you?” every single day. One day, the guy pulled a giant silver cross on a
heavy chain out from under his polo shirt and screamed at H, “Here is MY
religion,” and H gently pulled out his own chain, with globe amulet, even as he "wanted to smack the shit out of him," and said, “Here is
mine. Have a good day.” And to himself, "Dumbass. He didn't even know what it was."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCcWqlO-2K84gXPoIxPRxhOOGqoIap1pKQG11BOPhDQjmtQ6vAGjYLUCFXZCXYGw_W7rBjWahyphenhyphenUC9GkduZXmkmWbbkU2jLOpsyA8NvDk6Zcf88nELmajCLoVnXcpZ2xc5WNPQvlrXJCZVh/s1600/IMG_0952.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCcWqlO-2K84gXPoIxPRxhOOGqoIap1pKQG11BOPhDQjmtQ6vAGjYLUCFXZCXYGw_W7rBjWahyphenhyphenUC9GkduZXmkmWbbkU2jLOpsyA8NvDk6Zcf88nELmajCLoVnXcpZ2xc5WNPQvlrXJCZVh/s1600/IMG_0952.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The whole world in his hands.<br />
(Or as H puts it, "The whole entire global.")</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
This is the man I was meant to
love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s March.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
At Trinity Wall Street Church last
weekend, I went to hear a concert of Lamentations sung by their renowned choir,
of which a former student is a member. En route, I encountered a giant
confluence of Hassids. I always find homogeneous groups unnerving, but especially
when they are all of one religion. They don’t seem to see anyone beyond
themselves. They march together, past, into, away from the world, acknowledging only each
other. I see this among Jehovah’s Witnesses outside the big meeting hall on my street
in Queens. I see it among Youth Groups. And I see it among big business types,
for whom Money is their God. It really unsettles me, and so the music helped. I am
not unaware of the irony of stepping into a church to hear it. So I’m always
wrestling with religion—its historical significance, but mostly, the inspired
music notwithstanding, its terrible costs. And really scary fashion sense.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTWbukxFhfL5J7VWzLJcC2rW5xPvG-5RHQ_04PyfrNQQTvGNdylgy8437ycsmGasp5Qsx6zvt2yjMf33gjNsEOnc065Fm4eZk0tAwmkxo6iFVCyjGCGzqlg8TehmfTrPqqgKpY3iHSHK0V/s1600/IMG_0986.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTWbukxFhfL5J7VWzLJcC2rW5xPvG-5RHQ_04PyfrNQQTvGNdylgy8437ycsmGasp5Qsx6zvt2yjMf33gjNsEOnc065Fm4eZk0tAwmkxo6iFVCyjGCGzqlg8TehmfTrPqqgKpY3iHSHK0V/s1600/IMG_0986.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But…they use cell phones. And the subway. I don't get it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLAb3CHOvGeYf4UkvhtLPmwttm2ypODlKGJ289WrmNgL9rQzLGy9sXFcTMW_ocnwZ_Xt8suxIzEW2cFy9GmGfnV7j25uoYEF_ZBDrStHnD4qThFiT5Bv_x8NgU7Yn84Tu6WDSJAbkBP65l/s1600/IMG_0985.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLAb3CHOvGeYf4UkvhtLPmwttm2ypODlKGJ289WrmNgL9rQzLGy9sXFcTMW_ocnwZ_Xt8suxIzEW2cFy9GmGfnV7j25uoYEF_ZBDrStHnD4qThFiT5Bv_x8NgU7Yn84Tu6WDSJAbkBP65l/s1600/IMG_0985.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GKS9a4I_gYBmdBj-OlVyjaqerKlnBawcploRpKbKtyb9SS8chCUBH1ODuFaYezjlgJkktdoq8g2QaDYpy3t4iJu3M-5CA3IWOGjZOt97wMH4fz1x80AgVv8Fps3hE_e-cqNYClajlfGA/s1600/IMG_0984.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GKS9a4I_gYBmdBj-OlVyjaqerKlnBawcploRpKbKtyb9SS8chCUBH1ODuFaYezjlgJkktdoq8g2QaDYpy3t4iJu3M-5CA3IWOGjZOt97wMH4fz1x80AgVv8Fps3hE_e-cqNYClajlfGA/s1600/IMG_0984.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Last night, H and I stood on my
little porch—this sweet little boon of outdoor space I have in New York City,
poised though it is over the co-op’s trash alley—staring up at the sky, the
moon behind thin clouds, and marveling at how nice it was out, maybe 40, practically
balmy. “And tomorrow up to 54, I heard,” H says, and I say, “And on Sunday, 27
and snow.” H takes a drag off his cigarette, and says sagely and with a shrug,
“That’s March.” The more I think about March—it’s life, isn’t it? It’s
transition and upheaval, highs, lows, hope, despair: Seasonal shifts, marriage
and divorce, nailing the call-back or closing the show: And it seems that we only
call each other and look to each other at moments of enormous transition—transitions
are the key to everything—good theater, good growth. No news is good news…or
else it’s death. March 15 seems to be a day of big transition, seasonally, historically, and emotionally.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
If you don’t know “Fifteen,” the
theme from a cult movie called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The World,
the Flesh, and the Devil</i>, sung by the miracle of Harry Belafonte, let me tell
you it’s a honey on a song. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“At fifteen,
I saw her/ and thought her/ so beautiful I kissed her/ from a distance/ for my
young love was locked inside…”</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
can’t find it on iTunes, which is a shame, but it’s a pretty song about how we
see a love over time, as we change over time, in our youth. I got to humming
it, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The sweetest wine in the world is
the fruit on the vine,”</i> it begins, and closes, finally, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The fruit on the vine is mine.” </i>I don't feel that way a lot, growing older as I am, the vine withering the way it is. <span style="line-height: 115%;">Beware the ides of March, I tell myself; but, dammit, plan the garden anyway. What the hell? I'm going after the fruit on the vine. Maybe I'll fuck it up, but I won't say, "Oh, well, fuck it." You, too. Maybe someone will surprise you and ask for more of what you can offer, but wearing clothes this time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Love from among the doodles,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-55213334290317776752014-03-08T14:56:00.000-08:002014-03-10T06:22:08.300-07:00The Big Shrug, Along with Small Shakes of the Head<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXNd2D5W-he9sfovdB_IL6qoR_XUxJHNfiLuifNn4T4lBS4ZXAOxb5RZFyYZ2ECOg-rTkxvOKWqbIwT1rk7n8m0A-VZZPf7BDiqG5GQnisNBJ5cnY-mq_E_svEtgi0pfNi_9kkFpemviOp/s1600/617e_35.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXNd2D5W-he9sfovdB_IL6qoR_XUxJHNfiLuifNn4T4lBS4ZXAOxb5RZFyYZ2ECOg-rTkxvOKWqbIwT1rk7n8m0A-VZZPf7BDiqG5GQnisNBJ5cnY-mq_E_svEtgi0pfNi_9kkFpemviOp/s1600/617e_35.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(<i>This garment is in fact called a Shrug.</i>)</td></tr>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">Ø<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->When you are single, you begin to feel you must
always move for couples who cannot sit together on the subway—how bereft and
sad they can look, and I want to say, “I hope this is the longest you are ever
parted.” Even now when I am happily in love, I don’t move for them. Fuck their separate little asses. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW9ZeIKE2mOUyZZ_dWG_Y54jQ0hCIvOFjo40djS4wa-HVgoxI-dDUiZ8y5CinFxvk8WnpwQwq60H17clHWo2OJdu1kpDsS0m84U7lS4DOCzjy-jG20OQ80bIDDr1BsK58pz0JoF_XNHmc-/s1600/32960-Silver-tabby-shorthair-kitten-sitting-white-background+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW9ZeIKE2mOUyZZ_dWG_Y54jQ0hCIvOFjo40djS4wa-HVgoxI-dDUiZ8y5CinFxvk8WnpwQwq60H17clHWo2OJdu1kpDsS0m84U7lS4DOCzjy-jG20OQ80bIDDr1BsK58pz0JoF_XNHmc-/s1600/32960-Silver-tabby-shorthair-kitten-sitting-white-background+2.jpg" height="161" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miss O' sits her ground.</td></tr>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">Ø<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One man with courage makes a majority</i></b>,
especially a homeless man who has the courage of his body odor. If there is an
empty subway car, especially at rush hour, it’s empty <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for a reason</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When I am overcome by odors, especially perhaps, the stench
of unwashed flesh and, more frequently in the day-to-day in New York, stale
piss on pavement, John Steinbeck comes to mind. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cannery Row</i>, he writes, “The memory of odors is very rich.” Odor
comes up as a sensory detail in many of Steinbeck’s novels, and his calling our
attention to it is not incidental to his work. Steinbeck sniffed out seedy
underbellies of America; and even in the ugliest landscapes of human life,
always managed, without too much ceremony and keeping just to the side of
cliché, to turn over the most noxious patches and find, deep in what would seem
to be the most polluted soil, human love. To that man, on this mid-March day of
slight weatherly forgiveness in a continuing, unforgiving winter, I say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kudos</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzBVopMCJgXnphH1pLwSBY4gBtlOc9AeTH3Ezds2CtxCJjuxvZZrWb2LLgyHzl5mlds1YJ3d46xf_ELhf3kwxY_Ujc5AASYX-q7FvOQ4Y2CNP067LqYn2xr0z50EgUK6gGgt5znIaU6gW7/s1600/laughing-pigs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzBVopMCJgXnphH1pLwSBY4gBtlOc9AeTH3Ezds2CtxCJjuxvZZrWb2LLgyHzl5mlds1YJ3d46xf_ELhf3kwxY_Ujc5AASYX-q7FvOQ4Y2CNP067LqYn2xr0z50EgUK6gGgt5znIaU6gW7/s1600/laughing-pigs.jpg" height="132" width="200" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Handwriting - Dakota";">“One man with courage makes a
majority,”</span></b> said Andrew Jackson, or was it Woodrow Wilson, or in fact
NO one, depending on which misinformative site you go on; and yet it’s a thought for the day I used to put on my
chalkboard (found it in Bartlett’s, and they don’t lie, do they? except they do); a quote I
found myself alternately agreeing with (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gandhi</i>,
for instance) and disagreeing with (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Putin</i>,
say), depending on how one defines courage, on the one hand, and, on the other
hand, what that “courageous” leadership in fact spawns, and in how many, and to
what ends. And now I learn that <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jan/26/opinion/oe-feller26">no one can find the source of this tee-shirt-worthy quote</a>. What does that say about us as a species? My friend
Howard, who has been doing copious research for a new book on old Hollywood,
came across an extensive quote by the costume designer, Adrian (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wizard of Oz, </i>e.g.). Howard, who
researched Adrian for ten years for his first book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gowns by Adrian</i>, said to me, “I had never read that quote in all my
years of research. I was stunned! How had I missed this, you know? And so I go
to the endnotes, and you know where the quote came from? Howard Gutner, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gowns by Adrian</i>, page 22. The hell it did!
And no one checked! He must have just made it up.” We both find this trend
depressing. We are fond of facts. Is this nostalgic of us? When I think lately
about quotations—how much I love them, use them in my own thinking—I become
more and more saddened by the disappearance of copyediting as a profession. No
one checks facts, let alone typos, anymore. (Another friend from work, Frances,
saw a documentary about an art forger whose forgeries of masterworks or in the
style of the masters—many such works hanging in galleries undetected even
today—are considered by many critics to be superior to the originals. So what
is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">art</i>?) My job title, for example, is no longer
“senior editor,” but “academic designer,” not that anyone would know what that
was (even I don’t). And I become, as I say, nostalgic, which I’m not sure is
useful, and yet if it’s not useful, why do so many of us bum a ride on that nostalgia train?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbACJw1deCpbJQMpZ1n2rY2wLBGKHtRXNngYb7_7Tio-cRzYTF-ioX8-rADT4Rfohc3nERek1uroa7woLxAmo6vG0MBHgIPfmcTJkjQY2oeYb70Au5pP2_ckLXzJ4DYH7PlfxG3R32e2FD/s1600/Woodward+and+Lothrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbACJw1deCpbJQMpZ1n2rY2wLBGKHtRXNngYb7_7Tio-cRzYTF-ioX8-rADT4Rfohc3nERek1uroa7woLxAmo6vG0MBHgIPfmcTJkjQY2oeYb70Au5pP2_ckLXzJ4DYH7PlfxG3R32e2FD/s1600/Woodward+and+Lothrop.jpg" height="202" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">Ø<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Woodward and Lothrop sign in DC, seen from the
Amtrak train I was taking to Virginia from New York City—it got me thinking of
the signs of our youth, the brands you counted on, the feeling of security in that. The memory of advertised products is very rich.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8RpwqU7BPST0pYYVYqUnkmffGy9oNphwx89h4L8V1uDJCOGrZsS29YBLdkTxJ3zlA5XFchhqnuOiPF8iR1yFosBljfeOQLm8_MmK4ENe3xh2kg3tizhVJyOsF2I0cjO6LEt8sqUAyhbvv/s1600/photo13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8RpwqU7BPST0pYYVYqUnkmffGy9oNphwx89h4L8V1uDJCOGrZsS29YBLdkTxJ3zlA5XFchhqnuOiPF8iR1yFosBljfeOQLm8_MmK4ENe3xh2kg3tizhVJyOsF2I0cjO6LEt8sqUAyhbvv/s1600/photo13.jpg" height="125" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not Vivian Maier, just the time.</td></tr>
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Is it wrong to be sentimental about stuff, about time, about
a certain slant of light? My friend Howard up there loves photography, and I
told him about a new documentary coming out, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.findingvivianmaier.com/Finding_Vivian_Maier/Movie.html">Finding
Vivian Maier</a></i>, about a street photographer whose work was recovered when
the contents of her storage locker went up for auction in 2007. Inside trunks
were the negatives and prints of 100,000 photographs, taken in Chicago, New
York, and all over the world during the course of this mysterious woman’s
lifetime. When Howard and I looked at <a href="http://www.vivianmaier.com/gallery/street-1/#slide-8">one of the photos</a>,
Howard said, “Oh my god! I used to go to that theater! In Chicago—United
Artists! It’s torn down now….” I felt a deep glow of recognition when I saw <a href="http://www.vivianmaier.com/gallery/street-1/#slide-50">another photo</a>—not
of the place or subject (though that is adorable), but of the light, the cars,
the signs. The year was 1968. I would have been four. And it’s beginning about
then that the world takes shape for me in memory, when I begin to be aware of
life beyond the walls of my house, the fence of my yard. Why do we look at old
photographs? That mechanism that allows us to stop time, to stare deeply into a
moment in time, is one of humankind’s great achievements, I think. Vivian Maier’s photos kick me in the gut, and
how much better can art get?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thinking about the past does not make me feel old, or even older. But winter does. In February while visiting friends, I composed this haiku.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Handwriting - Dakota";"><b>older friends' back yard<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Handwriting - Dakota";"><b>where sunflowers and tomatoes grew<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Handwriting - Dakota";"><b>a rock garden</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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See? The winter and its dangers: If it’s not falling into
pits of nostalgia for spring and warmth and hope, or composing bad haiku, it's stepping into once-frozen
puddles of pissy. There is milder weather today, and I’m too tired to enjoy it. Maybe art will help.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjr1PB8zbNT8Ivudn0DEgLxb7UBY7QW60HNdTdt8NpPGCpvwhSo0PewiwNX0NH4M58ZVBAOA5CAibhKWwM33FzTdP2ZZnI6WefCU2BM3-o_37DakhA2My8jvdxI9BuJzgaM4_kYd8aiO3e/s1600/IMG_0978.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjr1PB8zbNT8Ivudn0DEgLxb7UBY7QW60HNdTdt8NpPGCpvwhSo0PewiwNX0NH4M58ZVBAOA5CAibhKWwM33FzTdP2ZZnI6WefCU2BM3-o_37DakhA2My8jvdxI9BuJzgaM4_kYd8aiO3e/s1600/IMG_0978.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Jean LeBlanc, Postcards from her exhibition.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I should be in New Jersey today hanging out with George and
Jeannie and Ted and Linda, in order to attend Jean’s photography exhibit
opening out in Easton, PA; but I <i>thought </i>I was going out to another part of NJ to
hear my friend Mark play piano with his trio, to the vocal stylings of the
incomparable Harlem blues singer Ruth Brisbane, while enjoying a lovely dinner
with Ruth’s adorable husband, Milton. However, this being Mark, and winter, Mark wrote to say his life was crazy
busy and would I mind NOT coming? He must have felt I was just one more thing
to take care of. Oh, winter. You have been a bitch.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: "Bernard MT Condensed"; font-size: 48.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 35.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 7500000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 3.937pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%; mso-style-textoutline-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textoutline-fill-color: #FEFEFE; mso-style-textoutline-fill-colortransforms: tint=1000; mso-style-textoutline-fill-themecolor: text2; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: 1.5pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: round; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: flat; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 0%; mso-style-textoutline-type: solid; mso-themecolor: accent3;"> <span style="background-color: black;"> NO </span></span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqD8sJg1_IJ5kHvi9iH0wv8ZfySPXoZ7pfBZ-aCDfdg0vWDmCwZ8qUKt3Rn_QTEv1t02uw-8sLenwxipI2FxF21Bm9h9qPIjnb91xiteJ3xrFHcbpUMi0xuk1RCGjeCCUOViRWgyYS-75p/s1600/ExitSign1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqD8sJg1_IJ5kHvi9iH0wv8ZfySPXoZ7pfBZ-aCDfdg0vWDmCwZ8qUKt3Rn_QTEv1t02uw-8sLenwxipI2FxF21Bm9h9qPIjnb91xiteJ3xrFHcbpUMi0xuk1RCGjeCCUOViRWgyYS-75p/s1600/ExitSign1.jpg" height="141" width="200" /></a></b></div>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Handwriting - Dakota"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> <b> </b><b>(Nous continuons.)</b></span></i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So no art this weekend, either visual or musical. Okay. Life
could be worse, and every time I so much as glance at the news, it is. “There is
overwhelming public support for the Keystone Pipeline.” As if the “public” has been
told the whole story about that project. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And Vladimir Putin,
a psychopathic closet case whose status as former head of the KGB gives him,
doubtless, unlimited blackmail powers to keep him front and center as Russian
dictator (and, as we watch the fall of Ukraine, USSR empire-restorer) for years
to come, is admired and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-conservatives-admiration-for-putin-20140306,0,2492223.story#axzz2vOqMY0Lp">respected
by the United States Republican Party</a>. Meanwhile Barack Obama, the
fairly-elected president of the U.S., a thoughtful, inherently decent man
leading a nation-gone-mad, going up against an entire party of sociopaths and
turd-mongers, and trying to hold together even the people who support them against
their own best interests, is the <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-mccain-blames-obamas-feckless-foreign-policy-for-ukraine-crisis/">GOP’s
“worst nightmare”.</a> Blamed for everything from insurgent attacks in foreign
nations to lousy sports teams to flu outbreaks, I don’t know how my president
keeps it together. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because some days, even I can’t. So reliant was I becoming
on wine to anesthetize me against all this stupidity, I gave up alcohol for
Lent way back in February. I realized that pots of tea are just fine as long as
I don’t watch the news. My parents, Bernie and Lynne, are feeling the same way.
And then there’s this.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><a href="http://gawker.com/barraco-barner-dissenter-goes-through-stages-of-grief-1539384628">"Barraco
Barner" Dissenter Goes Through Stages of Grief</a> </span></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the words of my friend Tom Corbin, “Jesus Christ.” I
think if we liberals spent more time building cases and less time
counter-attacking, we might actually get somewhere. But progressive desires for
clean air, clean water, decent jobs and wages, affordable health care, arable
land growing organic crops, green energy, and love for all our fellow men apparently aren’t SEXY
enough for mass media. Who wants forward thinking when you can chomp the red
meat of Rand Paul’s Clinton penis envy ca. 1997?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s Always Showtime
Somewhere<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yet continue we must. All this <i>not going anywhere</i> this weekend worked out
just great in the end, I think. Yesterday, for example, was my sweet boyfriend’s 60<sup>th</sup>
birthday, and as a result of all the defunct invitations, I was home to do something for it. (I’ll be 50 in May—we both
turn decades over together).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His past
with his ex did not include celebrations with flowers (she threw them in the garbage, "a waste of money"), or much else,
and he’d sort of given up being feted beyond love and presents from his children; and so
I gave him a bouquet. He was stunned, and it was so sweet to see (even if it was "reverse," as he put it). Among the
many stories we shared over two pots of birthday tea while sitting in my kitchen (and a
little bourbon for him, as he nurses a back in pain from too much winter
shoveling), the theme of <i>freedom and what that means</i> seemed to be most
on our minds. It began when he talked about how great his four kids are—all grown,
smart, college degrees, no trouble with the law, so good to him; and I talked
about how all my parents’ kids have been good citizens, done our best, still
love and like each other, call our folks on the weekends. And yet we both know
people who did all they could for their children, and the children turned out
rotten. One immigrant friend of my (immigrant) love’s said of his own son, “He cannot handle our
freedom. Prison is his freedom. That is where he is home.” And we started
talking about prisons—I thought of the prison that is the barstool, the ways
that so many of us cannot cope with choices, with responsibilities, with our
own power. And all the while…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRNaTDtK0Mh4kktUUglUEJAx3AeXHBBKLUKBfwdvxwbEUfzJ8zJvU0HrzZ1GctdlWP1ATxat47VoJn1skbDawt8eh0OKOSu9FDwPzyC4sRF0KPQLrR_psDEc6SaVJeswonmpVUBd5XfJxH/s1600/hourglass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRNaTDtK0Mh4kktUUglUEJAx3AeXHBBKLUKBfwdvxwbEUfzJ8zJvU0HrzZ1GctdlWP1ATxat47VoJn1skbDawt8eh0OKOSu9FDwPzyC4sRF0KPQLrR_psDEc6SaVJeswonmpVUBd5XfJxH/s1600/hourglass.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We can feel imprisoned every day—in cubicles, in our cars, on subways, on crowded streets, behind bars, in our poverty, even in our riches. So much is about perspective, when it isn't about being fed and housed, feeling well, having meaningful work, or having the capacity to give and receive love. And I thought of the line, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage,”</i> and
looked it up online. I guess I found the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lovelace">real poem</a> from which it comes—how would I ever know? I placed it at the blog's close. Good stuff. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh, freedom, you are, in the way of so many misattributed
quotations or media mudslinging, too often manipulated for malodorous ends. I freely take the moments of my free weekend—bouquets, photographs, and purloined art—and blog the shit out of them.
What else can I do? I can freely look up Vivian Maier, look at her portfolios of lives on the street, moments of living in time; and so can you. I can freely give up my seat for the old, the infirm, the weary. I can love my loves, freely; tell the truth, fight the good fight, and goddammit I gotta learn to shrug
off the rest. Free something up in my spirit, at least until I can quit wearing all these winter woolen layers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the very least, I can <i>not</i> be the stench that closes up a whole free subway car,<i> as best as I can help it</i>, is what I’m saying. There’s hardly
enough room as it is. Let us breathe, and free.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Full of sound and fury, signifying
shrugging,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Handwriting - Dakota";">Miss O’<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiGJ5hZi1yF5R6QkDNppkVRafqj_S6FAKtwfmLZKvBYtEyXzX715x0Jgb6O4jM8LjrNG_XhiqhY6kg29f4OHvenbeNuD7Ve9cceLkUEWVVLHh_OnOvl5pbsRSeqDw6ukrYMZo_RJK4xhyphenhyphenb/s1600/IMG_0980.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiGJ5hZi1yF5R6QkDNppkVRafqj_S6FAKtwfmLZKvBYtEyXzX715x0Jgb6O4jM8LjrNG_XhiqhY6kg29f4OHvenbeNuD7Ve9cceLkUEWVVLHh_OnOvl5pbsRSeqDw6ukrYMZo_RJK4xhyphenhyphenb/s1600/IMG_0980.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the kitchen with Miss O'</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Apple Chancery';"><span style="background-color: #ffe599;">348. To Althea, from Prison<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Apple Chancery";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>~Richard Lovelace, 1618-1658<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">WHEN Love with unconfinèd wings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> Hovers within my gates,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; padding: 0in; width: 246.3pt;" width="246"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">And my divine Althea brings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; padding: 0in; width: 246.3pt;" width="246"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> To whisper at the grates;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; padding: 0in; width: 246.3pt;" width="246"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">When I lie tangled in her hair<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; padding: 0in; width: 246.3pt;" width="246"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> And fetter'd to her eye,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; padding: 0in; width: 246.3pt;" width="246"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">The birds that wanton in the air<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> Know no such liberty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; padding: 0in; width: 246.3pt;" width="246"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">When flowing cups run swiftly round<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; padding: 0in; width: 246.3pt;" width="246"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> With no allaying Thames,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">Our careless heads with roses bound,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; padding: 0in; width: 246.3pt;" width="246"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> Our hearts with loyal flames;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">When thirsty grief in wine we steep,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> When healths and draughts go free—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">Fishes that tipple in the deep<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> Know no such liberty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">When, like committed linnets, I<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; padding: 0in; width: 246.3pt;" width="246"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> With shriller throat shall sing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">The sweetness, mercy, majesty,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> And glories of my King;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">When I shall voice aloud how good<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> He is, how great should be,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">Enlargèd winds, that curl the flood,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> Know no such liberty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">Stone walls do not a prison make,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> Nor iron bars a cage;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">Minds innocent and quiet take<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> That for an hermitage;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">If I have freedom in my love<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> And in my soul am free,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;">Angels alone, that soar above,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"> Enjoy such liberty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; color: #000018; font-family: Times; font-size: 9pt;">Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English
Verse: 1250–1900.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-59355779979339289022014-02-23T17:09:00.001-08:002014-02-24T05:27:45.009-08:00Mr. Lapin Grades Some Papers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b style="line-height: 115%;">Linseed Lapin, They Called Him</b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So Brandon in my office was telling
us one day (as we in educational publishing talked about evaluation and
assessment) that one of his teachers, Mr. Lapin (“Linseed Lapin, we called
him,” because that’s how he smelled, and he was oily, I don’t recall if Brandon
said) used to toss all the term papers down the basement steps. The ones that
landed on the top step got A’s, the next step, B’s, etc., “a perfect bell
curve” down to the F’s. “It probably wasn’t far off the mark,” was his
justification. Ol’ Linseed may have a point, and if I had the energy I’d create an elegant segue and move into a rant about standardized testing and how it’s ruining kids and education and the
world, making us further in the debt and thrall of corporate control, but
angels, Miss O’ just isn’t up to it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpPCVi7IJF7hI_7bZVEdMkUO7Bc-Vtl9CjK4GmIqAj85EwfpJcuXqdnaYd1b-LBMVTsecckBNAtneAnnNO16ab_IzZd5zlok71ploUgUqAApTxFcbluqJHU_48kyPaNuQu_NsfgmJX0zxm/s1600/IMG_0882.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpPCVi7IJF7hI_7bZVEdMkUO7Bc-Vtl9CjK4GmIqAj85EwfpJcuXqdnaYd1b-LBMVTsecckBNAtneAnnNO16ab_IzZd5zlok71ploUgUqAApTxFcbluqJHU_48kyPaNuQu_NsfgmJX0zxm/s1600/IMG_0882.JPG" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">AC iron basket snow claw of doom, Queens, LO'H</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Text Wranglin’ <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Losing my mind…depression. Emerged
on Saturday morning, yesterday, as from the aftermath of a big, violent storm, a week since bottoming
out and clawing through my emotional debris. So I spent said bottom day, last President’s Day
holiday, with the blessed, blessed app, Text Wrangler, which resurrected old
poems and plays from yonder days so I might transfer them to updated Word docs.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We interrupt this reverie about
poems and plays of yore to beat ourselves in the head for even LOOKING at
Facebook today.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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Very right-wing former student
posted THIS gem on Facebook: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Student:</b> <span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Anytime I watch a
documentary on the Third Reich I still get flabbergasted at how an entire
nation can be turned into such a cult of personality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
For starters, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Anytime I watch a documentary on the Third Reich…”?</i> Jesus. That’s
quite a hobby. And then I waited for the Reaganites to hypocritically weigh in
by accusing Obama of being Hitler. And…it took about twenty seconds.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Responder 1:</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When you have a leader that spends
years selling you a ticket to the promised land, it's understandable. Sounds
somewhat familiar<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And there it is. To which I had to
say:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Miss O’:</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Um…Jesus? Mohammed? Buddha?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And...waiting for the predictably
“reasonable” voice to point out that religious leaders are not “political”
leaders…in three, two, one:<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Responder 1:</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I understand what you're saying Lisa
and good point, however they were all religious leaders not leaders of
countries where laws were mandated for you to follow or else.....<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And I go in for the kill:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Miss O’:</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Tell it to Iran. And the GOP.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And…<i>scene</i>. They make it so easy. Miss
O’s work of saving the world today? Done. I’d go back to read about how Obama’s
health care initiatives for all citizens are the equivalent of the Anschluss
(all the while marveling as Responder 1 forgets those abortion restrictions and the
anti-gay platform points <i>based on “Jesus”</i>), but who has that kind of time for
morons who deny climate change while watching Third Reich television shows for
their porn?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Possibly that sounds unfair. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
[Insert sitcom laugh track.]<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I’m feeling cranky. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I need a rest from politics, for once.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Here’s the list of stuff I
accomplished this week, in addition to wranglin’ all that text and aside from my job.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Letter
to Cullen<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Letter
to M’Liz<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Take
out of the freezer the compost and take to Library for community pick-up<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Go
to the store—eggs and half and half…maybe pasta, chicken, feta…<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fruit…vegetables…apples…maybe
cider and oranges? Why not?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No
drinking for two months: Detox to save me from my depressive state, and in
memory of ones I’ve lost to the disease that is alcoholism.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Go to Rebecca Behrens's book launch for "When Audrey Met Alice" at Books of Wonder</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brunch
with Luthien and Ryan, Saturday<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">See "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me"</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love my boyfriend</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breakfast with Jodi at Alpha Donuts, Sunday</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Mama is tired.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
Overheard in my
office, a colleague on the phone: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“So do you wanna put her down?” Sounds of choked-back tears. </i><br />
(Note: Sophie, the
subject, had been his late mother’s cat. -ed.)<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Kids, it’s been a goddamned long
winter, and yet, globally, one of the top warmest in recorded history. Things
are not exactly looking UP is what I’m saying, and I felt I needed to RESCUE something.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventures in Text Wranglin’: Thanks, Free Mac App<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Here are a few of the texts I
rescued, because I know you were just HOPING for a treasure trove of Miss O's <i>creative writing</i>. Maybe one of the pieces will speak to you. (Ha, ha. So I offer you delightful reading alternatives in several photos.) Most of the pieces are in a form called <i>haibun</i>,
which has a title, a paragraph story, and a short poem (usually haiku) to
close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned about this form in a
workshop with my friend, poet Jean LeBlanc, about whose work I have blogged
before, should you care to read more about her: <a href="http://www.themissoshow.com/2012/05/are-you-there-when-youre-there.html">Are
You There When You’re There.</a><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And you
SHOULD care.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7W_YkYeiFJ_ujU6ldPtfxUKaLm0orNLCF-RV1hNyXOcTWL-J2kobMsTpTZEgnKxkWHA1JItJWhxO-KUotTIKwQl6EtALWx5BMYPTQDDjSlJRjdd8ElIztjuuvnyEbeKKqRAhsG9eBLFXj/s1600/514M6IdkN3L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7W_YkYeiFJ_ujU6ldPtfxUKaLm0orNLCF-RV1hNyXOcTWL-J2kobMsTpTZEgnKxkWHA1JItJWhxO-KUotTIKwQl6EtALWx5BMYPTQDDjSlJRjdd8ElIztjuuvnyEbeKKqRAhsG9eBLFXj/s1600/514M6IdkN3L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="320" width="204" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Herewith some of Miss O’s writing.
Be kind.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px;">
Here's a haibun:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“At least one person is dead.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
At the top of the morning hour from
the all-news AM radio station, this declaration begins my day. What time is it?
7:00 AM. By this time, I think to myself, I believe it is safe to say that
indeed at least one person is, in fact, dead. Probably more than one, given the
size of the population of the world today. As I scramble my eggs in a dab of
bacon grease, butter the crisp pumpernickel toast, and sip my hot French roast
coffee, and later rock gently in my old wooden rocking chair against the cold
tile kitchen floor, I try to count up the possible dead since, say, 5:01 AM,
and marvel that someone got paid to write that best-guess copy.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“No word yet on why they were killed.” I
guess not.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
beside
the gritty stoop<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
flopping
greens clumped in black dirt<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
so
suddenly, daffodils<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
~~~</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px;">
Here’s my first <i>tanka </i>(a five-line poem), and my <i>only</i> tanka, discovered in my head on a spring walk to work in NYC after the workshop in short form I took with Jean LeBlanc at Sussex County Community College in the spring of (I think) 2008. (You can find a book of her teachings on Amazon: <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Haiku-Aesthetic-Short-Poetry/dp/8192801039">The Haiku Aesthetic: Short Form Poetry as a Study in Craft.</a></i> )<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px; margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;"><br />A Tanka<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px; margin-left: 1in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px; margin-left: 1in;">
Tulip with bulb attached,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px; margin-left: 1in;">
tossed onto Seventh Avenue;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px; margin-left: 1in;">
I replant it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px; margin-left: 1in;">
“Make it live!” the crazy man says,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px; margin-left: 1in;">
“you’re beautiful.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px;">
~LO’H, 2008</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
~~~</div>
A few more haibun:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18px;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
45
YEARS WITH BERNIE AND LYNNE</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
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In the too-small suburban kitchen
Dad bends over the open oven door, a hand reaching across to the wooden cabinet
for a hot pad. Mom’s rear end unavoidably bumps his as she sloshes out a pot in
the sink, signaling the start of the duet, “My God, honey, why can’t you get
out of my way?” Their marriage, from our angle, is a fast dance about feeding
up. “Have I told you lately how much I hate this refrigerator?” Mom says to no
one in particular, reaching low into the back for a relish tray/container of
potato salad/head of lettuce. Dad says, “Look out, it’s hot,” as he brings into
the too-tiny dining room the large round casserole filled with buttered sweet
corn/corned beef and cabbage/green beans and ham. “Go ahead and start, guys, I’ll
be right in,” Mom says, shutting off the timer and reaching for a pad to pull
out the tray of biscuits. And we bow our heads.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Bless
us, oh Lord,<o:p></o:p></div>
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and
these thy gifts—<o:p></o:p></div>
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how
does one not smile during grace?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br />
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<o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipPkJ1cREUzF5qIrpyQvThx1OhM9rwZ_KSXmRiM4Ec9YkadIk8BYJR0l6A6ufM86A2rE4JZy-4-CSLVun991FMZm7qs45_53Pe-fhVcop7V-huIFuGo8nIZ4AN0YoQ7s1nyMVGc2N8dNlj/s1600/IMG_0937.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipPkJ1cREUzF5qIrpyQvThx1OhM9rwZ_KSXmRiM4Ec9YkadIk8BYJR0l6A6ufM86A2rE4JZy-4-CSLVun991FMZm7qs45_53Pe-fhVcop7V-huIFuGo8nIZ4AN0YoQ7s1nyMVGc2N8dNlj/s1600/IMG_0937.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bernie and Lynne, Miss O's parents, ca. 1994</td></tr>
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~~~</div>
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This next one was an accident. My friend George was driving out to visit our Bread Loaf School of English teacher and friend Ed, and his wife, Deborah, who was in the last stages of Alzheimer's. George asked me, "Do you have anything for Ed?" And I sent this.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ARRIVAL </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for Deborah and Ed</i></div>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Walking into the inn from the
porch, her peeking face is a balm of undisguised wonder and terror, a mirror of
my own feelings as I stand in the lobby of Bread Loaf, my new graduate school. Behind
her is a lean, tall man with a mane of roguish white hair; sun-weathered crags
surround amused eyes that wink meeting mine. His long arms would enfold her
even as his hand merely touches her arm. He must be a professor, I think, and
she his wife, though somehow their love seems sweetly young. Strangers to me, their
faces include me in a conspiracy of embarkation and in a rush I love them.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
only
a screen door<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
separates
them from the path<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
into
green mountains<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
~~~</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
[In the anthology <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Voices from Here: The Paulinskill Poetry
Project, Andover, NJ</i>]<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">P.S.
Here’s Ed today: </i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<a href="http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=28720556#0C3eHLJDBZLHjKzh.01">Ed
playing for Deborah…it’s quite a story.</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2mNle_sRsIi1yHTDD4nlTO9luHqQdXqfyZs9Q4Xgqwd8jP8L5sBNrbxq7DlaxPyT5T4mBAmrG9GjY72-rXhJnyVCj3dGaHrxI_gNKkYkAB9qUMe_poDcM4PPJtRpBQImmiTMc1fBj2xgM/s1600/IMG_0944.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2mNle_sRsIi1yHTDD4nlTO9luHqQdXqfyZs9Q4Xgqwd8jP8L5sBNrbxq7DlaxPyT5T4mBAmrG9GjY72-rXhJnyVCj3dGaHrxI_gNKkYkAB9qUMe_poDcM4PPJtRpBQImmiTMc1fBj2xgM/s1600/IMG_0944.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Deborah Keniston with Ed Lueders, The Barn at Bread Loaf, ca. 1991, LO'H</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;">~~~</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br />
Another one. My "friend" in this is Jean.<br />
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">IN THE ANTIQUES STORE IN LAFAYETTE<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
We both have a penchant for
photographs, the old ones where the subjects pose stiffly in sepia, wearing big
bows, impossible collars, vacant stares against ornate <span style="line-height: 115%;">furniture. In this shop a framed
tintype catches my eye, unpeopled, hand-tinted in gold and blue, a chair by a
kind of fireplace, with the words “Scotch stove” etched into it. I almost buy
it. The price, though, $22.00, seems steep. I don’t know how I arrive at what
makes a price too high for someone’s lost memory. My friend stares at other photos
on the wall—a few girls in a garden, two women in their Sunday best—and she
says in a kind of low moan, “I’m so afraid that one of these days, I’ll look up
and see my family.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
on
the green peg board<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
grandmother’s
embroidered words<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
in a
guilt frame<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
~~~</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
[Also in the anthology <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Voices from Here: The Paulinskill Poetry
Project, Andover, NJ</i>]<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJJlcUfIQY_v3Q6mslicTqYj91NuS1LT4CGfsT5H4wrPLWS-pziF0l2iIsmO-MKiPBS8QVX8ogBWn8mptPRv1qdCaHSn8d-P1-1wEKYQrIdg-dJPQkmh9GvzGYbu1WPgJ5_lpFJTFuj4d0/s1600/IMG_0946.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJJlcUfIQY_v3Q6mslicTqYj91NuS1LT4CGfsT5H4wrPLWS-pziF0l2iIsmO-MKiPBS8QVX8ogBWn8mptPRv1qdCaHSn8d-P1-1wEKYQrIdg-dJPQkmh9GvzGYbu1WPgJ5_lpFJTFuj4d0/s1600/IMG_0946.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>NOTE:</b> When I sent the above poems
to Jean LeBlanc, who is the editor of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Voices
from Here</i>, and she asked to publish them, she also asked that I include a
biography. In the Text Wrangling on Monday, I ran across these options, which I’d
forgotten about.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
MY BIOGRAPHY<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
Originally from
Virginia, Lisa O’Hara lived briefly in Sussex County before settling in New
York City to work as an editor. She remains a regular visitor to Sussex County
and its environs via the Lakeland Bus Line. If it’s 6:00 PM, this must be
Byram!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
MY REAL STORY<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
A pitbull without
the lipstick, Lisa O’Hara kicks serious corporate ass for the McGraw-Hill
Companies in New York City. Her connection to Sussex County is tenuous at best:
suffice to say, free alcohol, good drugs at great prices, and the allure of bus
fumes along county roads never fail to entice.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
HERE’S ANOTHER WAY
OF LOOKING AT THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LISA O’:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
“I write my poems
doggy-style,” says self-made New York City poet Lisa O’Hara. “I learned my
craft in the backwoods of New Jersey, and still call Sussex County home, because
that’s what it says on my tax returns.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
AND FINALLY:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
“Holy
mother-fucking-christ-almighty, live in Sussex County and die free, slaves!” So
sayeth poet and editor Lisa O’Hara, who is middle-aged, female, loveless,
childless, godless, and middle-aged. And alone. Oh so alone...<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
(Might be a fun assignment for you
English teachers out there.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And now for something completely different. And I have absolutely no memory of
writing this:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A Fitting Ode to Pants<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Of course I had to size up to
eighteen—<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Catastrophe against my womanhood:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Slim hips, toned gut, and nubile
ass unseen<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
For years and years; it’s sure
they’re gone for good.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I once dropped forty, size fourteen
returned.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Two years slipped by, the waist
became too tight;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
My vanity of female size unlearned<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
When button popped and belly flab
took flight!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Then, sixteen was admission of
defeat—<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The winter that I caved is but a
blur.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Gone was denial along with my
conceit,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The vain thing that I’d been, I
knew not her.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Now eighteen pants: contain these
robust thighs—<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
My beauty liberated in your size!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
~LO’H<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
11/21/09
NYC<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Or this:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Why I Hung Up<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Brenda couldn’t stand my telephone.
The white plastic lozenge—with earpiece, voice box, and green-illuminated
push-button dial all in one cradle against my face—not merely perplexed her. It
annoyed and vexed and exasperated her. She tried to cajole me out of it, while
on the phone. “You know, Lisa, there is such a thing as a cordless phone—it’s
the latest invention” and “I can’t stand picturing you walking around the house
pulling that ridiculous cord” were regular downbeats. How to explain this
touchstone, my phone? When our friendship ended one day, appropriately, over
that same phone, I was surprised by my lightness, the comfort of that click.<br />
<span style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"> Patty washing the greens,</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<div style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> phone cord stretched taut to the kitchen
sink,</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> telling her mother the news</span></div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
[P.S. I still use this phone in New
York City. Yes, I do. (I also keep a paper card taped below it with handwritten phone numbers in case of emergency. And shouldn't YOU?)]<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrBBlp3f7MCWwWhK7wD2rmzp4F-Tib07sRypLEZaRrZIq7AwIvLCF8R2x3tPZkvbalQKZMuv5LZORxCZntC2TxZB10OXtg5BoXTBE6b2iFzcScqJ8Jw3norqthpx7wG7TYmiNdNt8EGd1O/s1600/IMG_0943.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrBBlp3f7MCWwWhK7wD2rmzp4F-Tib07sRypLEZaRrZIq7AwIvLCF8R2x3tPZkvbalQKZMuv5LZORxCZntC2TxZB10OXtg5BoXTBE6b2iFzcScqJ8Jw3norqthpx7wG7TYmiNdNt8EGd1O/s1600/IMG_0943.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I do remember writing this next
one, and shared it with my play lab, whose members were indifferent to it,
probably because I began weeping copiously, and unexpectedly, about the loss of my
house on Spriggs Road in Virginia, the real subject of the poem.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ode on an Envelope<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">A Poem for Louise
and Don Cleveland<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">First of
all I wonder if I ever wrote you back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">And
second, as I can’t find one metaphorical bone <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">in my clichéd
body, I can only apologize for <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">getting
your hopes up for a fine poetic tribute:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Still I
want to thank you for the opportunity of your envelope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">So
timely, to be lying as it must have done<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">on my
kitchen table, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">within
handy reach of the telephone<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">and a
nearby pen, unfazed <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">by the
tangle of white phone cord—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">outdated
aspect of an old contraption—so<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">that I
might record the ruminations of friends,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">and
reminders to myself,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">of who I
was and what was doing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">among
phone friends<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">some
short time after June 5, 2003, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">which is
what the postmark indicates <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">across
the impressive likeness of Duke Kahanamoku.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">And here
I must apologize, Don and Louise,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">for not
knowing who in the world you might be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">The
envelope’s contents no longer inside,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">I can
only conjecture: a bridal shower, perhaps?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Maybe a
graduation party. Louise, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">did you
send me an invitation, maybe on behalf of a kid I taught? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">No
matter. You sent me this envelope,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">and
whatever was in it, for there it is—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">my name,
handwritten by you, and your gold<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">and black
return address label. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Then
flung against the crisp, white folds came a wild<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">collective
scrawl of blue ink, mine:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">here is
Rumi, for one, flowing: “Jars of spring water <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">are not
enough for me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">anymore.
Take me to the river.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">This
wisdom abuts an all-caps reminder,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">“DMV—DRIVER’S
LICENCE,” for, I guess, change of address<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">before
the move to New York City.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">But let’s
get some order, if we can.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">On the
front: Under my zip code<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(as was)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">is John
Stephens’s idea for our school<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">modeled
on Gandhi and the Sermon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">on the
Mount; left of the house number:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">“logos—science
-> adapts us to outer; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">vs mythos
-> beyond reality, adapts <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">us to
inner” was surely Jeanne Clabough,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">keeping
me apprised of the big stuff, for perspective.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Here in
the corner of the back by the flap,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">now torn,
some RSVPs—to the Wake<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">for My
House, it must have been,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">a house
which was no longer <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">to be
mine but the state’s<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">in
twenty-seven short dates <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">from the
postmark. (Of those few <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">early
respondents from the list, Clevelands, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">I recall
that Jay, who had just turned forty, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">kept
remarking, “I’m a geezer”;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Susan
Kats came but couldn’t bring the Band.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Chris, no
surprise, never showed up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">And Terri
is dead <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">now;
Angelito moved to Bali.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">“Awaken
pert and nimble spirit of mirth,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">I quote
from Oberon, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Midsummer</i>, that spring;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">“I’m
sitting on my life and not<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">living
it,” and who was that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Along the
ragged opening:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">“If I
ever have one of those Mormon celestial marriages”:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Was this
Debbie? The right corner’s <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">“Steve is
my UPS man” is surely Patty,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">for she
likes to have a man who does for her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Then,
turning over once more, I catch,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">“It’s
Hillsides.” Is this the school again?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Louise,
and possibly also Don, how to express my gratitude<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">for this
morning’s visitation, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">seven
years and a life change later, flipping <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">through a
fat, loose-paper-packed <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">address
book, where one <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">of the
papers, an envelope, slipped loose,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">and
memory with it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">“Gentle
and revolutionary”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">I
scribbled;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">“practical
and light”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">I threw
down;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">“The
Sacred and the Profane”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">I was
supposed to read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">Today I
read this envelope instead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">And here
is the return, unmailed <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">to your
years-ago address,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">truly
yours.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">I hope it
finds you<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">well and
happy,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;">whatever became of you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">~LO’H, 2010, NYC<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: black;"><o:p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiceVhXXjPspDVJsGTIF7bBb8Y2PIfc_gegfkPY3ivC67yVLt43Dw6meTOsprxDYfPRNM1l6xVSZjqhxQhhkplje8mfUCCazPaLbQNioQ6cbW99UOwh1npHIBhZ_21-8XaZax-WgW1di3Ux/s1600/IMG_0942.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiceVhXXjPspDVJsGTIF7bBb8Y2PIfc_gegfkPY3ivC67yVLt43Dw6meTOsprxDYfPRNM1l6xVSZjqhxQhhkplje8mfUCCazPaLbQNioQ6cbW99UOwh1npHIBhZ_21-8XaZax-WgW1di3Ux/s1600/IMG_0942.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My little grey house by the side of the road…that became road, 2003.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And finally, I came across this last
poem, and on Saturday, February 22, 2014, which was the fifth anniversary of
the death discussed in this poem. Such a loss. (I just spent an hour and a half
catching up on the phone with her older son, Rick, who is 27 now and about to
buy his first house—which he knows she would have loved to decorate for him.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Art for Our Sake<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
“I scrapbooked by dad’s heart
attack,” Jen said. “I scrapbooked my mother’s funeral. It’s what I do.” Jen is
assembling the scrapbook pages for our friend Terri’s funeral, “for her boys.”
I hand her my eulogy, printed on the second try, on decorative paper with bold
streaks of Terri’s colors. Jen’s art of the scrapbook even in the grimmest of
occasions had struck me at first as odd, and then I remembered that student
years ago who, upon my reading an Anne Sexton poem aloud, said that poems
should only be about birds and butterflies. I watch as Jen tenderly takes my
pages, imagining how she will arrange her design of grief.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
leafless,
blackened birch<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
lichen-covered,
stiff-twigged,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
newly
greened in maple’s arms<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKjhVNWYA68KkiqyccKDZCqyGzAqXWJIqJavJiguxAUa-6TNnMphppoBUKbsoMTI3DHOvKlPCXS7nJMyqXPjCDwp3LsPeTQbBa7TXaHqvkZUYP2LRH5t4cTuI91uBEg8SR0AJm8NuMLGmD/s1600/IMG_0927.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKjhVNWYA68KkiqyccKDZCqyGzAqXWJIqJavJiguxAUa-6TNnMphppoBUKbsoMTI3DHOvKlPCXS7nJMyqXPjCDwp3LsPeTQbBa7TXaHqvkZUYP2LRH5t4cTuI91uBEg8SR0AJm8NuMLGmD/s1600/IMG_0927.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Doorway detail, W. 26th St., NYC, LO'H</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Terri took and framed the photos of
the Spriggs Road house (up by the other poem) as a parting gift to me in my New York City adventure,
10 years and counting. I miss her so. Life is loss.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And life is renewal. After a weekend of false spring,
big melting, and blue skies, may I urge you to try your own hand at some
poetry? Or try dipping into past writings? Like Mr. Linseed Lapin up there, I sort of tossed all these wrangled writings down the steps to see where they'd land. No grades, though. What the hell?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPOSt0-prJSAZHzbyIpL9x19lbQ2x3NPm9S0DWECKnC7dUrOualbj-vq6eTQJDwTzU5foXSih09C-Y9mKme_gm9qYzQiT_f9JYZx0XuhJMMe0EtIKm-TLCYbHMiyMtigXPzh0lAa5-iAOu/s1600/IMG_0939.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPOSt0-prJSAZHzbyIpL9x19lbQ2x3NPm9S0DWECKnC7dUrOualbj-vq6eTQJDwTzU5foXSih09C-Y9mKme_gm9qYzQiT_f9JYZx0XuhJMMe0EtIKm-TLCYbHMiyMtigXPzh0lAa5-iAOu/s1600/IMG_0939.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spring tease, Queens, LO'H</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Here’s to the wrangling of the
texts of your own life,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
With love as always,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
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P.S. Here's a wonderful book of poems by a fellow Bread Loafer, Peter Newton, and if you liked the haibun form, his are vastly superior and more beautiful than Miss O's (I promise). Treat yourself to <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Joy-Ride-Peter-Newton/dp/1628906308">Welcome to the Joy Ride</a></i>. For spring. For poetry.</div>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-248208460062223782014-02-09T15:39:00.001-08:002014-02-10T17:29:52.774-08:00The Junk Drawer of My Mind<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Love Among the Ruins</b></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Il y a dans le coeur humain une génération perpétuelle de passions,
en sorte que la ruine de l'une est presque toujours l'établissement d'une
autre.</span></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">•<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">In the human heart there is a
perpetual generation of passions, such that the ruin of one is almost always
the foundation of another.</span></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Maxim 10.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">~François
de La Rochefoucauld<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Source: Wikiquote</span></i><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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We humans work for, obtain, use,
repurpose, and, ultimately, junk things. When we don’t know whether or not to
junk it, many of us create a junk drawer. Or junk closet. Or junk…garage. But
for today, I’m thinking of the handy drawer for the odds and ends, the bits and
bobs, we find useful but not often used. Like twine. A garlic press. AAA batteries. Felt dots to place under hard objects you set on the table. You know
what I mean? If you have a junk drawer—and Miss O’s guess is that you do—I’ll
bet you can find some of those dots. (I know. I don't know where mine came from either.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have a junk drawer in my kitchen.
The drawer was already a junk drawer when I moved into this apartment as a
tenant, over ten years ago, before I bought the place. Some drawers are like
that, being what they are before you even know yourself that it’s so. Curiously, my oft-used sandwich baggies and bartender’s corkscrew reside there, which just goes to show that junk drawers
are not full of not-useful thingies, just thingies for which you don't really have a thingy place.</div>
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I have two junk drawers in my
bedroom. One is filled primarily with packets of the last photos shot on my
Pentax K1000 SE (I also have two undeveloped rolls from years back), old cell
phones, a couple of framed photos I put out sometimes, and later exchange with
others. What are those moth balls doing there? The second drawer has mostly linens that belonged to my maternal
grandmother—vintage table cloths, a couple of scarves, some tatting<o:p></o:p>—as well as compilation videotapes a former student's dad was kind enough to make for me showing my work as a high school theater director over the years (part of grad school applications that led nowhere, thank god, because I live in New York now).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWRDERLEuHt1K_acC7b31rJuPYMJErblTKIMrh4G9naNmwmhSvhgfyzLs8RtmFbu1NR4GWYXQYFYP3uJsuncj1RgGJz9MTUF-u_F_VMBi1n7sYTBNPgCcEW7L8XxTHuWYaXGscfw-InGP8/s1600/IMG_0860.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWRDERLEuHt1K_acC7b31rJuPYMJErblTKIMrh4G9naNmwmhSvhgfyzLs8RtmFbu1NR4GWYXQYFYP3uJsuncj1RgGJz9MTUF-u_F_VMBi1n7sYTBNPgCcEW7L8XxTHuWYaXGscfw-InGP8/s1600/IMG_0860.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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Under these linens, there’s also a
jewelry box from my childhood. I don’t know exactly why I keep it, except for
nostalgia, and the fact that that particular Christmas, several friends
received just such a trinket—faux glamour in a lead lattice box, “gold” painted
and lined in red “velvet,” and what girl wouldn’t go nuts for it? The left
front leg (see photo) broke off when I dropped it once; never telling anyone,
I’d just make sure it rested right, and it was fine as long as I didn’t shut a
drawer or bang the dresser on which it sat. It wasn’t until I moved out on my
own and rediscovered it in a box, that I bothered to glue it and mask the scar
with a little gold-colored paint. So easy. Why hadn’t I mentioned it to anyone?
Why hadn’t I tried to mend it? Because it drove me mad to be ever fixing it,
day after day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOV9wxkeUOe4lMR6bZXzmhlaVhWcplOW0XoClNRDHIY3DWyFCPOngmTgcpIoZyRqIhZC8RsRHlNNZfcY3JgV-etBF3eXhq63sS80pGxIFZOeDTCZlQ_7XgCoaG2B8Srn3QBKlFsPQBqMLj/s1600/IMG_0862.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOV9wxkeUOe4lMR6bZXzmhlaVhWcplOW0XoClNRDHIY3DWyFCPOngmTgcpIoZyRqIhZC8RsRHlNNZfcY3JgV-etBF3eXhq63sS80pGxIFZOeDTCZlQ_7XgCoaG2B8Srn3QBKlFsPQBqMLj/s1600/IMG_0862.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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This winter has found me reading
the blog Brain Pickings (including a really cool letter of advice by <a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-thomspon-letters-of-note-advice/">Hunter S.Thompson</a>, of all people, in one of the posts) and in an exchange of
emails with my friend <a href="http://annacitrino.wordpress.com/">Anna Citrino</a> about writing and why we
write. I’m in a very strange emotional/creative place, in that I’m not
particularly driven to finish a play, or even write this blog, or, what is most
startling, to save the world. Because I don’t really have a driving passion
right now—in that losing the desire to write has not been replaced with
something else, as per Maxim 10, at this blog's opening—I’ve been thinking about infrastructure,
doing things to repair broken things in my life. And for some reason I got to thinking
about junk drawers, what they are for, why we have them. Why not “a place for
everything and everything in its place”? Is a junk drawer a “place” for
anything? <o:p></o:p></div>
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In addition, I’m sorting through
the junk <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in my head</i>, the junk drawer <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of my life</i>, as it were; I guess maybe I
just want to see what’s in there. I suspect I’ll just leave it the way I find
it, as we do with that junk drawer of ours in the kitchen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;">“I love how I'm looking for something I know is
in a junk drawer... like superglue or somesuch thing. I KNOW I put it there a
year ago, thinking this will be the first place I look when I need it. But it's
not there.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;">~</span></i><span style="color: #2f353b; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;">George
Lightcap, friend and fellow user of junk drawers</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Junk Item 1:</b> On being ill—the fluctuations in weather—congestion—sadness.
Trying to explain depression to my sweet boyfriend, who said, “But you are so
lucky! Think about all the great things in your life!” To this I said, as
kindly as I could: “When you have an awful cold, just the worst—like the one
you just got over, you know? Does it help you feel better when someone remarks,
‘But you have four beautiful children’?” Mental illness needs to be called
“illness,” and there an end. Meanwhile, where to put it? And where is that bit
of sanity I KNOW I stashed in my mind’s junk drawer this time last year just
for this occasion? Fuck.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Junk Item 2:</b> The need for altered states—a junk drawer of the
psyche, where we can throw all the random items: A memory, say, in exchange for
the toothpicks; or trading extra packets of matches for the scraps of paper and
post-its with ideas written on them that didn’t have time to get lodged in the
mind. Some people snort coke for this.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Junk Item 3:</b> It’s tedious to clean out all our junk. I have met
actual, functioning humans with a sense of humor and everything who have
managed to live all their lives without a junk drawer, in body, home, or, it
seems, mind. I’m even friends with one such person. (She also folds <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all of her underwear</i> and organizes her socks
by size and color; her linen cupboards are works of art; AND she can write,
breed and ride horses, do scientific experiments, raise dogs and kids, and
draw. And fuck her, by the way. I say that with love.) I’m <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">also</i> friends with more than one person for whom the equal and
opposite is true: Every single drawer, surface, and even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">room</i> is a junk collection point. Yet don’t people have to toss out
excess sometime? Sort the junk? At least open the drawer once in a while and
see what the fuck you’ve been tossing in there all this time? And what is it
that triggers that crisis moment?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Junk Item 4:</b> My Great Uncle Phil and Great Auntie Clare would take
off the oxygen straps just long enough to smoke one more Lucky Strike. I keep
remembering it lately—I don’t know why. Maybe because my boyfriend smokes. It’s more junk in my mind drawer, because
I never know when I’ll need it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“The last one.” <br />
~<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stage director Maureen’s announcement at
the first rehearsal of almost any show, back when you could smoke in public
buildings, stubbing out what I remember as a Carlton; friend Richard always
carried a pack of her brand, which he would proffer at the second rehearsal
when she inevitably started to lose her temper. </i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Junk Item 5:</b> I’ve had a wretched cold all week, to say nothing of
the 12-day menstrual period, still in progress, until the next wave of hot flushes kicks in. All of it’s junking me up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Junk Item 6:</b> Snow, snow, snow…global warming, global warming,
global warming. Walking back this morning from my boyfriend’s place, I see the
piles of dirty snow and detritus from spilled garbage collections, uncovered in
some of the melting (so much more melting to go). What are we ever going to do
with all this garbage?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Junk Item 7:</b> Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death from an overdose of
heroin was a total shocker last weekend. Junked by junk. If any actor seemed to
have a real life devoid of drama, his would be a first guess. A father of three
children with a loving partner; life in Greenwich Village; artistic director of
the Public’s LAByrinth Theater Company; a major motion picture star in
character parts that showed a breadth of range without peer—who could have
guessed that his inner demons led him into a life of drug addiction? I was
astounded by how ugly it became on Facebook, commenters blowing him off as
“just another rich artist with a habit,” because it is so easy to judge another
that way. What is less easy to understand is the crippling drug problem in this
country, not only among artists like Hoffman. Thanks so much to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/02/philip-seymour-hoffmans-beautiful-helplessness.html">David Denby</a> for exploring the loss of Hoffman
so sensitively in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker</i>
online, because if I read one more snark-post (“Who cares? Just another druggie actor…”) I was going to throw up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Si
nous n'avions point de défauts, nous ne prendrions pas tant de plaisir à en
remarquer dans les autres.</span></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">•<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">If we had no faults, we should not take so much
pleasure in noting those of others.</span></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Maxim 31.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">~François
de La Rochefoucauld<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Source: Wikiquote</span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Master<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">La
philosophie triomphe aisément des maux passés et des maux à venir. Mais les
maux présents triomphent d'elle.</span></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Philosophy
triumphs easily over past and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Maxim 22.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">~François
de La Rochefoucauld<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Source: Wikiquote</span></i></div>
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To think more deeply about the
death of Philip Seymour Hoffman—because it has seriously been eating at my
heart—I’m being helped along today, you may have noticed, by the French
philosopher François de La
Rochefoucauld, whom I studied in high school French classes, and probably in
some college history course, too; de La Rochefoucauld’s <i>Maxims</i> came up yesterday as I
was watching a YouTube video from The Rubin Museum here in New York, a series
called “Happy Talk,” this one featuring a conversation between that late, truly
great American actor and the English philosopher Simon Critchley, about whom I
really didn’t know and now want to read more of. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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This installment of the
aforementioned Rubin Museum Lecture Series, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiQkdprJso0">“Happy Talk,”</a> is wonderful to
engage with in a way that, say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inside
the Actor’s Studio</i> is painful, because every film title, say, mentioned by
the host is not punctuated by fatuous applause. I say “fatuous” because there
is something meaningless in the constant applause of interview programs now; it
becomes self-serving to applaud at every mention of someone’s work, or when the
guest says something “meaningful” or provocative—in the first case, it’s as if to
remind the guest star<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, “I’m out here!
Your fan!”</i> is useful to the discussion: The films are done, the reviews are
in, the awards won or lost—get over yourself, audience; in the second case, the
applause would seem to signal an aberrant moment of lucidity and heft in a talk
show conversation, as opposed to the usual notes of vapidity. How sad. Can’t we
TALK anymore? (At one point in this interview, for example, Hoffman talks about
a moment in a film he did that he can’t remember the name of, and an audience
member calls out, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Almost Famous</i>,”
and Hoffman nods, repeats, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Almost Famous</i>…”
and goes on. Because he’s talking about something, and not the fact of being in
a movie. And everyone listened.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p><b style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Here are some questions Miss O’ had that came out of this talk:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->What is happiness? “You might be through with
the past, but the past isn’t through with you,” from the movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Magnolia</i>—PSH is the nurse to Jason
Robards—and if you haven’t seen that movie, why don’t you? Because it’s
stunning.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Do you have to make a choice between happiness
and truth?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->“Life is short,” vs. the film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Magnolia</i>’s line, “No, life is long,” and
that’s what the past can make us feel like, says Hoffman. Why is that?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Greek playwright Sophocles: “No man happy until
he is dead”: Happiness is not something in your life—it’s something <i>attributed
to your life</i>. How does this work? Could do a whole blog on that alone.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Is it necessary to think of the past, to work on
it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
In other words: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Is it necessary to clean out a junk drawer,
and more specifically, a junk drawer of the mind?</i> Because it would seem to
Miss O’ that while it can be good to reduce clutter that is moldering and
sending out noxious fumes, for example, sometimes the refuse of the past needs
to stay in the past. Out of the discussion of the Greeks, for instance, Hoffman
says that most people probably live their life not concerned with their
happiness but with the story they are creating. Hoffman admits that he just
“can’t do that.” And it would seem to me that if you just can’t do that—if you
really must keep moving deeper and deeper into the idea of “happiness” and
where yours might be hiding, you might see why someone would turn to drugs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 1.25pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Le
soleil ni la mort ne se peuvent regarder fixement.</span></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 1.25pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt .5in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">•<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Neither the sun
nor death can be looked at steadily.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Maxim 26.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">~François
de La Rochefoucauld<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Source: Wikiquote</span></i><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The talk about the film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Master</i> is interesting—such an odd
movie. My friend Quinn and I went to see it and found ourselves really
provoked, lost, fascinated, unmoored. Great performances aside, we were so
nauseated by the subject and the characters, we left, um, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">unsatisfied</i>. But seriously, Hoffman and Phoenix are stunning. Simon
Critchley hits on something when he says that people’s need for religion kicks
in when we say to ourselves, “The world is hard, and we are twisted, and we
need to be made perfect.” Hoffman points out, following on this, that the
founders of religions are desperate to leave <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">eternity</i> on Earth, their own indelible mark, their name and their
creation. Any religion will do when you are at that place.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And that gave me pause. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Any religion will do when we are in a
desperate place.</i> And I ask myself, “What would happen if instead of
religion we looked to art?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The Moralist’s Eye: Hoffman and
Critchley discuss the role of philosophy in all this: Montaigne, de La
Rochefoucauld, Nietzsche. We moralize, we judge, we provoke, we wonder. It’s a
mess, isn’t it, sorting through all this thought, in the search for clarity (to
paraphrase the Indigo Girls, “Closer to Fine”)? So does the junk drawer—the one
of the home or of the mind or of the spirit—need to be straightened out,
tidied, de-cluttered? Are there places in us where it’s really okay just to
toss it in and slam the drawer shut? Why do we like to explore attics? Dig for
artifacts? Why do we watch the news or go to the movies, for that matter? Why
add to our own clutter of experience?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Why
do we sit in the dark, watching actors as brilliant as you, playing such
miserable creatures?”</i> ~ Simon Critchley<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Hoffman talks about the fact that his
job as an actor, like Critchley’s job as a philosopher, is to “sit with this
stuff, to not let yourself off the hook,” to think about these painful subjects
and try to understand them. We read books, go to the movies, watch the news,
talk to others, travel, dream, in order to LIVE FULLY, to know all we can know
while alive on Earth, goddammit anyway, and the result is stuff we can use now,
stuff we might want to use later, and stuff we have to throw the fuck out. For
an actor, for a philosopher, for a writer—it’s a lot of JUNK we must hang onto
in order to do our jobs. And when the maintaining of the junk becomes too much
to take…what is the outlet? Because the “more” of life—partner, children,
responsibilities—is hardly a respite.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 1.25pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Nous
avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d'autrui.</span></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 1.25pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt .5in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">•<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">We all have strength enough to endure the
misfortunes of others.</span></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Maxim 19.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">~François
de La Rochefoucauld<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Source: Wikiquote</span></i><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I guess this is the price of having
the impulse to create anything, to take a photograph or make a painting or
write this blog. It’s possible to make things and not think about anything—will
they be good? And who decides? And is making something good, making a good
thing, important? In the film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Synedoche
New York</i>, which I haven’t seen, Hoffman plays a director who wants to make
something exactly like life, and keeps rehearsing something that can never be
complete. His character can never say, “That’s okay, that’s good enough.” How
many of us feel that way—that if we can do this one thing perfectly, we will
have achieved perfection, and thus have justified our own existence in this
life? I suspect a good many. And when perfection in act and deed is not looking
likely, one might turn to religion, which forgives your imperfections and gives
you leave to give up the quest: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All is
forgiven because this guy died for you. </i>And when you can’t buy into
religion, there’s always the dealer on the corner. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Toward the end of the talk, Hoffman
talks about reading Critchley’s book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Book of Dead Philosophers (2009)</i> (I think it must be this one, after
looking up the subject on Amazon), about learning how to die so that we might
live a richer life. “Philosophy begins with the drama of Socrates’s death,” Critchley
says. I had never thought of that. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates">Socrates</a>, <span style="line-height: 115%;">who attempted “to improve the
Athenians’ sense of justice,” was deemed a traitor; he is given the choice of
death by hemlock poisoning, or banishment into obscurity. He chooses, as we may
remember from school, death by hemlock, and thus becomes immortal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
This is where the “Happy Talk”
becomes almost unbearably painful, given the recent event of Hoffman’s untimely
death. “We live in a culture that flees death,” begins Critchley, and I found
myself looking at the time remaining—about two and a half minutes, and so I
stayed with it—and the talk turned to the idea of looking at the skull beneath
the skin, having a skeleton in every Manhattan restaurant to remind the diners,
“You’ll be here someday”; then to Newtown, and Hoffman’s hearing a sermon about
it, and the minister reminding them that Christians look on the cross
throughout a service, looking upon an instrument of death, and are told to
rejoice. “How do we do that?” Hoffman had asked. Right after Newtown happened, he
said, he went home to his kids, made them dinner. And Hoffman said that the
minister he heard kept repeating, “ ‘we can’t protect our children, we can’t
protect our children,’ and you could see it was bothering him, but that was the
truth.” Hoffman concluded, “I thought that was very helpful.” Here the tape
fades out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 1.25pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Il
ne faut pas s'offenser que les autres nous cachent la vérité, puisque nous nous
la cachons si souvent à nous-mêmes.</span></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 1.25pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt .5in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">•<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">We should not be upset that others hide the
truth from us, when we hide it so often from ourselves.</span></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Maxim 11.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Philip Seymour Hoffman was an actor
who was willing to go rooting around the most densely packed of junk
drawers—the human soul, the psyche, whatever you want to call it—to bring forth
an astonishing array of human characters on film and on stage. I have nothing
but empathy for him. He alludes in the talk with Critchley to his own
childhood, that when he is most happy is in seeing the enjoyment his children
have in interacting with each other; this called up his own childhood, which (he
said almost in passing and not too emphatically) “was probably quite
different.” The junk drawer of the past. What to do with it?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I have a lot of junk to clean out.
This post is the tip of the proverbial iceberg—or rather, ice pick, if I’m
keeping with images from the items in my junk drawer—of what is on my mind this
week. But look, I have a pile of junk on my desk, and another pile on the floor
behind the couch. I should probably tend to it. If you have a chance, Netflix the delightful indie comedy<i> Next Stop Wonderland</i>, where Philip Seymour Hoffman's small role is so perfectly wrought I was convinced he was, you know, just a real guy off the street. And then watch <i>Capote</i> and be staggered. It's our work that lives after us, after all. Our work, and our love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 1.25pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Il
n'y a qu'une sorte d'amour, mais il y en a mille différentes copies.</span></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 1.25pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt .5in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">•<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">There is only one
kind of love, but there are a thousand different versions.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Maxim 74.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">~François
de La Rochefoucauld<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Source: Wikiquote</span></i><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Live your life. Use the past. Don’t
junk the love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
In joy, somehow,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-84456684193324255092014-01-26T20:55:00.000-08:002014-01-27T16:49:34.593-08:00An Open Letter of Questionable Charity and Consumer Disappointment<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>To My Readers</b></div>
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To be a good person and a
caring human being in the capitalist economy of the United States today, it seems
only reasonable, even for one being of only lower middle income in New York City, to
attempt to give 10% of one's gross income to charity. Sadly, Miss O' usually only
manages about half that, or 5%. Some of that 5% isn’t even charity, but
political donations, which I wouldn’t have to do if we could just get
legislation to overturn Citizen’s United. But I digress. Not really. But onward to the task at hand.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Selecting charities over the years was a challenge, but I give reliably to Planned Parenthood, Gay Men's Health Crisis, NPR (various local affiliates over the many moves), WBAI independent radio in NYC, and Doctors Without Borders. I also fund cancer walks for my friends, and AIDS walks, and toss in ten bucks here and there as the need arises. I'm happy to do it, but all giving must be done with a full heart, or (at least in the view of Miss O') the giving will be tainted with bad blood. Yes, I really believe that. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Another reasonable feeling for a human being is desire for products, that is, <i>goods and services</i>, of the highest quality we can afford. Cheap stuff is cheap stuff: It's terrible for us and terrible for the environment, even as it might amass big bucks for one or two guys working the racket from an island off the coast of Florida. When we find the perfect good or service of the highest quality, it is not unnatural to form a deep attachment; this is not a <i>foolish</i> attachment. That kind of attachment is reserved for lovers who are assholes.</div>
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Herewith two letters: Miss O' complains.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">PART 1<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Tryin’ to Get Off the Smile Train<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Dear Smile Train:<o:p></o:p></div>
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For the record: Yours was a charity I really believed in, and the importance of whose stated mission no one can question. Until I received that first mailing over a decade ago, I had no idea about the rampant problem of children born with, and dying from, cleft palates. Here in the U.S., this problem is taken care of to the extent that one hardly even notices the scars. I researched the charity, deemed it a good thing, and climbed aboard (to hold with your metaphor). My donations funded probably 5 or 6 cleft palate surgeries in full over the years. Only three times (when I was financially more stable) did I write checks for the full amount of one surgery, $250. I’d like to have done more, of course. Who wouldn't? </div>
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But in 2008 and more particularly
in 2011, something happened in regards to Smile Train that really disturbed me. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/business/24smile.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">This article </a>appeared in the New York Times:</div>
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<b>OPPOSITION ARISES TO CHARITIES' MERGER</b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">For the last decade, Smile Train and Operation Smile have been the
Hatfields and McCoys of the charity world.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Leaders of the two organizations, which work to repair cleft lips and
palates of children in poor countries, have long been estranged. Even though
Smile Train’s founders at one time served on the board of Operation Smile, they
and its founders, Dr. William P. Magee and his wife, Kathleen S. Magee, ran
separate charities with similar goals while remaining divided by their
differences year after year.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">….In the nonprofit equivalent of a putsch, Mr. Wang and four Smile
Train board members who are also employees of his businesseses engineered the
merger and presented it as a fait accompli at a regularly scheduled board
meeting on Feb. 8, board members who opposed it said….<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The controversial deal
gives Mr. Wang oversight of the bulk of Smile Train’s roughly $160 million in
assets, and it guarantees lifetime tenure at the new organization to the
Magees.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Additionally, it commits the merged organization to put half of all
the money it raises over the next three years into a fund under Mr. Wang’s
control.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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Based on this article, and the fact
that since about 2009 I was INUNDATED WITH REQUESTS FOR MORE, MORE, MORE, I
began to wonder where my money really went. I was not alone in noticing the
changes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And then this in 2014:</div>
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<a href="http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/smiletrain.html">FROM CHARITYWATCH.ORG:</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #be0006; font-family: "Courier New";">Solicitation Train</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">"Make
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">one</span> gift now and we'll never
ask for another donation again!"</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;"> If you receive a solicitation in the mail from any charity that
makes the above promise, you would be wise to be skeptical. No donor should
ever feel obligated to make a contribution in order to not be solicited.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">A fed-up donor contacted AIP to let us know that she had
asked <b>Smile Train</b>, a charity well known for its ads of children with
cleft lips and palates, in September and November of 2009 to remove her name
from its mailing list. In early December of the same year she received a letter
with Smile Train's promise that in exchange for a contribution they would cease
further solicitations to her. So to get the charity off her back she sent them
a contribution--yet she continued to receive Smile Train solicitations (one
more in December and two more in April 2010) despite notifying Smile Train of
her wish to be removed from their list each time she received a solicitation.
Rubbing salt into her wounds, this May she received another solicitation with
the same offer to not be solicited.</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #be0006; font-family: "Courier New";">A Wink and a Smile Train</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">-
published in the December 2008 issue of the <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report</span><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">100% of
your donation goes toward programs -- 0% goes toward overhead.</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Many AIP members have seen the above language in
solicitations from Smile Train, a charity that treats children born with cleft
lip and palate. One may wonder how a group that spends about $15.5 million or
34% of its cash budget on overhead, and receives a B- from AIP, can make such a
claim.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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Lately, the desperation of your charity has begun
to show in more egregious ways. In November, this little item arrived:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwp58-E4hCwY_5dwQU5qbGTmZgEEcSUpya6UbTTUI4UCCe9L4bEHMM7J5hcQIUst5ufDnCm3eSrWZ7S6Ej6G3mwFDTkY2hG8LNwxvv-xmnOz8uUQUTVI9ycUlzEZ01bZqcG3TIR4hDOaKC/s1600/IMG_0801.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2DXROA9ZpC3SW8DLPxmppybGkmlTU_5zjDiY7ubXZKy9bA1BZtKxdMvWj_6lk01nKKNpvlXj9ru5fz4J4Y7GfZ-_isIVnccHEmegmD16wXD-rYD4gaSm6YJ3AH-29FO6_BrytdHWk7YX/s1600/IMG_0799.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2DXROA9ZpC3SW8DLPxmppybGkmlTU_5zjDiY7ubXZKy9bA1BZtKxdMvWj_6lk01nKKNpvlXj9ru5fz4J4Y7GfZ-_isIVnccHEmegmD16wXD-rYD4gaSm6YJ3AH-29FO6_BrytdHWk7YX/s1600/IMG_0799.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwp58-E4hCwY_5dwQU5qbGTmZgEEcSUpya6UbTTUI4UCCe9L4bEHMM7J5hcQIUst5ufDnCm3eSrWZ7S6Ej6G3mwFDTkY2hG8LNwxvv-xmnOz8uUQUTVI9ycUlzEZ01bZqcG3TIR4hDOaKC/s1600/IMG_0801.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">On Friday, January 24, it was this:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgru106tP1vAiBLiupiTKTs0YE4rd-rd8Ifia_AXomcsHmM1VToIRJqP4DvH1hR-SuAZQBH5YnC7YRr-rtp7OFQNx9tDuFwojPTjvqGYS1PLftdd4bm4HVAlifzhK1lBkDjc2iCJDgrrABW/s1600/IMG_0798.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgru106tP1vAiBLiupiTKTs0YE4rd-rd8Ifia_AXomcsHmM1VToIRJqP4DvH1hR-SuAZQBH5YnC7YRr-rtp7OFQNx9tDuFwojPTjvqGYS1PLftdd4bm4HVAlifzhK1lBkDjc2iCJDgrrABW/s1600/IMG_0798.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7qjcTDP0ySmAmMzjk6fKuNb8rtJgCvMrb3CXc7pxkb998VpBqAK9Mr1AUJwbRAmlzoa4jTmgVfPgK65tB2Itf_fr1cbCQjkf4oSZ3rYCo7V8YEZFihhqAxc2KNS8RiW1-Tsbzz6HlUbJp/s1600/IMG_0802.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7qjcTDP0ySmAmMzjk6fKuNb8rtJgCvMrb3CXc7pxkb998VpBqAK9Mr1AUJwbRAmlzoa4jTmgVfPgK65tB2Itf_fr1cbCQjkf4oSZ3rYCo7V8YEZFihhqAxc2KNS8RiW1-Tsbzz6HlUbJp/s1600/IMG_0802.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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I note the locations where these
“gifts” were manufactured, because all I could picture were the tiny, suicidal
fingers (can't you picture them jumping off those hands?) of Chinese factory workers laboring under horrific conditions to churn
out these stupid, plastic products in order to help you entice a donor (for a <i>children's charity</i>) who
WROTE YOU SEVERAL TIMES that SHE WOULD NO LONGER BE GIVING TO YOUR CHARITY because your money and egos seemed to be clashing with the mission.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpupIEBQ0vQZSWRTSARuMcv_KwwKSjjDHXGXfPKR__uTOT7yDeqpwXmMNtVIVsjdZ64hNq6LIpfSiijhyphenhyphen6jKmOEa01fnPGmPJz4HbhOhgA49afur7Vi4iM7aI7o-bTAiafAbRjX4QAvXkc/s1600/IMG_0800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpupIEBQ0vQZSWRTSARuMcv_KwwKSjjDHXGXfPKR__uTOT7yDeqpwXmMNtVIVsjdZ64hNq6LIpfSiijhyphenhyphen6jKmOEa01fnPGmPJz4HbhOhgA49afur7Vi4iM7aI7o-bTAiafAbRjX4QAvXkc/s1600/IMG_0800.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Is there anything to which you will not stoop? PLATINUM PARTNER? <br />
<i>I never gave out of EGO. </i><br />
Jesu Maria.</td></tr>
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I'm writing this HERE, on my blog, because you have ignored all my letters, complaints, and messages. Not that you will see this blog.
But my friends will. And I'll just continue to recycle all the paper you are WASTING on this effort to lure me into your money pool. I have no idea <i>what</i> to do with calculator and bag. DAMN YOU.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I repeat (for what good it does): Miss O’ has respectfully told you, Smile Train, that, since the merger and the uncertainty of the way funds were being handled in 2011, she would no longer be donating to your charity, the aforementioned <i>Smile Train</i>. “Godspeed,” said I, “and I hope the children still get the important surgical care you are promising. However, I have decided to spend my $250/surgery, and double it, by partnering with Doctors Without Borders.” Is this ON?</div>
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Yours &c.,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">PART 2</b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">If the Shoe (Gives You) Fits<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Dear Naot:</div>
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Oh, <a href="http://www.naot.com/">Naot</a>, how I will ever live
without you I do not know. But until I have reassurances for the complaints below, live <i>sans you</i> I must.
To my readers and to you, I must explain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">A woman searches her whole life for
the perfect shoe brand. My mom, Lynne, told me from a very early age, </span><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">“There is no such thing as ‘breaking in’ a
shoe. The shoe either feels exactly right the moment you put it on, and </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">comfortable</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> as you
walk around the store, or it doesn’t. Don’t kid yourself when it comes to
shoes. And buy the best. Worry about how to pay for it later, if you have to; remember that one great pair is worth ten cheap ones.” </span></i><span style="line-height: 115%;">And is she wrong?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Enter Naot, shoes made on a kibbutz
in Israel; crafted with the best materials, for comfort and for durability,
they just cannot be beat, as the old used car guys used to promise. The price was high, but so what? Once my feet fell into that footbed, <i>it was love!</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Around 1993, I found my first perfect
shoe, in the form of your clogs pictured below, a style which you no longer manufacture. Sadly, the photo you see shows
these 20-year-old clogs as they currently live in my kitchen, for porch duty (after 12 years of teaching duty); in New York I turned them into paint and project
shoes. They've been great. Only in the last year have chunks of the sole begun to sort of fall off,
and yet still I can walk in them, and comfortably. Naot Clog in a discontinued style, I cain’t quit you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeUQrBC2FFQ01YIwNuGYjMLqWynsHQkASiR_uyYhrdJRdExg_HyvtrnDJy1n5sNWKEpeKaLe7GIgOtl7IPEl3kowPrL-55viq5NLqTqOemWudwTWUwInu0l0No5pd43cZ70s4b9fPpTv-V/s1600/IMG_0796.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeUQrBC2FFQ01YIwNuGYjMLqWynsHQkASiR_uyYhrdJRdExg_HyvtrnDJy1n5sNWKEpeKaLe7GIgOtl7IPEl3kowPrL-55viq5NLqTqOemWudwTWUwInu0l0No5pd43cZ70s4b9fPpTv-V/s1600/IMG_0796.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqv33cNOMGyWCGKdJGuK4awFJMbdJeMpxE3i5ttX6BsrkTAB0pdxIPffKnu8fKSEMKI32zxbWju4rO9lk7MYeEpMOgjFbChrX-s2dD1n1Dm6ErLB7RCZkl6pmX56qwA4x4CJ84Pgvm7-LY/s1600/IMG_0797.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqv33cNOMGyWCGKdJGuK4awFJMbdJeMpxE3i5ttX6BsrkTAB0pdxIPffKnu8fKSEMKI32zxbWju4rO9lk7MYeEpMOgjFbChrX-s2dD1n1Dm6ErLB7RCZkl6pmX56qwA4x4CJ84Pgvm7-LY/s1600/IMG_0797.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">20 Years of Great Sole Soul</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Over the years, at Mad, Mad World in
Qccoquan, VA, and more recently, online, I have amassed Naot brand shoes in a
variety of colors and styles for all occasions and seasons. In these shoes, I take long walks in the
country, I walk the New York Streets from Times Square to the Battery, and they have the added fillip of looking good on the job and
out at the theater. My personal style credo is that I want to be able to go to
the compost heap, to work, and to dinner and a show in the same outfit, and
still look fabulous. It’s been a real trick, and (mostly) I pull it off. Naot
was the linchpin. Accessories do the rest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC_SHMnomGSKL2ytoOCHQ_TXtbv5UjrdJFfNp9GTVCnrU3tGApa3DCR6Rh2W6l6X12wTJYH_Z9Okej4duZ0YEAXsiykE3RlOoMJSold6C4gFN7p4sY4bYJV6u_vClsmNw9KUknSmXmrlZy/s1600/IMG_0794.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC_SHMnomGSKL2ytoOCHQ_TXtbv5UjrdJFfNp9GTVCnrU3tGApa3DCR6Rh2W6l6X12wTJYH_Z9Okej4duZ0YEAXsiykE3RlOoMJSold6C4gFN7p4sY4bYJV6u_vClsmNw9KUknSmXmrlZy/s1600/IMG_0794.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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And then a few years ago, something
terrible happened. I wrote to Naot about it. Naot, I tried not to let it come to THIS blog: I explained. I described. I shared <i>in private</i> the pain I am about to share with my readers. I was
met with, to put it plainly, indifference and unconcern. I was <i>rebuffed</i>. Here
is what began to happen, in the space of about six months after adding to the boot and clog
wardrobe.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK1ZUz3lha_SXJP3VIGwW5Eu13xVJ4-bdaMavIVGeDN2_MEuq3ud18wVJGJk1m-otcLO1KbSl4xsYXD12boJavd3WQuLhntRQzDn-DwBqOgFLZpgy37ZCHsv9Et-LUkv55jl8HHVit_79C/s1600/IMG_0795.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK1ZUz3lha_SXJP3VIGwW5Eu13xVJ4-bdaMavIVGeDN2_MEuq3ud18wVJGJk1m-otcLO1KbSl4xsYXD12boJavd3WQuLhntRQzDn-DwBqOgFLZpgy37ZCHsv9Et-LUkv55jl8HHVit_79C/s1600/IMG_0795.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.naot.com/products/ProductDetails/1188?dept=1002&coll_id=15">ASTER CLOG</a> (center right)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9Ict095fc0EAniJVJGxp6bS-RTWIWtHLXytuZntFHYpZVow0q_gzeSgcuAzInyM6jPNxiezPpT9LJbD9Y5Favg02qKOT1g82-g-yU4a7-9VI1EzuGCkXDtcSUImYayoepABo2NxpeV3A/s1600/Photo+on+1-26-14+at+12.50+PM+%232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9Ict095fc0EAniJVJGxp6bS-RTWIWtHLXytuZntFHYpZVow0q_gzeSgcuAzInyM6jPNxiezPpT9LJbD9Y5Favg02qKOT1g82-g-yU4a7-9VI1EzuGCkXDtcSUImYayoepABo2NxpeV3A/s1600/Photo+on+1-26-14+at+12.50+PM+%232.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEeRSsHs3M4qmU_bR8Tne401eWLD4sADi8bKjHdWOGr46lUIwZen8S3nQzXDezf2BAFEqd6QI94qqBzYE9vfIOfzNzy1mSs1MvXez-igZl8Qe21jZUDZDpQUltqn6ZaHYK5YDF9kdZFL1/s1600/Photo+on+1-26-14+at+12.49+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEeRSsHs3M4qmU_bR8Tne401eWLD4sADi8bKjHdWOGr46lUIwZen8S3nQzXDezf2BAFEqd6QI94qqBzYE9vfIOfzNzy1mSs1MvXez-igZl8Qe21jZUDZDpQUltqn6ZaHYK5YDF9kdZFL1/s1600/Photo+on+1-26-14+at+12.49+PM.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">[Photos also show the brave attempt by Drago, a great family of cobblers in Penn Station, to save the split shoes.<br />
Their good work did give me another year and a half…but that's it.]</td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.naot.com/products/ProductDetails/1071?dept=1001&coll_id=47">LYNX BOOT</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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The brown pair…</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYe7CaQIGCLmxzAdpNOrABbZDoRAvcbWA_bbwsP0HbLuQXooHMowhrAX77vsST4kDKBfe6B8Vox04Oob6QJ_qDFv5PG-3gmuRCxKucaTq4Ed6xD1clQGLof6AlndZtW4Bp7Trfy6cavDm5/s1600/Photo+on+1-26-14+at+12.51+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYe7CaQIGCLmxzAdpNOrABbZDoRAvcbWA_bbwsP0HbLuQXooHMowhrAX77vsST4kDKBfe6B8Vox04Oob6QJ_qDFv5PG-3gmuRCxKucaTq4Ed6xD1clQGLof6AlndZtW4Bp7Trfy6cavDm5/s1600/Photo+on+1-26-14+at+12.51+PM.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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AND THE BLACK PAIR!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoc7HmzCQgnE-UdIaF5uHmsuaK0rpzQrXQnUrC9xSgv7rsLh_lw8Vnn7b1OHMqUZCtzQVGfiF99tBp5fFFp99E5FJNWb0f6IkFa1hEgx6_4F6FS0Yqh2GupxnJzYVM64BRT2WTIiVhWQld/s1600/Photo+on+1-26-14+at+12.51+PM+%232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoc7HmzCQgnE-UdIaF5uHmsuaK0rpzQrXQnUrC9xSgv7rsLh_lw8Vnn7b1OHMqUZCtzQVGfiF99tBp5fFFp99E5FJNWb0f6IkFa1hEgx6_4F6FS0Yqh2GupxnJzYVM64BRT2WTIiVhWQld/s1600/Photo+on+1-26-14+at+12.51+PM+%232.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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And no, Naot, this is not an
“aberration” with “flaws” in the materials. This would seem to be a story of bad design, cheaper
materials, and poor craft. See the Lynx boots below, the red ones? They are about 13
years old. I wear them in the city ALL THE TIME. Despite discoloration of the
toes (all my own fault for wearing them in all weather), the soles are superb.
See?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeqrlQ85ujzplRgrxBva1vuHePIxA8VeFDswUgtiucOOQIn-Rmtjjc_10V3XC4lAkcHsAMoJGv2ohTxT2Ub-EyNT-g2e3UUPv2MQjo6RmkFnJZnNYF12RmB41yAfJqpBhdDVzpGb-m1541/s1600/Photo+on+1-26-14+at+12.51+PM+%233.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeqrlQ85ujzplRgrxBva1vuHePIxA8VeFDswUgtiucOOQIn-Rmtjjc_10V3XC4lAkcHsAMoJGv2ohTxT2Ub-EyNT-g2e3UUPv2MQjo6RmkFnJZnNYF12RmB41yAfJqpBhdDVzpGb-m1541/s1600/Photo+on+1-26-14+at+12.51+PM+%233.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So you’ve left me high and dry,
Naot. I will try to make the shoes I have left last as long as I reasonably can, because you
know as well as I do that every “comfort” shoe brand out there is manufactured
cheaply in China, that the “leather uppers” now are really “all manmade
materials,” and that I will never walk as well again. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Have you at last no sense of
decency, sirs? <i>Where is your PRIDE?</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Yours to command in body and sole no more,</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Miss O'</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">IN SUM<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Play’s the Thing (It Usually Is)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Here's the event that really kind of sparked this post, which I've been promising myself I'd tackle for the past year. So last night I went to see a show in the Village, a revival of a long-lost black farce by a 1960s playwright. The show, it seemed to Miss O', had no idea </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">what it wanted to be.</i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> When that happens, which is to say when a play is a farce, a black comedy, AND a political commentary, as this play was, the director of the play has to make choices. These choices have to do with 1) why he's directing it to begin with; 2) what the play IS first and foremost; 3) the acting style he wants to see; 4) </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">guiding</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> designers to his production concept; and 5) work in rehearsals, accepting input from all the artists and then making it all seem <i>of a piece</i>. The director of this show did not seem to make choices; or rather, he made LOADS of them. For example: The opening moment gave us a darkened stage, an old man staring into the middle distance as he sat in a plastic-covered wingback beside the casket of what must be his dead wife. It's a tragedy. Or is it? Apparently this naturalistic drama was supposed to turn to farce, BING!, when a fakey-acting blonde walked in and switched on the lights and delivered the lines, meant for him, <i>to us</i>. Huh? The entire audience, and not just Miss O' in the audience, shared that quiet, and the occasional uncomfortable chuckle, of the mystified; and finally, after several other entrances and oddly executed lines and fuzzily depicted plot points, the <i>bored</i>. </span></div>
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At intermission, a very talented theater friend with whom I attended this play blamed the obvious failure on "bad writing" (it wasn't a good play, certainly), but he mainly blamed it on the <i>audience</i>: "How can the actors play to this?" he asked, gesturing to the people around us rising to head to the head. "There is no <i>good will</i> in the whole house!" I have never heard a quiet house accused in quite that way. After a pause, Miss O' cried "bullshit." In her day as a high school drama director, from musicals to dramas to comedies, one-acts and full-lengths, and hundreds of scenes from dozens of other plays in between, Miss O' learned that the only shoulders upon which the success or failure of a play rests are those of the DIRECTOR. (This director, as it turned out, was a friend of my companion's, but that is no excuse.) The director has to make it work. That is a director's JOB.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Audience “good will” has nothing to
do with it. An audience’s good will should be the assumption, in that they’ve
paid to be in that theater and don’t want to see their entertainment dollar wasted on
crap. But if the director fails to pull off a great show—actors acting in at
least three different plays; a cold lighting scheme even for a black comedy; a
miscast female lead with a really bad British accent and a look more suggestive
of a Real Housewife in L.A. rather than the competent nurse she was supposed to
playing (the character was meant to be played by a young, female Bill Nighy—that’s what the
role wanted: competent and sly with crack comic timing)—well, what can you do?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And this morning it hit me how all these disappointments are connected, and hence tonight's blog so fast on the heels of yesterday's blog. Just as a production cannot rise or fall by counting on an audience's "good will"….</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Just so with a charity:</b> Smile Train Charity, you cannot command my good will by plying me with flashy and unsolicited goods, repeated requests (at least two per
month) for donations, or by showing pictures of the suffering, which is to say GUILT. You have to
demonstrate your <i>responsible</i>, and need I add <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">charitable</i>,
use of the hard-earned money donated to you with the full hearts of people like
me, and make me WANT to give out of the real need you are supposed to be fulfilling. Right?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And just so with a quality brand company: </b>Naot, my years of ecstatic shoe
purchases—shoes of extraordinary comfort, variation of style, and marvelous
durability—cannot sustain this buyer's loyalty when the shoes begin to go up in price and
drop dramatically in quality. The company especially cannot continue to thrive
when the complaints of a loyal customer of 20+ years are dismissed with,
<i>“Sometimes there are flaws…”</i> and <i>“if the purchase was made recently, you can
return it to the merchant from whom it was purchased,”</i> however your email phrased it. When the customer points out that three pairs of expensive shoes <i>in
one go</i> were in fact flawing in precisely the same way, the flaws only to be discovered
about four to six months after the purchase, one would think the big brand name
company would at the very least promise to look into it. A GREAT company would
send you a prepaid UPS label and ask to have the products returned for a full refund or
replacement. <i>And maybe offer that customer a coupon toward another purchase in
the future as a sign of good faith. </i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
To Smile Train and to Naot and to
that stupid show last night, Miss O’ says: “Where is YOUR good will? Where is
YOUR good faith?” To America and the Readers of the Miss O’ Show I say: <i>When it comes to spending your money: </i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quality. Always quality.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
A final point, from
<b>gapingvoid.com</b>:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p>Whew. NOW I can finally STOP THINKING ABOUT THESE ISSUES. Godspeed. Do better work. You have no one to blame but yourselves.</o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p>It's time to talk about CONGRESS, but fuck it. Typos? Sure. Fuck them, too. It's bedtime.</o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Yours &c. with kisses,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
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Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-6351827522345191452014-01-25T12:13:00.000-08:002014-01-27T16:53:03.049-08:00Are You Not Entertained? Well Fu@k You.<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="line-height: 115%;">(With Apologies to My Mom)</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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My mom, Lynne, gave up swearing sometime
in 1971, the year I started. I was in second grade. My dad, Bernie, was forced
to follow her example in short order, all because of the morning I was looking
for my shoes and couldn’t find them, and cried out with all the anger I could
muster, “GODDAMMIT WHERE ARE MY SHOES?” My dad, who had been asleep because
he’d been on second shift, came flying out of my parents’ bedroom. “You didn’t
know I was here, did ya?” he said. And he grabbed my arm and spanked the shit
out of me. (We called it “spanking” then.) I’m hazarding a guess that I knew
“goddammit” was not a nice thing to say, but more to the point, I must have known that it had
power. When my mom asked me why I’d said what I did, I told her the truth,
through my snot and tears: “Because whenever Daddy says ‘goddammit’ he finds
what he’s looking for!” Couldn’t argue with that. And so, together, the
O’Parents stopped swearing (mostly) to the point that any swearing out of the
mouths of their sons and daughters to this day is a cause for alarm. “Honey,”
the O’Ps advised in an email a few years back, “we know you don’t want to hear
this, but a foul-mouthed woman is a real turn-off.” Fortunately, I found a man
who begs to differ.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
My mom will be 80 on Monday,
January 27, this year of 2014.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
Christmas she told us kids, “Now, listen, you guys, don’t do anything for my
birthday. Those flowers you sent to your dad [October 5, 2013] will do for both of
us. Okay?” And the O’Kids in attendance, Mike, Jeff, and I, sort of looked
down. After checking with my five siblings, I ordered the flowers on
Friday—don’t worry if you think I’m spilling some beans; Lynne doesn’t read
this. She hasn’t read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Easier-Live-Here-Miss-York-ebook/dp/B00AJLW7Z6">my book</a>, <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/easier-to-live-here-lisa-ohara/1113991565?ean=2940016083636">either</a>. In fact, after the second letter I wrote
home from college my freshman year, she explained on a Sunday when I called
home, “Honey, why do you send me letters? I’m busy. I don’t want to read
those.” What Lynne wants to know is if her kids are all right: “Are you all
right?” And after you manage to keep her on the horn long enough to force feed
her the salient news of your life during the every-other-Saturday morning phone
call, she says, “You can keep talking to your father; I’ve just got to get off the
phone,” and Bernie stays on the extension and the two of you leisurely chat
politics and media until Lynne gives him a signal, and he hurriedly says, “Okay, hon, we’ll talk to you soon…” and off they go, doing the mysterious things they cover up with their casual, "Nothing new here."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Our Common Core<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Last week I published my 100<sup>th</sup>
blog entry. (It's a little exhausting to think about the word count of the past three years, let me tell you.) I started out to write exclusively about education—the state of the
national school scene, my own experiences in teaching, and what I saw as ways
to shape the future of it for the better. <i>For the kids.</i> Somewhere in there,
because apparently I can’t help myself, I started writing other stuff, and less
and less about school; teaching as a practice stayed on in my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">voice</i> and in my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">approach</i>, for good or ill, if not as an actual subject. Glancing
back over the posts, I see there sure is a lot of shit on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Miss O’ Show</i>; and based on the very occasional comment on
Facebook and some longer messages from dedicated readers, I know that while
most of this thing is just me thinking out loud, some of it resonates and even
inspires others to think about and express ideas, too. That’s the best. That’s
why I became a teacher. But I do wonder about my style. I have come to realize
that the harshness of the Miss O’ voice does not really inspire collaboration
or conversation, for which I wonder if I should apologize. I’m more bullhorn
than bullshit, surely, but that doesn’t make my voice any less unattractive to
those who would, you know, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">participate</i>.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The most popular* blog posts, as
far as readership statistics show, are the ones that are autobiographical and unabashedly
personal. Emotion—obvious anger or, by contrast, real sentiment—as a Miss O’-motivator
is, understandably, the best hook. (*Note: Because of trolling sites such as
“vampirestat” and “adsense” and anything with “.ru,” as well as image entries
via “google.imgres,” it’s hard to know how many of the hits you get are actual
readers; it’s of course <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">impossible </i>to
know how many people actually READ the blog after clicking on it, or how much
they read.) The least popular blog posts are the ones that, as indicated from
the title on, wrestle with ideas, mostly political; and unless those are generously
laced with personal details from Miss O’s actual life, from an early paragraph,
I suspect they go unread in full. Let’s face it: Who doesn’t love a juicy memoir?
Still, I receive almost no comments on the blog itself—one or two people do
occasionally message me on Facebook; apparently Blogger makes it way too hard
to comment unless you too are a blogger, but no one confirms this. In addition,
the number of people who joined my blog back in March of 2011 has not increased
at all from the original 31. I don’t know what to think about that. To the 31
who have stuck with it, I thank you. I’m
not complaining; in truth, I’m amazed I am read at all.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlkzsiL4eyC1biNQgH47AOqUO4a7rn2VsjpK3hsZmF0WelSJoIWL1g_hUIvvZr4zAMXtjVGWQ-Kzx6uu2Gdf5jqPQu1h3JWLLQcwm1lRSqHyjdEjopxFTz5QPynC5BU7YrRo76phC7UnSR/s1600/1185442_365283063574331_711884387_n.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlkzsiL4eyC1biNQgH47AOqUO4a7rn2VsjpK3hsZmF0WelSJoIWL1g_hUIvvZr4zAMXtjVGWQ-Kzx6uu2Gdf5jqPQu1h3JWLLQcwm1lRSqHyjdEjopxFTz5QPynC5BU7YrRo76phC7UnSR/s1600/1185442_365283063574331_711884387_n.png" height="320" width="315" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(<i>Miss O' has no idea where she found this image. -ed.</i>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Speaking and Listening<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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So the other (post-snowstorm) morning I get a text
message from my friend (whom I’ll call) Hutch. So Hutch shows up in 5<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">°</span>
weather and 30 mph winds via Brooklyn and F Train to his Manhattan corporate
job for a big managers meeting at 8:00 AM, for which he was right on time. No
one was there. He texted various people in charge, and finally heard at around
8:30: “Oh, we postponed it until 10. I guess the communication never went out.”
Well, it didn’t: gradually people started coming in, panicked because they were
not on time, only to learn they needn’t have rushed through the freezing temps to even
bother to try. “<i>I guess the communication never went out”?</i> Communications do
not <i>go out</i> on their own; someone IN CHARGE has to do what is called “send
them.” Whoever was in charge declined to comment or to accept responsibility.
Ironically, the two biggest things on their agenda? 1) Employee Satisfaction Survey results; and 2) “How to Make Work More Fun” for the employees. Pardon Miss O’ as she throws up.
This "fun" crap is a national, indeed, a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">global</i>
corporate trend, it seems. It is mad-making. Does anyone else just picture David
Brent, the office manager character played by Ricky Gervais in the original <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Office</i>, playing air guitar trying to
get a laugh out of the team? It’s pathetic, this idea of corporate “leaders” trying
to make work “fun.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
You know what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">work</i> should be? Satisfying. You know what makes work satisfying? Tangible results, fair compensation, and a safe environment. You know what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fun</i> is? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fun</i> is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deeply</i> satisfying. Fun is the result of a spontaneous burst of enthusiasm and engagement with the task at hand. You know what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“</i>not fun” is? Managers making employees eat cake, wear silly hats, clap, and do a primal scream before heading out into their
cubicles or onto the factory floor.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So this morning as I wait for my
kitchen faucet to unfreeze for the dozenth day, I am wondering at the lack of work ethic in this
country, from the top down. Apparently. And why don't we hear about the stuff that workplaces actually create? Why don't we experience responses to all those surveys? So much Gallup polling, so little substantive change for the workers. Why this that?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/when-mainstream-media-lunatic--2014121101031185881.html">Mainstream media is corporate-owned, corporate-run. </a> <i>Duh, </i>as the kids used to say, before they stopped saying things and began using only their thumbs. The views expressed on the air and in the
pages (print or digital), are more and more the views of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">owners</i>. Facts, nuance, real <i>grappling</i>, all seem to go by
the wayside, along with courtesy. In addition, the people who really need to have their voices heard
don’t OWN the sources of sound-making, are not paid to…and I could go on and on and ON. In fact, I <a href="http://www.themissoshow.com/2012/06/storytelling-in-age-of-mechanical.html">have</a>. This
from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Al Jazeera</i> op-ed to which I've linked at the beginning of this paragraph:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In the American media, white people debate whether race matters, rich
people debate whether poverty matters, and men debate whether gender matters.
People for whom these problems have no alternative but to matter - for they
structure the limitations of their lives - are locked out of the discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And this just has to change. We the moneyless, the voiceless, have to take back our agency. And not just in the bars during Happy Hour. And not just on our blogs. Voicelessness and inaction cannot be the new normal. Where does it end?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">("Where does it end?": A friend took a similar photo about a week ago, a fallen rubber band in its usual dropped shape, which is the symbol for infinity. I posted my (blurred) find on Facebook and playfully "credited" him, but he was deeply hurt that I'd "stolen" his picture. Even after I explained that it was my own photo meant as a creative homage, he asked me to take it down. So I did. And I'm putting it here. Does anyone really "own" what never ends? Especially when it's been discarded on the sidewalk? And if your own calling out of such a ubiquitous cast-off object got another to notice it for what it might also be, shouldn't one be pleased about that? Miss O' says, definitively, yes. Yes, you should.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Reading and Writing<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So I'm doing a lot of thinking about the next phase of my writing life. To my readers, I don’t want to lock
<i>you</i> out of a discussion, even if Miss O’ is more monologue than obvious team
player. (As my mom, Lynne, said to me, “I can’t imagine anything worse than being
called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a team player</i>”: Clearly, however much I rattle on, I am her daughter.) That said, your
Miss O’ is asking for <i>your</i> comments on your blog-reading experience. I’m not looking
for criticism, constructive or otherwise; neither am I looking for praise or
even encouragement. I’m really interested in your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">experience</i> as a reader. And write me about that. This is about you,
when you read the stuff I write. I’d like to see the comments here on the blog
rather than on Facebook, though that is just fine, too. I guess what I’m saying
is I wish we could talk more. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Possibly it’s the weather getting
to me. It’s snowing again, here in the coldest winter of my 10 years in New
York. This sort of relentless cold used to be fairly normal, but by the late
1980s New York was becoming like Virginia; Virginia like Georgia; etc. Global
warming and its new extremes have revealed us to be a species of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pussies</i>. And kids, we’d better take a
good, hard look inside our innermost gun-totin’ souls, because we can’t shoot our
way out this one. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Thanks in advance for any time you
take to read and write back; I’ll listen. We’ll talk. And frostbite ain’t no
joke: Keep warm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Love and kisses &c.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O’<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-77667531782479705042014-01-18T15:54:00.000-08:002014-01-19T11:06:14.773-08:00Finding My Teacher Voice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b style="line-height: 18px;">Could You MOVE Please?</b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhujEk1_q3wbUvFOflGl11E_KLTzdBVruUFKe-qAg88Cgy6sXLxR76XqZqfD5Hw91qjQ4dOBbDiRJvC0LK-zx6a1XrseBJlKrQ8U6Syql6I9VB3ed0dkN4Bew3VGYC6EYpVu0DaJ9wGpm5B/s1600/PennyChu_E41St_ChuChuNY_Instagram.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhujEk1_q3wbUvFOflGl11E_KLTzdBVruUFKe-qAg88Cgy6sXLxR76XqZqfD5Hw91qjQ4dOBbDiRJvC0LK-zx6a1XrseBJlKrQ8U6Syql6I9VB3ed0dkN4Bew3VGYC6EYpVu0DaJ9wGpm5B/s1600/PennyChu_E41St_ChuChuNY_Instagram.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Instagram photo by Penny Chu, seen on 41st St and Madison, NYC;<br />
quote by Miss O's favorite writer</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</o:p></b></div>
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The other evening I was on the
platform of Queensboro Plaza here in Queens, New York City, waiting for the Flushing-bound 7 Local Train that, because of delays, would be crowded. When the local pulled in, people
began piling on and, as usual (because most people tend to think in incremental
ways, such as, “I am on now, so I will stop moving”), the middle of the car was
empty and the area by the doors was too packed to allow more riders on. Your
Miss O’ called out in that arresting teacher voice so many of you remember so well (if not exactly with fondness), “Hey, guys, move inside, the middle is EMPTY, and there is
SO MUCH ROOM!” And they did that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Why did they do it? So very often,
“they” don’t move at all, or one will and no one else. They got theirs, see:
They are ON. What do they care that you are not? They are not responsible for
your journey, your arrival. If you really wanted on, you’d shove your way and
tell them, “FUCK YOU” as you elbowed on, and then someone would say, “Fuck ME?
Fuck YOU!” and a real fight could break out, people injured, lots more
screaming, “Fuck you,” and heedlessly, in front of small children (is it any wonder that the first small motor gesture of any New York toddler is the middle-finger thrust?). And it is here one remembers that the
train moves at the same speed and in the same direction, whatever people do
while inside it. And for the love of Christ let the doors CLOSE.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When all those people moved into the middle as requested—an
extraordinary occurrence, let me tell you—and I was able to enter, I said
loudly and enthusiastically, “Thanks, team!” The doors closed, the train moved,
no one looked up—just as usual—but I got to wondering how it was I found my
“teacher voice” in the first place: that voice that gets people to, you know,
do stuff they really don’t want to do, but which they know, somehow, they
probably should. I also got to wondering why it was SO HARD to put the
teachings one shares into other people’s muscle memories; while learning how to
be a dick to others via peer pressure is so easy to put into action. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why is it hard to be the person who breaks
from the throng by the door, says “Excuse me,” in a voice loud and clear, and then
move, whatever the human obstacles, to the empty pocket that is the center of
the car, thus making it possible for others to be less squashed, and for still
more to get on the train?</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Obviously, I am being metaphorical
as well as literal. Because this is Miss O’ talking.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MLK Day and Going Hunting<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The first year I taught (at a rural
Virginia high school, at which I stayed a remarkable three years when you
consider what I’m about to tell you), of my three preps one was English 10. In the
text book from which I taught was Martin Luther King’s speech, “I Have a
Dream.” It’s a gorgeous speech, one of those speeches that change the course of
human history. I prefaced the speech by giving some history of King’s work, and
I remember the class being sort of silent in a way that was, how to say it, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">eerie</i>. Having no recording in our
school’s library, which I found odd, I read it aloud as best I could, invited
discussion, perhaps gave an assignment. After class, two white boys, “Billy”
and “Jimmy,” approached me. (Did I tell you this already? Well—as my dad, Bernie, would say<span style="line-height: 115%;">—</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">did I tell you <i>today</i>? <i>Alright then</i>.)</span><br />
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“You called Martin Luther King a
great man,” Billy said, standing too close to me, his eyes dead cold. “You know
who was a great man? George Washington. Why didn’t you talk about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">him</i>?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jimmy put his finger in my face,
“You know, Miss O’Hah, huntin’ accidents happen here.” I batted his finger away
from my face. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I was later threatened with assault
charges when Jimmy went to our assistant principal to complain of being
battered by my finger-batting. When I explained to the A.P. that what Jimmy was
really upset about was my teaching of the MLK speech, my A.P. (who was from New
York, as it turned out) said to me, “Remember where you live. If you are smart,
you’ll teach something else.” I told him about the “hunting accidents” threat.
“Yeah,” he said, “that could happen. Watch yourself.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nothing like being supported in the
face of oppression. Makes it hard to believe that 50% of this nation's teachers quit after the first or second year. (So at any moment, 50% of America's teachers are teaching with virtually zero experience. Take that in. It took me at least five years to be worth a damn, certainly to have a teacher voice. And, remember, Miss O' quit, too<span style="line-height: 115%;">—</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">twice.) </span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
When King’s birthday,
January 15, was proposed as a federal holiday, the Republicans (who manage
almost always to be on the wrong, and often ugly, side of history, science,
art, and, let’s face it, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything</i>
but Fox “News”) opposed it. Led by North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, the
holiday was opposed on racial grounds, er, sorry, on the grounds that King
hadn’t done anything important. President Reagan, too, did not want to sign the
measure, when it did in fact pass Congress:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From
Wikipedia: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan"><span style="color: #092f9d; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">President Ronald Reagan</span></a></i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> originally opposed
the holiday, citing cost concerns. He later signed the measure, after it passed
with a 338 to 90 margin in favor in the House of Representatives.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #092f9d; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">[8]<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
As long as it was only “cost concerns.”
Jesus.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
But I am from Virginia, and I saw
Virginia in action, up close and deeply personal, when it comes to the whites' treatment of blacks; so
it came as no surprise when the Virginia legislature declared that same January
15 federal holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, to be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lee-Jackson Day</i>, as well, to honor those Confederate heroes. (At my
next high school I taught with several history teachers who applauded the
measure. Again: Jesus. Or as my Grandma Kirlin would intone, eyes going sideways, the cigarette smoke swirling, "And Jesus wept.")<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Then I have to remember that while
Martin Luther King, Jr., is widely memorialized, celebrated, and revered all over the
world, only a few vestiges of bigoted bellyachers will grieve the disgraced Lee (though he really was quite a man) and
fallen Jackson. (For more perspective on this great man's legacy, go to this <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/29/1011562/-Most-of-you-have-no-idea-what-Martin-Luther-King-actually-did">terrific essay</a>.) King had a dream, not merely a grievance, and the dream became action.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUsyPTJeJ13ywQXThASVyXEhR7RzgfNpDfKPj4JkDgDQpLak-ayMJghWrDPoSZTweUj8yoc1T460spQXY1k_E8AnoqM7vdr6-gHkM9SMEQrP__0yOJ9nT-tmasSTT7fQS9S22NRo9v2sil/s1600/59650_232094870302900_618748893_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUsyPTJeJ13ywQXThASVyXEhR7RzgfNpDfKPj4JkDgDQpLak-ayMJghWrDPoSZTweUj8yoc1T460spQXY1k_E8AnoqM7vdr6-gHkM9SMEQrP__0yOJ9nT-tmasSTT7fQS9S22NRo9v2sil/s1600/59650_232094870302900_618748893_n.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Google Images</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What Difference Does It Make?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
During the past week, I’ve enjoyed
an actual exchange of actual email with my once and former best friend, Tom
Barry, who is happily married to his current best friend, Jen (who took over my
part ca. 1998), and the father of two delightful children. Of a mutual friend
of ours (an ex-friend of mine, really), Tom noted that this fellow was very
lonely, in the “If I’d done nothing at all, would the world be any different
today?” place. I replied, in part:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial;">Thinking of your last sentence,
"If I'd done nothing at all, would the world be any different today?"
It's why I love </span></i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">It's a Wonderful Life</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial;">, I guess; and short of
being an EMT, a firefighter, a parent, or the CEO whose greed caused a massive
chemical spill into a river, thereby destroying the drinking water for
eternity, I guess it's hard to be sure you've made a difference in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial;">You know that song, "Nature
Boy"? I love Nat King Cole's rendition. It's the line, "The greatest
thing you'll ever learn/ is just to love and be loved in return" that
resonates most with me in my everyday life. Maybe it sounds foolish or
small-minded, but loving my friends and family, and now [my boyfriend], and feeling
loved by them….is
about as good as life gets, and about as meaningful as it can be.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial;">And
still we have to work at things, be OF the world, and in it, too. Goddammit
anyway.</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I suppose a good question to ask
yourself this weekend of the MLK national holiday is not so much, “If I’d done
nothing at all, would the world be any different today?” but rather, “How have the actions I’ve taken made the world a better place?” Accentuate the positive,
I say. And then ask, “How might I make a positive difference for the vast
majority of us, even now as I live my life and try to get home in time to have dinner with my family?” And then search inside yourself for the courage to do that.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Metaphor Alert<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Just as a handful of white, bigoted
Republicans tried to sabotage the desire of millions of Americans to celebrate
by national holiday the birth of one of America’s greatest heroes, so, too, on
the subway: One large (and coincidentally white) man with earbuds in and his
back to me and the door, stood full center by the entrance and the vertical pole,
oblivious and unmoving, even as spiritually diverse, multiethnic, and (doubtless)
many-gendered people slid around him to the middle and made room for more, at
my teacher-voiced clarion call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all
got on and could now get home, in time for dinner, say. The obstructing man
remained where he was, unmoved and unaware of his obstruction and the obstacle
he’d presented to the little moment of making our lives better. The point is:
One voice said, “We can change this if we all work together,” and we did.
Because we were hungry, we were tired, and goddammit, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just move already</i>. And if you had told me ten years ago that I would have had the courage to use that teacher voice on a crowded New York City subway, I'd have shown you flying pigs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbV-trI73uER5w0yg4n5Ol6ZtzMYSC_JKSwUzVwMebaHDcT3BeHUVeglE-XS6sbsNDFRzfg_IUZcMG9zlSC1jVfVxiAB8FlnN-6ZMb5db_7OEEj9jHebZGCsV1sH19KOjjSRKYRHO1zEr0/s1600/IMG_0760.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbV-trI73uER5w0yg4n5Ol6ZtzMYSC_JKSwUzVwMebaHDcT3BeHUVeglE-XS6sbsNDFRzfg_IUZcMG9zlSC1jVfVxiAB8FlnN-6ZMb5db_7OEEj9jHebZGCsV1sH19KOjjSRKYRHO1zEr0/s1600/IMG_0760.JPG" height="320" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gift to the author from Chuck Edwards and David Andrews, ca. 1993</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Being In Love is Cool<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So for years now, I’ve said, “Love
is not possible for me.” And I moved on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve made a thousand friends, built a real web of love that was not
romantic, created new work, lived in a few different places, tried to be of
use. I write stuff. And then, as I wrote last time, I met a man who changed the
whole story I’d built. My friend Anna Citrino recently wrote a blog that I just
now read, <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://annacitrino.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/being-in-love-is-cool/">Being in Love is Cool</a></span>, </span>which
dovetails amazingly with my own recent experience. (Did I mention I’m in love?
Well did I mention it TODAY?) Anna wrote today to send me to this blog of Dec.
31, and her note closed with this:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Just having a life together is something I am deeply
grateful for. Deep gratitude. There can't be enough said about coming back to
that place in the heart every day. Let the cynics go on being sour if they
choose. To be in love with life is to know it is a gift, every day, the
simplest things.</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
In her blog post, Anna writes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Love is
an act of imagination—imagining life together, and how you can live in a way
that allows you to come together in wholeness. In the act of loving, daily
giving ourselves to each other, we are made whole.”</span></i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> </span>I think this is especially apt right now,
because for one, Miss O’ has lived single until now and has ever championed the
well-lived single life; and for two, Miss O’ is ever scolding the cynics and
mean people who sabotage the prospective happiness of others; and at a time
when Miss O’s heart is dancing for purely personal reasons, it might seem as if
I could offer no perspective on the lives and possible suffering of others.
Just because one is no longer <i>only one</i> should not mean there can be no more
empathy for individual lives, the solitary life. We’re all only temporarily “with someone,” after
all, death being what it is. The revolutionary 1971 women’s health guide, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/">Our Bodies, Ourselves</a></i>, reminds us, “We are only
temporarily healthy.” You have to be ready for the inevitable <i>when</i>, while remaining open to “what if.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Kids used to ask me all the time,
“Why are we doing this?” They’d whine at a grammar lesson, “I’ll never need it
in my real life.” We all did that, and what’s creepy to me is that so many
grown-ups, <i>who seriously ought to know better by now, for the love of Christ</i>, do that, too: “I’ll never be poor” and “I’ll always have health care”
and “I’ll always have fresh water to drink.” These colossal failures of
imagination most likely become worse when arts funding is cut, when kids quit
being able to make paintings and act in school plays—when we start pulling away
the opportunities that spark, “What if…?” I think the greatest challenge to
being human is the same challenge teachers face when teaching school, because
here is our answer to the doubting: “You just have to trust me on this.” Miss
O’ cannot help but find it a curious thing that so many of the same humans who
believe emphatically in an imaginary being, “God,” rail and cry out against the
empirical findings of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real-life</i>
climate scientists, the feelings of oppression experienced by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">living</i> blacks, the relentless struggles
of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">actual</i> impoverished. Having blind
faith is not the same as making an imaginative leap to trust people who are in
positions to know more than you do. It’s one thing to trust the guy driving the
subway train when you step on board, and quite another to fall into the train’s
path and believe that the guy driving the train will, you know, magically catch
you.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
What are you? <i>Stupid?</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Living has to be an act of
imagination as well as a grappling with actual, real <i>reality</i>. We sometimes must do things we aren’t ready
for—because that inner teacher voice says to us, “Sit down, be quiet, and do
the work.” And we have to trust that at the end of the exercise, well, that the learning will be part of the bigger picture, will fill in a gap, or at least get us a smiley face and a Twizzler.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
My boyfriend asked me the other
night, “How would you build your perfect, happy life?” My knee-jerk response
was, “Live alone.” As I thought about it over the next several days, I could
finally tell him what my perfect life would be. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
“It starts with a porch,” I said.
He smiled, his perfect profile dropping, his laugh beginning. I continued,
“With a view of fields, a creek of fresh water, mountains; a house behind me with a good bed and
a toilet that works; some food; unlimited red wine, and you.” He knew exactly what I meant.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Did the alert O'Reader notice what is
NOT in my “perfect, happy life”? Look again. See it? That’s right! <i>No politics.</i> Not one mention of fighting Washington. No straining against a national takeover by the greedy corporations, and no arguments about how to solve all the
problems that Republicans deny are problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (And n</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">o lousy health, obviously.) </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">And I started to wonder, “What would happen if Miss O’ decided to LIVE
that perfect, happy life—go this summer to my love’s house among the
pomegranates in Montenegro and just never come back?” </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Then one remembers the down side of <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i>. So here's a question: After the movie ends, does George
Bailey have to keep running The Building and Loan, or will enough people have
come to the understanding of how important it is to have that independent
institution and, finally, offer to take over so George can go off and build
some things and live some of his dreams? I quit teaching, and the schools I left
kept on going, the kids just fine. When I take breaks from posting political
warnings on Facebook, somehow the pictures of kids and kittens and the
offerings of Upworthy keep appearing without me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
But I don’t stop to ask, “If I’d
done nothing at all, would the world be any different today?” I am trying to
remember that it’s important to use my teacher voice, and it’s also important
to allow myself to love this man and be loved by him, to balance that. It means
I might stop writing the blog for a while. I might not. It means, this love in
my life, that I’m having to rethink what’s important to me as a daughter and
sister and aunt, as a friend, a teacher, a writer, a New Yorker, an activist.
“If I stop all my political involvement and focus solely on the happiness of my
love, will it change anything?” You might just as well ask, “If I stop
breathing, will the world be different?” Of course it will be different.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The real question to myself is, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What are you going to do to learn all you
can, love all you can, be useful and good and not a royal pain in some poor stranger’s ASS?</i> And I'll try to do that. You do it, too. I say this with my teacher voice: I say it
with love and real knowledge that your life will be better for working to be a
more empathetic and informed person. At least, MY life will better if you are. I'd really like to go hang loose in the Balkans for a few years, knowing you were taking the reins.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>Adventures in Infrastructure</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I’ll close by sharing with you,
dear Reader, the transformation of my Writer’s Chair, which has been out of
commission for months due to a broken foot and crashed-in spring bed. I grieved
the loss of the old upholstery, but I think the change to the lighter Crayola
“spring green” is refreshing. (Thanks to the craft of <a href="http://www.oscardecoinc.com/">Oscar Deco, Inc.</a> in Corona,
Queens, for the big restoration, and to Judy at <a href="http://www.zarinfabrics.com/">Zarin Fabrics</a> on the Lower East Side for all the swatches.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDmqsLl9K492yLFChhjF4bTW_hbtvsz8hySnzGScbYlpGAmd_FAqrCGuq4TQMn5_Ts8SJrxr41LtukdB5xgM_xd3YkixOWkAu7OClpw2XBFAyAfidDE2T-4JPPl0aSJ9xQbkC2PFv3e4pk/s1600/GreenChair_BeforeAfter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDmqsLl9K492yLFChhjF4bTW_hbtvsz8hySnzGScbYlpGAmd_FAqrCGuq4TQMn5_Ts8SJrxr41LtukdB5xgM_xd3YkixOWkAu7OClpw2XBFAyAfidDE2T-4JPPl0aSJ9xQbkC2PFv3e4pk/s1600/GreenChair_BeforeAfter.jpg" height="203" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miss O's Writer's Chair, gift of Gail Evans ca. 1984, Blacksburg, VA<br />
1940's Platform Recliner<br />
Repaired, Restored and Reupholstered by Oscar Deco, Inc.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Are you believing that? I know. I stare and stare. It's as hard to believe as the spring green change in my O'HEART, and that is refreshing, too. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
That's all I got today, in the year of 2014, the year that Michelle Obama, Stephen Colbert, and Miss O' are all turning 50. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Now
MOVE IT already. </i>You're not alone, remember? Pull out your earbuds. Fix that goddamned chair. Love somebody. Share in the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. Look around you, for the love o' god. The doors are closing faster than you think.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
As Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., used to write at the close of many letters pleading for sane action…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
In Christ,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Miss O'</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
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Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-11040783214588616122013-12-01T09:42:00.000-08:002013-12-01T14:42:42.274-08:00Everybody Loves a Clown (So Why Don’t You?)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> </span></i><b style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Miss O’, Drama Queen</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Happy Post-Black Friday, dear
readers! Miss O’ returns after a sweet week of rest and replenishment by way of
Thanksgiving in Columbus, Ohio, with her brother Pat and family, as well as the
delightful Lefflers, and also assorted big holiday meal guests from my
sister-in-law’s family. Surely I should start this letter with the weather
report: To invoke Garrison Keillor, if I may, “It’s been cold this last week”:
Lows in the teens and a high in the 20s on the big day, as well as a couple of
inches of snow cover, made for little outdoor time. In addition, the cooking
top of my brother’s stove broke on Wednesday (at least two items that should
never have computer chips in order to remain mechanical: Automobiles and
stoves), but at least the oven worked. So with two crockpots, an electric
griddle, a microwave, and a toaster oven, we made magic. I say “we,” but all I
ever do, being the eccentric aunt, is a little scullery, a little vacuuming, some
joking with the kiddies, and little walkabouts from bedroom to kitchen to
living room and back. And I drink, of course. It’s the secret to holiday magic.
I even told the family of my great fear of becoming one of Dylan Thomas’s
aunts, whom he described in his story “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” and
though my size is different, the moment seems apt: <i>“And some few small aunts, not wanted in the kitchen, nor anywhere else
for that matter, sat on the very edges of their chairs, poised and brittle,
afraid to break, like faded cups and saucers.”</i> Possibly my nephew Cullen
will one day write of my Thanksgiving visits, “And one large aunt, not wanted
in the kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat in the very middle of
each chair, vague and massive, inept at tasks, like a snoring bull among the
china.” Except that usually I’m in the middle of all the places he is, doing
accents, so that whatever comment I make, Cullen will say, “Aunt Lisa, say that
like a New Yorker.” And Aunt Lisa does, then goes to pour another glass of
Irish whiskey, and as in Dylan Thomas’s memoir, once again I play all the
parts: <i>“The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie
had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port, stood in the
middle of the snowbound backyard singing like a big-bosomed thrush.” </i>Sexy
holiday times!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Travel usually sparks strange
dreams. At least twice this week that I can recall, I had elaborate and
seemingly long, and certainly wildly detailed dreams about high school play
rehearsals. Colors first: The first dream was in greens and blacks, the second
dream in vomit pinks, ambers, browns, some black, some white. I don’t know if
you are into color symbolism, but even if you aren’t: ICK. What both dreams had
in common, aside from being set at high school play rehearsals, was the
complete lack of control, or even role function, that Miss O’ experienced in
both dreams. In Dream One, all I seemed to do was yell, at both students in the
“classroom”—a kind of open place with students on “risers”—and on the stage,
where I seemed to be in the wings when I wasn’t wandering the halls of “Luxe
High,” skinny and confused, doing some kind of ROP, or “Retirement Option
Program” of serving in the school for a compensatory fee. In Dream Two, I
seemed to be in some kind of English village, and there was an old-looking,
wood-decorated red-painted pub called <i>Toby’s</i>
that I very much wanted to stop in, and yet the dreamscape seemed to compel me
to look for something else, and I don’t know if I found it, because after a
brief episode involving one of those disgusting, unusable toilets I seem to
invent in dreams so that I don’t actually wet my bed in real life (my mom,
Lynne, also does this—anyone else?), I was back in an auditorium, but outside,
like at Nissan Pavilion, and yet not, and two former students of mine were
singing from the back, standing by a now-retired teacher, Mr. Snyder, and no
matter where I sat in the house—trying, I guess, to see so I could direct—the
view would be obscured or disappear altogether. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">My take-away—and I agree with poet
Joy Harjo, whom Miss O’ has quoted before, that since we spend fully one third
of our lives asleep (take that in), paying attention to dreams would seem to
make sense; anthropologists theorize that the idea of the soul came at least
partly from dreams: that place we go to when we are as close to being dead as
we can be while alive and still functioning naturally—is that 1) Miss O’ is
feeling unmoored in general; 2) Miss O’ is somehow still affected by her
teaching life of yore and is feeling estranged from her formerly-practiced
talents, perhaps; and 3) the ability to digest large, celebratory meals <i>comfortably</i> is a joy of bygone days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">One other source of Miss O’s holiday
indigestion, and of her own making, is in the bringing up of subjects that
cause upset. It is the inadvertent policy of your Miss O’ to discomfit someone
at every gathering, at least once, if not several times, especially after
consuming a few glasses of Chianti. This particular incident surprised me,
though, because it wasn’t about politics. It was about the idea of opinions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">We hear it all the time, since at
least the Hollywood movies and radio shows of the '30s, New York types saying, in order
to close out an argument (however ungrammatically), “Hey, everyone’s entitled
to their opinion.” They may bookend this phrase with “It’s a free country” and
“That’s what I believe” for emphasis. This is America, isn’t it? And as
Garrison Keillor said during a monologue one night on his radio show A Prairie
Home Companion on NPR, “The most un-American thing you can say is, ‘You can’t
say that.’” I agree: You can say anything you want. Speech is free.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">But are you allowed to <i>believe</i> it? Miss O’ would say, “Not
always.” That’s what I said. Miss O’ is taking on the adage, <i>“Everyone’s entitled to his opinion.”</i> I
am not sure yet where I’m going, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be
interesting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">So first off, apologies to my truly
marvelous sister-in-law, Traci, who, during the course of a kitchen
conversation over the aforementioned vino, said that she goes walking with a
gal in her neighborhood who expresses extreme-Conservative views, but that she could
still walk with her because, hey, “everyone’s entitled to their opinion.” And
Miss O’, who has been known to share a few opinions in her time, said, “Sure.
And they can still be WRONG.” Traci told me that that was not my call to make,
and I assured her it was not only my call, but also my <i>responsibility to point it out</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Before
I flesh that story out, let me clarify something: Here is an example of a real
“opinion,” by which I mean something that is a matter of taste, a matter of
sensibility, a belief one holds because one simply cannot “go there,” wherever
that is, and in the holding of this opinion, the holder hurts no one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">OPINION:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">“That
clown ottoman is just wrong.” ~ my sister-in-law, Traci, who is awesome<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjweSbrDjin8Z3okIviAY23pUEpgGDr_l47M-tYecCV2gcL5dIOJnrhD04msdoTVeThlI-BXmqoJ-UER6EBH0JLT2DgmAfUAWBXeJaKgB7AzDTqhahfhCfZhxS_haNSM_tY4Y-7L_whLZzy/s1600/IMG_0195.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjweSbrDjin8Z3okIviAY23pUEpgGDr_l47M-tYecCV2gcL5dIOJnrhD04msdoTVeThlI-BXmqoJ-UER6EBH0JLT2DgmAfUAWBXeJaKgB7AzDTqhahfhCfZhxS_haNSM_tY4Y-7L_whLZzy/s320/IMG_0195.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clown Ottoman, ca. 1967, a Christmas present from Santa to Lisa O', aged 3, <br />
and a presence in her bedroom all her life ever after.<br />
The ottoman now resides, unhappily, in a cold garage in Ohio.<br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Alone. So terribly alone. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">What
is there to say? Is she mistaken in her opinion? Probably, she is not. And yet
I am of the opinion that in its garishness and Christmas-colored evil-grinned
hideousness, that clown ottoman simply rocks. The reaction or response one has
to this child’s bedroom accessory is, in the truest sense, <i>a matter of opinion</i>. There is no moral right or wrong attached to
this, no indisputable scientific data to invoke, and no reason to argue one
point or another. What it comes down to is that I thought Cullen might want to
experience the grotesque as part of his toddler’s education, whereas his mother
opted for items of actual beauty. I cede to her opinion, because she is Cullen’s
mom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">My
mom, by contrast, is Lynne. As readers know, Lynne of the poetry-reciting,
Salem smoking, Spanish swearing, casual house-cleaning (unless it’s the one
Saturday a month when it all gets scrubbed) school of mothering (“Go OUTSIDE.
Until <i>tomorrow</i>…”) loved Day of the
Dead types of things: Carnival, Halloween, Mardi Gras stuff, and hanging in my
brothers’ room all through their growing up was this Diablo mask, which my
brother Pat was just asked via email to dig out of the basement to photograph
for his sister’s blog today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">[Actual photo TK, but it's of a carved coconut shell mask, huge
in my memory, with round eyes, mouth with teeth, and three horns poking out from the top, the
face painted red, black, and white, with some dots, if I remember correctly. <i>Note: "TK" is publishing speak for “to come,” possible because “TC” might be mistaken
for “TOC,” or “table of contents” –ed</i>. In the meantime, here is an approximation from the Google, but replace the yellow with white, and throw some polka does around the skull top.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjVhxV2ffcRNC-KzGfPFYXg-1O7rwfytU_BHawcgJkVOKuehEUX3ebZzSx3BHiVDM1m-7ETiiUxmiKYM72RErr4xnJvnB5LUsnU9mieeTGSFlzrfEPwRMc5pc3Msz1BpGwSARuOFvbqzU/s1600/Caribbean-Coconut-mask-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjVhxV2ffcRNC-KzGfPFYXg-1O7rwfytU_BHawcgJkVOKuehEUX3ebZzSx3BHiVDM1m-7ETiiUxmiKYM72RErr4xnJvnB5LUsnU9mieeTGSFlzrfEPwRMc5pc3Msz1BpGwSARuOFvbqzU/s320/Caribbean-Coconut-mask-a.jpg" width="235" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 115%;">This
antique from the Lynne Collection, too, was rejected by Cullen’s mom as a
decorative item for her son’s bedroom on the grounds that it is “hideous” and
“terrifying.” That is Traci’s opinion. (Pat said, “Lisa, I love my wife.”) And
there the matter ends. It’s not that Traci is a girly-girl—she’s a big fan of
all things frog-related, as a matter of fact, and loves a little </span><i style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 115%;">scary</i><span style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 115%;">—but we all have limits. (My limit
has to do with “cute.” Once, on an old-people trip, my parents toured a
Precious Moments factory. Lynne bought me a nail file, “because it was so
awful, but it’s the easiest thing you could, you know, </span><i style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 115%;">keep hidden</i><span style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 115%;">,” I think she said. In our opinion, there is nothing
more hideous, in a bad way, than Precious Moments.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">So: Miss O’s back in that
holiday kitchen and has just upset an apple pie of chat. Remember? Now it was
here that Traci and our friend Cheryl (whose family joins us all in Columbus
for Thanksgiving week) told me in no uncertain terms that I was wrong to hold
the opinion that some people’s opinions are simply wrong. (The irony of this is
not lost on Miss O’, but it’s not the point right now.) So strong was this
feeling, that Traci, who is the possibly the easiest person on earth to get along
with, felt compelled to leave the kitchen, saying, “We are not having this
conversation.” (Miss O’ had fruitlessly used the example, “I put my kids in the
closet for days as punishment because in my opinion that’s the best way to
discipline them.” Granted it was extreme.) (One would think I’d let it drop!
Ha, ha. And yet I cried out, “What about my being a judgmental asshole suddenly
became so unattractive???” No, I didn’t.) So one lets it drop, and one should (though only after making an attempt to make one's point).
It’s Thanksgiving! So here, instead, in my own blogorama, I present five
“opinions” that Miss O’ knows to be, actually, wrong (morally and empirically),
however tightly they are, or were, held: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">All women
should stay home, have no vote, and cede control of their reproductive rights
to the federal government.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Blacks
have intelligence inferior to that of whites.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Jews are
the cause of all the world’s ills and should therefore be exterminated.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The
Irish are so much manure and should be starved to death.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Earth
runs by God’s magic, and so it will serve our human needs no matter how much
carbon waste we put into the atmosphere or how much we pollute all the drinking
water.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">People who hold these, or even one of
the above, “opinions” are, in point of fact, stupid. That’s not merely Miss O’s
“opinion.” Whatever you want to label such people who espouse these “beliefs”—<i>willfully ignorant, bigoted,</i> or <i>cave dwellers</i>—what it comes down to is <i>stupidity</i>. And as Miss O’ has said a
thousand times, it wouldn’t matter at all, except that such people also vote
and also can own guns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The Negative Power of “Positive Thinking”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Here’s a sixth “opinion” for which
Miss O’ has no patience: <i>Being gay is a
choice. </i>There really is no way to argue with a human who states this and
then says, “That is my opinion,” except to say, “No, that is your <i>ignorance</i>.” Miss O’ does not believe
anyone is <i>entitled</i> to ignorance, but
neither does she believe that every display of such ignorance must needs be a
“teaching moment.” To assume that ignorant humans need my vast knowledge thrust
upon them is an obnoxious trait (and if there is a word that sounds more
obnoxious than <i>obnoxious</i>, I don’t
know what it is; seriously—that is one ugly-sounding word). And yet, here I am,
pronouncing away! But here at any time, you know, you can close the site, move
to the kitchen, make a nice cocktail, and head to the living room to watch the
game. Who would blame you?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">If you are still with me, let’s consider
this opinion: that homosexual humans can and should “pray away the gay,” and
that they should seek organizations to help them. A while back, for example,
the founders of one such group, Exodus International, called a big press
conference to state that they would no longer be offering pray-away-the-gay
counseling; they wanted to “apologize” for the error of their ways, saying they
realized that gays are gays. Or did they? A Christian blogger named John Shore
realized that their “apology,” upon more careful consideration, was more
probably an attempt to promote their original cause, or at least promote
themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">So, as I say, I’m just a tad confused. Not once in your
speech—which I’ll be the first to say was veritably jammed with talk about God
and forgiveness and healing and welcoming and redemption and reconciliation and
peace and love and joy and salvation—did I hear you express regret for you and
Exodus having spent over three decades helping to destroy the lives of gay
people and their families through your peddling and capitalizing upon the
message that God’s greatest desire for every gay person is that they cease to
be gay.<br />
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> You can read more here:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><a href="http://johnshore.com/2013/06/20/who-would-suggest-that-exodus-internationals-apology-isnt-sincere/">http://johnshore.com/2013/06/20/who-would-suggest-that-exodus-internationals-apology-isnt-sincere/</a></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Exodus
International victimized gay Christians, preyed upon them as they prayed over
them, in order to make a lot of money. (Why does this ever not occur to such
Christian believers?) And yet too often in this country, people express the “opinion”
that there are <i>no victims</i>; that each
and every one of us, individually, can create the lives we want through <i>positive thinking</i>, through wishing,
through believing. And while Miss O’ is the first to honor a prayerful life,
she has no truck with Wishing Will Make It So, as any good fairy tale shows
you, and usually worse: “Be careful what you wish for, for you will surely get
it.” Or in the words of Saint Theresa, “More tears are shed over answered
prayers than unanswered ones.” Too often, people use “I pray” as an excuse not
to participate in the world, not to work to solve problems, not to try to make
bad situations better. Such people are of the opinion that <i>prayer</i> = <i>meaningful action</i>.
This is not to say that prayer does not nourish us; I find myself in a state of
constant prayer, for as they used to say in time of war, “No atheists live in
foxholes,” and as we say in America, “No atheists last on FOX News,” so sometimes
the best that I can do is pray…that I don’t run out into the street, screaming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">So
what can we do about this dilemma? First, we need to understand that this
tendency to “smile, though your heart is aching,” is not generally a useful
strategy to change a bad life situation (though certainly it makes for more
comfortable dinner parties—but life really isn’t a goddamned dinner party, is
it). This morning I stumbled across this wonderful RCS animation of a speech
given by Barbara Ehernreich (author of the book <i>Nickel and Dimed</i>) on the site Upworthy, in which she expounds on
the insidious evil of telling people they need to “think positive thoughts” to
make their lives better. This is particularly true in American corporate life: <i>Just laid off? Smile, smile, smile! What a
great opportunity! </i>What Ehrenreich argues is that that belief is <i>beating us down</i>, is what it's doing. That smile? Tears
of a clown, my friend. You can listen to the speech at the link below, which is accompanied
by very cool animation. It won’t take 10 minutes, which is all the commercials
at half-time, ammirite?</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.upworthy.com/why-the-religion-of-positive-thinking-needs-to-be-burned-at-the-stake-5?c=ufb1"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">http://www.upworthy.com/why-the-religion-of-positive-thinking-needs-to-be-burned-at-the-stake-5?c=ufb1</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">What
she explains, and in a funny, insightful way, is frightening—how this sort of corporate cheerleading is exactly
the kind of propaganda once used in the Soviet Union at the height of its
terrorism and beyond, and which Miss O’ and other readers will recognize in George Orwell,
who satirized this very stuff in his novel <i>1984</i>. (Another recent example: McDonald's just told its poverty-stricken employees that to make themselves feel less hungry, just break up the little food they do have into smaller bites! Smiley face!) Or, as my friend Chuck whispered to me during a workshop where a poet talked
about how wonderful the book <i>The Secret</i>
was, “Blame the victim.” You got that right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">But
that’s just our opinion. Right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Are You Really Entitled to My Opinion? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">All
humans deserve the same basic human rights and (at the adult level, surely) the
same level of autonomy. And no matter what your age, ethnicity, religion, or
country of origin, for example: Gay is gay; straight is straight. This is not
open for argument, this stuff can no longer be considered “a matter of opinion.”
If so, where is the <i>bottom</i>? (Wait,
sorry, that was a poor choice of phrase. Or was it?) Where the hairs start to
split, as it were—<i>transgendered</i>, for
example—is very often easily answered with, “It’s really none of your
business.” Sex obsession—our prurient interest in how other people have it, and
what it results in—is a national disease: One man’s <i>thing on the side</i> is another man’s <i>you are so going to hell breaking of a Commandment</i>; or one woman’s
choice to terminate a pregnancy is another woman’s “I’d never do that,” and in
these cases we are talking about <i>autonomous
choice</i>, the rightness of which is not a matter of personal opinion, but is,
in fact and more to the point, a personal <i>decision</i>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">What
Miss O’ has begun to sense must be reiterated: <i>Having opinions</i> should not be conflated with <i>making decisions</i>. If someone says, “I hate blacks,” and you hear
this opinion, all you need do is shake your head and say (and certainly you
should say), “Well, that’s your opinion.” However, if someone says, “I’d like
to lynch blacks,” and your response is only, “Well, that’s your opinion,” you
are failing in your responsibility as a human being. Perhaps you think this is
merely Miss O’s opinion, her Judgy McJudger persona flying high in its egotism.
But a line was crossed back there. Did you see it? Does it make you
uncomfortable, this idea of taking action? Let's not spoil a perfectly pleasant meal. Maybe this will comfort you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhigqsBIPwYTzJUkixPGzEG8_eWeTdwHwe1XYtRUiez82oiP2WQthhBQpl1ckBFLWIoQTE0jTPHwNcnLIXNdkYLWBCknlKeS8SI8VuGG1O7vYpenYfY1VjuMKYGGQciElULpYHN83ZUvUcz/s1600/ClownGarage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhigqsBIPwYTzJUkixPGzEG8_eWeTdwHwe1XYtRUiez82oiP2WQthhBQpl1ckBFLWIoQTE0jTPHwNcnLIXNdkYLWBCknlKeS8SI8VuGG1O7vYpenYfY1VjuMKYGGQciElULpYHN83ZUvUcz/s320/ClownGarage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Decoration</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;">
is a matter of opinion, a matter of taste. Your choice of wall hanging takes
away none of my basic human rights. Opinions fall like water off a duck’s oily
back. But a pronouncement of possible action, such as the carrying out of a
threat to any human right, cannot stand in silence. The very real clown ottoman
in any political living room is <i>inaction</i>
in the face of threats to human dignity and safety, and to our existence as a
species. The true Diablo mask is the mask of <i>silence</i>, and when you do not challenge a threat, the mask is your
own. You are wearing that mask, is what I’m saying, and it’s the worst possible
disguise: “I am only trying to be polite.” Polite? You are wearing a fucking
DIABLO MASK. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"> Silence = Death. And that will never be up for
opinion. So pronounceth I.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVDXb5yBBP6C-Xc0_DxH9szQaoXr_RZ7HUlhiDdwK7mwQWX5Vzt-2LgKY8-OZa93aplluA4K2t_eB5Biot4M-yfrjbzO3BPo9toYWMHlP-ZQSnrRpfXCTnfnoXMSTuVtSX-fJxVlhvWIlb/s1600/IMG_0133.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVDXb5yBBP6C-Xc0_DxH9szQaoXr_RZ7HUlhiDdwK7mwQWX5Vzt-2LgKY8-OZa93aplluA4K2t_eB5Biot4M-yfrjbzO3BPo9toYWMHlP-ZQSnrRpfXCTnfnoXMSTuVtSX-fJxVlhvWIlb/s320/IMG_0133.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">For
the Record: I know that my sister-in-law and our friend said a very reasonable thing: "Everyone is entitled to their opinion." And typically, Miss O' blows up a simple, reasonable comment and heads off into rough terrain, and I can only hope I have made some kind of sense. Also, I have taken the tiniest moment in the whole week and turned out 8
single-spaced pages on Word. Not bad. Imagine now what I DIDN’T write about!
Lest you think I thought very much of that moment before now, readers, let Miss
O’ assure you she did not, and that it was a wonderful holiday. Cullen made
really cool bracelets on a loom using tiny colored rubber bands, with the
YouTube guidance of a video and the help of his wonderful mom (see photo). We
watched horrible (hey, I know, that's one family's <i>opinion</i>) Hallmark Channel Christmas movies with Pat O’, who basks in
their badness, downed shots of Jager, cooked and ate, enjoyed the falling snow.
The only downside of holiday dinners at other people’s homes is the empty
fridge I return to here in Queens, so let me rectify this by going to the
store, shall I? I shall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Happy
Thanksgiving,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In
love,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Miss
O’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-70864350925097095302013-11-23T13:05:00.000-08:002013-11-24T14:22:51.284-08:00Life’s a Glass Menagerie Waiting with King Richard in No Man’s Land for a Good Person in Szechwan, or What You Will<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<b>Sir Andrew Aguecheek:</b><i> Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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~ William Shakespeare, <i>Twelfth Night </i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>Act 1: Playing in Rolling Rep</b></div>
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Miss O’
attends the theater the way, she imagines, the religiously devout attend
church: Spiritual sustenance, a need for redemption, a hope for a glimpse of
grace, secret nookie in the pews. Recently I had the astonishing opportunity and enough cash to attend two
examples of what is known as <i>repertory
theater,</i> which is rare enough in itself, but this was the GOLD STAR of rep x 2. In repertory, the same set of actors play in various shows during the same season, alternating weeks, for example. <i>Rolling rep</i>
refers to the show changing every other performance. The thrill of this is
seeing real and astonishing transformation. We, in the audience, see the proof
that such radical change in ourselves is possible: If these humble players can
transform themselves so completely, one show to the next, why cannot we
transform our own lives? And why not, indeed? Politics is moving fascist; the
earth’s climate is moving to hot; corporations are spending billions to destroy
drinking water and clean air for personal gain. It seems to me that in 2013, <i>transformation</i> is a damned important
subject. But let's forget our troubles, get happy, and head to the Great White Way! Here’s a rundown of the shows and actors I’ve seen that have brought
me to today’s blog-o-rama. After the summaries and recommendations, Miss O' will attempt to make a kind of meaning out of the experiences. Let's roll: Who's got their beer goggles on? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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~~~~~~~~~</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i>Estragon:</i></b><i>
I can't go on like this. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b><i>Vladimir:</i></b><i>
That's what you think.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="color: #1e1e1e; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">~ Samuel Beckett, <i>Waiting for Godot</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i>There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is
unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily
either true or false; it can be both true and false.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
~ Harold Pinter<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9k3rf0vw1kAgIiorENKxcQtikNNMxBXGj1nKeLDMPmlJO42SkvPqJcXp1cbtBe5IXt167iNxZrXsJMeVyAgDZgDitLEgK5AKDvBpWy01smsqCHfV2RoK1URExqJBx81YSToDj0m6KXrOl/s1600/Ian-McKellen-and-Patrick--010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9k3rf0vw1kAgIiorENKxcQtikNNMxBXGj1nKeLDMPmlJO42SkvPqJcXp1cbtBe5IXt167iNxZrXsJMeVyAgDZgDitLEgK5AKDvBpWy01smsqCHfV2RoK1URExqJBx81YSToDj0m6KXrOl/s200/Ian-McKellen-and-Patrick--010.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTNf7mIpikGEzpEiaES3JLhs3kb6o8x3mlkcRhpOAaKZh6ASRij1eiANpW3nmgInKJuCuSVpKrrJJeKlL2d2JL5rngPz6KGorvA2Ma2gGJfcCzaHhWhs0FZQKqvsNi8ugcndgp3lHzvbOm/s1600/ian-mckellen-patrick-stewart-star-in-waiting-for-godot-no-mans-land-on-broadway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTNf7mIpikGEzpEiaES3JLhs3kb6o8x3mlkcRhpOAaKZh6ASRij1eiANpW3nmgInKJuCuSVpKrrJJeKlL2d2JL5rngPz6KGorvA2Ma2gGJfcCzaHhWhs0FZQKqvsNi8ugcndgp3lHzvbOm/s200/ian-mckellen-patrick-stewart-star-in-waiting-for-godot-no-mans-land-on-broadway.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Images from Google via The Guardian</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Theater Experience 1/2:</b> Seeing Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart
(their “Sirs” nowhere in the program) play (on night one) those existential
vaudevillians Estragon (Gogo) and Vladimir (Didi) (respectively) in Samuel
Beckett’s <i>Waiting for Godot</i>; and (on
night two) those updated existential whatever-they-ares Spooner and Hirst in
Harold Pinter’s <i>No Man’s Land</i>, which
Miss O’ professes to not understanding one bit. Suffice to say I believed them
in every single second of each performance, as well as the performances of
their supporting pair, Billy Crudup and Shuler Hensley. It’s running through
March 2, and if you don’t cough up the cash you won’t even remember you spent
to see these legends and future legends, you’re just tragic. Or really broke,
and then <i>godspeed</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: center;">
<i> ~~~~~~~~</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Be not afraid
of greatness: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have
greatness thrust upon them.</span></i><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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~ William Shakespeare, <i>Twelfth
Night</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Dispute not with her; she is
a lunatic.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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~ William Shakespeare, <i>Richard
III</i></div>
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<i><span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Images from Google via New York Times</span></span></i></div>
<i>
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<b>Experience 3/4:</b> Mark Rylance and (all-male) Company from
The Globe Theatre performing <i>Twelfth
Night</i> and <i>The Tragedy of King Richard
III</i>, in an “original practices” tour—in other words, it’s a wooden stage
lit by candles, with actors in Elizabethan dress and traditional music to accompany the action. Rylance plays Olivia in the first, and
the title role of King Richard in the second. I’ve now seen Mr. Rylance in five Broadway
performances, and feel confident in saying he’s the finest stage actor alive.
And he remains really, really specifically himself, which is no mean feat. The actors
working with him are superb, their transformations total from show to show. The
themes of the shows are curiously connected, but that’s because it’s a theme of
any human story: <i>The consequences of
duplicity are far-reaching, and are out of the power of any
single human to control or command. </i>Or something like that. If you can, SEE THEM BOTH. If not both, see <i>Twelfth Night</i>. GO.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p>~~~~~~~~~</o:p></div>
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<i><span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve.
But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the
appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.”</span></i><i><span style="color: #260001; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i>~
</i>Tennessee Williams,<i> The Glass Menagerie<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Image from Google via The New York Times</i></div>
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<b>Theater Experience 5:</b> So Howard’s friend Rick was coming from
Atlanta for his annual fall Broadway buffet, and insisted we all see <i>The Glass Menagerie</i>, starring Cherry
Jones, Zachary Quinto, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Brian J. Smith (whose Gentleman Caller is the most understandable I've seen), yes, but really starring the
language of Tennessee Williams, delivered in full gorgeousness amidst a stunning and
symbolic design, under the direction of the astonishing John Tiffany. So
there’s all the gushing out of the way. This delicate play has always annoyed
me. It just has. So thanks to all the elements coming together so perfectly,
Williams’s tender story gets the dramatic treatment it really deserves. Again,
see it: You see how his upbringing made Williams’s alter-ego, Tom, into the
writer he had to become. That such agony could produce such a beautiful
transformation is miraculous. You leave crying, but also hopeful, if you can
imagine. Again, for the love of god, GO.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Before Theater Experience 6, A Little
Backstory:</b> When Miss O’
was a young college theater student, the first play assigned to her in her very
first college drama class was a play by the German expressionist playwright
(huh?) Bertolt Brecht, <i>The Caucasian
Chalk Circle</i>. Miss O’ feels that that was a really fucking cruel trick to
play on a freshman from the Virginia suburbs. Then the same professor galloped
on to <i>The Cherry Orchard</i> by Anton
Chekhov. And so it went; and thus it was our heroine took her first quarter C-
in Introduction to Drama and decided to change her major to English.
Fortunately a nice professor talked her down from the catwalk by pointing out
that really, that was as hard as the plays would ever get. And that was true.
And sometimes professors just like to show off, even at the expense of their
students’ enthusiasm and psychic health.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Before
you, the O’Blog Reader, or Blgreader, head into this dramaturgically robust and
therefore possibly daunting entry, here’s a sampling of what Miss O’—high
school acting veteran of Kaufman and Hart’s <i>You
Can’t Take It With You</i> and Neil Simon’s <i>Plaza
Suite</i>, and C+ reader of Beckett’s <i>Waiting
for Godot</i> in Mr. Corbin’s AP English 12 class—had to grab onto with her
tender, globule mind: Bertolt Brecht’s
play, <i>The Caucasian Chalk Circle</i>,
which takes place in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia, concerns, at its close,
which woman has the most claim to a child: His birth mother, who abandoned him
and now wants him back; or the servant, Grusha, who raised the child. Bible
readers will recognize Solomon in the judge, Azdak, but here the judge is a
fool and a fraud elevated to the level of judge by foolish people. To decide
the rightful mother, Azdak has a circle drawn on the floor and has the child,
Michael, stand in the middle. He tells each woman (Natella, the birth mother,
and Grusha, the servant with whom Natella left the child) to take Michael by
the arm. From here I’ll offer
the <i>GradeSaver</i> website summary of the
play’s ending I found while trolling online, which is far clearer than my professor ever was. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Azdak tells them that
whichever woman can pull the child out of the circle will get him. Natella
pulls hard and yanks the child out of the circle; meanwhile, Grusha has refused
to pull…. Azdak orders them to make the test one more time. Again Grusha lets
go of the child's arm. Azdak then says that it is now obvious who the true
mother is. He gives Michael to Grusha and advises her to leave the city. He
then orders Natella to disappear before he fines her for fraud. Michael's
estates fall to the city and he decides to have them called Azdak's Garden. His
last act is to sign the divorce papers [of an old couple who have petitioned
him]. However, Azdak "mistakenly" divorces Grusha instead of the old
couple. Everyone present then starts dancing. During the dancing Azdak slowly
is hidden from view until he disappears by the end. The</i><i> Singer ends the play by describing Azdak's reign
as a "brief golden age, / almost an age of justice." He then
concludes with the lines, "Children to the motherly, that they prosper, /
Carts to good drivers, that they be driven well, / The valley to the waterers,
that it yield fruit."<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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For Brecht, the idea of <i>what is just</i> was an ongoing exploration.
He explored it through what he called The Epic Theatre—a theater of large ideas
told through expressionistic approaches; that is, Brecht’s actors “broke the
fourth wall,” that invisible wall between the audience and the action.
Therefore when a narrator yells out at the audience in a desperate plea at a
desperate time in the plot, “Who will help these people?” Brecht knows that the
polite audience will remain silent. You see what happens? Brecht’s idea was to
use theater to implicate all of us in the ongoing injustices of the world, even the
world of the stage.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>“The theater-goer in
conventional dramatic theater says: Yes, I've felt that way, too. That's the
way I am. That's life. That's the way it will always be. The suffering of this
or that person grips me because there is no escape for him. That's great
art—Everything is self- evident. I am made to cry with those who cry, and laugh
with those who laugh. But the theater-goer in the epic theater says: I would
never have thought that. You can't do that. That's very strange, practically
unbelievable. That has to stop. The suffering of this or that person grips me
because there is an escape for him. That's great art—nothing is self-evident. I
am made to laugh about those who cry, and cry about those who laugh.''<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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~Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), German
playwright, poet; <i>On Theater</i>,
"Entertainment or Education?" (1936) on the difference between
conventional theater and Brecht's “epic theater”<o:p></o:p></div>
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So you see it was theater that led
Miss O’ to become obsessed with politics, and it is the insanity of politics that
pushes Miss O’ back to the theater, where she hopes to see that there is more
to life than politics. That said, there are two questions Miss O’ asks for the
artistic soul of a woman under capitalism: For Liberals, is “goodness” only <i>giving freely</i>? Is “evil” only <i>property acquisition</i>? Or, for Conservatives, the reverse?<o:p></o:p></div>
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The divide of human beings—the
split in ourselves—as I said, is the essence of dramatic tension: a) Those of
us who want to do good, and are demonized for it (President Obama and the
Affordable Healthcare Act); b) Those of us who blatantly do bad, and are
celebrated for it (President Bush’s invasion of Iraq, etc.); c) Those
who say they want to do good, and do bad; d) Those who sometimes behave badly,
but work for the greater good; e) Those who claim to desire good people, and then exploit the good until they
have nothing left to give; f) Those of us who have a good person working for
the greater good of all of us, but who attack that good person because he or
she does not meet our preconceived notions of what a “good person” should look
like, sound like, dress like, come from, or gender-identify with; g) Those of
us who follow the doers of bad, even as we complain about what they do to us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One trouble is the conflation of “good”
with “perfection,” is that we pre-judge what we mean “perfection” to be. God is
“perfect,” and yet tornadoes flatten Illinois, typhoons flatten the
Philippines.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>''You don't need to pray to God
any more when there are storms in the sky, but you do have to be insured.''<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>~Bertolt
Brecht (1898-1956), German dramatist, poet; Pelagea Vlasova, in </i>The Mother<i>, sc. 10</i><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Jesus tells folks that to be truly
free, to be truly good, you have to throw away all your possessions and follow
him. And we all know that the most devout Christians do not walk about nude and
preach the Word in sandlots. So should a truly “good” person not work? Not
build anything? Not eat or drink anything? You see the dilemma. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And what does a “good” father look
like? A “good” mother? A “good” leader? A “good” citizen? What is “justice”?
What is “right”?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>[quoting the prophet] "'The world can
stay as it is if enough people are found living lives worthy of human beings.'
Good people, that is."<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>~Third god,
Brecht’s </i>The Good Person of Szechwan<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image from Google via broadway.com</span></i><span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
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<b><i>And now:</i> Theater Experience 6:</b>
These same questions are raised in Brecht’s play <i>The Good Person of Szechwan</i>, in a superb production mounted by The
Foundry Theater and running right now at The Public Theater, which sounds
appropriate. In this play, three gods are wandering China in search of one good
person. They base their judgment upon who will give them lodging for the night.
The only one who agrees is a prostitute named Shen Te, whom the gods don’t know
to be a prostitute. In the morning they hear of her destitute state, and agree
that it wouldn’t be against the teachings to pay for their lodgings, and they
give her 1,000 silver dollars. Here begins the drama: Newly wealthy, Shen Te’s
life becomes, if possible, even worse than ever. This is not a trumped up plot
on Brecht’s part: You watch as Shen Te buys a small tobacco business, finds
she’s been swindled into paying too much, owes a carpenter who was never paid,
has old friends begging on her doorstep, and who finds love, only to learn he
wants her only for the money she can give him to make his way in the world. By
then she is broke, and her goodness only begets more complaints from everyone
about how she is failing them. Her solution is to invent a brutal, ruthless
capitalist cousin, Shui Ta, a man whom everyone cowers before, whom everyone
works for at his bidding for lousy wages, whom everyone—after initially finding
impressive—comes to hate and fear…and yet under whose pressure the people
become productive and, weirdly, take responsibility for themselves even as they
are victimized. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Carpenter:</b><i> Call Shen Te, someone!
She's good!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b>Shui Ta</b><i> [Shen Te, disguised as her
“cousin”]</i><b>:</b><i> Certainly. She's ruined.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>~ </i>Bertolt Brecht, <i>The Good Person of Szechwan</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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[At intermission, my friend, Mark,
who had invited me, told me about how the director of a choir he sings in is
always at odds with the conductor—the never-ending fight between good business
sense and good artistic sense that costs money, and that really, you have to have both; and from there we discussed the
way the “goodness” and passion of the artist is often taken advantage of and even
scorned—and how from our artists and leaders, we expect <i>perfection</i>, not goodness, and we want it with no strings (which
explains why someone as inherently good as Bill Clinton is disdained for
enjoying a blowjob off the clock). We asked ourselves what the play was asking,
<i>Why are we humans driven by greedy
self-interested business taskmasters and will in fact work only when we are
mistreated by the very people we despise? </i>So back to the show!]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>"The little lifeboat is swiftly sent
down.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Too many men too greedily<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Hold on to it as they drown."<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>~Shen Te, whose
goodness is destroying her financially and personally<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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In the sweatshop world, though,
they long for the return of the “good” Shen Te, and when she “returns”…they
treat her as badly as before, demanding more than she can give. By the play’s
end, the “jig is up,” Shen Te is revealed to be Shui Ta, one and the same—a
deep divide in the human condition (played by a transgender performer)—and here Brecht leaves the play open, as he
does all his plays—he leaves the audience to face the dilemma themselves:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><br />
</i></b><i>"It is for you to find a way, my friends,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>To help good men arrive at happy ends.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>You write the happy ending to the play!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>…There must be a way, there <u>must</u>.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>~Epilogue<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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So what will it be? Lisa Kron, the actress who
delivered the final lines, fairly wept at the final words, slightly different
from the ones above, calling for the fact that for the GOOD, there must be a
happy ending, “…there MUST.” How are we to achieve that?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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~~~~~~~~~</div>
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<br /></div>
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I walked
away from all this theater thinking, as I said, about <i>language</i>, because it was the language of the playwrights that took
center stage. That these plays are revivals of old master does not
surprise me, because in the late 20<sup>th</sup> and early 21<sup>st</sup>
century, it seems to Miss O’ that the beauty of language has been upstaged by
quick messages, cheap sentiment, and heavy irony. (She herself is guilty of
playing a tiny, blogosphere role in this movement.) It’s <i>language</i> that is the reason to see theater, the way <i>image</i> is the reason to see movies. And
the way <i>asshattedness</i> is the reason
we participate in American politics.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Act 2: Come Back to the Five and Dime, Harry Reid, Harry Reid<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>''A man who sees another man
on the street corner with only a stump for an arm will be so shocked the first
time he'll give him sixpence. But the second time it'll only be a threepenny
bit. And if he sees him a third time, he'll have him cold-bloodedly handed over
to the police.''<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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~Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), German
dramatist, poet; Peachum in <i>The
Threepenny Opera</i>, Act 1, Sc. 1<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now it's time for This Week in Democracy, once again reviewing the process whereby
citizens freely elect humans to represent them, and the majority rules. It’s a
crazy system made even crazier when a certain political party cannot stand
that a majority of citizens chose Liberals over Conservatives, and to get their
way, the minority party OBSTRUCTS in order to prevent the MAJORITY from
actually GOVERNING. For the past six years, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-Nev), whom frankly no one can stand, has acquiesced to the stupid “filibuster
madness” which has allowed the Republicans to obstruct 93 (NINETY-THREE) presidential
judicial nominations, as well as stop 82 (EIGHT-TWO) votes during the Obama
Administration. During the history of this democratic republic, the opposing
party has filibustered ALL THE PRESIDENTS COMBINED a <i><b>total</b></i> of 86 (EIGHTY-SIX)
times. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And just look at how much DID NOT GET DONE because a
few Republicans prevented a majority vote from moving things along. Please LOOK
AT THE LEGISLATION. <b><span style="font-family: "Matura MT Script Capitals"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Matura MT Script Capitals"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Look at what those demonic Democrats<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Matura MT Script Capitals"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">wanted to accomplish:</span></b> <o:p></o:p></div>
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From
Senator Bernie Sanders, (I-VT): <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/bills-blocked-by-republican-filibusters">http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/bills-blocked-by-republican-filibusters</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Create jobs! Bring jobs HOME! Help students with college loans! Criminal
background checks for gun purchasers! Paycheck fairness! <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>WHAT FREEDOM-SUCKING ASSHOLES, huh?</i> <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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P.S.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6oZAjIq_NkuTzDm7OSvFGElUOK5m4vcC0VtGx-NtoSzwQf0fp3L7ncd2IGNUHopJHZmOq3kXuUTfOxKINaAxrNKdCsGanCg3y6td2E8Zz2_I_TwYYYKo7nQEQgdFfe_9H6zm7B6cHe8Le/s1600/Filbuster.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6oZAjIq_NkuTzDm7OSvFGElUOK5m4vcC0VtGx-NtoSzwQf0fp3L7ncd2IGNUHopJHZmOq3kXuUTfOxKINaAxrNKdCsGanCg3y6td2E8Zz2_I_TwYYYKo7nQEQgdFfe_9H6zm7B6cHe8Le/s200/Filbuster.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Graphic: source: Bernie Sanders’s Facebook Page</i></span></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So, elected majority or no, Sen. Reid, not wanting to
seem like a ruthless power grabber, had not seriously considered eliminating
the 60-vote “super-majority” to pass any meaningful legislation to return instead to what was historically a simple majority vote. No, he dithered. He
withered. He blithered. The GOP (standing in for the actual country) stalled.
Stalled. Shut down. Restarted. And stalled. But goddammit to hell, 93
nominations sat un-voted upon. Legislative acts died. We had to get a move on, people, and so,
finally, after firing countless warning shots, Sen. Reid got the Senate (and
not even all the democrats agreed, because the party I am forced to vote for is
basically a pussy outfit) to do away with the filibuster and the
super-majority. Finally. Within hours, one judicial appointee sped through.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But leave it to the histrionic right wing to feel
that <i>democratically elected</i> <i>majority rule = dictatorship</i>, because what <i>they</i>
really want is a simple dictatorship. On their terms.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>''The law was made for one
thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don't understand it, or are
prevented by naked misery from obeying it.''<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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~Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), German dramatist, poet; Peachum in <i>The Threepenny Opera</i>, Act 3, Sc. 7<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Point me to the drama, the HYSTERIA, please, and pass the
smelling salts! Talk to me, William Rivers Pitt:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18332-pitt-fainting-couches-washington-post">http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18332-pitt-fainting-couches-washington-post</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Boy
o boy, the bodies on the fainting couches are stacked three deep over at the
Washington Post in the aftermath of the Senate's historic rule change regarding
the filibuster.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-democrats-naked-power-grab/2013/11/21/60ef049a-5306-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html"><span style="color: #0e73c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dana Milbank</span></a>:
"The Democrats' naked power grab...they will come to deeply regret what
they have done."</span></i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 17.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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I am glad Mr. Pitt points out the screech of the
Washington <i>Post</i>’s Dana Milbank, whose
cry against Reid’s “naked power grab” (<i>as
if Harry Reid is no less a power than that real murdering power grabber King Richard
III, so here I must ask you to imagine Shakespeare trying to build a play out
of the political life of Harry REID</i>—<i>and</i>
<i>who just fell completely asleep?</i>) struck
your Miss O’ yesterday as particularly asinine, especially since all the pieces
Pitt cites acknowledge that this vote came about as a result of unprecedented
and unending Republican OBSTRUCTION to the process of governing the nation. Miss
O’s response to the accusations against Reid: “Really? This was a ‘naked power grab’?
If so, my dears: <i>This was the
slowest-motion, most fully-clothed, ‘I’m coming out now, cover your
eyes’-loudly announced ‘naked power-grab’ Miss O’ has witnessed in her lifetime</i>.
Oh, and FUCK THE REPUBLICANS." I say that with love.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Act 3: Failing Better All the Time<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="color: #1e1e1e; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again.
Fail better."</span></i><span style="color: #1e1e1e; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1e1e1e; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">~Samuel Beckett<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The tensions we humans live with are
evident in all of those diverse plays—from double-lives and duplicity, whether
in service to the desire to do good, to get love, or to have vengeance: Shakespeare makes the stories comic, tragic, and also epic. Beckett explores the human territory in this <i>tiny</i> way, with two tramps on a road, and a simpler dilemma: the necessity to remain and the
desire to go. In a deceptively small, domestic way, the fragility and resilience of the human heart are really made mythic in <i>The Glass Menagerie,</i> for as Amanda
changes her story so as not to give up on life, and as Laura immediately turns the
broken unicorn into a story about fitting in with the horses (allowing her Gentleman Caller a graceful apology), so too will Tom
go on to survive by writing the story of his family. All these diverse hours on the stage suggest there is no way to make it
all better, but you can make it art, realize it's your story. Live that thing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
What is not acceptable, all the plays suggest, is running away as a response to a time of struggle, as Tom and Laura’s father does in <i>Menagerie</i>, or as Shen Te does,
twice, in <i>Good Person, </i>or as the tramps' patience makes clear in <i>Godot</i>—somehow you
have to face it all, and that is what makes the American GOP so despicable
right now. They want to sweep all the problems under the rug, and if that won’t
work, they will dissolve and destroy democracy. Even Richard III, the vilest of characters, stays on the battlefield wounded and without a horse, to fight to his death. Suppose, in our tenderer dramas, Laura had deliberately
smashed her entire menagerie, or Tom had run out, or Shen Te had never
returned to admit the truth of her identity, or the tramps in fact <i>left</i>—none of the big questions the plays present would have gotten answered, or worked toward
answers. Would the plays even have mattered?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The plays demand that we as human beings look at the motivations of our actions. After seeing shows like this, one looks at every human act afresh. The themes spill over into the real world of our lives, as good art should. It's thrilling, a shared experience among us all in the audience; even when we don't agree on how "good" the show was, we shared this, didn't we.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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To every yin, its yang. Every action has an equal and
opposite reaction. Every rose has its thorn. But in the human wading through current
events, as I saw played out on the Broadway stage over the past two weeks, the
struggles of humans have to get us someplace. Or not. And even when any movement <i>forward</i>, <i>around</i>, and <i>into</i> the issues cannot exactly bring peace or closure, surely the process should be a celebration of that great human achievement: Language.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This should also hold true on the national stage of
politics, that in the course of human events, you use your WORDS, your gorgeous
access to the power of language; and once you argue, make your cases, and do
your best, in the end, unfettered majority has to rule, and you compromise for
the greater good. Failing that, you tell one party, “Go fuck yourself,” and
return to the ease of the ol’ “up-down” vote. That is, DEMOCRACY. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all
over again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i>Estragon:</i></b><i>
Nothing to be done.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b><i>Vladimir:</i></b><i>
I’m beginning to come round to that opinion. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="color: #1e1e1e; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">~Samuel Beckett, <i>Waiting for Godot<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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I would like to close with these thoughts about the
tone that this wayward, utterly manufactured, and dangerous so-called Tea Party
has set for general American behavior. Let’s use the public theater as the
shining example, for after several weeks of sacrificing financially in order to
see the best that professional Broadway theater can offer—from Ian McKellen and
Patrick Stewart in Beckett and Pinter, to Mark Rylance & Co. in <i>Twelfth Night</i> and <i>Richard III</i>,
to Cherry Jones and Zachary Quinto in <i>The
Glass Menagerie</i>, to Taylor Mac in <i>The
Good Person of Szechwan</i>: If Miss O’ could offer a call to action, it would
involve the following speech, which she will deliver over the public address
system of the theater that finally agrees to putting on her one-woman + Ryan
Duncan (as everyone else) show, <i>The Miss
O’ Show, Teacher’s Edition</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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[<i>Scene: A fully
lit house of a lovely black box theater in Manhattan, say. Audience is seated,
curtain not yet up. Lights begin to lower and a public address system begins
playing the recorded voice of your Miss O’, with a tip o' the hat to Lucky in <u>Godot</u></i>.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;">[</span><i style="line-height: 115%;">In</i> <i style="line-height: 115%;">adorable, gentle voice</i><span style="line-height: 115%;">] Miss O’ would like to remind you that the
taking of photographs and the use of recording devices is strictly prohibited,
but not just because of legal implications. No, it’s because when you are
photographing or otherwise recording an experience, the chances are you are not
HAVING an experience. [</span><i style="line-height: 115%;">begins vocal
ascent to outrage</i><span style="line-height: 115%;">] Did that ever occur to you? And while we’re on the
subject, would you please, for the love of everything holy, silence your
goddamned cell phones? Seriously—shut off the </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">freakity freak freak</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> phone. NOW. You, you
doing the final last text message, it’s really not important. This may come as
a bitter surprise, but nothing you have to type, or read, is as important as what is ABOUT TO HAPPEN if only you could be alert to it. And you, that’s right, you with the iPad, NOW, shut if off NOW,
because the people around, who are trying to get centered by shaking off the madness that is New York City at the theater witching hour: </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">they want to fucking kill you right now</i><span style="line-height: 115%;">. But not as
much as they want to kill Plastic Bag woman, that woman (and it's ALWAYS a middle-aged woman, usually alone) sitting next to you with the
giant purse containing like, twenty-eight very </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">unfresh</i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> plastic grocery bags, inside <i>one</i> of which
is that </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">thing</i><span style="line-height: 115%;"> she suddenly needs to pop in her mouth at the climax of the play, or, almost worse, right in the
early moments of </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">exposition</i><span style="line-height: 115%;">. So, sad bag lady, get that must-have-able thing out of the noise-blown sack NOW. No, really. Because we are done with you. Which reminds me: <i>Soda people</i>, drink up! Forgetting about the sickness that is our national need to consume every second of our repellant capitalist lives, oh, big gulping drinker: Do the crowd and the actors a favor, won't you, and move the straw up and down </span><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">one last </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">squeaky</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> time</span></i><span style="line-height: 115%;">, suck the last
slurp of carbonated beverage leavings, shake that ice like a motherfucker, and let the cup GO. THIS. IS. <i>LIVE.</i> I can <i>hear you. </i>So can<i> EVERYONE
ELSE seated in this actual space</i>. At the lot of you, Miss O’ used to
mind-scream, “</span><i style="line-height: 115%;">Fuck you, you fucking fuckers</i><span style="line-height: 115%;">,” but now, instead, she
quotes her therapist, Goldye: “Be HERE.
Have THIS experience.” Hey! Here’s an idea! Make a radical change, right this second, a <i>shift</i> from your total and deeply
unattractive narcissism (that's <i>you</i>, the constant HEAD-POSITION-SHIFTERS who wade from side to side as if no one behind you wants to <i>view the action</i>) to making a <i>new choice </i>to be present to the thing you and everyone else paid
a whole fucking lot of money to see. P.S. What makes you think Miss O’ won’t come
out there and smack you? <i>You don’t know me</i>. [</span><i style="line-height: 115%;">resuming adorable voice, crackling candy wrapper</i><span style="line-height: 115%;">] Thanks, and enjoy the show.</span></b><b style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br />
It’s not easy to get along with assholes. It’s not easy to get and keep an
audience’s attention. And it’s even less easy to make a clean exit. And yet,
exit Miss O’ must. Yet here she will remain.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<b>Estragon</b>:
Well, shall we go? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<b>Vladimir</b>:
Yes, let's go. (<i>They do not move.</i>)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1e1e1e; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">~Samuel Beckett, <i>Waiting for Godot</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <b>Foster: </b>Listen.
You know what it's like when you're in a room with the light on and then </span><span style="color: #131313;">suddenly the light goes out? I'll show you. It's like this.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> (<i>He turns out the
light. BLACKOUT</i>) <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> ~ Harold Pinter, <i>No
Man’s Land</i> <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Until the
debacles of the next act, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Kisses,
love, and power grabbing, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Nakedly
always, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-60914185891438807892013-11-10T13:49:00.002-08:002013-11-11T09:56:03.551-08:00Hey, Isn’t It Grand? Grand JURY, That Is!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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[<b><i>EDITOR’S NOTE:</i></b><i> Reader, as the old song says: Kiss me once,
and kiss me twice, and kiss me once again (no tongue, I have a cold), it’s been
a long, long time…as doubtless you have noticed. Herewith an apologia:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Kids,
your Miss O’ has had the oddest couple-a-three months, for soon after that last
blog of September 8, there was Queens Grand Jury duty (as related on Facebook);
and between that and getting moved around the floor of her office and
resettling into a new space (she’s now in closed cubicle but with window seat)
and new projects; and among bouts of little illnesses and doctors’ appointments
(all seems fine), and in and out of theaters (no bug can keep her from her
appointed rounds of stage worship!), and through beginning a new play lab (if
not exactly writing anything for it), to say nothing of taking little trips out
to various parts of New Jersey to see old, dear friends—it seems your Miss O’
did something quite out of character and utterly unexpected: She fell into an
actual love relationship with an actual man. She is deeply happy about this. I
only share this newsy tidbit by way of explaining my blog hiatus, and plan not
to speak of it again. Suffice to say it is a true, deep, sweet thing, full-hearted
enough for a lifetime, and if you would be so good as to let it go at that, and
not toss out accusations of cock-teasing, your Miss O’ would be ever so
grateful. And now to business! For there is much, much that Miss O’ must catch
up on.</i>]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>FIRST THINGS FIRST: A Compendium of All Things Asinine<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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American
Republicans.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<i>And
NOW...to the moment you’ve sort of been waiting for…because there’s no way I can
do this justice in one little blog post. Thanks for loving me anyway.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b>GRAND JURY, the Musical! <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><i>Actually:</i> My Modest Pitch for
a 12-Episode HBO Series, Because Really There Is No Other Way to Get It All In<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>Here Come the Judge<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Hello, fellow citizens of some American
county or another! Your Miss O’ comes to you, bloggy style, after doing her
civic best in the Grand Jury system of New York’s county of Queens. Almost
daily Facebook posts could not BEGIN to tell the full, giant soap operatic tale
of justice for all, and even this blog cannot comment or describe a single case
(which under oath I cannot actually do, as the grand jury sessions are secret).
And yet this tale must be told, even by an idiot. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Establishing Shot: [Note: I have no
idea how to write screenplays, or teleplays, but when has lack of knowledge ever stopped Miss O'?] <i>Queens Courthouse in Kew Gardens, NY, on a sunny day, outside of which
are every manner of human imaginable holding jury summonses (including an
entire family of Indians, only the wife/mother of whom was called, but whose
husband is apparently coming along with kids in tow, to make a point).</i> <o:p></o:p></div>
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Cut to: <i>Metal detectors and the long lines of these same humans; comical
emptying of pockets, wanding of many, ensues.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Cut to: <i>Marble hallway filled with people on contraband phones.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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NOTE: Herewith a few definitions to
begin our story, which takes place in Criminal Court (as opposed to Civil
Court—<i>attempted murder</i> vs. <i>suing for personal injury</i>):<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Grand Jury:</b> The purpose of a grand jury is to review police
evidence to determine two things: 1) <i>Is
there sufficient evidence to suggest that a crime has been committed? </i>And
2) <i>Is there reasonable cause to believe
that the defendant committed it?</i> After hearing evidence from police
officers, witnesses, victims, and sometimes the defendants themselves, the
grand jury deliberates and finally votes as to whether to indict the
defendant(s) and send the case forward to a trial by jury. THAT, for the record, is where the men of <i>Twelve Angry Men</i> come in, which is not where I was.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Exhaustion:</b> What Miss O’ begins to feel at the prospect of defining
all the terms, so fuck it, we’re moving on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If This Were a Musical, at Rise:<i> A Queens County courtroom in New York
City’s least desirable, and yet often adorable, borough. Outside on the steps,
hundreds of people are lined up to go up the steps and go through the metal
detectors. All carry purple and white jury summonses, most unopened. The
majority of citizens are carrying and looking at and scrolling across the very
iPhones and Androids and other communication devices that, according to the
summons, are “strictly forbidden.” As with most every rule concerning these
devices, even the courts have given up on enforcing it. A tall, red-haired
fellow lightly prances down the hall in tight orange swim trunks and a lime
green button-down shirt, flip-flops on feet, on his shoulder a tote bag that
says “Ocean City”—swimming in a sea of khakis pants and pressed shirts,
dresses, and good shoes. So much for “occasion.” Cue Song: “How Did I Get So
Fuckin’ Lucky?”</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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So might one begin Miss O’s
autobiographical screenplay/Broadway script for <i>Grand Jury!</i>: based on events from September 9 through October 4 of
2013, doing my civic duty here in New York City, Queens County. (Note: The
jurisdictions—districts, boroughs, counties, and the like—are beyond my
understanding. Queens is Queens County; Brooklyn is Kings County; Manhattan is
New York County, e.g. I don’t know beyond this: Every single A.D.A., or
Assistant District Attorney, had to ask each witness, victim, detective,
uniformed cop, and medical examiner alike, “And is that in Queens County?” in
any reference to the crime committed, in order for the proceeding to go
forward. But this really should be, as noted, a television series, sadly without
the coolness of <i>Breaking Bad.</i> –ed.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>THE SET:</b> First I offer you a rough sketch of the basic
layout of the Grand Jury Room, which looked sort of like a classroom to learn
about court proceedings…and it was. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The room is blonde wood, with a few shelves (not labeled) where magazines, decks of cards, and boxes of Trivial Pursuit cards are placed. (Manny, below, will become a grandmaster quiz guy between cases, with those cards.) NOTE: At lunchtime, the camera on our HBO show would
follow Grand Jurors as they headed out singly, or in small groups, to various
eateries in order to “not talk about” the cases until “all the evidence had
been presented” because everyone in America really “respects rules.”</div>
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<b>CAST OF CHARACTERS </b>(Names changed, which I am really sorry to do,
because the real names are so awesome; I mean, of course, <i>ALL CHARACTERS ARE PURELY FICTITIOUS AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO PERSONS
LIVING OR DEAD IS, LIKE, SERIOUSLY? TOTAL COINCIDENCE, MAN</i>):<o:p></o:p></div>
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[CASTING NOTE: <i>Once I share these little overly-simplified descriptions with the
producers of HBO (ha, ha!), I hope everyone understands it’s out of Miss O’s
hands. My writer’s hope is that seriously interesting humans who are actors
would be cast in these roles, actors who would make each character his or her
own, deepening with each weekly episode, under the guidance of a really
imaginative director, who would want me as a writer.</i> –ed.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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NOTE 2: ON VOTING <i>I have made a note on the way each juror
votes, which is to say, what causes them to raise or not raise a hand. Jurors
who vote “reliably” pay attention, deliberate, and raise a hand, or don’t, in a
consistent way. Others are as noted.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b>In CHARGE:<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>Officer Frances Suarez</b> (Court Officer in Charge of Grand Jury C,
six years; loves her three kids, her husband, doing Zumba; tough and fun,
strong sense of duty, proud of this process; unabashed Christian, giant heart,
not afraid to tell a loudmouth OFF. New York Puerto Rican to the core.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The JURY: <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<u>In the “Judge’s Seat”:<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Minerva </b>(age
40, Jamaican, black, serves as Madame Forewoman, or Foreperson; gaps in teeth,
musical deep voice, tidy dreadlocks; calm; always takes notes; votes always)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Moses</b>
(age 35, New Yorker, black, serves as the deputy foreperson; MTA bus driver and
hip-hop DJ, father of teenage daughter; emotionally expressive; always takes
notes; rarely votes)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<u>At desk in front of the
Forepersons, facing them</u>:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Carlita </b>(age
35, Puerto Rican, serves as Secretary 1 for the jury; slim and sexy, mother of
3, divorced, loves men; efficient secretary; votes with conviction)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Milagros</b>
(age 26, Dominican woman, serves as Secretary 2 for the jury; quiet, sweet,
very pretty, nice dresser, floats along, but always votes)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>ROW 1</u></b> (left to right from the Assistant District Attorney’s
POV, to left of Forepersons):<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Soledad</b>
(age 50, Puerto Rican, prison corrections officer; butch lesbian; dapper
dresser; loose cannon; votes only as needed to indict)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Ashley</b>
(age 28, black, 7 months pregnant at beginning, 8 at end; dressy dresser, very
tall, large frame, almost Valley Girl voice; somewhat sheltered--and she actually wears a big shirt to hide the fact that she is 7 months pregnant (!) because she's dying to get on a jury (!!), and by the end of this she will be EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT, which is really different (!!!); votes by
barely raising a hand)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Georgie</b>
(age 25, Filipina, a girl named for the boy she was supposed to be; quiet; sexy
dresser, long black hair, looks about 15, keep ear buds in as long as possible
at all times; votes only after looking around the room)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Pilar</b>
(age 35, Puerto Rican, mother of 3, remarrying and sending out invitations;
arranges birthday parties for jurors; always takes notes; has definite
opinions, often self-contradictory; always votes)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Bertrise</b>
(age 70, Jamaican, Christian, black, mother and grandmother, large hipped, slow
walker, wears glasses; shares the Biblical “word for the day” off her iPhone;
predicts weather with astonishing accuracy, based on feeling; votes are all
over the place)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>ROW 2</u>:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Alma</b>
(age 50, Puerto Rican, wife and mother, cancer survivor, plump, practical,
lifelong New Yorker; votes with confidence)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Ameer</b>
(age 45, Bangladeshi, Muslim, works in finance, quiet, naps between cases;
votes reliably)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Dorca</b>
(age 50, Dominican, mother of 4, twice-married, has boyfriend; self-described
ditz, lives on junk food, hard-boiled eggs wrapped in foil, and blue-tooth/cell
phone; raises hand to vote before charges are even announced)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Allison</b>
(age 30, 2<sup>nd</sup> generation Yugoslavian; elementary school PE teacher
with three master’s degrees; tiny, energetic, chatty, multi-tasker, joyful flirt,
high on life, native Long Islander, loves the Mets; votes reliably)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Signy</b>
(age—older but indeterminate, maybe 60, maybe 65; black; family from South
Carolina, tall, elegant, head full of golden short braids; married, wears lots
of rings; plays puzzle games on her iPad between cases; voice of gentle reason;
has job in entertainment industry, but keeps in on QT; often withholds vote out
of sympathy for the defendant’s circumstances)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b><u>ROW 3</u>:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Suzanne</b>
(age about 70; lifelong single woman, white, glasses; makes sounds from her
mouth, like “uh huh” or “hmmm” or “ah” almost continuously, as if mumbling to
self; tough NY broad; votes reliably)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Eleanor</b>
(age 30, Bostonian, intellectual; white; big reader, introvert; pretty,
practical, nerdy in a sweet way; stunned and quietly appalled on a daily basis
by juror behavior; votes reliably)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Martina</b>
(Marty) (age 55, 1<sup>st</sup> generation Serbo-Croation, divorced mother of
grown son; nurse; loves Brooklyn, but lives in Astoria; quick, choppy, direct
way with words; votes reliably)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Miss O’</b>
(And then there’s <i>Maude,</i> raises her
hand high so as to be counted; often interpreted by certain others as vengeful,
like Miss O’ is personally invested in any of the outcomes)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Kandie </b>(age
50, former ’80s clubbing girl who has always been single, lives in Astoria with
her mom, very nice, down to earth; 1<sup>st</sup> generation Greek; slow
speaking rhythms, great sense of humor; votes reliably)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>ADJUNCT WING</b> (seats across the room, behind a short wall where
observers might sit, opposite the “Judge’s Bench” and behind the A.D.A. table;
partially blocked by post, to seat remaining jurors)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<u>Front</u> (two seats)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l7 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Simon</b>
(44, short, bearded, dapper; Jewish; diligent note-taker and question-asker;
reads four to six novels over the course of a month of down time; tries to date
at least a half dozen of the women; points out all the rules, votes reliably)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l7 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Yasmin</b>
(25 or 30, Pakistani, Muslim; glasses, reads novels; wears stylish pants, tops,
and shoes, head always wrapped in a patterned or black coordinating scarf;
keeps to herself; always participates in votes; quiet; gets to know no one, but
very sweetly)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<u>Back </u>(two seats)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l9 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Edward </b>(indeterminate
age, but probably 45 or 50; black South African; tall, quick to laugh and
smile; unstoppable question asker; always on phone during down time; always
takes notes; votes reliably)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l9 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Manuel</b>
(<b>Manny</b>): (50, Puerto Rican trying to
be Tony Soprano; polo shirts, gold chains, big mid-section; swaggers;
alternately talks to trapped Edward or dozes <i>during</i> testimony; walks around during votes; fond of loudly
accusing Miss O’ (and others) of being an “executioner” for voting to indict;
alternately bullies and apologizes—his secret to survival; unteachable)<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b><u>Court Reporter Roller-Chair Rotation</u></b> (all female):<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Middle-aged self-published author, white<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Older well-dressed protocol stickler, black<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Tall dark fashion model, Hispanic<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Slim middle-aged angular fashion model, white<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Middle-aged sweetie with hair bows, white<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Thirty-ish quiet nerdy gal, white<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b><u>The A.D.A. Shuffle: A Compendium of Assistant District Attorneys for
Queens County<o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
(NOTE: Names are based on nicknames
jurors gave them after repeated rotations and presentments—often within their
earshot, because we New Yorkers are charming assholes like that.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Mary Louise Parker<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Kelly Girl Who is Cool<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->James Earl Jones<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Mark Wahlberg<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Matching Tie and Socks<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Eddie Munster<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->That Stiff Guy<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The Greek with the Eye Thing<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The Boring One<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The Curly-Haired One We Pissed Off the First
Week<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The Serious Blonde One<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Dippity-Do (<i>or</i>,
Man, That Is Some Serious Hair Gel Up in There)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The Good One<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The Lazy One Who Didn’t Really Help the Good One
That Night We Stayed Late<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The Asian Girl<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Oh, Man, How Many Witnesses Is She Gonna Call?
(Note: They were “victims.” And it took three WEEKS and at least two hairstyles
for her to call them all.)<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
(NOTE 2: All the ADAs were
extremely competent, most wore ill-fitting suits, sported depressing hair (and
how to explain what that is?), all were on the verge of exhaustion, but very
professional about it.)<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
AND JUST THINK OF THE GUEST STARS! Witnesses, detectives, undercover cops, translators...streams of them. My favorite witness was the young woman asked to describe an identifying photo on her cell phone, and posed, as if taking a selfie. The court reporter just stared at her. The ADA said, "Let the record show the witness is indicating a picture of herself." Whew.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>DAYS WITHOUT END: Grand Jury Episodes<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The show’s twelve one-hour episodes
would be broken down into the following, with a short take on a few case types.
By the end of Week 1, we were all like, “There’s no way I can do this for three
more weeks.” By the end of Week 2, we’re all like, “Yeah, half way there.” By
the end of Week 3, were like, “There is no fucking way I can do this one more
goddamned week.” By the end of Week 4, there were people who had so acclimated
to the simplicity of the life, they were willing to be lifelong professional
jurors. Miss O’ knew they had descended into madness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Herewith a few general notes on the
general day-to-day, first.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b><u>Daily Routine: The Usual Suspects</u></b> (<i>or</i>, What I Learned About the Habits of 23 Ordinary Citizens in
Queens County, and 24 If I Count Myself, and I Should, During the Days of
Service)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]--><b>Arrival:</b> We met in the lobby of the
fifth floor by 9:30 each morning. Week 1: Our court officer came out to meet us
and escorted us to the grand jury room. By Week 4, someone down the hall would
wave an arm, someone would notice the arm, and mumble, “Let’s go…” and we’d
trudge down. At least five jurors would wander in around 10 AM, unescorted.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]--><b>Taking Our Seats:</b> After attendance,
we’d hear The Word from Bertrise. Then would begin what was often an hour,
sometimes two, or three, of waiting. ADAs were typically not ready for cases
until after lunch, but sometimes we’d get hit right at 10 and go until 12:15.
During down time, people read, ate, napped, listened to music, played games on
their phones. Others talked, and it was the talks that were really interesting,
the various alliances that formed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]--><b>Case time:</b> See below. (The thing that
astounded me was the lax attitude by so many jurors—eating, Facebooking,
dozing—during ADA presentments of evidence. The court officer has to leave the
room during the presentments, so there’s no one to “keep order.” The teacher in
me wanted to stand up and say, “People…put it away.” I felt so personally
responsible for their behavior, I had to channel my therapist from 20 years
ago, Goldye, to tell me to stop owning other people’s choices. Miss O’ never managed to do that, but at least
she managed not to say anything. Mostly.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]--><b>Lunch:</b> This was from 1:00 to 2:00, but
often was from 12:15 to 2:15, when ADAs weren’t ready. (That meant we’d be
there until 7:00 PM a few times, but mostly we were out by 5:00 PM.) We had to
leave the courtroom, but the beautiful timing of the weather was sweet: The
entire month of September was dry, clear, highs in the 70s (except for 2 hot
days and one drizzly one). It was here you saw who the really independent types
were (Allison, Miss O’, Suzanne, Martina, Simon, Eleanor, Ameer, Yasmin,
Minerva); the sometimes-social (Edward, Signy); and the group-makers (everyone
else). For her part, Miss O’ visited the Euro Grill everyday, had hot tea and a
burger, or grill cheese, or a bowl of soup, and wrote notes on the
personalities of the day. After lunch, she would walk to the old courthouse
garden and meditate for a good half hour or 45 minutes. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]--><b>Afternoon:</b> Just unending case after
case after case after case, usually to be continued but often complete and
ready for voting on; with interpreters for nearly every witness.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->6.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]--><b>The Subway Ride:</b> Several of us would
find ourselves on the Manhattan-bound E Train to Roosevelt, to switch to a 7
Train, or to keep going to Queens Plaza to an R Train to Astoria, for example.
It was something to realize we all lived in the same county, though often in
completely different neighborhoods, and that Queens is huge.<br />
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<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>In Case You Were Wondering</b> (as to the cases…) <o:p></o:p></div>
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Ours was a criminal grand jury,
reviewing criminal cases that had happened in Queens County. They amounted to
the same things you’d see on any police show—assault, robbery (petit larceny,
grand larceny) and burglary (there’s a difference—stolen stuff vs. a break-in,
as it turns out), attempted murder, and the various degrees of all of these. In
cases like these, there are defendants who act alone, act in concert, or share
charges equally. (Mercifully, we had no homicides, rapes, or child
endangerments. My feeling is that the more routine the cases presented, the
more chance for an audience to meet the jurors and get a feel for a real,
regular grand jury experience.) The ADAs have to read us the definitions of
every single term, the full text on every law and charge, and charge us on the
law for a grand jury hearing EVERY SINGLE TIME. By the 40<sup>th</sup> case or
so, you’ve gone numb, but it has to be done to be fair to every victim, every
defendant. The ADAs also have to ask each and every police officer, detective,
and undercover for their length of service and where they have served. I
realize that should this case go to trial, officers who made arrests may have
been promoted or transferred, and so the ADA needs to establish that the
officer was in his or her jurisdiction at the time of the arrest and grand jury
hearing. It would get old, except that we really don’t have anything else to do
but listen, and so you kind of get lulled into the rhythm. You also start to
realize how redundant an ADA’s life can be, utterly unlike the
glamorous-seeming litigator life of actor Sam Waterston.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>EPISODE 1: Days 1 and 2, etc.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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Listen, all I can do is a
stream-of-consciousness thing right now, so if you want to, go with it. Or just
drink. First of all, Grand Jury is NOT <i>Law and Order</i>. It's weirdly more casual, until it's really formal in what are called "presentments" of information. But first, you have to get picked to serve, out of the hundreds who appear with summonses. In Queens, three or four or five of these things run simultaneously. I'm giving you the first two days as an example. Here’s what it was like in my head:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Day 1: So you look around the giant
courtroom as the long-serving officer has to yell at everyone to sit down and
take our their jury summonses, as if this were picture day in a high school
auditorium; and just as you’d see in that place where the kids have forgotten
their picture forms, half the people don’t have their summonses even open, and
therefore have not filled them out. That’s right. So the pen scrambling begins.
You wait. You wait. To approach the front for the interviews, we stand up row
by row, and Miss O’ gets yelled at, “DID I TELL YOU TO GET UP?” and she smiles
and says kindly, “The other officer told us to keep it moving,” and the officer
says, startled, “He did?” unaccustomed as she must be to reasonableness. When
you approach the tables to interview, the nice blonde officer lady asks you,
first, what you do for a living, and second, “Does your job pay you in full?”
and when you say “Yes,” you get picked to serve, and go and sit to the side
until it fills up. You wait. <span style="line-height: 115%;">You are taken to another room to wait.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">You wait. You debate whether or not to use the
toilet, and when you do, it’s right before they haul you off to another room,
which turns out to be Grand Jury C room on the 5</span><sup style="line-height: 115%;">th</sup><span style="line-height: 115%;"> floor via secret
back elevator. There you are instructed by your court officer on what you will
be doing for the next 20 days, when a person interrupts to say, “Um, it’s more
than 20 days,” and the officer looks confused, and a helpful two or three
jurors say in unison, “WORKING days,” and the ditz is still lost, so you say,
“I’ll explain it later,” and the officer continues (and you start to suspect this could be a really LONG four weeks), and the rest of the day is
really lunch and down time except for one case, and it turns out you will not
hear the conclusion of THAT case until the very last day. For real. </span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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On Day 2, Manny the Loudmouth (you
learn this in the early minutes of Day 1, just as Miss O’ the teacher learned
who the asshole students would be in the opening minutes of the first day of class—“Um,
Miss, how come you already know my name?” How come indeed…"So how long we gotta wait here, huh? Why aren't they ready to go, huh?" Oh, lord...) says, “We should be
on a first-name basis,” and we go around and say our names, and the elementary
school teacher, Allison, goes around and says everyone’s name to show how it’s
done; and Miss O’ writes them all down, along with descriptions. And Soledad
says, “People let’s make a snack table because we are in this for the long
haul,” and that’s what the kids do. (Soledad will also go on to bake for us at
various points, and her meat patties (empanadas) and sweet potato pie are
unrivaled.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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And so will continue a steady
stream of days wherein you want to fucking kill a bunch of strangers, or be
anywhere else, or not mind very much—but in any case you learn every juror food
habit, tardy habit, and question-asking habit; every translator tic; every ADA
verbal pattern. And there is humor. Soledad insisted one day on imitating the
Spanish translator (whom we really grew to adore) for the merriment of Frances
our court officer, and we were all half sorry, because the next time ol’ Pedro
came in we all had to look down, snorting. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And there’s the day Pilar said out
in the lobby, “Edward, you always ask a question in exactly the same way,” and
she got up, bent over (because when grand jurors have a question you have to
whisper it to the court reporter and the ADA), and placed her fingers just so,
as he did, and you get up (as Miss O’ did), and say, “No, like this,” and place
your index finger to thumb, and bounce it for emphasis, and we all laugh.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But this laughter is short-lived,
because GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT, question after irrelevant fucking question, why can’t jurors remember the RULES: “Sufficient
evidence” and “Reasonable cause to believe” are all you need to move an
indictment forward. For at least two weeks, everyone is playing fucking <i>Law and Order </i>and <i>Twelve Angry Men</i> and saying shit like “reasonable doubt,” and
Minerva the Jamaican Forewoman cries out, “Would you people tink about yo’
questions! What ah you doin’?” And so stupid do these questions become, that
when an open-and-shut crime takes place in a doughnut shop, and the ADA says, “Are
there any questions from the grand jury?” and Simon goes up the way he ALWAYS
does, Kandie turns to Miss O’ and whispers, “What flavors were the donuts?” and
you bend over weeping in stifled laughter.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And Moses is always trying to
convince you not to indict a brother. And Signy feels sorry for the
grandmothers. And we all hate to see old women mugged. There are no shortage of
fun details to put into a show, is what I’m saying.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Je Recuse!</b> <b>(The strange case
of the arrest I saw on my block.)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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As far as I can tell, nothing came
of it, but as I was walking to the subway one Saturday, I saw a young woman
being yelled at by another, older woman who said it was her right to change the
locks, and the young woman saying, “Not while I have a LEASE,” while the old
man who owned the building was being cuffed and put into a police car, and my
neighbor Antoinette was crying out, “Why don’t you just put a dagger right here
in my heart!” And all I could think was, “Oh, shit. This will come before us
this week…and I will have to leave the room…”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>From Facebook: Blow By Blow<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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The following posts give you a
flavor of what some weekly scripts would at least feel like. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Sept 7</b> 10 years in NYC about to be celebrated by GJD.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Sept 8<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">NOTICE TO NYC FRIENDS: Miss O' heads out to begin Grand Jury
Duty in Kew Gardens, Queens, for four weeks. I have no idea how this works, but
I do know that I cannot have on my person either a cell phone or a computer.
Therefore chances are good that I will be UNAVAILABLE from 7 AM to 6 PM each
and every goddamned weekday for the month. Unless I don't have my number
called, and I get sent back to work, or something. Here's to justice!</span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Sept 11<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">September 11, 2001, and the week that followed, I grieved for
all the lives lost, but mostly I grieved so hard for a city I loved, I moved
here. As a part of this city, I'm spending the month in a room with 22 other
New Yorkers deciding on criminal cases to send to trial in Queens County. And we
give this. It's what you do in a democracy, for your community. Glad to wake up
to peaceful diplomacy getting a chance to work globally, too. Love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #2a313d; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande";">Sept
14<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Retweeted God (@TheTweetOfGod):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You're stupid in ways you haven't even begun to fail to understand.</span><span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #2a313d; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande";">Sept
16<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Another day, another gun massacre bloodbath in America. We're
not allowed to solve it. We're only allowed to "feel bad" for a
while. And so it goes. [Note: All the jurors were sounding off on how awful Virginia
is, “that’s where these stupid guns come from…what the hell is wrong with
them?” Whatever walk of life, everyone was very much pro-gun laws. Sweet to
see. -ed.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande";">Sept 24<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These weeks
on Grand Jury duty (especially last evening's late session and the bullying
juror to whom Miss O' had to say, with her knife-edged voice, "Manny, cut
it") have brought home a quote, which has always rung true for teacher-me
but just gets truer and truer the longer I live in the wider world (and high
school was always MY real world, as I really lived in it while teaching and
directing):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"High
school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I
can thing of." ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And, at
times, this (from Vonnegut, too):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">""True
terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is
running the country." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Good day sunshine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Sept 25<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."
~Helen Keller, who probably never served on Grand Jury duty. Today I also have
a head cold and a right eye swollen shut from an errant city mosquito squatting
in my apartment. I have never felt more alive!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Sept 26<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yesterday in the jury room, before the 4-7:30 PM unexpected
session from which I'm still recovering, one juror, a fabulous Hispanic way-out
lesbian New Yorker (I'll do a blog about the whole experience, except for the
cases, which have to remain secret), had heard a Sinatra song on a show the
night before and wanted help remembering which one it was; and when we guessed
and it was "Fly Me to the Moon," another juror (Signy, glamorous older black
woman) and I launched in, in the same key and everything. The room stood still.
"In other words, darling, kiss me." And once more. For a week and 2
more days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Sept 29<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In anticipation of my return to the LAST week (knock wood) of
Grand Jury duty, I was realizing that most of the 23 grand jurors are about 50,
so we have the same cultural history. One gal, Kandie, a Greek from Astoria, told me,
"Back in the '80s I used to go clubbing, and there was this place called
Danceteria. I used to see this freak in the bathroom all the time, her wrists
covered in black rubber bracelets, and she'd be like, 'I'm gonna be really
famous'"--and here the Greek did the international sign for cuckoo.
"She was always bringing a cassette of her songs and screaming at the D.J.
to play them, and she had this whiny, nasal voice, and I couldn't stand
her." Her name? Madonna. I'll bet she's sorry she got rich and famous and
isn't sitting on jury duty in Queens. I know I would be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>Oct 1<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Fuck the fucking the fuckers. Have a nice day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">[Oh, sorry, that was in response to the Government Shutdown. -ed.]</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>Oct. 2<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A guy on our Grand Jury said to me the other week, "I don't
like this. I don't feel comfortable judging these cases." And I looked at
him: "If not you, who?" If not a jury of your peers, if not a democratically
selected group of fellow citizens to consider the evidence in a case, who else?
A military tribunal? A vigilante lynch mob? The Republicans? I'm on a political
tear this way-too-early-in-the-goddamned-morning. We the People need to wake
the hell up. Have a nice day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i><span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A friend commented:<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #3d4452; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Should one feel comfortable judging? Should one like it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i><span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I replied:<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #3d4452; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I used to ask myself that when I was first teaching--who am I to
evaluate these kids? And I realized it's not a question of liking it or being
comfortable--it's simply that it must be done, and since I'm charged with it, I
have to do my best to evaluate them as well as I can. I hear people say they
won't vote because they don't like deciding on who runs the country, or even
their part of the country. I'm not comfortable with people like that--they're
putting all the burden of democracy on too few shoulders. But I'll say it: I
love voting, and I take the responsibility of it seriously.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Oct 3<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So it was attempted murder at 5 PM on the ol' Grand Jury duty
last evening, and then we deliberated on the charges. (Ta-kush-boom!) Sure,
doing one's civic duty might get a little wearing, but at least we did it
SOBER. I hope your day is criminal-charge-free, with hearty fellowship at day's
end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Oct 4<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So here was the last day, in order of events, I kid you not a
bit: Arrival in jury room; awaiting of four late people; final arrival is Moses,
a DJ, who turned on his computer, put the witness mike up to it, and began
DJ-ing a dance party, which was filmed by various jurors with iPhones; after
the DJ said, "What's with the back row?" by which Miss O' explained
in her primmest, most serious voice, "We are white people, and we are
very, very repressed"; then Miss O' stunned the crowd by dancing to Soul
Train with Soledad the Puerto Rican lesbian. This was followed by more dancing,
presenting a gift card to our awesome court officer, who had joined us in the
dance; a case or two; lunch; a baby shower for Ashley, who had wanted so badly
to be on a jury she hid her 7-month pregnancy with a big shirt; and, finally,
two votes on attempted murder and assault cases. We got our letters of service,
and here I am, home and heading out to Brogue for beer and Powers Irish whiskey
with Jodi and Lisa here in the 'hood. My work is done. Blog tomorrow. And
justice for all so help us God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>Oct 4 (Final FB Post)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yesterday at lunch, a big group got on the courthouse elevator
at the third floor, including a very loud old man, Chinese, a real character.
At floor 2, he asked a woman entering, "Are you on grand jury, too?"
No, she said. "Too bad," he said in bright accented tones, "you
not know what you missing." The elevator chuckled, and a younger man,
black, turned to me, grinning: "He's like this all the time." I told
him, "We have an identical set of personalities on the fifth floor."
Last day. Blog tomorrow, unless I'm too drunk. Thanks for riding along.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
As it was, I was just too damned
tired from it all, and all the other stuff I mentioned in the opening note. So
as you can see, there’s material to spare for a 12-Episode Series. <i>#Amirite, HBO?</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>I Can’t Vote for That: On Delinquency and Four Years Off<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Citizens: 19,000 delinquent jurors
a year, over 2,000 per WEEK, show up to the Queens County Courthouse to explain
themselves or face a year in prison or a big fine. The result? More tax dollars
go to chasing down citizens to do their duty. Many people do not see why
citizenship comes with responsibilities. They see their right as “free” people
to do whatever the hell they want. It’s like the FDNY deciding which fires to
go to. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
As a result, a full month’s service
on Grand Jury used to excuse you from jury duty of any kind for eight years.
Now it’s FOUR years. Why? Because we are the only ones who show up. Democracy
is getting less and less participatory, in that those who can, don’t; and those
who want to (as with voting rights) are actively prevented. This is one fucked
up country.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5QSn7mjo_b5dQsKlpWzfhgKZmSshJYdZjpairSviKyNun2voODksQtV4ph86enu0eeNRg3jw4M6VWQu0fPOkYc59cq4DWvQjbxh7is1fDCVoWWjtLoXC1Uc_IVTJPFhY78i_irq1f19HZ/s1600/12-angry-men-header.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5QSn7mjo_b5dQsKlpWzfhgKZmSshJYdZjpairSviKyNun2voODksQtV4ph86enu0eeNRg3jw4M6VWQu0fPOkYc59cq4DWvQjbxh7is1fDCVoWWjtLoXC1Uc_IVTJPFhY78i_irq1f19HZ/s320/12-angry-men-header.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
But don’t worry. The members of
Grand Jury C got your rights. We got your back. And our own. Because it’s the
RIGHT THING TO DO AS A CITIZEN.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And so there it is! Miss O’ on
Grand Jury, concluded, blogged, sent out into the universe, and with luck,
picked up by HBO following lucrative contract negotiations giving me a new
career as a television writer and producer. Ha, ha! Until that happy day,
content yourself with the blog, won’t you? And serve your goddamned jury duty when
your nation calls upon you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
You know why? Say whatever you might say about this crazy mess of a nation: Every lowest of the low or highest of the high, however petty or serious the crime, whatever your walk of life, YOU GET A FUCKING GRAND JURY HEARING. You really, really do. Any other questions?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
As Manny might say, whenever he raised
his hand to ask a question and someone else got to it first, but he really didn’t
have a question that wasn’t based on the fact that he had fallen asleep, “That
was pretty much what I was gonna say.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Until next time...and who knows when that will be? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Kisses from</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Miss O'</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-86850625752797667122013-09-08T14:14:00.000-07:002013-09-28T10:35:06.909-07:00The Myth O’ Show!<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="line-height: 115%;">You Must Remember Myth</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></b></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjMorb7funBnBiqpX5NocMGc285YpKxCSxqzxX8JVX2TASSJUfsrcsIL45H9Qr7fWydlpk1moleqSl3WuN7QsnDffQncKSOP_WPqodGXb3_b5vsAvOwCIGTnYOw_YikXQGj_YrLPaoxjx0/s1600/yhst-20024741711964_2257_12583820.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjMorb7funBnBiqpX5NocMGc285YpKxCSxqzxX8JVX2TASSJUfsrcsIL45H9Qr7fWydlpk1moleqSl3WuN7QsnDffQncKSOP_WPqodGXb3_b5vsAvOwCIGTnYOw_YikXQGj_YrLPaoxjx0/s320/yhst-20024741711964_2257_12583820.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From "Sita Sings the Blues," a film by Nina Paley. Public Domain.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
My friend Rina (see previous posts), an avid pop culture fan akin
to your Miss O’, sees everywhere a <i>Seinfeld</i>
episode whenever she visits me in New York. She started watching <i>Seinfeld</i> when she moved to Vancouver in
2008 to begin work on her Ph.D., and this show opened up New York City <span style="line-height: 115%;">(and, thus, America) </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">to her . This is important, because she comes to New York
frequently to conduct interviews at and around the United Nations as part of
her research. (Her subject is R2P: Responsibility to Protect, and she trains a
Marxist lens on her discoveries, because just as feminist Shulie Alexander taught us that the personal is always
political, so Marx demonstrated that the political is always the economic; this last part is fairly new,
and what I realized in talking to Rina is that America’s democracy and its
liberal-capitalist economy are one in the same; nations around the world trying
to imitate our democratic ideals soon realize that the price for American-style
democracy is, along with a flag in every pot: a history of low wages for
workers, disastrous air quality, traffic congestion, long lines to vote, voter
suppression, a military industrial complex, class warfare, and racial
segregation, and weekly radio news quizzes about Kardashians.) (And now in the
midst of the Syrian crisis, President Obama sees the U.S. role to take a
military stand—</span><i style="line-height: 115%;">a responsibility to
protect civilians</i><span style="line-height: 115%;">—against the violation of international law, Syria’s
President Assad’s use of chemical weapons on his own people. To this Miss O’
must remark that the U.S. violated international law with the return to torture
during the Iraq War, and no one invaded </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">us</i><span style="line-height: 115%;">,
though surely they had every right.) God where was I?)</span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So to communicate our artistic
sides, our spiritual lives, if you will, Rina and I communicate via music and
the movies, and in addition Rina fills me in on Indian mythology. These myths
offer helpful shorthand for any understanding of Indian culture, but first you have to
know the intricacies of the longhand version. To help you better understand what I
mean, I will remind you of my experience with learning iconography, which is
found in illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages. As my Chaucer prof, Dr.
Fleming, explained on the board, small pictures fill in for whole worlds. He
drew this:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV3_8YIWO-jd0Ng-nG2WNHmrkMfJ32b55gZCw3nDKIULbgQbFBGsJLQb9Gj0lU8WUxNBdq48UtOB86-7ZT0w5SoBE43dToklISCmNmrNG6sq0kwuszuGfin1a1Nt1CqxAF78f8cj0OmjLw/s1600/100_1059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV3_8YIWO-jd0Ng-nG2WNHmrkMfJ32b55gZCw3nDKIULbgQbFBGsJLQb9Gj0lU8WUxNBdq48UtOB86-7ZT0w5SoBE43dToklISCmNmrNG6sq0kwuszuGfin1a1Nt1CqxAF78f8cj0OmjLw/s320/100_1059.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miss O's rendering of iconic art by J.V. Fleming</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br />
Without hesitation, I raised my little
graduate student hand and declared, “Oh, that’s George Washington and the
cherry tree.” Everyone in the class just stared at me. Here is one of many
moments when I would realize that in America we might in fact <i>not</i> have a really common mythology because
it’s a big fucking country, full of landscapes, histories, and languages. And
brands of beer. “Miss O’Hara, perhaps you would care to explain,” Mr. Fleming
said, and I retold the Parson Weems tale of how little George “could not tell a
lie,” and admitted to chopping down one of his father’s cherry trees. I also
explained (so they didn’t think I was crazy for knowing this) that Parson Weems
has a museum dedicated to him in the Virginia town next over from my hometown,
and that I grew up about ten miles from Mount Vernon. In other words, George
Washington was part of my mythology. (When my California friend Anna saw Mount
Vernon for the first time, she turned to me and said, “I thought this was just
a myth.”) Fleming’s point was that the alert reader of a medieval manuscript
would at a glance see whole, long stories in the pretty little icons that
adorned the margins of the text, thereby allowing the copying monks to add a
lot of information without having to write so much. But this only works as long
as we are all living on the same stories: our cultural shorthand.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtzj4JCUbNvgJeBQZmzY0aUiwqQJt3IFN9ElgM22kJW7FzKQe0ypIp6gVXjDZX7yBQyjuNWpP4y7sicvQD79vc98P8TBb8qwvRVIbXQ6dYgJYImbQ_PaEprvKsvAdX1wZVrfB2Z8Yb1iWd/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtzj4JCUbNvgJeBQZmzY0aUiwqQJt3IFN9ElgM22kJW7FzKQe0ypIp6gVXjDZX7yBQyjuNWpP4y7sicvQD79vc98P8TBb8qwvRVIbXQ6dYgJYImbQ_PaEprvKsvAdX1wZVrfB2Z8Yb1iWd/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rama and Sita, from Google Images.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br />
Rina, in order to fill me in on
most any Indian perspective or even relate an anecdote, has to tell me about the gods and goddesses of the
Hindu mythologies. For example, she began telling me about her niece, who is
now six, and who likes to create her stories <i>live</i>. She assigns roles to members of the family, including her
grandmother. It was here Rina realized she would have to tell me the story of the
god Rama, but suffice to say he is the big god (the seventh incarnation of
Vishnu) to whom everyone prays. When you are in pain, you say (and I’m guessing
at the spellings), “Hi, Ram,” which is shorthand for, “Please, God, release me
from all this pain.” When you want something joyful, you say, “Hey, Ram,” which
is shorthand for, “Oh, God, it would be so awesome if this wonderful thing
happened.” Every time Rina's mother gets up from the couch, she groans, "Hi, Ram." When she gets up from bed, or gets into bed, or walks to get tea, she says, "Hi, Ram." So in the drama that Rina’s little niece was creating, she needed
her old grandmother to play someone spry, apparently, because she admonished,
“And Nana you must NOT say ‘Hi, Ram’!” Here Rina giggled her musical giggle.
“She knows what the expression means, even though she does not know Rama,” Rina
said. And we marveled at what kids pick up on, even these complex cultural
reference points. <i>Hey, Ram!</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So <i>Seinfeld</i>, for me and for Rina, is social shorthand, as it has
become for the many, many fans of this show. All we have to say, in the
(in)appropriate moment, is “close talker,” or “going commando,” or “worlds are
colliding,” or “he took it out,” and in one phrase an otherwise inexplicable or
detestable social encounter (that we have witnessed or experienced) is <i>grounded.</i> (I can't tell you how funny it is to hear Rina's musical Indian voice intone, <i>"He double-dipped a chip."</i>) For my friends who came of age
in the 1960s, it is music mythology that creates the links, that defines the
decade—The Kingston Trio (for my friend Pat), to Bob Dylan, to the Beatles, to
the Rolling Stones—and as my friend Lynda says, “I miss listening to music the
way we used to do—someone would buy the album, and we’d all sit around
listening to it, talking about it….” The playing of a song connects many people
to a time of life, especially, I think, to adolescence. Beyond the experience of the
music itself is a <i>transcendent</i> thing, a deep connection to each other, the
music: the world comes into us through those chords. That, and memories of somehow doing it in the back seat of a Pinto.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
For my parents (and thus for me,
and for Rina, too) it was Hollywood Mythology that gave them the framework of
their lives, even more than catechism: The “true” stories of our history became
theater fare: the Wild West of America—our original mythology of cowboys and
Indians; a nation founded in whole cloth by people who were not “from” there—is
unlike everything else on Earth, and also a horror movie to the native peoples of
the land (which is too often mythologized in the <i>worst </i>sense in the movies); the war stories, the love stories, the
adventure stories; the Civil War of <i>Gone
With the Wind</i> can be an obsessively-held link to the past for the American
South, forming its own kind of mythos, for good or ill; Prohibition-era
gangsters who made American headlines were later mythologized in movies such
as <i>White Heat</i>. But as Karen Armstrong
points out in <i>A Short History of Myth</i>,
ultimately these renderings of life are not useful as “mythology” in the truest
sense, because the movies do not <i>help</i>
us, other than as an escape from reality. Unless we have a story that connects
us to nature—to the sky, the trees, and the animals; to the water and the
earth, and all the creatures and plants that live there—in other words, <i>to the elements we depend upon for our human
survival</i>—a mythology cannot last. Cities are temporary. Movies last for
ninety minutes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>Am I Mything Something?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So what does it mean, all this movie
reel, musical, militaristic noise across this pop culture cluster-fuck of a
planet? After a few weeks of Rina, I always feel challenged and enlightened,
but also really sure I know absolutely nothing about anything, including my own
story.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
To better enter into the Hindu
stuff of Rina’s life, I was lucky enough to find this wonderful indie movie
called <i>Sita Sings the Blues</i>, shared
in the Public Domain, freely and dearly, by the filmmaker and animator Nina
Paley. I place the link before you:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkdoZDvBZoT8a0COgKcI7Q6Xc9U8VU3_afBkSap4e_S7VlT3cZe8VGdOPYpJs_6wvLe3kmgsbIUKrk_f-F5rhEZD_kncMar5CIJy4U90kplTLQD1NwLJBeiEuVN76fTkuZrVXsXXH5h1KR/s1600/yhst-20024741711964_2257_11763326.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkdoZDvBZoT8a0COgKcI7Q6Xc9U8VU3_afBkSap4e_S7VlT3cZe8VGdOPYpJs_6wvLe3kmgsbIUKrk_f-F5rhEZD_kncMar5CIJy4U90kplTLQD1NwLJBeiEuVN76fTkuZrVXsXXH5h1KR/s320/yhst-20024741711964_2257_11763326.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/"><span style="color: purple;"><b>Sita Sings the Blues</b></span></a> by Nina Paley</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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But for those times
of intellectual and spiritual crisis when even <i>Casablanca</i> can’t help me, I turn, as I so often do, to religious
writer Karen Armstrong, author of (among many great books) <i>A Short History of Myth</i>: “Human beings have always been
mythmakers,” begins the book, in its first chapter, “What is a Myth?” (Miss O’
has noticed that the word <i>myth</i> is
generally used to mean an untruth, and this is a shame. So many awesome concepts have been shrunk to app-size.) Neanderthal graves,
she explains, show care taken at the burial—death was acknowledged as
significant, and an afterlife was imagined. “We are meaning-making creatures,”
Armstrong summarizes, and then goes on to aptly point out what is rather
startling when one thinks about it: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>“Another peculiar characteristic of the
human mind is its ability to have ideas and experiences that we cannot explain
rationally. We have imagination, a faculty that enables us to think of
something that is not immediately present, and that, when we first conceive it,
has not objective existence. The imagination is the faculty that produces
religion and mythology. Today mythology has fallen into disrepute; we often
dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the
faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to
invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective.” </i>She concludes,<i>
“Like science and technology, mythology, as we shall see, is not about opting
out of this world, but about enabling us to live more intensely within it.” ~<u>A Short History of Myth</u></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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What Armstrong
points out is that first and foremost, myth is “nearly always rooted in the
experience of death and the fear of extinction.” I would argue that science is
probably rooted in this, too. And art. And surely the movies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Our world is awash in followers of
mini-mythologies—as seen by the evolution of The Fan: movie maniacs, avid comic
book readers, <i>Star Trek</i>
conventioneers, Old Time Radio aficionados, <i>Harry
Potter</i> enthusiasts, sports fiends of all-colored tee shirts, gossip
magazine gorgers, zombie apocalypse hopefuls, Ren Faire cosplayers: There is a
special mythology (sometimes "lived" as an alternate reality, like the kids who try to be vampires) for anyone who <i>seeks</i>.
It’s really impressive how many subcultures the world offers us. <span style="line-height: 115%;">Years ago a series of books came
out called </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">Choose Your Own Adventure</i><span style="line-height: 115%;">,
wherein the reader had to make plot decisions at pivotal moments in the
story.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">From the Wiki:</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Choose
Your Own Adventure</span></i></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> is a series of
children's </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebook"><span style="color: #092f9d; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">gamebooks</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> where each story is written from a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-person_narrative"><span style="color: #092f9d; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">second-person</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist
and making choices that determine the main character's actions and the plot's
outcome.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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If you choose A, “You run,” for
example, you turned to page 24; if you choose B, “You stay and fight,” you
turned to page 26—something like that. I remember finding these books kind of
annoying, but the series remains popular. The word “gamebooks” is the key:
These books are not really about reading, but instead might lure game-lovers into reading—that seems to be the idea. Somewhere in our collective storytelling, "myths" became games, entertainments, diversions. Why did we lose our sense of, our need to tell, <i>the long story of the people</i>?</div>
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<b>Of Myth and Men<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I asked a poet
friend, “Do you think about Death?” (I capitalize it because I meant it as a natural
fact and as a concept.) She looked briefly puzzled, and then said simply, “No.”
Possibly that is the secret to living most perfectly: To experience the <i>now</i> of
nature, love, food, home, friends, without a care as to the endings of
anything. Miss O’ does not, obviously, live so sweetly. I think about death and
loss all the goddamned time. I think about legacies, stories, continuance—what
happens after death, in terms of life on Earth. I don’t necessarily think about
the <i>soul</i>, per se, or what happens <i>after</i> death. I do, however, think about
death and dying, think about those losses. And where does it get me?<o:p></o:p></div>
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So for this
poet friend, art is rooted in life lived now, not in the experience of death or fear
of extinction. So then I ask, “Why create?” My friend Colleen went to Chicago’s
Art Institute on a recent vacation and brought me back a button that said, “I
am therefore I write.” Most days it has to be enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>In the Myth of the Beast<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I am asking
these questions lately, about death and what that means, and living and what
that means, because I am so nauseated by politics. For one as political as Miss
O’ is, that is saying something. On a popular social network, I posted a
satirical article by Andy Borowitz,<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/09/g20-ends-abruptly-as-obama-calls-putin-a-jackass.html"> “G20Ends Abruptly as Obama Calls Putin a Jackass.”</a></div>
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This article
posting disturbed my friend Judy (poet Judith Christian), who wrote: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #3d4452; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">JUDY: I was just thinking that... I'd like to hear Pres O say
Jackass. But lately I'm thinking that all the news satire entertainment has
become an outlet for what the public should really feel and express, which is
anger and outrage. I mean, once again we are being entertained away from
thought and action. It's an American disease.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d4452; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">[LO: I think of it as wish fulfillment. Oh, sure. You are not wrong. I think the day that Jon
Stewart went on (and brought down) the show "Crossfire" said it all:
The "real news" shows have to stop being dicks, stop misinforming,
stop being lousy at what they do. I will never hold Andy Borowitz or Stewart or
Colbert to that standard. I won't direct my outrage at the comedians, or the
writers, or the artists. I direct it at those people who should be our
protectors: our press and our politicians.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d4452; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">JUDY: We have the tools now to bypass the press... or start our
own press, etc. I didn't mean we should direct outrage at the comedians or
writers; I meant that the comedy might just be another infotainment
distraction. It's cathartic, but it contributes to our passivity, I think. But
who knows.... maybe it's the only "real" news we get from media.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d4452; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I still say
political comedy/satire is not a substitute for political action, and my point
is that because it is so popular now, some people are entertained into thinking
it actually does something. It doesn't. I reinforces people's indignation, and
MAYBE motivates them, but because of its very essence, which is
entertainment--I mean TV, not political cartoons or live interaction--it is a
distraction from action. And because it has become a big part of American pop
culture, it has helped weaken print journalism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d4452; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Also, I think the Occupy Movement did a pretty good job of
usurping the press and media. Also, Benjamin Franklin put out a pretty good rag
in his time. I'm "thinking out loud" here, trying to solve what I
think is a problem, so it's not necessary to overreact, for crying out loud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d4452; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">JUDY: sorry... what I'm trying to say is "the revolution
will not be televised" (Colbert, Stewart). Thank you for your patience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d4452; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">[No apology necessary—we write because we care, or, as the
button Colleen brought me says, <i>I am therefore I write</i>.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Hit and Myth<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Oddly, this exchange brought Miss O’ back to the role of myth: In our culture today, the story we
seem to be telling each other about our world is all back-asswards: The
“legitimate news organizations” are not so much about truth as posture, like
that kid there with the iThingy, stooped, staring intently into a small glass screen, over which passes a rapidly moving thumb—there’s a lot of “outrage” and very little
substantive action, and a near-total denial of the natural world and human effects on it (or <i>it</i> on <i>us</i>). In the realms of art, including comedy shows, we find our
most accurate assessments of the news of the day, the state of the union, the
touchstones of popular culture and feeling. Political satire has ever been part
of developed civilizations, societies and settlements creating a need for politics,
negotiations, rules. (Libertarians and conservatives often want no governmental
rules (except, weirdly, on personal choices like sex and reproduction). If
anyone wants to find out, in a fairly safe microcosm, what happens when you
announce, “There are no rules here,” say that to a typical public high school
English class when you are in the capacity of substitute teacher.) By the same token, here is one cartoonist's take on the two American political parties:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYryvoiVHMgRVUbhmkoOSJM28AzNl12n_oAfAZ6GGjSD__dKmHEmRg1uLbwYHnL4EaxWdBSooVsa-m692WhNNMAW8bYFMMP_ONqbvyIOH6HhZqU7miGdW9LtFDMkhTnzIcRY_YwRjefXAr/s1600/1170813_10151654891081275_1078546937_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYryvoiVHMgRVUbhmkoOSJM28AzNl12n_oAfAZ6GGjSD__dKmHEmRg1uLbwYHnL4EaxWdBSooVsa-m692WhNNMAW8bYFMMP_ONqbvyIOH6HhZqU7miGdW9LtFDMkhTnzIcRY_YwRjefXAr/s320/1170813_10151654891081275_1078546937_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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What <i>A Short History of Myth</i> makes clear is
that societies need and have ever needed stories that show us rules for living.
What mythologist Joseph Campbell’s <i>Power of Myth</i> conversations
explore (another book I turn to) is how mythologies have to grow, change, and evolve <i>as humans do</i> in order to remain relevant
and, more important, useful. He also makes clear that we not only have to have tolerance for each other’s myths, we should know and understand these various myths. Everyone
has a story, a mythology, that resonates, but one thing all myths have in
common is they include <i>an act of disobedience</i>:
“Now God must have known very well that man was going to eat the forbidden
fruit,” Campbell points out. "But it was by doing that that man became the
initiator in his own life. Life really began with that act of disobedience.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>There She Is, Myth America<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The tension
between obedience and disobedience is apparent in politics. Obedience, as
writer Howard Zinn pointed out, is often the greatest obstacle to creating
social justice. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil
obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the
dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our
problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty
and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people
are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves
are running the country. That’s our problem.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">~Howard Zinn, </span></i><u><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The Zinn Reader</span></u><i><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">, 1970<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><i>“Protest beyond the law is not a
departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.” ~Howard Zinn, too</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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What the myths
of our history help humans to weigh are the reasons to obey and the reasons to disobey.
This is an <i>inward</i> journey, as
Campbell points out: “One thing that comes out in myths is that at the bottom
of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when
the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment
comes the light.” The thing is, and why Miss O’ is on and on about this
today—stuff that for many readers must smack of “Duh,” (and as my friend Rina
said of her dissertation on R2P back there, “What am I adding to the
conversation? What new lens have I to offer?”)—is that sick feeling I
mentioned, one that Judy articulated so well, is that “infotainment” is being
used as a substitute for political action. Miss O’ takes it a step further:
Instead of “the long story of the people,” we are fractured into often inchoate sound bites of
our own choosing, and it's sickening our spirits. When President Obama was running for his first election, he
was bold enough to say that Americans who felt economically distressed often
“cling to guns or religion.” He was castigated for it, as people so often are
who speak the truth. The Wild West mythology, the Civil War mythology, the
Revolutionary War mythology: Our nation was built by guns. It’s powered by
guns. Even after Newtown, people choose the freedom to own guns over the
freedom to vote. Still with the guns? That’s frankly insane—and an example of mythology gone off the
rails.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Bureau of Mything Persons<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>This Month: Joseph Campbell, Karen Armstrong, John Berger, the Beatles, and Seamus Heaney </b></div>
<br />
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That it is time
to <i>change</i> our mythology is not yet
clear to too many Americans, nor to too many humans all over the world. We have to
evolve past the violence mythos (and in some ways we have, says philosopher Stephen Pinker),
for as every news story shows us, as all our history shows us, it is <i>love</i>, not war, that is the path out of
fear and pain. It's tragic that this rings of "peacenik" cliché. Love of nature, love of one another, love of possibility. Jesus
saw this. Buddha saw this. Love isn't ALL you need. You need food, air, water. As for religion as it is practiced, Campbell and Armstrong point out that stories and rituals sustain us as much as food—and people need to be able to keep
their stories; what Obama was pointing out is that too often the <i>story</i> in the religion—the
life-sustaining mythos of what it means to be human—is lost in dogma, politics,
and fearful clinging. Karen Armstrong also takes pains to point out that to try to
turn <i>mythos</i> into <i>scientific fact</i> is to lose the value of the myth—to lose the
metaphor, the path to a better humanity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBPGdWljS2ZY4mjprTMd3He3vtOb0Hexkt_RUt3u3_psb6He1BbGg7B5RzDiVplEA6CY75bnRMKvoarSih6nBlMLp1voCVYOjEMJTMFxSkHlX31oyyGKnl7LKaq_aCqShllW9CrSgKw5y/s1600/anaisnin_debbiemillman2_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBPGdWljS2ZY4mjprTMd3He3vtOb0Hexkt_RUt3u3_psb6He1BbGg7B5RzDiVplEA6CY75bnRMKvoarSih6nBlMLp1voCVYOjEMJTMFxSkHlX31oyyGKnl7LKaq_aCqShllW9CrSgKw5y/s320/anaisnin_debbiemillman2_500.jpg" width="236" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/02/21/anais-nin-on-love-by-debbie-millman-2/"><b><span style="color: purple;">Anais Nin</span></b></a> by Debbie Millman<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><br /></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
Artists are always searching for the line that connects mythos to life lived. My comment to
Judy (who is a wonderful poet) about blaming the comedians has to do with the quickness with which
governments and the citizens shoot the messengers—<i>when in fear, string up the artists, the writers, the
healers! (Blame Obamacare!)</i> In his novel <i>A Painter of Our Time</i>, John Berger’s artist narrator is a
Communist artist who is forced into exile in England, and who to the end seems
to doubt that art is as important as politics—almost seems to understand why
the artists are killed. (I don't see how that could be Berger’s view (the novel was
written in 1958), but I smelled “self hatred” from the page, the blame we begin
to assign to our own talents as we begin to identify with our detractors.) To take another example, when John
Lennon said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, Christians all over
the world wanted him killed. Literally killed. In response to that reaction,
and also to people’s dislike of his choice of wife, he wrote what may be my
favorite of his songs, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxx-dOHias8">“The Ballad of John and Yoko”</a>:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: #545454; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Christ you know it ain't easy,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: #545454; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">You know how hard it can be.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: #545454; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The way things are going<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<i><span style="color: #545454; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">They're
gonna crucify me.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<br /></div>
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I love Lennon's up-tempo, happy approach to the prospect of crucifixion for simply being true
to himself and his love. (Not unlike Jesus, when you think about it.) He’s in the world, of the world, but he is aware that
changing the story (in this case the mythos of the Beatles) ain’t gonna be
easy. He’s growing—and the fans will have to grow, too, if they want to keep
following along.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Politics cannot
be the story of what it means <i>to be</i>.
It is one of Miss O’s most deeply unattractive qualities that she spends so
much time enmeshed in the issues of the day, and not trying to contribute more beauty to the world around her. I am, obviously, working on this, though too
often this work becomes like another plan to drop 20 pounds and give up Scotch.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>“I think of mythology as the homeland of the
muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and
yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you…. I mean a
vocabulary in the form not of words but of acts and adventures, which connotes
something transcendent of the action here, so that you always feel in accord
with the universal being.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<i>~Joseph Campbell, <u>The Power of Myth</u><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<br /></div>
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Campbell quotes
the Chinese text, <i>Tao-de Ching</i>: “He who thinks he knows, doesn’t know. He who
knows that he doesn’t know, knows. For in this context, to know is not to
know. And not to know is to know.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Bill Moyers, in
conversation with Campbell in this book (based on a PBS series), says, in terms of his own Christianity, “Far
from undermining my faith, your work in mythology as liberated my faith from
the cultural prisons to which it had been sentenced.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Poets aid us at these times of necessary transition. The great poet Seamus Heaney, who died this week, only
74, was featured on the delightful site <i><a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/30/seamus-heaney-reads-death-of-a-naturalist-nobel-lecture/">BrainPickings</a></i> by Maria Popova, who wrote a terrific piece about this Irish Nobel
laureate. <span style="line-height: 115%;">Popova quotes Heaney’s Nobel
acceptance speech, and this paragraph resonated for me. Heaney reads from Homer:</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="color: #262626; font-size: 14pt; letter-spacing: -1pt; line-height: 115%;">“At the sight
of the man panting and dying there, she slips down to enfold him, crying
out; then feels the spears, prodding her back and shoulders, and goes bound
into slavery and grief. Piteous weeping wears away her cheeks: but no more
piteous than Odysseus’ tears, cloaked as they were, now, from the company.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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But only after reading Heaney’s
comment upon that passage (below), and after I’d reread the Homer, did I feel
what I was supposed to feel. So much of life now is rushed by, glanced at, and
that’s what I’d done with those words:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .5in;">
<i><span style="color: #262626; font-size: 14pt; letter-spacing: -1pt; line-height: 115%;">Even to-day, three thousand years later, as we
channel-surf over so much live coverage of contemporary savagery, highly
informed but nevertheless in danger of growing immune, familiar to the point of
overfamiliarity with old newsreels of the concentration camp and the gulag,
Homer’s image can still bring us to our senses. The callousness of those spear
shafts on the woman’s back and shoulders survives time and translation. The
image has that documentary adequacy which answers all that we know about the
intolerable.</span></i></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
I also had to do hard rereading because (unlike the effect these texts had on my brother Mike) the Greek myths never "spoke to me," in the way, say, movie musicals did. But here is the point: Like great poems, religious texts—those of all mythologies—are meant to be read and understood <i>metaphorically</i>. Without metaphor, there
can be no transcendence. The words are dead on the page, in the air: the words
are allowed no journey through your mind, your heart, your own experience. To
live this way with any religion is akin to reading and shouting opinions about
politics, but never voting; to memorizing historical dates and holidays, but
having no understanding of the events the dates commemorate; or to seeing the
paint on the canvas but not the picture the paints made, let alone connecting
to the feelings the paints are meant to express.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
I take this
further: If you see the plant and animal life around you as “weeds” or “pests,”
or if you have no idea what is edible or inedible, for example—if you are
totally removed from the <i>meaning</i>
behind the life form—you cannot be living with fullness or understanding of
much of <i>anything</i>—political, artistic, religious, or plain old biological.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
And this brings
me back to myths, to stories. Think about the Beatles: The reason they stopped
touring, my friend George explained, was because the fans were screaming so
loudly the entire time, the members of the band couldn’t hear themselves play.
If the Beatles aren’t playing music <i>to be experienced </i>by the audience, why are they up on stage
at all? Just so, doesn't the message of Jesus get "lost" in the screaming of the fanatics (which is where the word <i>fan</i> comes from, after all)?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
My world, of course, is the theater. A while back I attended a
reading of one of my friend Michael’s plays, and he introduced me to a director
friend standing there in the ticket line. (I’ve mentioned this story before,
but the stories of my life are really metaphors, and each story helps tie the O’Mythos
together. Ahem.) Michael said, “Lisa writes the most fantastic stage directions
in her plays,” to which the director said, “Well that’s a waste of writing,
isn’t it, because directors just take a black marker to that.” To <i>this</i> Miss O’ said, “I’d never work with
a director who did that to my work. I don’t write ‘stage directions’ in the
sense of ‘picks up coffee cup, drinks,’ but rather I write <i>actions in silence</i>. I can’t be bothered with directors who think
life on the stage occurs only in the dialogue.” He looked furious—he walked
silently past me with his ticket. (The only reading of a play of mine here in
NYC was assigned to a director who did that to my work, and it was no longer my
play—not remotely.) This man was a working director, which is not to say a good
director, so I really hope I made him think.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>All the Right Myths<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
I think a lot of
our spiritual unrest and our political divides are tied to the inability to
experience silence. Live theater is a misery of wrappers and cell phones.
Houses of worship aren’t much different. Musicians no longer play to people but
to thousands of little blue lights, the signal of phone recordings. We can’t
come to a collective story, or transcend the muck of mindless human inhabitants, on this
planet of iBabel. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
To take a tiny example: How impossible it is to write when
other people are in a house—when I had my little library in Virginia and could
shut the door and know I would not be needed or disturbed, I could have truly sacred
time (even with a roommate); but when I had work being done on the house,
people around, intruders who might hear me talking to myself through the
windows, I could not work. I have a friend with a gorgeous home he shares only
with his mate and two dogs, but even he had to build a small writer’s cabin so
the demands of the home, the dogs, and the relationship did not intrude on his sacred
work time. My New York apartment affords no space in my bedroom to work, so I
use the living room. It’s okay when I’m alone, if not ideal: I am too aware of
the kitchen. Very often, though, guests or roommates of any kind do not understand my need
for solitude. Rina understands perfectly, <i>intellectually</i>,
and yet cannot help but interrupt, make phone calls, prepare food, or say, “I
do not wish to disturb you, but…” and the solitude is over. A month passed this
way, not unhappily, in her company, and still it took me two weeks to recover
from human presence to write even a paragraph of a new blog.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i>Cue
music. <o:p></o:p></i><i>"Hello darkness, my old friend..."</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
Now if you’ll
excuse me, I have to check my Facebook page. And my three email accounts. And take
a subway ride to Kew Gardens to see how to get to the courthouse for my month
of Grand Jury duty, where Miss O’ will be sifting mounds of evidence to help
decide which cases in my part of Gotham can go to trial. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
Mostly likely I’ll
tell you all about it—when I can find the silence. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; tab-stops: 293.15pt;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-7824237615533428472013-08-11T13:06:00.000-07:002014-07-19T14:27:53.902-07:00Miss O’s Summer Travelblogue 2013<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhphS26L6XCPAd4vXu2W_lvGSkkGaQ1hGfKYb7Rfe4aI2aB2cnDtwqv1OiD5TXIlJOMuj8_hPHfi4PXtC909xVfPWiOynfSwcIrSkf3mwpMVUfPug0XSUPlPqrZn9IiyPbL9howssIozi0P/s1600/LO_Traveler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhphS26L6XCPAd4vXu2W_lvGSkkGaQ1hGfKYb7Rfe4aI2aB2cnDtwqv1OiD5TXIlJOMuj8_hPHfi4PXtC909xVfPWiOynfSwcIrSkf3mwpMVUfPug0XSUPlPqrZn9IiyPbL9howssIozi0P/s320/LO_Traveler.jpg" height="320" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the ferry, photo by Kerry, to San Francisco we go.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<o:p><b> I'm </b></o:p><b style="line-height: 115%;">Goin’ Up the Country (Baby Don’t You Wanna Go?)</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
You know how you finally get four
weeks of paid vacation after working for your company after nearly a decade,
and how you get a destination wedding invitation from a beloved former student
and you think, “I could finally see the Loire Valley in France, which I’ve
dreamed of doing since we studied that region in Madam Watts’s French III class
in high school,” and so you ask your travel-mad cousin Kerry in California to
go with you, and she says yes, and then she realizes she can’t afford it this
year, and so you think maybe you could take a couple of weeks and go to San
Francisco, and you learn that July is maybe the prettiest month for the Napa
Valley, where Kerry lives, and if you do that you could also see your friend
Anna from graduate school whom you haven't seen since maybe 1999, since it turns out she also lives (when she's not teaching overseas) not far from San Francisco? So it’s like that. And thus this Travelblogue
of Pacific Coast Wonders. Join me!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
We interrupt this blog: This will have to be quick, because
I no sooner got back than my friend Rina, a political scholar from India (see
2012’s Memorial Day blog, “The Only Living Girl in New York”) arrived to conduct more interviews at the U.N., and as
my readers know, this means hours of nonstop talk about everything from world
politics to the climate to our friends to what an erect penis actually looks
like to why it is we manage to make so much compost in a week. Whew! </div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5KcyiKguGnLtorMMLn1kYLsulp12Y-RUHKjwrog2gKfVCqaZEumCZdbROw4Aq6nGSb1zLsyJ3RuXIOsvAEQOqBElseDQGtk-F3wCcfqTHjNKPb9_uOiwbAy_SCYKwwFwSZv-qQZQITaFH/s1600/Rina.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5KcyiKguGnLtorMMLn1kYLsulp12Y-RUHKjwrog2gKfVCqaZEumCZdbROw4Aq6nGSb1zLsyJ3RuXIOsvAEQOqBElseDQGtk-F3wCcfqTHjNKPb9_uOiwbAy_SCYKwwFwSZv-qQZQITaFH/s320/Rina.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rina Arrives from New Delhi, August 3, 2013</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Last night (which
was three o’clock this morning), as we were finally turning off the lights in
the kitchen, our water poured, and all that was left was to make it to our
rooms…(oh, sleep), Rina asked, “Leeza, have you read <i>Antigone</i>?” Yes… “What did
you think of it?” And I looked at her. “It’s 3 in the morning, what do I think
of <i>Antigone</i>?” She was crestfallen, so I told her what I thought, and out of that came this
revelation: <span style="line-height: 115%;">My directing professor in college,
Maureen, asked on an exam, “Is Antigone is the agent or the victim of her
tragedy?” and I had realized in that moment she was BOTH. And as I explained this
to Rina, I realized this: Where there is no agency, there is no tragedy: There
is only horror. (Gnaw on that until next time.)</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Meanwhile and herewith a recounting, in brief, along with some photos and
impressions of my journey, should you be a person who likes to read about other people's trips. I am actually struggling to write a <i>travelblogue</i> (as
I call it) because I don’t really enjoy reading travel writing (unless it's by my friends). I am not,
naturally, a traveler. I am an observer. Plus, travel is HARD. Anne Morrow Lindbergh says in her book
about going to a summer beach house with her sisters, <i>Gift from the Sea</i>: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">“Is there anything as
horrible as starting on a trip? Once you’re off, that’s all right, but the last
moments are earthquake and convulsion, and the feeling that you are a snail
being pulled off your rock.”</span></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
That’s pretty much it for me. I thought briefly about doing it up in iambic
pentameter, this tale, and got this far before I realized it was hopeless:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>On Air Train, via 7 Train and E<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Did Miss O’s summer tour thus take wing.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>From Queens apartment thence to Kennedy,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>A Delta flight turned summer temps to
spring!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Strained rhymes aside, what have
you really learned in those syllables? Readers hardly look for the weather
report (which was 55 degrees at night, 75 degrees by mid-day; overcast “fog”
each morning, burning off to bright skies and low humidity each and every day
of the nine, if you must know); nor is this a “how to get to Kennedy
Airport” guidebook. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I travel for one of two reasons: to
study, or to see friends. If I am not doing one of those two things, I can’t
manage to see a point in traveling. At least, I cannot motivate myself to do it
without one of those intentions. Beyond
that, I don’t have an agenda, except to be <i>of </i>wherever it is. Here’s what I love best about <i>leaving my old world behind</i>, though: My
brain immediately stops working. I stop <i>thinking</i>,
I mean. It’s the closest I can get to Zen, or to what I think Zen must be: I <i>am.</i> I
have eyes, ears, various sensations, and aside from the part of my brain
devoted to itineraries and protocols, I am reduced to flesh (ample, too-soft
flesh), burdened with a purse, backpack, and hat, that moves from one mode of
transport to the next, empty of all ideas. It’s so <i>restful</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Miss O’, as friends and readers know, is
nothing if not a swirling, whirling HEAD. To experience me as a traveler is to
cease to recognize me. I inherited this ability to switch to “off” from my dad,
Bernie, who is like a cartoon superhero when cooking, cleaning, landscaping, or
doing any other kind of work. When he finally retired at age 62, everyone said
he’d never be able to stand it. “Watch me,” my dad said. And no one can rest
like Bernie—and that he manages to do this <i>while never being lazy</i>, is the feat I’d like to
think I also accomplish. He can relax more quickly than anyone I know—but where
he and I differ is that he can relax in his own home, which I cannot do. In
order for me to truly rest, I have to leave and go off somewhere. The place
needs to be shared with people who are controlling my destiny—who make the
plans, suggest the activities, or otherwise take the reins.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And so it was in California. The
last time I’d been here was 1988, when I’d driven cross-country in my blue
pick-up truck, Barbara, the summer after my first year of teaching (my first
non-working summer break since I was 14), joined by my brave friend Debbie. I
hadn’t liked California at all—dry, alien, far too much sky, too much sun, too
lacking in edge, and too much traffic as I headed to L.A. I felt so “wrong” in
that landscape, I doubted I’d return. (Now New Mexico, on the other hand, held
me, energized me, made my eyes and arms go wide, but that’s another tale.) Yet
here I was, going there again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>Anna and Michael, Santa Cruz, July
15 to July 18, 2013</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4X3Fqa9VMK0MU7indiBzQ_wvTa0hT8Cea4n-5sZXi-1U96jxHPdK9GLs3ptAeaWNEvfroNG-DBXhXJ3kAiwySU-cYlnOrbnjfgmCOJQh7Or5ravh7aEW93D5dJvd4CZnhEncUnFHyE6Ua/s1600/AnnaMicAnniversary.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4X3Fqa9VMK0MU7indiBzQ_wvTa0hT8Cea4n-5sZXi-1U96jxHPdK9GLs3ptAeaWNEvfroNG-DBXhXJ3kAiwySU-cYlnOrbnjfgmCOJQh7Or5ravh7aEW93D5dJvd4CZnhEncUnFHyE6Ua/s320/AnnaMicAnniversary.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anna and Michael, celebrating 31 years of marriage <br />
at Main Street Garden Cafe in Soquel, CA</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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We had no plan. Anna and Michael,
who have taught overseas for over 20 years, have no cell phone. How will they know where to find me? Plane landed early, and I walked to “Arrivals” (I had no baggage
to claim—<i>travel light</i>, I say), stood out on the sidewalk beside the “pick-up” road,
and figured they’d find me. They did. Anna, one of my dearest friends from my
graduate school days, just screamed when I tilted my head as their
Michael-driven truck slowed along to where I was. Sometimes you just have to use The Force. We
could not stop laughing. Michael just grinned, and I sat up front, and off we
went from one SFO ramp to the next and out and along and finally turned up
hills and across their memories onto Hwy 1 along the Pacific Coast.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYy7BnaNwUo4lcQKEurWtl3nW9lHwA6RVTXosJ7Zkjk3_bi-0pb5bPxd2uASP907VBKwAsG7iJcDq5srDTxgTq7gXKE6_e9Lx_hrfaq_KIPyaHcwMtL-68qmlwodSTdk14X5QI-z1PxCNY/s1600/PcificVw.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYy7BnaNwUo4lcQKEurWtl3nW9lHwA6RVTXosJ7Zkjk3_bi-0pb5bPxd2uASP907VBKwAsG7iJcDq5srDTxgTq7gXKE6_e9Lx_hrfaq_KIPyaHcwMtL-68qmlwodSTdk14X5QI-z1PxCNY/s320/PcificVw.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Highway 1 in California, San Mateo or Santa Cruz County.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Grasses, succulents, live oaks,
hills bigger than Appalachian Mountains, an ocean the bluest I’ve ever seen,
wind, clean air—the cleanest I’ve breathed, I learned as we made our way across
the border of San Mateo County into the County of Santa Cruz, where the air quality
is said to be the best in the state, if not the nation, and I put my head out
the window and inhaled deeply. “The cleanest I’ve breathed,” I assured them; “I
felt that change.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix7eSjdVHx-OJ_Tn1y1MDNQi4eOjn93wIqH7j2BFdzlSwaEWv1FsWtNHj2dGKuICXuMG7buE0WAnQX-WObBwi4atsKAMv3AMFTDySPHEjF795F0q4Qmw6G6xVfVfc7J2A_jygDL25wn_3E/s1600/Duarte's.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix7eSjdVHx-OJ_Tn1y1MDNQi4eOjn93wIqH7j2BFdzlSwaEWv1FsWtNHj2dGKuICXuMG7buE0WAnQX-WObBwi4atsKAMv3AMFTDySPHEjF795F0q4Qmw6G6xVfVfc7J2A_jygDL25wn_3E/s320/Duarte's.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eat here. Get all the soups. And the pies.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Our first stop was along the ocean,
where after looking out to the vista, I looked down and saw a discarded
greenish-black lace-up bustier, which we speculated on and didn’t photograph.
Best not to inquire. I am on vacation, after all. But suddenly this staggering
landscape became a David Lynch movie. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Thence to our next stop, Pescadero,
a tiny old-West town, for lunch at Duarte’s. Thus began the best food
experiences of my traveling life. Best drives, best talk, best eating, best
alien experience by an Easterner in this landscape. Here are some photos of the
time there, but how to render the walks into the hills, among the redwoods, the
long talks with Anna about writing, living in our places, who we’ve become in
the last decade, how we relate to our work now—the quiet of the mornings I
enjoyed in all this green and brown?</div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDYyLlFVfIC3zlw61VwYM_qt3LLg9QLrXvfYxT2bTn0dscEAyes4dV9Msp170M8-qFoIQIhASmlwyIHirvWgkHMica2AH6lfilZnEHFEvccNS0RxZgnGNLlD-f-w862meqoG7Jh52XuL3E/s1600/AnnaRedwood.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDYyLlFVfIC3zlw61VwYM_qt3LLg9QLrXvfYxT2bTn0dscEAyes4dV9Msp170M8-qFoIQIhASmlwyIHirvWgkHMica2AH6lfilZnEHFEvccNS0RxZgnGNLlD-f-w862meqoG7Jh52XuL3E/s320/AnnaRedwood.JPG" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anna Happy with Redwood</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">The second day I was there,
Michael worked with some landscapers to continue the lifting of tons of
rock to place in a retaining wall and walkways (the main house, which they are
renovating so they can rent it out—they’ve been living in a smaller, lighter
guest house on the property), as Anna and I went walking and talking; that evening he and Anna went out back to relax in their
outdoor hot tub. Miss O’ does not do hot tubs, pools, or other things which
require the wearing of limited clothing in front of other people. I adjourned
to the fading director’s chair on their front porch as they headed out back.
Soon I heard in </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">a joint big voice, this happy voice, “O Sole Mio,” other songs I don’t
know, closing with a gospel call and response song, “I’m Amazed,” and it was
about the most joyous concert I’ve attended. When they came inside, we shared
songs with each other via YouTube, singing and singing—opera, blues, whatever moved
us. To sit in a kitchen singing with friends is underrated beyond the way of
words to express.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Ux3fRYUI6im6wUSws4Ni5FFR9VujsNCDWXMJarvK58fjFaT0G6HOpaVTrkJuMU-YtPNiHmJFO6hxyp6pHgMSbJXfSqQojNvSkMniLKiswYj1zSryRSLLAcW6HeA3Dfr-Z3yKKdwysxh-/s1600/TreeFairyRing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Ux3fRYUI6im6wUSws4Ni5FFR9VujsNCDWXMJarvK58fjFaT0G6HOpaVTrkJuMU-YtPNiHmJFO6hxyp6pHgMSbJXfSqQojNvSkMniLKiswYj1zSryRSLLAcW6HeA3Dfr-Z3yKKdwysxh-/s320/TreeFairyRing.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
We must sing more. We must dance
more. We must enjoy every dish we eat more. Every meal Anna and Michael cooked
for me began with oil, a red onion, garlic, peppers, and mushrooms. Wine
flowed. Tea was served. We saw stuff, and I could tell you about that, but it
was the BEING WITH that mattered. It was like living three days out in joyful
prayer. And that includes the impromptu visit to The Flying Crane massage
parlor for hour-long foot massages that also included head, arms, legs,
shoulders and back while your feet soaked in hot salted water (and between my
revulsion of being touched, Michael’s tender rock-sore arms, and Anna’s injured
back, we passed mutual empathy among ourselves, and laughed about this in the
car—a weak laugh, as we had been reduced to puddles of flaccid tissue.) Then we went out to eat. Oh, food. Oh, wine. Oh, friends.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhek7urYleb9-YHfLsUNkscWHJ4KK8KPVn1B5fL-j4qQlk0gxGBDA3OkwH4fJwJNTzVKgIxopcMQc6vYMzq_rv_jJNEh79Hj70yD8rTPetjVeSdPqSVFCVQdX2OG4pHR7gTapP4r-Dvz4o2/s1600/LisaCAfood.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhek7urYleb9-YHfLsUNkscWHJ4KK8KPVn1B5fL-j4qQlk0gxGBDA3OkwH4fJwJNTzVKgIxopcMQc6vYMzq_rv_jJNEh79Hj70yD8rTPetjVeSdPqSVFCVQdX2OG4pHR7gTapP4r-Dvz4o2/s320/LisaCAfood.JPG" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Thank you, Michael. Thank you,
Anna. LOVE is so reviving.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Cruising to The V with Kerry and Trudi (The Trip, Part 2: July 18 to
23)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The Transition begins: The morning
of the 18<sup>th</sup> began like all those other perfect California mornings,
and yet my energy was no longer in “rest” and “sink in” modes, but now
“anticipation” and “caretaking” gear, anticipating my cousin Kerry (the driver)
and her little sister Trudi (riding shotgun with a box of Dramamine) and hoping
their two-hour trek to pick me up at the cul-de-sac ending on this curving
country road was incident-free. These are grown MOMS, for Pete’s sake, and
Kerry is a born traveler. They arrived around noon looking festive and happy to
be there. It’s always interesting when, as <i>Seinfeld</i>’s
George Costanza said, “Worlds are colliding!” Here they are!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Cousins Trudi and Kerry flanked by Michael and Anna<br />
Santa Cruz kitchen</td></tr>
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Last-minute photos and off we went
into the wilds and Kerry remembered all her turns into Santa Cruz. Back to Hwy
1, which I recognized. If something looked pretty, Kerry said, “Let’s pull
over!” And we pulled over for views, to walk the shore, to pick up organic
strawberries from a roadside stand, to visit Pigeon Point Lighthouse, and
thence to a town called Half Moon Bay to walk and take our late lunch at
a restaurant attached to a hotel called The Inn. Possibly the best carbonara
I’ve ever had. And great wine. Oh! And off
to Vallejo! But first…<o:p></o:p></div>
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On the road again, Kerry got a text from her niece,
Katie, who is married to Rob, and they live in the vicinity of Willow Glen,
where we traveled for dinner at a great Greek place called Opa, joining them and my cousin Doc (Katie’s
dad) and his younger son, Sean. So I met all these new people, learned about
Katie’s pregnancy, and was brought into this branch of the O’Hara fold, when I’d
only known Katie via Facebook.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Kerry, Trudi, and Doc (the oldest,
along with Dave, Bernie, and Brian) are the children of my Uncle Don, my dad
Bernie’s older brother. And here is the sad confluence of events: When Kerry
couldn’t go to France, she didn’t know that her father would be entering
hospice, would decline quickly, and would die only the week before I was to
arrive. By a coincidence of my trip’s planning, I was with Anna and Michael
first, and then with the O’Haras, because my Uncle Don’s memorial was to be
Sunday, July 21. It was like we’d planned it or something—so very strange. (The
same thing happened two years ago with my Aunt Mary, when she died two days
before I was to visit her, and I was able to attend the masses and funeral
instead. Miss O’ is a kind of family emissary; as Kerry said, “You will
represent, as we say in The V.”) (“The V” is Vallejo, and her area is dicey and
gang-strangled—“Lisa, I have to warn you, I live in the ghetto”—so I took the
nickname as a way of making it homey, as it were. Yo.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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So back in The V, we dropped Trudi
at her house and headed home to their sweet, very small house, greeted by five
dogs, a sleepy husband (thanks, Herb!), and no kids (who were away for another
day and half at Bible camp). I settled into my lovely room, and brushed my
teeth in the brand new bathroom that Herb had completed (“Lisa, I can’t thank you enough. We’ve been brushing our teeth in the bathtub
for six months. Yesterday Herb called me and asked, ‘When is your cousin
coming?’ and I said, “Um, TOMORROW,’ and Herb took the day off to do it”), and
Kerry came in and we just looked at it—really gorgeous, including the new round sink
placed into a cut-out old table—beautiful. (On Saturday, when Christian and
Sammy came home, I saw them in the bathroom, where Christian was turning the
sink faucet on and off in a very sweet awe, impressive for a senior in high
school to be so appreciative.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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So FRIDAY was all ours, and Napa it
was!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Napa Valley Dreamin’<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Photos surely are enough: Trudi’s
husband Victor and oldest child, Cecilia, made us a tour group, and they were
perfect to be with. Ceci took on the role of reluctant anthropologist, learning
the ways of insane family members, and Victor was the comic relief and
happy-to-be-here non-driving washer-downer of all unfinished glasses. Oh,
family! THANK YOU for my day. The Robert Mondavi Vineyard is a class act, and
delicious wine. Best wine of the trip: Franciscan Winery reds. The Sterling
Winery gives great tour, lousy tasting, but who cares? Our midday repast, al
fresco, at V. Sattui was divine. And…home to Trudi’s for supper and hanging out
with still more family. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Uncle Don lived in Sonoma, another great wine place, but he had insisted that Kerry give me the Napa Valley tour instead. Thanks so very much, Uncle Don, for thinking of my arrival even in your final weeks, and so glad I could be here for his memorial.</div>
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<b>In Memoriam: Donald Arthur O’Hara, 1929-2013</b></div>
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Saturday was a quiet day, preparing
food to put in the freezer or fridge, ready to take to Relais du Soleil, a bed
and breakfast ranch in Sonoma, the town where Uncle Don had lived with his second wife,
Yoli. (His first wife, Irene, (mother of all my cousins here) died of breast
cancer in 1987.) I folded laundry and sorted the family socks, surrounded at
feet, hips, and back by two Pomeranians (including Roxy the tiniest watch dog),
a Boxer named Penny (the most muscular puppy I’ve seen), a poodly mutt named
Bailey, and a very old Husky mix who wandered in and out. I'd never have gotten out of my
jammies except we were going over to Trudi’s again for dinner, and this is one
of the best parts of being with family, isn’t it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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And Sunday was a day of waking kids
up, dressing, car-packing, caravanning, unloading, arranging, setting up sound
systems, chairs, tables, tents—creating the party that Uncle Don (Poppa O’, as
everyone called him) would have wanted, complete with a bar. Grandchildren,
step grandchildren, people who’d been halfway raised at the O’Hara house,
introduced to me as “other sons” or “other daughters,” so part of the family
were they. I couldn’t really feel of it—I’d only met Uncle Don in 1969, again in
1988, once in 1999, and over dinner here in Queens in 2009 (his wife Yoli has a
daughter living here, and she is originally from New York)—but it was a privilege to see all this love<span style="line-height: 115%;">.</span></div>
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And the stories are legion from my
dad’s childhood—Don the storyteller, who could hold the neighborhood kids in a
spell of stories he’d make up on the spot; their paper route, their fights, the
tiny attic room they shared for 8 years, where Donny, winter or summer, would
go to bed in his socks. He always loved clothes, including hats. At the memorial, Kerry and Trudi presented all the grandkids with one of Poppa O's hats (Kerry and I had taped names into them the day before).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's your traditional family, America: Steps, halves, wholes, invites;<br />
Mexicans, blacks, whites: I love us. Try on a hat.</td></tr>
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My cousin Dave led the singing of
the Dan Fogelberg song, “The Leader of the Band,” which is how the kids had
come to think of him. What I realized there, in that moment, is how important music is in my
family. Whatever formal training we were too poor to afford over generations,
we all sing, play the spoons, hear every phrase uttered as a song lyric (“She’s
too young,” someone might comment, and we’ll all finish out with the song, “to
go steady…”). Brian's band played, too.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My cousins Bernie, Trudi, Kerry, Dave, Doc, and Brian with their dad. <br />
This portrait, taken at a studio when he as in the navy in the 1950's, <br />
was so striking the studio kept it in the window for advertising for years.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxWlN-X8cW9EMdaM4WPFCvwuQSQCtXETzH1HoEgozBGE-vnXyGzTZ6GfJM4iwTkZ_trKzIlHNU0WKLUwvZdCXSyhX9hyphenhyphenKXg4zyOUANUO8l_CjqDRGTWRILyPSVEYOS0zS-jzrQFFyKjIHZ/s1600/CoreyDon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxWlN-X8cW9EMdaM4WPFCvwuQSQCtXETzH1HoEgozBGE-vnXyGzTZ6GfJM4iwTkZ_trKzIlHNU0WKLUwvZdCXSyhX9hyphenhyphenKXg4zyOUANUO8l_CjqDRGTWRILyPSVEYOS0zS-jzrQFFyKjIHZ/s320/CoreyDon.jpg" height="248" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kerry's older son, Corey, with his twin, Poppa O'. Corey is half Mexican, <br />
but Don's mom (my grandma) was a quarter Oglala Sioux, after all, and there's the Irish, of course.<span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
A living legacy of the leader of the band: I think back now to Anna and Michael and the
hot tub serenade; to car rides of songs; to stories of piano bar hopping; to
records played on the stereo during my youth. Kerry heard an Irish air on her iPod while driving to pick me up in Santa Cruz: "Lisa, I started ugly crying. It was a song Dad and I heard when we traveled to Ireland. I couldn't stop crying." The friends to whom I’m closest
surround themselves with music, make music, think in terms of music., remember their lives in song. It never
landed until this trip, how music is home. I blame it on the California wine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Monday morning, Kerry and I decompressed by taking a 45-minute ferry ride from The V to San Francisco, where we walked from Pier
7 to Pier 39, stopping along the way at the Exploratorium, shops, lunch, the
Alcatraz gift shop (which is frankly creepy to contemplate); pausing for me to
buy a heaping bag of saltwater taffy to take back to the office; thence back on
the ferry for home, to an early sleep after a dinner of curry Kerry made
herself. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIiZFfZ2-N-e8JBK5nESFA3Rzd8y5bzt7pUGEfNe08WBbaPmhOCz6_Sl-Rhi_OBJEaZEhroA4VTkJ60avMXUa_LqV87b-IYw5fUZO2EbX4siLO9IFb_x41Sgc12xn98ZI5A_1tpha1jesN/s1600/KerryLO_Alcatraz.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIiZFfZ2-N-e8JBK5nESFA3Rzd8y5bzt7pUGEfNe08WBbaPmhOCz6_Sl-Rhi_OBJEaZEhroA4VTkJ60avMXUa_LqV87b-IYw5fUZO2EbX4siLO9IFb_x41Sgc12xn98ZI5A_1tpha1jesN/s320/KerryLO_Alcatraz.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cousin Love in sight of Alcatraz. So right.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
That evening after dinner, I chilled, as they say in The V, with Herb, Kerry’s daughter Elisa and
her husband Brian, Christian and Sammy and his half sister, Natalie, and the
dogs, before bed, and felt so very much at home there I couldn’t believe it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Tuesday morning, Kerry roused her younger son,
Sammy, who is 14, to be our “third” for the HOV lane ride to the SFO Airport,
where I got to my gate in plenty of time, flew home and into humidity and back into my life via Air
Train and E Train and 7 Train—up and down stairs and through corridors and into
the jarring faces of unhappy and tense New Yorkers, so utterly different in
energy from their West Coast counterparts I felt I was emerging from that fog
on the Bay. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
While I was away, my friend Amanda
Quaid had filmed sections of her short film, “Dreaming in English,” in my
apartment, so the additional stress was discovering the broken cane-bottom
chair (“We’re insured! Repair in Progress!”) and other little oddities, but
really, you’d almost never know they’d been there—still, I worried a bit about
it while away, more as I got nearer to home. How could I return to all this? I
WAS NOT READY!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And I didn’t have to…not quite yet.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>To the Lake, by George!<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Wednesday morning, Quinn called me.
“Are you still up for Lake George? Do you want to leave Thursday or wait till
Friday?” CAN WE LEAVE NOW? I hope I didn’t sound hysterical.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And so it was, by the grace of
Andrew Quinn’s swell folks, Judy and Eddie, that Quinn, Ryan, and Ryan’s dog,
Jerry, and I poured into the van Quinn parked outside my building (Ryan had
taken the A Train and the 7 Train from Hamilton Heights to my place!) (I think
of a kid I heard say, “Do you live in a house or a building?”), and followed
the directions out of the city and over the bridges onto the Taconic Parkway
and thence to the miracle of Lake George.<span style="line-height: 115%;"> Let’s say it with pictures:</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQRswNR_QX9xb-j34ZKq-UbD194LB41nSNa51ROGmhWU5wmwgj0eI3nY0UmCFMbRRSnwsT_ckrg7FegMqJ6_1QeDKNhxbYAnMe4-ygnai1rXEjeRBbcTEHr3KtRzEpqP638JdEvJQYqd0j/s1600/BoysPlayin.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQRswNR_QX9xb-j34ZKq-UbD194LB41nSNa51ROGmhWU5wmwgj0eI3nY0UmCFMbRRSnwsT_ckrg7FegMqJ6_1QeDKNhxbYAnMe4-ygnai1rXEjeRBbcTEHr3KtRzEpqP638JdEvJQYqd0j/s320/BoysPlayin.png" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ryan and Quinn unloading for the Lake!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTvaSuani0OgEHG4YU-tZtvGSsU5tltWtbvFKlIXPGSzLLn1cq9GrN6MX5B1gzCpfQuidTIhwC646LDqHj2iCW-0VSv4L1_0JmrhNu71SFzJa0xnyIRctd0yuHiWH6ld0z57naTRojtHzE/s1600/BoysSun.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTvaSuani0OgEHG4YU-tZtvGSsU5tltWtbvFKlIXPGSzLLn1cq9GrN6MX5B1gzCpfQuidTIhwC646LDqHj2iCW-0VSv4L1_0JmrhNu71SFzJa0xnyIRctd0yuHiWH6ld0z57naTRojtHzE/s320/BoysSun.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The boys get sun.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHOfYEErDRCts6kG4C-1s2RwKGpFNXXrhNjS8S_-ofEa1Mtjv9klk34UBAeYvUOoGHMN9_YL5Wk9FMGPmfc-dONbWM_MrXQDOs-aS4cm8rCIUM4jGvYCLNAFm3drpWgtIiURwYzeqmOjcG/s1600/RyanJerry.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHOfYEErDRCts6kG4C-1s2RwKGpFNXXrhNjS8S_-ofEa1Mtjv9klk34UBAeYvUOoGHMN9_YL5Wk9FMGPmfc-dONbWM_MrXQDOs-aS4cm8rCIUM4jGvYCLNAFm3drpWgtIiURwYzeqmOjcG/s320/RyanJerry.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ryan and Jerry sittin' in a tree.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0I0qSLv6yYvQNZY1tE1g-YXies9zWIIMCHLnTRorupvNfZOcTUuwiI2MpCxXCJo9nPVw8MxsoHl6v-Ib_UYAhCfVJKUSWbN2go_r4IzQ7vryvpHyuiNEtmGZkDW2zNKVdmrkRYY3mDvnI/s1600/QuinnReading.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0I0qSLv6yYvQNZY1tE1g-YXies9zWIIMCHLnTRorupvNfZOcTUuwiI2MpCxXCJo9nPVw8MxsoHl6v-Ib_UYAhCfVJKUSWbN2go_r4IzQ7vryvpHyuiNEtmGZkDW2zNKVdmrkRYY3mDvnI/s320/QuinnReading.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Quinn and his beach read.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj018VUZgAW7mZHL2VtsHq-AAdA8Qpy1abqzH4DsvVyfskB21EOY2Lb08imivx6ZjrqXYFXdWqVY-UC124RU6CthHQplmv2gmG2v6CcGfKgQVgykIZ65n9MYbwOwtbsATp5UBKE0oPM-eI/s1600/LisaJerLook.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj018VUZgAW7mZHL2VtsHq-AAdA8Qpy1abqzH4DsvVyfskB21EOY2Lb08imivx6ZjrqXYFXdWqVY-UC124RU6CthHQplmv2gmG2v6CcGfKgQVgykIZ65n9MYbwOwtbsATp5UBKE0oPM-eI/s320/LisaJerLook.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Keeping Jerry warm in the morning.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Not only had I missed the NYC
summer heat wave, I brought California weather back with me, and it stayed. I loved my friends, I rested deeply, wrote, drank
good coffee, cooked, and we all partook of ice cream from Martha’s every day.
We spent two full days lakeside. We went to Glens Falls and saw the Georgia O'Keeffe Exhibit of Lake George paintings at the Hyde Collection (where we learned that the Alfred Steiglitz family compound of Victorian mansion, barns, and the shanty where O'Keeffe made her paintings was sold in 1957...and the fire department burned it all down (at the new owners' request) for a training exercise. Needless to say wine was purchased on the way back to the cabin. We did not drink to progress.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I came back into myself while staring at
water, across to mountains. I wrote. I read. We ate fresh summer fruit. We napped. We made ourselves laugh a lot. (Ryan's giggle word of choice was "queef," a term for a vaginal expulsion of air. We substituted the word for another in various movie titles. I believe Miss O' was the winner with "Queef Encounter.") We didn’t
have to return until Monday—and really, even while at work the next week, I
wasn’t there.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX-G7nBnAzjhxb9NtYrlUJIq7uYlam2WoP6LBdB_dkCcz5_WYoNfTY3KuywUfDRXqbJge1fKFoc11THQ6cLvthAgPXQqIGhU-VLxwOpxm73Xocjde_lbnhcAZBFTyVOttVl4c3xoFyzJO5/s1600/Lakewithboat.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX-G7nBnAzjhxb9NtYrlUJIq7uYlam2WoP6LBdB_dkCcz5_WYoNfTY3KuywUfDRXqbJge1fKFoc11THQ6cLvthAgPXQqIGhU-VLxwOpxm73Xocjde_lbnhcAZBFTyVOttVl4c3xoFyzJO5/s320/Lakewithboat.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lake George view</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>The Snail Returns</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
So I'm back in New York, back with the tension, the humans, the commitments, the not-California energy. Notice how I didn’t mention the
hellacious cold and cough I had most of my vacation, or the return of my period
after months of peri-menopause, or other little complaints? That is because I
didn’t really register them—only the wads of Puffs tell the story<span style="line-height: 115%;">. Those, and
the diminished bag of sanitary napkins. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
But we want the romance of the journey! Wine! Lake!
Bay! Song! And it was had. And it was fantastic. The summer's overwhelming emotion? Gratitude. Deep, deep gratitude. I'm singing with it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTRqaivXT7R7puEiXOOHdx-eHjgGA6rwvFX4qgtIM62A-XBt5qApPXx_qpj7KtId5d2jWGS-znpD7GWXpGGmwx0LM5eMIhLtpTPPlM2_HRkK03nZ9sK8ILrkw-XhSqb6JwBySC3OEC8NwT/s1600/Moonrise_EDIT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTRqaivXT7R7puEiXOOHdx-eHjgGA6rwvFX4qgtIM62A-XBt5qApPXx_qpj7KtId5d2jWGS-znpD7GWXpGGmwx0LM5eMIhLtpTPPlM2_HRkK03nZ9sK8ILrkw-XhSqb6JwBySC3OEC8NwT/s320/Moonrise_EDIT.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moonrise over the Napa Valley</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p> </o:p><span style="line-height: 115%;">Love to all as we put away the memories to return, freshened and invigorated, to the workaday world...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXFUjoTU1GBDIa0CoeERbmL-aT4o7v_BhZMxXaBLZEhrVUeIN4aVfWrTjit8KFpTXik_McYhbY7mt9GZ0qROEjCHD35K5oxS8xL33hyv_6_EaO0bWaC84lPgtGJDybiG16FjwbufDeUFiD/s1600/JournalCollage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXFUjoTU1GBDIa0CoeERbmL-aT4o7v_BhZMxXaBLZEhrVUeIN4aVfWrTjit8KFpTXik_McYhbY7mt9GZ0qROEjCHD35K5oxS8xL33hyv_6_EaO0bWaC84lPgtGJDybiG16FjwbufDeUFiD/s320/JournalCollage.jpg" height="320" width="271" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the Scrapbook</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Until next time, with more edge,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Miss O'</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-67329407504083737112013-06-30T14:38:00.000-07:002013-07-01T05:11:58.056-07:00Pride Weekend: Storming the Barricades<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="line-height: 115%;">Anger Management</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjunXDHJcNZv81vfYylx83fbGY_FtxaT0GIV3kMd-uOmuiM07MHn0c336Sg66YehUVcVda-29X06Cx5mAsh2-JtGAuxEvUJ-TFefw4z6g270KrokaOn57bhnwbBsiSpf4SSnvk68-ICMkyD/s1475/HappyMug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjunXDHJcNZv81vfYylx83fbGY_FtxaT0GIV3kMd-uOmuiM07MHn0c336Sg66YehUVcVda-29X06Cx5mAsh2-JtGAuxEvUJ-TFefw4z6g270KrokaOn57bhnwbBsiSpf4SSnvk68-ICMkyD/s320/HappyMug.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vive la Liberté! Miss O's Happy Place Collection</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
What a week in Democracy! The yin,
the yang! (We're kind of a Little China, aren't we?) Oh! The dizzying highs, terrible lows, and creamy middles, as Homer J.
Simpson might say: Down with women! NO! <i>Up</i> with women! Down with blacks, other minorities, and the
poor! Immigrants, maybe you can stay! Or not! Up with gays! And by "up,"I don't mean erect! Get federally married! But not in Alabama! The head <i>swims</i>!<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, how to FEEL, exactly?
Fortunately, there are no absolutes when it comes to anything, especially
feeling, but simmering underneath the celebrations and disappointments, nestled
in Miss O’s love-brimming heart, is an anger that remains ever-present, ever
nursed. One might call Miss O’ a grudge-holder. I prefer to think of this habit
of anger-keeping as smart defense. Yet the question remains: Is it ever useful to hold onto anger?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
I would say, "Fuck <i>YES</i>. It is."<br />
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Many years ago, when Miss O’ was in
her late twenties, she was in the exquisite care of a LCSW (Licensed Clinical
Social Worker) whom I’ll call Selma Moritz. (I
checked past blogs to see if I’d written the piece, “How I Found My Therapist,”
but apparently I haven’t written about this.) Selma gave me my life back after
what can only be called a <i>breakdown</i>. (Pardon your narrator if she does not
divulge the cause(s) of the breakdown, won’t you? I know you will.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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When I first entered the office of
Selma, sight unseen (she was given to me by referral from friends), I only knew
she had shared her practice with a partner, in another office in the same suite. I looked at the two doors, wondering nervously which office I'd be stepping into, when one of the two doors opened, and a client
(the term they use now, rather than <i>patient</i>) emerged, followed by a woman dressed in an ensemble straight out of a Talbot’s catalog: This being 1992, she had held to a preppy look: medium-length skirt,
hose, and heels, topped by a cashmere crewneck sweater over an Oxford pinpoint
blouse and silk neckerchief, all in soft, neutral colors. Her hair was short, ash blonde, perfectly coiffed.
I froze, and then in a panic, I began to get up to leave, because there was no way
in HELL I could tell my problems to anyone this gorgeously put together. The
woman, mistaking my rising for greeting, put out her hand. “Hi, I’m Jan Kent,”
she said. I took her hand and sat back down, explaining I was here to see
Selma Mortiz. And then the other door
opened, and a client exited. And through this door emerged the woman who would be my
therapist.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the office doorway that afternoon stood a short woman whose head sprouted a mass of dark roots pushing out
bleached tresses in the style of late Einstein. Her face had no makeup. Her
small form was sheathed by an ill-fitting colorless blouse tucked, sort of, into a plaid mini skirt, her bare legs
partially covered in white go-go boots. She was so beautiful, I almost wept. “Hi, I’m Selma Moritz," she said, raising her bushy eyebrows into a smile that her mouth was more cautious about. "Are you Lisa?” I knew I could tell her anything.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And thus began the four years
of weekly visits (with summers off for Miss O' to attend graduate school), including an overlap of one year of group therapy in addition, and Selma Moritz helped Miss O’ see through the fog, emerge from depression and
anxiety, discover the origins of her survival difficulties, and compensate for
her myriad blindspots—all through conscious behavioral modification, most of
which have worked to this day (occasional depressive episodes notwithstanding), and KUDOS.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But there was one point of
disagreement, a point which emerged in group therapy, when a man I’ll call Ken
(one of a dozen others in the group) declined to “let go” of his “anger.” In every other
way, on any other issue, Ken and I had not one overlap: He was rich, corporate, right
wing, anti-public education; I was middle class, in public service, a lefty, and a public
school teacher. (When he denigrated public schools in one session, I felt
compelled to point out that I went to VA public schools when little old ladies
born on farms in 1910 were some of my teachers, and I went on to study at
Oxford as part of my master’s. He dismissed me as an exception, so I began to
mention my many friends who had attended Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Johns
Hopkins, and other fine schools, but he wasn’t interested in being, you know, <i>wrong</i>.)<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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So back at Group: Selma, who shared
the facilitating with Jan, as well as Ken’s therapist, Ed, was perplexed by Ken's statement,
but I realized I could relate. “If I have my anger,” I explained, “and someone
is hurting people I love, I can defend them to the death.” Ken agreed that
anger was a potential protection, and while no one wants what I had—a
hair-trigger temper, an anger so violent when it did manifest itself that it
terrified anyone who was around it, let alone the target of it—I also didn’t
want to be “anger-free.” I believe in righteous anger. Boundaries are
boundaries, and anger tells you when a line has been crossed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I share all this because this week
was one hell of a fucking mixed up week in the realm of American politics.
Boundaries have been crossed, my friends, and while I celebrate some victories,
I hold my anger near my heart, in case.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>Chasing Rainbows<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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First off, let’s salute future
governor of Texas (if women-supporting fans of America and righteous citizens
of Texas are any barometer), state senator Wendy Davis. Her 11-hour (or 12-hour, or 13-hour), citizen-supported
filibuster of a rightwing bill contrived to close abortion clinics for things
like having parking lots that are too small, for example, prevented the bill
from reaching the floor for a vote. To effect this outcome, she had to stand and talk ON TOPIC for
all of those 11 hours, no breaks, no peeing, no rest, and she fucking did it.
Texas Lt. Governor Dewhurst gave her three strikes—one of the “strikes” was
talking about their closing of Planned Parenthood clinics that provided
abortions as being “off-topic”—but that brilliant woman kept at it until the
bill expired one second after midnight, and won. She is a hero of democracy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Change in any society, as we see
daily, even hourly—on television, via Internet, or (less often, sad to say) in
person—is part physical revolution, part legal process, ALL democratic
participation. It’s messy, long, and
generally always blocked for as long as possible by the (white, wealthy, or
wealth-identified, male, or “cheerfully” male-oppressed) people who can say,
loudly and defiantly, “I got mine.” (Curiously, Gov. Rick Perry tried to
discredit Wendy Davis by calling out her choice to have her child when she
became pregnant as a teenager, because if Wendy Davis chose to have her child
(discounting Davis's stance that all women should get to choose what is right for <i>them</i>),
then Rick Perry should get to decide that all women should be made to carry
their pregnancies to term. Because that’s so logical.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimTfXcUYRZI7IN46xt_CXAFtwq61vkmtzCP4F8HeGGpyQAaY8_5X5aYsWXeto1WwM61c3S5x7g9ltts71GaDzNT0knkDBLz6C2-14Qdgs7GTy1NuEiJ_PME59dwx9ykqxHOFrth47FNtNX/s709/perryRape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimTfXcUYRZI7IN46xt_CXAFtwq61vkmtzCP4F8HeGGpyQAaY8_5X5aYsWXeto1WwM61c3S5x7g9ltts71GaDzNT0knkDBLz6C2-14Qdgs7GTy1NuEiJ_PME59dwx9ykqxHOFrth47FNtNX/s320/perryRape.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shared on the "Binders Full of Women" page on Facebook</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Not to throw douchebag water over
this week’s good times, especially on the day of National Gay Pride Parades in
America, but Miss O’ feels compelled to point out these little tidbits:<o:p></o:p></div>
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So this week in America, we saw the
Supreme Court of the United States take its citizens <i>back</i> to Jim Crow and also <i>ahead</i>
to Gay Pride, but in both rulings there is one common denominator: White men
(Clarence Thomas does not identify “black,” whatever his gene pool or his
family’s personal history) decided that voters and homosexuals can be freely
oppressed according to the laws of their individual states. Not only can state
legislatures prevent minorities, the working classes, and the poor from
reasonably casting votes, they can also choose not to recognize a marriage that
is sanctioned by the United States government. (You know how when you move from
New York to Alabama, and your heterosexual marriage doesn’t count anymore? It’s
like that. Oh, wait.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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“States’ Rights,” as we all know,
amount to little more than protecting the “rights” of the bigoted, ignorant,
and fearful so that they may enslave, oppress, or otherwise prevent the comfort
of the poor, minorities, immigrants, and women. That’s pretty much it. On
paper, states’ rights sounds like a “checks and balances” safeguard, but in my
lifetime I have yet to see the “balances” part, unless it's that progressive states pave the way down Shame Alley that oppressive states will eventually have to move through. So, okay, sometimes states' rights rock.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The images of revolution around the
world—images of the revolt by oppressed people in countries around the world, including
ours—against corporate-controlled, oppressive, totalitarian regimes (I speak of
our Republican House, here) are unprecedented. (Note: You may have noticed that Miss O' has not commented on the NSA/Snowden Reveal. She has decidedly mixed feelings about the whole business, not that you have been holding out hope of her opinion. It's <i>sordid</i>, isn't it? No one will get out of that mess looking remotely shiny; so we wait.) I see all the images coming out of Egypt, out of Turkey, ...and the silence I experience: It m<span style="line-height: 115%;">akes me wonder if Congress ever
turns on a television. Oh, wait. Corporate sponsors prevent the television
stations from broadcasting much of that stuff. Funny how we learn about it anyway. And status update or tweeted twat, this freedom of speech, one by one and also <i>en masse</i>, is what gives me hope. </span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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So I’m thinking of what it means to
Storm the Bastille, to set up and advance through barricades. I’ve been reading
(for months, as for bible study) a fascinating history, <i>The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris </i>by David McCullough. In Chapter
9, “Under Seige,” McCullough shares descriptions of Paris under siege by the
Germans in 1870, through the eyes of an American minister who was living there
at the time. It’s an apt description of almost any war situation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>There are no carriages passing on the grand
avenue, that great artery through which has passed for so many years all the
royalty, the wealth, the fashion, the frivolity, the vice of Paris… and here is the silence of death.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>“Has the world ever witnessed such a change
in so short a time,” he wondered. “It to me seems like a dream.”</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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—American
minister Elihu Washburn, 1870<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Paris had become an armed camp. There were
soldiers everywhere—encamped all about the Arc de Triomphe and down the
Champs-Elysees—more than 300,000, he had been told, ….<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The day before, Sunday, the Germans had cut
all roads into the city…. The Germans were at the gates and nearly 2 million
people, civilians and soldiers, were now trapped.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>“And it seems odd to be in this world, and
still not in it,” Washburn wrote.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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This is how gays feel every day.
This is how <i>aware</i> women can be made
to feel at most any workplace in this nation. This is how blacks feel in the
South. This is how legal immigrants feel, how refugees feel, how the poor feel,
most anytime they turn on the television. In a media world abounding in
displays of too-perfect beauty, its vitriolic rhetoric is what passes for news analysis; and too often in the 5-4 decisions of a rightwing Supreme Court, it
must seem odd to be in this country, and still not in it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoWCay22rIkwgksA_JZ9PMuLB37G5gfbSn-aS-DjGva9HK9kewhnTz1cC_SOGfS3FYWT1_ZVlKdxFCqt4mWQx-4gRuVqPL3vrwg4CKXbDXCOOw_RomrmDIh8gEh74HtfuXvqwyo3dQS0rM/s445/huckabee.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoWCay22rIkwgksA_JZ9PMuLB37G5gfbSn-aS-DjGva9HK9kewhnTz1cC_SOGfS3FYWT1_ZVlKdxFCqt4mWQx-4gRuVqPL3vrwg4CKXbDXCOOw_RomrmDIh8gEh74HtfuXvqwyo3dQS0rM/s320/huckabee.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Via Facebook. Thanks, Jesus H.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>It's Not Easy Being Green</b></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_c7yFHqIU2BHgJqIqHNSoGR1zn6x2yVxRfdfY5eEwEb4XjHI0mamLdRJNrFDBgp6bq9WcwlaBLekOIj4AJgchPUySqWCoTsgrKVM6YdiLZlfYrT0F7XA4g_IXvAqjWdFuPnhVNgGaDd90/s792/NewYorker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_c7yFHqIU2BHgJqIqHNSoGR1zn6x2yVxRfdfY5eEwEb4XjHI0mamLdRJNrFDBgp6bq9WcwlaBLekOIj4AJgchPUySqWCoTsgrKVM6YdiLZlfYrT0F7XA4g_IXvAqjWdFuPnhVNgGaDd90/s320/NewYorker.jpg" width="234" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Promotion only, and no copyright infringement, is intended.<br />
Seriously, Miss O' lives for this magazine's weekly arrival.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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When she saw this splendid <i>New Yorker</i> cover posted on Facebook, <i>Miss O' </i>wept. I also realized that it’s a cover that would work whatever the outcome of
the Supreme Court vote, so kudos to editor David Remnick and cover artist Jack
Hunter. When I awoke on Saturday morning, I discovered via the internets that
loads of Americans were very UNHAPPY about this cover. Gosh! Miss O’ was once
again gob-smacked at the capacity of rightwing Americans to see SEX,
FORNICATION, FELLATIO, and BUTTFUCKING in a sweet gesture of affection and
support. (And Jesus wept?)<o:p></o:p></div>
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So here is what I posted on
Facebook:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On The </span></i><span style="color: #2a313d; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">New Yorker<i> Cover: Years and years and years ago, when I was born--this would have
been 1964--my dad, Bernie, asked his old Air Force buddy, Bob Kent, who
happened to be bartending in Arlington, VA, where my parents were living, to be
my godfather. Bob lived with his roommate, Pete Madeo, and I remember adoring
these two men. Around the time I was five, my parents figured out that Uncle
Bob and Uncle Pete were more than roommates, that Uncle Bob was, in fact, my
"fairy" godfather; and they just sort of stopped speaking to them.
About 35 years and an activist daughter later, ol' Mom and Dad realized this
was stupid, and wrote them a letter. Bob and Pete were in the phonebook, still
together, too--just like my mom and dad. "Bert and Ernie," as
everyone knows, are Sesame Street characters, they are buddies that kids can
relate to. The cover illustration is neither "sexualizing" Bert and
Ernie, nor is this moment representing Sesame Street: The cover is a tribute of
love to all the men and women out there who had to "pass" themselves
off as "roommates" or "brothers" or "sisters" in
order to share living space, to share their lives. The New Yorker is a magazine
for grownups, and all of us have a history with Sesame Street. Most of us were
instantly touched. My feeling, for what Miss O's feelings are worth, is to
enjoy the love.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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Another American icon, George Takei, a national treasure
of a celebrity if ever there was one, was interviewed by <i>The Huffington Post </i>about gay rights, about how his life and times have been
shaped by social media, and what it has meant for his career post-<i>Star Trek</i>:<br />
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/29/george-takei-star-trek-gay_n_3512332.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/29/george-takei-star-trek-gay_n_3512332.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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As with <i>Sesame Street</i>, the role of <i>Star Trek</i> cannot be
overestimated in the shaping of our culture, too, in Miss O’s humble opinion.
As Mr. Takei notes:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Some of
the cast and creatives were aware that I was gay, and I did, on occasion, bring
a male date to parties. “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry was aware of my
sexual orientation and very supportive. That was the extraordinary thing about
“Star Trek.” That we were a diverse crew of people representing so many colors,
backgrounds and heritages. That was the promise of the future. And, now, in the
J.J. Abrams reboot, an openly gay actor is playing a Vulcan in love with an
African American. I'm not really surprised by this. “Star Trek” taught us to
look ahead to a time where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream was fulfilled.
Being a part of that vision was -- and has remained -- a tremendous honor.</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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George Takei is excited by how much America has learned from a cool television show. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Meanwhile, the Texas attorney general thinks that the student who led the protests against the abortion bill should be thrown in jail. Ain't <i>that</i> America? <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/30/1220053/-Tea-Party-Texas-AG-threatens-student-who-supported-Wendy%23">http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/30/1220053/-Tea-Party-Texas-AG-threatens-student-who-supported-Wendy#</a> I mean, what are we teaching our young people if we tell them they are free? if we allow them to have role models that show them how to use their voices to effect change? if we let them watch fucking <i>Star Trek</i> and learn from it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Because you knew somewhere Miss O' would have to get to <i>education</i>.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>Common Ground: Where Is Our Common Core?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Next week, or sometime after the summer, Miss O’
will spend a good long time talking about the Common Core State Standards
(CCSS), which is the subject of controversy in school districts
all over the country. It seems to Miss O’ that between this country’s
astounding ignorance about the Common Core, as well as its unforgivable ignorance of
Constitutionally guaranteed rights and citizenship responsibilities, it would
be awesome if our national media could be commandeered for one little day to
help us all. I think two things in particular are desperately needed:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->All
the national and cable networks need to do one evening of education on the
Common Core State Standards for Reading Comprehension, Language, and Writing—an
hour special, with only one commercial interruption to let educational guru Dr.
Tim Shanahan, or example, explain how they work. (Ha, ha! I know.)<br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->All
the national and cable networks need to allow one hour, two or three times a
year, to educate all Americans on CIVICS. Have a charming person, such as
Stephen Colbert, beloved by Yankees and Crackers alike, to teach civics to all
of us, making it mandatory viewing for all elected officials in this country.
In each little boardroom and hall of power, provide a really solid history
professor to stand by for Q & A. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: .25in;">
Too many fucking
mud dumb idiots are getting elected at the pleasure of corporations via their money, and as a
result don’t know for example, that 1) Americans do not spend their entire
lives in one state, and therefore having their years of study confined to one
state’s version of what is educationally useful can be pretty fucking
debilitating; and 2) Americans have many nationally guaranteed rights, such as
the right to peaceably assemble, which includes chanting, and that showing up
at a hall of power—which is maintained at the pleasure of the CITIZENS, and not
the elected, by the way (remember “We, the People”?)—is not, as Texas State Lt.
Governor Dewhurst believes, <i>terrorism</i>.
He and his compatriot Sen. Bill Zedler actually think this. <br />
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<i><span style="color: #434343; font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype";">During
the filibuster, hundreds of pro-choice supporters gathered in and around the
Texas State Senate and gave jeers to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst when he struck
Davis’s discussion of ultrasound testing as off-topic. Dewhurst also gave Davis
an off-topic strike when she <a href="http://now.msn.com/wendy-davis-filibuster-ends-when-back-brace-is-adjusted"><span style="color: #434343;">requested a back-brace</span></a> to curb discomfort from
standing for a near 11 hours. After the vote was taken and the bill died,
Dewhurst called the protesters “an unruly mob using Occupy Wall Street
tactics.”<br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #434343; font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype";">As if that wasn’t bad
enough, around 11 o’clock on the night of the filibuster, Texas state Sen. Bill
Zedler (R) <a href="https://twitter.com/Bill_Zedler/status/349766001296015360"><span style="color: #434343;">posted on his Twitter</span></a> that “We had terrorist
in the Texas State Senate opposing SB 5.” Apparently, to Zedler, invoking the
first amendment right to assemble is an act of terrorism. If the protesters
were pro-life, these “terrorists” would, assuredly, automatically turn into
“patriots” for him. Not only are Republicans sore about the loss, they are
ever-persistent.</span></i><br />
<br />
Here’s more of the story: <a href="http://www.ringoffireradio.com/2013/06/27/texas-abortion-bills-death-stirs-republicans/">http://www.ringoffireradio.com/2013/06/27/texas-abortion-bills-death-stirs-republicans/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Dewhurst also wanted to have the media <i>arrested</i>
for covering the story, and then decided against it. (I suspect the First
Amendment and a capable attorney made the decision for him.) <br />
<br />
Read more: <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/29/1219953/-Tx-Lt-Gov-decides-against-arresting-media">http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/29/1219953/-Tx-Lt-Gov-decides-against-arresting-media</a><br />
<br />
As writer Joshua deLeon points out:<br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: #434343; font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype";">If
politicians like Wendy Davis, and their supporters, remain steadfast in their
track for pro-choice legislation, it could prove to be another loss to
Republicans who throw around the word “terrorist” and try to demean people for
exercising their right to assemble.</span></i><span style="color: #434343; font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 115%;">
<i><span style="color: #434343; font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype";">—Joshua de Leon is a writer and researcher
with Ring of Fire.<br />
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And finally, in all the mire, the mess, the devastations and elations, I give thanks as ever to Stephen Colbert. Here is a sampling of his wisdom, in this post on Facebook today: <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande";"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/thecolbertreport?ref=stream&hc_location=stream"><b><span style="color: #2d4486; font-size: 13.0pt;">The Colbert Report</span></b></a></span><b><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"In DOMA and
the Voting Rights Act cases, it was about states' rights, not the people in
those states. That's why the first words in the Constitution are, 'We the
states.' I think, it's really hard to read those gay letters." -- Stephen
Colbert <a href="http://on.cc.com/1cqz2oI"><span style="color: #2d4486; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://on.cc.com/1cqz2oI</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And so on this Pride March Day, the
43<sup>rd</sup> since 1970’s first one, in honor of the Stonewall Riots of
1969: Peace and love to all; and especially to those who fight for their rights
and endure the mantle of “activist,” when really all you are doing is claiming
your own, Miss O’ salutes and hugs you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhWf9WVyWYboTYrSFcVi0C5P2ct5s5cAmuJzGjZvxqe_kiDfZ1Xk7wERQlE8sgMHs9XnuPOjZjRl2_9U5bjQP2jO1s9cDmAaJh0nAnuo9kTrfcEFcHgagACtAnGPaVvsI6xBdin8h_G8LN/s344/taped-pride-flag-origonal-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhWf9WVyWYboTYrSFcVi0C5P2ct5s5cAmuJzGjZvxqe_kiDfZ1Xk7wERQlE8sgMHs9XnuPOjZjRl2_9U5bjQP2jO1s9cDmAaJh0nAnuo9kTrfcEFcHgagACtAnGPaVvsI6xBdin8h_G8LN/s320/taped-pride-flag-origonal-8.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pride Flag from The Community Center in Idaho, via Google Images</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Yours as ever,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-41556905822118273762013-06-15T07:55:00.000-07:002013-06-22T06:17:29.675-07:00Three Blogs Blind (formerly, Ode to Joy)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b style="line-height: 115%;">Where Was I?</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEineHDa6eQUMoDE1eyC7yRM4lKE57PvbU4aiTnfAzBhgngwMVINzruxhSoXHMHtKUpU1QlDvFZMdZpPTqXGgevAK09LhSjk2QeaucbtCOmXMF_J7CKShKXcx9_NQ7ScOm7xsQ9M9qoz4fMa/s1600/PorchChair.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEineHDa6eQUMoDE1eyC7yRM4lKE57PvbU4aiTnfAzBhgngwMVINzruxhSoXHMHtKUpU1QlDvFZMdZpPTqXGgevAK09LhSjk2QeaucbtCOmXMF_J7CKShKXcx9_NQ7ScOm7xsQ9M9qoz4fMa/s320/PorchChair.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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<b><br /></b>
<i>"People change and forget to tell each other."</i><br />
<i><span style="line-height: 115%;">~</span>Lillian Hellman</i></div>
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<br />
There should have been a couple of blog posts back there, before today, but there aren't. See, Miss O’ keeps getting
sidetracked. I haven’t published a blog since Memorial Day, though I realized
I’d certainly been working on them. Herewith I give you my notes from the past
two weekends. Today’s challenge is to weave all the threads together and if not
make a whole cloth gown, surely a few coordinating accessories, such as a stylish loose-weave scarf, maybe a couple of earrings, and a purse.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Notes for a Blog Beginning from June 2, 2013 (unpublished; unedited, virtually)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #260001; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">"It's
hard for me to get used to these changing times. I can remember when the
air was clean and sex was dirty." ~George Burns<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Winding Bobbins, Importing <i>Pina</i><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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There are days—and they can stretch
into weeks—when I think I will never run out of things to write about. Then
there is today.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What Miss O’ really should be doing
right now, instead of writing this letter to you, is winding bobbins of white
thread and black thread and starting on those goddamned sewing
projects—engineering a new seat cushion for the spring-sprung green author’s
chair (pictured in her little eBook); getting all the quilt squares lined in
black (making a stained glass effect…she hopes); shredding all of last year’s
bills and receipts—all while she is loading her 300 CDs into her computer’s new
iTunes account, instigated by friend Quinn last weekend, because Miss O’s CD
player is more or less dead and her depressions have been coming on faster and
staying longer, and Quinn realized the silence wasn’t helping. Bless him. What
do people do without friends? <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are times when Miss O’ isn’t
entirely sure why she has as many friends as she does. One can only assume her
good qualities outpace the unattractive ones, but sometimes your O’ wonders how
long that pace will keep up. She has
been made aware that her PORTENTS OF EXTINCTION, DOOM, DEMISE, AND DEATH,
however scientifically possible, indeed even probable, are really creating an
odor of fish in the guest room after three days. And this is unfortunate. Miss
O’ hopes to inspire calls to action, and instead is moving her readers to
disappear into sun and fun while murmuring, if they even bother to murmur, <i>Miss O’ is the most condescending asshole
I’ve ever met. She called me an “idiot” for my beliefs. So what made me waste
my time with her blog when I should have been playing Frisbee and looking at
cat videos? </i>Ha, ha! Miss O’ kids with condescension! SHE should be not only
watching cat videos, but taking in cats and making a cozy life with them. (I
hear they are adorable.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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I realize there is more to life
than seeing how it’s all going to end, and in that spirit, I looked up some life-as-we-know-it quotations. Here’s a sampling:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bangla MN"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Almost anything
you do is insignificant. But it is very important that you do it. —Mohandas
Gandhi<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #260001; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Some
men so dislike the dust kicked up by the generation they belong to, that, being
unable to pass, they lag behind it. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius
Charles Hare, <i>Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers</i>, 1867, England<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The
philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of
government in the next.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">—Abraham
Lincoln, U.S. President, 1861-1865<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p>[Note: Hello 1983's "Business Model of Education"? Meet 2013's Republican/Fascist Corporate Congress.]</o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows
religiously the new.—Henry David Thoreau, American writer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The
greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by
altering his attitudes.—William James, American philosopher<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There is more to life than increasing its speed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">—Mohandas Gandhi<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<o:p>He's talking to you, Apple. How about changing our ENERGY MODEL?</o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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And now, some women.<o:p></o:p></div>
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[CUE CRICKETS]</div>
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Did you know that on the site
Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, there are no, repeat no, quotes by Rebecca
West, Hannah Arendt, or, say, Lillian Hellman? Now what? Miss O’ is on her
knees here: Could some woman I’ve taught get out there and start a site of
quotes by significant women (and you see? This is why we still have to fight
not only for rights, but for <i>women’s rights</i>),
with histories and links to their works? Dammit. There I go, being negative
again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who
never make up their minds to be either good or evil.<br />
—Hannah Arendt, German-American political theorist and writer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for
the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.<br />
—Hannah Arendt</span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external
means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its
peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion,
totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human
beings from within.<br />
—Hannah Arendt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(Sure the NSA revelation of national spying is abhorrent, but far more insidious is ADVERTISING: Domination from within, making us fat, nervous, insecure, and greedy for more, all at once. And by keeping the ignorant focused on the unborn (by paying legislators to keep the national spotlight on abortion), the corporations can keep taking your money. This is not conspiracy theory: It's actually happening.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Sorry, sorry! <i>“Feelin’ groovy!” (C'mon, Miss O'! Have some fun.)<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">I finally found the perfect girl,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">I could not ask for more:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">She’s deaf and dumb and oversexed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">and owns a liquor store.</span><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
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—recited by Dean Martin on <i>The Tonight Show</i>, 1969 <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmNb2k97AqkK6LpB2vkgrIb-TDw-eSiY9H2mGBSIO3eVg2b0TdAzOHwylYowtQFAj8N54-d6haJyRWjTLYFRLqbgyfbgIaCQkQ8-K9DLs6iTGpDnPebyldtCDQo_np_5LRMdmghIrGLJgI/s1600/at31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmNb2k97AqkK6LpB2vkgrIb-TDw-eSiY9H2mGBSIO3eVg2b0TdAzOHwylYowtQFAj8N54-d6haJyRWjTLYFRLqbgyfbgIaCQkQ8-K9DLs6iTGpDnPebyldtCDQo_np_5LRMdmghIrGLJgI/s320/at31.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Notes for June 9 Blog (unpublished; unedited, mostly, with apologies)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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[<i>Last weekend, I spent as much time outside as the weather would allow,
but did manage to write this much shit.—ed.</i>]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Religion Blog, i’ Faith </b>[<i>Note: It's hard to know where this was going. I'll try again some week.</i>]<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">"</span><b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">Things that grow are not always benign.</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">"</span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #535353; font-family: Arial;">Retired Reverend James Jones</span></b><span style="color: #535353; font-family: Arial;"> (1948–), British clergyman, Anglican bishop of Liverpool
Source: <i>Observer (London)</i> (September 20, 2009)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">"</span><b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">The strongest principle of growth lies
in human choice.</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">"</span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #535353; font-family: Arial;">George Eliot</span></b><span style="color: #535353; font-family: Arial;"> (1819–1880), British novelist Source: <i>Daniel Deronda</i>
(1876)</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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This Sunday afternoon in June finds
Miss O’ exiled to Queens because of the Puerto Rican Day Parade being held
along 5<sup>th</sup> Avenue, which is to say Central Park, in Manhattan.
Because too many male parade participants annually engage in rape, Park Police
simply close Central Park. I am not kidding about this. So this gorgeous day
forces about 2/3 of the park to remain closed until the (male, rape-inclined)
revelers have dispersed. Yes, America, we don’t so much want to stop rape; we
merely want to move it out of tourist-friendly places, such as Central Park. (You know, if we skirts would just stay the fuck OUT OF SIGHT, we wouldn't have this problem with being fucked. <i>AmIright?</i>)<o:p></o:p></div>
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So Miss O’ decided to head out into
her beloved neighborhood to walk about, and at 44<sup>th</sup> Street—knowing
she would not make it across the 10 lanes + median of Queens Boulevard in the 11-10-9-8 seconds the
flashing red hand was ticking down, turned and saw a poor-folks outlet store,
South Pole, and headed into it. In her leisurely stroll, she saw The Chair.
This was the comfortable, weather-proof porch chair she’d been looking for—the one that would invite her
to enjoy her patch of outdoor space built over her co-op’s trash alley. Here it
is:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDc-99xr97NGZbqcO43t0o_Ke3fNiD0jWVFa13OdAxerB4ph7-lyEKCYyUjN5tpEes7dFTXpjAC-cMaHyeCB0RwayVMs7DVqotVdccqOuTxo3Mw_VsROp9yz2E2bgWVIn1AOBa34AnlWC0/s1600/justchair.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDc-99xr97NGZbqcO43t0o_Ke3fNiD0jWVFa13OdAxerB4ph7-lyEKCYyUjN5tpEes7dFTXpjAC-cMaHyeCB0RwayVMs7DVqotVdccqOuTxo3Mw_VsROp9yz2E2bgWVIn1AOBa34AnlWC0/s320/justchair.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chair with cute bamboo table, which was a trash rescue in 2012.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In order to get this chair from the
store, I had to carry it roughly 6 blocks, past the bodegas and ball parks; around dog-walkers and past sidewalk benches of old people jawing or studying the Bible
with a magnifying glass; past produce stands and people with shopping carts and
across streets, angling it through her doorways and out onto its present
location. Here I risk the crashing down of handballs and soccer balls, sitting
as I am in the chair, typing and listening to iTunes (The Civil Wars) and an
unseen woman pacing back and forth with her yappy dog, over the fence on the
playground, talking loudly on her cell phone (“I’m gonna call Mom now; you want
me to conference you in?” Oh god. Yes, please conference her in). Because this
is New York City, your big house, so why shouldn’t my porch fence be your phone
booth?<o:p></o:p></div>
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This week I have been thinking
about the energies that keep us moored to our worlds, keep us sane, prevent us
from flying off over the roofs of building and into the windows of mental
hospitals, or away and into abusive substances or abusive people, or pushing to
destroy rather create things, make things. What is it that makes most of us try
to design schemes to encourage the world to be less awful? Because really, most
of us are doing that, it gives Miss O’ this little thing called Faith. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Today, Reader, I’m talking about,
for lack of a better word, <i>spiritual</i>
concerns. As the faithful readers of Miss O’s little blogspot know, she’s a
Pagan Earth Goddess worshipper who can often be found seated happily at the
altar of Theater. But what of religion? Some of my very favorite people are
deeply religious; in fact their lives are not merely defined by religion but
their very begins, er, <i>beings</i>, are inseparable from their religions. The religions I am the
most familiar with on this score are Judaism, Hinduism, Quaker, and the various
sects of Christianity, including Catholicism and a kind of “brethren” idea,
where there is no pastor or tithe—like a better organized and inclusive Bible
study. I do not pretend to understand what these groups provide in the way of
nourishment to their members, and in truth I’m not much interested. I’ve
experienced enough of churches, and they often not only bore the shit out me, they
also can give me the creeps. I can’t help it. But obviously, when I find myself in a church, and that is OFTEN, I'm fine with it. They are putting up with ME, aren't they?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Where I feel most at home, though, is inside a
theater, or anywhere among friends that involves drinking and eating food. And
is that really any different from a place of religious worship? No, it’s not.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Are You Honest? Are You Fair?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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There’s a survey in <i>Vanity Fair</i> magazine each month, “The
Proust Questionnaire,” which the editors give to a celebrity to take. In it,
the celeb answers questions such as, <i>“What
quality to you most admire in a man?” What quality do you most admire in a
woman?” “If you could be anyone else at any time in history, who would it be?” </i>Things
like that. Male celebrities are most often given the quiz, at least in the two
years of my gift subscription to the magazine. They most admire “loyalty” in
men, “kindness” in women. Among favorite answerers is Louis C.K.<i>, </i>who<span style="line-height: 115%;"> really pissed off the readers of that magazine with his answers. Louis C.K. is about as honest a comedian as I’ve ever seen. He surely would have to have been Miss O’s husband, if she were supposed to have one of those.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">What is the quality you most like in a man? </span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;"> Just please be fun to talk to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">What is the quality you most like in a woman?</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;"> Same. And also sex, please.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">What do you most value in your friends?</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;"> Friends should always tell you the truth. But please don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">Which living person do you most admire?</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;"> The guy I saw yesterday. He was crossing Eighth Avenue against the light. He just sauntered out into the middle of the street with cars and cabs speeding toward him and it meant nothing to him. Like he’s the only living soul and the rest of us were ghosts. I love that man, whoever he is.</span></div>
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Another quality that has come up
most often in answers to "most admired quality" is “honesty.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not to sound dense, but I’m not
entirely sure what is meant by <i>honesty</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And what is meant by <i>beliefs</i>? Here are "honest beliefs" I have heard articulated by actual people I actually know.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I believe in Santa Claus.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I believe that Jesus Christ is my personal savior.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I believe that Chairman Mao is as close to a god has humans will know.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I believe that all this stuff about global warming is a crock.”</div>
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So when I get to feeling
overcrowded by people and their "beliefs" and creeped out by humans and their "honesty", I like to watch a nice little TEDx. It’s easy to
make fun of these talks, but it seems to me they’d make great companion videos for reading in
high schools and colleges—ways in to difficult subjects.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRD0ZppzRo">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRD0ZppzRo</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Stewart Wallis on TEDx<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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[NOTE: <i>This scientist is HOPEFUL about the
future, and assuming you will not take the 19 minutes required to watch the
distillation of his entire life’s work because you are busy doing your life’s
work, here are the notes I took while watching, which is to say doing <u>my</u>
life’s work</i>.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">"</span><b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #535353; font-family: Arial;">—Kenneth Boulding</span></b><span style="color: #535353; font-family: Arial;"> (1910–1993), British-born US economist and political activist <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #535353; font-family: Arial;">Source: Quoted in <i>Jump the Curve</i> (Jack Uldrich, 2008)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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[NOTE: In 1980, we were living within our planet’s resources. Now were have nearly doubled that. But who’s counting? (Note: A lot of people are counting: At the rate we are reproducing, we will have 11 billion people on a planet with only a carrying capacity of about 4 billion (we’re currently at almost 7 billion) by 2100.)]</div>
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<i>Overusing our life-support systems. Five
mass extinctions before, over very short geological time, but we will be in
less than 100 years.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Are we facing our Big Bang?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The richest 400 Americans have more wealth
than the bottom 155,000,000.<o:p></o:p></i><br />
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[Belief, prayer, hope: It’s limited isn’t it?
Without action, without conscious creativity and compassion and a willingness
to sacrifice.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So today I bought a chair. It was
manufactured in China under lousy working conditions; the metals mined most
likely by forced slavery in the Congo in Africa; the plastics of the polyester
seat created using oil, drilled at the expense of an ecosystem. Should I or
should I not buy the chair? The chair exists whether I buy it or not.]<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>We need a new economic model. The goal has
to be to maximize human well-being, which is not to say material prosperity.
It’s about values, what is really valuable, about belonging, connections, love,
and giving. TO GIVE is not part of economics.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Shift from Consumers to seeing ourselves at
Stewards and Economic Citizens.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>We have to change what we measure: What gets
measured gets done. Is it all about GDP? </i>[Then where is the odometer? The fuel
gauge? The GPS?]<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Which country, of all the countries on
Earth, is in the BEST shape economically, ecologically, and in terms of the
health and happiness of its people? Costa Rica. Happier, and they live on a
quarter of what we do. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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(The rich think the poor are the drag on our
planet, but really the RICH are DESTROYING the world. Literally. The rich need
to die, to follow their own advice, I mean.)<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>"Markets have become our religion."<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>--Adam Smith on moral end of economics<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><u>Why don’t we TAX use of norenewable
resources rather than tax labor? Think about that.</u><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b>Losing Our Religion<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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[More notes: It's time to lose our true religion: Money Worship]</div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">“The
markets make a good servant but a bad master, and a worse religion.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">"</span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/23/ethicalliving.lifeandhealth4"><span style="color: #274fad; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">This much I
know: Amory Lovins</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">". </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian"><i><span style="color: #274fad; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">The Guardian</span></i></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">. Retrieved on 2008-11-20.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i>Amory
Lovins is an American energy expert.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><u>Working
with Others: A Movement for Change.</u><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>If
you are living for “Heaven,” all I ask is that you get out of the way. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>An
economy of the common good...<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>OxFam
(trying to supply fresh water—out of money, out of water) did it alone because
the U.S., France, no one would help. Sometimes the impossible is possible. If
it’s the right cause and enough people, we can do this.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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We have to be <i>honest</i>: Whether you have a
god, a God, a place of worship, a good book, or NOT, if you are not deeply
honest with yourself and honest in your actions, you are, deeply, a fraud. No
one who is coming from an honest place, guided by love and not hate, is one to
be feared.<i> </i>Unless it's a Bush. </div>
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<b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">We Are Girl, Interrupted<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">My actor friend Pat from
Atlanta called to tell me that he’d found another book on actor training,
titled, curiously, <i>Actor Training,</i>
second edition, a collection of essays on aspects of actor training by a
variety of people in the field (not to be confused with the first edition,
which included “20<sup>th</sup> Century” in its title), edited by Alison Hodge.
Below are the notes I managed to take while talking to Pat, who is 67 and
forever searching for insights to be a better actor and coach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The big names in acting
were focused on specific aspects of acting:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Stanislavsky—psychological<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Meyerhold—physical<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Maria
Neville—synthesized Stanislavsky and Michael Chekhov (To the Actor)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Sticking
to realism—how the political situation held all these people—what we want to
say to each other.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Robert
Cohen’s “positive expectations" is important, too.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Jacques
Copeau (St. Denis was apostle?) is
another major teacher.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Actor-Training-Alison-Hodge/dp/0415471680"><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">http://www.amazon.com/Actor-Training-Alison-Hodge/dp/0415471680</span></a><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">I told Pat about my own
rereading of Joseph Chaikin's <i>The Presence of the Actor</i>, comparing him with Grotowski and André Gregory, but just
then Pat’s student arrived and it was time for coaching, and realized it was
time for wine and a movie on YouTube, and there went the weekend and anything like finishing the blog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Insane yet?</span></div>
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<b style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Bit by Bit, Putting It Together: Blog for Today, June 15, 2013</span></b></div>
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The week has been covered in
raindrops. The literal rain could be measured in several inches, and was
relentless whenever I had to walk to or from work, except for Wednesday, which
was gorgeous all of a sudden. There were figurative raindrops, too: At my work,
a colleague of many years died of lung cancer at age 62, and this event has led
another colleague to decide to retire; another great colleague (age 52) is leaving
in July to go back to graduate school in clinical psychology; still another
great colleague (age 48) is leaving in August to go back to graduate school in
animation. (Miss O’ is 49. The prospect of reinvention is exciting, and of
death, sobering.) So change is afoot in my immediate workplace, right in the
midst of a big reorganization, too, after being sold to an investment group in
March. And then what?<o:p></o:p></div>
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So when all this sadness and loss
and confusion is happening, what you do is go to see the restored “road show”
screening of 1963’s <i>Cleopatra</i>, which
may star Elizabeth Taylor, but really its legend belongs as much to guys like my friends
Howard and Bobby, as to La Liz. As boys aged 10 and 14, respectively, living in
Evanston, Illinois, and Brooklyn, respectively, they fell hard for Elizabeth
Taylor’s eye makeup, because they were, both of them, very, very gay. While
Bobby only used tracing paper over the <i>Life </i>Magazine cover to make a pattern so
that he might draw her eyes over and over and over, little Howie wanted his own
eyes to look like Liz’s. <i>Cleopatra</i>
was the fulfillment of his childhood Egypt obsession: there in his family’s
Evanston apartment bathroom, he could lock the door and draw the lines around
his eyes with mom’s black eyebrow pencil, and just as he was about to perfect
the shape, he’d hear, “Howard, what are you doing?” and he’d call, panicked,
“Nothing!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5bpLAcjuKXDSaKlKByPp6akEIXcOS7F28Hs_tJRB2cM18VtaruPxdryscel-LVqHpHx2freOgt4hZg9kXktm3cKvLSZglGFOEm87TyC_W91m0D3dPzDQLpd-iYlxU2BhsswQUQwi5UOlF/s1600/Elizabeth_Taylor_Cleopatra.263w_350h.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5bpLAcjuKXDSaKlKByPp6akEIXcOS7F28Hs_tJRB2cM18VtaruPxdryscel-LVqHpHx2freOgt4hZg9kXktm3cKvLSZglGFOEm87TyC_W91m0D3dPzDQLpd-iYlxU2BhsswQUQwi5UOlF/s320/Elizabeth_Taylor_Cleopatra.263w_350h.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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In addition, Howard has his
master’s in film studies (his first book, about the costume designer Adrian, of that single name, like "Cher"—he did <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>, for example—was featured in the window dressing
at Barney’s here in NY when it came out), and he is just a treasure trove of movie information. Bobby, too, is an old movie buff, and you all know your Miss O’.
So this week, as Howard and I went about our editorial tasks at work, and as Bobby went
about his tasks at the office of another employer, the three of us used the magic of email to build
up for the Big Night. Herewith a sampling, which I’ve rearranged first to
last, instead of the way e-trails usually work.<o:p></o:p></div>
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NOTE: None of this may be remotely
entertaining to you if you don’t know the movie, or the other movie stars we
reference here, or us, for that matter. But here is the point of sharing it at all: Just as the only reason to get an education is so you know why<i> The Simpsons
</i>is funny, just so you immerse yourself in movie and pop culture trivia in order to exchange in-jokes with people you know and love. <o:p></o:p></div>
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ANOTHER NOTE: These exchanges
happen as we actually complete actual work (you'd be astounded at how many meetings were attended and deadlines met amid these little messages), and the nature of our jobs is such
that we can hit up Google Images and in seconds copy an image to match, lest
you think we spend much time on this, because we really don’t.<o:p></o:p></div>
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ALMOST FINAL NOTE: As for the images: Clearly no copyright infringement is intended. I don't even know who the fuck most of the people are.</div>
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FINALLY: Don't tell Howard or Bobby I did this. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Playbill; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">E-TRAIL-ER: <i>Cleopatra</i> at Film Forum<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Playbill;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Starring Howard (Howard), Bobby (</span><span style="line-height: 27px;">Robert)</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">, and
Miss O’ (O'Hara, Lisa)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 11:40 AM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa; Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">We’re going down the Nile tomorrow<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 11:41 AM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We’ll BARGE right in!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 11:51 AM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa; Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">Still finalizing my outfit.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">Should I go as Bella or… yes … it’s who you think it is…</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mitzi!!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwncs9N3xhLr4v99YZ8UtA8YBvvt4CXJ57EuI7pugauactoSc-g-53lR1Lz4wdSLhG1jKRlq52nqbKDruvI5sRMWtLzkItL4eeq6t12UEFHcvTfoTKnBR7AE9pvfSby0ZYr4j2w-HKALEq/s1600/2cleo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwncs9N3xhLr4v99YZ8UtA8YBvvt4CXJ57EuI7pugauactoSc-g-53lR1Lz4wdSLhG1jKRlq52nqbKDruvI5sRMWtLzkItL4eeq6t12UEFHcvTfoTKnBR7AE9pvfSby0ZYr4j2w-HKALEq/s320/2cleo.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuHGmGdKMEuT7OrLt85xG3d5hkyHbIgcR2Z08GGLyPeVox4BEBe6n-3T7znaovt5Bw9ULsaT2srgtNGf7UxVpd48aE2rmupqltG7dY3RQnAYQ9DBmyLzoB_8ABS-7HsxvxWZ6LCWCvh2Gt/s1600/3+mitzi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuHGmGdKMEuT7OrLt85xG3d5hkyHbIgcR2Z08GGLyPeVox4BEBe6n-3T7znaovt5Bw9ULsaT2srgtNGf7UxVpd48aE2rmupqltG7dY3RQnAYQ9DBmyLzoB_8ABS-7HsxvxWZ6LCWCvh2Gt/s320/3+mitzi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 11:55 AM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems everyone was trying
out for that role . . . even Marilyn!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSU-33gbQDfwK-15PJ1YlCvicj6pjL5Nxm_fPK1giwxM3_ljP-ZKSdU3Q0Lygns9DGDV42Hwhqp3rhy5iQrKU1bbz7Fo16etFL_1FdJnDGlqED9bHDLVfhknf4KprKGiAXRpZOysQZcgCQ/s1600/4marilyntheda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSU-33gbQDfwK-15PJ1YlCvicj6pjL5Nxm_fPK1giwxM3_ljP-ZKSdU3Q0Lygns9DGDV42Hwhqp3rhy5iQrKU1bbz7Fo16etFL_1FdJnDGlqED9bHDLVfhknf4KprKGiAXRpZOysQZcgCQ/s320/4marilyntheda.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><i>Note: That is Marilyn Monroe as Theda Bara as Cleopatra by Richard Avedon.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 11:59 AM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even Britney Spears.
Because…wow. Is anyone duller? Anyone?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 19px;">Even...?</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilelCNi7pNOmuZFyNBC2Kx2bk55DtWmsOr0qOtrrfiGACBlrjpgM5oQfycAT0GIvXOI9-g3hqEeS7ydM5W1Bef9nfNE4VrHt-bmNZy8Qt3NEMi6mEJEHWjDHFQp0xFSfRA6ZoOMFZBFhFE/s1600/6kencleo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilelCNi7pNOmuZFyNBC2Kx2bk55DtWmsOr0qOtrrfiGACBlrjpgM5oQfycAT0GIvXOI9-g3hqEeS7ydM5W1Bef9nfNE4VrHt-bmNZy8Qt3NEMi6mEJEHWjDHFQp0xFSfRA6ZoOMFZBFhFE/s320/6kencleo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 12:05 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa; Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And Lucy!! I guess Mr. Mooney
played Caesar and Vivian played Mark Antony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9I6Ng-v0R0w3dq4vhbr_MWI6W9Pfm67jens8q2npqyA-NX6myCblgY-30gLAm91Je_SDoGVTNWS7Ob04JAl_EMzYSHLAaZYwnKJR5RXAEwIsSrbKDfBQURbR_zI9m9ChDYMkg9dEDulw/s1600/8lucy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9I6Ng-v0R0w3dq4vhbr_MWI6W9Pfm67jens8q2npqyA-NX6myCblgY-30gLAm91Je_SDoGVTNWS7Ob04JAl_EMzYSHLAaZYwnKJR5RXAEwIsSrbKDfBQURbR_zI9m9ChDYMkg9dEDulw/s320/8lucy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 12:09 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gosh, my grandmother had
several of those crowns. They were finials at the top of her living room
drapes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 12:18 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">Madonna would later use them as cone bras in her Truth or Dare
tour.</span><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Seriously, it was
unbelievable how Liz and Cleo infiltrated pop culture in 1962 and 1963. Almost
every situation comedy from The Lucy Show to Dick Van Dyke had a “Cleopatra”
episode. Veronica in Archie comics got a “Cleopatra hairdo.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 12:21 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">Morey Amsterdam came the closest to looking like Liz.</span><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 12:27 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">Not by a long shot. I guess you didn’t see Don Knotts as Cleo
when Barney Fife essayed the role in a pageant staged at the Mayberry jail
house. Frances Bavier was riveting as Lotus, the slave girl. Otis the drunk
played Apollodorus.</span><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 12:29 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Don't forget . . .</span><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">Opie played a severed penis. Most productions omit that scene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">[And….LUNCH]</span></i><i><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">[And...We're back.]</span></i></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Monday, June 10, 2013 1:29 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> More Egypt</span><span style="color: #3e003f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">But what I honestly DO love are the costumes and sets—the whole
art deco look—of DeMille’s Cleopatra.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Have you ever seen it, Lisa?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 2:00 PM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert; O'Hara, Lisa </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Re: More Egypt</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">But it’s just as illogical.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I prefer the Esther Williams
approach used in The Egyptian<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5xUdXdbbG5cnmKiLpsVNunyXGBBoVp6E6lFrwb4Q3W8BgZAfFyT8f1e42k2NvCwdXpK25Jz-rMFTX494_bmA0iFrjX-VEhu2tXkJcHMy29fHM9W9KQ-_U1aPB768yyK-40NpEgQLtRuK9/s1600/9gene.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5xUdXdbbG5cnmKiLpsVNunyXGBBoVp6E6lFrwb4Q3W8BgZAfFyT8f1e42k2NvCwdXpK25Jz-rMFTX494_bmA0iFrjX-VEhu2tXkJcHMy29fHM9W9KQ-_U1aPB768yyK-40NpEgQLtRuK9/s320/9gene.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 2:50 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: More Egypt</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">Oh, absolutely as illogical. And as I realized the last time I
saw it, rather slow and boring.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">But looks fabulous!</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Are you sure that isn’t a pic
of Edie Beale?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 2:59 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: More Egypt</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">In actuality, Cleopatra ruled from Alexandria, which was a
hybrid Greek/Egyptian city with a very mixed population. Egyptians but lots of
Greeks and even Jews. Cleo, in real life, probably dressed mostly in the Greek
fashion, and probably only donned traditional Egyptian dress at ceremonial
functions. And while some of the costumes in the ‘63 version are improbable,
the ones that are “authentically” Egyptian are more realistic than those in the
‘34 version. And Warren William and Henry Wilcoxon are unendurable.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">Just my measly two cents.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That is Gene Tierney as
Beketaten in The Egyptian, ready for a dip in the Nile. Little does her feline
pal know that he will soon wind up as a bathing suit in the princess’s
wardrobe.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 3:55 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: More Egypt</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">I like eyes and hair! I haven’t seen Colbert except in clips.
The wigs alone are fascinating.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6i4xk6Hp5VzrfXKbvfZ3dyzIH_qd2YuNn9G_ToZ_TuEZSnP_2DpXGLHPKsey9A2JhbZzXScSE_DaccdJP7atu_8aav4RWlrstmZIAIthoamlwqWQno-nx77DRj31Pwa8gqFehycg6_oe5/s1600/10colbert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6i4xk6Hp5VzrfXKbvfZ3dyzIH_qd2YuNn9G_ToZ_TuEZSnP_2DpXGLHPKsey9A2JhbZzXScSE_DaccdJP7atu_8aav4RWlrstmZIAIthoamlwqWQno-nx77DRj31Pwa8gqFehycg6_oe5/s320/10colbert.jpg" width="210" /></a><br />
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 4:01 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa; Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: More Egypt</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">Actually that particular shot is from “The Sign of the Cross”
made a year or two earlier. She plays Poppea.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They mixed a few stills from
that pic in with Cleo on that page…dopes. They need me and Howard for proper
authenticating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 4:04 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert; Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: More Egypt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You guys are a walking TCM
Archive. You should make YouTube videos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 13.0pt;">F</span></b><b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">rom:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 4:09 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa; Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: More Egypt</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We should run TCM. We’d be a
lot more interesting than Robert Osborne. I could do Marilyn Monroe
impressions, and Bobby could write his world famous bios for the Now Playing
guide. That’d wake up our audience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">[Notes: 1. Bobby and
Howard actually like Robert Osborne. 2. Bobby has been banned from Wikipedia
for going in to “enhance” the biographies of old movie stars like Norma Shearer
and Beulah Bondi, to sex them up. They are inaccurate, sure, but god, were they hilarious.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 4:18 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Osborne</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">Yes, it’s time for that dying drunk to step aside. </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;">The Howard and Bobby Show on TCM:</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“As Memory (Ours) Fades”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyvs-SGeLklD8S-6_H6NKJcDwFJ8TP35bWje98WRNZfSMsQQPhlho0zIYWHCqAPGirOWSM7CM8I-5MykF59B51P9BfSUzWfiS_AKdtpdUZv0jguP3lUNnpCKEjDstWHXuvyMqy5ai65rIp/s1600/11tcm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyvs-SGeLklD8S-6_H6NKJcDwFJ8TP35bWje98WRNZfSMsQQPhlho0zIYWHCqAPGirOWSM7CM8I-5MykF59B51P9BfSUzWfiS_AKdtpdUZv0jguP3lUNnpCKEjDstWHXuvyMqy5ai65rIp/s1600/11tcm.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 4:40 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Osborne</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Bobby introduces “Days of
Wine and Roses” on The Essentials<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjUAinYo3DfTQZzAp5WVnCtJHFcUF3BQqQSIWj9FerTDgF2oeJjKlW3wlKcJmIifKyS9SNndPhNsW9Xa8ZbaBYmtViYqeHVTs4aRYbC3tYLeCh46KPwAgfz04M-BukVvood6ewBvypk0yB/s1600/12tcmdrunk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjUAinYo3DfTQZzAp5WVnCtJHFcUF3BQqQSIWj9FerTDgF2oeJjKlW3wlKcJmIifKyS9SNndPhNsW9Xa8ZbaBYmtViYqeHVTs4aRYbC3tYLeCh46KPwAgfz04M-BukVvood6ewBvypk0yB/s320/12tcmdrunk.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 4:49 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Osborne</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Howard introduces <i>Cleopatra’s
Daughter</i> on the “Not –So-Essentials”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt1-wuyOOi8w3TxKhYvXeBAlChm0pKHUzN9NC_sK8JlVA_0Ntn0mW0VvkOshTl-hddb1SqEk229xxJu9n7B6vrw8TKoXg0ht2maAYLwvNq8IkdF2TDQI2znNqD7T5mqE1czwgGcR6zogr2/s1600/13noness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt1-wuyOOi8w3TxKhYvXeBAlChm0pKHUzN9NC_sK8JlVA_0Ntn0mW0VvkOshTl-hddb1SqEk229xxJu9n7B6vrw8TKoXg0ht2maAYLwvNq8IkdF2TDQI2znNqD7T5mqE1czwgGcR6zogr2/s320/13noness.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 4:53 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; Robert<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Osborne</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Special Guest Lisa O’Hara
joins the merry pair to discuss her favorite film, <i>The Best Years of Our
Lives</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgirkD3pnMOdcvHsUF7BH0wWk1vdMF6xbTDkguPyBW6tYv8tNJrXxqQTVfw65DjNDb-j_c1-aH3s3eujhsqfOPrEmc5V7doXYpbjYplhQP4shtOpz1xXX0AJZZiciIMY7o6B_sK4saJP6CL/s1600/14ess.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgirkD3pnMOdcvHsUF7BH0wWk1vdMF6xbTDkguPyBW6tYv8tNJrXxqQTVfw65DjNDb-j_c1-aH3s3eujhsqfOPrEmc5V7doXYpbjYplhQP4shtOpz1xXX0AJZZiciIMY7o6B_sK4saJP6CL/s320/14ess.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 5:01 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Osborne</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Wow, it’s been a while since
I’ve seen you. You look incredible! Have you had work done?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 5:13 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; Robert <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Osborne</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I can’t wait for you to see
my implants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Robert<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sent:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 5:16 PM <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">To:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Howard; O'Hara, Lisa <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Subject:</span></b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> RE: Osborne</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #18376a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was really hoping to wear
this, but it’s sold out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wFhqGCUT5J0lvOLvXEYhN55gRg99Wx2rxEIeXbkoEodXsMslCvcPVh1YB7WZlcf9mIzHFCldcDOuVd78LFWY-Q3f1ztB6NDdAJcrKciSaIJlU2G3iJUYMsB5btE0IZEuz85v1p3r2Yn3/s1600/image001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wFhqGCUT5J0lvOLvXEYhN55gRg99Wx2rxEIeXbkoEodXsMslCvcPVh1YB7WZlcf9mIzHFCldcDOuVd78LFWY-Q3f1ztB6NDdAJcrKciSaIJlU2G3iJUYMsB5btE0IZEuz85v1p3r2Yn3/s320/image001.jpg" width="264" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">[AND....SCENE.]</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Oh, good times! Is there anything as
fun as bad taste? So at the movie, for which we stood in line and waited 50 minutes to make sure we could sit together, Bobby and Howard and I ran into my friend
Kevin Townley, one of <i>TimeOut </i>New
York’s Most Stylish New Yorkers of 2012. We all sat behind an afflicted old man
who “reacted” throughout the movie, driving the man in front of him crazy.
Finally, Bobby said, as only a New Yorker can, “Aw, shut up!” and the crazy man
did, in fact, shut up. Mostly. Howard referred to him as Professor Irwin Corey,
and Bobby called him my husband. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Here was my assessment of the film,
in case you wanted to know, as posted on Facebook:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="color: #073763;">I must tell you, I had never seen "Cleopatra" before.
It's not a good movie, though the first half with Rex Harrison is quite fine
(and all Richard Burton needed was ONE ADDED INCH to his little skirt not to
look absurd, while Miss Taylor needed about a dozen fewer costumes). At the
sold-out Film Forum showing of the "road show cut", even with the
excellent Wanger Sisters (daughters of producer William Wanger and Joan
Bennett, who played Elizabeth Taylor's mom in "Father of the Bride")
and their fun intro stories notwithstanding; and the hilarious recollections of
friends Bobby, who in 1963 drew her eyes over and over and over, and Howard, at
age 10, making his mom take him, and dreaming of making his eyes look just like
hers (MOM (calling into bathroom): "Howard, what are you doing in
there?" HOWARD (with black pencil): "Nothing..!"), AND the
unexpected presence of Kevin Townley (always a delight), it was a rather long
night, what with Prof. Irwin Corey on meth in front of us, calling out
throughout. Still, it was an event. And I got home at nearly 1:00 AM with
plenty of company, so it could have been worse. Here's to classic movies and
their addicts. Kiss.</span><span style="color: #2a313d;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #2a313d; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande";">Miss O’s unflattering assessment of this “classic” pissed off a lot a people,
so here is my comment to the pissed-off:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Lucida Grande';"><span style="color: #073763;">I
saw an interview on A & E with its star, and learned that after seeing it
for the first time, Elizabeth Taylor fled the theater to run to the ladies
room, where she threw up. I don't think it's that bad, but in fact (as I
learned from my friend Howard) Joseph Mankiewicz was making two films,
"Caesar and Cleopatra" and "Antony and Cleopatra," but
because of the Taylor-Burton affair, studio chief Darryl Zanuck demanded that
it be ONE movie, and Mankiewicz said no, so Zanuck fired him and spliced the
two movies together himself. So rather than a 7 1/2 hour, 2-movie epic, this
was the result. We saw the 4-hour road show version (meaning the first
theatrical release), but the one shown on TV has been cut to 3 hours, so it's
even more confusing to follow. (My friend Howard said that this was the first
time he'd ever seen the "completed" film, and it was much clearer in
terms of story.) The Wanger sisters said that there are 3 1/2 hours of this
movie still locked in the Fox vault! You'd think some preservationists would be
allowed to try to assemble it all together. Howard and Bobby worship this
movie, and I can see the appeal (Cleopatra's entrance into Rome is fantastic).
So glad to know it still has fans. This single showing was sold out.</span></span><span style="color: #2a313d; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><i>Floatie, Veni, Sleepy</i>: We
barged, we saw, we endured! Slaves, soldiers, set builders, costume sewers, and all the other unsung, suffering laborers of the world came together across history, across time, to Rome via London via Hollywood, to make this epic for three little people (us!) to watch in a movie house in one little neighborhood on Earth in 2013. Give 'em a hand, folks! Cleopatra ruled as a god in her lifetime, and flash forward a couple of thousand years, La Liz ruled over <i>Cleopatra</i> as the new god: Money. Hers was the first $1,000,000 salary, plus 10% of the absolute gross, forever changing movie star worth in the world. (Money makes the world go around, but most of us just want what George Bailey worked so hard to get for his townspeople: a couple of decent rooms and a bath. The rich don't believe us.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">(Far From) The Only Living Boys (and Girl) in
New York<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">After
the movie, Bobby, Howard, and I walked up to the very busy West 4<sup>th</sup> Street to
catch Uptown and Brooklyn-bound (very full even at midnight) trains, and Bobby pointed to two different
buildings he lived in when he moved to Manhattan in 1974—one on 6<sup>th</sup> Avenue,
and one over on Minetta Lane. “I was 26,” he said, “and it was really nice here
then. My rent was $140 a month.” He gestured to Father Demo Square, “which was just a couple of
benches then, nothing fancy like it is now.” ("Was there this fence?" "No fence.") The wind was soft, it wasn’t
raining, and really the best part of living in New York—the best part of
living, period—is walking along the road, cracking wise with your good friends
after a day of work, an evening of play, laughs all along, a sense of history,
of life lived, of place, and heading home to bed. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 115%;">Our devotion to movies is religious, our love for each other is honest, and we weren't raped even once. The world didn't come to an end, at least not today. We knew the way home, and we got there. What more can you pray for?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Well, maybe to look like this:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5FfcgwjG9v2fFRP2hgKAEiaVh9QULXRU65vy-oIj07M9CBQelz1J0Pu6VQANbO4TeCrKAXcfEdxnj53Dfle3Phrx01qftydsRDjPkSXhxdNmY14NB_F53MmJRFA-d7iM8gBiVTfQANS8S/s1600/MBDCLEO-FE007-H-jpg_160605.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5FfcgwjG9v2fFRP2hgKAEiaVh9QULXRU65vy-oIj07M9CBQelz1J0Pu6VQANbO4TeCrKAXcfEdxnj53Dfle3Phrx01qftydsRDjPkSXhxdNmY14NB_F53MmJRFA-d7iM8gBiVTfQANS8S/s320/MBDCLEO-FE007-H-jpg_160605.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b>Cleopatra:</b> There are never enough hours in the days of a queen, </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
and her nights have too many.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br />
You said it, sister!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><i>[Cue ALEX NORTH SCORE!]</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">And
so that's where my head is today, angels, with love from<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Miss
O’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3951284171589539113.post-80614536629244118292013-05-27T08:59:00.001-07:002013-09-27T15:12:40.956-07:00IN MEMORIAM: There’s Something Happening Here (For What It's Worth)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b>Memorial Day Edition, 2013<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilFlb7yyZ-DzzhcihBxKpe6qpwAGRy1Ayzz8QLVYBWY9-X2M40jTilxBZjP4S4B7B2FP_9RbtUvh1xpd9ryNSi_3HlbOCd-EGWuxq_48G_r58c7c1RNdpyAuHdjJeYVll8hVfpi-d9qYeb/s1600/Ben+Franklin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilFlb7yyZ-DzzhcihBxKpe6qpwAGRy1Ayzz8QLVYBWY9-X2M40jTilxBZjP4S4B7B2FP_9RbtUvh1xpd9ryNSi_3HlbOCd-EGWuxq_48G_r58c7c1RNdpyAuHdjJeYVll8hVfpi-d9qYeb/s320/Ben+Franklin.jpg" width="303" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>From Being Liberal Page, Facebook</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
Miss O’ was up and at ‘em early on
this holiday Memorial Day, a too-cold morning for the season (half a foot of
snow fell upstate last night), and it’s sweltering in other places, and you
know, the world just ain’t right. Here was my status update, posted with the photo above:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;">Here's to Ben Franklin. Ol' Ben had a good life--was famous, creative, well-off, bedded lots of women, traveled, wrote, and had every reason to enjoy a comfortable old age. Instead, he chose to lead a revolution against oppression. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;">I'd lik</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;">e to think that 250 years later, we could be enacting our revolutions without weapons, without armies, without killing. Thanks to all who serve. In 2013, that anyone should expect the ultimate sacrifice of young people shows a powerful lack of imagination and intelligence on our part.</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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Miss O' always has something to say, doesn't she? And I have a lot more. But before I get into all that, as they say
on the NPR Wall Street show, “Marketplace,” let’s do the numbers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Memoriam: War Dead,
2003 to 2013<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlEoVBR-fto0GB-8_UPrYxk3YAZ0jCmGDlByu2CreRG7zmqdsqhGdJo68GbVXSoUAddIpeLnnRs0MQnW4OvXgH3r355psikJL91tpJRFLUJ8M1Pt2diSVyZUTOBlQ3zrLppj6YpWYZUCNo/s1600/robert+kelly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlEoVBR-fto0GB-8_UPrYxk3YAZ0jCmGDlByu2CreRG7zmqdsqhGdJo68GbVXSoUAddIpeLnnRs0MQnW4OvXgH3r355psikJL91tpJRFLUJ8M1Pt2diSVyZUTOBlQ3zrLppj6YpWYZUCNo/s320/robert+kelly.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>1st Lt. Robert Kelly, USMC, preparing to deploy. </i></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>He died <a href="http://projects.militarytimes.com/valor/marine-2nd-lt-robert-m-kelly/5031982/">November 9, 2010 </a>in Afghanistan.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Photo on his sister Kate's Facebook page.</i></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>FOREIGN WARS<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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For those who think about these
things, here’s the CNN map of armed forces casualties (i.e., dead) in Iraq and
Afghanistan:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties/index.html">http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties/index.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Tellingly, CNN does not mention <i>civilian </i>deaths. Those are “other” people, I
guess. <span style="line-height: 115%;">I couldn’t find an official government site
for those war dead, so I went on a search. </span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
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I found Iraq totals on this site: <a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.org/">http://www.iraqbodycount.org</a><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<u>Illegal Iraq War <o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->U.S. and Coalition Forces Dead: 4,802<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Iraqi Civilian Dead: 112,789—123,419 <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/afghanistan-iraq-wars-killed-132000-civilians-report-says/">http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/afghanistan-iraq-wars-killed-132000-civilians-report-says/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<u>Afghan War<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->U.S. and Coalition Dead (including my former
student 1<sup>st</sup> Lt. Robert Kelly, pictured above): 3,303<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Afghan Civilian Dead: 132,000<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Miss O' has a dream that one day she won't have to write about the war dead. Mark Twain had a similar dream. If you haven't read "The War Prayer" by Mr. Twain, may I recommend it? </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<a href="http://warprayer.org/"> http://warprayer.org</a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>DOMESTIC KILLINGS<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Meanwhile, here on the home front...</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgudUz2w8GRLHZVM01FX8kOwSZgbbYU1RBblWU47GK5wqSdjvJfRVrYpxRixvauOtV4F9NUSVqfFs7OIzkS_I5gMBygrgw4A8FC1K8bZgtrkwoTxrP7343kgDf4ZMD4E9moSW3CHE91a_xi/s1600/huffPo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgudUz2w8GRLHZVM01FX8kOwSZgbbYU1RBblWU47GK5wqSdjvJfRVrYpxRixvauOtV4F9NUSVqfFs7OIzkS_I5gMBygrgw4A8FC1K8bZgtrkwoTxrP7343kgDf4ZMD4E9moSW3CHE91a_xi/s320/huffPo.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>From The Huffington Post, March 2013</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>Numbers of gun deaths in the United States in 2012-2013:<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
This research was compiled by Ezra
Klein and the staff of <i>The Washington
Post</i>, comparing U.S. gun deaths by region and nation, from December 2012:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
“12 facts about guns and mass
shootings in the United States”:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
And then there’s this, from The
Bloomberg News, December of 2012: <br />
<br />
“American Gun Deaths to Exceed Traffic Fatalities by 2015”:<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-19/american-gun-deaths-to-exceed-traffic-fatalities-by-2015.html">http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-19/american-gun-deaths-to-exceed-traffic-fatalities-by-2015.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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For those of you who don’t click on
links or read articles in full, but rather prefer your information to come from
memes (which most of us do not bother to fact-check because typing in the
“fact” and hitting “return” on Google is just too hard—pardon me while Miss O’ gets
fucking pissed off at the fucking laziness of the “outraged”):<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuPgBGc3fSefJepO801jZNmHhD-o-lHS0mET0ZidyhKKSw_G3vPZrUKyXxEq9LNbPxGKrMr0rinzPC3p2u_kpKM1KMStfxKyBDa5JWjJwjIl4RScm9AQdfwfMQd_Fgdi4hVvnSfOyb0qs0/s1600/Brady_GodBlessAmerica.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuPgBGc3fSefJepO801jZNmHhD-o-lHS0mET0ZidyhKKSw_G3vPZrUKyXxEq9LNbPxGKrMr0rinzPC3p2u_kpKM1KMStfxKyBDa5JWjJwjIl4RScm9AQdfwfMQd_Fgdi4hVvnSfOyb0qs0/s320/Brady_GodBlessAmerica.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>
<br />
Allow Miss O' to synthesize: Of the 9,484 Americans murdered with guns in one year, 230 of those could be called "justifiable homicides," or killings in self-defense or in defense of home or property (see blog "Stoned Me to My Soul" April 28, 2013). The remaining 9,254 deaths, then, total more IN ONE YEAR than the all the deaths of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan COMBINED (8,105) over TEN YEARS. Only when killed en masse (and only then if they are mostly white), do we "honor" the murdered dead at all in this country. We do nothing to try to stop this killing. Am I the only one who finds this sick?<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<b>On Death by Weapons, Everywhere</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Miss O's personal hero, Virginia Woolf, wrote an essay in 1938 called <i>Three Guineas</i>, wherein she called for the end of war. I've quoted her often, and I invoke her words again today. War would not be a way of life if women were in power. Woolf believed that. Miss O' does, too. By oppressing women, war mongers can keep the money coming. It's all about money, isn't it? The title of Woolf's essay comes from its conceit: She (VW) has been asked to contribute one British pound, or guinea, to three different causes. She is weighing whether or not to spend these three guineas. When it comes to the war effort, she declines.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6YR7HPNLbjZ-6I8wOpi2jPaPYBQLd6vQDk8kjK5SYwZon-ueWHMxoR-uNhJq3RUhJ2U6DZcA_-K55oiCir-kkAL1pIIZ_Co7y4pe1rROm1wNPjuh6rVrEEBgMmZ1FcQq7YuVDGUydiC2J/s1600/VW+war+meme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6YR7HPNLbjZ-6I8wOpi2jPaPYBQLd6vQDk8kjK5SYwZon-ueWHMxoR-uNhJq3RUhJ2U6DZcA_-K55oiCir-kkAL1pIIZ_Co7y4pe1rROm1wNPjuh6rVrEEBgMmZ1FcQq7YuVDGUydiC2J/s320/VW+war+meme.jpg" width="227" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of Virginia Woolf by Man Ray.<br />
It's my favorite.</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande";">As I wrote this weekend on Facebook: Here is some context for
the most-quoted line from <i>Three Guineas</i> (see photo above). Woolf imagines, in the third-person, a
woman weighing the pros and cons of going to war, yet again, in the first half
of the 20th Century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande";"><i>“She will find that she has no good reason to ask her brother to
fight for ‘our’ country. ‘Our country,’ she will say, ‘throughout the greater
part of its history has treated me as a slave; it has denied me education or
any share of its possessions. “Our” country denies me the means of protecting
myself, forces me to pay others a very large sum annually to protect me, and is
so little able, even so, to protect me that Air Raid precautions are written on
the wall. Therefore if you insist upon fighting to protect me, or “our”
country, let it be understood, soberly and rationally between us, that you are
fighting to gratify a sex instinct which I cannot share; to procure benefits
which I have not shared and probably will not share; but not to gratify my
instincts, or to protect myself or my country. “For,” the outsider will say,
“as a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my
country is the whole world.”’”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande";">—Virginia Woolf, <i>Three Guineas</i>, 1938</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande";">And is she wrong? (We need more women like Senator Elizabeth Warren to run for office if we are ever to stop the money train from killing all of us. So sayeth Miss O'.)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Memoriam: Freedom of the Press<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Old news, really. You might think Miss O’ is going to
scream about Obama’s squashing leaks to the press. You know why the Republicans
are mad? Because Obama’s administration has been so good at it. I’m not
condoning Obama, but I have had it with scandals that are not scandals, i.e.
Benghazi, because we have so many real problems right now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHUA-b_RbdONbwJ5xXfcgYJy7uf4GJqUvo8DOpfG1yii8OpNjHqjBd4kZ43vqr-YqSBJyQPF950XQB9teAB67T-gYlIrbT2M0eMgod4Q1EsaUlXaIMi-oxZkVV2ba301_H4uDho0F8myZI/s1600/Poster_Terrorist-Attacks-Bush_Deaths-at-Embassy-Consulates_List_zps6c5a5a5e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHUA-b_RbdONbwJ5xXfcgYJy7uf4GJqUvo8DOpfG1yii8OpNjHqjBd4kZ43vqr-YqSBJyQPF950XQB9teAB67T-gYlIrbT2M0eMgod4Q1EsaUlXaIMi-oxZkVV2ba301_H4uDho0F8myZI/s320/Poster_Terrorist-Attacks-Bush_Deaths-at-Embassy-Consulates_List_zps6c5a5a5e.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By all means, let's talk about civilian deaths in attacks. <br />
And then there's the 3,000 dead on 9-11.<br />
Fun with Dick and George.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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Let’s talk about REAL reasons for
shame, shall we? There is NO free press, whatever the Constitution guarantees.
We’ve done this to ourselves. Remember money? It buys networks. It buys news organizations. Rupert Murdoch and Fox are easy exemplars: The Koch Brothers are <i>this close</i> to owning the Los Angeles <i>Times </i>and the Chicago <i>Tribune</i>. If you don't know who the Koch Brothers are, you give Miss O' hives. Here are just two shameful examples of suppression tactics from the Republican front:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Shame #1: </b>I lived in New York City in 2004 during the Republican
National Convention held at Madison Square Garden. That President Bush had the
gall to hold this in New York City, when 9-11 happened on his watch, is <i>be-yond</i>. My building was serving as their headquarters, and so my company and all the other companies in residence were forced to send all their workers home for a full week. We were NOT ALLOWED into the building. This meant hourly-wage workers lost a week's wages, and companies lost a full week's productivity, so Bush could have a bash in the heart of the city his negligence had helped to partially destroy. And when I marched in protest of the RNC, along with an estimated<i> one million </i>others (where dozens of peaceful protestors were arrested, battered, later released, and never charged or reported about), the only single place you learned about it in this country was C-SPAN.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Shame #2:</b> At the same time, again in 2004, a friend had an apartment on 10<sup>th</sup>
Avenue with a street-facing window where he displayed a large anti-Bush poster. One day the week before the RNC delegations arrived, two FBI agents arrived at his door and ordered him to take it down.
No shit. The guy—gay, which is significant, because he was used to having his
life threatened for freely being who he was—looked at them and laughed. He
laughed and laughed and slammed the door in their faces. (And because, at its core, this can often be the America of our ideals, that was that.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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There are hundreds of unreported stories like this. If the U.S. press were really a <i>free</i> press, they would be reporting the really big stories. The BIG ones. They involve food, water, and air. How dull, one thinks. How elemental and unexciting. And they are. Until the lack of these things, you know, kills us.</div>
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That U.S. citizens prefer to <i>consume</i> rather than <i>think</i> is a truth universally acknowledged, or would be, if U.S.
citizens actually thought about it. I don’t know why we are so busy stuffing
ourselves with “foods” about which ingredients we know nothing, and burying our
heads in iGadgets and Ikea furniture, covered in layers of clothes sewn in
Bangladeshi factories that are killing, er, <i>employing</i>,
thousands of people, but we are doing that. And to get us to do that,
corporations need to advertise their wares. <b>We don’t have a free press in this
country. We have a corporate-owned and corporate-oppressed press. </b>How do I know? Because the
sexiest, most far-reaching story in the short term of planetary survival is the
story about FOOD. No one covers it. That’s not an accident.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Memoriam: Food<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEkKb8J8TFgLnjW369nfzHW_X8XJJ6caauwx9aR-nqRqgHrPSH4ISwIKwptsHF7wm7o_XoP9GFB4tArqZgcGG16VN4NLGRfQyedcihGhwHW8E9iwXEupjpnQ1hZZVSHSY8i04UE-wME6sN/s1600/In+Defense+of+Food.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEkKb8J8TFgLnjW369nfzHW_X8XJJ6caauwx9aR-nqRqgHrPSH4ISwIKwptsHF7wm7o_XoP9GFB4tArqZgcGG16VN4NLGRfQyedcihGhwHW8E9iwXEupjpnQ1hZZVSHSY8i04UE-wME6sN/s320/In+Defense+of+Food.jpg" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."<br />
<i>But what happens, wonders Miss O', when the plants <br />are engineered to kill us<br />in order to maximize profits for a few greedy bastards?</i></td></tr>
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Back in 2002, a documentary came
out from Canada called <i>The Corporation</i>.
I saw it at Film Forum here in New York the year I moved here, in 2003. In many
ways, the film is a mess, in that it can’t totally decide what it wants to
investigate. To be clear, the film does <b>not</b>
have, as one might assume, an “anti-corporate” agenda. The filmmakers were
truly trying to figure out what exactly a “corporation” is in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century. The thru-line, however, was clear: Using the World Health Organization's personality profile
survey, and treating the <i>corporation</i>
as if it were a <i>human</i> (a talking
point among business leaders long before Mitt Romney said, “Corporations are people, my friends"), the
documentarians found that the<i> corporation,</i>
as it currently exists, is a <b>sociopath</b>:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.thecorporation.com/">http://www.thecorporation.com</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s a must-see movie for every
citizen—and that is why the film could not get major distribution in the United
States. See how corporate power works? For one thing, this film shows how <i>food</i> will be the new
creator of war, and it shows who will make the money from it. Who will profit the most? A little corporation called <b>Monsanto.</b><o:p></o:p><br />
<b><br /></b>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnlkcbWkdt8BzP5jffrt0beNrNQejAgch86RBso7RMDgUvRsedrAadIHBomudBKpwDQbzeIUhEHAcYnp_sUlG4uVIRus4PI0eQi7CcxwPfKN35i8OKifejmH2kC2cEvN9ZywVOqRusZOaK/s1600/corporation-psychopathy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnlkcbWkdt8BzP5jffrt0beNrNQejAgch86RBso7RMDgUvRsedrAadIHBomudBKpwDQbzeIUhEHAcYnp_sUlG4uVIRus4PI0eQi7CcxwPfKN35i8OKifejmH2kC2cEvN9ZywVOqRusZOaK/s1600/corporation-psychopathy.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hey, if the profile fits...</td></tr>
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See, if we had a truly free press, and not one owned by sociopathic corporations,
what news organization would fail to report on huge human marches on Saturday, May 25, 2013, in 436
cities around the world against that giant American Corporate titan, Monsanto? Because not
ONE mainstream media organization reported on this, as far as I can find on
Google.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><span style="color: #181818; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/">http://www.march-against-monsanto.com</a><br />
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Here's one account from the Associated Press:</div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/protesters-march-vs-monsanto-250-cities">http://bigstory.ap.org/article/protesters-march-vs-monsanto-250-cities</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16pt; letter-spacing: 1pt; line-height: 115%;">PROTESTERS ACROSS GLOBE RALLY AGAINST MONSANTO<br />
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<i><span style="color: #292929; font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype";">LOS ANGELES (AP) —
Protesters rallied in dozens of cities Saturday as part of a global protest
against seed giant Monsanto and the genetically modified food it produces,
organizers said.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #292929; font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype";">Organizers said "March Against Monsanto" protests were
held in 52 countries and 436 cities, including Los Angeles where demonstrators
waved signs that read "Real Food 4 Real People" and "Label GMOs,
It's Our Right to Know."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #292929; font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype";">[….]<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #292929; font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype";">Protesters in Buenos Aires and other cities in Argentina, where
Monsanto's genetically modified soy and grains now command nearly 100 percent
of the market, and the company's Roundup-Ready chemicals are sprayed throughout
the year on fields where cows once grazed. They carried signs saying
"Monsanto-Get out of Latin America"<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #292929; font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype";">In Portland, thousands of protesters took to Oregon streets.
Police estimate about 6,000 protesters took part in Portland's peaceful march,
and about 300 attended the rally in Bend. Other marches were scheduled in Baker
City, Coos Bay, Eugene, Grants Pass, Medford, Portland, Prineville and Redmond.</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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But did you hear about it? No, you
didn’t. Because, dear reader, Monsanto is a<i> big advertiser </i>in newspapers, magazines, and on
television. My friend Jay, who worked as a photographer for GreenPeace in the
1980s, told me about the evil triplets Monsanto, Dow, and DuPont even then—how the
workers for these companies are being killed over time by the companies' chemical horrors and lack of worker safety. But who gives a shit? Eat some Fritos.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"Monsanto should NOT have to vouchsafe the safety
of <b>biotech food</b>. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. <b>Assuring
its safety is the FDA's job</b>" — Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of
corporate communications. "Playing God in the Garden" New York</span></i><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Times<i> Magazine, October 25, 1998<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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Here’s a list of companies owned by
Monsanto. Boycott or not, their mega-ownership virtually guarantees that <i>no
“free” press</i> can exist in the United States. Think of all the ads you see for these companies alone.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5DWnYVDjt9E5FCUMhZGMiO9GdZQ9z7ICazyU6SquO-tGJCdo22Da-B6IgaXtwGnD_zwjMngHTvbyfYriL6XyjU6g1tyYjCw7Zzq6c4ZyL_ZZjrFzx8mdkKYt4wtUEqsngRH-Flcyh5-JB/s1600/monsanto_companies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5DWnYVDjt9E5FCUMhZGMiO9GdZQ9z7ICazyU6SquO-tGJCdo22Da-B6IgaXtwGnD_zwjMngHTvbyfYriL6XyjU6g1tyYjCw7Zzq6c4ZyL_ZZjrFzx8mdkKYt4wtUEqsngRH-Flcyh5-JB/s320/monsanto_companies.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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Here’s a website with more
information. It’s one place to start educating yourselves. Always fact-check.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://bestmeal.info/food/monsanto.shtml">http://bestmeal.info/food/monsanto.shtml</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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But the main reason you will never hear a word against Monsanto not just in the media but also the floor of either house of Congress has to do with this little problem:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguDZeXLW9HWIdJzTQU9M65VQ-t3lVmia5T5ezBkMdnYmAbUkiky7LMSWX_LeEykde5l0_pluHTveXe21fylzvvj3V1YQ8GNyF1bNvr_kSdArP8lyj9UoHaJ73GLa1wPrTrBPTFyDIwsOT8/s1600/969176_608438565841334_428970864_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguDZeXLW9HWIdJzTQU9M65VQ-t3lVmia5T5ezBkMdnYmAbUkiky7LMSWX_LeEykde5l0_pluHTveXe21fylzvvj3V1YQ8GNyF1bNvr_kSdArP8lyj9UoHaJ73GLa1wPrTrBPTFyDIwsOT8/s320/969176_608438565841334_428970864_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: Occupy Monsanto</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
"Conflict of interests" is just another way of saying "Fuck you, American citizens." My girl Hillary is on that list. My fabulous senator Kirsten Gillibrand is also in their pocket. I don't know what I'm supposed to vote for anymore, and I think that is the point. Monsanto wins, has won, and it's more or less over unless more people besides Miss O' (and her handful of activist friends and the activist volunteers in this land) decide to get inside, and I do mean INSIDE, as in INSIDE the halls of actual, elected POWER, as well as OUTSIDE, and <i>act</i>.<br />
<br />
Oh, and another thing:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Memoriam: Water</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b>
<a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/24/scientists-warn-that-earth-faces-severe-water-shortages-within-a-generation/">http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/24/scientists-warn-that-earth-faces-severe-water-shortages-within-a-generation/</a><br />
<br />
<h1 class="entry_title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 30px; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 1.15em !important; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Scientists warn that Earth faces severe water shortages within a generation</h1>
The new oil. Whoever owns the water rights<i style="line-height: normal;">—</i>and how water can be "owned" by anyone is beyond me<i style="line-height: normal;">—</i>will decide who lives and who dies. Literally, by which I mean <i>literally</i> and not <i>figuratively</i>. It's terrifying. Or is that just me?<br />
<br />
What else is there to say? Oh, this:<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Memoriam: Human Life
on Earth</span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijM4KcO5Y4Rkehg-BX8qK-RyhCdC1zVitAHfPX2CrZ0TNk0jjDC_tSvIpRr22AZvh1eA9upga3Z34h9A9hWS8I8Hbvi0m1ZVRNViaw0dOecmdVsa4jGoU4XImlwss07n2x1uCBTlDsY_yC/s1600/emissions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijM4KcO5Y4Rkehg-BX8qK-RyhCdC1zVitAHfPX2CrZ0TNk0jjDC_tSvIpRr22AZvh1eA9upga3Z34h9A9hWS8I8Hbvi0m1ZVRNViaw0dOecmdVsa4jGoU4XImlwss07n2x1uCBTlDsY_yC/s320/emissions.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>from Wired UK</i></td></tr>
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From <i>The Los Angeles Times</i>:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-carbon-dioxide-400-20130520,0,7130588.story">http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-carbon-dioxide-400-20130520,0,7130588.story</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Carbon
dioxide levels in atmosphere pass 400 milestone, again <i>[note: It’s been 800,000 YEARS since last time.]</i></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">For the previous 800,000
years, CO2 levels never exceeded 300 parts per million, and there is no known
geologic period in which rates of increase have been so sharp. The level was
about 280 parts per million at the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the
18th century, when the burning of fossil fuels began to soar.<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKUymJeaZuPQYNebTQJuWhuLJ3XRaqKAq3MOcN-eH4t9MxUxZAVznEYYVkJx8-oUfIxPCNnpf5xcKMCIKXl2uRvbwAc9wbf1wzwcFLTRkrUnkyJ6CD09FSHYV6a1lQp8PI7ZiTYm6uzT6v/s1600/400_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKUymJeaZuPQYNebTQJuWhuLJ3XRaqKAq3MOcN-eH4t9MxUxZAVznEYYVkJx8-oUfIxPCNnpf5xcKMCIKXl2uRvbwAc9wbf1wzwcFLTRkrUnkyJ6CD09FSHYV6a1lQp8PI7ZiTYm6uzT6v/s320/400_large.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From NASA on Facebook</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrb50j3lPoDVbB1jQBZQEhpiWcwTDf8fn5T_oBt3U4YKHSqh8rbtS_YgmQfpq1lO40-HXXr9eDecZbYXaBfOqZqZzHQzrNUQzTcG91hnl-IvTJ2pD2djk0yYZn0ts2hMYsnDbC80EHgyH4/s1600/graph_20130514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrb50j3lPoDVbB1jQBZQEhpiWcwTDf8fn5T_oBt3U4YKHSqh8rbtS_YgmQfpq1lO40-HXXr9eDecZbYXaBfOqZqZzHQzrNUQzTcG91hnl-IvTJ2pD2djk0yYZn0ts2hMYsnDbC80EHgyH4/s320/graph_20130514.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Worth learning more about, wouldn't you say?<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">From <i>Wired
UK</i>: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/30/carbon-dioxide-400ppm">http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/30/carbon-dioxide-400ppm</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><span style="color: #181818; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Even going
back over <a href="http://bluemoon.ucsd.edu/co2_400/co2_800k.png"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">the last
800,000 years</span></a> -- that's around the time that homo sapiens began
migrating out of Africa into Europe and Asia -- there hasn't been a higher
atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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This is a bad thing. It really is. Possibly it is true that easy respiration, dry ground, and fresh drinking water not destroyed by salinization caused by rising oceans DO NOT MATTER TO YOU because you have superpowers rendering you fucking omnipotent, but Miss O' is not so powerful. In fact, I
don’t know how to get people to give a shit about this planet's future, and so I write this blog.
About three to five dozen people, maybe, read it each week. I manage to lose at least one friend over each post, so
my readership is going down. I have no idea if I’m of any use at all. </div>
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I know a guy with a whole lot more power than I have who must feel the same way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Eu8GgeCIbk6f9j-ndHbdmJI5QoYehQYwu4orLU0hs418DHZcQVCzHcvfe2WITSo3M55b0mXRWhyMJgl_dHBMreCcRzQD61r6agZ5oZmub9YuRZjsQdXBWI3Pc2LjQQy7lSEXEe9v5jAW/s1600/Facebook-Al-Gore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Eu8GgeCIbk6f9j-ndHbdmJI5QoYehQYwu4orLU0hs418DHZcQVCzHcvfe2WITSo3M55b0mXRWhyMJgl_dHBMreCcRzQD61r6agZ5oZmub9YuRZjsQdXBWI3Pc2LjQQy7lSEXEe9v5jAW/s320/Facebook-Al-Gore.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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To learn more about why it's really important to stop our extinction, and you should, here's one place to start:<i> MIT Atmospheric Chemistry: Understanding atmospheric composition and its impacts.</i></div>
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<a href="http://atmoschem.mit.edu/">http://atmoschem.mit.edu</a></div>
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You know why we have to educate <i>ourselves </i>on atmospheric chemistry, when it would be so much nicer to leave it to experts at MIT? Because the experts are crippled by 1) see previous paragraphs on the lack of a free press to get the word out; and 2) POLITICIANS--and we CITIZENS VOTE FOR THOSE ASSHOLE POLITICIANS WHO GET THE FUCK IN THE WAY OF OUR FUTURE WORLD. Jesus GOD I am tired.<br />
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Dear ones, Miss O’ has no children. Will never have them. Miss O’, therefore, will never have grandchildren. In short, Miss O’ has no human legacy; moreover, she has no fame or reputation to protect and preserve; indeed, she probably has only a couple of decades left to live on this planet at all. And yet for some reason that even she herself does not understand, she cannot simply enjoy theater, drink wine (washed down with Scotch), and watch TCM classic movie porn until her time is up. No, she keeps fretting about the survival of living things on this very gorgeous planet. Join her, won't you?</div>
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Here’s the headline Miss O' would very much like to be
writing in Memorial Day of 2014:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Memoriam: The
Corporation of Capitalist Greed<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPoTU-TAVDdC2WuD_7Re79nrvsXRKfI_-eoh9jTUQK7qvKOV9y5zVbXbsxTK3tkannU8k0zcFtPRU2NLyiRpvjJZndyGpbc8p-w5XfZl3kLM3ofbfQ7JhLShM8nVkkarQzVjy-0Pl-n4ch/s1600/dollar_1427958c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPoTU-TAVDdC2WuD_7Re79nrvsXRKfI_-eoh9jTUQK7qvKOV9y5zVbXbsxTK3tkannU8k0zcFtPRU2NLyiRpvjJZndyGpbc8p-w5XfZl3kLM3ofbfQ7JhLShM8nVkkarQzVjy-0Pl-n4ch/s320/dollar_1427958c.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>from UK Daily Telegraph</i></td></tr>
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So there's ol' Ben Franklin up there, watching the country he sacrificed everything for, going up in flames (and down in crumbling bridges). Global warming comes down to corporate greed. It really is that simple.</div>
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If we had no need to press our
religious beliefs upon others; if individual humans (such as the Koch Brothers)
felt no need to have all the money in the world and, like Dr. Evil in an Austin Powers movie, take over the
world by controlling the United States and all its food, water, energy
resources, and news sources; if all humans had more connection to the natural world; if the enjoyment and practice of art and education
in the truest sense mattered to people more than making lots and lots of money (and, so, sacrificing our own welfare so that a very few can be very rich indeed)—well, kids, Miss O’s little heart just
burst with virtual joy at the thought of it all coming to pass. </div>
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Because rich or poor, if we don't try to reverse the trend in CO2 emissions, we are all, ALL, going to be dead in exactly the same way: by drowning, or by thirst. <span style="line-height: 115%;">Corporations are trying to make human life extinct. They are too stupid with greed to realize they are doing this, and too addicted to making lots and lots of money to stop. We need Investments Anonymous. Who will start THAT self-help group?</span></div>
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In memoriam: What are you grieving today? Honor
it. Do something about it. Do it with love.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Yours until you just can’t take her
anymore,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Miss O’<o:p></o:p></div>
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P.S. Go outside.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6WRjz6LHk26F7bNW4b3lwSI2SGqj2pbI2Za8bn84iJCJs-4yMkGKEHqgR_8EcpPPJQPZ8pGvpTrx13Ik7zuds4caRi5hPMmhKTffxEZaNIBWcEe-29rZKNZLZk1ut4txrcXVDeuA_gI9e/s1600/beauty_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6WRjz6LHk26F7bNW4b3lwSI2SGqj2pbI2Za8bn84iJCJs-4yMkGKEHqgR_8EcpPPJQPZ8pGvpTrx13Ik7zuds4caRi5hPMmhKTffxEZaNIBWcEe-29rZKNZLZk1ut4txrcXVDeuA_gI9e/s320/beauty_n.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Image from Free Your Mind and Think<br />(and do that, too)</i></td></tr>
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<!--EndFragment-->Thanks to Buffalo Springfield for today's title: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY</a><br />
<br />Miss O'http://www.blogger.com/profile/12870125458784954970noreply@blogger.com0